Josephine the Vampire Slayer.
“L.S.M.” PART 1 – Episode title disguised to avoid spoilers.
Previously: Usual montage. Libraries, mug-shots, explosions etc.
It is mid evening. The slayer and some Scoobies are on patrol. Tony is waiting in the car. Leroy is off researching spells. The patrol has been going for fewer than five minutes. Already Josephine is bleating.
“Y’know, patrolling would be a whole lot easier in daylight.”
“Safer too I imagine!” Arnold is quick to point out. “Maybe you could hand out some customer satisfaction forms and get some feedback.”
Austin mocks the type of form. “Just woke up from being dead? Just got a stake in the heart? Please rate your slaying: Very satisfied, satisfied, average, poor or very poor.”
Bobby is quick to get in on the analogy. “You could have an annual assessment, and strive for continuous improvement.”
Josephine thinks. “I’d want some sort of PPE.”
“PPE?”
“Personal protective equipment.”
“What like goggles and toe-‘tectors”
“With four inch heels of course.”
“Of course!”
“And splinter-free stakes, with rounded safety ends.”
“I think you’re likely to end up with a baseball bat.”
“Oh no. Too dangerous. It’s still a heavy club.”
Austin corrects her. “Not mine. I hollow it out and fill it with cork.”
“Whatever for?”
“I call it my Sammy Sosa!”
“I think that must be a boy’s locker-room gag.” [ 75 ]
“No it’s a sport reference”
“Sport? What’s that?” Asks Arnold.
“Something you do in a field.”
“Oh, you mean when the lavatory block is too far to get to in time?” Arnold asks.
“You must’ve seen Austin’s performances.”
“Remind me not to look next time he’s in the field.”
Josephine is still cranky. “I’m gonna slouch and drag my heels, and hopefully someone’ll take pity on me. I’m such a hard luck story….”
Bobby interrupts. “Not so much hard luck as the Bogarts!”
“What about the Bogarts?”
“Their mausoleum has been broken into!”
The gang decide to investigate. As they get closer, they can peer into the gloomy inside.
Austin can’t see much. “Arnold, light a fire for us will you.”
Arnold cuts him off short. “I am not a boy-scout!”
Josephine gives him a smouldering glance, and strokes his cheek with the back of her hand. In a voice dripping with seduction she says. “I could turn you into a ‘boy-scout.’”
Arnold is not going for the bait. “On second thoughts why not just open the gates wider, and go inside?” [ 76 ]
“Good Idea. Bobby, you’ve got the best eyesight, why don’t you go first?”
“I can see well enough. From here.”
“Define ‘here.’”
“About three miles away!”
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Old creepy mausoleum. As viewed from 3 miles away.
They go in cautiously. Among the coffins and caskets and urns, they can see that one has been disturbed. It’s all crumbly with age. It also appears to have been emptied, and then filled with earth and roots.
“Y’know whose coffin this could be?”
“No. Who?”
“Mister Bogart?”
“Eh?”
”Bogey?”
“Eh? Again!”
“Humphrey Bogart!”
“I somehow doubt that.”
Arnold is quizzical. “It could be. Surely it could be!”
“Arnold, Humphrey Bogart wouldn’t be buried here.”
“And why not?”
“He only died in January. His remains are in California. -And he was cremated!”
Arnold tries to cover up his general ignorance. “I’m going to get some soil and root samples.”
“Eeew! He’s doing that tasting thing again!”
Arnold reports. “They’re fresh-ish.”
“Not Roman then?”
“Not Roman.”
“Rome, that’s in Mexico right?”
“I don’t know about Mexico, but about thirteen states have a place called ‘Rome.’ Three are in Pennsylvania. -As well as the Rome in Europe, of course.”
“Trust the Europeans to steal a good American name like ‘Rome!’”
They look around some more. Arnold steps on something crunchy. It would appear to be the remains of the late Harry Bogart.
Austin looks over them. “He’s all here. Unless McCoy is having a night out.”
“Thanks. Now put them down.”
“Okay……” Says Austin, but instead he picks up the cranium. He makes his thumb into a jawbone, and waggles it. “Say, do you think there are any bears in here….. Yorick?”
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Bogart. “Comedy is so tiring!”
Bobby sums up their options. “We can either go back and do some research, or hang around here. Maybe wait for Mister Bogart, or his grave-robber friends to come back.”
Josephine is quick to reply. “Let’s stay here. God! Anything but research. That’s too much like homework!”
“Okay, we stay here.”
Austin suggests. “And build a trap. A trap for any passing Bogarts- alive or dead.”
“A Heffalump trap for Pooh’s” Notes Arnold.
Austin is spurred into action. “See? We can close the gates, and wind this vine through the bars. Then If a Bogart comes by…..”
“Austin?”
“What?”
“Let us out first!”
Arnold suggests. “Maybe we could use a tin can and rock.”
“Whatever for?”
“As an alarm.”
“What do we do? Wait for Bogart, then shake the tin?”
“If he’s turned into a vampire, just holding the tin should make it rattle enough!”
They all troop out. From a distance, they wait for Austin to tie up the vine. As he does so, a figure emerges around the corner of the mausoleum.
The figure sees what Austin is up to, and grabs a rusty metal bar from the gates. He then proceeds to beat Austin with it.
The others watch in horror.
Josephine starts to run. “I hate to see a grown man cry.”
Arnold corrects her. “He’s only a boy!”
“In that case, he can blub away!”
On the first blow, the bar bends to match Austin’s head. Austin sees stars. He shakes his head to clear them. His assailant gets ready for a killing blow. However at that moment, Josephine has run to Austin’s aid, and slams the assailant into the gates. The man nearly passes through them like a food mincer.
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Mincer. Please insert perp into hopper on top.
Austin manages to gasp. “Is Roger Maris at bat? Did he just smash my head for a home run?”
Mid fight, Josephine looks at him. “Roger Maris, isn’t that a type of potato?”
“Maybe it’s mashed potato!”
Austin swings with his own baseball bat. The assailant neatly dodges.
“Swingin’ for the fences!” Whoops Austin. Josephine warns him. “Maybe you should sharpen the end” She indicates that the man is a vampire. “But then there’ll be no knob to hold on to!”
The others start sniggering.
Between breaths, Josephine asks, “Aren’t you going to introduce me?”
The vampire has his head buried in her cleavage.
Austin retorts. “What about introducing him to me?”
Josephine wrenches herself away from the Vampire. She indicates Austin. “He’s my mate!”
The vampire gives her a quizzical look.
Josephine corrects herself. “Not in the biblical way!”
Bobby is more practical. He launches into the fray, armed with a stake. It slams down, but hits the vampire in the arm.
Arnold is next on the scene. He dramatically sweeps off his jacket, and neatly covers the head of the enemy.
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Tweed Jacket. Vampire under-fire attire since 1860.
From underneath Arnold’s Jacket there comes a stream of expletives, thankfully all muffled. The Vampire gives a wry smile, as Arnold tries to wrestle his captive to the ground, and sit on him. From beneath the jacket, Austin is struggling to get himself clear of the offending garment.
Finally Arnold realises his error “Oops!” Is all he offers as an apology.
The other three resume their efforts to dispatch the vampire to dusty nothingness. They notice that the vampire is suddenly distracted, and that he’s covered his eyes from something he sees in the sky.
Bobby is not fooled. “He’s trying the old ‘look behind you’ trick!”
The others are curious enough to glance behind them. Austin is still contemplating the lining of Arnold’s jacket.
Seeing them distracted, Bobby yells “Do him!”
Josephine is brought up short. “Do him?”
Bobby indicates with his hand pumping up and down, index finger and thumb touching at the tips.
Josephine is shocked at what he seems to be suggesting.
The vampire drops to the ground. Arnold goes in for an attack. The vampire sweep-kicks him to the ground. Josephine lashes out with her stiletto heels. The vampire takes it right in his vampy face. He crumples to the ground, unconscious.
Austin emerges from under Arnold’s jacket. “That’s not my jacket!”
He looks at it in the half-light. “I wouldn’t be seen dead in a jacket like that!”
In his anger he whacks the unconscious vampire. “Two home runs in one evening!” The vampire is looking pretty gory and beaten up. Bobby merely scratches him with the stake. The vampire explodes like a dropped hourglass.
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Vampire: “If only I had a figure like that….Do’h!”
Austin is still angry. “And now you finish him off with a bunt, and take all the budo and on!”
Arnold is still reeling from the insults over his jacket. “That’s a Fortnum and Mason jacket. It’s made from the finest tweed. It’s been in my family for years!”
“Generations more like. –It also appears that your grandfather was buried in it. Parts of him are possibly still in the pockets!”
Austin thinks for a moment. “Wasn’t Fortnum Mason a stronghold on the Mason-Dixon line?”
Josephine is not sure. “I dunno. I never go anywhere by train, I certainly don’t go that far south this time of night.”
Bobby and Arnold exchange glances. This conversation is starting to verge on the surreal, as well as bordering on the explicit.
There is a short silence. During this pause, a shimmering shape passes between them and the stars. A shiver runs down their spines. Their stout hearts and steely nerves stop them from running screaming like girls, or embarrassing themselves like Josephine’s prom date.
“What was that?”
“Couldn’t you say ‘who’ was that?”
“Why ‘who?’”
“’Who’ just sounds marginally less sinister.”
“Okay ‘who’ was that indistinct shape shimmering over us, terrifying a vampire into submission, and dusty-ness-ever-after-ness-ness?”
Austin tries to play it down. “Maybe it was a sun dog.”
“What’s a sun dog?”
Bobby asks. “Is it a kind of snack you have during a baseball game?”
Arnold corrects him. “No, a sun dog is a reflection of the sun, on clouds or weather in the atmosphere. It’s a parhelion, the plural is ‘parhelia’, meaning ‘beside the sun’ it is a common bright circular spot in a solar halo.”
Josephine is trying to take all of this in. “So what you’re saying is….”
They all wait for more cogs to engage in her head.
“It’s a type of hotdog, made from holy horny lions with halos?”
The others all smile.
“You got it!”
She looks happy at her deduction. More gears engage. Nearly in first gear now….
“But what is a giant hot-dog doing buzzing us in the graveyard?”
“I don’t know. All I know is it was invisible enough to be….Invisible!”
Bobby is scanning the skies with his excellent eyes. He sees the shimmer again, heading roughly southward.
“It’s heading south. Over Ninth Avenue, toward battery.”
Austin swings his baseball bat. “I’ll give it battery!”
“Maybe it needs a recharge!”
“C’mon. Let’s follow it!”
“No let’s go home and do research.”
Josephine is eager to follow, but tries to instill some caution.
“No. We go to the car. -And that way it might follow us!”
Austin says. “What if it swoops down on us, and pulls us inside-out?”
Josephine is glum. “Just my luck, ‘Slayer killed by insubstantial airborne shiny thing”
“It’s an unidentified flying object! A U.F.O!”
Arnold corrects Bobby. “Foo fighter!”
Austin is quick to quip. “Where there is foo, there’s fire!”
Josephine is still eager to go. “C’mon!”
“Aren’t we gonna discuss this?”
She loses her temper. “This is NOT a debate!” [ 77 ]
She runs off toward Tony, who is waiting in the car. The others, seeing their ride home evaporating, decide unanimously to follow Josephine. “Besides, if she’s with us, we won’t come to any harm….”
“I’m trying to believe that, but I just can’t swallow it….”
“Try a swallow of ignorance, and a bite of freshly cooked sundog.”
“Thanks. Say, got any mustard?”
They head off. They sight the thing again over Union Square. Then it disappears.
“Shame.” Austin calls out. “Here shapey thing! Nice juicy humans to eat!”
Josephine gives directions. Bobby is getting tired of being driven around, seemingly in endless circles and back-doubles.
Finally after some time, he blurts out. “Maybe we’d make some progress if the navigator wasn’t a woman!”
There is a stunned silence in the car. The whole of Manhattan takes a sharp intake of breath and holds it.
Josephine turns to him slowly. Her eyes flash fire. Through clenched teeth she hisses. “Even think that, and I’ll beat you to a pulp!”
Tony, in his only line this episode sums it up.
“Bobby, might I suggest a new strategy….Let the woman navigate!”
“But why?”
Arnold whispers “It’s not wise to upset a woman navigator.”
“But no one worries about upsetting me!”
“That’s coz Scoobies don’t pull people’s arms out of their sockets, and beat you to death with their four-inch stilettos when they get lost. Slayers are known to do that.”
Bobby is suitably cowed. “Let Josephine navigate. I’ll just sit here, and not ask people the way.”
Josephine cools her temper. “Good boy. I see you know your place.”
“Yeah, under the thumb. -And under the heel!”
Nothing happens. There are no more sightings. “Maybe it was just a swarm of bees?”
“Definitely with the bees. A giant swarm of invisible bees.”
“Everyone agree?” They all agree.
“That’s settled then.”
Austin breaks the silence. “Maybe it was wasps?”
“Wasps? Don’t be so silly….Stupid!”
They finally give up. They decide to go back to Derby and report in.
Derby is pleased to see them. He’s had a call from a contact of his over at the hospital. “Doctor Jenkins is keen to see you. She’s had a few bodies in ‘D.O.A.’ and needs someone to look over them.”
“Doctor Veronica Jenkins?”
“The very same. How on earth do you know her?”
Bobby says “As in: ‘So Doctor Jenkins, we meet again. Only this time the advantage is mine!’”
Arnold corrects him. “It’s ‘professor’ Jenkins, and he’s a man.”
Derby is struggling to keep up. “You must tell me about it some time.”
“It’s just that Bobby has a thing for her.”
“A big thing.”
“Actually a little thing. He was her for a time.”
“Yes. Stupid!”
“There might be a tie-in. Shapes in the sky. Bodies without plausible causes of death.”
Austin is wondering. “What do you think we’ll see that all New York’s finest pathology surgeons haven’t?”
Josephine answers this one. “Don’t tell me New York’s finest streetwalkers are also qualified pathologists.”
“Yeah, I hear the unions are ‘up to their arms in arms’ about it!”
Derby is growing impatient. “If you’ve quite finished?”
They all stop their verbal jousting, and give him some silence.
“It may be outside normal medical diagnosis. Something strange or supernatural. If you just had a look, and report back….”
“Okay, we’re on it. Any theories regarding the shapes in the sky?”
Derby thinks for a moment. “Near invisible shapes in the sky. Shimmering. What shape?”
“Trapezoid.”
“Bless you.”
The Scoobies go to Saint Luke’s hospital. They manage to locate the doctor. She looks vaguely familiar. Bobby spies her shiny new doctor’s badge. “That’s a nice new badge.” He says. “Yes.” She replies. “The old one was stolen. -Along with my white coat.”
“Shame. You can’t trust anyone these days.” Bobby tries hard not to grin.
Doctor Jenkins looks downcast. “And it had a winning lottery ticket in the pocket too.” Bobby tries hard not to cry.
She takes them to the morgue. “One day the orderlies will come out of the closet.” She observes.
“Don’t let Senator McCarthy hear you say that!”
She shows them several bodies. They are rather gory and splattered. “We suspect that they might have been dropped from a great height. There are also possible claw or bite marks.”
The Scoobies look them over. Josephine asks where they were found.
“Mostly in Midtown, one in Central Park. There are a couple of vagrants, an unidentified man and a woman.”
Arnold has a theory. “Bite marks. Claw marks, dropped from a great height….How high?”
“Difficult to say, certainly higher than the tallest skyscrapers, but not as high as an aeroplane.”
“Oh I don’t know. Those Pan-Am flights can be a bit dodgy on a breezy day.”
They look at bodies.
“This woman could’ve been a Pan-Am stewardess who didn’t smile!”
“Now her smile is all spread between Murray Hill and Tribeca!”
They feel a little queasy at the thought. Luckily there is a six-pack of strawberry yoghurts to keep them from thinking about it too much.
Refreshed, they return to the question. “So who’d feed on a vagrant?”
“Someone higher up the food chain?”
“Such as?”
“A vampire is higher up the food chain.”
“Must be them then. A vampire is the very top of the food chain.”
Arnold is reassuringly blunt. “Josephine, there are a lot more things higher up on the food chain than vampires. To those things a vampire is mere plankton in the whole pecking order.”
“Arnold, you really have a knack for putting things into stark, terrifying perspective.”
“Thanks. Only doing my job!”
Josephine is thinking. “Y’know there’s worse than vampires. Things that suck out your brain over hours and hours, leaving you a quivering brainless wreck in the morning.”
“Oh yeah? Such as?”
“Well, homework for a start!”
Arnold is suddenly very business-like. “If its okay with you doctor, I’d like to take a few tissue samples.”
“Go ahead.”
There is a pause while he does this. The others look away. When they turn back it’s not a pretty sight. “Eeew! He’s doing that tasting thing again!”
Arnold says “Okay. I think we got what we came for. Time to do some research!”
“He’s doing that brain sucking thing again. Stop it!”
“Time to hit the books!”
Josephine corrects him. “Time to hit the pillow!”
Bobby suddenly needs to wash his hair. Austin needs to go and watch television.
“I guess it’s just me then.” Arnold looks sullen. Then his face lights up. “All night research party!”
They head back. Josephine asks Arnold if he has any theories.
“Well, If it’s snake-like, and heads south for the evening….”
“South to Alaska?”
“Alaska is in the north-west.”
“Alaska Texas!”
“There is no Alaska, Texas. And further south than that -To South America.”
“So what are you thinking?”
“Quetzalcoatl!”
“Bless you!”
“I didn’t sneeze! Quetzalcoatl is a south American sky god!”
“What’s he doing in Manhattan?”
“I don’t know. Come for a Broadway show and a nice vagrant sandwich in the interval?”
Josephine is quiet for a moment.
“Anyway, this Quest…Quetzzalip…Kwestalipoc…”
“Quetzalcoatl!”
“I think I’ll call him ‘Kevin’”
They retire for the night.
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Put him down! Bad South American sky god! Bad!
The next day, there is a ball game after school. Austin, Tony and Bobby are all playing. Josephine is sitting in the bleachers with most of the football team. Arnold is sitting alone, with several large research books all around him. There are also several dozen baseballs. Leroy is making little circling movements with his hands. The outfielders are wondering just what signal he’s trying to convey to them.
It’s a close game. After two-all in the fifth, the home team score a winning home run. Whenever Bobby and Austin are at bat or on deck, they try to hit Arnold with a flyball. They even try pitching at him, accusing him of stealing third base.
Austin confers with Bobby. “Y’know there’s a ‘little tweed monster’ perched over the warning track out on leftfield.”
“I call him the ‘Arch Nemesis!’”
“That’s in York, Pennsylvania.”
“If I hit him with a fly-ball, he’ll lend up in York, Pennsylvania!”
They look over at him, still studying. Still oblivious to the danger he’s in.
“Anyway, is tweed part of school uniform?”
“It is in England. In fact they use it for everything. Shirts, pants, underwear, even pyjamas!”
“It’s awfully versatile.”
“I dunno about the ‘versatile’ bit!”
They walk off the pitch, elated at their victory over the Bluejays.
“Go Bulldogs, I say!”
They go to bathe in the admiration of all the spectators. And bathe in the female spectators.
Bobby is beaming. “Y’know, it’s not the number of home runs that count, it’s the number of girls that want to go out with you after.”
“Is it not the number of girls, but the girls that actually go for a home run?”
Bobby thinks this over. Austin continues.
“I saw you hoofing around the diamond, I was thinking to myself ‘Is he somehow magically enhanced?’”
“Shh! Save that kind of comment for when we get to the groupies!”
“What is Josephine doing?”
“Fraternising with the football team.”
“Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
“I thought she was having an unusually revealing seventh-inning stretch!”
They go to get full time drinks and sun dogs.
As they chow down on their sun dogs, they hear a commotion behind them in the next field. Several of them get up to see what has happened. A small group has gathered around someone, who appears to have been injured.
“That fly-ball must have just landed!”
Josephine finally disentangles herself from underneath the football team and joins the others.
A girl is lying injured on the field. She is a football spectator, named Mary Kane. Austin offers to give her the kiss of life. He asks what happened. Various opinions are offered. Trawling through the differing accounts, it would appear that Mary was suddenly lifted into the air, only to fall from some height. Other people say that they saw a shimmering along the ground just before it happened. Certainly there is evidence that something has been here. A long furrow has been made in the ground, right alongside the thirty yard line. “That’s quite a slide!”
The Scoobies decide to interview some of the spectators. Someone calls for an ambulance. They lift Mary off the gridiron on a stretcher. “She’ll soon be bumping down Springfield gorge!”
We run through a montage of witnesses talking to our heroes. They go something like this…
Judy says. “We were just hangin’, having a smoke and a quiet blast. All of a sudden there’s this most unreal whooshing sound, and then my Mary is lifted all up from the ground like magic. Before a beat, she’s lyin’ on the ground unconscious. We got on the horn to Saint Luke’s, and then you guys turned up.” Austin says “Wanna go on a date Saturday?”
Iris says: “There was this big breeze, only it wasn’t too steady, it came and went, like beats. Then Mary’s flying over and she’s all stacked up over there. We ran over and she was all out of it.”
Beth says “Mary was thrown over the park. I swear there was something in the air, all wobbly and slippery, it near knocked me over, but I couldn’t see anything.”
Bobby asks Carrie. She tells him “As I watched, something swiped Mary like a Yankees batter. There was a rush of air and all. I think I saw the lights twinkle in the distance a moment before, but I can’t be sure. All I know is: That was some gust of wind.”
Arnold asks Marty. He recounts “I heard a noise right before it happened. There was a tearing sound, over there. The earth was being torn up, right in a line before us. Then it stopped, and a gust of wind passed over me. Then Mary’s tossed around like a sheet in a storm.”
Some of them mention a smell, all like the faint whiff of ammonia.
Mostly though, they think it’s the smell of Arnold’s mothballs.
Austin asks Judy on a date. She wants to know “What happened to you and Velma?”
“She’s just for weekdays. I’m saving you for the weekends.”
“Okay….I think….So long as you don’t talk baseball.”
“Why not?”
“Coz naming your balls after baseball pitchers is a wee bit strange.”
Josephine can’t help but overhear. “You named your balls?”
“Yeah, I got pet names for ‘em.”
Thinking that he is referring to his anatomy, she says “I can’t imagine what you call ‘the bat!’”
Austin thinks about this. Josephine stalks off shocked. Most of the other girls have also misunderstood, and are shocked too. Austin looks at Judy for reassurance.
“Maybe I’ll take a rain-check on Saturday’s date.” She tells him.
Austin is left alone. He gets out his bat and balls. After seeing the horrified reaction from the rest of the gathered crowd he gets out his baseball bat and baseballs. He puts them on a bench in front of him.
“Now I’m in a spot of bother. Everyone thinks I’m a bit of a deviant. I’m not. Am I Don? Am I Whitey?.....Am I Josephine?”
“Austin, you’re talking to your balls again.”
“Sorry Mickey.”
“Now you’re talking to your bat. And you seem to be answering to it as well.”
“So?”
“So you are so beyond help!”
Bobby decides to go with Mary to the hospital. He slides on the bench next to Mary’s best friend, Jackie, who doesn’t seem to mind. Will they be smooching by the time they get to Saint Luke’s?
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