PILOT PART 2
Austin Philips II has been training most of the day. It’s now early evening, and some of his baseball team have arrived at the Five Aces diner to have a celebratory soda. They won their match this afternoon by a good margin, and are in high spirits. They settle down over their drinks, and discuss tactics. Austin is still sporting his baseball garb. [ 15 ] He’s proud of his team, the Hunter Hawks.
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The Hunter Hawks: Yes really!
Austin: “No one told me the Hunter Hawks was an all-girl squad. –And I wouldn’t have listened if they did!”
As the evening progresses, the rest of the team drift away to other places and back home, leaving Austin to finish his drink and do likewise. However, just as he is about to go, a pretty young girl comes to sit right next to him.
Austin is first with the pleasantries.
“Hi”
“Hi yourself!”
Austin is still thinking of another line when the girl turns to him and smiles sweetly.
“You’re on the team right?” she says.
“Yup.”
“Er….Football player?”
Austin pulls a baseball out of his pocket.
“Hockey player?”
Austin pulls another baseball form his pocket.
“Basketball?”
Austin pulls a third and final baseball out of his pocket.
“Oh, I get it! School juggling team!”
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Baseballs.
Austin takes another sip of his soda. It could be a long night!Behind them, we can see Josephine and Leroy follow the Asian-looking man out of the diner. Outside, the man trots off down the street in pursuit of three ‘wild ones.’ He passes Tony and Arnold, who are still talking about cars.
The girl talking to Austin changes tack, “I’m gonna go out for some air. Wanna walk with me? Come on?”
The girl has given him the come-on! He’s already at first base with this chick. He slides off the stool and picks up his baseballs.
“I like a man with balls in his pocket!” She says coyly.
They walk off together down the street.
At the corner they stop.
“Say, I don’t even know your name.”
“Austin. Austin Philips.”
“Well, Austin Austin Phillips, pleased to meet you.”
“You too…Alice.”
“How’d you know my name?”
“You have a pendant, which says ‘Alice’”
“How observant of you!”
“Yeah, nearly missed it, all the time I was looking at your ample cleava…Cleveland Indians are doing well in the league…”
“I’m not much into baseball.”
“So you said.”
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Alice.
They walk along a bit more. Thoughts of Alice’s cleavage are at the forefront of Austin’s mind.
Alice turns to him. “You’re slowing up.”
“Yeah, got a bit of a stiff….leg!”
“From the game?”
“Yep, the ol’ Charley horse catching up with me.” [ 16 ]
“Maybe you need to lie down….” Alice suggests seductively.
“Yes! No! –I’ll be alright!”
“Maybe a little ice.”
“Definitely with the ice!”
They are level with the school. Alice suggests they go somewhere and make out. Austin is only happy to agree. They creep up on the school, and find a fire-door that doesn’t close properly. Soon they are inside, and smooching.
In between smoochies, they learn a little more about each other. It would appear that Alice has dropped out of school in favour of home tuition. She also hints that she has a few stories to tell, fresh from the girl’s locker-room. Austin stores them all up to tell later in the boy’s locker room.
Meanwhile back in the library, there is a standoff between the ‘wild ones’ and the slayer’s gang. The wild ones are making a racket tossing books from the shelves onto a large pile on the floor. The scoobies have severely “Shushed” them.
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Library. Do you have a copy of ‘Fly fishing in Gondor’ by JRR Hartley?
Tony is first with the quips. “Don’t you know how to treat a library?”
Josephine is quick to reply. “With a match?”
Arnold leaps in with another answer. “With respect!”
One of the wild ones launches a book at the group. Leroy manages to catch it squarely on the nose, and goes down in seconds. Crimson blood drips down on his shirt. –That’s fightin’ talk!
Josephine has taken in the situation. There are three of them. One is on a movable ladder, while the other two are at the back of the room. One of them is advancing.
“We’re deep in enemy territory, -on unfamiliar ground.”
“Jo, it’s the library!”
“Like I said, deep in enemy territory.”
“Point taken. Watch your step!”
“We already did that gag!” [ 17 ]
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Wild one?
The two hostile parties close. A bottle is launched from Arnold. It makes a palpable hit. The liquid inside burns the attacker like acid. Josephine closes on the vampire and jams a stake into his chest. Unfortunately for her, he does not explode.
“Oh great, now you just made him mad!”
“He made a comment about Arnold’s suit.”
“I’m really fond of that suit”
“So were your ancestors by the look of it. It must be three hundred years old if it’s a day!”
“Still in fashion though!”
“Yeah Arnold. Nothing wrong with doublet-and-hose surely?”
“One day it’ll be cutting edge again….”
Josephine’s attacker vamps out and snarls at her. She makes ready for another stake to the chest.
Meanwhile, Tony has rushed forward, and caught the moveable ladder. He shoves it with all his might. The vampire on the top clings on, but in doing so is whacked repeatedly with the ladder's moving handle. As the ladder hits the end-stop, the vampire is thrown clear. He slams into the shelf of books on the end wall, and then slumps the ground. This angers him mightily, and he is already winded.[ 18 ]
Tony swoops in, and with a deft move, plunges a stake into the vampire’s heart. The vampire has a surprised look on his face, before it crumbles away like a dry sandcastle on a blustery day.
Austin and Alice are still smooching. Austin is finding it very hard……to get off first base, due to a combination fifties sensibilities, the censors, and his Charley horse.[ 19 ]
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Girl kissing Charley Horse. “The censors made me do it!”
He tries a different tack. As he speaks, we can hear loud combat sounds coming from the library up the hall, but the two young lovebirds are oblivious.
“Are you into rock and roll?” He asks.
“I try to like it. But I’m more into the crooners. You?”
“I’ve got no time for music. I’m into my body….”
“Do you work out?”
“My body is a dimple.....That’s why the shoes are on the outside!”
“I think you miss-spelled”
“Miss Spelled, doesn’t she teach English in ninth grade?”
“No Miss English teaches Math.”
“And Miss Math?”
“Geography.”
“And miss Geography?”
“I never miss geography. I navigate by ballpark floodlights.”
Back at the fight, Josephine is laying into her opponent. She stakes him in the heart. He takes the blow, but fails to crumble.
“Three inches further left, stupid girl!”
“How about here?” She tries again; he reels at the pain, but doesn’t dust.”
“Other left!”
Josephine pauses for an instant. The vamp is startled by the lull in the pummelling.
“Whatever are you doing?”
“Tying a string round my pinky finger -to remind me which is left.”
“Okay!”
“Okay!”
She tries again. The stake plunges into his chest. He tries to breathe, but nothing comes. The vampire collapses to the floor and writhes violently, sending scattered books even further across the floor.
Josephine thinks she has failed to kill him. Instead of reaching for the stake for another go, she tries harsh language. Unfortunately the censor is getting in the way of a foul mouthed tirade.
“Gosh, golly, goddam, go to heck.”
In his death throes, the vamp manages to ask. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“I never kiss ‘em on the mouth……”[ 20 ]
The vampire’s eyes widen, just as he crumbles away, like a ginger nut biscuit held just too long in a cup of tea.
The third vampire is desperately searching the books. Arnold spots his moment, and goes for an attack. He picks up the biggest and heaviest chair he can find. He lifts it clean over his head. With one mighty heave, he collapses under the weight of it.
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It’s a bit gothic for the 1950s.
From underneath, he is heard to moan. “Not the comfy chair….”
Just then Austin and Alice arrive on the scene. Austin sizes up the situation, and turns to Alice. She looks suitably scared, but manages to ask “Do you think we should?”
“What? Burst in and look dramatic?”
He turns to Alice, but she is hiding behind him. Her little voice says. “Kinda dusty in here!”
He shrugs, “Okay, watch this!”
Tony and Josephine are tackling the last opponent. As the vampire looks up from the pile of books, he gets a cheerleader high-kick straight in the face. It sends him reeling. As he straightens up, he gets one of Austin’s two-seam fastballs right in the face. This does not improve his looks, especially as Tony follows with a swift punch, leaving a cross-shaped burn on his cheek.
The vampire yells. “You’ve scarred me for life!”
Tony replies with a smack to the other cheek, evening it up. He gets a cut to the arm in response.
The vampire steps back, but gets hit again with a stinging blow to the head from an erratically dipping knuckleball.
Austin helps with some advice: "Rules of hitting a knuckleball with your face: If it's high: Let it fly. If it's low: Let it go!"
See: 'Knuckleball' -(Wikipedia.org)
Josephine goes in for the kill. Another baseball comes stinging in out of leftfield. Tony swoops in and fixes ‘mister pointy’ into the vampire’s non-beating heart.
The vampire stands stock still. Then his body turns watery, then steamy, and then into little cirrus clouds of vapour. –Gone!
Austin picks up a chair, and places it down in the last remaining clear space. Arnold gets up from underneath it.
“Not quite what I expected. Caught ‘chair-beneath-Arnold.’”
“Isn’t that a genuine Louis quinze?” [ 21 ]
“More like sears-roebuck!”
The scoobies take stock. The library is in complete disarray. There are books everywhere. Arnold’s chair is looking the worse for wear. The ladder is broken into splinters and there’s a pool of blood beneath Leroy. The Asian man was under some kind of a spell, and has been rooted to the spot for some minutes, but is regaining his composure slowly.
Arnold starts to tidy up the books.
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Book pile. “Leave it to the librarian, Arnold. It’s what they get paid for!”
“If you have to throw books about, at least do it in Dewey decimal order…”
Alice comes out of hiding behind Austin.
“I don’t feel quite myself….”
“Have you ever felt yourself?” SLAP!
“Maybe I ought to rephrase that…..Ouch!”
Austin is on the defence. “It’s alright Alice; I’m here to protect you….”
“What happens when you run out of balls?”
“I change my name to Suzan!”
Arnold is tidying up, Alice is tidying her makeup. Austin is trying to comprehend what he’s just seen. “Who were those masked men?”
“Just ne’er-do wells?”
“Naomi Wells, is she in our class?”
“Yes. Her and her vampy friends.”
“Vampy?”
“Y’know like in that book…..Dark-ula.”
“Don’t know it.”
“By Marvin Stoker.”
“Wasn’t that Frankenstein?”
“I think you’re thinking of ‘Fronken-steen.’ By Shelly Marie”
Meanwhile, the gang have noticed signs that flashlights are being used in a room across the corridor. The gang knows that these are science labs. They cautiously advance. When they see that it is two of ‘New York’s Finest’ they try to retreat, but are observed and confronted.
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NYPD.
-Not to confused with New York’s other finest.
The two police officers are looking around the school. They’ve heard a disturbance and come to investigate. The two are reasonably amiable, and after some questions, they settle down and chat with the scoobies. The gang is using the story that some students from a rival school were seen breaking in, and they decided to follow. There was a confrontation, and a few fisticuffs in the library. After that they fled into the night.
The cops are interested, but not that interested. Until Josephine blurts out:
“There was something pretty strange going on in the library…..”
“What’s that?”
She covers quickly. “A big room… Down the hall…. With lots of books….”
The officers look at her quizzically.
She continues. “Of course, if we had known they were trashing the library, we so wouldn’t have bothered.”
The officers turn their attention to Austin.
“What’s that on your lip son?”
“Strawberry jelly.”
The officers aren’t buying it. “Looks like lipstick.”
“Strawberry jelly flavoured lipstick. –It’s very tasty”
Josephine goes for the jugular. “Yeah, but that colour looks so cheap on you!”
The officers are getting sidetracked. They ask for the gang to recount their story one more time, from the top.
Sergeant Fitzgerald tells his partner, Officer Clare to go to the car and get some doughnuts. He’s not going to pursue the case any more, and needs a rest. It’s all too much paperwork to process a simple bust up in a school library. Soon the whole lot of them are eating doughnuts and listening to Fitzgerald going on about how he hates the nightshift. He also tells them to stay away from the graveyards and central park after dark. That’s where most of the recent trouble has been.
All this droning, and the adrenaline subsiding has made the gang feel sleepy. They all start to rub their eyes and yawn. Sergeant Fitzgerald drones on. Officer Clare is messing with some bottles and jars in the fume cupboard.
Austin turns to Alice. “I feel like going to bed.”
“Oh, I’m not tired.” She and the police officers are the only ones not tired apparently.
Austin yawns the biggest yawn, rubs his eyes, and desperately tries to stay awake and focused. He lies. “I’m not tired either!”
Tony is starting to suspect something. He turns to leave. The door is locked!
Realising that something is amiss, he turns to the window. In a moment, he’s enlisted Josephine’s help, and smashed through it. The cops jump up, stunned at such a bold move. Tony has telegraphed his urgency to the others, and between them they bundle out of the broken window. The officers are a little sluggish from all the doughnut eating, and are a couple of paces behind. As Tony scrambles out, he turns on one of the gas taps. The gang confronts the officers. The fresh night air and the sense of panic are starting to revive them. Tony takes a gamble, he flips out a lighter, and lights a bit of old rag.
“Hey, that’s my best poodle skirt!”
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Poodle skirt. All the rage. –Poodle rage!
Tony ignores the protestations, and launches the lit rag into the science lab. As he does so, the cops are starting to break the window some more to allow their fat bodies to climb through.
There is a monstrous whooshing noise, and the lab erupts in flames. The two cops are caught in the blast. Their faces contort. First with surprise, then they vamp out, then they start to lose cohesion. They crumble to dust, like the contents of a vacuum cleaner emptied on a windy day.
Shards of glass rain down, but the gang are sufficiently far back for them not to be affected. They take this as a cue to race to Tony’s car. They all scramble in, and soon are revving out of the school gates. As they bump onto the highway, a passing police car reminds Tony that he’s not licenced to drive. He slows to a more respectable pace.
“Everyone okay?”
“Okay. Though it is a bit of a squash….”
Tony checks his mirror. Seeing nothing of the back seat in the wing mirror, he tries to adjust it. However, the wing mirror is on the wing of the car, several feet from the driving seat. He uses the rear-view mirror instead. He mentally ticks off the occupants of the car.
Okay: Josephine check. “Hey! Nice legs Hannigan!”
“My skirt got all ripped off in the explosion!”
“Wasn’t much more than a ‘pop’ really”
Asian guy, check.
Leroy, check.
Arnold, check.
Austin Check.
Alice…..Where’s Alice?
He looks back. Austin and Alice are smooching on the back seat. Arnold is trying not to notice and failing dismally.
Okay. Austin, check. Alice….. Where’s Alice?
“Whadda ya mean, ‘Where’s Alice?’”
“Where’s Alice?” [ 22 ]
“Right here.”
Austin says “Mmmf..movor..hrr..mrff”
Tony checks one more time. In the backseat, Alice and Austin are necking. In the rear view mirror, Austin is smooching into thin air. It’s not a pretty sight! It’s like a mime kissing nobody. -Badly. [ 23 ]Tony’s suspicions are confirmed. He screeches to a halt.
Turning around, he aims a fist straight at Alice. Austin has come up for air, and catches the fist. “Why you little…That’s my girlfriend!”
“Tony! What are you doing?”
Tony can’t help himself. He blurts out: “She’s one of them!”
“What? A commie?”
“No. A vampire!”
Alice tries to bluff it out. “It’s just the lipstick gone all wonky!”
Tony is having none of it. “More like your whole face!”
Austin is outraged. “How dare you say that about my girlfriend?”
“Pfffft! I’m not your girlfriend!” She shows her vampire face.
There is a scramble in the back of the car. Alice has vamped out, and sunk her fangs into Austin. The others desperately try to separate them and stake Alice. Austin defends her, catching flying fists and deflecting stakes. Austin is trying to fend off her attackers, but against the Slayer and a very determined Tony, there can only be one result. In seconds, Alice is dusted, like delicate icing sugar over a Victoria sponge.
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Alice.
Austin is still stunned. -And not a little angry, too.
The others try to calm him.
“Did you see her without her makeup? Hideous!”
“Austin’ll sure have one hell of a hickey in the morning!”
“That’s only making him madder!”
After a few minutes Austin calms down. It was a close shave after all. He isn’t calm enough to thank Tony, but realises the seriousness of the situation. The rest of the drive is in silence. Finally Tony breaks the quiet. “Must get a radio in the next car!”
“Where did you get the car?”
“Uncle Ernesto is fixing it up for John Jones. [ 24 ]
“Tell Mister Jones to get a radio. And one of those new-fangled car heaters- it’s freezing in here.”
Austin quips “It was nice and warm a minute ago. Especially around the lips.”
“That’s why I never kiss ‘em on the….”
“Josephine!”
“What?”
“Making comments like that’ll get you a reputation.”
“No more than travelling around with five guys will.”
“I guess you have a point there. We could do with another couple of girls….”
Several of the young men sigh deeply.
“-Still if we get a couple of girls like Alice, we could use them to grit the drive when it snows.”
Austin looks forlorn. “There’ll never be another like my Alice.”
“Hey man, I wish you’d forget her. In fact I wish I could forget the whole evening.”
Leroy is leafing through the book that he found in the library. Apart from the blood stains on the cover, it seems rather interesting. He recites a little poem from the book.
Hey guys listen to this: ‘When the fire goes out, when the crystal turns black, the spell will be cast. Tabula rasa!'" [ 25 ]
Unbeknown to the gang, mystical looking special effects pour from Leroy’s words, and disappear inside their heads. –Eew!
Everyone looks at Leroy blankly.
He looks up. “What’s ‘tabula rasa?’”
Tony suggests: “It means ‘red table’ it’s a type of grape variety.”
Josephine tries to correct him. “It’s a town in Massachusetts. Principal industries fleecing sheep and lying down with senators.”
Austin is not so sure. “I think you’re thinking of ‘Martha’s Vineyard.’ -And it’s the other way around….I think!”
Arnold knows what ‘tabula rasa’ means. “Do you not study Latin in school?”
“Oh, Latin! That’s what they speak in Latin America isn’t it?”
Arnold looks at Josephine with one of those ‘You’re-such-a-dumb-American-blonde’ expressions.
Tony gets them back on the subject once again. “Okay ‘mister classical education’, what does it mean?”
Arnold is suddenly embarrassed. “Err….I’ve forgotten. My mind’s gone a complete blank!”
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“What a good book this is!”
They all start to feel better. The horrors of the evening are starting to fade, and they genuinely feel tired now.
Tony starts dropping the gang members off. The Asian guy gets out with Arnold. They stand and watch Tony drive off.
“We never really got introduced.”
Arnold is a little subdued. “Funny old business eh?”
“Yep. Better to watch than get too stuck in.”
“Funny you should say that….mister….”
The scene fades before the Asian guy can introduce himself.
In the morning, some of the gang feel as if they’ve been drinking all night. The hangover effect is surprising, since they haven’t actually been drinking. Maybe there’s something in the sodas.
Josephine recovers quickly. There certainly was something out there last night, though her memory is getting a little hazy. The others are starting to forget the horror, and are starting to rationalise last night’s events as a bunch of feral kids from a rival school making trouble. Leroy starts reading his book intently. By Monday morning, none of them really believe in vampires. It’s all just so much pulp fiction.
They arrive at school as normal. The teachers are out in force, giving them letters to take home. There is no school today! Craning their necks, they can see why. The school has been damaged in a fire over the weekend. Maybe the events of Saturday night were not such a crazy dream after all….
Next Episode: To Bring You My Love....
Previous Eisode: Pilot Part1 ....
FOOTNOTES:
[ 16 ] Insert favourite baseball term or smutty euphemism here.
[ 17 ] See previous write up. Haven’t read it? Shame on you!
[ 18 ] Not literally, as vampires don’t normally need to breathe.
[ 19 ] Snigger at your peril. –except Jim of course!
[ 20 ] Thanks to Jayne Cobb for this timeless nugget of wisdom. See: 'Our Mrs. Reynolds' -(Wikipedia.org)
[ 21 ] Another Doctor Who / Serenity nod. See: 'City of Death' (BBC.co.uk)
[ 22 ] Alice, Alice, where the f**k is Alice?
[ 23 ] While held at imaginary gunpoint while in a nonexistent glass box.
[ 24 ] Another Serenity reference.
[ 25 ] ‘Tabula rasa.’ Latin: ‘Scraped tablet’ or ‘clean slate.’ Usually used in philosophy: All minds start as a blank canvas in infancy.