“MEET ZE MONSTA” PART1
Previously on Josephine the Vampire Slayer.
Derby with Josephine. “One girl in all the world. The chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires, the demons and the forces of darkness.”
Josephine mouthing the words, and then mouthing a silent “Blah, blah, blah, -Josephine. -Blah, blah, blah….”
Dramatic shots of vampires looking really scary.
Dramatic shots of our heroes dusting Vampires.
Cute shots of our hero’s dates looking scared.
More dramatic shots of Josephine dusting vampires.
Our heroes happy at Hunter school.
Tony blowing up the school.
The lady vampire draped all over the Corvette.
Tony blowing up the corvette.
A shot of a demon atop a car at the drive-in.
Tony blowing up the demon.
Bobby, Austin and Leroy making faces behind Arnold’s back.
Our heroes are in a graveyard. They have been detailed by Derby to patrol.
Josephine has already been on one patrol. She did all six graveyards around Central park. -A walk of over seven miles.
“I’m so getting a car!”
“Whatever for? The walk will help keep the weight off.”
“Are you saying I’m fat?”
“Well…..Arrrgghhhh….No!”
“Good. Now get me a car!”
They decide to split up into two teams. ‘Brains’ and ‘beauty.’ Then they spend an hour arguing over who is in which team. They try ‘gentlemen and players.’ But this doesn’t work either. They try ‘boys and girls.’ -Still no luck. In the end they decide ‘A team’ and ‘B team.’ -That’s much better!
Having split into their teams, they all wander off. It's not long before Josephine is complaining again. “I’m a vampire slayer. I don’t do mummies. I don’t do werewolves, or demons, or six-foot houseflies!”
“But it’s in your job description.”
“It’s alright for you, Arnold. You’re just a ‘Watcher.’ That covers a whole host of things. –The things that don’t involve working too hard.”
“We could possibly change it to ‘bug slayer.’”
“That’s not nearly so hip.”
Leroy cuts in. “Supernatural entity slayer?”
“Junior officer for the elimination of the previously departed?”
“I think that qualifies for the title ‘joke slayer.’”
They realise that despite being in teams, they are still all together. They split up once more. Into different ‘A’ and ‘B’ Teams.
Arnold asks “Where’s Tangle tonight?”
“He’s on ‘watcher’ duties.”
“Watching what?”
“Something about a tube.”
“Tube?”
“Yeah. And a box.”
“Box?”
“Yeah.” Josephine thinks. It almost hurts. “-And something to do with a grey ghost.”[ 50 ] She adds.
Arnold has pieced it all together. Tangle is at home watching television. He doesn’t let on though. He steers the conversation back to Josephine. “At least being the slayer isn’t a part-time job.”
“It is a part time job. Do you think vampires come out during the day?”
Tony is getting bored. -And the wiggins. He sweeps his hand over the graveyard. “I don’t like hanging around all these dead guys.”
“You hang out with Arnold. He’s almost mortuary-ready!”
Austin can see trouble brewing. “Lets spilt up. Again! -We can get more damaged that way!”
Tony suddenly thinks out loud. “Where’s Bobby?”
Austin says “Ground ball, easy out, first base. It’s a walk. Pressure error, charley-horse, dead-ball era. Brush back, ninth inning. Switch-hitter, right off the bat….Curse of Wrigley field. Babe Ruth!”
“Austin, you’re talking baseball again.”
“Oh, Sorry!” He translates for them. “He had a hot date!”
“Hot means ‘cool,’ right?”
“How can he have a date on a school night?”
“How does he get a date, full stop?”
“How can we stomp around Manhattan graveyards on a school night?”
“Stamina?”
“Stamina!”
Finally they split up into their teams. Austin and Tony go together. After a few minutes, Tony sees something.
He whispers to Austin. “Look. There in between the graves. -A figure!” They duck down for a moment. By the time they’ve crept nearer. The figure is gone. However, a shovel and a pickaxe can be seen.
“Looks like someone’s been digging.”
“Someone. Or something.”
“Best look sharp. We don’t want to fall down a hole….Aaaaah!”
“What’s that? A hole!….Aaaaaah!”
The others hear them yell. It’s a ‘surprise’ yell not an ‘eaten by demon’ yell. They advance back to where the yell came from. Josephine sets off at a run. She zips around the graves and at the very last minute sees the hole that Austin and Tony have fallen into. Tony pops his head out of the pit, just as Josephine runs out of level ground, and leaps the hole.
Tony says “What was that? A bird? A plane?”
“Just a flying bush.”[ 51 ]
Austin whispers “Is the area secure?”
“I’ll just look.”
“How? We’re in a six-foot pit!” Austin hasn’t grasped it yet.
“I shall stand upon the shoulders of giants.” Tony says.
Austin looks around. Then he realises. “Oh, you mean me?”
As Tony pops his head over the lip of the pit, Josephine spies it out of the corner of her eye. She lashes out with a massive kick. It catches Tony a stunning blow. “I got it a good one!” She cries. “Don’t lose your head!” Tony nurses his sore face.
Leroy tells them he’s seen someone creeping about. He pauses only to concentrate on levitating Tony out of the pit.
“Need a lift?”
“Ha -ha!”
Arnold has seen what Josephine has done to Tony. As he tends Tony’s bleeding nose, he berates Josephine. “You need to work on that impetuousness….Ouch!” Josephine, thinking that he was being rude, has slapped him.
Leroy is watching. And not really concentrating. “Impetuism? Is that a real word?” He asks.
Josephine is on the offensive. “Are you going to Mirriam Webster me to death out here?”
“That’s Merriam!”
“And pedant me to death too?”
“Actually you can’t use ‘pedant’ as a verb.”
Josephine rolls her eyes. “I didn’t come all this way for an English lesson!”
“That’s what you say in school!”
“Only in history class!”
Tony looks at the opened grave and at the headstone. He reads out loud. His lips move as he reads.[ 52 ]
“Annabel Kurtz. Nineteen forty to nineteen fifty seven.” He thinks. “That’s seventeen years old.”
“We already did the math.”
Josephine takes Austin and Tony over to the graveyard gates to check something out. Arnold and Leroy look over another open grave nearby.
This time the two of them find a coffin. They open it with trepidation, and a fallen tree branch. It’s empty.
“Empty.”
“You sound so disappointed.”
“I wanted to find a nice stinkin’ corpse.”
“Hmm…Nice lining though!”
“Maybe the body just up and walked off?”
“Can that really happen?”
“You obviously weren’t paying attention in Mister Derby’s ‘Vampires one-o-one class.”
“Pardon?”
“Never mind.”
Josephine and her team are at the graveyard gates. There a re a few people walking outside. They ponder what to do. Josephine leaps the gate. –Because she can. As Tony comes through, he spies a teacher from school -Mister Neame.
As Neame comes by, he seems not to notice Tony. But at the last minute accosts him.
“What are you doing out at this time of night, Suarez?”
Tony is playing it cool. “Just hangin’”
“Not up to mischief?”
“Nope.”
Neame is at a bit of a loss as to what to say next.
“Well…Don’t be out too late.” He walks on.
Tony make a rude gesture behind Neame’s back.
“I saw that Suarez!”
Josephine is on alert. She is reaching out with her spider-senses.
Austin observes. “You’re like a cat when you do that.”
“How so? All graceful, sleek, and slinky?”
“Well, your ears are pricked, your tail twitches at the tip, and when you are ready to pounce, you wiggle your ass!”
Josephine treats this comment with contempt. She says. “I don’t feel anything…Ouch!”
Austin has pitched an Eephus pitch at Josephine’s head. The ball splunks off her noggin, and drops at her feet. She picks it up and goes to aim it back at Austin.
Austin is unfazed. “You’re gonna throw like a girl, anyway.”
Josephine pitches a passable four-seam fastball into a tree, where it wedges between two branches.
Austin is rather appalled. “Now you go fetch it.”
“I ain’t your dog!”
“No, you’re my bit...” The censors come out in force and get him to retract the last word. They badly dub “Bit of trouble” onto the end of his sentence.
Josephine dismisses him. “Screw the ball!”
“Screwball?”
Austin shrugs. “Must be a ball-eating tree!” [ 53 ]
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Kite-eating tree.
-A close cousin of the ball-eating tree and the kite-frying electric power lines.
Leroy and Arnold have been following some tracks. They track the tracks to a gravel track,[ 54 ]where they think a car has been parked. Arnold says. “This could be the scene of a crime!”
“What?”
“Look at the way the tools were left behind –all over the ground.”
“What about it?”
“Something’s disturbed.”
“Someone is opening graves at night? I’d say that was disturbed!”
“Shh! There’s someone coming!”
They both duck behind a monolith.
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Monolith. “Strange. I thought it was later than that!”
They wait for the footsteps to get nearer. Arnold whispers “This monolith is so interesting! As far as I can tell its proportions are exactly one by four by nine.”
Leroy cuts him off. “Yes. One by four by nine. That’s very significant, Arnold.”
“Because they’re the squares of the first three integers?”
“No because the dimensions are in inches! I think we’d better find something bigger to hide behind.”
Arnold agrees. As an afterthought, he puts the monolith in his pocket.
Josephine sees the figure stalking Arnold and Leroy. She sets off with Austin and Tony in pursuit.
The stranger stops and starts to sniff the air. Arnold whispers to Leroy. “Glad I’m not wearing aftershave. Prepare me a stake!”
“Do you want chips or potatoes with that?”
“Ha –very- ha.”
“Who do you think it is?
“Well, this is a graveyard….It could be ‘Death.’”
“Working the graveyard shift!”
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D E A T H .
“Any chance I can swap this scythe for something a little more intimidating, and a little less like a toothpick? And can I drop the sash?
It gives me hips like a girl’s!”
Arnold ignores that comment.” But what would he be doing here?”
“Walking around with the smug satisfaction of a job well done?” Leroy looks pointedly at Arnold. “There’s a cheap gag about ‘well done’ steaks if you want it.”
“I think I’m all out of humour tonight.”
The stranger comes at them at a run. It leaps the monolith, and starts to grapple Arnold. Josephine bounds up, and slams a fist into the man’s face. The man throws Arnold roughly to the ground like a rag doll. Tony and Austin go left and right respectively, and grab the man, slamming him into another monolith. “You don’t want to be slammed!”
Tony and Austin punch him high and low respectively.
Tony pummels him some more. “I’m afraid I’m all out of punch lines.”
Austin adds “He lets his fists do the talking!”
Austin grabs a megalith. It’s a bit too unwieldy. He grabs a tree branch, and whacks the stranger with it.
“Swingin’ for the Feds!” Whack. “Heads all out o’ the park!” Whack.
He dances a little dance, and chants a little chant.
“Other kids' games / are all such a bore! They've gotta have rules and they gotta keep score! Austinball is better by far! It's never the same! It's always bizarre! You don't need a team / or a referee! You know that it's great, 'cause it's named after me!”
Leroy chants the spell ‘Rub it ‘till it Bleeds’ and the unfortunate stranger starts coming out in boils and sores. “You gotta admit he’s got a certain infectious charm!”
The stranger vamps out.
Tony yells “Stake! Stake!”
Arnold steps up to the Austinball plate, and jams a stake hard into the vampire’s chest. He whoops “Dusted!.....Oh!”
After a dramatic pause, the vampire looks down, and rubs casually at the merest gnat’s sting of damage.[ 55 ]“Look what you’ve done to my coat!” He snarls.
He turns to face Arnold, but Josephine is in there first, and slams a well-placed head-butt to the vampire’s nose. “A nut for a nut!”
Tony is shocked at the violence. “I hope you don’t kiss your boyfriend like that!”
“Always!”
The vampire can’t believe his ears. In his astonishment and pain, he doesn’t instantly notice the stake in his vital area. He crumbles away like a piece of vary stale layer cake. Austin has finished his victory dance, and on the backswing, manages to part Tony’s hair.
Leroy has spotted another figure. The figure reaches into its jacket, and pulls out something that might be a gun.
“That might be a gun!”
“It is a gun!” says the figure.
“What are you doing with that gun?” Leroy asks.
“Covering you lot.”
Leroy thinks for a second. “Oh!”
Leroy feigns fright. He concentrates on the gun. Behind his back, he pinches his fingers together. We see the barrel of the gun start to close up.
Leroy also sees another of the opened graves a few yards between the man and him. He tries not to look down at it, and keeps the man talking.
“Give me the gun!”
Josephine says casually. “Let him have it!”
Realising what she’s said, she retracts it quickly. “No! NO!”
The man grins. “You can have my gun. -When you prize it from my cold, dead fingers!”
Josephine’s spider senses are tingling. “He’s a vampire. They all have cold dead fingers.”
Leroy is still trying to keep him distracted.
“’Scuse me, only I gotta go. I’ve got some tricky algebra homework to do.”
“Add this up.” The vampire steps closer to the group. Closer to the open pit.
“Back off!” they warn him. They start backing off, encouraging him further forward.
He looks them over.
“Oh God! Slayer wannabes! What will they think of next? Maybe I’ll have to reload after all.”
He looks down at the gun.
“Dangerous things guns.” He muses. “One ‘pop,’ and your relatives are painting over the spatter. Now you back off!”
Leroy asks “Who are you?”
“My name is not important.”
“It won’t be important in a minute.” Leroy is still fighting the urge to look at the pit at the vampire’s feet.
“So, what will be important in a minute?”
“Your dust.”
The vampire asks “My dust? Why?”
“Coz my cat’s incontinent, and I need something to refill the litter tray!”
Josephine goes to make a move. She avoids looking at the pit.
“Stay where you are, Slayer!”
“Slayer?” she feigns surprise.
“Everyone knows you’re the Slayer!”
Josephine is outraged. “Oh! Right! Some secret identity that turned out to be!”
Tony says “It’s her secret! The one she’s never supposed to tell!”
“So don’t tell him.”
“Tell me what?” The man steps closer.
“The secret. -What you are!”
Josephine acts in mock surprise, and lowers her voice a little, making it only just audible to the vampire. “What? A Republican?”
Arnold stands up from where he’s been lying all this time. “I say, hello. –What? No introduction?”
“He’s got a gun!”
“And he’s actually quite rude.”
Arnold does some quick totting up. “He’s not the Lone Ranger then. The Lone Ranger is never rude, -Kemosabe.”
The vampire repeats. “Kemosabe?”
Arnold thinks for a moment. He has to ask.
“Actually, what does ‘Kemosabe’ mean?”
“Trust me you don’t wanna know!”
Austin whispers in his ear. Even in the semi-darkness, Arnold goes a bright beetroot colour.
The vampire steps a step closer. Tony can’t help himself. He looks down.
In an instant the vampire looks down at where Tony is looking.
All at once a lot of things happen:
Josephine advances at Slayer-speed.
Arnold gives a piercing whistle.
Leroy uses a bit of telekinesis to trip the man.
Austin launches a knuckleball to the vampire’s knuckles.
In an instant, the vampire has fallen headlong into the pit. A split second later the gun goes off.
Josephine is first on the scene. In the grave, the vampire is squealing in pain. His gun hand is a mess of gore and gun bits.
“Your hand is a bloody mess!”
The censors rush forward, shaking their heads.
“Your gun hand is a goshed darned mess?” The censors nod their approval, and withdraw.
“Dammit!”
The vampire lifts his head. Josephine leaps into the pit, stake in hand. Seeing her disappear so quickly, Arnold asks “Does she always jump on men so fast?”
“She talked to this one first!”
From the pit there is a muffled “I must be slipping!”
Then there is the distinct sound of a vampire dusting. Josephine’s head pops up from the grave. “Isn’t ash supposed to be good for the garden or something?”
“Good for roses. I dunno about corpses.”
“Nasty way to go. -All that dust. -Very bad for the chest!”
Josephine rubs the dust off her ample chest. The camera lingers for a few hours seconds too long.
Austin asks “Can I have my ball back?”
Josephine pitches it to him as hard as possible.
“Thanks. -And Ouch!”
“Too hard for you?”
“I wasn’t wearing my glove. I left home without it!”
“Wear your cup next time.” She warns him.
“Oh I always have that on!”
Josephine is scornful “What in case you need to measure out one eighth of a gill?”
“Ha ha.” Austin thinks. “Actually that’s quite a bit. Isn’t it Arnold?”
“Actually it’s a miniscule amount. Though everything is supposed to be just a little bit bigger in America.”
“Yeah!” Austin sticks his tongue out at Josephine. He thinks again. “Such as what?”
Arnold goes for the jugular. “Well their egos for a start!”
They see two of New York’s finest come through the gate. They decide to leave discreetly.
“Shame, I could just have done with a quick knee-trembler against the graveyard wall!”
Two officers come through the gates as well. As our heroes leave they hear the following. (Or something very like it.)
“Hello officer. Care to buy some flowers?”
“Not tonight, Miss. -And watch out for that pit.”
“What pit?”
“That pit!”
There is a falling noise.
“Aaaaaahhhhh! Ouch!”
“Too late!”
The next day is a school day. We join the boys at break time. They are in the library, trying to get some information on the people whose graves had been raided the night before.
Tony is doing some intensive research, but turns up nothing. Arnold looks over his shoulder.
“I don’t think you’ll find much in there.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re looking at a book of cartoons.”
“Oh?”
For the under-fives.”
“Oh!”
Tony tries to wriggle out of an awkward situation. “At least I’m learning stuff about baseball.”
“From looking at Charlie Brown’s pitching? Very informative I’m sure.”
“Agreed. -He’s no pitcher.” [ 56 ]
Josephine arrives. Arnold is quick with the pithy comments.
“I didn’t expect to see you in the library.”
She gives a wry grin. “I’m lost.”
Arnold can quite believe it. He explains what they are doing. “We’re trying to find any connection between the people from the opened graves.“
Josephine thinks. It takes a while. “They’re all dead?”
“I can see that research really isn’t your strong subject.”
Josephine thinks some more. Tony and Arnold go and get a cup of coffee and a cup of tea respectively. By the time they return Josephine has another theory.
“They all died in nineteen fifty seven!”
Arnold prompts her. “And that means?”
“Um….” Another long pause to think. “Maybe…..”
“Yes?”
“Maybe one thousand nine hundred and fifty seven is….”
“Is?” Arnold is on the edge of expectation.
“Is….Their lucky number!” Josephine is triumphant.
“Strange figure for a lucky number. Most people don’t go higher than a seven, except possibly thirteen.” [ 57 ]
Josephine leaps to her own defence. “Ha! That’s where you’re wrong!”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. My lucky number is three hundred and sixty-two thousand, four hundred and thirty six!”
Arnold almost sighs. Josephine is being exceptionally hard work today.
“That’s not your lucky number. They’re your vital statistics.”
“They’re always pretty lucky for me!”
He looks her skinny frame up and down. “Actually they’re probably closer to Marilyn Monroe’s vital statistics.”
“No wonder my dresses never fit properly.”
The bell saves them from any further discussion. They troop off to biology class. Arnold can’t help getting in a soupcon more research on his way out of the library.
He gets all the information he requires.
Annabel Kurtz Drowned In boating accident aged seventeen. Edward Hart was a writer who slashed his wrists as a suicide, aged fifty three, and Dominic Jenner was a former builder, who died crushed by a pallet of bricks. He was forty-four. Biology class awaits. Some wag has changed the sign on the lab. Now it reads ‘Boil-ology.’
Mister Neame the biology teacher is droning on. Today it’s all about brains. To prove that old zombie gags are the best, an ‘Easter egg’ scene is presented here: All you have to do to get it……….. Is to eat the right Easter egg!
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“What is today’s subject?”
“Brains!”
“What have we learned?”
“Brains!”
“Class dismissed!”
“Brains!”
Neame sketches a brain on the blackboard. The students copy it down. He then introduces today’s experiment.
“We’re going to take slices of a cow’s brain, and lay them on these copper strips. Then we pulse it with this equipment, which passes a small electric current through the brain slice. Now the clever bit is that the equipment can also receive any impulses that the brain gives off, and so we can see that even after death, the brain still responds to neural stimulus.”
“Sir, how do we know it’s dead?”
“We removed the cow’s brain, and then sliced it into quarter-inch strips. –That usually does the job!”
“Oh!”
The strips of cow’s brain are handed out. The students lay them on the copper conductors and attach the equipment as shown.
Neame continues. “Now we apply the current by turning the dial. We can then pick up any latent responses with these devices. –I call it the ‘electro-phono-scope!’” He looks up at the class.
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Good news everybody!
“I invented myself!” He says proudly. He continues. “You’ll find the experiment on page nineteen of your textbook.”
“Which textbook?”
“Biology textbook, Hannigan.”
“This one with the cute ladybird on the front?”
“That’ll do!”
As the experiment is all set up, it becomes all too much for Austin. He starts feeling more than a little queasy.
“You look a bit sick, Phillips.”
“Oh? Why do you say that?”
“You’ve gone the colour of slightly under lemon-juiced guacamole!”
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Guacamole. Note nice Formica table beneath.
That makes Austin go even greener. He stands up. Neame sends him into the prep room to regain his composure, and his lunch.
While in the prep room, he sees the remains of the cow’s brain. To take his mind off it, he pokes through drawers. There is a cupboard, and a fridge under lock and key. From a corner, McCoy leers at him from under Neame’s hat and coat. As is obligatory for science labs there is also a complicated setup of beakers, Bunsen burners, alembics, tubes and brightly coloured chemicals bubbling. –Oh and a pair of prongs with balls on the ends, where electricity fizzes up in fat sparks.
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Just making a cup of tea Mr. Neame!
Back in class Arnold is trying to unscrew the back of the electro-phono-scope with a pair of scissors.
Neame catches him doing it. “Edwards! Leave the equipment alone please!”
By the time Austin has returned, the rest of the class have already got their brains hooked up to the equipment. The electro-phono-scopes are emitting strange pops, whistles, pulses and howls in response to the electrical charge applied.
“Let’s turn it up to eleven!”
“It goes all the way up to eleven?”
“Yes!”
“Why not just make ten louder?”
“We should hook it up to a footballer’s brain.”
“Whatever for?”
The experiment is a success. Neame gets them to draw a neuron. Then the bell rings and they pack up.
Later that evening they are on patrol again. They whiz around the other graveyards, and head straight for the De Wilt cemetery.
“Where’s Bobby?”
“He’s got a cold.”
“A cold what?”
“Date. -I think.”
“Cold. That means ‘hot’ right?”
New York’s finest are out in force tonight. Also, the cops are patrolling the graveyards. It’s all our heroes can do to avoid being accosted.
Josephine is offended. “Demarcation I call it. I’m going to call my union first thing in the morning!”
Arnold observes. “I had a feeling that New York’s finest would be out in force tonight.”
“How’s that? -A tingling in the nether regions?”
“No. I applied logic.”
“Try applying some cream next time. -Or maybe just take a cold shower!”
Arnold ignores that comment.
“We need to pin the grave-robbers down.”
Josephine says wistfully. “I need to pin someone down.”
“Well, half of Manhattan is out there and waiting Josephine.”
They move away from the ladies of the night and the cops of the night. They see a car parked on the gravel pathway. They creep nearer for a closer look. A man is in it. He has his hat pulled down low over his eyes, and his collar turned up.
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The Private eye look.
“Maybe its Humphrey Bogart?”
Arnold is scornful. “I doubt that very much.”
“How so?”
“He died four months ago.”
“Maybe someone dug him up? -And now he’s their chauffeur?”
“Still don’t think so.”
“Okay ‘mister-know-it-all’ why the hell not?”
“He was cremated.”
They edge closer to the car. Once again they try to hide behind the monolith. After some confusion, Arnold finally takes it out of his pocket. They all crouch down behind it.
“What colour is the car?”
“In this light? Kinda brown-ish.”
“What? Red-brown, blue-brown, or green brown?”
“None of those, just brown-brown.”
The car pulls away. Tony suggests that it might be Mister Neame’s car. They decide to swing by the school on the way home. There they spy the car in the car park. They sneak over to the science block, and across to the biology lab. They see a light on in the prep room. They all duck down and listen. They hear nothing. All together they raise their heads and peer through the window. Austin gets the shock of his life. A grinning skull is looking right back at him!
Fortunately its only McCoy, propped up against the other side of the glass.
Tony manages to break in. They sneak down the hall to the boil-ology lab. Behind the frosted glass of the door they can see the light on. They can also hear a raised voice. Neame is remonstrating with someone.
“I’m the brains around here. I say the project has some major flaws.”
There is a pause, and then he says:
“Well if that is the case, then I quit! Get the lackeys to do the work if you’re so clever!”
We hear his footsteps approach. What will our heroes do next?
Next week: "Do not use this brain! Abnormal!"