Listening to Fear
[S5.9 : W/T.18]
 

The Big Pineapple

Will + Tara go stargazing.

EXT. ROOFTOP OF DORM - NIGHT

It's a clear night and the sky is lit with stars. Willow and Tara lie on a plaid wool-blanket staring up at the night sky. Willow seems a little sad.

WILLOW
You know what's weird?

TARA
Japanese commercials are weird.

WILLOW
Yes. And also... you know some of
the stars we're looking at don't even
exist anymore? In the time it takes
for their light to get to us, they've
died, exploded, poof.

TARA
Were, um... were things rough at
the hospital?

Willow gives a little half-shrug.

WILLOW
I used to love to look up at them when
I was little. They're supposed to make
you feel all insignificant but they made
me feel like ... like I was in space.
Part of the stars.
(points)
There's Canis Minor.
(points)
Cassiopia.

TARA
(points)
The Big Pineapple.

WILLOW
Um... you know... not sure I
remember that one.

TARA
Oh, it's a major one. See those
three bright stars right there?

Tara presses her head close to Willow's so that they share the same line of sight, tracing the outline of the three stars with her pointed finger.

WILLOW
Yeah...

TARA
And see those stars along there?
That's the bottom of the pineapple.

WILLOW
It's big.

TARA
Hence the name.
(then)
The real ones never made sense to
me. I sorta have my own.

WILLOW
Teach me.

TARA
See those stars over there? 'Cow With
Three Udders'. And that's 'Moose
Getting a Sponge Bath,' 'The Short Man
Looking Uncomfortable'. 'The Little
Pile 0' Crackers' ... That one's a bit of
a stretch. You do it. What would you
call that one?

WILLOW
Hmm... I see ...

A HOT RED STREAK SLASHES ACROSS THE SKY. A meteor of some kind passing awfully close to Willow and Tara.

WILLOW
A huge flaming meteor about to
crash into something.

SFX: The sound of an EXPLOSION as the meteor lands nearby.

Willow and Tara scramble to their feet.

Willow and Tara are leading Riley, Giles, Xander, and Anya out of the woods into the clearing. Riley and Xander walk side-by-side.

RILEY
Everyone stay close.
(to Xander)
Glad you called me in on this.

XANDER
(pointedly)
Glad you answered.

RILEY
Oh, yeah. Sorry 'bout last time.
Heard I missed out on some fun.

XANDER
Oh yeah, fun was had. Also frolic,
merriment and near-death hijinks.

Riley spots something.

RILEY
There, look. There it is.

There, at the edge of the clearing is the meteorite. The ground around it is charred and its impact has left it half buried. They stare at it in awe.

TARA
Wow.

WILLOW
We have meteorite.

Riley has moved in for a closer look. Xander follows.

ANYA
Is it hot? 'Cause if there's radiation
you'll go all sterile.

Xander backs away.

RILEY
It's not hot. It's... broken.
And... sort of...

Willow leans over his shoulder.

WILLOW
Hollow. It's hollow.

ANYA
So we're all thinking
the same thing, right?

XANDER
Festive pinata, delicious candy?

WILLOW
Something evil-crashed to earth in this.
Then it broke out and slithered away to
do badness.

The others nod, ad lib agreement.

GILES
Well, in all fairness, we don't really
know about the "slithered" part.

ANYA
No, no, I'm sure it frisked about
like a fluffy lamb.

TARA
Let's look around.

As all but Riley spread out... looking...

TARA
Maybe we can figure out where it went.

WILLOW (O.S.)
(shaken)
It went here.

CLOSE ON WILLOW, looking down at something. The others gather around her.

ANOTHER ANGLE reveals a dead body. The corpse of the nightwatchman. Riley kneels beside the body, puts his fingers to its throat.

RILEY
No pulse.

ANYA
Yup. The space lamb got 'im.

XANDER
I don't see any marks on him.

Angling around to look for marks, Willow gets a good look at his face and gets a shock:

WILLOW
I know him! He was at the hospital,
a mental patient. They released him
today.

GILES--
Riley? What are you doing?

Riley has taken out a pen. He is prodding it into the corpse's mouth.

RILEY
I'm not sure. There's something…

Riley pulls the pen out. Thick ropes of VISCOUS CLEAR GOOP hang off it as thick as molasses with a decidedly worse smell. The others recoil.

TARA
Yuck.

RILEY
It might be toxic, don't touch it.

XANDER
Oh yeah, touching it was my first impulse.
Luckily I've moved on to my second,
which involves dry heaving and running
like hell. Oh man, does that smell.

ANYA
What do we do now?

WILLOW
Well, we can't call Buffy.
(a beat)
I want to call Buffy.

TARA
We can't. She's got... life stuff.
That has to come first.

WILLOW
(determined)
So we'll figure this out ourselves.
We're experienced.

ANYA
Yes. It seems like we're always dealing
with creatures from outer space except
that we don't ever do that.

RILEY
(almost to himself)
This is definitely new territory.

GILES
Perhaps we should explore a little
further. Head into the woods a bit ...

They look around them into the deep, dark woods for a beat...

XANDER
Who votes research?

GILES
Much better idea.

General relief and ad-libbed agreement.

RILEY
Yeah, I think that's a good call. There
could have been some other cases like
this. And see if any more of these
were reported in town. I'm gonna
stay here, examine the body some
more, look around a little.

XANDER
Don't do anything hunterly ...

RILEY
No, no. I'm just not great at research,
which I'm pretty sure you guys have
noticed. I like me a good crime scene.

GILES
You'll call us if you need help?

RILEY
Believe me, something jumps out at me
in the dark... you'll hear me even without
the phone. Now, you guys go get that info,
okay? Call me if you find anything.

WILLOW
Okay. You got it.

Riley watches the Scoobies as they tramp noisily into the woods. From a distance we hear:

WILLOW (O.S.)
I don't want to be the one that finds the
bodies anymore.

ON WILLOW at a computer terminal, typing away, concentrating. WIDEN TO see the Giles sitting behind her at long table, looking through astronomy books. A few scattered STUDENTS move among the shelves and tables behind them. A large solarsystem-mobile hangs from the ceiling. Xander is on his feet, looking at the mobile.

XANDER
Look how teeny Mercury is, compared to,
like, Saturn. Whereas in contrast, the cars
of the same name--

GILES
Xander. Please. We've work to do.

Xander joins Giles at the table, picks up a slim book, pages through it.

XANDER
I still don't get why we came here to get
info about a killer snot monster.

GILES
Because it's a killer snot monster
from outer space.
(catching himself)
I did not say that. What I said was,
there are demons who approach our
world in all sorts of different ways.
This one came from above ...

XANDER
And the university library's astronomy
section is the home of aboveness... got it.
Loving the study materials, too ...

Xander holds his book up so we can see it's a slim "junior library" kind of book called "Meteors and You!" Giles sighs.

Tara and Anya approach the table.

TARA
We've scoured all the International
periodicals for any other meteorite
landings in the last week.

ANYA
Big zippo.

GILES
Well, then. It would appear the world's
not being invaded.

TARA
I'm very pleased about that.

WILLOW (O.S.)
Guys ...

They turn and move to where Willow is at the computer.

WILLOW
I've got some stuff.
(reading off screen)
The most recent meteoric anomaly
was the Tunguska blast in Russia
back in 1917. Some witnesses
claimed the meteor was hollow.

XANDER
Hmm... maybe with a chewy demon
center like ours.

GILES
How far back does this list of
anomalies go?

WILLOW
Pretty far. Back to the Queller Impact
in the twelfth century.

TARA
The what?

WILLOW
Queller. I don't know why it's called that,
it didn't hit a place called Queller or anything.
It landed just outside Reykjavik in Iceland.

XANDER
Wait. I just saw… Quell ... Queller ...

He picks up "Meteors and You!", pages frantically

XANDER
Here. "Primitive people used to believe
that the moon was a cause of insanity.
Sometimes they would pray to the moon
to send them a special meteor to fix the
problem the moon had caused. These
meteors were expected to 'quell the madmen'"

ANYA
Nicely read, honey.

GILES
Oh come, it's more likely to be
named after someone called Queller.

TARA
The man in the woods. He was a
mental patient.

XANDER
And he got pretty well quelled.

Willow is typing frantically on the computer.

WILLOW
Okay, I'm looking in history now.
(a beat, then)
It says here in the middle ages
there were these sweeping plagues.

GILES
Right. Like the Black Plague.

WILLOW
No, these were different. More like
plagues of madness. People were
losing their marbles everywhere but
then it would suddenly subside...
and some of these dates look pretty
close... like maybe it happened after
each one of the meteor events ...

GILES
So perhaps something emerged from
those meteors and killed the madmen.

XANDER
Seems like that's what happened here.
Meteor goes boom, crazy guy goes
bye-bye.

TARA
Xander's little book made it sound like
this Queller thing had to be summoned.
So who summoned it?

XANDER
Who else? My money's on Glory.
our resident beastie summoner.

WILLOW
We should call Buffy.
Except we can't call Buffy.
(to Giles)
Can we?

GILES
No, but we'd better call Riley.

CLOSE ON RILEY, as he is on his cell.

RILEY
A Queller demon?

INT. U.C. SUNNYDALE LIBRARY - MEANWHILE - NIGHT

WILLOW
Yep. That's our perp. It's a sort of a
scavenger that can be summoned to kill--

RILEY (V.O.)
Crazy people?

WILLOW
Yeah. How did you--

INT. MENTAL WARD - MEANWHILE - NIGHT

CUT WIDE to reveal Riley and the Black Ops have secured the mental ward. All five of the mental patients are now dead, still secured to their beds, with the familiar clear ooze dribbling out of their mouths.

RILEY
'Cause I got five corpses here in the mental
ward at Sunnydale Memorial.

Under the watchful eye of Ellis, Graham and the others are examining an open air duct, its grate having been torn away.

INT. U.C. SUNNYDALE LIBRARY - MEANWHILE -.NIGHT

WILLOW
You're at the hospital? Riley, listen... I
saw Buffy's mom before and she was
acting kind of wacky. Insane wacky,
if you know what I mean ...

RILEY
It's okay. Joyce was released earlier today.
That intern Ben told me. They're safe at home.

WILLOW
Oh, good. And the thing, the Queller,
is it still there?

INT. MENTAL WARD - MEANWHILE - NIGHT

Riley glances over at Ellis, who signals for him to hang up and join them.

RILEY
We-- I think I've got it cornered in the
air ducts. Look, Willow... Keep at what
you're doing. Call me if you find out
how I can kill this thing.

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