Weirdness building...

Air Date: 29/01/2001

24 Aug 2000, Thursday

Jonathan follows the police as they fan out into the parkland and seem to be searching for something. He pulls out his zoom lens and watches from a distance, focusing on one policeman in particular who searches around for a while, talks on his radio and then heads north. Jonathan gets bored and decides to head off and as he is laving hears four gunshots in quick succession, the last one ringing out and fading against the afternoon. Jonathan hits the ground and huddles in a little ball behind the tree until convinced that he’s not in immediate danger. He pokes his camera out from behind the tree to see what’s happening but finds nothing out of the ordinary. He waits for a while. No more gunshots but also none of the sounds you’d expect to follow the sound of gunshots – people running and police sirens. Eventually he gets up, looking around for the police he spied earlier but there are none in sight. He gets out of there real fast.

Eerie Casey stuff

Eerie Mary stuff (Haha Cam! More work for you!)

Jayde patrols that evening. Conrad is of the opinion that if there are now vampire police then she should observe but not engage when in the park. In that case they’ll do graveyards where she can actually do some killing. Again she sees only single vampires. There is also no sign of Faith.

Casey and Mary go back to the sharehouse.

25 Aug 2000, Friday

The twins’ 18^th birthday! Jayde gets clothes, some nice jewellery, a new watch, various other accessories. Gemma gets an antique copy of an Emily Dickinson poetry anthology, a vaguely occulty looking little statue and a hardcover "Of human bondage". Jayde gives Gemma some accessory that she’ll never wear and Gemma gives Jayde a book she’ll never read.

Gemma skips her first class and as she is getting dressed she hears something moving around in the ceiling above her. She knows that the only hatchway up there is in David’s part of the house, but has never been up there herself so doesn’t know if there are any windows or what’s up there other than attic space. She goes to see if Faith is possibly having a wander around again but Faith is in her room. Jayde is still asleep in her room and when she goes downstairs Stella and DMS are both in the kitchen. She mentions the sound to Stella who tells her that David took the day off work for some reason. Gemma grabs a torch and heads off to find David.

Jayde wakes to the sound of a creak in the ceiling above her. She goes downstairs and asks Stella if there’s someone in the attic and Stella tells her that Gemma was investigating that possibility and came to get a torch.

Gemma reaches the hatchway, which is closed. She pulls down the ladder which makes a loud noise as it slides down, and then she sound of footsteps coming quickly toward the hatch and David’s voice filtering down.

"Heya Dad! Whatcha doing?"

"Er, don’t come up. I’ll talk to you later."

"Oh. Ok I guess."

Jayde approaches and looks questioningly at Gemma. Gemma tells her David’s up there and will talk to them about it later. Jayde shrugs and suggests birthday pancakes. Gemma realises she heard a note of apprehension and uncertainty in David’s voice that isn’t normally there.

Two hours later David still isn’t down so Jayde makes him a sandwich (PB&J with the crusts cut off) and both girls go to give it to him, calling ut to him from the base of the stairs. He comes down and says he’ll take it in his study. They ask him what’s going on up there and he tells them that he gives the two of them freedom and privacy in their lives and this is something that doesn’t involve them. And isn’t it a school day?

Gemma goes to class. Jayde goes shopping and calls Alex to arrange skipping patrol given she’ll be on a birthday dinner with dad. Casey and Mary go present shopping for the party on Saturday night then Casey arranges for a bunch of people to go to a movie that night.

Jayde gets home and finds David back to normal. They go through her shopping while they wait for Gemma to get home and then go out for birthday dinner to a nice restaurant. Good pressies are swapped and everyone bonds. Awww. Jayde gets trapped into telling David that she isn’t really getting into the classes aspect of uni but is really involved in lots of extracurricular activities. David doesn’t look too impressed, Jayde pushes the "teen confusion" angle and David gives her a look that says they’ll be discussing this again sometime when it isn’t her birthday.

Mary arrives at the cinema half an hour early and looks around for Casey. The others arrive and its time for the movie to start but Casey doesn’t show up. They go into the movie and then on to dinner afterwards. Still no Casey. Mary finished her meal, grabs some takeaway for him in case she finds him and heads for the sharehouse. There’s no sign of him there but there’s a message on the machine. Its only Mary, looking for him earlier. Its dark out, around 9:30 – 10pm. She heads for the park in case he’s ended up there again. In the park she gives wide berth to everyone she sees, especially cops. She heads for the volleyball courts and finds herself back at the toilet block she’d been at a few nights ago. This time around there’s no homeless guy being beaten up by jocks but she does notice some rather elaborate graffiti on the wall. She reads it – it’s the history of the park (Insert image here). She copies it down for future reference and keeps looking for Casey.

After dinner both girls decide to go out clubbing for a while – to different clubs of course. Gemma calls Mary’s mobile and asks her along. Mary asks if Gemma has seen Casey and tells her he’s disappeared again. Gemma hasn’t. Mary has one last look around then meets up with Gemma and the rest of their friends.

Around midnight Mary is heading home and decides to go via the sharehouse so see if Casey has made it back. The lights are on and when she knocks Casey answers the door. She asks him where he was and he says he got confused about which night the movie was supposed to be on. Mary tells him about the graffiti she saw in the park while looking for him and he tells her he’s seen it before. He confirms that they are on for the Copwatch meeting tomorrow morning and tells her he’s tired and was on his way to bed so Mary heads home.

26 Aug 2000, Saturday

Casey and Mary go to their meeting (refer email – Cam, you add this bit in).

Lawyers take note: Buffy, the Vampire Slayer and Angel and all characters related belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy and fox.