Tuesday - 4/20
OUTSIDE THE DIMERA MANSION
Meadow Shaw raised her eyebrows.
SHAW: I’m sorry?
JOHNNY: No need to be. All I said was “no”.
SHAW: I don’t really understand.
JOHNNY: It means “no”.
Shaw let out a very humorless laugh.
SHAW: Are you serious?
JOHNNY: Very. I already have plans for the Last Blast Dance, and they don’t involve you.
SHAW: Oh, do you? Well, this is quite a surprise.
She shook her head.
SHAW: I don’t think you quite realize what you’re doing.
JOHNNY: No, that’s where you’re wrong. I do.
SHAW: DiMera, if you do this, all bets are off. You’ll be stripped of your popularity. You won’t be able to hang out with us anymore. In fact, I will make the rest of your high school career a living hell. So before you do something rash, just be really sure that you want it to be this way.
Johnny shrugged.
JOHNNY: It’s a funny thing, popularity. It’s so fleeting. I’ve tried most of this year to rise to the top, and now I have.
SHAW: Like you said, it’s fleeting. It can all go away so quickly.
This time, Johnny was the one who chuckled.
JOHNNY: Meadow, you don’t know me half as well as you’d like to think you do.
SHAW: Oh, I know you. You’re a little loser who sought out the three most popular girls in the school to leech some fame off of them.
JOHNNY: Perhaps. You can try to destroy my reputation. Go ahead. You see this mansion? My family has money. And the other thing about popularity, aside from the fact that it’s fleeting, it can be so easily bought off. So, go ahead. Do your worst. Between the two of us, I’m not the one who has something to lose. Something to hide, rather.
SHAW: You wouldn’t dare!
JOHNNY: Wouldn’t I? How can you be sure? Answer: you can’t be. So, if I were you, I’d drop the threats, count this as a loss and move on. Believe me, you do not want to know what my family and I are capable of.
Shaw’s face faltered slightly. She wasn’t as sure of herself as she normally was. However, she quickly regained composure.
SHAW: We’ll see.
She turned and stormed off. Johnny watched her go.
BLACK PATCH
John popped the tape into the VCR and turned on the monitor. While the video was the same grainy quality as usual, the footage was indoors, rather than out as all of the others had been. There were three figures onscreen. Two wore identical masks that looked like cartoon caricatures of Tony and André, while the third wore a mask that was a cartoon caricature of Bart. The people in the identical masks were sword fighting.
TONY: What on earth is this?
STEVE: Whoever it is that’s circulating these tapes has changed their subject matter. Used to be they’d just show the outside of someone’s house, now they’ve moved on to re-enactments.
JOHN: Keep watching.
As they did, the identical figures onscreen had stopped fighting, but were poised to strike at each other. Just as one was about to make a move, the figure in the Bart mask stepped forward, and the sword went through him. The stabber pulled the sword out, and the would-be Bart collapsed on the ground in a pool of blood. One of the identical figures looked directly into the camera. A moment later, the image turned to static.
JOY: So...our videographer’s a murderer, as well?
JOHN: I can see why you’d think that, but not quite. More likely, they’re making snuff films, films that purport to show a murder, but are really just a lot of fancy camera work and special effects trickery.
TONY: And the incident portrayed in the video happened many years ago. However, whomever is behind this sent the tape to the wrong person. Bart was killed by André.
STEVE: Unless, of course, André and Junior are behind this, as we suspect, and are tryin’ to throw us off.
THE LOFT
CLAIRE: You were the nun. The one who introduced Chase and I to Father Healy.
AINE: Aye that I am. You and your husband were so kind to me, especially getting me out of trouble with the Mother Superior.
CLAIRE: We were happy to. I’m sorry, I still don’t quite understand. How did you know where to find us? I know we left our information with Father Healy, but…
AINE: Turns out we have a friend in common.
CLAIRE: What do you mean?
AINE: On the day you came to St. Mary’s, my best friend, Sister Mary Patrick, was under the weather. That’s why I was a bit out of sorts, I was worried for her, so I was. See, she’s a wee bit more than a friend, but we couldn’t make it public while we were still members of the cloth. That night, I told her about you two, and she said she’d met you before. See, she used to live in America, so.
CLAIRE: So, hang on, this other nun was in the same church as you, but she says she used to live around here and knows Chase and I? I’m guessing Sister Mary Patrick isn’t her real name, so what is?
AINE: Sure, you can ask her yourself.
Aine moved over and another girl came in from around the corner.
NOELLE: Hi, Claire. It’s been a while.
