Quantum Leap s03e05 Episode Script

The Boogieman - October 31, 1964

Theorizing that one could time-travel within his own lifetime, Dr.
Sam Beckett stepped into the Quantum Leap Accelerator and vanished.
He woke to find himself trapped in the past, facing mirror images that were not his own, and driven by an unknown force to change history for the better.
His only guide on this journey is Al, an observer from his own time, who appears in the form of a hologram that only Sam can see and hear.
And so Dr.
Beckett finds himself leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong and hoping each time that his next leap will be the leap home.
Witchcraft in America by the Reverend John T.
Immendorf, Boston.
That's not possible.
Hello? Hello? Anybody here? Josh.
Josh, are you okay? Huh? Josh, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, I think so.
I'm sorry, Mr.
Rey.
I I didn't mean to scare you like that.
It's okay.
Really.
Oh, oh, man, look at the time.
It's almost 12:15.
Um, is it all right if I go? I still gotta peel those grapes for the bowl of eyeballs.
Yeah yeah, i-it's fine.
Hey, do you need any more gopher guts or anything? Uh, no.
No, I think we got enough gopher guts.
You sure? Well, maybe not.
Okay, I'll I'll pick up some more spaghetti and liver.
And I think we've got enough pumpkins.
Assuming we ever finish carving them.
Yeah, well You know me, I mean, "Have knife, will carve pumpkins.
" You know, Josh, sometimes you are very scary.
That's why I can't wait till we get married.
It burns! It burns! Renfield, my coffin! And you think I'm scary.
One of these days I'm gonna write the scariest book in the whole wide world.
Except, then nobody would probably buy it.
We would, wouldn't we? Uh, a-as long as we're in it.
Yeah.
Hey, Mary, is it okay if I come by around 5:00 to pick up my costume? That is, assuming that my car doesn't break down.
Ask Josh.
I'm in charge of maiming overgrown vegetables.
He's in charge of disturbing wardrobes.
Uh, 5:00 would be perfect.
If we're not here, we'll leave it on the porch.
Great! Bye, Stevie.
Is this gonna be the best haunted house we ever had, or what? Great scarecrow.
Yeah, it is.
The problem with Quantum Leaping is that it often left me feeling like a scarecrow.
With my head all full of stuffing, and no idea as to why I was really there.
Josh, yoo-hoo.
I- I'm sorry.
W- what were you saying? I was thinking of something else.
I could tell.
You're worried about how to kill him, aren't you? I know it's a problem.
I I I don't want to kill anybody.
Well, if you don't, I don't know what you're going to do.
Unless you rewrite the whole book.
And you don't want to do that.
So I guess you'll just have to kill him.
Right! Right, I mean I mean, how else could I end the book? Maybe you could burn him at the stake, like Alice what's-her-name, who used to live here before she moved to Salem.
Uh, weren't the Salem witch trials in 1690 '92.
'92.
Right.
I know.
I think it's cool to kill a guy in 1964, the same way they used to hundreds of years ago.
Then his ghost can come back and haunt everyone, the way Alice's is supposed to haunt this place.
I don't think she likes that idea too much.
Tully, could you bang a little louder, please? He said he'd have those windows finished by noon.
Maybe you could go up and talk to him.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I'll go talk to him right now.
Unbelievable.
I've leaped into The Addams Family.
Worm Dancer, Joshua Rey.
Skull Party, Joshua Rey.
The Blood Witch, Joshua Rey.
Burning Fires.
Aye aye aye.
"An eel of smoke "slowly slithered through the sockets of the moldy skull, an evil from the beginning of time.
" Oh, brother.
An evil that you'd be doing well enough to let alone.
You know what they say, don't you? Wh-what do they say, Tully? Them that dance with the Devil are bound to get scorched.
Yeah, well, uh Real nice job you're doing on the windows out here.
Alice McHorner danced with him.
Burned her at the stake.
You're talking like it happened just yesterday.
What's time to Old Scratch? Yesterday's tomorrow for him.
Mark my words, you want no part of his business because there's only one thing he's selling, and that's Josh! Josh, what's the matter? What's going on? He's dead.
I think his his neck is broken.
One minute he was just talking to me, and then the goat, he yanked on the rag a- and the ladder slipped, and and that was it.
Goat? Yeah, the goat.
Can you describe it? It was a goat.
It looked like any other goat.
It was white, and it had horns.
Josh, you don't have a goat.
It was right there.
Maybe, it was somebody else's goat.
Yeah, yeah, maybe it was somebody else's goat.
I don't know.
Next farm's 20 miles.
Are you saying that I pushed him? 'Cause that's crazy.
It was the goat.
Sam, you don't think maybe unintentionally It was an accident.
Of course it was.
Of course.
Of course.
Mary, I'd like to get your statement down, too, before I go.
Sure, Ben.
Could we do it inside? Between the rush for the spook house, and now this, my head's kind of I'd like to sit down.
Certainly.
Speaking of which, maybe we should cancel the spook house.
Well, that's something to think about.
But if you do, there's gonna be a lot of people who're gonna be disappointed.
And the truth of the times is that, well, some people die and the rest of us go on.
I just thought I'd bring it up.
Of course.
Mary.
Excuse me.
I could have saved him, Al, if I had a little warning.
Don't blame me or Ziggy.
We knew nothing about this.
I'm sorry, Al, I just If I wasn't here to save Tully, what am I doing here? Well, let's see.
Uh, it's October 31, 1964, your name is Joshua Rey.
Uh-huh.
You're kind of a second-rate H.
P.
Lovecraft.
You live in Coventry, Maine, and you're engaged to Mary Greeley, who's the organist for the Coventry Presbyterian Church.
She's also your part-time research assistant, and Uh-oh.
Tonight at midnight, she's found strangled in the church spook house, which is right there.
Al, Ziggy doesn't think that I That that Joshua Rey killed her, does he? No.
That is, uh, probably not.
Probably? Yeah, well, you were the logical suspect, but there was never enough evidence to justify your arrest.
Look, if I leap into a murderer's life, then I, Sam Beckett, I'm not gonna kill an innocent person.
So then I've accomplished what I'm here for, and I should leap, right? Right.
Unless she wasn't innocent.
This is getting too weird, Al.
I don't understand why Ziggy didn't pick up on Tully's death.
I mean, he should have spotted that.
Ziggy swears he didn't have a clue.
I- It just kind of happened.
Al, somebody made a mistake and a man is dead.
Do you know what kind of snake that is? What? That's a black mamba.
That's one of the deadliest snakes Al, I want you to run a check on Ziggy.
I don't want to miss anything else, okay? I thought I'd close the window.
Uh, thanks, Mary.
Would you like me to get it? No, I'll get it.
Let's go to my office.
Sam, this isn't an office, this is a crypt.
You're telling me.
His parents must've read him stories by Edgar Allan Poe when they put him to sleep.
Al, listen to this: "A second later, the goat tugged at the rag.
"Tully toppled off the ladder and crashed to the ground.
He never got up again.
" This wasn't here before.
Then there's someone with a very sick sense of humor wandering around.
But the only one who could've done it Josh, that was Dorothy on the phone.
Maybe she did more than close the window.
Yes? She wants to stop by and bring over some candlesticks for the spook house.
I didn't tell her about Tully.
I thought we should do that in person.
Uh, Ziggy says she's talking about Dorothy Yeager, the town gossip.
Yeah, s-sure.
That's usually the best way.
Don't worry, Sam.
We're gonna figure out what's going on.
I'm gonna get Ziggy on it right away.
You do that.
I will.
And in the meantime, I'd keep my eye on you-know-who, if you know what I mean.
I'm here to help her.
I know.
All I'm saying is, that letter didn't type itself.
I always told him he was too old to be playing handyman.
But he had a head harder than a frozen pipe.
Do you remember the time he put his back out trying to cement your root cellar? Yeah, that was painful.
Or the time he was going to install your dishwasher in your kitchen? You were knee-deep in water before anybody could say apricot jelly.
I was so mad, I could kill.
Oh, I wonder if you could lend me a hand.
I left the candlesticks in the car.
They were so heavy.
I'd forgotten how much silver weighed.
No, no, no, you stay here.
I'll get them.
You're a very lucky young man.
She's very special.
You don't get a girl like that without making some enemies, do you? Oh, my gracious, no.
We're all only human.
No, I thought Ben Masters was fixing to pitch a fit, but I think the best man won.
Thanks.
And thanks, Dorothy.
We'll get these back to you tomorrow.
No rush.
I haven't used them in ages.
Would you like some more apple cider? Only if I can get you some.
Thank goodness I'm still not too old to carry a pitcher.
It's on the counter next to the stove, buried between some pumpkins.
I'll find it.
Well, now all we have to do is finish carving those pumpkins and we'll be set.
Sam, you don't have anything to worry about.
That's great.
Ziggy's run a complete check on the probability matrix of everyone you've come in contact with, or are likely to.
And Mary is definitely the one you're here for.
You know, Mary, on on second thought, maybe we really should cancel the spook house.
I- It doesn't seem right.
Josh, Tully was an accident, that's all.
It's not like this is one of your books.
I know, but I just Dorothy! She's dead! No.
No.
It went down there and disappeared.
I want to know what's going on, Al, and I want to know right now.
Run another check on the Sheriff.
Tear Ziggy apart if you have to, but I want to find out who put that black mamba in the kitchen! I just can't believe two deaths in one day.
It's incredible.
And they were both so bizarre.
Then all those questions.
I feel like I'm going to throw up.
Police questioning has a way of doing that.
Tell you what.
Why don't you, uh, go inside and and make us some tea and, uh, I'll see if I can find something for your stomach, okay? Mmm.
There is a logical explanation, Sam.
No.
I told you, Al, she didn't do it.
She couldn't have.
Just look at her eyes.
Maybe she's wearing contact lenses.
Maybe she's a great poker player.
I knew a guy, you could look him in the eye and couldn't tell whether he had four of a kind or a busted flush.
You're a scientist, Sam, you gotta explore all possibilities.
She's not one of them.
What'd she do, Al? Teach the goat to pull a rag out from underneath a ladder? Well, that's if there was a goat.
She could've pushed the ladder from a lower window and you didn't see it.
I saw the goat.
Well, she could've killed Dorothy.
She could've put the snake on the counter next to the pitcher.
What about Masters? What did you find on him? The Sheriff? We've run every test we could think of.
Ziggy checks out perfectly.
Sam, there's something hinky going on around here.
Come on, there's a logical explanation for everything.
Now, you know that.
We just We just haven't found it yet.
Well, we have, but you won't admit it.
No! Yes! No! Look.
"A second after Dorothy moved aside the pumpkin, the snake struck.
"It was hard to say which killed her first, "the venom or the heart attack.
Either way, she was dead.
" Where is Mary now? She's downstairs in the kitchen.
Probably sharpening knives.
What are you telling me, she's some sort of a demented psychopath? Did she do anything strange today? Anything at all? No! How about before Dorothy came over? No, she she stayed in the kitchen, carving pumpkins.
Who are you talking to? Uh, n-no, I was just trying to think of some dialogue for my book.
You called me a demented psychopath.
No, I didn't.
Maybe she's a schizophrenic.
Maybe she forgot about grabbing the snake and typing this.
Mary, a lot of strange things have been happening around here, a- and they're sort of Well, they're unexplainable.
You think I'm the explanation? You think I killed Tully? No.
Yes! And Dorothy? No! Yes! How could you think that of me? If you don't want to get married, why don't you come out and say it instead of hiding behind some insane accusation that I committed murder! How do I know it wasn't you? Mary.
Because you're the one who did it.
I'm just trying to eliminate all the possibilities.
I I I really don't think Yes, you do! You're calling me a murderer.
Sam, I don't like things that fly around without wings.
I don't know what you're doing, but it's not funny.
I didn't do anything! She's a witch.
It didn't fly across the room by itself.
She's like, what's-her-name, the one that used to live here.
I'm telling you, I didn't Uh-oh! This is like The Exorcist.
She's possessed! She's having a seizure, Al.
She's epileptic.
What about the skull? Forget about the damned skull! We've gotta get her to a hospital! If we don't get her there quick, she could die.
Ziggy's never said anything about her being epileptic.
Ziggy hadn't said a lot of things.
But that would explain the skull.
What? Psychokinesis is very real, Al.
The brain works on a chemo-electrical level.
Epilepsy is a sort of crossing of the wires.
So that maybe when her neurons short-circuited, maybe it stimulated her psychokinetic energy.
But that still doesn't explain Tully and Dorothy.
No.
But you don't kill someone without a motive.
Unless you're a psychopath.
What's her motive? Uh Only if there's a motive is there a connection.
Well, the way to find out about that is Or disprove it.
Or disprove it, is to go to where she lives, which is Well, what are you waiting for? Uh, women and holograms first.
It's only a house, Sam.
Sam! All right.
Right.
Okay.
What do you call all this weird stuff, Sam? It's probably just research material for Joshua's book.
Yeah.
And Tully and Dorothy were probably just a field experiment.
What have you got against her? When she's around, people die.
How's that for starters? Coincidence.
Well, it's a kind that Ziggy's never seen before.
Second, she can make things fly.
We settled all that, Al.
Maybe you did, not me.
She's probably got a broomstick hidden around here somewhere.
And third, she's in the hospital, and you haven't leaped yet.
Okay.
Okay, but that means that she still gets killed, which makes her a victim, not a murderer.
Unless her intended victim killed her in self-defense.
No, then I'm here to help a murderer, which is ridiculous.
But Take a look at this, Al.
It's the church bulletin for Coventry Presbyterian.
Look at the Board of Deacons.
Mary Greeley, Tully Maltin, Dorothy Yeager.
Who would want to kill all the Board of Deacons? How about a schizophrenic horror novelist? Um, Mary asked me to come by and and, uh, pick up some of her things.
Really? Yeah.
That's interesting.
Particularly since I just came from the hospital and they said she still hadn't recovered consciousness yet.
Well, she asked me before she had her episode.
How convenient.
Sam.
That's an unusual tattoo, Sheriff.
Okay, you caught me.
I'm really a warlock, and that's the sign of my coven.
I knew it.
And I killed Dorothy and Tully because they were about to expose me.
Grab him, Sam! "That's interesting," to quote a sheriff I know.
Isn't it? Unless, of course, the real story is I got drunk one night on shore leave and almost had an Air Force tattoo put on my arm.
Pretty embarrassing for a guy in the Navy.
I'll say.
So what's the real story for you being here? Same as yours.
Murder.
Discovering clues or eliminating them? Sheriff, you know, you were in the kitchen before Dorothy died.
You could've put the snake there.
But I didn't.
I found a broken wooden match on the floor near her legs.
You got a gas stove.
You light gas stoves with matches.
Sam, I'm going to go back and have Gushie run some more things by, uh, Ziggy because maybe he can come up with something new.
Sheriff, if I were you, I would be, uh, looking for a connection to the Board of Deacons.
If I were you, I'd be looking for a good lawyer.
Sheriffs need lawyers, too.
Not this one.
I think I owe you an apology.
How you feeling? Nothing a six-month honeymoon in the Bahamas couldn't cure.
We'll see what we can do about that.
Here.
Mary, is there anybody in town that you know that that might want to hurt you? Hurt, as in dead? Yeah.
No.
Two deacons are dead.
I don't want there to be three.
Neither do I.
You know, somehow, you seem more decisive, more confident.
Well, believe me, the last thing I am is confident.
You go back to sleep, okay, and, um, I'll be back to check on you later.
Promise? Cross my heart and hope to limbo.
The Bahamas.
Oh, goody.
The rational mind will tell you that things happen for a reason, but so far, I couldn't find one.
And the scary thing was, time was running out and I knew that somewhere out there, a killer was coming.
A killer, perhaps with a badge.
Where'd you come from? What, did you sneak in while I was leaving the house? Hey! Hey! Hey! Mr.
Rey.
Hey! Mr.
Rey, a- are you all right? Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Oh, God, I'm sorry, Mr.
Rey.
I didn't mean to scare you.
I It's just that my my car broke down again and I I was walking toward town and I was trying to flag you down.
I guess that you thought I know.
Oh, I know.
I know.
It wasn't your fault, okay? I jerked the wheel to avoid the goat.
And then, when I saw you, I overreacted, and the cat jumped in my face.
And then, I tried to stay on the road, but the car, I don't know, it it was just like in Christine, it it had a a mind of its own, and I I crashed.
Christine? Never mind.
Mr.
Rey, I didn't I didn't see any goat.
I saw a goat.
It was the same goat I saw this morning at the house, at my house! Mr.
Rey, you don't have any cats.
Stevie, this cat.
My cat.
Them that dance with the Devil are bound to get scorched.
Al! Well, next time, I'll knock.
But all this stuff going on around here has got me jumpy, too.
Did Ziggy find anything? Zippo.
He still thinks you're here to save Mary.
It's gotta be the Sheriff, Al.
He's the only one who could have killed Tully and Dorothy.
What, with a trained goat and a snake? This is a sheriff, not Ringling Bros.
Nobody else could have done it.
Maybe the boogieman.
Look, I found his matchstick on the floor in the kitchen.
Now, he had plenty of time when he was taking Mary's statement to to grab the snake and then type the note.
That doesn't explain the goat.
Well, I don't know how he did it, Al, I just I just know that he did it.
Well, then you've gotta find him and stop him, no matter what it takes.
Operator.
Operator, uh, yeah, yeah, uh, give me the Sheriff.
It's an emergency.
Moment, please.
Coventry Sheriff's Department.
Hello, this is Joshua Rey.
Uh, I need to talk to the Sheriff, please.
So do we.
We've been looking for him for half an hour ourselves.
Operator.
Yeah, operator, get me the hospital.
They can't find the Sheriff.
He's been gone for half an hour.
Yes, Mary Greeley's room, please.
I'm sorry, she's already checked out.
What? She's outside waiting for the Sheriff.
Well, don't let her go with him.
No, you tell her I'll be right there.
Jo-Joshua Rey.
The Sheriff called.
He's on his way over to give her a lift.
Gushie, center me on Mary, now! I told you it was the Sheriff! Sheriff! Sheriff! Sheriff? No! When I was growing up, Halloween was always one of my favorite holidays.
Trick or treat, we used to say.
Of course, back then, we always expected a treat and if we did play a trick, it was always funny and harmless.
But tonight, there were no treats.
There were no tricks.
There was only death.
Stevie, the Sheriff and Mary inside? Yeah, they just got here a minute ago.
Good.
Good, you can go home now.
Hey, Mr.
Rey, I got this idea for my book.
It's about this I said, you can go home now.
Oh.
Okay.
See you, Mr.
Rey.
Mary? Josh? Mary, Ben is dead.
No, he isn't.
He's in the kitchen.
Well, it's about time.
Oh, my God! Mary, run! Advanced psychokinesis? Maybe.
Maybe not.
And Mary, she was never in danger.
She is now.
And Tully and the others? The fun part was that it was a pattern that seemed to add up, but it didn't.
But it did.
You quoted Tully's line to me about "them who dance with the Devil.
" I never told you that.
You never walked through anything in this leap or used the imaging chamber door.
And when we were upstairs, and you left to find Mary, you disappeared without using your handlink to Ziggy.
But most important, you were the only other person around when Dorothy and Tully died.
Personally, my favorite part was watching your face when you read the messages in the typewriter.
That was priceless.
You know how this story's going to end, don't you? I know how you want it to.
Yes, I believe you do.
I'm sorry I'm late, but something was goofing Ziggy up and Oh, Sam, this is not good.
No, it isn't.
Sam, uh, you, uh, you better get out of here quick-quick.
We can't, Al.
He's locked us in.
He's already killed three people, and he intends to kill us.
Something long overdue.
Sam, uh, Ziggy says that there's definitely something there.
That's more than I can say for you.
Who are you? Yin and yang, good and bad, God The Devil.
In the flesh, so to speak.
This isn't possible.
Come on, Al, tell me he's not real.
He's real, Sam, he's very real.
What is happening? Why are you doing this? To put an end to your meddling.
Who gave you the right to go bungling around in time, putting right what I made wrong? I'm just trying to get home.
Well, you're not going to make it! Sam, if you can touch him, you can hurt him! Sam! Sam! Hang in there, Sam, hang in there! Sam! Sam! Josh! Josh! Josh, are you okay? Josh, what's the matter? No-No-Nothing.
I'm fine.
Sort of.
Thank God, you scared me for a minute.
You had me scared, too, Sam.
We completely lost you there for a couple of minutes.
What happened? For a while, there were two of you and one of you was trying to kill me.
I was trying to kill you? I was trying to kill you? Cool.
What a neat idea.
You must've been dreaming.
Your name is, uh, Joshua Rey, you're a second-rate horror novelist, and you're here to save a person named Tully Josh! Tully! Sam! Sam, this is incredible! You knew what to do before I even told you.
Thank you, Mr.
Rey.
You really saved my neck.
Yeah, I guess I did, didn't I? Glad you're okay.
God, look at the time.
It's almost 12:15.
I got to scram.
I still gotta peel those grapes for the bowl of eyeballs.
Al, it was the goat I don't see any goat.
What else did I do while you were unconscious? Uh, well, you got angry at me, and made a skull fly across the room.
It could have been worse.
It could have been kitchen knives.
Wow! What a neat idea! Hi, Mrs.
King! Hi, Mom! Stevie? King.
Hey, Cujo! Kitchen knives? Christine? Oh, my God, I just gave him What? Bye-bye, Sam.
Open the window! I wish I could go with you, honey, but your daddy would go crazy if I left him here alone with the twins.
I'm just so danged proud of you.
Oh! Wait.
Oh, tarnation, I almost forgot.
Come get this stuff.
Open that door! Yoo-hoo! If you had forgotten this, you would look pretty foolish.
These are my favorite ear baubles.
It wouldn't do for my baby girl to go off to the biggest beauty contest in the South without her crown and her sash, now, would it? Oh! Oh, boy.
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