Short Screenplays
Singing Water
Characters:
Young Woman
Sleepwalker #1
Sleepwalker #2
Sleepwalker #3
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Ext. Lakefront (Water, Levee, and Walkway) [calm, waveless, windless, no people]—Night
Employ a sequence of various shots of a lakefront. Emphasis on the darkness and stillness of the water just offshore; the vacant, concrete sidewalk/walkway that curves around the shore, illuminated with streetlights; the levee seen from a position some yards from the shore in the lake; the concrete steps leading into the water, etc. Position these shots carefully and exactly as they will be utilized again.
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Int. Bedroom—Night
A Young Woman in a t-shirt and pajama pants sleeps soundly in a small, dark, and nearly silent bedroom.
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Shots of various inanimate objects in the bedroom—a still ceiling fan, a framed photograph of a young girl at a beach/lake, some opened/cleaned ears of oyster shells strewn haphazardly on a desk, paint brushes soaking in a glass of water, her cell phone charging next to her with the ‘always display’ setting turned on, displaying the time (or a digital alarm clock on a nightstand by the bed).
The cell phone (or digital clock) displays the time: “2:51.” Then, a drone-like score fades in as the time on the phone/clock changes from “2:51” to “2:52.” The sleeping Young Woman shuffles under her bedsheets. Then, still unconscious, the Young Woman arches her back (or abdomen) off the bed slightly before turning over and rising to her feet in an awkward, slow fashion. Her posture slinks askew, back slightly hunched over, head drooped and tilted, arms defunct at her sides, knees semi-buckled. Her eyes are closed (or slightly open but locked still, dazed and frozen in their sockets, looking at nothing).
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Ext. Lakefront—Night
Shots of the lakefront, levee, and etc. used in the opening—still vacant of people, the lake dark, quiet, and still, lamplights illuminating the concrete sidewalk and adjacent steps that lead/disappear into the water.
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Ext. Residential Street—Night
Streetlamps illuminate a quiet street of small houses/apartments. Minimal cars line the road and no human activity is discernible outside or inside the houses or in the surrounding neighborhood—the street absent of moving cars, no sounds of cars and/or people in the distance, no flashing lights from house windows, etc. All inhabitants living on the street appear to be asleep in their dark homes. Down the street in the distance, the front door of one house opens. Moving disjointed, slow, and awkwardly languid, the Young Woman emerges from the house, leaves her front door open, walks across her yard, and sulks down the street toward the camera. The unconscious/sleepwalking Young Woman appears to disregard all standard/conventional pathways, such as the sidewalks or the road, but rather she seems to follow a single geological direction. Before the Young Woman eventually shuffles herself dazed, defunct, and unnaturally down the street and out of frame, the camera holds a few seconds longer until Sleepwalker #1, barely discernible in the distance and darkness, moves similarly toward the camera, like the Young Woman, just momentarily.
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Ext. Lakefront (Water)—Night
Long shot of the calm, dark stillness of the lake from the shoreline (employ an extremely slow zoom into the darkness/blackness of the water out in the distance briefly?). A droney score builds/continues/intensifies. No human activity or sounds of human activity (cars, music, shouting, etc.) are perceptible.
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Ext. Lakefront (Levee)—Night
Long shot of the levee from a location some yards from the shoreline in the lake. Again, no people/human activity or sounds of human activity (cars, music, shouting, etc.) are perceptible. Then, after some time, the shadowy figure of the sleepwalking Young Woman slowly emerges over the crest of the levee and continues downslope, still moving slow, postureless, and unconscious, toward the camera’s location.
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Ext. Lakefront (Walkway)—Night
Shot of the concrete sidewalk (and/or concrete steps) that runs along the edge of the lakewater, illuminated by streetlamps. No people or human activity is discernible in the shot except for the nondiegetic sounds of the heavy/shuffling/unnaturally-paced footsteps of the sleepwalking Young Woman, slowly becoming louder.
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Ext. Lakefront (Levee)—Night
The sleepwalking Young Woman continues to move toward the camera, located at some distance in the lake. The darkened levee remains quiet and void of activity behind her as she approaches closer and closer to the edge of the lake where she crosses over the concrete sidewalk (cut back to shot of concrete sidewalk where she enters, moves across, and exits across the frame?) and nears the concrete steps that lead into the dark lakewater. The Young Woman begins descending the concrete steps into the water.
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Ext. Lakefront (Water)—Night
The sleepwalking Young Woman, still garbed in her sleepwear, continues down the concrete steps into the lake where she continues to walk farther and farther out into the dark water. The sleepwalking Young Woman ventures into knee-high waters and continues trudging forward. The sounds of the water sloshing as she walks accompany the score.
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Int. Long, Industrial Hallway (Storage Unit Complex)—Unknown
The sound of the sleepwalking Young Woman’s footsteps sloshing through the lakewater remains audible. A long, industrial hallway looms before the sleepwalking Young Woman, wearing the same sleepwear. Utilizing slow-mo to emulate the resistance/pace of moving through water, the Young Woman slowly walks down the long, dimly lit section of the hallway toward the shadowy darkness that pools at its ‘end.’ The sloshing sounds of the woman trudging through the lakewater from the last shot are synchronized with the Young Woman’s slow-mo movements down the hallway.
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Ext. Lakefront (Levee)—Night
The sleepwalking Young Woman, now shoulder/neck deep in the lakewater, continues walking farther out into the lake toward the camera, nearly exiting the frame, before halting in-place.
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Int. Long, Industrial Hallway (Storage Unit Complex)—Unknown
All prior noises (lakewater, wind, score) abruptly fall silent. The sleepwalking Young Woman continues to walk toward the darkness at the end of the hallway in slow-motion. A high frequency white-noise fades in and intensifies as the Young Woman enters the shadows at the end of the hallway. She continues walking forward into the darkness until she disappears completely into the blackness.
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Ext. Lakefront (Levee)—Night
The Young Woman slowly sinks/submerges herself beneath the surface water. No indication of struggle or effort is perceptible; she merely slips calmly and noiselessly underwater and remains there as the ripples of her submergence dissipate back into calmness. With the sleepwalking Young Woman now out of frame, Sleepwalker #1 is now discernable, descending the levee. Simultaneously, from another corner of the night, slightly farther away, Sleepwalker #2 emerges from behind the crest of the levee—likewise moving toward the lake.
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Ext. Lakefront (Walkway)—Night
Long shot of the seemingly vacant, inactive strip of concrete walkway at the edge of the lake. Sounds of Sleepwalker #1’s and Sleepwalker #2’s disjointed and unnatural movements louden as they approach closer to the lake. Far in the distance and barely visible in the darkness, the faint figure of Sleepwalker #3 crosses the concrete walkway and begins to descend the steps and enter the water. Sleepwalker #2, now much closer, enters and occupies/obstructs a large portion of the shot, as they travel across the walkway, descend the concrete steps, and continue out into the water in their sleepwear.
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Ext. Lakefront (Water)—Night
Sleepwalker #1, now waist deep in the water, continues to venture out farther. The Young Woman’s body finally resurfaces and floats lifelessly, face-down in the water, obviously drowned. Sleepwalker #1, now neck/shoulder deep in the lake, halts and calmly slips underwater next to the floating body of the Young Woman. Sleepwalker #2 slowly approaches the edge of the lake, descends the concrete steps, and enters the water. A droney score intensifies to a climax and abruptly stops.
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Black
The soft sound of lakewater sloshing against the shoreline fades in. A few seconds of just black screen and the shushing of waves pervades.
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Ext. Lakefront (Water)—Night
The soft sounds of waves sloshing against the shoreline continue as a droney score fades back in. The drowned bodies of the Young Woman, Sleepwalker #1, and Sleepwalker #2—all face down and lifeless—float atop the dark, still water. Employ a slow zoom into the distant, dark waters of the lake.
END.
The Woods
Characters:
CAT
FRIEND #1 (young woman)
FRIEND #2 (young woman)
FADE IN:
EXT. FIELD NEAR WOODS—NIGHT
Among the ambience of night, three young women (FRIEND #1, FRIEND #2, and CAT) talk excitedly while sitting around a campfire. Empty beer bottles and cigarette butts lie at their feet. Their unintelligible conversation fizzles out into a chorus of soft chuckles. Then, the crackling fire becomes audible.
FRIEND #1 sips from her beer.
FRIEND #1
(feigning an accent and smiling)
Well, I don’t know about you, guys, but I’m thinking it’s about that time.
FRIEND #1 sets down her beer, digs in her campbag, and pulls out a pipe and a bag of weed. She opens the bag and begins to pack a bowl.
FRIEND #2
I’m down.
FRIEND #1
(howling softly)
Woo!
CAT, nondescript, 20s, feels the outside of her pants’ pockets inquisitively before pulling out her cell phone. The phone’s light brightens CAT’s face then turns off. CAT reinserts the phone into her pocket, looking stoically at the fire. FRIEND #2 notices.
FRIEND #2
Everything alright, Cat?
CAT
Hm? Yeah, I’m good.
FRIEND #2 eyes CAT warmly, one side of her mouth turned up in a half-smile, subtly gesturing that CAT can speak more openly if she wants.
FRIEND #1, still picking apart the weed, looks up from her lap at CAT momentarily.
CAT
I don’t know—guess it just feels a bit weird doing stuff like this without him. Still processing everything, you know? But honestly, I’m fine. It needed to happen. Just not entirely comfortable talking about it all just yet, I guess.
CAT stares into the fire—discomfort slightly twisting her face into a mock-smile.
FRIEND #1 returns her gaze to the pipe and weed crumbs in her lap, looking up at the others in short intervals while packing it.
FRIEND #2
Well, you know we’re here for you. If you ever need to get out or distract yourself or get out of your own head or anything, just let me know, okay? We’re here for you.
(pauses briefly) Well… I’m here for you at least.
(jokingly) Let’s be honest, Liz is too much of a space cadet to really be anywhere.
FRIEND #1 (Liz)
(smiling) The fuck you say, bitch? I’ll shank you in the cunt if you don’t watch it.
(soft laughter among the group) No, but seriously, we got you, lovely. Always will.
CAT
(smiling gently)
Thanks, y’all.
FRIEND #1, setting the now-filled pipe aside, closes the bag of remaining weed before placing it next to her. After, she picks up the pipe and begins rummaging through her campbag.
FRIEND #1
Speaking of getting out of heads, could I borrow a light from someone?
FRIEND #2 tosses a lighter over the fire to FRIEND #1. FRIEND #1 lights and drags on the pipe then exhales. After, FRIEND #1 hands the pipe to FRIEND #2.
A muffled buzzing reverberates. CAT pulls her vibrating cell phone from her pocket and looks at the screen. The incoming call displays an unsaved number.
CAT
Shit. One second.
CAT stands and begins to walk away from the group, still looking at her phone, eyebrows pinched with questioning.
FRIEND #2
Who’s that?
CAT
Not sure. It has this area code though. Might be my mom using her new boyfriend’s phone.
FRIEND #1
Damn, another new one? Your mom gets it.
FRIEND #2
(jokingly) Try and hurry back. You know Liz won't wait that long.
CAT, now a short distance from her friends, answers her phone but continues to walk away, slowly inching toward the woods.
CAT
Hello?
(pausing, then slightly dragged out) Helloo?
(listening, then unexpectedly tense) Oh. Hey.
(listening) Yeah. Who told you?
While CAT listens/remains on the phone, she appears more uncomfortable/tense in body language: her eyes press shut hard as though in discomfort/pain and reopen; she scratches the back of her head aggressively with her fingertips; her face twists and locks into a wince).
CAT
(still on the the phone)
No, I’m with some friends.
(listening) What? No, I’m not telling you that.
(listening, then flustered) Because I don’t. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.
CAT, growing more upset, walks aimlessly into the woods—the light of the fire in the field behind her slowly dims with the newfound darkness and thickening underbrush. Just beyond the edge of the woods, CAT notices a HEAP OF LAUNDRY—mud-caked, damp, and bespeckled with weeds/leaves—but quickly disregards it, moving forward into the forest.
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EXT. WOODS—NIGHT
CAT, visibly tense/uncomfortable/upset, continues to walk through the woods while talking on her phone.
CAT
Please—just stop. I’ve already said everything I have to.
(listening for some time) Because it wasn’t just that night. You made me feel scared and nervous too many times, and you did nothing to acknowledge or fix them. I hope you can make yourself happy and never hurt someone like that again, but I just can’t—I’m scared of you. It’s a weird realization to have and—
(listening, then audibly upset) No, not just me. You screamed at the dog the night before your birthday. She was terrified, and you didn’t care at all. I was crying, and you didn’t care at all. You went weirdly far with it, and I think that shows how fucking cruel you really are to those weaker than you.
(listening) I’m glad you are, but no, I can’t forgive you. Please don’t talk to me.
CAT hangs up and crumbles to the ground, squatting low, quietly crying in her arms. After decompressing with steady, deep breaths, CAT stops crying, rises, and begins to meander back the way she came, wiping her eyes and nose with the sides of her hands. After a few steps, CAT notices that the path ahead of her now appears impassable, barred by dense undergrowth.
CAT stops and turns around. Using the light of her cell phone (screen), CAT surveys her surroundings. Every direction appears blockaded by the thick, untamed vegetation. For a while, CAT simply stands in place, looking all around her. The light of the fire by now has completely vanished and her friends are no longer audible. CAT turns the light of the phone toward herself and scrolls through her contacts. CAT taps the screen then holds the phone up to her ear. The faint sound of ringing is heard repeatedly.
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EXT. FIELD NEAR WOODS—NIGHT
FRIEND #1 and FRIEND #2, in the background, are seen talking to each other, still sitting/smoking/drinking around the fire. A phone in the foreground lights up and vibrates quietly. The incoming call goes unnoticed.
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EXT. WOODS—NIGHT
CAT, still holding the phone to her ear, gets her friend’s voicemail—a muffled/barely-audible and robotic “You have reached...” is heard briefly before CAT quickly hangs up.
Immediately, CAT calls a second time, only to hear the voicemail again.
CAT sighs, spins around, and curses under her breath.
CAT
(shouting loud and long at the sky)
HEYYY!
CAT stops and listens. After a few seconds of quiet forest ambience, SOMETHING screams back in response—the noise muffled, aggressive, and animalistic/masculine—from a far distance away.
CAT, disturbed, remains motionless for a long time—staring deep into the forest.
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Non-contextualized panning/tracking/zooming nature shots cohesively intensifying and swelling to a peak alongside non-diegetic audio overlain—a von Trier moment of artsy (sur)realism used to generate real-time space and dramatic tension.
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EXT. WOODS—NIGHT
CAT, already in motion and using her phone as a light, walks through the forest where, after some time, she stumbles across a dirt path that appears to travel through the woods.
CAT then begins walking down the trail.
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EXT. NATURE TRAIL IN WOODS—NIGHT
CAT, after venturing down one direction of the trail for some time and continuing to use her phone as a light to see the ground in front of her, notices that the trail at some distance ahead ends at what seems to be a large, open field—the woods thinning out and appearing less dark and claustrophobic. With still a good distance between her and the open field, CAT continues down the path through the forest.
CAT, after moving some steps closer toward the field, is halted by the artificial light of a (BEDSIDE) LAMP, hovering/floating a couple feet off the ground, that clicks on and illuminates a small area of the nearby woods off-trail.
The (BEDSIDE) LAMP, brass and supporting an off-white/opaque shade, casts everything immediately surrounding it in a soft orange-yellow glow within the encompassing darkness.
CAT stands motionless, stunned by the strange new light of the (BEDSIDE) LAMP.
CAT
Hello?
(pausing shortly, then louder) Hello?
(pausing) Liz?
CAT attempts to call FRIEND #1 again, but it immediately goes to voicemail.
After, CAT texts FRIEND #2: “Are you guys fucking with me?” followed with “Please help. Brandon called. Trying to find my way back.”
Then, the (BEDSIDE) LAMP, after a few long seconds, clicks off.
CAT stares hard into the woods where the (BEDSIDE) LAMP gleamed, now shrouded again in darkness.
CAT remains arrested in-place, listening for a long time to the near-silent ambience of the woods, awaiting a reply that never comes. No other sound(s) that could indicate a person/thing are made available; only darkness and quiet accompany CAT.
CAT, somewhat disturbed, turns her gaze from the now darkened (BEDSIDE) LAMP—its location inside the woods—back toward the trail and open field, still at a distance ahead of her.
CAT briskly starts walking toward the direction of the field. CAT casts brief, sharp glances backwards and around her as she moves, until finally, she arrives at the trail’s end where she exits the woods and enters the field.
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EXT: LARGE OPEN FIELD SURROUNDED BY WOODS—NIGHT
[EMPHASIS HERE ON THE (SLIGHTLY) BRIGHTER LIGHT IN THE FIELD TO CONTRAST THE DARKNESS OF THE WOODS]
CAT continues across the field toward its center.
Released now from the claustrophobia and darkness that reigned within the forest, CAT slows her pace until she comes to a complete stop. CAT looks back at the woods and remains in the field’s center for a long time, embracing the new visibility and openness that it allots her, although still unnerved by the (BEDSIDE) LAMP. CAT, able to see somewhat better now than she could inside the woods, puts her phone back in her pocket.
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Another shorter/weirder artsy shot(?)
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EXT. LARGE OPEN FIELD SURROUNDED BY WOODS—NIGHT
CAT, after staring at the woods from where she came and attempting to calm herself for some time, turns around and looks across the field where, at its opposite end, another dense woods stands. Although the field appears completely imprisoned by the surrounding woods, across it—opposite from the path CAT previously traveled—another path/trail is seen to begin, signified by a WHITE OPEN DOOR/DOOR FRAME that appears to provide an entry into the otherwise impassable wall of trees and undergrowth at the margin of the other forest.
CAT remains in the center of the field—looking at the WHITE OPEN DOOR that leads into the woods in front of her—and keeps her back toward the woods where she came.
DISEMBODIED (MALE) GRUNT/SHOUT #1 loudly resounds from the woods behind CAT.
CAT, jolted by the sound, spins around toward the direction from which the SHOUT came.
CAT stands rigid, silent except for her shaky breathing, and stares—anxious and unblinking—yet sees nothing in the woods. In a vain attempt to better her vision and see through the darkness easier, CAT rubs at her eyes quickly and harshly before yanking them open once again. CAT watches the woods for some time.
DISEMBODIED (MALE) GRUNT/SHOUT #2, erupts over CAT, this time louder, clearer, and sourced at a shorter distance away, now from CAT’s side [coming from somewhere much closer in proximity than the initial one].
[Whatever it is seems to have moved out the dark woods, where it initially was heard, and into the open field (where it continues to advance toward CAT).]
CAT, in response, immediately jerks her head to the side from where the SECOND SHOUT came. CAT then shifts herself, turning her fear-buckled footing toward that direction before anchoring in-place once again. Surveying that entire side of field, CAT finds no one; the field, aside from CAT herself, appears completely secluded and vacant. CAT, flooded with anxiety and disbelief, stands immobilized. CAT continues to stare across the open, empty field in silence. For a while, there’s only tension and waiting; the sound of the wind superimposes itself over the other noises of the surrounding feral nightscape for a moment then fades.
DISEMBODIED (FEMALE) SCREAM (CAT’s voice screaming “STOP!”) resounds directly behind CAT.
CAT
(grabbing at the back of her neck and slightly ducking) Fuck!
CAT spins and sees nothing behind her. Then, CAT immediately launches into a full sprint. Drunk with hysteria and adrenaline, CAT bolts across the field where she eventually hurls herself, unwaveringly, through the WHITE OPEN DOOR and into the other forest. After CAT enters, she disappears completely inside the darkness that lies beyond.
[A long time is spent here until we hear CAT’s footsteps fade. Employ a weird, slow tracking shot that turns/pans across/zooms into the woods until closing in on something (a tree/the ground/the tops of trees/the sky) until the shot is completely black.
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BLACK
A tense ambient droning fades in. The sound of CAT’s footsteps slowly begin to fade back in alongside the score. A long time is spent with nothing but black screen and the sound of CAT running through the forest; the sounds of crunching leaves, twigs snapping, and feet pounding against dirt denote this, until suddenly, the sound changes, shifting from the sound of crunching leaves and feet pounding against dirt to the sound of footsteps running on concrete or tile or carpet, until it becomes apparent that the setting/composition of the forest(floor) has changed noticeably.
CAT continues to run on this new floor/surface for some time until the sound of her footsteps slow in pacing and eventually stop altogether. CAT, still unseen on-screen, digs in her pockets. (Use a brief second more of just black-screen (and silence?) here (to imply) that CAT is pulling out her phone.)
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INT. DARK HALLWAY—NIGHT
CAT, having just pulled out her phone for light, finds herself in a dark hallway.
CAT, confused, points the phone light behind her where the hallway appears to stretch long and indefinitely into the darkness. CAT turns back around where, at some distance further ahead, she notices a (slightly cracked open?) WHITE DOOR—a bright light behind it seeping around its edges and cutting into the hallway.
CAT approaches the WHITE DOOR. At its threshold, CAT opens it.
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INT. BRIGHTLY-LIT, SEMI-DISHEVELED BEDROOM (ALL WINDOWS ARE CURTAINED OR HAVE BLACK CURTAINS BEHIND THE GLASS TO MAKE OUTSIDE COMPLETELY BLACK/CONCEALED)—NIGHT
Employ a slow-mo panning/tracking shot across a seemingly mundane young man's bedroom. Without overt emphasis, the shot reveals the same (non-mud-caked) HEAP OF LAUNDRY on the floor next to the bed. The same (BEDSIDE) LAMP, previously seen in the woods, illuminates the room with an orange-yellow glow. The bedsheets on the mattress appear to have been pulled roughly off of one corner.
[Still in slow-motion] CAT, immediately after seeing the room, steps back, horrified and disgusted, and runs back down the length of hallway from which she came, until she disappears completely into the blackness.
END (Version One)
~Alternate Ending~
[. . . .]
CAT approaches the WHITE DOOR. At its threshold, CAT opens it.
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INT. BRIGHTLY-LIT, SEMI-DISHEVELED BEDROOM (ALL WINDOWS ARE CURTAINED OR HAVE BLACK CURTAINS BEHIND THE GLASS TO MAKE OUTSIDE COMPLETELY BLACK/CONCEALED)—NIGHT
Employ a slow-motion panning/tracking shot across a seemingly mundane young man's bedroom. Without overt emphasis, the shot reveals the same (non-mud-caked) HEAP OF LAUNDRY on the floor next to the bed. The same (BEDSIDE) LAMP, previously seen in the woods, illuminates the room in an orange-yellow glow. The bedsheets on the mattress appear to have been pulled roughly off of one corner.
Then, the mattress begins shaking violently.
CAT, in horror and disgust, rushes to the bed to grab the bedposts and stop it from shaking. The shot cuts right before her hands clutch the bedposts.
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EXT. WOODS—NIGHT
CAT, mid-crumbling to the ground (after the phone call with her abusive ex), slams her palms against the dirt. [The motion of CAT throwing her arms downward to grab the bedposts is synchronized with her downward collapse to the forest floor.]
Employ a slow zoom-out shot of CAT, breathing loudly, with her hands on the ground for a few seconds.
CUT TO/FADE TO:
EXT. FIELD NEAR WOODS—NIGHT
FRIEND #1 and FRIEND #2, in the background, are seen talking to each other, still sitting/smoking/drinking around the fire. A phone in the foreground lights up and vibrates quietly. FRIEND #1 notices the light of the phone, approaches it, picks it up, and puts it to her ear.
FRIEND #1
Cat?
ENDS (Version Two)
Short Stories
Four Deaths
Under the harsh fluorescent light of the kitchen, a cockroach scuttled across the mustard-colored floor tiles and, with a mouthful of cold noodles, I stood up from the table and crunched it under a stomp of my foot. Sprawled out on the floor across the room, Rusty, a fifteen-year-old golden retriever, lifted its head at the sound. The metal tag on its collar jingled with the upward movement. Rusty stared at me with grey eyes before resting his head back on the floor. I had acquired two things from my grandfather’s death over a year ago: his old house and his old dog. After living inside the sixty-year-old house for a full cycle of seasons now, I had grown so accustomed to killing roaches that I stopped gagging from it altogether. While picking up my foot to examine the aftermath, I swallowed the cold mush of chewed spaghetti. Flattened into a thin, brittle sheet, the roach’s body lay in a pool of its discharged, inner liquids that melded with the pale yellow color of the kitchen tiles. After using a dry paper towel to pick up the roach and wipe the floor, I balled the towel inside my fist. The roach’s body crunched against my palm. I tossed the paper wad into the trashcan then moved to the fridge to retrieve the container of remaining Parmesan.
* * *
Moonlight broke through the rushing layer of clouds above, and the residue of the earlier rains swamped everything from brick to root. It pooled inside the impressions and cracks in the uneven concrete driveway and waxed over the neighboring yards, each wet blade of grass reflecting back a splinter of faint orange light from the nearby streetlamps. Rainwater slithered down the creases in the tree bark, and trickled off the cold, coarse limbs in sudden spurts that collapsed together with each strong thrust of wind. Trees fought against the moving air. The shivering leaves rattled together and harmonized into a collective hush that, with the incoming gusts, broke through the warring drone of the insects screeching at the sky. Coldness seeped into dampness. I tightened my coat around me and lit a cigarette before sitting down.
Smoke twisted off the burning ember at the tip of the cigarette and drifted upward, spreading itself into a thin white transparency under the outside light. On the waterlogged wooden bench, I felt the wood’s rain-induced tenderness bend under my weight. The moisture of the wood soaked into the fabric of my pants. A white moth mingled with the fleeting smoke and kept tapping against the overhead light bulb in unorganized, flying swoops. Somewhere in the distance, the metal lung of a train whistle howled over the ambience of the night. I took a drag from the cigarette and exhaled.
In the backyard, a clattering of metal erupted from the neighboring chain-link fence. The frantic beating of metal on metal filled the air. I stood up from the bench and moved down the driveway, around the side of the house, and toward the noise. When I reached the fringes of the backyard, the metallic sound continued to clash against the night. Where the clamoring grew more palpable, vision failed—impeded by the darkness that pooled beneath the pines, where overhead branches suffocated the emanating skylight. Stepping into the grass and moving closer to the fence, the dimness of the nightfall began to peel away with sight. About twenty feet away from the shuddering fence, a twig cracked under my foot. The clattering stopped. I stood, staring at the fence. Silence fell. I brought the cigarette to my mouth. The glowing orange tip intensified with a drag of smoke then dimmed. After I exhaled, the sound of dead weight thudded against damp earth. At the foot of the metal fence, a single shadow distilled. The chain-links behind it chimed lightly with the released pressure. The figure at the base of the fence arched forward and shifted toward me. Its movements were unnatural and staggered—each advancement broken into short intervals of motion and stillness. With each lurch forward, its body pressed against the ground and dragged across the grass. I took one last drag from the cigarette before dropping it at my feet and smothering the ember beneath my shoe. Nearby, the broken, awkward movements of the figure continued to lug itself forward. Curiosity manifested and pulled me toward the staggering movements of the shadow.
Approaching the cat-sized silhouette, I cleared my throat to signal my presence. Instead of darting away at the sound, it held motionless where it stood. I slowed my pace with each progressing step. I refused to blink—forcing my eyelids open while sight adjusted on the figure. With only a couple feet between us, I stopped. The figure shed its shadowed obscurity and defined against the backdrop of night. It was a opossum. Its puny eyes, frightened and black and stiff, stared into me. The white fur of its face, speckled with clumps of dirt, glistened with dampness. Its opened jaws exposed the white, sharp enamels that crowded around its skinny, pink tongue. No growl or whine escaped the open mouth. It sat unmoving and silent. Only the front half of its body was raised off the ground. Both back legs were crushed. From waist to tail, the opossum’s internal architecture of bone and entrails had flattened into a thin, hairy sack of limbs—broken and sprawled out limp and defunct behind it. The hairless rat-like tail between the hind legs lay like a giant earthworm in the grass.
I thought about taking a picture of it, but when I reached for the phone in my pocket, the opossum flinched and shot its head to the side. Staring at me out of the corner of one eye, it began to turn away. Its front legs struggled to pull the dragging dead weight of its lower body. After three strides toward the far end of the backyard, its front legs gave out. It collapsed. I retrieved my phone and shone the light of the screen at it. Startled by the brightness, it forced its front legs back up. The flattened end of its body was torn at the sides. The remaining pulp of its entrails leaked from the ruptures in its skin. A single streak of the thick liquid traced its past movement across the yard. I stared in silence. After a while, the opossum dragged itself behind the toolshed in the back and disappeared into the darker corners of the night. I smoked another cigarette before going inside to sleep.
That night, I awoke to the sound of a cat fighting something in the backyard. The next morning I went and checked the area behind the toolshed, half-expecting to find the dead body of the opossum, but when I got there, there was nothing but a circle of dried blood.
* * *
One afternoon, the prevailing silence of the house shattered with a single low-pitched bark. Startled at the sound, I dropped my book into my lap. With the blinds of the nearby window pulled open, sunlight flooded into the room and coated the white walls in a soft yellow transparence. I closed my eyes and leaned back into the cushions of the recliner. Drawing in a lungful of air and holding it inside, I tried to relax my excited nerves and ease the pounding in my chest. Rusty barked again. I sighed. After picking up the book and setting it on the coffee table, I left the living room and headed toward the barking down the hall.
When I entered the laundry room, Rusty was lying halfway on the padded doggy bed and attempting to roll from his side onto his feet. He threw his head back, arched his spine, and thrashed his paws into the air while trying to shift his weight and turn over. After that, he stopped and barked again.
“Yeah yeah,” I said. “I hear you, Rust’. I’m coming.”
His tail shook at the sound of my voice. It beat against the padding of his bed in quick downward thumps. I walked across the room.
“What’s up, Rust’? You can’t get up?”
He opened his mouth and panted as I approached. His tongue dangled from his sideways head.
“Okay, buddy,” I said as I leaned over and shoved my arms beneath him. “Let’s get you up.”
He retracted his tongue and closed his mouth when he felt the familiar upward lift under his torso. I shifted him over and turned him onto his feet. He began to stand himself up, but when I let go he collapsed to the floor. The arthritis in his legs overpowered the physical effort. He stared at me through gray cataracts. I sighed and stuck my arms beneath him again. As I brought him to his feet, the lifting pressure on his abdomen forced a release of his bowels. Shit fell like strands of wet rope and a puddle of urine spread thin across the floor. He walked away with stiff limbs.
“Goddamnit!” I grabbed Rusty by the collar and led him to the back door. After putting him outside, I slammed it shut. I rubbed a hand against my forehead and sighed. “Not again.”
After mopping the laundry room floor, I unzipped the doggy bed and tossed the dampened outer cover into the washing machine to soak in bleach. Rusty barked outside the back door. Before letting him inside, I went into the kitchen and found a business card thumbtacked to the corkboard on the wall. I took out my phone and dialed the contact number printed at the bottom. After a few rings, a woman answered.
“Hi. Yes, I’d like to make an appointment.”
* * *
As I scooped wet dog food out of an aluminum can with a spoon and plopped it into Rusty’s bowl one morning, I heard a single loud knock pound from the living room. Rusty still lay asleep on the laundry room floor between the kitchen and the sound and, as I entered the living room, I noticed that the large window with the pulled-up blinds had fractured—large cracks spreading from a tiny red dot in the center—but hadn’t completely shattered. Moving closer to the window, I stuck my face inches away from the broken glass and stared at the epicenter of the impact. The thumbprint-sized smear of red pressed onto the glass began to seep downward and fill the channels of the large cracks.
When I went outside and walked around the house toward the exterior surface of the window, there was no one on the street—no cars speeding down the road in escape, no kids shooting paintball guns at houses, no neighbors retrieving newspapers, no morning joggers with headphones strolling, nothing. Only a cluster of various bird chirps echoed into the sunny air. Examining the fractured window from the outside, I ran a finger down one of the cracks. A sharp edge of the fissure caught my fingertip. I pulled my hand back and squeezed the finger in my other hand before pulling it back out and shaking it. A thin slit on the tip began to bleed. I stuck my finger in my mouth and looked back up to face the broken window. After I did, I stared at the red smear. I stopped. I pulled the finger out my mouth and pinched at the sides of skin around the cut to force out blood. Red surfaced and I pressed the fingertip against the window. Two smears—one bigger than the other—stared back at me. When I looked down, I found it. A hummingbird, wings still twitching against the concrete, lay at my feet. The top of its head had caved in and flattened on impact. Red liquid spread from its head and beak. Loose feathers scattered in the wind.
I went inside to grab a couple sheets of newspaper and a plastic bag. Using the paper as a barrier, I picked up the still-trembling bird and put it in the plastic bag before tying it closed. After, I threw it away in the outside trashcan.
* * *
Weeks later, I drove Rusty to the vet. When I pulled up to the office, I went around the car, lifted Rusty from the backseat, and lowered him onto the ground with his leash in my hand. Back on his feet, Rusty wagged his tail. Though there wasn’t one, I had laid old tattered towels across the backseat in case he had an accident during the trip. One of the ragged edges of cloth caught on a claw on Rusty’s back foot in the descent and was yanked to the concrete. I leaned down and detached the threads around his foot before leading him into the building.
Inside, rows of fluorescent lights buzzed across the ceiling and the teal floor tiles caught glimmers of light with a glossy reflection. The room smelled like rubbing alcohol, sanitized and sterile. Metal chairs lined along the walls of the waiting room. I walked up to the woman at the desk and gave her my name. After signing the consent forms and paying for the appointment, I turned to sit down and wait. After walking Rusty over to a seat in the corner, he fell to the ground and sat by my feet. Across the room, an old woman folded her hands on top of the cat carrier on her lap. The Siamese cat inside stared at me with blue eyes. After a few minutes, the vet entered the room, smiled, and walked over to me. I stood up and bent down to help Rusty onto his feet. After, I shook the vet’s hand before handing him Rusty’s leash.
“Would you like a moment?”
“What?” I said. “Oh. Sure.”
I didn’t say anything. I leaned over and scratched the top of Rusty’s head for a second. He wagged his tail and looked at me through grey cataracts. After, the vet brought Rusty through the white door behind the counter.
* * *
I kept finding golden hairs throughout the house for months—on the kitchen floor, in the bathtub, in the closet, on the sofa, even between the pages of my books. Each time I found bristles of shed hair, I cleaned the entire house. One day while vacuuming the living room, I noticed the dead body of a roach peeking slightly from under the sofa. I pulled the couch forward. Then, I froze. I turned off the vacuum. A tennis ball lay in the dust. Teeth marks dented the rubbery surface. I sat on the floor. I cried. I stroked the rough green fibers of the ball with a heavy palm.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
No One Would Come
Warren purchased all of the stuffed, dead animals from the local pawnshops two months ago. He needed the skins, the feathers, the furs, the beaks, the antlers, the teeth, and the scales. He wasn’t a taxidermist. He didn’t want the animal mounts for decoration.
At his desk, Warren worked a needle and thread through the dried furs that he had cut and stripped earlier from a deer’s head and a fox’s underside. Goose feathers, fish scales, and empty tubes of superglue lay around the room. Once he had removed the particular parts of an animal that he wanted, he would carry the remaining pieces into the room across the hall where he stockpiled all the other mounts. The air in that room was stagnant and sour with formaldehyde. The animal mounts completely stripped of skin exposed the underlying skeletons—mannequin-like frames made of galvanized wire and wood wool. Warren would go across the hall and stand in that room at night when he couldn’t sleep.
He finished stitching the two furs together, but before he could attach them to his larger work, the alarm on his phone went off. At eight o’clock every night, Warren went downstairs to check on his mother. He sighed, reached over, and turned off the alarm. In the kitchen downstairs, he filled a glass with water and picked up the plastic container that divided his mother’s various, colored pills into their prescribed days of the week. He opened the container and removed the day’s pills before going to her room. Warren opened the door to his mother reading in bed.
“Hey ma’,” he said, “how you feeling?” She put her book down and took off her glasses before placing them on the bedside table. In her room, the ceiling fan whirled in perfect rotations, and the pull switch chain that dangled from it tapped against the bulb in a steady rhythm. A crucifix hung slightly lopsided above her bed.
“You know you really don’t need to go through this trouble every night,” his mother said. “I’m fine. I was just about to get up and get them.” She looked at the digital clock on the nightstand next to her. “I have an alarm set too, hon. It just went off. You really don’t need to worry so much.”
“I know,” he said.
Warren walked over and handed his mother the pills and the glass of water. She inspected his hands. “The poor things,” she said. “You never give them a rest, do you? What on earth do you do to them all day?”
“I’m making a costume.”
“A costume?” she asked. “Goodness, is it already Halloween?”
“Almost,” Warren lied. It was January.
“I remember you used to love dressing up like that one thing back in the day,” she said. “Oh, you know the one. The one from that movie. What was it? You used to always watch that movie.” She stopped, closed her eyes, and bent her head down trying to think. Warren noticed a bald spot in the middle of her head where the white hair thinned enough to show the scalp. The semi-transparent skin on her arms wilted in creases. Warren stared at the blue veins.
“Come on now, take your medicine.”
She reopened her eyes. At the sight of her hands, she brought the pills to her mouth and took a sip of water before placing the glass on the nightstand. After, she turned and smiled at Warren.
“It was The Wolf Man,” he said.
“Say what, hon?”
“The movie. We used to watch it together.”
“How do you mean?” She had already forgotten. She grabbed her book from the bedside table, opened it back up, and pretended to read. Warren knew she was pretending. She couldn’t read without her glasses.
“Well, I guess I’ll leave you alone now,” Warren said. “Your glasses are next to you if you need.”
“Okay, hon.”
Warren began to walk out of the room.
“Oh wait,” she interjected. Warren turned around. “Could I get you to do me a little favor before you leave?”
“Of course,” he said. “What do you need?”
She squinted at the digital clock next to her. “I think it’s about to go off soon,” she turned from the clock to Warren and smiled. “Could you bring me my medicine for the night? Thanks, hon.”
* * *
By the next night, Warren had everything prepared. The duffel bag on his desk bulged at its sides with the enfolded mass of deer, bear, and fox furs, goose wings, fish scales, antlers, and artificial beaks stuffed and zipped inside. The duck call rested patiently in his pocket. Warren sat on his bed and waited for the alarm to go off on his phone. He picked at the scabs on his hands and gnawed at the tips of his thumbs. He stared at the bag on the desk. At eight o’clock, the alarm sounded and he gave his mother her pills before leaving the house. Warren carried the duffel bag by the straps as he walked the two blocks from his mother’s house in Mid-City to the abandoned Mercy Hospital. As expected, the walk took about three minutes, and as he neared the hospital, he shot glances back and forth down the street looking for incoming headlights. A chain-link fence framed the abandoned structure and stopped the overgrown weeds from bursting out of the courtyard and spilling onto the bordering sidewalk. Beneath the limbs of two oak trees, Warren avoided direct contact with the yellow light of the streetlamps as he approached the one loosely chained gate in the surrounding fence. Metal clamored against metal as Warren slipped underneath the chains and pulled the duffel bag behind him onto the restricted grounds.
Warren called the hospital by its former name. That was the name he remembered from his childhood. It was abandoned after Katrina and entertained the curiosities of teenagers, squatters, and graffiti artists for almost ten years now. Nearly all of the windows were punched-out. The fragments of glass left inside the crumbling window frames reflected yellow with the nearby light of the streetlamps. The building smiled at Warren. Six-stories of shattered yellow teeth welcomed him. He moved along the walls, through the overgrown weeds, and up the drop-off ramp by the ER entrance. Some time ago, someone shattered the two windows on the locked double doors and left chairs on both sides to provide an easy entrance into the building. The duffel bag soared through the window and hit the inside floor. The sound echoed through the hollow rooms of the concrete structure as Warren stepped onto the chair and maneuvered through the entrance.
The click of a flashlight exposed the hospital’s concrete entrails. Inside, the water-warped ceiling panels wilted downward. Severed wires and wads of insulation hung through the holes above. Warren felt the new stiffness in the air, stale and unventilated, but he had grown accustomed to the heaviness and the dust and the mold. Empty spray-paint cans, syringes, glass shards, and a single child’s shoe littered the immediate entrance of the mud-caked first floor. Directly through the entry stretched the main hallway where a mass of chairs and tables had been piled on top of each other and shoved to one side. A white Styrofoam box labeled with “Human Organ for Transplant” was nailed to a wall. The exit sign above Warren’s head dangled by a single thread of wire and tilted on its side. Warren felt the drooped severed wires from the ceiling stroke his shoulders as me moved down the side of the hallway toward the staircase.
He advanced toward the Intensive Care Unit located on the fifth floor. There, he would change and wait. Through large cracks in the concrete, Warren saw the underlying metal infrastructure of the staircase. The graffiti lining the walls grew thicker after the second floor. Spray-painted in long, thin letters among the pentagrams and cartoon figures read things like “GO HOME KIDS” and “JOHNNY’S IN THE BASEMENT.” Warren passed the graffiti without much notice. He had seen them on multiple occasions. His rushing feet quickened as he proceeded toward the fifth floor.
The metal door to the ICU met Warren’s palm as he forced it open. Inside, he dropped his duffel bag on a nearby table. He went and retrieved the cinder-block that sat behind a desk down the hall. He carried it back to the door of the stairwell and propped it in the doorway to keep it from closing. He needed to hear the rest of the building as clearly as possible. He unzipped the duffel bag and put on the costume. Around the corner from the stairwell, Warren kept his flashlight off and stood against the wall. Sweating beneath the heavy layers of fur and bony appendages, he ran it all through his head. Waiting for the people to show up. Their climbing to the sixth floor. He would wait until he was sure they had exited the staircase and were standing on the roof above him. Shifting back into the stairway, he’d climb the last flight. The duck call would be in his mouth beneath the mask—antlers and fur and rows of teeth protruding. He would stop in the doorframe between the roof and the stairs. He would blow the duck call. He would smile under his mask. The people on the roof would jump at the sound, spin around, drink in the sight of him, and scream. Giving them a fraction of a second’s glance, he would dart back down the stairway to hide on the fifth floor. He would listen. He fetishized it—forcing willpower against aftershock. The people would realize their only exit was to go back down the stairway, the same exit he took. Warren clenched his teeth and smiled to himself. He gripped the duck call tighter in his hand and exhaled softly to steady his breath. Standing. Motionless. Blood pulsing through ears. He waited.
Five stories high, a sheet of wind passed through the broken windows and resonated against the hollowness and concrete; the building exhaled. Somewhere, a dog barked and a car horn blasted into the night. A cop car passed by silently with the lights on, and for a brief moment, red and blue strobes beat against the outside walls of the building. Restlessness crept into Warren’s muscles. He sighed. He walked around the ICU. Two yellow-cushioned benches were pushed together at some point to make a bed for a squatter. Across from the benches, a pile of aluminum cans, tattered clothes, paper bags, and beer bottles were heaped in a corner. No one would come. Warren kicked a bottle harshly. It ricocheted off the floor and shattered against the wall. Under the costume, his clothes stuck to his skin and a bead of sweat slivered down his cheek beneath the mask. He walked and clenched his jaws. Around a bend of hallway, he stopped. An ambiguous black shape lay on the floor. Approaching it, the surrounding air soured. The smell tore down Warren’s nostrils and his throat tightened. In the darkness, the figure remained formless and undefined. Warren retrieved his flashlight and clicked it.
Light flooded the hallway and the figure defined with an adjustment of sight. A dead dog, half-decomposed, lay on its side. The eye sockets were hollow. A black discharge had dribbled out the sockets and dried in a small circle around its head. Large strips of its skin and fur were peeled back and left barely clinging to the muscles underneath. Bite marks plagued the animal’s body and the absent chunks of flesh exposed its ribcage. Warren pressed his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth. His intestines compressed and his body bent forward. He dry heaved. He forced a hand over his mouth and caught his mask in-between. The bristles of the mask pressed into his lips and stuck into his mouth. He felt the hairs against his teeth. He dry heaved again. Water distorted vision. The ground-off stub of the dog’s nose received notice from a single buzzing fly. One leg was completely torn away and a sharp edge of the remaining femur jutted from its hip. A deep cavity under its ribcage leaked out a leftover tangle of intestine on the floor. The tattered tract perforated with teeth marks squirmed against the concrete—inflating and deflating, bloated with writhing maggots. Warren looked through the cavity and saw the dog’s infrastructure of bone—the real insides of the thing. His stomach wrenched at the sight. Back down the hall, he found the duffel bag and took off his costume.
* * *
That night when Warren returned to his mother’s, he went directly into her room and sat on the bed next to her. He read aloud to her for hours. She smiled and listened to him until she eventually succumbed to sleep. After she did, Warren turned off the lamp on the bedside table and for a while, he sat there—silent and content in the darkness— just listening to her breathe.