Two Winters Past

INT. KITCHEN. EVENING.

Low angle of table legs and MIRANDA’s feet. Reveal KAY laying on dirty linoleum. She tries to stand up, but she is bound. 

KAY screams and wails for an extended time. 

MIRANDA does not respond until after KAY is left gasping, hands tied behind her back.

MIRANDA: There ain’t no one around that can hear you. 

KAY wails again until she is coughing and choking.

MIRANDA: Most of what you saw downstairs was already done when it got here. Only a few were people we were suspicious of. We were only wrong about one of them. Ain’t wrong about this one though.

Sound of knives being sharpened. Do not show MIRANDA’s upper half. Blood drips from the table.

MIRANDA: This one is so far gone he was about to burst any day. We’re lucky I got lose when I did.

MIRANDA lifts KAY to her feet. 

Reveal VIC for the first time, face down on the kitchen table. His clothes have all been removed. Most of his blood has been cleaned up. 

KAY whimpers and cries.

MIRANDA: On, he ain’t gonna hurt you.

Closeup of VIC’s wound. The skin has been pulled back, and is flappy. MIRANDA props KAY against a cabinet and makes her stand.

MIRANDA: I’ve got to break open the skull before I show you anything.

MIRANDA picks up the hatchet. 

KAY screams.

MIRANDA hits the head behind the ear and then the crown. One more chop severs the head from the body. 

KAY collapses, coughing and whimpering. 

MIRANDA digs in like a melon, wrenching free a plate of bone and hair, tossing it by KAY’s feet. 

This gives KAY the strength to scream more. MIRANDA separates the bloody brain tissue with her fingers, biting her tongue in satisfaction as she works. 

KAY quiets. 

MIRANDA cuts at the brain to free a black object.

MIRANDA: This is what makes a man into a monster.

INSERT: Pinched between MIRANDA’s fingers is a writhing black bug with a fat head and sharp brown pincers. The bug once had many legs, but they have been broken off.

MIRANDA: When this guy gets inside you, he don’t come out while you are alive.

MIRANDA drops the bug and smashes it with her heel.

MIRANDA: Maybe in the old world, maybe we could have avoided all this, maybe. My son, he’s so smart, even though he didn’t do too good in school. He had those books and he learned. It took practice.

MIRANDA pulls KAY up by her hair.

MIRANDA: I have to cut your head open too.

KAY gasps, but has no more tears.

MIRANDA: Eggs are in the saliva, and possibly in the blood. Who knows... where else. The parasite passes through contact. If a bug this big was growing in that thug, it’s probably growing in you.

MIRANDA pulls VIC off the table. The surface is slick with his blood.

KAY is too weak to fight back until MIRANDA lifts her onto the table and holds her down. 

MIRANDA reaches for the hatchet and KAY pulls free, slumping off the table and sliding for the cover of the washroom. 

MIRANDA catches her.

MIRANDA: DO you want to ruin my floor? Get on the linoleum!

MIRANDA drags KAY by her feet, but the rope has come untied around her ankles, and KAY kicks free. 

MIRANDA chops with the hatchet, missing KAY’s foot and cutting up the plastic floor.

MIRANDA: Look what you did!

KAY flees. MIRANDA follows into the front room, where the cats lounge, unbothered.

KAY throws herself against the front door and crumples, crying.

MIRANDA: You got blood everywhere! You made a mess of my home and you scared the kitties!You wanted to stay here? You wanted to eat my food You probably don’t even like kitties, do you?

MIRANDA grabs KAY by the hair and drags her back to the kitchen. 

KAY’s fight is gone. 

MIRANDA pushes KAY into the pantry and locks the door with a key.