Naked Lunch

Lower East Side, Manhattan, NYC

Two Winters Past

EXT. DEPOSIT. NIGHT.


Rain is growing heavier. 

We see MEHEMET and a handful of troops lit in the harsh red glow of a road flare.

MEHEMET lifts a horn to his lips and blows a hellish note.

From the darkness comes the shudder of booted feet pounding lockstep. Buckles jingle, shields are smashed, and the chanting begins again. The moonlight is faint, and we see only shadows moving, drawing close until the front ranks come into the light of the flare.

Damascansn are armed with irregular weapons, spears, swords, axes, metal-headed clubs. Front rows maintain a shield wall.

Ranks break as teams come through with aluminum ladders. Ladder teams take position behind the shield wall.

TARTELL: Fire!

ARROWS fall harmlessly on the shield wall as the men below it slowly advance to the walls of Deposit.

Cavalry open fire with rifles from horseback, driving the BARABAS to cover behind the cars.

Arrows feather the shield wall with little effect. Damascans reach the Deposit wall.

Barabas hurl down rocks that are stopped by raised shields.

SOUND EFFECT: WILHELM SCREAM.

Damascan warrior is struck by a rock and falls.  

Another Tortoise forms from the Damascan ranks on the left flank, and then on the right.

LOGAN: (To men in the yard) Get more rocks up here!

Barabas pass large rocks and broken pavement up the ladders to be thrown down by Barabas on the wall.

Catwalks strain.

Ladders crack.

The structure holds.

TARTELL: Crack that shell!

Three Damascan squads have reached the wall, and at least fifty men are sheltered at the base of the Deposit wall.

TARTELL: What are they doing?

Damascans lay three racks of ladders and retreat.

At a safe distance, soldiers cast aside their shields and run.

CLOSEUP: Realization dawns on LOGAN’s face.

LOGAN: Explosives!

A few men have luck enough to jump. LOGAN is half way down the ladder when the bomb goes off.

Blast obliterates all sound but a persistent ringing. The blast is over before we realize, but the next few moments happen in slow motion.

Barabas are scrambling about, screaming, some badly injured. For a moment, camera focuses on a Barabas warrior with one arm blown away. He stares in horror at the wound.

INTERCUT with LOGAN, on the ground, looking about confused at the chaos.

LOGAN  regains his composure.

LOGAN: Get up! Get up! God damn it! Get ladders on those walls! Someone get me a sword!

A weapon handed to LOGAN is crafted from the blade of a scythe. Several other soldiers are armed with these ad hoc weapons.

A few ladders are already on hand. They are slammed against the damaged section of wall and Barabas scramble up. LOGAN climbs a ladder.

LOGAN squints against the rain, which has started coming down hard.

LOGAN: Get some spears up here! The sharp ones!

Continued Monday

Two Winters Past

INT. GAS STATION.LATE AFTERNOON.

MOLAY is frying slices of Spam on the grill. VALENTINE is eating. MOLAY offers CHLOE ISIS a slice.

CHLOE ISIS takes it.

CHLOE ISIS: I didn’t eat meat. Not before.

VALENTINE: We’ve got no other food. You need to eat something.

CHLOE ISIS: I’I still try to avoid when I can. It’s less often than I’d like.

VALENTINE: The Lembeks were growing corn?

CHLOE ISIS: Yeah, corn, but they also had pigs, and pigs eat a lot of corn.

VALENTINE: I can’t believe they had those fields. How did they do that with no tractors?

CHLOE ISIS: Shit, they probably had the old plows still in the barns. Country people don’t throw shit away. Harness it to a horse or a cow and whip the shit out of it. Lembeks ain’t that big a loss to the world either.

MOLAY: I think I saw a few packages of salted nuts over in the store.

CHLOE ISIS stares at the ground with her arms crossed.

CHLOE ISIS: That’s worth a look.

CHLOE ISIS exits without looking at either.

MOLAY: You met Chloe only yesterday?

VALENTINE: This guy named Popper found me out in the woods, and then those Cooleys came trying to kill him. They were driving those cannibals into the farm house.

MOLAY: My friend says he witnessed the same thing, but no one wants to believe him.

VALENTINE: Good thing you know how to stop all this.

MOLAY: Hey man, I know you don’t believe me, but I’m telling you the truth. The Old Ones, the eldritch things, they’re real. Look around, we’ve got a world overrun with zombies. What turned off the electricity?

VALENTINE: I don’t give a shit.

MOLAY: Then why are you out here? You’ve been running around the woods for days with no protection and an empty rifle.

VALENTINE: I’ve done what I had to do to survive. Don’t you call me soft.

MOLAY: I didn’t call you soft...

OS CHLOE ISIS screams. VALENTINE draws his machete.

MOLAY puts his hand on his sword.

CHLOE ISIS backs into the kitchen with her hands raised.

Three TRIANGLES enter pointing shotguns. They wear biker leather and have long beards. They are TIP, RANGO, and DUKE.

TIP: Looks like quite the little picnic. Got anything for me?

RANGO and DUKE laugh.

RANGO: No fucking shit! Isn’t that Blythe’s buddy?

DUKE: Ha! The sissy with the sword!

MOLAY: Put the shotguns down and I’ll show you a sissy.

TIP: Like that, wouldn’t you?

RANGO: Well fuck, Tip, maybe he can tell us where Drake’s bike went to.

TIP: I’m going to stomp his fucking head in, that’s what I’m going to do.

TIP slugs MOLAY in the jaw, knocking him down.

CHLOE ISIS screams. DUKE points a shotgun in VALENTINE’s face.

VALENTINE: Leave us alone!

DUKE: Or what? What are you going to do? Sword-boy is on the ground, and you just got that little chopper that ain’t even getting through my jacket. Not with you swinging at least!

VALENTINE: I killed Remmy Cooley with this machete. You know him? I killed his brother too. Hacked them both to pieces.

TIP: Bull shit. Little fucker ain’t getting close to Remmy Cooley. That redneck is mean!

MOLAY: It’s true. Cooleys been attacked. Zombies knocked down their wall.

VALENTINE: Those Cooleys will want me.

MOLAY: You’ll have to take us.

Faster than anyone can process, MOLAY leaps on the counter, draws his sword, jumps the grill and plunges the blade into DUKE’s stomach.

TIP tries to shoot, but MOLAY turns the corpse to take the fire and then shoves Duke into TIP.

MOLAY: Run! Back door!

Continued tomorrow

Two Winters Past

INT. SPRAGUE’S OFFICE. EVENING.

Office is lit by half a dozen candles arranged around the room. SPRAGUE sits at his desk reading a book. BLYTHE enters.

SPRAGUE: Look at this, John. I don’t see you for months, and now you’re in my office three times in a day.

BLYTHE: Girl let you look at her?

SPRAGUE: (Speaking low) She’s sleeping. Talk quietly.

BLYTHE: What did you find?

CLOSEUP: SPRAGUE takes a deep breath.

SPRAGUE: I was busy this winter, John. You’ve been out a while now. I’ve been working.

BLYTHE: What about the girl, Sprague?

SPRAGUE takes a binder from his desk and opens it in front of BLYTHE.

INSERT: Binder. Photographs of corpses on metal tables.

SPRAGUE: All this equipment came from Whitney Point High School. Metal tables. Microscopes, dissecting equipment. Turner found all this for me and brought it back, do you believe it? He wanted answers. He wanted to save the men is what he wanted most, but you can’t. There is no coming back from this.

BLYTHE: Is that Begley?

SPRAGUE: We got surprised around the beginning winter. Begley was out with a squad that got stuck in Glenn Aubrey. Rippers kept them trapped in a house for two days, and Begley got bit pretty bad when they came out.

SPRAGUE flips through the pages. There are photos of more bodies. Some have been dissected.

SPRAGUE: Turner got me more subjects to work with. Must have brought me 20 dead rippers in the next week. The place stank worse than it normally does!

BLYTHE: Begley?

SPRAGUE: There is no coming back. Not after the worm gets into the brain.

BLYTHE: Worm?

SPRAGUE: The worm is what turns the rippers. It passes in the bite. Ripper saliva is full of eggs. They are ugly things.

SPRAGE flips forward a stack of photos to display a worm.

CONTINUITY ERROR: The pincers on this worm are significantly larger than the worm that was pulled from VIC in Episode 3.

SPRAGUE: The worms crawl around in the body until one reaches the brain stem.

SPRAGUE: The worm goes up into the base of the brain and chews a big hole. Those bristles on the side were legs that fan out into the brain. I believe that is how they control the body. Begley went about two and a half weeks until there was no more man. The last few hours were a lot of pain, but he would not let me put him down. He was so brave.

BLYTHE: Is the girl infected?

SPRAGUE hesitates.

SPRAGUE: One small bite through the skin can leave thousands of eggs in a wound, and when I tested Begley’s blood I found live worms every time. One or two in each sample, but they were there. It was only by chance I even noticed, but I’d happen to draw a sample before he started having serious pain and dementia. I was flustered, and I’d forgotten, so I drew his blood again. I had a two hour window where every worm I’d seen before was alive, and after every worm I saw was dead.

BLYTHE: And Kay?

SPRAGUE: I have never seen so many worms at one time as I did in that girl.

BLYTHE is shocked. He sits back in his chair.

BLYTHE: I, uh… I… I had no idea about Spider. She hid the bite from me. She let me fuck her only one time, and she still had her shirt on, and I had no idea...

SPRAGUE: Spider was a nice girl. I’m sorry you saw that.

BLYTHE: She went crazy, chewed up a Triangle kid. I was so deluded I let it happen. I just watched her eating until he was dead.

SPRAGUE: That wasn’t her, John, it was the worm. As far as I can tell, as soon as one worm gets into the brain and starts chewing, all of the other worms die, like RIGHT AWAY.

BLYTHE: Fuck me…

SPRAGUE: John, I’ve been looking at her blood for more than an hour now, and I haven’t seen one live worm. I’ve never seen this in a person who is still up and walking around on their own.

BLYTHE: So what do we do, do we need to kill her?

SPRAGUE: We need to watch! I need to test more of her blood. Did she complain of any pain? John, this is a wonderful thing you’ve done, if I can find out how her body is killing worms, a vaccine might be possible!

BLYTHE: By keeping her locked up here.

SPRAGUE: You should talk to her. Convince her. She trusts you.

Continued tomorrow

Two Winters Past

EXT. DEPOSIT. NIGHT.

LOGAN and TARTELL are standing over the gate with soldiers arrayed on the walls and in the yard behind. Torches illuminate the scene. In the distance, men are chanting.

LOGAN: Our enemy has arrived.

TARTELL: Archers at the ready!

Chanting grows louder to a steady beat of pounding feet. Individual songs break out. While nothing but the occasional shifting shadow can be seen beyond the circles of torchlight, the sound-scape is vast.

LOGAN: We are going to fight that with garden tools.

BARABAS are growing nervous.

TARTELL: (Whispers) We have to yield.

Still out of sight, a horn is blown, and the Damascans come to an immediate halt, coming quiet enough to hear the horse hooves on pavement.

TARTELL: We cannot beat that!

LOGAN: Is your faith that weak?

LOGAN shouts to the walls.

LOGAN: Hold fast! Archers ready! Our enemy approaches us!

The fear from the wall has spread into the yard.

The sound of the horses fan out on the sides and come to rest as well.

LOGAN and TARTELL exchange looks.

With a hiss, a flare comes to life, bathing MEHEMET in a demonic red light atop his horse. The horse beside him is frightened by the flare and sidesteps to avoid it.

Behind MEHEMET is the hint of a monumental force.

LOGAN walks along the catwalk, yelling to the assembled Barabas.

LOGAN: They think they can take what we built and we will bend the knee? They think we will  renounce our very reason we are here? The very reason we are alive today!

BARABAS cheer.

LOGAN: I’d rather be broken in the yard than ask a prayer of Allah! Are you with me?

BARABAS cheer.

LOGAN: Every man they kill will see ten slain in vengeance until those savages are running with their tails between their legs! Are you with me?

BARABAS cheer.

A light rain has started to fall.

Continued tomorrow

Emerald Ghost

Bushwick, Brooklyn

Happy Halloween Season!

First Park, Manhattan, NYC