Ghost Ship Page #17

INT. CHIMERA - CARGO COMPARTMENT - LATER - NIGHT

Epps shines her light as she passes through, coming to the

cargo hold. She crosses in the darkness, her light catching

the tarnished glint of the gold. She comes up to it, stopping

there, looking on at it, a perfectly symmetrical fortune.

She looks around for a place to sit. She drags a palette to

the bulkhead, settling in to face the rest of the compartment.

She puts her shotgun down beside her and takes out her thermos

to pour herself a cup of coffee.

INT. CHIMERA - CARGO COMPARTMENT - LATER - NIGHT

Epps has dozed off when a CLATTERING ECHOES DISTANTLY

somewhere in the ship. Epps wakes. It is silent, as she holds

there, not sure she heard anything, when a DISTANT BOOMING

SOUNDS. She reaches out for the shotgun, intently listening.

As Epps holds there, another deep BOOMING sounds distantly

somewhere. Epps turns, her blood running cold.

INT. CHIMERA - CARGO COMPARTMENT - MOMENTS LATER - NIGHT

Epps moves along in the darkness when the DISTANT BOOMING

CAN BE HEARD BRIEFLY AGAIN. She stops, holding there, in the

silence.

INT. CHIMERA - SHAFT ALLEY - MOMENTS LATER - NIGHT

Epps jumps down into the shaft alley where the ship's massive

propeller shaft hangs suspended above her. Epps moves along.

Finally she comes out into...

INT. CHIMERA - ENGINE ROOM - CONTINUOUS - NIGHT

Where the propeller shaft extends into a large turbine. She

continues on, past huge rusting diesel burners, disappearing

into the darkness above her, when ANOTHER BOOM SOUNDS.

She turns, shinning her light back from where she came.

Nothing moves. Not a sound, but for her breathing and maybe

her heart pounding in her chest. ANOTHER BOOM SOUNDS, again

echoing distantly in the silence. She shines her light through

the line of burners. Nothing moves.

Epps moves quietly between the burners. She comes to a massive

watertight door at the bulkhead. She steps through, finding

herself standing between a row of huge oil storage tanks.

THE BOOMING SOUNDS AGAIN, closer, as suddenly stopping.

She moves on, cautiously walking between the tanks, holding

her light out before her. She comes to the end of the

compartment and another bulkhead. The BOOMING SOUNDS, still

closer. She turns the light into the recesses, showing rusting

machinery and a stack of oil drums.

She approaches, holding the shotgun up. As she nears, the

BOOMING SOUNDS AGAIN. She stops. It is coming from here.

She tenses, raising the shotgun, holding the light as steady

as she can manage. The BOOMING SOUNDS YET AGAIN. It is

metallic and staccato.

She stops in the corner beside an oil drum. Several drums

have toppled and lie scattered in a pile when a draft stirs

her hair. She shines her light up to see that she stands at

the bottom of a giant hatchway shaft rising all the way

through the ship to the top deck and an echoey breeze that

betrays a throughway to the outside.

The BOOMING SOUNDS AGAIN, this time coming from the pile of

oil drums. She steps closer, raising the shotgun, ready to

fire. A beat as she summons her courage, then reaches out to

push a drum with her foot, when A BLUR EXPLODES OUT AT HER.

She fires the shotgun and a spray of buckshot glances off

the steel bulkhead in a shower of sparks, a flurry of frenetic

flapping whizzing by her head as she looks up to see a large

albatross flying back up the hatchway shaft toward the top

of the ship and freedom.

MURPHY:

Murphy to Epps.

She settles back, exhausted.

MURPHY:

Murphy to Epps.

EPPS:

(taking her radio)

Epps.

MURPHY:

You just shoot at something?

EPPS:

Yeah. Just a bird. Just a stupid

bird.

She wipes her brow on her sleeve, holding there a moment,

when she smells something really awful.

She steps forward, following the smell, pushing aside the

toppled oil drums to see an unidentifiable form in the beam

of her flashlight. She steps still closer, training her light

on the form to see that it is a human torso. A large gash

runs up its middle and the clothing has been torn by

scavenging birds.

She hesitates, then steps still closer when she steps on

something. She starts, then shines the light on the deck in

front of her where the body's decaying head looks back with

wide, unseeing eyes.

It takes everything she has just to hold there. She shines

her light back to the headless torso.

She shines her light beyond that, and up, to reveal a bent

steam pipe hanging out over the deck, stained with dried

blood, a pair of legs dangling from the pipe when, just behind

her, a booted foot comes into frame, lightly touching her.

She spins around to see another body above her. Except this

one hangs in one piece, suspended from another bent steam

pipe. It has been impaled length-wise on the pipe from rectum

to mouth.

One of its arms has rotted off and lies on the deck below

it. A few feet away, a third body hangs impaled from another

bent pipe.

INT. CHIMERA - ENGINE ROOM - LATER - NIGHT

A lantern illuminates the impaled bodies and their various

rotting parts.

GREER (O.S.)

Ho-ly sh*t.

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