Strange Days Page #25

CUT TO:

EXT. STREET - NIGHT

Mace finds herself back in the millennium madness, among

the street crowd who don't even notice her. She holsters

the gun and moves away from possible pursuit. The sky

explodes with purple light as huge fireworks go off

overhead. A crack like thunder follows. Then more

flashes.

The countdown to midnight has begun. The party is

building to a crescendo. It seems to have a surreal,

nightmarish quality. She passes a MIME in a clock suit,

who keeps adjusting the hands closer to midnight.

CUT TO:

INT. SUITE 2203

As Lenny enters the suite. It is very quiet. Dark.

Lenny's heart is pounding. He moves through the luxurious

suite, gun in the low-ready position.

Lenny can barely breathe from the tension. He notices

that one balcony door is open. The roar of the crowd

comes in like the sound of surf from far below. Fireworks

explode across the sky, and the cheers sound like distant

screams of slaughter.

His feet crunch on broken glass... a shattered champagne

bottle. A lamp is knocked over. He reaches the door to

the bedroom and looks in. The room is empty. The bed is

unmade, the bedspread and sheet pulled off. This isn't

right. None of this is right.

CUT TO:

EXT. STREET PARTY/HOTEL

Mace is scanning warily as she circles the hotel, looking

for a way back in. She turns and sees ENGELMAN in the

crowd, not twenty feet from her. He is looking right at

her. Not recognizing her for a moment. Then... he

realizes who she is.

He starts toward her and Mace pushes people out of the

way, breaking into a run. Engelman charges after her,

pulling out his rover to call Spreg.

CUT TO:

INT. PENTHOUSE/BONAVENTURE

Lenny looks back at the living room. Suddenly he notices

something on the coffee table. It is an envelope, with

NERO hand-printed on it. He is drawn to it, hypnotically.

He opens it...

... and with a nightmarish sense of destiny a SQUID TAPE

falls out into his hand.

CUT TO:

EXT. STREET - NIGHT

Now both Spreg and Engelman are stalking Mace through the

crowd. Spreg catches a glimpse of her running and he

charges after her, like a bull, with his gun drawn. He

hammers through anybody that gets in his way.

Mace kicks off her high heels and goes flat out, an Indian

runner.

Sprinting through the crowd, she sees an apparition ahead

of her... a guy wearing Death's Head make-up and a black

shroud, carrying a huge cardboard scythe in one hand and a

doll (New Year's Baby) in the other. Death watches her

pass.

CUT TO:

INT. PENTHOUSE/BONAVENTURE

LENNY, moving as if he's in a trance, puts the trodes on

his head. TIGHT ON THE PLAY BUTTON as his finger punches

down.

IN POV we approach room 2203. It is the familiar

monochromatic vision of the killer. Our hands open the

door quietly with a keycard. We enter the suite.

Some of the lights are on. We see Faith out on the

balcony. Watching the sea of madness below. She comes

back in, carrying an empty champagne glass. She grabs a

bottle off an end-table and up-ends it. Empty. She hurls

it across the room, and it shatters against the wall.

We approach her, standing with her back to us. Closer.

Only a few feet now. She whips around, startled. Gasping

loudly. But then... she recognizes the wearer.

FAITH:

Oh. I didn't hear you come in.

THE RECORDING STOPS, in a blast of static. Lenny jerks at

the discontinuity in the input, he is so keyed up.

THE RECORDING RESTARTS: A new image resolves out of

static. Faith is pushed roughly down on the bed. We

climb onto the bed, straddling her, and she gasps. We

turn her onto her back.

She has been blindfolded. The Wearer goes SSSHHH. A

warning. Like the hiss of a snake. Our hands seize her

wrists and handcuff them one by one to the iron frame at

the head of the bed.

The hands go out of sight and then reappear holding a set

of trodes. They are placed on her head... the spidery

gecko-hand device almost disappearing in her black hair.

LENNY'S guts have turned to water. He is shaking his head

in horror...

LENNY:

No, no, no...

IN POV we see one of our hands come up holding the yellow

plastic razor knife. The blade clicks out to its full

length.

Our hands reach down and slowly slit her dress open,

starting between her breasts and going down out of sight.

She groans, squirming away from the cold knife. The

killer's hands open the material, exposing her white body,

which in his peculiar vision is pure ivory. The knife

deftly cuts off her panties.

We unbuckle our pants and reach for her, grasping her

hips, pulling her to us.

ON LENNY, gagging. Overcome by revulsion and horror,

mixing obscenely with the pleasure flooding into him from

the tape.

BACK TO POV as we pull our belt out of the belt loops of

our pants and wrap it around Faith's neck. Faith begins

to pant in tiny rapid breaths. We tighten the belt

slowly.

LENNY tears the trodes from his head. He clutches his

stomach, gasping for breath. Carrying the playback deck,

he staggers into the bedroom... to the bed. He stares

wildly around the room.

One whole wall of the bedroom is mirrored. In the mirror

he spots a shape, on the floor beyond the bed. It is

covered in the bed sheet, but it is clearly a human form,

propped up against the wall on the far side of the night

stand. He missed it in his earlier look from the bedroom

door.

Lenny moves around the bed and reaches down to the foot of

the figure, grasping the edge of the sheet with a

trembling hand. With horrified apprehension he pulls on

the sheet.

It reveals the head and upper body of... Tran Vo.

The last thing he expected. Lenny leans close and sees

that Tran is breathing shallowly, but his eyes are vacant.

He looks like Tick did.

Lenny sits on the bed and puts the trodes back on. The

fireworks and screaming outside sound like some

nightmarish war, like the sound of the world coming to an

end. But all Lenny cares about is what's on the tape. He

hits PLAY.

THE POV CONTINUES where it left off. Faith's body lurches

with the Wearer's thrusts. His hand tightens the belt.

Lenny feels the climax building.

Faith's body shakes as the killer comes... she cries out

herself, in pain... or is it? The killers hand releases

the belt. We see Faith gasping for breath and moaning.

Suddenly the POV whips sideways to the mirrored closet

doors along one wall. In the mirror is a reflection of

the bed and on it Faith. And on her...

... MAX.

Pants down, her legs pulled up around him. They are both

gasping for breath, spent, following their shattering

orgasms. He runs his hands over her sweat-slick belly.

LENNY is stunned beyond his power to imagine. He does not

have the strength or the will to stop the tape.

IN POV Max's hands remove her blindfold. She looks right

at us, still gasping with the aftershocks of her pleasure.

Max's hands undo the handcuffs, freeing her. She reaches

for us, her eyes glittering with sated lust. We slump

forward onto her, and her face fills the POV.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes