NOVEL NEXT Chapter 8: Flight
Chapter 8: Flight
OFFICE, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (EVENING)
Bruce (shouldering his bag) crosses the office and peeks through the blinds.
BRUCE: Ready?
VALERIE: We only just got here.
BRUCE: I know you said you can’t shoot.
VALERIE: I run.
BRUCE: But you can pull a trigger.
VALERIE: No promises.
BRUCE: I don’t see any way around it. My truck’s down there. You’re gonna lie flat in the bed.
Valerie gives a look.
BRUCE: Or would you rather drive?
Valerie sips water.
OFFICE, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Bruce slots a new magazine and thrusts the rifle into Valerie’s hands.
BRUCE: (pointing) Here’s the safety. Here’s the trigger. Only point it at what you intend to kill. Keep the stock hard to your shoulder else you’ll break your collarbone. It kicks.
VALERIE: I don’t want--
BRUCE: To live?
Bruce throws several switches at the control panel near the CRTs. The camera feeds bloom alien-green while the aperture adjusts. Despite the light it’s impossible to discern what the soldiers are shooting at. There’s too much movement.
He tosses a bright orange slicker at Valerie (Dave’s) and takes one for himself, turning it inside out (black) and throwing it on over Soldier #1’s vest. He pockets a set of keys.
He takes the gun back and opens the window. Frigid air rushes in, disturbing the blinds, laden with sleet and cutting like razors.
BRUCE: Thick ledges but slick. Don’t drop until you’re confident you won’t break something.
Bruce throws his bag into the bed of his truck two stories down and (rifle slung over his shoulder) ducks through the window.
GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
The entire compound is lit up like day beneath an oppressive blackness, yet visually, beyond the heavy sleet, all is strangely still.
Invisible gunfire fills the air.
OFFICE, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
A pounding lights up the office door. The chair wedged under the handle rattles. The door jam starts to give in a series of shudders.
Valerie is halfway into the inside-out slicker when the door splits open. She glimpses a LARGE BLACK FIGURE on the other side.
GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Bruce climbs down the building, dropping the last several feet and rolling. He sets the rifle inside his truck bed and opens the cab.
Valerie scrambles out the window and onto the ledge. She stares PERPLEXED at something inside the office before letting herself down sloppily, slipping from hold to hold.
She falls back-first onto the gravel, pushes up onto her side, slow to get up. She CAN’T BELIEVE what she saw.
Summoning all her strength, Valerie manages to climb over and into the truck bed.
The engine roars to life. Bruce guns it, tires spitting gravel.
PICKUP TRUCK, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Bruce flies through the compound. He turns opposite the tracks leading out, making for the assemblage of heavy work vehicles.
All the lot lights shut off, sending them into darkness.
Bruce is fast with the headlights: two solid beams cast surreal shadows of fences, observation towers, and hunched humanoid figures.
The wipers sweep sleet at max speed.
They hit something. Black tar splatters the windshield and is flung away.
Valerie rolls around the truck bed, cradling the rifle.
They pull up to the work vehicles. Bruce kills the lights but keeps the engine running.
BRUCE: (leaving the truck) Time for that distraction. Can you cover me with that thing?
GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Bruce hustles through the lot until he finds a short tanker peppered with badges: DANGEROUS, FLAMMABLE. He keys in, slides in, turns the key.
The starter struggles.
BRUCE: (swearing) Come on!
PICKUP TRUCK, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Valerie sits in the truck bed, resting the rifle barrel on the tail gate.
VALERIE: (sarcastically) Cover. Cover what?
The gunfire peters out and then ceases altogether.
Something--many somethings--start to growl from out of the darkness.
TANKER, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
The engine turns over and grumbles to life.
Bruce (pumping his fist) pulls around and starts accelerating toward a beating black mass.
PICKUP TRUCK, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
The headlights from the tanker illume several animalistic shadows hunched over like apes running on all fours. FAST. Coming from the treatment reservoirs.
Valerie swings the gun around and pulls the trigger.
The safety’s on.
She (fingers trembling) fumbles for the safety. She levels the barrel and tries again.
The recoil SLAMS her shoulder. The barrel flies wide.
TANKER, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Bruce shifts, pedal to the floor.
The headlights mark the helicopter, chopper blades casting a mosaic of shadows over the lot.
More shadows feed in from the sides, fast and hungry.
PICKUP TRUCK, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Valerie (gasping) grits her teeth and pulls the stock TIGHT against the fresh welt. She fires wildly into the swarm of shadows.
TANKER, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
Bruce wedges a crowbar over the gas pedal and reaches for the door handle. A WET SHADOW slaps the window, FACELESS save for the SLOBBERING BLACK VOID of its mouth.
The tanker is almost to the helicopter.
Bruce throws himself across the cab and out through the passenger-side door.
GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
The tanker slams into the helicopter, triggering a MASSIVE EXPLOSION.
Flaming meteorites of shrapnel fall through the sleet storm.
PICKUP TRUCK, GRAVEL LOT, WATER TREATMENT PLANT (CONTINUOUS)
A HORDE of four-legged shadows charges the pickup, visible against the backdrop of flaming carnage.
Valerie adjusts the rifle and shoots another burst, forgetting that one of those shadows could be Bruce.
Valerie (scared) drops the gun. She slides open the rear cab window and wriggles through it.
She rights herself and starts pressing buttons, looking for the lights. A large shadow appears in the driver’s side window. The door is yanked open.
It’s Bruce, utterly disheveled.