THE GORGE screenplay (5 page)

DOVE

Bowie will get us through.

Behind them, Bowie is struggling trying to keep his crew paddling smoothly.

CUT TO:

INT.CAVE. DAY.

The Samford/goregoyle crawls across the rocky floor, wings jittering. He sniffs the air, his eyes milky. He squints against the light as he approaches the cave opening.

Behind him, his new brethren are feasting on Pete’s and Jenny’s corpses. Samford reaches the ledge and pokes his head out. He struggles to a crouching position and twitches his wings, perched like a gargoyle on the roof of a cathedral.

SAMFORD

Skeeek.

CUT TO:

EXT. RIVERBANK, FOOT OF THE WATERFALL. DAY.

Ace pulls a Ziplock baggie from the backpack. It contains three cigarettes and a lighter. Clara is getting dressed.

ACE

Shit. Only three smokes left.

CLARA

What’s it like to kill somebody?

ACE

Depends on whether they needed killing or not.

CLARA

What about the people at the abortion clinics?

Ace struggles out a smoke, lights it.

ACE

Women standin’ in line to get babies sucked out of their bellies? I did ‘em a favor. Saved ‘em from committing murder.

CLARA

What about the babies? You killed them before their mothers had a chance to.

ACE

Damn, woman. Ain’t you listened to a word I said?

CLARA

Innocent bystanders.

ACE

Nobody’s innocent.

CLARA

When you make a baby, maybe it changes you.

She hurries off into the woods. Retching sound.

ACE

Looks like a storm.

(drags cigarette)

You pukin’ again?

CUT TO:

EXT. RIVERBANK, TOP OF WATERFALL. LATE AFTERNOON.

Under a steady drizzle, the crew from the first Muskrat—Farrengalli, Raintree, Dove—gather at the edge of the forest along the misty riverbank. The Muskrat is on the shore near them. The falls rumble in the background.

Bowie guides his Muskrat toward shore. As they near shore, Castle tumbles out and wades to solid ground, checking the sky.

CASTLE

We need to push on.

BOWIE

It’s too dangerous. We’ll have to carry the kayaks down to the bottom.

FARRENGALLI

What, we wait around to get our asses munched like Golden Boy back there?

BOWIE

The river is dangerous enough the way it is. Rain turns the rapids to Class Seven.

TRAVIS

There’s no such thing as Class Seven.

BOWIE

You’ve never seen rain in the Unegama, have you?

CASTLE

We’re pushing on.

DOVE

So the choice is drowning or waiting around for monsters?

CASTLE

I’ve got a job to do.

BOWIE

So do I. Getting out of here in one piece.

(to Raintree)

What do you say, Raintree?

Raintree is crouched, silent and wary, on a large rock outcropping. Dove has her camera out and is taking photos, first of Raintree, then the top of the falls.

RAINTREE

It will be dark by the time we reach the bottom of the falls. We can make camp there.

BOWIE

Deflate the Muskrats.

FARRENGALLI

You mean we gotta sleep out here?

CASTLE

Well, you can hide in a cave, but since these things live in caves...

TRAVIS

Suddenly I’m not tired anymore.

Travis Lane

takes two hurried steps. Explosion of motion from the cloud cover, a creature slams into Lane and rips him open from behind. The
skeek
mixes with the soft patter of rain, then swells into a full shriek as the creature swoops back up and disappears into the crowd.

Dove snaps a photo, too late. Castle draws his Glock, also too late. The attack is so swift that only Bowie moves to help Travis.

FARRENGALLI

The fuck?

BOWIE

Travis?

Travis teeters a moment, pained confusion on his face. Bowie grabs and pulls him toward the trees, but only part of Travis moves. His left arm plops wetly to the sand as he screams.

His scream blends with the falls, the rain, and the coming
SKEEEEEEEEK
.

The goregoyle swoops in again and alights on Travis, trying to carry its victim off. Bowie shrugs his backpack free and slaps it uselessly against the winged creature. At the movement, it looks up and ducks its head.

BOWIE

It’s blind! It reacts to motion.

Farrengalli bolts into the forest, while Raintree and Dove rush forward to help Bowie. Raintree has the kayak’s paddle and wields it like an axe, chopping at the creature’s head, but it dodges the blow and grabs the paddle, yanking Raintree off-balance and almost into its grip.

CASTLE

(aiming Glock)

Get back!

DOVE

You might hit Travis.

CASTLE

He’s dead meat anyway.

Bowie tugs Raintree to safety but the creature’s claws tear into Raintree’s forearm. Its tongue rolls out and it dips its head to Travis’s bloody body to feed. Unlike the one that attacked C.A. McKay, this goregoyle is more deliberate and determined. Travis kicks and screams and tries to scramble away.

Castle fires. The first bullet hits Travis and shuts him up. The creature glares toward Castle, unseeing, but its face sneering in cold menace.

The second shot causes the creature’s skull to explode in gray pus. It staggers and falls, twitching in the combined soup of brains, bone, and gore. The rain falls for a hushed moment.

Bowie leaps at Castle, fists clenched.

BOWIE

You shot him, you bastard.

CASTLE

(aims at Bowie)

Mercy kill. As many as I need.

Raintree pokes at the goregoyle with a paddle. Its limbs are twitching.

RAINTREE

Look at this.

DOVE

(looking through camera)

Its fingers are moving.

CASTLE

It’s going to fly away like the other one.

BOWIE

No. It’s changing.

The goregoyle turns pink, the color of a skinned pig—now it looks more humanoid, though its features are still shriveled.

DOVE

It’s human.

The wings collapse and the corpse begins to turn to gelatin. Its face folds in on itself, looking like sick cheese. Where rain hits the corpse, gray fluid spatters up.

Its legs move—Raintree and Dove jump back. Farrengalli comes out of the woods.

CASTLE

Whatever it was, it’s not human anymore.

FARRENGALLI

That’s one ugly fucker. Looks like Mick Jagger’s mummy.

BOWIE

We’ve got to get to the bottom of the falls before dark.

DOVE

What about Travis?

CASTLE

Leave him. It might slow them down if they’ve got food.

CUT TO:

EXT. RIVERBANK, FOOT OF THE WATERFALL.

Ace looks up at the top of the falls. He has a vision—the rain is red, clouds golden, the waterfall is like lava. Demons with scorched, screaming faces roil in the yellow-and-red fluid, reaching for the sky.

Clara grabs his shoulder and the vision dissolves. Now it’s just a waterfall. A backpack bobs down river below the falls.

CLARA

Look up there.

The group is heading down the side of the falls, carrying gear down the steep terrain, stumbling over slick rocks and hanging onto branches.

CUT TO:

EXT. RIVERBANK. EVENING.

C.A.’s corpse lies on the sandy bank under the thin blue blanket. Rain drums on it. The blanket twitches. Under the blanket, one of the arms lifts.

CUT TO:

EXT. FOREST TRAIL. EVENING.

It’s getting darker—the rain is falling harder. Dove and Bowie have moved together, Farrengalli and Raintree well ahead and Castle behind them. Bowie now has a thick walking stick. Dove slips and Bowie catches her before she takes a vicious tumble.

DOVE

Are we going to make it, Bowie?

BOWIE

I don’t know. Floods have changed the river since last time I was here.

DOVE

That’s not what I mean.

BOWIE

If those things find their prey using radar, we’re safer in the woods.

DOVE

That’s not what I mean, either.

BOWIE

Oh. This morning.

DOVE

Forget it.

BOWIE

Listen, if anything happens to me, Raintree is the only one you can count on.

DOVE

I wasn’t counting on you.

Dove hurries ahead, trying to catch up to Farrengalli and Raintree. Bowie is limping, slows. Suddenly—

SKEEEK
. Branches snap overhead. Bowie drops his pack and crouches, trying to locate the attacker to his left.

FARRENGALLI

Bogie at twelve o’clock!

Farrengalli runs ahead, carrying the deflated Muskrat like a football. He disappears into the woods. Raintree and Dove stop. A second SKEEEK erupts to Bowie’s right.

BOWIE

Two of ‘em!

The creature to Bowie’s left breaks through the canopy, swoops down toward him. Another shriek, from behind Bowie, but this one is human. Raintree runs in with a sharpened wooden spear, emitting a Cherokee war whoop.

RAINTREE

Ai-eeeeeee!

The goregoyle spins in midair as if confused by the movement and the noise. Bowie, realizing the goregoyle is trying to home in on the new attacker, smacks his stick against a tree.

BOWIE

Come to poppa, you son of a bitch.

The creature turns toward Bowie again. Dove picks up a rock and hurls it at the creature. It missed, but the creature’s head turns and tracks the movement.

Raintree seizes the opening, leaps at it, and skewers it in the chest. The creature writhes and struggles, its weight forcing its torso deeper onto the spear. Gray fluid oozes from its wound and down the spear handle. Raintree struggles, brought to his knees by the weight of the creature.

The second goregoyle explodes from the forest in a spray of leaves and a mighty
SKEEEK
. It is larger than the first one. Bowie reaches out with his stick but the creature knocks it aside. Dove has thrown another rock but the creature is focused on Bowie, knocking Bowie down and crawling up his body.

DOVE

Bowie!

Its mouth is six inches from Bowie’s throat, eyes deep and milky but somehow hungry and evil. The creature’s claws rip at Bowie’s life jacket and Bowie’s arms are torn as he tries to fight the creature off. Raintree is still struggling with the goregoyle on his spear.

The creature’s sharp teeth are almost on Bowie’s cheek, saliva joins the rain on his skin, Bowie closes his eyes—

SLOOSH. Dove drives the point of a large, jagged rock into the creature’s skull, which busts open like a rotten pumpkin.

Bowie opens his eyes—the creature’s brain is revealed, throbbing in the bowl of skull, shivering like Jell-O, and still its mouth is moving.

The creature raises itself on its haunches and looks toward Dove, who is lifting the spattered rock for another blow. It emits a malicious skeeek, as if acknowledging its attacker.

BOWIE

Get away, Dove.

DOVE

You’re not the only hero, asshole.

As if on cue, Castle bursts onto the scene, his Glock leveled. The creature turns from Dove to Castle. Bowie wriggles from beneath it and grabs his stick. Raintree shucks the first goregoyle from his spear.

Now the creature is surrounded—it turns slowly, sniffing the air.

BOWIE

Don’t move!

The creature’s busted head jerks toward Bowie. It hesitates, head swiveling, then it lifts toward the treetops, gray blood leaking from its wound. Castle fires, the bullet strikes the creature but it keeps flying, though off kilter. Then it’s gone, lost in the trees.

RAINTREE

Better take care of this one.

DOVE

(to Castle)

Save your ammo.

Dove carries her rock to the speared creature and slams the rock onto its head. The skull splays open and it stops twitching. Bowie wipes the gooey fluid from his face.

BOWIE

So much for the theory that we’re safer in the woods.

CASTLE

Let’s go. They know where we are now.

RAINTREE

Did you see how they coordinated their attack?

CASTLE

Yeah. That’s the other bad news. They’re learning.

DOVE

What’s the good news?

Bowie cups his palm and lets rain pool in it.

BOWIE

We won’t die of thirst.

CUT TO:

EXT. CLEARING IN WOODS. NEAR DUSK.

Faint rumble of falls in the background. Raintree, Dove, and Castle sit under a vinyl canopy that’s tied off between trees. Bowie has attached the pump and is inflating one of the Muskrats.

Castle tends a fire, but it’s a losing battle—the rain is steady. Raintree is checking a soggy map, the spear leaning against his shoulder.

RAINTREE

BabelTower is just ahead. It is sacred to the Cherokee. We call it ‘Attacoa,’ the High Place.

CASTLE

We couldn’t get a wireless signal in the gorge. Up there, we figured there would be line of sight to a cell tower.

BOWIE

The FBI uses cell phones?

CASTLE

Sat Comm gear is too bulky. Once we got him, we were going to climb Babel and make a report.

DOVE

Got who?

Ace calls from the edge of the forest.

ACE

Me.

Ace steps out of the forest, his revolver pointed dead at Castle. Castle starts to go for the gun in his shoulder holster.

ACE

I don’t mind killin’, Haircut. I done it before.

Castle freezes.

ACE

I gotta hand it to you. Never figured you’d make it this far.

(yells to woods)

Clara! Come get his gun.

Clara comes out of the woods, glances at the group in sympathy.

CASTLE

I need my gun in case the vampires come back.

Ace cackles so hard he almost chokes as Clara moves toward Castle.

ACE

Vampires? This ain’t no fuckin’ comic book. Them’s angels.

As Clara takes Castle’s gun, Castle flinches for a moment like he’s going to draw, then he relaxes and lets her take it.