THE GORGE screenplay (8 page)

The two goregoyles work together, pulling her out of the thicket, cutting her flesh. She screams and grabs at branches, trying to hang on, but the wood is slick with rain.

With a massive
SKEEE
, one of them pulls her free and she is airborne, clutching a handful of leaves as she is carried toward Ace.

CUT TO:

EXT. RIVERBANK—CONTINUING

Bowie runs after Clara and the flying creature, which is slowed only slightly by its cargo. Clara’s helmet knocks against a branch and the Maglite switches on. Ace watches the creature, rapt.

BOWIE

(chasing)

Clara!

The goregoyle is over the river now, followed by the second one, and they head upstream, low over the water, Clara almost dragging in it.

Bowie, giving chase, stops when he reaches the water’s edge and falls to his knee.

CUT TO:

INT.BABELTOWERCAVE.

Raintree stops walking, shines the light deep into the cave, striations of crystal sparkling in the slick walls. He sits with the light propped between his legs. He is sweating and trembling.

His hands shake as he opens the medicine bag. He fishes out five different pills, then shines the light on them.

RAINTREE

No sleep tonight.

He swallows the pills, switches off the light. In utter darkness, the red LED from his watch comes on: 12:57.

CUT TO:

EXT. RIVERBANK. NIGHT.

Ace comes over behind the kneeling Bowie, gun dangling. Ace is emotionally dead, uncertain, his self-righteous cockiness gone.

ACE

She wasn’t good enough.

Bowie leaps to his feet and spins.

BOWIE

No, you crazy babykiller,
you
weren’t good enough.

ACE

I don’t kill babies. I save ‘em.

BOWIE

Well, you just killed one. That was your baby she carried.

ACE

God sent down the angels and they took her, not me.

Bowie takes a step forward and Ace points the gun at his heart. Bowie pauses.

BOWIE

Just shoot me and get it over with it. I’m tired of this shit.

ACE

(puts hand to his ear)

I don’t hear nothing. I don’t hear no messages.

BOWIE

Maybe God’s tired of this shit, too.

Bowie steps forward and puts his hand around the gun barrel. Ace, vacant-eyed, lets him take it. Bowie looks down as if he doesn’t know what to do with it.

ACE

We got to save her.

BOWIE

She’s already dead.

ACE

No, she ain’t.

FX: AceVision
—Ace “sees” the goregoyle carrying Clara toward a crevice, this one in rocks just above the river, the mouth of the crevice glows like the porch lights of hell, squeaks and rumbles come from inside it. The beam of Clara’s Maglite bobs around.

The sounds from the cave become a chorus of trumpets, the depths of the cave flickering with light and heat, sinister shadows emerging.

ACE (CONT’D)

I see her...them...

Ace collapses onto the ground before a stunned Bowie and begins writhing as if in a seizure. He erupts in a gibbering foreign language, speaking in tongues.

ACE (CONT’D)

Essesuitus hominem e mortem dominus
—

CUT TO:

INT.BABELTOWERCAVE.

Silence. Red lines bend, dance and weave against blackness, undulating like bleeding snakes. Heavy breathing. At last the shapes coalesce into numbers: 1:32.

RAINTREE (O.S.)

Strong medicine.

Skittering, squeaking, flapping in the darkness. Raintree breathes harder.

RAINTREE (O.S.)

Fuh...fuh...fuh...

More squeaking, leathery flapping. The light explodes, spotlighting bats in the shaky cone of the flashlight beam. Raintree is one his hands and knees, crawling away from them, panting, holding a piton like a knife.

Five feet onward, he stops, shines the light behind him, then ahead. The bats scatter in both directions.

RAINTREE

Shit. Which way is back?

CUT TO:

EXT. RIVERBANK. NIGHT.

Ace’s seizure has played out and he’s writhing slowly in the sand, mud, and wet leaves. Sand is sticking to his lips, blood leaking from one nostril. Bowie shoves him with a boot.

BOWIE

Get up.

ACE

She’s the whore of Babylon.

BOWIE

She’s just a kid.

ACE

They’re babykillers. They can’t take my baby.

BOWIE

Maybe they’ll come back. You didn’t kill me, and I don’t feel like killing you.

Bowie heads into the woods.

ACE

(yells)

I saw her. She’s on a rock. In the cave.

(louder)

I know about your wife.

Bowie stops, hand clenching around the gun grip, face contorting. He turns slowly.

BOWIE

What the fuck did you say?

ACE

You let her die, but God’s giving you a chance to make up for it.

BOWIE

What about my wife?

ACE

I told ya, I see things. Hear things. Know things.

Bowie runs toward Ace, and for a second, his face twists, torn between killing Ace and maybe killing himself. He grabs Ace by the shirt and yanks him to his feet, their faces inches apart.

BOWIE

There’s...no...redemption.

ACE

Take a life, save a life. Pay what you owe.

Bowie releases Ace and flings him to the ground. Ace crawls to his feet, scooping up his backpack. He staggers upriver, toward the rocky clefts in the direction the goregoyles had gone.

BOWIE

No redemption.

He follows Ace.

CUT TO:

INT.BABELTOWERCAVE.

Raintree plays the flashlight beam around. He hears a scratching sound from beyond the beam.

RAINTREE

Spirit guide...reveal yourself.

He clenches the piton in his fist. The scratching gets louder. A rat skitters into the light.

RAINTREE (CONT’D)

I need better drugs.

He checks his watch. 2:33.

RAINTREE (CONT’D)

Time’s up.

The flashlight grows dim, then winks out. In dark, Raintree bangs it against his hip.

CUT TO:

EXT.BABELTOWERCAVE. NIGHT.

Raintree is stumbling out of the dark, sees the lesser darkness of night from the cave mouth. Harsh, rhythmic panting, a low squeaking groan. Raintree freezes for a moment, then Dove cries out—

Farrengalli in silhouette is bent over Dove, reaching as if to wake her. Raintree hallucinates Farrengalli is one of the creatures.

Raintree lets out a Cherokee war whoop and propels himself toward Farrengalli.

Farrengalli peers into the dark cave, he doesn’t see Raintree yet and he withdraws and tries to scramble away—

FARRENGALLI

Goregoyles!

Raintree slams into Farrengalli, knocking them both down, and they struggle on the ledge. Raintree lifts him up and slams him as if on a wrestling mat.

RAINTREE

You goddamned monster.

FARENGALLI

You’ve gone crazy, man!

From behind them, Dove calls, Farrengalli’s shirt draped over her.

DOVE

Robert!

Raintree gets him in a full-nelson headlock, but Farrengalli drives an elbow into his gut. While Raintree flinches, Farrengalli twists and plants a boot in his crotch.

Farrengalli spins free, gets to his feet, and backs toward the ledge. He holds up his hands in an “Easy does it” gesture.

FARRENGALLI (CONT’D)

Easy, Chief.

Dove races to Raintree, grabs his shoulder, but her shrugs her away.

RAINTREE

Stay in the cave!

FARRENGALLI

(to Raintree)

It’s me, your old buddy Vince.

Raintree takes a couple of menacing steps toward him, drugged out of his mind, raging.

RAINTREE

(uncertain)

Does white man speak with forked tongue?

FARRENGALLI

You been hitting the medicine bag?

RAINTREE

(to Dove)

You’re one of them, too?

DOVE

I’m one of us. Just like you are.

Raintree squares up with Farrengalli, but he’s looking past him, over the gorge. Farrengalli turns and looks, too.

Three goregoyles are flying down the gorge, soaring under the moonlit clouds. Then more emerge, four, then a half-dozen. A flock of monsters. The last one is wearing blue drysuit rags—it’s C.A. McKay, only different, changed. It veers slightly toward them, then away.

FARRENGALLI

(under his breath)

Shit, it’s Bike Boy.

CUT TO:

EXT. ROCKY RIVERBANK. NIGHT.

Ace clambers over huge, rugged boulders. This area looks like it was created by a recent landslide, with fallen trees and debris. Bowie is behind him, carrying the gun.

Ace stops and points ahead to a large cleft about 10 feet above the river—the rocks look like the entrance to a crude, dark temple.

ACE

They took her in there.

BOWIE

How do you know?

FX: AceVision
: The interior of the cave pulses with bloody red fire.

ACE

I see things.

An angel soars down from the heavens, gilded, glistening, but its eyes are red like the throat of the cave.

ACE (CONT’D)

(whispers)

They come for the Change.

BOWIE

What, your baby is some kind of Christ?

ACE

Clara wasn’t no virgin.

BOWIE

Either way, she’s dead.

ACE

Being dead don’t mean much anymore.

The angel disappears into the cave and two more appear, following.

CUT TO:

EXT. BABEL TOWER LEDGE. NIGHT.

Dove is by the cave entrance. Raintree is frozen in place, while Farrengalli has shrunk a little away from the edge.

Over the gorge, the last of the flock has faded into the mist.

DOVE

They didn’t sense us.

FARRENGALLI

They did. But they acted like they had bigger fish to fry.

(turning)

What do you think, Chie—

WHOOF
—Raintree launches himself into Farrengalli and they go over the ledge, but Raintree’s feet are tangled in the secured belaying ropes.

Raintree free falls 10 feet, Farrengalli clinging to him. The rope tightens, snapping Raintree’s leg as they slam into the cliff face. Raintree screams.

Farrengalli almost loses his grip to fall into the rocky darkness below, but clenches Raintree at the last moment.  They dangle upside down below the ledge.

DOVE (O.S.)

(from above)

Robert!

Farrengalli hooks his hands in Raintree’s belt and drags himself up, the weight deepening the leg fracture. Raintree’s face contorts in pain, blood drips from his split scalp.

For a moment, they are face to face.

FARRENGALLI

Happy hunting, Chief.

Farrengalli scrambles up Raintree’s leg, then grabs for the cell phone in Raintree’s belt. Raintree chops Farrengalli’s hand, making them both squeal in pain. Raintree pulls a piton from his belt and jabs it into Farrengalli’s calf. Farrengalli plants his boot on Raintree’s chin and scrambles up the rope.

Raintree stares at the upside-down world and the brown river spinning and churning below. Above him, Dove and Farrengalli argue.

DOVE

Help me pull him up.

FARRENGALLI

Fuck no, he tried to scalp me.

DOVE

Help.

FARRENGALLI

Every man for himself. You’re not a man.

The rope tugs as Dove tries to pull him up—she makes it two feet, then the slack plays out as she loses her grip, Raintree bobs down and screams at the fresh pain.

Suspended once more, he pulls a handful of pills from his medicine bag and chews them.

CUT TO:

EXT. ROCKY RIVERBANK. NIGHT.

A drizzle falls from scattered clouds. Ace is about to climb again when Bowie puts a restraining hand on his shoulder.

The flock of goregoyles pours down from the mist and clouds, making a beeline for the cleft. They glide with grim purpose, silently. Now Ace sees them for what they are.

BOWIE

Christ, it’s like an army.

ACE

Getting ready for battle.

The flock finishes entering the cave, the last one wearing C.A.’s torn outfit.

BOWIE

Jesus. You really want to go in there?

Ace taps the backpack.

ACE

Gabriel got a mighty big trumpet to blow.

Ace climbs up the boulders toward the cleft. Bowie hesitates.

BOWIE

Shit. Hope the others made it.

ACE

You kidding?

Bowie points the revolver at Ace’s back, then lowers it and scrambles after him.

CUT TO:

EXT. BABEL TOWER LEDGE. NIGHT.

Dove struggles to pull the rope up. Farrengalli is dressing hastily. He pulls the knife from his leg sheath and touches the blade to the rope holding Raintree.

DOVE

No. He has the cell phone.

FARRENGALLI

Shit.

He helps her pull the rope, their muscles straining, rope slipping in the rain.

Below, Raintree grimaces against the pain. He tries to do a sit-up and grab the rope to relieve the pressure on his leg. He flops back down in failure.

A goregoyle comes out of the mist, awkwardly soaring, heading down the river. At Raintree’s movement, it turns and heads toward him.

DOVE

Here comes one!

A stoned Raintree stares at the creature—it’s Jim Castle, changed, withered, gray, monstrous. As it floats and flutters just in front of him, Raintree grins.

RAINTREE

At last. My spirit guide.

The Castle-creature bares fangs and launches into him while Dove wails above and Farrengalli tries to drag her back into the cave.

CUT TO:

INT.CAVE.

Deep darkness. Sound of dripping water, breathing, rustling echoes. From somewhere below, a rumble and a splash.

Beam of light pierces the darkness as Clara reaches up and turns on the MagLite. The beam tracks as she checks out the cave above her.

She’s lying on a flat stone, a crude altar. Goregoyles are perched at a distance around her, higher up in the rocks. Waiting.