Sam Snoop and the city of God
(Alternate script as a modified monologue)
SCENE 1: Streets of the East Village, contemporary times, night
DAVE runs thought the dark streets of the Lower East Side pursued by someone we cannot see. He looks back frequently, hears the footsteps and the chanting.
He looks down at the package he is carrying. It is addressed to Sam Snoop at an address uptown.
He runs into Thompson Square Park, and appears to lose pursuit. He finds a mail box, dumps the package into it
The sound of foot steps makes him look back. The chanting goes louder, he turns, runs, and then runs into a dead end alley, turning around, a look of growing horror on his face as the camera zooms in.
His scream comes with the fade;
SCENE 2:
VOICE OVER:
I found the package on the stoop when I got to the office as well as a pack of hooded creeps hell bent on taking it away from me.
It took a little persuasion, but they split.
(Several hooded men rush at him. He yanks out a pistol, and the hooded figures flee. Sam pushes open his door. The telephone is ringing and he puts the package down on the desk to get the call. He looks down at newspaper showing Dave Martin’s murder)
VOICE OVER:
As I’ve always said, bad news comes in clumps. So I was not surprised to see the headline about Dave’s grizzly death nor about the call from my ex-wife demanding to know where her alimony was.
VOICE OVER:
She seemed to think I sent some guys wearing hoods to dig up dirt on her.
SAM:
You’re imagining things.
You’re check is in the mail.
(Slams down the phone)
Bitch
(He looks down at the box, then up at the door as a sharp knock sounds. He pushes the box onto the floor)
Come in
VOICE OVER:
So in slides a character so sinister, I got goose bumps looking at him. He tells me he’s from the government and demands I turn over some classified documents my friend Dave sent me.
I tell him I haven’t any documents and for him to get lost. That’s when the guy hissed at me.
AGENT: (Easing out the door)
Be warned, Snoop
You are trifling with powers that are far beyond you.
SAM: (as the door closes)
Yeah, I know.
I just talked with her on the phone.
VOICE OVER:
After he left, I grabbed up the box and sure enough it was from Dave.
It contained a small book with strange writing and a stranger note from Dave saying I should seek out the City of God to learn the true author of the Bible.
Over the years, Dave and I have argued over faith
(Flash back scene)
As a kid, I was always peeved about how cruel most Christians seemed.
Dave claimed there has to be a reason and dedicated his life to finding it.
Putting two and two together, I concluded Dave must have stumbled onto something so I headed for the police station to find out more.
SCENE 3: Police Station -- Day
(The cop dumps a box on the counter in front of Sam)
VOICE OVER:
The cop was a buddy of ours from the old days who knew how close Dave and I were so showed me evidence even when he wasn’t supposed to.
SAM:
How did Dave die?
COP:
Butchered
Hacked to death, apparently by a religious cult.
Witnesses saw hooded characters chasing him through Thompson Square Park
SCENE 4: PROFESSOR HIGGINS’ OFFICE -- late afternoon
(Doc has the contents of the package spread out on a table: an old book and a piece of paper)
VOICE OVER:
So I seek out Doc, who translates Dave’s book to tell me Satan wrote the Bible instead of God and that we can find proof if we seek out the City of God.
DOC:
After all these years, Dave finally found his religious conspiracy.
VOICE OVER:
That’s when the phone rings and the guy on the other end of the life says he has my wife and if I want to see her alive again, I’d better give him the book.
SAM:
She’s my ex-wife.
Nobody ever wants their ex-wife back.
VOICE:
Meet us after dark at Thompson Square Park or she’ll end up like your friend did.
(the phone clicks dead)
SCENE 5: Thompson’s Square Park Night
(Doc and Sam ease through the pathways, passed the strange assortment of characters and music. Then they come to a dark grove when the shadowy shape of AGENT appears)
AGENT:
Did you bring the book?
SAM:
Did you bring my wife?
(Agent raises his hand. Several hooded figures appear holding Millie between them. Agent stretches his hand out for the book.)
VOICE OVER:
Doc being pig headed refuses to give up the book, mumbling something about needing to uncover the truth.
AGENT:
This is not something for mortal man.
You’re friend died delving too deep into its secrets, do you wish to die, too?
VOICE OVER:
I shoot the two guys holding my ex-wife and drag her out of harms way. But the federal agent grabs Doc so I have to go back and get him. The agent and the hooded guys flee. Doc is shaken.
DOC:
They got the book, Sam
(Sam leads Doc back to where Millie is)
MILLIE:
What kind of mess did you drag me into this time?
Those creeps wanted to kill me.
VOICE OVER:
Doc then says we have to go find the City of God before the cultist do.
My ex wife says she’s going home.
DOC:
We know too much.
They got the book, but we read it. They’ll come back to kill us
VOICE OVER:
So naturally, we all fly off toe Egypt.
SCENE 6: Airplane
Sam, Millie and Doc get on an airplane; we follow the red line on the map as it makes its way across the Atlantic, stops in Europe and continues on to Egypt.
SCENE 7: Street outside hotel.
VOICE OVER:
Doc hasn’t been there in years, but figures he can find the city from notes he took out of the book.
I use my old contacts as a spy to get us equipped
(Millie, Sam and Doc stand in front of a rundown truck)
MILLIE:
This is supposed to get us across the desert?
SAM:
It’s the best I could do.
Word seems to be out on us.
DOC:
Come on, it’ll have to do.
SCENE 9: DESERT ROAD -- Day
VOICE OVER:
During the rid, I think about my life, and those I grew up with.
And how lucky I am to have given up my faith so early so that I can’t have my work shaken by things I might find when we get to the City of God.
Then, we catch up with the cultists, and we find ourselves in the middle of World War III, soldiers shooting cultists, cultists shooting soldiers, and us in-between.
The agent, who is wearing a Nazi uniform, sees us and waves for some of the helicopters to attack.
MILLIE:
That can’t be a good sign.
(Several helicopters turn and start to come towards them, machine gun blazing)
SAM:
Jump!
(The three jump just as the truck explodes. Then they run into the desert, weaving between dunes as the sound of pursuit fades)
MILLIE:
So what do we do now, all might guide?
We have no water, no food and no transportation.
DOC:
If my calculations are right. We are not far from the City of God. If we can get there first, we might still win out.
VOICE OVER:
Doc plowed ahead like a religious convert and we came out at the gates.
I am in awe.
Down deep in me, the old faith stirs.
Maybe it was there all the time.
(Doc, Millie and Sam reach the gate then pass through it into the city)
DOC:
We have to find the temple. Then we have to decide which of us will go in and face the tests of faith.
VOICE OVER:
Still brimming over with faith I volunteer.
My ex-wife said I’m crazy.
MAGGIE:
Sure I’ve told you to drop dead a few times, but I never meant it literally.
(AGENT riding a tank and accompanied by soldiers rolls through the gate behind them. But the shooting continues as cultists arrive also.)
VOICE OVER:
At that point the agent arrived, still fighting cultists in a kind of street warfare.
He said he needs proof about the Bible and that I must bring it to him or he will kill my ex-wife and Doc.
Doc filled me in on the details of the tests, but I saw only doom as I climbed the steps into the temple.
Heaven could not have been more awesome, nor hell so terrifying.
I reached the first level and saw my friend Dave, not as he was in Death, but as I knew him as a boy, innocent and agonized. He asked me if I believe in God and eternal damnation.
SAM:
Of course, I do.
VOICE OVER:
I passed on, his shape fading.
Then I saw myself as I once was, a sulking, angry boy, who always wanted to know about truth and justice.
I heard a voice in my head asking: What is truth? What is Justice?
Can mortal man know anything of either without God’s guidance?
Humbled and afraid, I admit not.
I pass on.
Then, I arrived at the burning bush, out of which a voice hissed asking me if I know the difference between good and evil.
BUSH:
Which is worse?
A wicked man who does good for a wicked purpose
Or a good man who does bad to do good?
VOICE OVER:
Never have I felt so ignorant.
SAM:
I don’t know
BUSH:
Not even the wisest do.
Good and Evil are so tied to each other one cannot have them apart.
SAM:
So who wrote the Bible, God or Satan?
BUSH:
They both did.
VOICE OVER:
At this point, a scroll of the Bible burst into flames in front of me. The walls shook. Pieces of the ceiling fell. The Bush told me to leave.
SAM:
What about my friends outside?
They are prisoners.
BUSH:
They are prisoners no more
Go.
VOICE OVER:
So I turned around and ran as the temple crashed down behind me.
I arrived out a doorway spewing dust to find my friends alone, the cultists and soldiers mysteriously gone.
Doc said a mysterious wind came and blew them all away.
We hurried away and stopped when safely distant to see the smoke and dust rising from the desert
MILLIE:
Well. I really enjoyed.
Now can we go home?
Oh, and Sam, about my alimony.
Is the check really in the mail?
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