They’ve got her

They’ve got her

(A film Treatment)

Scene 1: Manhattan, New York, day time

Robert Henderson – a gray haired man dressed in a slightly out of date suit gets out of a cab on East. 6th Street in the Lower East Side. He pays the driver and then looks up at the tenement style buildings along the block, frowning at the passing freak show of punk-like characters with organ hair, spiked boots, tattoos and pierced ears, noses, lips and such.

Henderson looks at an envelop with a return address, then up at the numbers on the doors, and goes into the vestibule, looks at the mail boxes, many broken open with circulars stuffed and falling out, then sees the name “Deborah Henderson” above one with a button under. He presses the button. Then waits.

Debby’s mail box is stuffed with circulars and several letters that have Robert Henderson’s return address of Canton, Ohio on them as well as a strange and eloquent envelop of gold and crimson. Henderson puts the mail in his jacket pocket, then he glances nervously over his shoulder as more weirdoes wander by along the sidewalk, laughing characters who eye him and point, as if he is the freak.

He presses the button again more firmly. Then waits more, glancing at his watch, and then someone comes through the inner door. A strange tall young man dressed all in black with tattoos on his neck, and portion of his face, as well as pierced ears, nose and lip.

Henderson:

Excuse me.

Do you know if my daughter is home

YOUNG MAN:

Who is she?

HENDERSON:

Debby Henderson. She lives on the third floor.

YOUNG MAN:

Never heard of her.

(Goes to push passed Henderson)

HENDERSON:

But you live here, don’t you?

YOUNG MAN: (Pausing to look back at him)

So?

HENDERSON:

So don’t people around here know their neighbors?

(The young man just shakes his head and leaves. Henderson looks at the line of mail boxes and associated buzzer buttons until he comes to one marked “superintendent” and he presses that.)

SUPERINTENDENT: (voice throw speaker grill)

What is it?

HENDERSON: (Somewhat bewildered by the voice coming out of the wall)

I’m looking for Debby Henderson. She lives here.

SUPERINTENDENT:

Why are you ringing my bell then?

HENDERSON:

She isn’t answering her bell.

I’m worried that something might have happened to me.

SUPERINTENDENT:

You expect me to do what?

HENDERSON:

I thought you might have a pass key

SUPERINTENDENT:

And who the hell are you?

HENDERSON:

I’m her father.

SUPERINTENDENT: (moans)

Not another one.

All right, I’ll be right there.

SCENE 2: Apartment building hall, daytime

The Superintendent is a small, balding man with graying tuffs above each ear and he rattles his keys as he tries to find the one that fits Debby’s door as the anxious Henderson looks on

SUPERINTENDENT:

You’re the fifth one we’ve had since the first of the year.

HENDERSON

Fifth what?

SUPERINTENDENT:

Father.

Where are you from? Minnesota? Iowa?

HENDERSON:

Ohio.

SUPERINTENDENT:

And your daughter wants to be what?

A dancer, poet, musician?

HENDERSON:

An artist.

SUPERINTENDENT:

That figures. Here

(He swings the door open)

Look around. But make sure you lock up after you’re done.

HENDERSON:

Thanks

(Superintendent vanishes with an echo of footsteps going down the stairs and the rattle of keys. Henderson steps inside. He turns on a light, but only a dim red bulb lights in a corner. The room is filled with flowing thin drapes and paintings of strange gargoyle like creatures the walls. A pentagram is drawn in chalk in the center of the floor before what looks like an alter – except the statue there looks a lot like a goat sitting up. Many fully burned or partially melted candles stand before this. Henderson bends down and touches something wet on the floor, and his fingers rise to taste it.)

HENDERSON:

Blood?

SCENE 3: Precinct police station day

(it is a chaotic scene of every sort of character imaginable, transvestites complaining in shrill voices about being beat up, thugs struggling against handcuffs in their chairs, victims and killers, all bearing the city’s grime on their clothing, faces, and even in their eyes. Many of them eye Henderson, who is seated like a scolded school boy in one of the chairs, largely ignored by the police officers at the desk. Finally, he rises and goes to the desk.

HENDERSON:

Excuse me

(none of the officers look at home

EXCUSE ME!

SERGEANT:

What do you want?

HENDERSON:

I’m here about my daughter.

SERGEANT:

Yeah, yeah, so you said already

HENDERSON:

You said someone would talk to me

That was more than an hour ago.

SERGEANT:

Just sit down. Someone will be with you.

HENDERSON:

But if something’s happened to my…

SERGEANT:

I said SIT DOWN

(Henderson goes back to his chair only to find a grimy character sitting in his chair. The sergeant tilts his head at someone behind the desk in Henderson’s direction. A moment later, a man in a suit appears, Dt. Jackson)

JACKSON:

Mr. Henderson?

(Henderson turns)

HENDERSON:

Yes?

JACKSON:

I’m Dt. Steve Jackson.

You want to come with me.

(They travel through a door and down a hall, each office filled with complaints and angry talking, until they come to a small office that is vacant, but which has Jackson’s nameplate on the door)

Please sit down, Mr. Henderson.

(Henderson sits on the wooden chair in front of the desk as Jackson settles in the seat behind it)

Now tell me, when’s the last time you saw your daughter.

HENDERSON: (looking thoughtful and confused)

Seen her?

Not since she moved here from Canton

But I’ve talked to her a few times on the phone, and I write regularly.

(He pulls out the mail revealing some of the letters he collected from her mail box)

But she apparently doesn’t read them.

I talked to her about two weeks ago. After that, she stopped answering her phone.

That’s half the reason I decided to stop in and see her while I was nearby on a business trip.

JACKSON:

She’s lived her how long?

HENDERSON:

Almost a year.

I’m scared about her. I hate the fact she lives here.

Why she insists on living here is one of the great mysteries of the universe.

JACKSON:

Kids will be kids. They generally don’t do what we want.

HENDERSON:

I think I drove her to this.

JACKSON:

How so?

HENDERSON:

I’m old fashioned.

She’s always called herself “cutting edge.”

I still vote Republican and order apple pie and ice cream when we go to the diner.

She claims I’m out of touch with reality, and maybe I am.

I don’t like what people say is real these days.

JACKSON:

So you think she came to New York to get away from you?

HENDERSON:

And our way of life.

She knows how I feel about her living here, how it can’t be good, and that she’s bound to get mugged or worse.

And now it appears the worst has happened.

JACKSON:

I think you’re letting your fears get to you, Mr. Henderson

She might have just taken a trip out of town.

HENDERSON:

What about the blood I found in her apartment?

JACKSON:

The lab reports it was goat’s blood, not human.

HENDERSON

Goat’s blood?

Why on earth…

JACKSON:

Who knows why?

Kids in this part of the world go through a lot of strange fads.

I wouldn’t worry unless you have to.

We’ll look into

We get a lot of reports of girls going missing from that part of town. Most of the time they turn up hung-over and pregnant.

HENDERSON:

That is not Debby!

JACKSON:

Let us handle it.

I’m sure we’ll have it all straightened out in a day or two.

HENDERSON:

A couple of days?

I can’t go back to Canton without knowing what’s happened to Debby.

JACKSON:

Don’t leave town then. Check into a hotel. Think of it as an extended holiday. Just let us know where you end up and we’ll get back to you.

SCENE 4: On the street outside the police station, day time

(Henderson is standing looking bewildered when a young man walks up – this is a boy with spiked hair and a variety of pierced items is named Spinal Tap)

SPINAL TAP:

You Deb’s old man?

HENDERSON:

Are you talking to me?

SPINAL TAP:

I heard Deb’s old man is looking for her and I’m asking if you’re him.

HENDERSON:

I’m her father, if that’s what you mean.

SPINAL TAP:

Man, I’m so glad to see you. I’ve been worried sick over not hearing from Deb for more than a week – I’m afraid one of her weirdo friends might have done something to her.

HENDERSON:

What exactly is your relationship with my daughter anyway?

SPINAL TAP:

We’re sort of going together. That is until she took up with that new crowd. Lately, she doesn’t want to know any of her old friends, claim we’re not cool enough for her.

HENDERSON:

Not cutting edge enough, you mean?

SPINAL TAP:

That’s exactly how she put it.

HENDERSON:

Okay, so you know my daughter.

Why should I trust you?

SPINAL TAP:

Because I’m not like them, man.

I love your daughter and want to find her, too.

HENDERSON:

And you can help me find her?

SPINAL TAP:

I wish I could.

I’ve been going around and around in circles trying to figure out where she got off to.

I mean, they’ve been doing their thing around her for a long time, but I know they had some other more remote place they got off to from time to time, a place where they performed some big shindig every so often.

HENDERSON:

Shindig?

SPINAL TAP:

Ritual, man

It was real formal, I hear, something spiffed up from the stupid stuff they pulled around here.

Her new friends are real full of themselves, think they’re some kind of new people.

She often talked about it with me like she was bragging about being let in on it, like she was going to be an immortal or something.

HENDERSON: (feels around in his pocket until he draws out the mail again and comes up with the elegant envelope stuffed between his letters)

Would they be so foolish as to send out an invitation?

SPINAL TAP:

That’s them

That’s their logo

She said they had a place up state somewhere, I guess that’s it.

HENDERSON:

This dated for tomorrow.

I should tell the police

SPINAL TAP:

And have them do what?

They don’t care anything about anybody

HENDERSON:

So what do you suggest we do?

SPINAL TAP:

Go up there and get her back ourselves.

HENDERSON: (after a long pause)

Where can we rent a car?

SCENE 5: A narrow county road upstate NY, dusk

Henderson and Spinal Tap are driving a two door Ford sedan. Henderson is driving, squinting at the signs they are passing as Spinal Tap leans against the passenger side door with head phones and an mp3 player, nodding his head to roaring music that is loud enough for Henderson hear despite the headphones.

Henderson reaches over and shakes Spinal Taps arm

HENDERSON:

I need your help here.

Can you hear me?

SPINAL TAP:

Huh?

HENDERSON:

Take off the headphones.

(He gestures for him to remove the headphones)

SPINAL TAP: (Takes the head phones off)\

What is it?

Are we there?

HENDERSON:

I think I got us lost.

SPINAL TAP:

Lost?

In this neck of the woods.

This is not good. People up here don’t like people who come from where we come from – especially the fuzz.

HENDERSON:

I’m not from where you come from.

SPINAL TAP:

Maybe not. But the pigs up here won’t know that until they pull us over, and if you’re with me, they’re not going to care much about whether you’re from Ohio or the moon, they’ll gonna hassle us.

HENDERSON:

What do you suggest I go?

SPINAL TAP:

Get us back on the thruway.

HENDERSON:

Since we’re lost, I don’t see how that’s possible.

SPINAL TAP:

Then we gotta stop somewhere for directions.

HENDERSON:

I would have if I’d seen anything but farms.

Do you suggest we knock on somebody’s door.

SPINAL TAP:

Hell no, they got guns up here.

Let’s wait until we find a gas station or something.

(a short time later, the car comes around a corner and lights shine from a roadside diner. Henderson pulls the sedan into a slanted spot between several pick up trucks. And shuts off the engine.)

SPINAL TAP:

I’ll wait here.

HENDERSON:

Why?

SPINAL TAP:

Haven’t you ever seen the movie “Deliverance?”

HENDERSON:

Have it your way.

(Henderson gets out of the car and heads towards the diner door, glancing back only once before entering. Spinal Tap puts the head phones back on and turns up the volume, so that he does not hear the sound of tires as the police car pulls into the lot behind him and stops directly behind the sedan. Deputy Hill glares at the spike-haired Spinal Tap, and fingers his police baton for a moment before finally climbing out of the car with it

Inside the diner, there are booths along window with a few occupied by weather worn men. The place is dark and greasy. A few more men are seated on the stools along the counter talking to a counter clerk in a dirty white cap and apron. They turn to look at Henderson as he enters.

CLERK:

Can I help you, mister?

HENDERSON:

I’m looking for directions

CLERK:

We don’t sell directions here. Only food and coffee.

You order something I might be able to help you.

HENDERSON: (moving towards the counter under the suspicious stares of the roomful of men)

Find, I’ll take a couple of burgers to go.

Now how about the directions?

CLERK:

What are you looking for?

HENDERSON:

An estate of some sorts that supposed to be up in these parts

(he slides the envelop across the greasy counter towards the clerk, who picks it up with his greasy fingers, stares at it for a moment, then drops it back onto the counter in front of Henderson)

CLERK:

I think you’d better leave, Mister.

HENDERSON:

I don’t understand.

Do you know where the place is or not?

CLERK:

You don’t listen good, mister.

I said leave.

(Some of the other men in the diner started to stand. Henderson looks at them, nods, picks up the envelop, and makes a retreat)

Outside in the parking lot, Hill taps on the passenger side window. And when this fails to rouse Spinal Tap, Hill taps harder. Spinal Tap looks up, then looks startled, yanking the head phones from his head, with one hand as he rolls down the window with the other.)

SPINAL TAP (acting nervous)

Can I help you, officer?

HILL:

You can start by showing me your driver’s license.

SPINAL TAP:

I don’t have a license.

And this isn’t my car

HILL:

Which is about what I thought.

Get out of there.

SPINAL TAP:

I meant that I don’t drive and…

HILL:

I said get out of there or I’ll drag you out.

(Henderson exits the diner and stops at the top of the steps)

HENDERSON:

Is there a problem, officer?

HILL: (Glances at Henderson)

This doesn’t concern you, mister

HENDERSON:

It should.

Since you appear to have a problem with my traveling companion.

HILL (looking startled)

This punk is with you?

Is your son or something?

HENDERSON:

I don’t think it matters what he is in relation to me, only that he hasn’t committed any crime and you seem to be bothering him.

HILL:

It may not matter to you, but it matters to people around here.

We don’t take kindly to strange people wandering into our lives.

HENDERSON:

Is that why they gave me such a hard time when I asked for directions inside?

HILL:

Most likely.

Sometimes it depends on what you’re looking for?

HENDERSON:

I’m looking for this place

(Henderson holds out the invitation envelop. Hill glanced at it, his expression showing extreme alarm)

HILL:

You’re looking for that place?

If I’d known that, I’d have shot you both as soon as I saw you.

If you’re going, get.

We don’t need any trouble from that place.

HENDERSON:

Why?

What is wrong with it?

HILL:

Didn’t I say get?

Now get before I run you both in.

SCENE 6: Narrow Road, deep night

(Henderson is again driving, but he looks frequently in the rear view mirror at the shrinking lights of the diner and Hill still staring after them. Spinal Tap stares over his shoulder, too, shaking his head.)

SPINAL TAP:

That was no cool, man.

You got him thinking we belonged with that crew. Did you see how scared he was.

HENDERSON:

If he’s scared, he’ll leave us alone.

SPINALTAP:

That’s not how scared cops act.

He’s gonna come back after us, once he’s stopped thinking on it.

HENDERSON:

And do what?

SPINAL TAP:

If he’s scared enough, what he said he would do.

HENDERSON:

That’s crazy!

He’s an officer of the law.

SPINAL TAP:

Maybe it’s crazy.

But that look in his eyes said something unnatural’s going on here that the locals don’t like, and that puts people off, even law men.

What was the reaction inside?

HENDERSON:

Not much different.

I think they were ready to beat me up if I stayed.

SPINAL TAP: (Glances back at the dark road behind them)

That settles it.

We got to get off this road.

HENDERSON:

Get off it, where?

We’re lost as it is?

SPINAL TAP:

We’ll get a lot more lost if they catch up with us.

Why not try one of the farm houses?

We don’t have a lot to lose.

HENDERSON (Looking up into the rearview mirror)

I think it may be too late for that

SPINAL TAP: (Turning around in his seat. Auto lights – more than one – appear in the distance along the road)

Step on it.

HENDERSON:

And go where?

SPINAL TAP:

Just go!

Maybe we’ll get lucky and find the interstate or something else.

(Henderson pressed his foot down hard on the gas and the sedan jumped ahead, the dark road twisting ahead of it in the headlights with unpredictable turns, the wheels squealing under the increased speed. Spinal Tap continued to stare back up the road behind, as the parade of lights advanced despite the increased speed.)

Can’t you go any faster?

HENDERSON:

This is a sedan not a sports car, and a rented one at that.

We’re lucky I can get it to go as fast as its going.

SPINAL TAP:

Then we’re going to have to do something else, because they’re catching up.

HENDERSON:

Do what?

SPINAL TAP:

Pull in some drive somewhere and turn off the lights.

Who knows they might miss us in the dark

HENDERSON:

All right I will

SPINAL TAP:

Look for one after a curve so they won’t see our tail lights turning.

(Henderson stared ahead as the headlights poorly illuminated the road, and after the next curb, he twisted the wheel when the opening to a driveway appeared on the right, then bumped long it, through a gap in a fence, dusty swirling up around them as the car came to a stop)

Shut off the lights!

Quick!

(Henderson fumbles with the light switch, but eventually clicks it off. A moment later, the police car followed by several pickup trucks roars around the curve, passing the place where they turned off.)

Now that was close

HENDERSON:

The question is: what do we do now?

It won’t take them long to figure out we tricked them, and they’ll come back looking for where we turned off.

SPINAL TAP:

Head back the way we came I guess, and hope we run into the interstate.

HENDERSON:

What about my daughter?

If these people fear the crowd she’s with, we need to get her out as soon as possible.

SPINAL TAP:

We won’t be able to help her if we get killed trying to reach her.

HENDERSON:

From all of this, I have the feeling the place we’re looking for is very near. If we can only find it.

SPINAL TAP:

Find it, how?

We already asked people for directions, and look where that got us.

HENDERSON:

We’ll try something a little different.

SCENE 7: An interstate convenience store, night

(Henderson pulls the car into the parking lot and gets out, leaning in at the open window briefly)

HENDERSON:

Stay here.

This won’t work if the clerk sees you.

SPINAL TAP: (glancing around nervously)

Yeah, sure.

If I need you, I’ll just scream

(Henderson heads into the store. There is a clerk behind the counter. An old man seated in the corner on a stool. And a younger man looking in the refrigerator at six packs of beer. Henderson approaches the clerk, flashes his wallet as if a badge but doesn’t actually show the man anything)

HENDERSON:

I’m from the New York City Police Department. My name is Jackson.

CLERK: (somewhat sleepy)

So?

HENDERSON:

I’m investigating the disappearance of woman from my precinct. We’ve tracked her to an estate up here.

CLERK: (wakes up a little. So does the old man. The young man comes to the counter with the six pack)

YOUNG MAN:

You must mean the Vanderhaven place, up on Old Hickory Road.

(Henderson looks down at the envelop and nods)

HENDERSON:

That’s the place.

Can you tell me anything about it and the best way to get up there.

CLERK:

That’s not a place I would want to mess with. Strange things going on up there and even stranger folks doing them

HENDERSON:

You’ve seen these people?

CLERK:

They stop in here pretty often.

Not that I encourage them or anything. But this is about the only place around that you can buy food and cigarettes this late at night.

YOUNG MAN:

That’s why they’re so strange.

No one every sees them during the day.

OLD MAN:

That’s not exactly true.

There’s some folks who say they see those people wandering around the old estate during the day.

At least, they see something up there.

Nobody gets too close and what they see is usually through binoculars from far off.

YOUNG MAN:

Maybe nobody’s really seeing them then.

HENDERSON:

Does anyone know what goes on up there?

CLERK:

Not anyone I’ve heard tell about.

But there’s a lot of guesses and a lot of bad feelings towards them.

HENDERSON:

Why’s that?

OLD MAN:

This is farm country, and when farm animals start disappearing, people get concerned, and they start looking for people to blame.

HENDERSON:

People think the mansion is somehow connected with the disappearances?

YOUNG MAN:

With more than that.

Those lights we see flashing from up there some nights say they are up to bad things.

HENDERSON:

Like what?

CLERK:

Henry! Don’t go spreading tales you can’t prove.

YOUNG MAN:

I’m not spreading anything that isn’t already common knowledge.

HENDERSON:

Which is?

YOUNG MAN: (In a hushed voice)

They make sacrifices to the devil up there.

And not just animals.

OLD MAN:

We don’t know about any sacrifices.

That’s pure speculation

HENDERSON:

Are you telling me that there people missing, too?

CLERK:

That’s no secret.

But we don’t know if our girls are up there or just run off.

YOUNG MAN:

We know. We just don’t want to admit it.

HENDERSON:

It sounds like I should pay the place a visit.

How about giving me some directions?

SCENE 8: Parking lot of the convenience store, night

(Henderson hurries out and climbs into the car. But doesn’t start the car. He just sits there)

SPINAL TAP:

Well, did you get directions?

HENDERSON: (staring at the dash board as if lost in thought)

I got more than I bargained for.

(He slowly turns to look at Spinal Tap)

You know more about all this than you’ve told me so far

Why are you holding back?

SPINAL TAP: (Looking uncomfortable, and staring away out the window)

If I told you everything I knew about these people, you wouldn’t have come.

HENDERSON:

If that’s the case, we could have told that detective, Jackson, and he would have sent someone.

SPINAL TAP:

No, he wouldn’t have.

He wouldn’t believe what you would tell him, and would think you’re just another one of the Lower East Side’s lunatic.

HENDERSON

I don’t understand any of this, why these people are so afraid, why you are so afraid.

SPINAL TAP: (looks straight at Henderson)

The people up there are terrible and dangerous – and evil.

They drink blood.

HENDERSON:

Goats’ blood.

That’s what the analyze found on the blood in Debby’s apartment

SPINAL TAP:

The goats are for sacrifice.

They don’t drink that blood.

HENDERSON:

Are you suggesting these people are vampires?

SPINAL TAP:

It really doesn’t really matter what I think.

They think they are.

And they need human blood.

Which is why they lured your daughter up here.

And we’d better get to them before they get to her.

SCENE 9: The mansion gate and drive: night

(Henderson and Spinal Tap sit in the Sedan parked in front of the closed gate of the estate. Beyond it, lights show from the castle like mansion on the hill in the distance.)

SPINAL TAP

So what do we do now, knock?

HENDERSON:

I don’t think we’ll get in any other way.

The gate is monitored by closed circuit TV

I suppose if we pull up to it someone will ask us what we want, if only to tell us to go away.

(Henderson edges the car across the road to the gate. A light comes on beneath one of the cameras. A voice crackles out of an unseen speaker grill)

VOICE:

Who are you?

HENDERSON:

My name is Robert Henderson.

I’m here to see my daughter.

(There is a delay in response. Henderson and Spinal Tap exchanged glances.)

VOICE:

Very well, drive up to the house.

Someone will meat you at the door.

(The gate opens. Henderson pulls the car through and drives up the dark cobble stone drive towards the castle)

HENDERSON:

It’s almost as if they knew we were coming.

SPINAL TAP:

Maybe they’re thirsty tonight and need a few more pints of blood.

HENDERSON:

We are going in here extremely unprepared.

I hadn’t planned to confront anyone, only to bring my daughter home.

SPINAL TAP:

Fortunately, for both of us, I thought ahead

(Pulls out a revolver from under his jacket)

It might not work well on vampires, because I couldn’t afford any silver bullets. But on fakes like these, it’ll work just fine.

HENDERSON:

I sincerely hope it doesn’t come to that.

SPINAL TAP:

Me, too.

(The car stops on the circular drive in front of the house. A water fountain bubbles on an island, filled with strangely shaped carved figures, naked women, bats, and an assortment of demons)

Love the decor.

I wonder who does their decorating?

Bella LaCosi?

(Something in the bushes to one side of the house emits a scraping sound and then a growl)

HENDERSON:

Looks like we’ve disturbed the local wild life.

SPINAL TAP: (looking doubtful)

If that’s what it is.

(Henderson climbs the stairs to the door, then stops. A woman screams from somewhere in the house. This is followed immediately by laughter – men and women.)

Sounds like the party started without us.

(Henderson pushes the door bell, and a distant bell puts a halt to the laugher. The echo of foot steps sounds from beyond the door, and then the door opens to reveal a tall pale causation dressed all in black.)

HENDERSON:

I’m Robert Henderson.

I’m here about my daughter.

DOOR MAN:

The count will be with your shortly.

If you’ll follow me.

(As the doorman turns to lead them into the castle, Spinal Taps mouths the word “count,” and packs his pocket where he stashed the pistol. Henderson shakes his head emphatically. They get led into a large library with walls filled with books on different layers framed in dark wood. The furniture is heavy and gothic. The man motions for them to sit and Henderson and Spinal Tap comply)

The count will be with you momentarily

(Then the door man leaves)

SPINAL TAP:

Can you believe this place?

They certainly got the bucks for special effects.

HENDERSON:

The count no doubt is significant well off to engage in his fantasies.

COUNT: (arriving through a dark passage)

Indeed, I do, Mr. Henderson.

That is the privilege of being born into a wealthy family. It allows me to indulge in those things I find sacred.

SPINAL TAP:

What you people do is hardly sacred

COUNT:

Not to you, perhaps, but to our little clan it is.

Perhaps you should see what we do before you condemn it.

HENDERSON:

We came here to see my daughter.

COUNT:

All in good time.

It would be better for both of you if you saw one of our rituals first, rather than simply insist your daughter give them up without seeing them.

(the count motioned for them to follow him, and they hurried behind his steady step back into the hall, then into a larger chamber through one of the doors to the side of the main door. The room once served as a vast living room, although most of the furniture had been removed, and the floors and walls painted black. A large fire roared in the monstrous fire place in one wall, and this produced the only light, casting several dozen naked or near naked people into extreme contrast of shadow and light. Large circles had been drawn on the floor with chalk, similar to the smaller version Henderson had seen in Debby’s apartment in New York. The occupants of the room danced and chanted apparently using the circles as a guide, each voice full of strange, hypnotic melodies.)

HENDERSON:

What are they doing?

COUNT:

They are courting Satan, calling upon him to give them power.

SPINAL TAP:

Then you are devil worshipers?

COUNT:

He is among the gods we pray to. But not exclusively.

HENDERSON:

And my daughter does this?

I thought I brought her up to be a good Christian.

COUNT: (Laughing)

It is not a difficult transition.

SPINAL TAP:

What about the blood drinking?

COUNT:

That has its place in Christian tradition.

SPINAL TAP:

Not human blood.

HENDERSON:

Where is my daughter?

COUNT

In a safe place.

Being prepared.

SPINAL TAP:

For what?

COUNT:

For the sacred ritual

Once a year on this eve, we perform the greatest of our rituals, offering the ultimate sacrifice to that which protects us and gives us power.

HENDERSON:

Are you telling me you intend to kill her?

COUNT:

Death is merely a transition from one plane of existence to another.

She understands this, and that is the reason she agreed to it.

HENDERSON:

We’ll see about that.

Where is she?

COUNT:

I’m afraid we can’t allow you to see her prior to the ritual, it would violate all that we believe.

SPINAL TAP: (pointing his pistol at the count)

Then maybe you’d like to make the transition first?

Take us to Debby, or I’ll give you a one-way ticket to hell.

COUNT:

I told you.

It is not possible

(A woman screams from somewhere else in the castle. Henderson and Spinal Tap glance at each other)

SPINAL TAP:

That was Debbie

HENDERSON:

From upstairs, somewhere.

SPINAL TAP:

Let’s go!

COUNT:

I forbid it

(The two men dark back out into the hall, and then up one of the arms of the stairs to the second floor. As the count shouts from behind them)

Stop them!

(On the second floor, Henderson and Spinal Tap pause)

SPINAL TAP:

This way!

(Points down the hall as a host of the Count’s followers appear at the bottom of the stairs and begin to climb after them. The rush down a high ceiling arched hallway, looking into each doorway, only to find darkness in side each. The scream comes again, and several people appear in front of them as a nearly naked Debbie rushes out of a room, and straight into the arms of her father. She is blind with fear and perhaps worse, and bangs at his chest with both hands, but he controls her)

HENDERSON:

Debbie

It’s me. Your father

DEBBIE: (Blinks. She has blood or paint on her face and chest, some of which is dripping down into her eyes)

Daddy?

What are you doing here?

HENDERSON:

Coming to save you, naturally.

DEBBIE:

Thank God!

I was so scared.

These people are sick.

SPINAL TAP:

Speaking of sick people, they are coming after us.

If we’re getting out of here, we’d best do it now.

DEBBIE:

Billy?

You’re here, too?

SPINAL TAP:

No, I’m a figment of your imagination.

Come on

HENDERSON:

The way we came is blocked

(to Debbie)

Is there another way out of here?

DEBBIE:

The way I just came.

But the Count’s followers are there, too.

SPINAL TAP:

But not as many

(He waves the pistol in the air, and fires it once)

Out of the way people are you’re going to damnation before you’re ready

(The few followers that had been preparing Debbie for sacrifice scattered before the enraged Spinal Tap so that he, Henderson and Debbie made the back stairs before the others could catch up. Spinal Tap stops, hefts his pistol, and waves the other two to go down)

Let me slow them down a little.

You get to the car. I’ll catch up with you.

DEBBIE:

Don’t Billy.

You don’t know how dangerous they are.

HENDERSON:

He’ll be fine.

It’s you then want.

Come on.

(Debbie and Henderson flee down the stairs to the echo of pistol shots and shouts. They reach the first floor again and another smaller vestibule with a door leading to the side of the building. A moment later, they hear the echo of footsteps behind them, as Spinal Tap appears in a panic)

SPINAL TAP:

Run!

(The three run around the building where there are follows near the front door. But the sudden appearance of the three confuses them since they were looking for Henderson, Spinal Tap and Debbie to come out the main door. They reach the car safely and rush around the curve as followers fling themselves at the car in an attempt to stop it, smashing at the glass as the car bumps them aside. In the rear view mirror, Henderson sees the figures just struck getting up from the ground as if unharmed.)

HENDERSON:

What the hell is going on here?

SPINAL TAP:

I don’t know, Bob

Bullets didn’t stop them either.

I barely got out of there with my life

HENDERSON: (staring into the rear view mirror at the shrinking castle as the car rushes towards the gate)

Hold onto your seats!

(He speeds up, the car crashes into the gate and then through it, metal falling to either side, but with significant damage to the car. But even with the car overheating from the impact, Henderson keeps his foot to the gas, peeling away back towards the highway)

and a growling – local wildlife no doubt disturbed by my untimely arrival.

I drive slowly up the cobble stone drive, my car window open because I need to hear what may lie ahead – and what I hear terrifies me. More growling. Strange cries that rise out of the fog and then die abruptly.

I even think I hear someone cry out for help, but when I stop the car and call, no one answers.

I park the car along one side of the circular drive, and then make my way towards the large wooden doors.

Voices sound and even some kind of odd music I can’t put a finger on, even from the extensive collection of noise my daughter collected as music when she still lived at home.

Lights show in some of the small windows, making the building seem to have eyes – and these eyes watch me.

And I thought my daughter’s East Village world was strange.

I look for a bell, and it is something straight out of the TV show, The Adam’s Family, a knob I pull causing something distant to ring inside.

Scene 10: Disabled vehicle on the road side at near dawn

(Henderson, Debbie and Spinal Tap looking down at a clearly disabled car, and then up and down the road which is vacant with the first beams of early dawn stretching out over the fields and woods).

SPINAL TAP:

We have to get more wheels.

They’re bound to come after us.

DEBBIE:

They will.

But not until nightfall.

HENDERSON:

None of us has a cellular phone, I assume

Which means we’ll have to start walking and hope we can flag down someone on the road to give us a lift.

(They start walking, but it isn’t long before a car approaches, Henderson turns, waves, and then lets his hands fall.)

Shit!

(The Deputy’s police car pulls over, and the deputy leaps out with his gun drawn)

DEPUTY:

Okay, just stay right there.

(He grabs the microphone to his police radio)

I got them sheriff

SCENE 11: Sheriff’s office, day

(Henderson, Debbie, Spinal Tap are seated in an old style office with wooden rail, chairs, desk, and chair rail, while the Deputy stands cross armed at the door, and the Sheriff is seated behind the desk.)

SHERIFF: You really expect me to believe such a tall tale as that?

HENDERSON:

I can’t claim they are bullet proof the way Billy seems to think.

But I know they’re dangerous and had some evil plans for my daughter.

DEBBIE:

They planned to kill me.

HENDERSON:

We’re not the only people around her (glancing at the deputy) that think those people are strange.

SHERIFF:

Strange is one thing, calling them killers is quite another.

I know folks around her don’t like that clan up there.

We’re a pretty close knit community here and don’t take well to outsiders.

But represent the law in this part of the county, and I don’t like the fact that you two (pointing at Henderson and Spinal Tap) fled my deputy last night when he started to question you. And you (pointing at Spinal Tap) had this (holds up a revolver) that you don’t have a license for and has clearly been fired.

SPINAL TAP:

At them on the hill when they tried to snatch back Debbie.

SHERIFF:

That’s your story.

But until my officers get back with their report, I am holding you as suspects.

HENDERSON:

On what charge?

SHERIFF:

Illegal possession and discharging of a fire arm to start

Suspected burglary

Eluding an officer.

I’m sure the list will grow longer the more time I have to think about it.

Put them in a cell.

SCENE 12: A jail cell, day

(Henderson and Spinal Tap are in one cell. Debbie is in another cell around the corner from theirs. A sheriff’s officer is seated at a desk between the two sections)

SPINAL TAP:

What do we do now?

HENDERSON:

We wait.

SPINAL TAP:

For what?

HENDERSON:

For the officers to get back with their report.

SPINAL TAP:

What do you think they’ll find?

HENDERSON:

Heaven only knows.

(Some time passes and the phone rings. The officer at the desk rises, grabs some keys and comes to the cell motioning Henderson to come with him.)

What about Billy?

OFFICER #1:

He stays.

SCENE 13: Sheriff’s office Day

(Officer #2 brings Henderson in to the office, and the sheriff (clearly weary) motions for him to sit and then motions the officer to leave, and the officer does.)

HENDERSON:

Well?

SHERIFF:

I don’t know what happened up there.

But it wasn’t good.

There was blood all over the place. But no people, and that scares me.

Dead bodies don’t get up and walk away from a crime scene on their own.

HENDERSON:

Which means?

SHERIFF

Which means either the three of you are telling some version of the truth, or the three of you had a busy night hiding the evidence.

HENDERSON:

Which do you believe?

SHERIFF (sitting back and rubbing his eyes)

That place has been a problem for us since people moved in there, strange noises at night, some confrontations with locals. – but nothing so outlandish as this.

I always figured if they kept what they’re doing to their own property and didn’t seem to hurt anybody, I would leave them alone – regardless of how most folks feel about them up there.

I figured the less trouble the better for all of us.

And then you people come along to stir things up.

HENDERSON:

They kidnapped my daughter, sheriff.

What was I supposed to do?

SHERIFF:

Leave it to the law.

HENDERSON:

If I had, she would be dead now.

SHERIFF:

Perhaps.

HENDERSON:

So what are you going to do with us?

SHERIFF:

Every instinct tells me I ought to hold the three of you until I find out what really went on up there.

But I know the longer I keep you, the more talk we’ll get and more trouble down the line with local folks.

We’re not going to drop the matter and we’re going to need to know where to find you people, but the sooner I’m rid of the three of you the better.

SCENE 14 New York Thruway, Day

(Henderson, Debbie and Spinal Tap are in early 1980s dented dodge with the logo for Rent a Wreck in the corner of the windshield)

DEBBIE:

They’re not going to stop coming after me, dad.

HENDERSON:

Then they’ll have to come to Ohio.

DEBBIE:

You don’t know them the way I do. They’ll go anywhere.

The count said I was someone important, someone they needed to move onto the next level.

SPINAL TAP:

Level of what?

Hell?

DEBBIE:

I didn’t understand it completely.

I felt as if I was drugged half the time, walking in a haze.

Yet I got the impression something far more sinister was going on.

SPINAL TAP:

What could be more sinister than vampires?

DEBBIE:

I don’t think they were really vampires.

HENDERSON:

Then what are they?

DEBBIE:

Something I don’t want to deal with again

SCENE 15: Debbie’s apartment, day

(Spinal Tap and Debbie enter the apartment, which has been ransacked.)

SPINAL TAP (Looking very uncomfortable)

Your friends seem to have been here already.

DEBBIE:

They seem to be looking for something.

But I can’t imagine what.

Unless they want this?

(She pulls out a medallion from her blouse, a gold circle as large an old style silver dollar, imprinted with images and strange writing.)

The count gave it to me when I first met him and said I should never take it off.

SPINAL TAP:

I wouldn’t wear anything that man gave you.

DEBBIE:

I wouldn’t.

But if they’re looking for it, it must be important.

SPINAL TAP:

If they’re looking for it, then they’ll come back here figuring you’ll come here.

So get your stuff so we can get down to the car and your father and drive you out of town.

DEBBIE

(putting the medallion back and then rushing into the other room where she drags an overnight bag out of the closet, and stuffs it with articles of clothing and other stuff. She also gets clothing from a hanger which she puts on the bed, apparently planning to change her clothing. A large thud sounds from the other room.)

Billy?

(no replies. But there is the sound of feet and breathing)

Billy? Don’t joke

(She goes to the door way and looks out at the front room where Spinal Tap had been, but which from her point of view seems vacant. Then, something moves into view, a dark shape rushing towards her. She slams the door and something bangs into it, almost forcing it open again, but she manages to twist the lock. But the banging becomes more furious, threatening to break through. She looks around. The room has two gated windows, a closet and a door leading to the bathroom – which has an ungated narrow window. She rushes to this, pulls it open, and climbs up onto the sill just as the door from the other room bursts open and a handful of the Count’s followers rush in. She squeezes out onto the ledge, and from this she can just reach the fire escape. She is on this when the first head of appears at the narrow bathroom window behind her.)

FOLLOWER #1:

Come back, come back!

The count wants you..

DEBBIE: Go to hell.

(She looks down. There are people coming up from below – apparently having broken through the back door to the yard in anticipating of trapping her inside the apartment. So she climbs up the fire escape instead, rising floor after floor until she reaches the roof. Someone is banging at the roof door, trying to break through that, too. She looks to the right, and there are followers on the other room coming through that door, flooding out like an army of ants. She looks to the left. The connected roofs there are still vacant. She heads in that direction. She climbs over a short wall marking one building’s roof from the next, goes to the rooftop door. But someone is banging at this, too. So she runs to the back of the building, over the side at the fire escape. Shapes swarm across the yards one step ahead of her. The others swarm over the roofs at her. She rushes to the front of the building. Traffic rumbles along the street. The rented Dodge with her father in it is double parked a few doors up.)

FOLLOWER #2

Come back!

(She glances over her shoulder. The followers are charging towards her. She hops over the roof edge, feels for the first rung of the fire escape ladder, then slides down it as fast as she can, then rushes down each flight as the thud of feet above announces the others dropping off the roof onto the fire escape in pursuit of her. She reaches the last flight, and then lets the ladder descend to the street, not bothering with the rungs, sliding down to the ground. She rushes up the street, and then yanks open the car door.)

Dad!

(But it is the count seated behind the wheel, not Henderson)

COUNT:

Good to see you, my dear.

SCENE 16: Inside a tractor trailer container on highway, night

(Henderson opens his eyes. Lifts his hands to his face. They are tied. Spinal Tap moans across the car)

HENDERSON:

Billy?

SPINAL TAP:

(Moans)

Where am I?

HENDERSON:

From the sound of it on a highway.

SPINAL TAP:

And Debbie?

HENDERSON:

I haven’t a clue.

They came up and hit me before I saw anything

SPINAL TAP:

They got me in the apartment.

I didn’t see where Debbie went

HENDERSON:

I wonder why they didn’t kill us.

SPINAL TAP:

And lose all our previous blood?

HENDERSON:

Maybe if we work together we can untie each other

SPINAL TAP:

Then what?

We’re locked in a moving trailer.

HENDERSON:

One problem at a time.

(Henderson crawls over to Spinal Tap, and over the next few minute both of them are free rubbing their wrists.)

Now to get out of this thing

(The interior is empty, except for them. But Henderson climbs up and kicks out the air vent near the front top.)

I’m not as skinny as I used to be, but I think I can squeeze out through that. But you’d better go first in case I get stuck.

SPINAL TAP:

Then what?

HENDERSON:

We wait for the truck to stop.

SPINAL TAP:

What if they don’t stop?

HENDERSON:

They have to stop sooner or later. If only to use a rest room.

Either way, we’ll jump them. They must know where the count has taken my daughter.

SCENE 17: Morristown, NJ Night

(Henderson and Spinal Tap get out of a car in front of another gated mansion. A heavy fog has settled onto the land, but lights still shine from the mansion behind the fence.)

SPINAL TAP:

Maybe we should call the police.

HENDERSON:

And have them laugh at us?

SPINAL TAP:

They do have Debbie.

HENDERSON:

Something they’ll only deny if the police show up at their door.

No, we have to do this ourselves.

SPINAL TAP:

With what?

These?

(Waves wooden spikes in the air)

How are these going to work when bullets wouldn’t?

HENDERSON:

If what you say is true about them being vampires, it might work.

Maybe they’ll be fearful enough to let Debbie go

SPINAL TAP:

All the movies I ever saw about vampires is that you’re supposed to do that sort of thing during the day when they’re asleep.

HENDERSON:

We can’t wait for daylight.

Debbie might not be alive them.

SPINAL TAP:

She might not be alive now

HENDERSON:

I hope you’re wrong.

Come on

(Henderson leads Spinal Tap to the wall, and they help each other over it and into the bushes beyond, then make their way up the long drive way to the house in the fog. Dogs bark somewhere, but none appear. But there are long black cars in front of the house, and voices in the fog. They step forward, then four very tall and dark men step out of the shadows behind them, put hands on the shoulders of both)

LARGE MAN #1

The master wants you.

SCENE 18: The inner sanctum Night

(This is a dark room lighted by a fire. Henderson and Spinal Tap are brought in, where the Count greets them sourly)

COUNT:

You two have been more trouble than you’re worth.

I should have killed you in New York City and been done with you.

HENDERSON:

Where is my daughter?

COUNT:

You need not concern yourself with her welfare, only your own.

SPINAL TAP:

You better not have hurt her!

Or you’ll get one of these through your heart!

(Spinal Tap waves the wooden stakes in the air. The count laughs.)

COUNT:

Fools!

We didn’t travel half way across the galaxy to kill her and the other special women we’ve collected.

We have great plans for them

HENDERSON:

Special women?

COUNT:

My race is dying, Mr. Henderson.

We need new hosts if we are to survive.

SPINAL TAP:

Hosts? As in human hosts?

COUNT:

Not all humans will serve our needs, only those of a certain blood and other specific attributes.

SPINAL TAP:

So you are vampires.

COUNT:

Vampires?

I suppose to your dim minds we might seem that way.

But not as you think from your story books.

HENDERSON:

Are you space aliens, then?

COUNT:

I suppose that is closer to the truth, though in fact we are have some kinship with humans since many eons ago we planted our seed in some of your for the day when we might have need of it again.

Now we have come to collect it.

SPINAL TAP:

And take them where?

To outer space?

COUNT:

Take them?

We intend to inhabit this place, and over time, we shall rise up against the rest of mankind and take possession of the planet itself.

SPINAL TAP:

And what happens to the rest of us?

COUNT:

Some – the better behaved ones perhaps – we might find useful as slaves.

Others will do nicely as nutrient

SPINAL TAP:

You mean you intend to eat us?

HENDERSON:

That’s not what he meant, Billy.

You’re first instincts were right.

This breed drinks blood.

(to the count)

What exactly are you?

COUNT:

Look and you shall see!

(The count reveals himself in his true and hideous form)

SPINAL TAP: (dropping his collection of spikes)

Damn!

HENDERSON: (staring in obvious shock and mumbles to himself)

Are we all just puppets in some cosmic game?

(His expression changes, grows more determined. He grabs a chair and shoves it at the Count and shouts)

RUN, Billy, RUN!

SPINAL TAP: (fleeing back into hall but with a bewildered look)

Run where?

HENDERSON: (Right behind Billy)

Anywhere.

Look for Debbie

(both of them call as they run through the halls. Then vaguely, Debbie calls back)

That way!

(They find in one of the rooms locked in a cage.)

Find something to open it with.

(Spinal Tap leaves the room and comes back with a rusted spade most likely from the garden, and gives the lock several whacks before it falls off, setting her free. Once she is out, Henderson grabs her hand and the three rush out into the open air.(They find in one of the rooms locked in a cage.)

Find something to open it with.

HENDERSON:

Debbie, are you all right?

(Debbie does not respond, staring blanking from the back seat as Henderson drives)

SPINAL TAP:

She must be in shock

(Henderson looks into the rear view mirror, which shows the slights of estate shrinking into black)

HENDERSON:

Talk to her.

See if she’ll snap out of it.

SPINAL TAP:

Hey, baby.

Everything’s going to be all right once we get you back to the city.

HENDERSON:

Like hell we’re going back to the city.

I’m taking her home.

SPINAL TAP:

But she told me she hated it there. She said that place stifled her.

HENDERSON:

Maybe what she needs is a little stifling, some conservative values.

She needs to be some place where we can keep her safe from evil influences like the ones back there.

I want to be able to call the local cop and know he has her interest at heart when he shows up, where we can all go to Sunday service and pray to a God we know will help protect us.

SPINAL TAP:

We can’t just start driving back to Ohio.

What about her stuff?

HENDERSON:

To hell with her stuff.

We’ll get new stuff when we get home

SPINAL TAP:

What about me?

I don’t come from Ohio.

HENDERSON:

You got two choices.

I let you out here or I pay for your air fare home when we get there.

SPINAL TAP:

It’s Ohio then.

You expect to drive all the way there after what we’ve all been through.

HENDERSON:

No.

But I won’t stop over anywhere until I’m sure it’s safe.

Keep talking to her and keep a look out that we’re not being followed.

You hear me, Debbie?

We’re going home.

(But Debbie continues to stare into the darkness as the camera closes in on her face – although she has a change of expression, something that closely resembles the odd look the Count had, but neither Spinal Tap nor Henderson notice as they drive. Later, the car pulls into a motel in Pennsylvania. They go into a room. The door closes. A scream sounds. Debbie steps back out into the night, her lips dripping blood).

end