Dark Quests (Three Screenplays) Read online

  TREY

  Like you said, it’s just an old tree

  branch, right?

  As his gloved fingers are about to touch the ancient staff, Karen suddenly grabs his arm.

  KAREN

  Hold on!

  TREY

  Jesus, you almost gave me a heart attack.

  Karen ignores him and dashes over to a nearby sarcophagus. She peaks out from behind it.

  KAREN

  Okay. I’m ready.

  Irritated, Trey shakes his head and turns back to the mummy; in particular, the ancient staff. Holding his breath, the thief slowly wraps his latexed fingers around the gnarled Staff. Nothing happens.

  TREY

  Hey, maybe I’m not such a bad guy, after all!

  KAREN

  Just get it and let’s get going. This place

  gives me the creeps.

  Trey nods and gently tugs on the staff. Nothing happens. In a true death grip, the mummy refuses to relinquish its ancient hold on the wooden shaft. Trey pulls harder. And what happens next nearly turns the thief’s bowels to water. Without warning, the staff suddenly erupts in bright blue light, illuminating the entire crypt. Trey yelps and stumbles back. Karen screams.

  Trey scrambles over to her and together, their faces glowing in blue light, they watch in stunned amazement as fire spits and sparks from the staff. A few seconds later, the staff dies down, and all is quiet once again. A very stunned Trey Jordan turns to an ashen-faced Karen.

  TREY

  I guess it still had some juice left.

  KAREN

  Maybe we should just leave it alone.

  TREY

  It’s just an overgrown sparkler. Besides,

  there’s a million bucks in it for me.

  KAREN

  You mean five hundred thousand.

  TREY

  Sure, of course.

  Karen watches suspiciously, as Trey stands and once again approaches the sarcophagus. Standing over it once again, Trey gathers his wits and reaches inside once more. Takes hold of the still-smoking staff, and tentatively tugs. This time jagged bolts of blue electricity explode from both ends of the Staff. One such bolt narrowly misses Karen, who ducks just in time as it explodes into the wall behind her, blowing open a small hole.

  KAREN

  Jesus H. Christ.

  Trey is wrestling with the staff, which has seemingly come alive in his hands.

  TREY

  Not a good time to take the Lord’s name in vain.

  More jagged streaks of blue lightning fire from the thing, exploding around the room. Dust sifts down. After a few terrifying seconds, the staff once again dies down, although azure currents continue to travel up and down the staff, and over the mummy’s bony hands, which still doggedly hang on to the staff. The electrical currents don’t seem to affect Trey, who’s still wearing the latex gloves.

  When the scene seems somewhat under control, Karen moves over for a closer look. Eyes wide with wonder, we see what she sees: crackling blue flames surging along the staff, bypassing Trey’s hands, and now moving along the bony arms of the mummy...and into the mummy itself.

  KAREN

  What’s causing this...energy?

  TREY

  The power of God. The Energizer Bunny.

  Who knows. Let’s just grab it and get the

  hell out of here.

  Karen foolishly leans in for a closer look. We see that more and more supernatural energy is pouring into the dried-out remains of St. Patrick.

  TREY

  I wouldn’t get so—

  Galvanized by the supernatural electricity, the mummy suddenly sits up. Opens its mouth, turns its head from side to side. Blue flames burst from its empty eye sockets and mouth. Now nearly nose to rotted nose with the mummy, Karen opens her mouth as well, screaming in turn. She turns and runs.

  The corpse finally relinquishes its hold on the staff and drops back into the sarcophagus in a cloud of dust. Intermittent tongues of blue electricity still crackle up and down the staff, but then finally die out. Trey is left holding the staff of St. Patrick, which now appears like any other old staff.

  TREY

  Okay, that wasn’t terrifying at all.

  Karen appears again from the shadows, looking like she saw a ghost—or a mummy come briefly to life.

  KAREN

  Tell me that didn’t just happen.

  Trey is quickly back to his old, wise-cracking self. He is, after all, a professional thief with a job to do.

  TREY

  You can tell your therapist.

  C’mon, let’s go.

  Together, the two thieves work their way back through the mausoleum. As they turn a final corner, they come across a small band of armed men led by Mack O’Brien. O’Brien levels a pistol at Trey’s chest.

  O’BRIEN

  You’re supposed to be dead, Trey Jordan.

  TREY

  (eyes narrowing, old anger returning)

  No thanks to you.

  KAREN

  You two know each other?

  O’BRIEN

  You could say Mr. Jordan was my mentor.

  Taught me everything I know.

  TREY

  Everything but the betrayal part.

  Karen only shrugs and doesn’t seem very concerned about the group of armed men. Indeed, she steps around Trey, pauses in front of him, and suddenly gives him a hell of a big kiss. When she pulls away, Trey stares at her with disbelieving eyes.

  KAREN

  Don’t take it personally, my darling.

  O’Brien just paid better.

  TREY

  You two belong together.

  KAREN

  Now, I’ll take that.

  She reaches over and removes the Staff of St. Patrick from Trey’s grip. She holds it tentatively, waiting, but nothing happens. Relieved, she turns to O’Brien.

  KAREN

  Kill him.

  O’Brien eagerly takes aim at Trey’s chest.

  O’BRIEN

  Gladly.

  Just then the staff comes to life. First it glows with a soft white light, and then it begins to hum and quiver in Karen’s suddenly shaking hands. Panic crosses her pretty face.

  O’BRIEN

  What in the hell—

  Karen turns to Trey, completely freaked.

  KAREN

  Help me, Trey! I can’t let go!

  Now we hear a sort of surreal whispering, the sound of a thousand demons whispering at once. White energy now crawls slowly over Karen’s fingers, then her hands and up her arms. As it does, she looks increasingly horrified. Now the white light enters her skin, seemingly illuminating her from the inside out. We see the skeletal structure of her arms, as if viewed from an x-ray. Karen is freaked. She screams.

  O’Brien is lost. He lowers his weapon. Some of his men back up. So does Trey, backing up in the opposite direction.

  All eyes are on Karen as the white light is now coursing through her body, dancing crazily just under her skin, flashing from head to toe, revealing her entire skeleton through her now illuminated, translucent skin. Smoke hisses from her skin, which starts bubbling. Popping and crackling, like fat in a frier. As she opens her mouth to scream again, white-hot flames burst from her lips. A human flame thrower.

  Completely lit from the inside, burning, superheated energy explodes from Karen. A moment later her charred, skeletal remains topple over in a smoldering heap. The Staff of St. Patrick clatters to the stone floor.

  The same, white-hot energy now spreads from her blackened corpse and slithers quickly along the floors and walls, over caskets and corpses. O’Brien’s men jump back out of the path of these bizarre, supernatural currents. The currents gravitate towards the many open caskets and surround the corpses, fueling them, giving them life. Suddenly, a dozen or so mummies sit up, each screeching like monkeys on acid.

  O’BRIEN

  Holy shit!

  O’Brien swings his semi-automatic weapon around and pul
ls the trigger, blasting one of the waking dead. Bullets echo loudly. The corpse, nearly cut in half, topples over. O’Brien’s terrified men now start using their own weapons, shooting randomly at the terrifying waking dead.

  The ancient ceiling, due to the wild gunfire and random currents of volatile supernatural energy, begins to collapse. Trey watches all of this in stunned silence. But he’s a cool professional through and through. Little trips him up—even the waking dead. After hesitating for only a moment, the thief retrieves the abandoned staff and turns and dashes off in the opposite direction, deeper into the crypt.

  O’Brien, still firing away at living skeletons and mummies, realizes too late that Trey and the staff are missing. He blows another hideous creature away, and then gives chase.

  INT. FORGOTTEN TUNNEL

  The tunnel continues to collapse as Trey runs, narrowly dodging massive chunks of falling bricks and rocks. The the ground now shaking beneath him, he pauses around a corner, and desperately consults the original blueprint to find his way out of the confusing tunnel system. He spies what appears to be a stairway on the map. He hastily moves on.

  CUT TO:

  O’Brien is giving chase. As the Irishman rounds a corner, another hideous corpse appears, shrieking furiously, its unhinged jaw opening widely, revealing a dark sinewy maw. O’Brien, with no time to waste, quickly blows it away, too. He’s about to dash forward when another ragged corpse appears before him. O’Brien shoots it, but more walking corpses appear. He shoots those, too, but more and more appear, surrounding him. He fires like a madman, blowing away heads and shoulders and arms. But still they come, everywhere. O’Brien turns in circles, shooting desperately.

  O’BRIEN

  Now is not the time to panic, big guy.

  He continues to shoot, blowing off limbs and torsos. The mummified corpses hiss and lurch closer. Tattered skin hangs from their skulls and skeletons. O’Brien pulls his trigger again. Nothing. Out of bullets. The corpses close in, forming a tight circle.

  O’BRIEN

  Okay, now is the time to panic.

  As the undead close in, he reaches inside his jacket and removes a very odd silver glove, and pulls it on. Just as he does so, he disappears within a sea of deranged skeletons. His panicked screams echo even above the thunderous sounds of the collapsing tunnel.

  CUT TO:

  Trey Jordan is running wildly through a crumbling tunnel, deftly avoiding falling bricks and stones and sometimes whole sections of ceiling. Trey spies a dark opening at the far end of the passageway.

  INT. DECREPIT STONE STAIRWAY

  The stairs lead up. Trey desperately takes to the stairs, his flashlight revealing little more than crumbling walls and dust. He turns a corner in the stairway and sees before him a wall blocking the way. Trey quickly consults his interior blueprint. Behind him, he hears a thunderous noise. He looks back, flashing his light. The stairway is rapidly deteriorating behind in a cloud of dust—

  INT. HOTEL SUITE

  A middle-aged man is comfortably reading a novel in a cozy, wingback chair, lazily turning the pages under an arching reading lamp. He looks up suddenly, cocking his head, hearing an odd muffled sound. He listens for a second, shrugs, and goes back to his book.

  INT. STAIRWELL

  The collapsing stairwell is almost upon Trey. The relic hunter frantically runs his hand over the solid brick wall in front of him, looking for any way out. His hand settles on a protruding brick. Desperate, Trey pushes the brick. It retracts into the wall. As it does so, the brick wall itself spins, rotating completely around.

  INT. HOTEL SUITE

  Trey finds himself in the same cozy room. But the man in the robe is gone—

  INT. STAIRWELL

  The robed man sitting in his comfy chair finds himself on the landing of the ancient stairway. He had been in the middle of turning a page to his novel. He stops dead and looks up, confused as hell. Before him we see what he sees: a rapidly approaching dust cloud and falling debris. In desperation, the man quickly TURNS BACK the page, re-enacting the last thing he did before ending up here. That doesn’t work, of course. Still sitting in his plush red wingback, he quickly searches his surroundings. His groping hand grabs hold of the brass neck of the lamp above him. He pulls. The lamp swings down. And as dust and debris engulf him, the wall spins around once more.

  INT. HOTEL SUITE

  Trey feels the floor moving again. He DIVES forward—

  Behind him, the wall spins around again. As it does so, a thunderous, shuddering crash shakes the entire room. Dust spills through the opening. Trey, lying sprawled across some carpet, looks up, and sees a man sitting in a wingback chair. The man is now covered in dust and bits of mortar and plaster. He tilts his book forward and more dust pours from its pages.

  A pretty woman, holding a bottle of red wine and two goblets suddenly appears above Trey. Our hero looks up and gives her a lopsided grin. A BEAT. The woman screams bloody murder—and smashes Trey over the head with the wine bottle. Lights out.

  FADE TO BLACK:

  INT. SENATE FLOOR – DAY

  Senators and Congressmen are seated together in The Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., listening attentively to a single speaker who stands before them. TIGHT ON Senator PRESTON DRAKEN as he wraps up a vehement, heartfelt speech.

  SENATOR DRAKEN

  I’ve said it before and I say it again—we need

  to pass an economic stimulus package that will help

  ordinary Americans cope with rising food and

  gas prices, help rebuild our schools and roads

  and our infrastructure, and help states and cities

  avoid budget cuts and tax increases; a plan that

  would extend expiring unemployment benefits for

  those American who have lost their jobs and

  cannot find new ones.

  Senator Draken nods gravely and steps away from the lectern. There is a round of applause.

  EXT. CAPITAL BUILDING – NIGHT

  A chauffeur opens a limousine door as Senator Draken slips into the backseat.

  CHAUFFEUR

  (sardonically)

  Moving speech, Senator.

  DRAKEN

  Cut the crap. What’s the latest news?

  CHAUFFEUR

  We followed him home, Senator.

  Our boys are with him now.

  Draken grins wickedly, showing his teeth, and for the first time we see a glimpse of something not quite right. Gone is the patriotic statesman, replaced now by something...evil.

  DRAKEN

  Good. Let’s talk to him. Now.

  CHAUFFEUR

  But the White House dinner is in an hour—

  DRAKEN

  Then I suggest we hurry.

  EXT. CITY STREET – NIGHT

  The limousine stops in front of a quiet residence on a quiet street. Draken exits the limousine, and is met immediately by someone who comes out of the house.

  INT. HOUSE – NIGHT

  We follow Draken through the house as he’s led to the master bedroom upstairs.

  INT. ROOM – NIGHT

  A man is in the center of the room, tied to a chair. A woman is on the bed, trussed up like a ham. The room is swarming with dark-clad men. When the man in the chair sees Draken, his eyes widen with recognition.

  MAN

  Senator Draken? What the hell is going

  on here? I demand an explanation.

  I demand you release my family!

  DRAKEN

  Where’s the coin?

  MAN

  The coin? The Roman coin?

  That’s what this about?

  You can have the cursed coin.

  Just please don’t hurt my family.

  One of Draken’s men appears in the doorway.

  HENCHMAN

  Sir, we found a safe...and we found this.

  The man opens his gloved hand. Resting in the center of his palm is a gleaming Judas Iscariot silver coin. An eyeless coin. A curse
d coin. Draken smiles, inhales deeply, closes his eyes. And something very strange happens.

  The coin rises from the man’s open palm. As it does so, Draken calmly unbuttons his tuxedo shirt, revealing something very bizarre attached to his body. It’s similar to a gunslinger’s bandolier, but instead of holding extra ammunition, this bandolier is rigged to hold coins—silver coins. The bandolier criss-crosses Draken’s pale chest.

  The man and woman watch the hovering coin with open-mouthed astonishment. Draken’s men barely give it a second glance. On its own volition, the coin spins slowly through the air and settles into an empty slot across Draken’s chest. The Senator exhales and opens his eyes, which now blaze with supernatural fire. He calmly buttons his shirt back up.