"THE PROPHECY" Screenplay by Gregory Widen 1995 SHOOTING DRAFT With the sound of wind, of sand gritting against glass: FADE UP ON: A howling dust storm battering the doors and walls of a tiny woodplank church. Inside, huddled together against the rage outside, are a small group of people. All in black, mostly elderly, they kneel in prayer. Before them, on the cramped altar, lies a man. Dressed in the uniform of a general, surrounded by the silk softness of his casket. He's an old man, far from the crump of battles, consumed now with stillness, listening to the prayers of old people. Of desert wind, moaning through thin wood. The candle beside his head flickers and wanes in the ceaseless gusts, strains for life, then goes out. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES - NIGHT It's not the best part of town and probably never was. A place of seedy, anonymous brick flophouses shackled by rusting fire escapes, lying on an alley unique only for its bad drainage. It's here, in the dim, flinty light, that a figure enters. Wearing a long coat and, despite the night, sunglasses, he pauses on the slimy asphalt and gazes up the sides of the flophouses, to their yellowish windows and competing Mexican radio stations. One window, dark and quiet on the third floor, catches his gaze. There's a metal hand railing in the alley that the long-coated figure effortlessly pops up onto. Sunglasses focused on the window, he lowers himself into a motionless crouch, a perch, on the railing with the ease of a crow. Or a gargoyle. DISSOLVE TO: Dawn is a muddled, limp thing that does nothing to improve the alley. The figure is still there, a motionless gargoyle perched on the railing. Watching the window. The shadows shorten, the air grows warmer, and now there's movement behind the window. The sunglassed gargoyle drops down off the railing, jumps up to the first rung of the fire escape, and begins climbing. BEHIND THE THIRD FLOOR WINDOW Is a room as grim as we expect. Lumpy iron bed, sink that's been pissed into one too many times, and SIMON; a man in a tight sweater and dark sunglasses, busily emptying his pockets on the ruined dresser: loose change, a town paper's obituary column. Simon's sunglassed eyes look up suddenly, his body stifffening. He whips around to face the window just as it EXPLODES into fragments. The gargoyle LEAPS into the room on the trail of glass. Simon spins and THROWS himself against the intruder. The two STRUGGLE savagely across the room, SMASHING chairs. Simon manages a grip on the gargoyle's face and POUNDS the back of his skull against the wall. The gargoyle gets his locked fists up and SWINGS them like a war club, SMACKING Simon's face and SPRAWLING him backwards onto the bed. The two, across the room for each other, pause. GARGOYLE Where is it? Simon's climbed to his feet, the two men in sunglasses now walking slow circles around each other. SIMON Leave me alone. GARGOYLE You've found it, haven't you? SIMON Fuck you. The gargoyle drops his head and DRIVES himself into Simon, who HAMMERS the gargoyle with his fists. Blood SMEARS. The gargoyle's gotten free a knife that he JAMS into Simon's leg. Pressing home his advantage, the gargoyle SLAMS Simon up against the wall. He TEARS open Simon's shirt, digging his fingers into the chest, RIPPING the skin aside, the first plunging deep, CRACKING the sternum bone, pushing even further, toward the blood gouged pumping beneath -- -- Simon PLOWS his knee up between the gargoyle's legs. Over and over. Till the grip loosens and Simon SHOVES him to one side, using the momentum and drives to SWING the body around and at the shattered window. The gargoyle SMACKS the frame and COLLAPSES, his head CRACKING on the sill and FORCING a shard of glass through his neck. Simon moves to the window and brushes aside the gargoyle's sunglasses, revealing two totally empty eye sockets. Pushing his thumbs into them, Simon uses the leverage to lift the gargoyle off the sill and push his body out the window. The gargoyle bounces once on the fire escape, then spread- eagles thirty feet to the asphalt. Somebody turns up their Mexican radio station. The gargoyle's a wreck. But he manages, slowly -- his shattered remains arguing every inch -- to climb first to his knees, then miserably to his feet. A bent, splattered, hopeless thing that manages to stumble three or four feet before being HIT by a freeway- speed firebird BOMBING down the alley. The impact PINS the gargoyle to the grill and RAMS him into a brick wall, CRUSHING a chest that BELCHES out a sickly, bruised heart like a wet rag against the firebird's windshield. THREE FLOORS ABOVE Simon leans against his splintered window and looks down at the pinned and very finished body of the gargoyle. His own shirt and pants are a mess of torn blood and his breathing is difficult. Pain flashes across his forehead as he checks that his own sunglasses still sit snugly on the bridge of his nose. At the sound of a distant siren Simon turns and quickly finishes packing his duffle bag. Stiffly pulling on an oversize surplus army jacket that partly conceals the damage beneath, he picks up the bag and painfully shuffles out. DISSOLVE TO: The gargoyle, still pinned to the wall by the firebird. A FLASH bounces off his skin. Then another. He's being photographed. Go wide and find him in the middle of a police investigation. Bored blue uniforms, yellow barrier tape. The usual. A plain jane sedan pulls up and deposits THOMAS DAGGET, thirties, tweed coat and steel notebook. He smiles at a couple of cops, ducks under the yellow barrier, and nods a greeting to an older uniform sergeant, BURROWS. THOMAS DAGGET Hey. BURROWS Hey. DAGGETT (looks up at sky) Thought those clouds this morning spelled rain for sure, but it's turned into a beautiful day, wouldn't you say, Sergeant Burrows? Thomas takes a deep, healthy breath. Burrows just stares at him. BURROWS I warned you about that cheerful shit. DAGGETT Sorry. I'm working on it. He eyes finally make their way to the gargoyle. DAGGETT What's the word? BURROWS Friend here did a half-gainer with a firebird tuck from the third floor. DAGGETT Jumper? BURROWS Not unless he decided not to bother opening the window first. DAGGETT Drugs? Alcohol? BURROWS Well, he wasn't exactly in a condition to walk a chalk line when we got here. You're welcome to try and smell his breath if you like, that is if you can find the mouth. DAGGETT Ghouls been by? BURROWS On their way. Willie promises a white paper tomorrow. Or Wednesday, depending on his golf game. DAGGETT Firebird driver? Burrows nods in the direction of a very shook up young man sitting on the curb. BURROWS Mr. Jiminez. Was taking a short cut to his job at a packing plant on San Pedro. First thing he remembers about the deceased is several vital organs bouncing off his windshield. DAGGETT Have you had him walk a chalk line? BURROWS He's straight. Shook up some. DAGGETT (looking at gargoyle) Anything on him? BURROWS No wallet, license, nothing. He is missing one or two things, though. DAGGETT Like? BURROWS His eyes. DAGGETT (looking at tangled mess) Along with everything else. BURROWS We've found everything else -- and what fun that was, let me tell you -- but the eyes are still AWOL. Might just be stuck in the radiator grill. Little weird though. DAGGETT What? BURROWS Both popping out together like that. Worth a page in my scrapbook. INT. FLOPHOUSE Burrows and Thomas coming up the stairs. DAGGETT Who's the room registered under? BURROWS John Smith. DAGGETT Anything interesting inside? BURROWS There are, what an intelligent, experienced detective like yourself could possibly construe as signs of a struggle. They enter the room, which is, of course, totally trashed. Thomas steps over the splintered furniture. BURROWS Naturally nobody saw or heard anything. DAGGETT In such a fine establishment as this? Thomas looks at the splashes of blood, overturned dressers, a newspaper, the "Chimney Rock Republican"; one name in its obit section circled. Burrows sighs and checks his watch. BURROWS Ku San's on fourteenth is still open for another hour. Whatd'ya say we pull out the 'ol "SUICIDE" rubber stamp and get some lunch. Rancid chow mein and watered beer for under three bucks. DAGGETT (looking at floor) There's glass in the carpet. BURROWS That usually happens when you break a window. DAGGETT It's on the inside. Amongst the glass fragments at Thomas' feet is a pair of dark sunglasses. He picks them up, taps them in his palm, and looks out the window down to the man with no eyes, pinched between brick and chrome. DAGGETT Where's Chimney Rock? BURROWS Arizona desert, I think. Which is exactly where I'm going to be in two years, three months. DAGGETT And give up all this? BURROWS You're breaking my heart. DISSOLVE SLOWLY TO: The sun sinking beneath the horizon of a vast and undulating expanse of desert. Travel through the landscape as the sky purples and darkens and silhouettes tall, finger-like spires of volcanic rock. Hear the coyotes, the wind making its constant, probing search. Before the night swallows it all whole, Come upon The Town. It used to be something. But that's long gone. Now, wrapped in the sucking blackness of a wilderness night, it's a shell of a place. Lights still burn in some of the windows but fool no one. The ghosts are the majority here. Biding their time. Waiting for The Town to surrender and slip beneath the waves of the desert. The wind slinks over the hills, creeps down past boarded-up storefronts, skeletal ocitillo, and the rusting hulks of abandoned mining equipment. The corpse of a summer's kite twists slowly on a power line. ON THE EDGE OF TOWN From the inky oblivion of the road, comes a crunch of gravel. ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN Stands a large, nineteenth century brick schoolhouse. An icon from a more prosperous past, its dark massiveness was meant for scores of ruddy-faced miner's kids. Now it seems to be imploding, eating itself with creeping decay. On this night it is silent and dark but for a small glow in one corner and the faint sound of children's voices in song. It is a hymn. An ancient, Latin one. The melancholy beauty of voices rising and falling in choir. INSIDE THE BUILDING Is a school auditorium. On the stage, dwarfed by it, are twenty five students from first grade to high school, singing together as a choir. A young woman, KATHERINE, directs their acapella voices as the small group of parents, lonely in the huge room, look on. OUTSIDE The voices drift on the night, down the road, and lap against the peeling facade of a storefront. A mortuary. INSIDE The rooms are dark but for one. There, bathed in the flickering light of a tall candle, lies the body of the old general we saw at the opening. THE FRONT DOOR Of the mortuary has a locked handle that jiggles from outside. A small panes of glass beside it is BROKEN by a hand. IN THE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM Young voices struggle with the complicated hymn and its pain of centuries. Faces white, Mexican, Navaho. Katherine guides them with soft hands. She smiles in pride. They smile back. Proud. Of her. Of themselves and the beauty coming from their mouths. One small, beautiful navaho girl, MARY, maybe eight, gets a special smile of special friendship from Katherine. THE MORTUARY'S Front door now stands ajar in the darkness. Small shards of glass glisten in the carpet. INSIDE Is the dead General. Even in the bleached ravages of age and death, his face still holds a shadow of vigor and pride. It takes a moment in the weak flicker of the candle to realize someone is there with him. Simon in his oversized surplus jacket. His arms are folded tightly across his middle, as if in deep cold. But his gaunt face is moist with sweat and his breath is shallow and uneven. He stares at the old man behind sunglasses and takes slow, cautious steps forward into the amber glow. Holding out two blood-stained fingers, Simon touches the General's forehead. A new strain crosses his perspiring face. Concentration. Placing his right palm on the General's chin and the left on his forehead, Simon CRACKS OPEN the dead man's mouth. IN THE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM The hymn is reaching its aching climax of medieval longing. IN THE MORTUARY Simon leans down to the open mouth, and in a voice soft and deeply weary, SIMON Qui ex Patre Flioque procedit... Then, with the school choir distant and faint in the night, the living man places his mouth over that of the dead man... IN THE SCHOOL AUDITORIUM It's coffee and cake now as parents proudly hug their children and congratulate their young teacher. Even in this gloomy, crumbling building it's a warm, small town moment. OUTSIDE Simon has left the mortuary and now limps with difficulty through the silent streets, leaning against shop walls for support. AT THE SCHOOL BUILDING Through the doors out steps the eight year old Navaho girl, Mary. Alone, she stands on the stone stairs and looks out into the night with sensitive eyes. She concentrates. Knows. Katherine follows her out. KATHERINE Hey bright eyes, what's the deal being out here all alone without a coat? The girl's eyes seem too serious for a child's. Too perceptive. MARY Someone's here. Katherine looks out into the night. KATHERINE Where? Mary stares a moment longer, then becomes a child again, smiling and popping Katherine one on the arm. MARY Pig out on all the cake? KATHERINE Oh, there might be one, tiny, skinny piece left, but you're gonna have to race me for it. Mary suddenly points past Katherine's shoulder. MARY What's that? When Katherine turns Mary dashes back into the building. MARY Ha! KATHERINE You little sneak! Katherine chases after her. AT THAT MOMENT Simon comes limping up from the road. His breathing's bad now as he moves stiffly along the school's brick walls, coming to an old, rusty back door he creaks open and slides through. INSIDE He climbs a littered and disused staircase, past broken beer bottles and condom wrappers to a dark and creaky second floor. It's part of the school building long abandoned. Doors to classrooms lie half off their hinges, windows are broken, rats squeak between ancient desks stacked like funeral pyres. Simon, his breath echoing in the cold darkness, shuffles along the broken linoleum till he comes to a rectangle cut in the wall where a row of lockers used to be. He crawls into the space and there, surrounded by rot, curls up on himself and sucks his thumb. DISSOLVE TO: INT. APARTMENT Thomas Dagget's eyes opening slowly. He sits up in his bed, runs a hand through his hair, and looks out with only medium enthusiasm at the morning. INT. CHURCH Thomas lights an offering candle and kneels for a brief, silent prayer. He crosses himself, stands, and walks for the door. Before leaving he glances back at the altar. A questioning moment between two akward, estranged friends. INT. POLICE CENTER Thomas sits at his desk half-heartily trying to make sense of the three dozen files piled there. Lt. Paul, his boss, leans against a wall nearby. LT. How's it going? DAGGETT I was just looking for my "SUICIDE" rubber stamp. LT. Sorry about leaving you without a partner. Everything's up in the air till the commission settles their manpower budget. DAGGETT I'm okay. (his phone rings) Dagget... It's done already? (smiles) Must have rained over the golf course this morning. I'll be right over. INT. CORONER'S OFFICE A set of golf clubs rest forelornly in the corner. An irritable looking coroner fumes behind his desk as Thomas enters. DAGGETT Hey, Willie, sorry to hear about the weather. The coroner just stares at him. DAGGETT Should I bother sitting? CORONER Sit. Thomas obeys as the coroner spreads out a stack of white sheets. CORONER Where would you like me to start? DAGGETT I think we can skip the cause of death. CORONER All right. To begin with, your man has no eyes. DAGGETT Weren't stuck in the radiator grill? CORONER No, he never had any eyes. We checked the sockets. There's no optic nerve, muscle pores, loose viscus, nothing. DAGGETT Huh. CORONER We also did a toxicology on his blood: High sodium, elevated selenium, no floating cholesterol platelets, trace ammonia. DAGGETT Something wrong with that? CORONER No, it's actually pretty common -- for an aborted fetus. DAGGETT (rubs eyes) I should have listened to Burrows... CORONER We also did a bone section. Wasn't that much trouble since most of them were sticking out of his chest anyway. DAGGETT And? CORONER When babies grow up their bones get larger by adding calcium layers over the interior haversham canals. Child growth isn't uniform though, comes in spurts that always leave growth rings in the bone. Everybody has them -- except your man. That would, to a hasty observer, seem to indicate he had never been a child. DAGGETT I assume you, a cautious and learned observer, of course have an explanation. CORONER Not even remotely. Want to hear the last one? DAGGETT Not even remotely. CORONER He's a hermaphrodite. (Thomas stares at him) -- Has both male and female sex organs. DAGGETT Think of the possibilities. CORONER Yeah, you can be impotent and frigid all at the same time -- they don't normally work. Thomas sighs and climbs to his feet. DAGGETT Well, I'd love to say thank you, but -- CORONER Oh, I also have a bonus prize for you. The coroner opens his desk and pulls out a small, ancient looking leather bound book. CORONER Found this sealed in his coat lining. Thomas turns it over in his hand. DAGGETT It's a bible. CORONER A pretty old one, I think. Thomas runs his finger across the gold-leaf cover. CORONER We checked it out inside. Thought there might be a name or fingerprint somewhere. All we found was a curled page marking the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Revelations. DAGGETT There is no fourteenth chapter to Revelations. CORONER Maybe this is the teacher's edition. Thomas opens the bible and there it is, in Latin, the fourteenth chapter. DAGGETT Can I keep this awhile? CORONER Sure. DAGGETT (beat) Can you sit on all this a few days, Willie? Not circulate the file? I need some time before all the questions start. CORONER Oooh, are we breaking the rules again? DAGGETT So what else is new? INT. POLICE OFFICE Thomas at his desk, working under a lone gooseneck lamp. He's translating the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Revelations from Latin onto a slip of paper. Finished, he sets the ancient bible down, turns off the gooseneck, and leans back in his chair, alone in the dark. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. DESERT - EARLY MORNING Here, outside The Town, horizons are distant, faraway things. The sky overhead is streaked red and blue with barely morning as the screen door of a simple stucco house swings open. It's Katherine, the teacher. Wearing levis and boots, she carries a saddle swung over one denim shoulder out to a corral behind the house where a horse shuffles and whinnies impatiently. KATHERINE In a minute, in a minute... Katherine throws the saddle over the horse and cinches it down as the sun, still tucked behind pink and grey cliffs, begins to heat up the sky. EXT. SANDSTONE CANYON - MORNING Deep and narrow, an idyllic canyon of compressed sandstone walls smoothed, rounded and etched by centuries of wind. A tiny creek flows past weak banks of scrub pine and pocked sycamore. A silent place a long way and a long time from anything but the approach of galloping hooves. Katherine and her horse run full-out through the canyon, the clack and splash of hooves echoing off steep, shadowed walls. Horse and rider drive each other harder and harder, their hot breath brief clouds in the arch, thin desert air. Boulders shattered by winter cold and summer heat, deep wind- cut caves hiding scorpions, sidewinders, or a wary mountain lion all pass as in a blur; arrogant hawks and patient buzzards, ruins of thousand year old Anasazi villages high on the cliffs, their weather-beaten skulls, seen and unseen, staring out; everything is one smear of color and smell as Katherine gallops past them and up the cliff trail, out of the canyon, and onto the main plateau. ON THE PLATEAU Katherine strokes her horse and feeds it a bag of carrots. She pulls a thermos from the pack, sits down against some old man rocks, and with the coffee steaming in her hand, greets the sun now cresting the Chuska Mountains. There's a rutted, silty dirt road nearby. An ancient, battered school bus rattles its way past and stops. The bus driver, a Navaho, JOHN, climbs down and rubbing the side of his head painfully walks up to Katherine. JOHN You could save my life with some coffee. He holds out an empty cup Katherine fills. Sipping painfully, he lays down beside her and pulls the brim of his baseball cap over his eyes. KATHERINE Tough night? JOHN You don't want to hear about it. (peeks out hopefully) Or maybe you do. KATHERINE No thanks. JOHN Just checking. The bus is full of young school kids. KATHERINE Shouldn't they be getting to school? JOHN Impromptu field trip. I'm broadening their minds. And sparing them the sight of their beloved chauffeur barfing his guts out. Katherine's horse snorts. JOHN I hate horses. How was the canyon? Honey-suckle out yet? KATHERINE Didn't see any. JOHN I hate that canyon. I hate this this whole plateau. Too many goddamn ghosts. Leave it to them I say. San Diego, that's where I'm going. Or Oxnard. I like the sound of that. Ox- nard. KATHERINE I'm happy here. JOHN Oh lord protect us, another romantic pale face in love with the desert. KATHERINE Just got to give it a chance. JOHN Try growing up here. (tries word out on tongue) Ox-nard. (sticks out coffee cup) Uno mas, see-boo-play. (she pours) Speaking of romantic pale faces, the rumor mill is in high gear again. KATHERINE Who this time? JOHN That funny looking guy from Window Rock. The BIA lawyer. KATHERINE (non-committal) Huh. JOHN No! Say it isn't so! KATHERINE It isn't so. JOHN Thank you. He finishes the coffee and climbs painfully to his feet. JOHN Thanks for the joe. KATHERINE No prob. JOHN You're a credit to the community. He shuffles back to the bus. JOHN All right children, looks sharp! This is a school day! And no talking loud! The bus coughs alive and crawls forward. Katherine waves to the faces behind glass, then settles back for a last moment of peace as silence lays again over the land. EXT. KATHERINE'S HOUSE - DAY Showered and changed into her teaching clothes, Katherine climbs into a rattling pickup. EXT. THE TOWN Katherine drives to work, passing on the outskirts the closed copper mine, vast and abandoned. Down beyond the fading main street lies the great crumbling brick pile that is the school. Katherine parks her truck, grabs her leather bag, and walks in. DISSOLVE TO: Katherine's lecturing her students. All twenty-five of them. There's high school age sons of white ranchers, Navaho girls on the edge of puberty, tiny Mexican children. All being taught together in one room. It's dinosaur day. Katherine has a large fossilized bone on her lap. KATHERINE This is "Camposaurus". Camposaurus was a herbavore, which meant he only ate plants. Camposaur stayed mostly to himself and never bothered anyone. The little girls smile. They like Camposaurus. Katherine holds up another bone fragment. KATHERINE This is a leg fragment that belongs to the killer of the plateau, Alosaurus. Alosaurus was a vicious carnivore, which meant he'd eat anything that moved, especially nice, juicy Camposaurs. The little boys grin. They like Alosaurus. KATHERINE Both these guys lived together right here on the White Rock plateau eighty million years ago, when this area used to be on the banks of a huge, shallow sea. Remember how we talked about how sedimentation fossilizes bones? That's also what made the hills out behind our town and put the copper in the ground. HIGH SCHOOL KID Lot of good that did us. Katherine lifts off the desk an ancient 1950s gieger counter and switches it on. It ticks softly when she points it at the dino bone. BOY It's radioactive! Like Godzilla! KATHERINE Just a tiny bit, Alex. Do you know why? Uranium, that's the rock they use in nuclear power plants -- BOY And bombs! KATHERINE And bombs Alex, yes, is all through these hills naturally. Millions of years ago the dinosaurs here ate plants and drank water which had uranium in it that became concentrated in their bones, which is exactly how, with Mr. Geiger counter here, we're going to find some. The class CHEERS. EXT. HILL - DAY With the brick schoolhouse tiny in the background, Katherine's class trudges its way up the barren, rocky hillside behind the town. The teenage rancher's kids try to make time with the Mexican girls One of the little boys has gotten into a shoving match with a little girl. KATHERINE (coming between them) -- Hey. Come on. What's the deal, Brian? The girl folds her arms defiantly. The boy is pissed, embarrassed. BRIAN She... KATHERINE Yes? BRIAN ...She, she called me a "Dick Head". KATHERINE Sandra? SANDRA Well, he is. KATHERINE All right, Brian. You get one free insult. Make it good. Brian concentrates. PAUL You... You're a... Cow Demon! KATHERINE (beat) Uh... Okay. Everybody satisfied? (looks at Brian) Cow Demon? UP ON THE HILL Katherine's given the geiger counter to the little Navaho girl, Mary. Focusing grimly on the rock in front of her, Mary guides the detector over the stones till suddenly it begins clicking softly. MARY I got one! I got one! The high school kids come up and help dig. KATHERINE Easy... Easy... Don't break it. Almost immediately, an eye socket appears in the dust. As the students carefully brush away the dust, Katherine looks back across the crumbly path. A coyote has crept up onto a near ledge. It just stands there. Watching her. DISSOLVE TO: INT. BIG CITY CHURCH It's mostly empty at this time of day and the young man sitting in the pew, staring at the altar, is alone. His name is GABRIEL and he wears jeans, a faded leather jacket, and dark sunglasses, even inside. His thin hair is slicked back and there's an almost feminine quality about him. He sits there a moment longer, staring, then gets up and leaves. EXT. DOWNTOWN ALLEY The alley from the beginning. Gabriel pulls his old, convertible rambler to a stop and walks into the flophouse. INT. FLOPHOUSE He comes upstairs to the landing, where the door to the room is covered with a strip of yellow tape: POLICE INVESTIGATION. DO NOT ENTER. Gabriel pulls the tape aside and KICKS the door open. INSIDE It's still the disaster we remember. Gabriel walks slowly through the room. He scratches up some blood, tastes it. There's spray-painted outlines where the police have removed certain items. Gabriel takes note of this, tastes the blood again, and leaves. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. KATHERINE'S CLASSROOM BUILDING - DAY It's lunch break. Most of the students sit in loose cliques around the front of the building; eating, skipping rope, picking fights. INSIDE The recently unearthed skull sits on Katherine's desk. Feet up beside it, she leans back in her chair looking through a dinosaur book. One of her students, a twelve year old boy, finishes cleaning up the floor and stands beside her. BOY I'm all done with the cleaning, Miss Henley. KATHERINE Thank you, Jason. I appreciate it. BOY (looking at book over her shoulder) Find out what it is, yet? KATHERINE Well, it's either a 44 million year old Strychtosaurus or that cow Mr. Sorenson lost last winter. The boy, still standing beside her, begins to look nervous. Slowly, he lets his weight rest against Katherine's shoulder. She smiles good naturedly up at him. KATHERINE Go eat your lunch, Jason. The boy immediately stiffens and begins backing up, almost relieved. BOY Sure, Miss Henley. Thanks. See ya. Katherine watches him leave, smiles again, and goes back to the book. AROUND THE BACK OF THE BUILDING On the abandoned back stairs, a couple of Mexican boys sit smoking cigarettes. They whistle and kid with the four young girls that pass them going up the steps. UPSTAIRS Is the abandoned, decayed part of the building. The four girls know they're not supposed to be here and that's probably half the fun. They run through the crumbling halls, giggling and hiding from one another. Their cries, the smack of their shoes, echo off off the peeling halls. One of them is Mary, running down a hall, banging a stick with another girl. At a corner Mary peels off from her friend, runs down a new hall, turns a corner, And comes on Simon. He's still curled where we last saw him, in the wall niche where some lockers used to be. The two stare at one another. Finally, MARY Hi. SIMON Hi. MARY What's your name? SIMON Simon. MARY You don't look so good, Simon. SIMON No, I don't. MARY I'm Mary. SIMON Hello Mary. MARY Does Miss Henley know you're here? SIMON No one does, Mary. Can we keep it just our secret. For a little while? Mary thinks. MARY Okay. You can hear her friends coming closer. MARY I have to go. SIMON It was nice meeting you, Mary. Mary goes to leave, stops, turns back. MARY Are you hungry? I could bring something. SIMON That would be very nice. MARY Okay. Bye. She smiles and runs down the hall. Simon grits his teeth, turns to the wall, and prepares himself for a long, long day. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. APARTMENT BUILDING - DAY An old fifties two-level, Polynesian lamps and glitter stucco, now faded and browinish with water stains. Gabriel, the young man with the sunglasses and leather jacket we last saw kicking down the door at the flophouse, walks up the apartment's stairs to the second level, knocks once, and opens the door. THE APARTMENT INSIDE Hasn't been very well looked after lately. Either has the occupant. Sitting slumped in a kitchen chair, staring at the floor, he peers through dully yellow eyes that barely seem to register his visitor. GABRIEL Gee Jerry, you look like shit. The eyes lift to Gabriel, revealing a pale, bloodless face eaten with dried sores. JERRY Leave me alone, Gabriel. GABRIEL Soon, pal. Soon. Gabriel drops into the chair across from Jerry and pushes aside with distaste the maggot-ridden plates of food piled on the table. He reaches his hand out to Jerry. GABRIEL Come here. JERRY Go away. GABRIEL (sing-song, like to a baby) Come here... Gabriel puts his hand under Jerry's chin and turns the face side to side, examining the cracked, decaying skin and filmy eyes. GABRIEL Hmmm. Still a little life left in you. Barely. JERRY Fuck you. Gabriel releases Jerry's chin and slouches down in the chair. GABRIEL There's something I want you to do for me. JERRY What a surprise. GABRIEL Don't be that way. JERRY I just want to... Why won't you let me... GABRIEL I will, I will. Promise. A dark, intestinal looking amber fluid begins to pool out of Jerry's pant leg. GABRIEL You need some new clothes, son. A tear wells in Jerry's decomposing face. GABRIEL Aw come on, don't start. You know how I hate that... JERRY I'm so tired. I'm so goddamn tired. GABRIEL Watch the profanity. -- Just one more favor. Honest. JERRY (deep sigh) What? GABRIEL I want you to get something for me. A few personal effects the cops ripped off from the lovely Allenwood Arms on Seventh Street. It'll be sitting in their property room down on San Julian. JERRY I'm supposed to just go in there? Like this? GABRIEL Give you a bath, put on some decent clothes, (beat) Maybe a very large brim hat, you'll be fine. Just go in between five and five-ten, it's a shift change and nobody'll notice you. JERRY How do you know? GABRIEL (cocks an eye) C'mon. (tosses yellow ID card onto table) This should be more or less up to date. JERRY Got a name this stuff is under? GABRIEL John Doe. JERRY Why doesn't that surprise me. Gabriel gets up, pats Jerry on the head, and walks to the door. GABRIEL I'll see you tonight. (flips him silver dollar) Here's some bus fare. CUT TO: The SLAM of a racquetball against the scarred white wall of an indoor court. It ricochets off the ceiling, hits the back glass partition, and is SLAMMED again. Four players, including Thomas, grunt and sweat across the hardwood floor. It's brutal. Shoulders and knees bang off one another. One of the players falls back, yells to Thomas. PLAYER Cover me! Cover me! Thomas dives into position to make the save, recovers, and yells to the player as he dashes to the next corner. DAGGETT Pop it up! The player SLAMS it brutally at Thomas, who misses miserably. DAGGETT Thanks a lot. Another player picks up the dead ball and puts his arm around Thomas. PLAYER #2 You're missing the point of the game, Thomas. You must absolutely trust no one. Form alliances, but break them. Lure another to trust you, then betray him! You play with too much honor. Sink to the gutter. Use people. Lie and double-cross them. Player #2 tosses the ball to Thomas, who serves, and the scuffling is back on. Shouts to one another. Promises of support. PLAYER #2 Come on Thomas, let's take out Sam together! Thomas and Player #2 team up on a third player, pressing him hard. Suddenly Thomas breaks back, intercepts the ball, and drives against Player #2. The about-face is too abrupt for him and Player #2 is eliminated in a double-cross. He smiles proudly at Thomas. PLAYER #2 Magnificent decadence. INT. GYM LOCKER ROOM Thomas and the three players congratulate each other on the evil and treachery in each other's strategies as they shower down. PLAYER #1 The important thing, Tom, is seeing the game for what it is. PLAYER #2 A sickening, hopeless, giant sucking hole of depravity. Laughs. INT. LOCKER ROOM DRESSING AREA As Thomas combs his hair and slips on his regimental detective's suit 'n tie, the other three put on their black pants, shirts, and stiff white Roman collars. They're priests. Two of the priests hoist their gym bags and head for the door. PRIEST #1 See ya guys next Tuesday, huh? Thomas is left alone with Player (priest) #2, Bill. BILL So how's work? DAGGETT Okay. Y'now. BILL Life on the dark side. DAGGETT (beat) Can I ask you about something? BILL Sure. DAGGETT It has to stay between us. I need your word on it. BILL As a racquetball player or a priest? DAGGETT I'll take the priest for the moment. BILL What's on your mind? DAGGETT It's a case. We found this guy. He was... different. But he had on him an old bible. He pulls the bible out of a cloth sack and hands it to Bill. BILL It's a Vichini. DAGGETT Worth a little? BILL More than a little. They're the best. Sixth century. Hand illuminated. Vichini only did twenty, each pocket size for a king to carry into battle beside his heart. Some consider them the finest bibles ever made. I thought they'd all be in museums. What are you doing with it? DAGGETT This one's a bit special. BILL How? DAGGETT It's has a bonus chapter to St, John's Revelations. BILL Really? What does it say? DAGGETT (reading from slip of paper) "And as in the first war, the angels so fought over the nature of their God, and there was much vanity and destruction in heaven. For some angels called their Lord the son of God, and others called Him the begotten father of Jesus Christ." What do you think? BILL I've never heard that quote before. Theologically, The "first war" obviously refers to the war in heaven where Michael the archangel threw out Satan and his gang. Old time bible stuff. But this implies there was a second war. That's news to me. DAGGETT And the rest of it? BILL Oh, it's a fairly common theological debate. Or was. The idea that if Christ is God's son, does that make him less than God or are they the same being in different forms. That very argument almost tore the early Christian church apart in the 4th Century. That was the good old days when people actually worried about theology. Anyway, it was settled when the bishops of the world got to together at the Council of Nicene in 325 and hashed out the various interpretations of scripture into a uniform dogma of belief. The result was the Nicene Creed, which basically said that Christ was in fact the same as God and was owed the same power and respect as the Father. That they were the same. (smiles) But it's not exactly the sort of thing angels would fight over. DAGGETT Why? BILL Well, they could just ask God, right? DAGGETT Do you think it's possible that John might have written that extra chapter? BILL Who knows? Vichini was the greatest biblical scholar of the age, some claimed he made his own translations from the original writings. Maybe he did find some unknown writings by John. It's possible I suppose. John always was a little negative about angels. All this actually has something to do with an LAPD murder? DAGGETT I don't know yet. Maybe. Probably not. BILL I hate to break it you, but that particular family spat has been settled for 1,600 years. Nobody loses sleep over it anymore. Honest. DAGGETT What did John have against angels? BILL Oh, he didn't trust them much. All that running around smiting and killing in the name of the Lord. God's wild bunch. He thought it made them fickle and vain. One click above ghosts. Satan didn't help the image much either. DAGGETT Satan? BILL Well, he did start as an angel. EXT. GYM Thomas walks Bill out to his car. BILL So when are you going to get a real job? DAGGETT You mean with the Church? BILL You almost did it once. I never saw a seminary student more called to the collar than you. Why didn't you ever become ordained? DAGGETT It's a long story. BILL You'll have to tell it to me sometime. DAGGETT Sometime. EXT. DOWNTOWN - DAY The building is squat and brick. A non-descrip warehouse that subs as a police evidence storage area. The sun is hard today as it beats down on Jerry's large- brimmed felt hat. Daylight and Jerry don't get along very well. His sunken, filmy eyes squint at its glare. The decayed flesh cracking along his cheeks flames at its touch. He shuffles down the sidewalk, the brackish, amber fluid that gurgles down his leg filling his shoes and leaving behind shiny wet footprints like a snail. There's nobody around the back door and its unlocked. Jerry's shrunken claws pull it open. INSIDE Is a crush of filing cabinets and erector-set shelves. All of it crammed with low grade stuff. The heroin busts and million dollar currency arrests don't end up here. Here it's all shoe boxes and dusty files. Fragments of small lives forgotten. Jerry pulls the brim of his hat down even further as he works his way past rack after rack. The single uniform he meets looks only casually at Jerry's lapel ID badge. It's on the third shelf he finds it. John Doe #78. Jerry lifts the box and walks out. INT. COUNTY BUILDING BASEMENT Gabriel steps off the elevator and follows the signs for MEDICAL EXAMINER. Along the way he passes a checkpoint guard. GUARD Need a pass, friend. GABRIEL I'll just be a second. GUARD C'mon... GABRIEL Sorry. Gabriel walks back to the guard, smiles, and KNOCKS him clean out of his chair with the back of his arm. The guard SMACKS against the wall and crumples out of view. INT. MORGUE Tiled floor and refrigerated corpses. Nobody's around when Gabriel enters. He walks over to a file cabinet and removes a thick folder. Then he walks to the big filing cabinets, the ones that hold a body in each drawer. He strolls along, tapping each label till he finds the one he's looking for, slides it open, and looks down at the naked body of the gargoyle. He's been sewed back together. Kind of. Gabriel grabs the eyeless corpse under the armpits and drags him out onto the floor where he pushes the legs together and outstretches the arms, like a crucifix. From his coat Gabriel takes out a small vial of oil and rubs it onto the gargoyle's feet and hands. Anointing them. Then with the tip of his finger, he draws a faint sign of the cross on the forehead, stands, and walks for the door. In the background, as Gabriel leaves, we see the body of the gargoyle BURST into flame. DISSOLVE TO: INT. KATHERINE'S SCHOOL Katherine's students are shuffling back from lunch to their seats, making small talk and paper airplanes. Katherine does a head count, then stops a young boy coming through the door. KATHERINE Brian, have you seen Mary? BRIAN I think she's out back somewhere. KATHERINE (to girl) Allison? ALLISON We haven't seen her since lunch. KATHERINE We're you guys up in the... The girls, Mary's friends, shrug innocently. Katherine sighs. KATHERINE Okay everybody, get started on today's reading. Quietly. I'll be right back. Katherine closes the door behind her. The class immediately erupts into goofing off. The door opens again. KATHERINE I mean quiet. IN THE ABANDONED PART OF THE BUILDING Katherine walks through decayed and rusting halls. KATHERINE (calls out) Mary... It's spooky up here. A part of the building Katherine clearly dislikes. KATHERINE Mary... (to herself) Shit. Katherine calls out Mary's name a few more times, turns a few more corners, and suddenly comes on her. KATHERINE Mary? Mary's sitting beside Simon, the bleeding, ashen-faced man with sunglasses. She's giving Simon a piece of sandwich and a coke. Katherine is instantly wary. KATHERINE Mary, come here. MARY But Simon and I were -- KATHERINE Come here. Mary reluctantly walks over to Katherine. KATHERINE Go back to class. MARY But -- KATHERINE Go. Mary frowns, waves once to Simon, and leaves. There's a heaviness to the air around Simon. A kind of buzzing. Katherine blinks her eyes a few times. Focuses. SIMON She wasn't doing any harm. KATHERINE It's not her I'm worried about. SIMON Of course. KATHERINE What are you doing here? SIMON Small job. Mostly done now. Just passing through. KATHERINE This is school property, you can't sleep here. SIMON It wasn't part of the plan. Honest. KATHERINE (notices blood stains) Are you all right? SIMON No. Not really. That buzz. Katherine rubs the side of her temple. KATHERINE I'll have to call the police. SIMON I wish you wouldn't, but I understand. KATHERINE They'll help you. SIMON Oh, I rather doubt that. Katherine turns and leaves, her footsteps fading. Mary appears again. MARY Hi. SIMON Hello. I thought you'd left. MARY I hid. I'm very clever. SIMON I'm sure you are. (beat) You were nice to give me the food. MARY I know. SIMON I haven't much time, Mary. And since you've been so nice to me, there's something I'd very much like to give to you. MARY What? SIMON Just for a little while. Something very special. Can you keep it a secret? The biggest secret ever? MARY Yes. What is it? SIMON Come here, Mary. She takes a couple of shy steps toward him. SIMON Closer... As she does -- CUT TO: Katherine, outside the building, rounding up some of the kids who decided to take an impromptu recess. Hustling the last one up the stairs, she pauses suddenly. She hears something. Faint coughing. Katherine walks back around the side of the building and sees Mary bent over, vomiting. Katherine rushes up to her. MARY I don't feel good... KATHERINE What's the matter, pumpkin? Did you eat something? (concerned beat) Did he give you something? Mary coughs up the last of her lunch. MARY Can I go home now? Katherine wipes off Mary's mouth with a hanky. KATHERINE Sure, hon. Let's go. EXT. TOWN - DAY Katherine drives Mary home, a dusty, tired mobile home slumped among the saguaro and tumbleweed on the edge of town. INT. MOBILE HOME Mary and Katherine pull open the door and enter. Mary's elderly grandmother is sitting watching "All My Children". She smiles at Katherine and looks at Mary with concern as the little girl rubs her stomach and explains something in Navaho. IN THE BEDROOM Katherine helps tuck Mary in bed as her grandmother brings a glass of water. KATHERINE I'll have the school send over a doctor. The grandmother sits beside Mary, whispers gently in Navaho, and softly stokes her brow. IN THE LIVING ROOM KATHERINE (on the phone) ...He's was just laying up there. I thought, with the kids and everything... VOICE Most of my boys are up the highway on a tanker spill at the moment. They may be a while. These people are rarely any problem. I'll have a deputy come by tonight or tomorrow and shoo him out. KATHERINE He looked hurt. VOICE They all do, ma'am. Inside or out, they're all damaged goods. IN THE BEDROOM Alone and tucked into bed, Mary stares off at something very, very far away. DISSOLVE TO: INT. THOMAS'S APARTMENT The sun orange and fading outside his window, Thomas drifts off into a nap on his couch. The phone rings. DAGGETT Yeah. VOICE It's your friendly coroner. DAGGETT Why is my friendly coroner, after a long day at work, calling me at home? VOICE I have something you'll want to see. DAGGETT I doubt it. VOICE No, you'll definitely want to see this. INT. MORGUE On the floor is the smoldering, blackened outline of a body. A thick, slimy goo gurgles and pops. The whole room is afoul with acrid smoke. CORONER They also took the autopsy file. DAGGETT "They"? CORONER He, she, it. They took it. They also lifted all the physical evidence from the San Julian impound. DAGGETT Where was everyone? CORONER The cop at the desk is in the hospital as we speak with a broken collarbone. Everyone else was down the hall watching the basketball playoffs. DAGGETT Who won? CORONER Temple. DAGGETT Lucky. CORONER Yeah. Foul on the buzzer. Thomas jams his hands in his pockets and leans against an autopsy table. Watches the smoke curl slowly up from the impossibly melted goo in front of him. DAGGETT Looks like the snow angels we used to make as kids. Lie down in a clean bank. Move your arms up and down... CORONER You know what this means. Our friend's cleaned out all the evidence on this guy. Everything. DAGGETT Did the cop get a look at who nailed him? CORONER Tall. Smiled a lot. DAGGETT Anything else? CORONER He wore sunglasses. Thomas pulls out out his notebook. CORONER You gonna figure this one out, Tom? DAGGETT I'm going to try. CORONER When you do, give me a call. Tell me I'm not crazy. INT. JERRY'S APARTMENT Gabriel crouches on the linoleum and pours everything out of the evidence box onto the floor. He sifts through it, a smile appearing when comes across the Chimney Rock Republican and its circled obituary. GABRIEL You like the desert, Jerry? Jerry is looking worse by the day. A rotting, oozing fissure has opened on his forehead. His right eye doesn't move anymore. He sits on a kitchen chair glumly. JERRY You promised. You promised that -- GABRIEL -- Soon. Honest. Don't be a pest about it. JERRY (sighs) Never trust a fucking angel. GABRIEL Excellent advice. INT. POLICE STATION Thomas sits hunched over his notes from the first day of the investigation. Written in it is the Chimney Rock Republican and the obituary name of General Arnold Hawthorn. Lt. Paul sits down in the chair opposite. LT. PAUL Do you ever have one of those afternoons where you feel no one's giving you a straight answer about anything? DAGGETT Oh, maybe five or six times a week. LT. PAUL (reading sheet) It says here somebody got into the property warehouse and cleaned everything out of your evidence box. No, he did leave one thing. A footprint. 11-D. DAGGETT Mud on his shoes? LT. PAUL Spinal fluid. Thomas slowly closes his notebook. LT. PAUL I'm not going to get a straight answer out of you either, am I? DAGGETT Not yet. The Lt. rubs his eyes tiredly. DAGGETT I need to go to Arizona. LT. PAUL For your health? DAGGETT So I can give you a straight answer. LT. PAUL Sure, why not? Take the kids. See the Grand Canyon. Send me a fucking postcard. DAGGETT Sorry. LT. PAUL I've got a headache, Tom, and I hate my life. If you have to go, go. DISSOLVE TO: EXT. DESERT - NIGHT On an utterly lonely blacktop, Gabriel shoots by in his top- down rambler, insignificant in the night's vastness. Jerry's in the back, feet up on the seat. JERRY Why do you need me? I can hardly walk now. GABRIEL Some things are human work, son. Live or dead, human work. Besides, I like you. JERRY Lucky moi. Gabriel suddenly stands on the brakes, SCREECHING the rambler to a dusty stop. He kills the engine and everything is instantly whispering night and coyote howls. Gabriel climbs out and walks to the edge of a cliff. Far below, nestled among the finger-like spires of volcanic cones, lies The Town. Twinkling lights in a cold, dark embrace. Gabriel pushes his sunglasses up his nose and smiles. GABRIEL I can always smell a graveyard. Two coyotes begin fighting and snarling with each other in the dust nearby. EXT. GRAVEYARD - NIGHT On a low hill at the edge of town. Cracked, sinking headstones. The rambler's parked next to a new one, Slim Pickens on the AM, as Jerry digs up the fresh grave marked General Arnold Hawthorne. Gabriel sits perched on the headstone over the grave like a winged creature. JERRY I hope you're enjoying this. GABRIEL I always enjoy watching you work, Jerry. JERRY How did I ever get you in my life? GABRIEL Come on, you didn't really want to kill yourself. JERRY But I did it, didn't I? I did kill myself. GABRIEL Well, yes. Technically. JERRY And you're just keeping me alive. GABRIEL Letting you die slower. JERRY I'm so in your debt. GABRIEL Thank you, Jerry. I'm touched. Really. Jerry's shovel CLANKS onto something hard. He scrapes away the dirt, revealing a coffin lid. With a socket wrench Jerry removes the fastening bolts, then with the edge of his shovel, pries open the lid. It's the ancient, wasted general we saw at the beginning. His medals flash in the moonlight. JERRY Not much to look at. GABRIEL Ah, but it's not what's on the outside that matters -- Gabriel leaps off his perch down into the grave. GABRIEL -- It's what's on the inside. Gabriel reaches down, places one hand on the General's forehead, one on his chin, and BREAKS the mouth open. He gazes down into it. Then suddenly stiffens and straightens up. GABRIEL (upset) It's not here. Gabriel frantically look in the ears. Up the nose. GABRIEL It's not here! JERRY Oooh, bad news for the war effort. GABRIEL (spins wildly on him) Shut up!! Gabriel BANGS the coffin lid in frustration. Tries to think. GABRIEL Now, if you were a soul, where would you hide? JERRY The hell away from you. INT. THOMAS'S APARTMENT The numbers on the clock radio roll over five AM and the news comes on. Thomas stirs in bed, rubs his eyes, and looks out at a sky untouched by any sign of dawn. CUT TO: In coat and tie, Thomas sits in his spartan kitchen stirring a coffee when the phone rings. FEMALE VOICE Hey little brother. DAGGETT (smiles) Hey. How's the world? VOICE The world's the usual. Except for a guppy. the world's minus one guppy this morning. DAGGETT And Jamie and Mac? VOICE They keep asking for Uncle Tommy. The only man that can make stuffed bears talk. DAGGETT My one true calling. What's up? VOICE What do you mean? DAGGETT It's five-thirty in the morning. VOICE (beat) I just thought I should call. DAGGETT You always were telepathic. VOICE Don't go. Thomas looks up at his overnight bag, sitting half-packed on the dresser. DAGGETT It's my job, Jan. I go places sometimes. VOICE I just had this terrible feeling about it. What's happening, Tom? DAGGETT I don't know. VOICE I miss you. Even when you're here. I miss you. I miss my brother. It's been four years, Tom, since... DAGGETT I know. VOICE We're the only blood family we have left, you and me. I worry about you. DAGGETT I'll be okay. VOICE Sorry about the dawn-attack call. I love you. DAGGETT I love you too, Jan. He cradles the phone, stares at it, then picks up his overnight bag. EXT. THE TOWN - NIGHT Silent and dead at this hour. Gabriel's boots creak on the floorboards of the 19th century plank sidewalks. He taps his finger aimlessly along plate glass shop windows. GABRIEL Boy, what a dump, huh? Jerry, limping on a foot that's caving in on itself, wiping the spinal fluid out of his dead eye, shuffles along behind. Gabriel pops off the elevated sidewalk, grabs a parking meter and swings himself playfully around. GABRIEL Why can't this shit ever go down in Miami? Or Bora Bora? I feel like I've spent my whole damn stay in gin swills like this. JERRY Life's a bitch. Gabriel suddenly freezes. He sticks his nose up, sniffs like a coyote, then abruptly drops to the ground in a push-up and smells the dirt. Tastes it with his tongue. Smiles. GABRIEL Well well... INT. THE SCHOOL BUILDING - NIGHT A fracture of broken moon tumbles through shattered windows and falls dully across shapes old, shapes forgotten, and one shape trying hopelessly to drag itself across the floor. It's Simon; breath a rasp, blood-soaked pants leaving a long smear behind him like a hemorrhaging snail. He coughs, drags an arm across the lenses of his sunglasses, And looks up at a pair of black, lizard-skin boots. GABRIEL Hi, Simon. Simon rolls on his back and sighs. SIMON Gabriel. Simon looks up at puss-faced Jerry, leaning quietly in a dark corner. JERRY Don't mind me. Just along for the ride. Gabriel sits down against the wall. GABRIEL So, what shall we talk about? Theology? SIMON I'm a little talked out on theology. GABRIEL Fair enough... Gabriel turns his boot to the moon, watches the pale light glint back off the lizard scales. GABRIEL You know why I'm here. SIMON Oh yes. GABRIEL Don't happen to have it on you by chance? SIMON No. GABRIEL That would have been too easy. Simon suddenly JUMPS to his feet. Tries to escape. Jerry trips him, SPRAWLING Simon back to the floor. GABRIEL Please, Simon. Get serious. Gabriel walks over to him. Puts his face close. GABRIEL Now. Where's the soul? (beat) You know. So high. Used to reside in the recently departed General Hawthorne. Simon doesn't answer. Gabriel shrugs. GABRIEL Have it your way, big guy. SIMON I do have one question. GABRIEL Shoot. SIMON Do you even remember what this war's about? Gabriel pauses, almost thoughtfully. Then he smiles. GABRIEL That's hardly the point, is it? SIMON I guess I never did get the point. GABRIEL Happens. SIMON How do you do it, Gabriel? How do you go on and on in this place? GABRIEL I like it here, Simon. I always have. SIMON I'm so tired... Gabriel grasps Simon's hand. GABRIEL Then join us, Simon. Reject the Nicene Council. We were here first. SIMON I can't do it, Gabriel. I don't even know why anymore, but I can't. GABRIEL You know the routine. SIMON (swallows hard) Yes. Gabriel's hand is suddenly on Simon's face, fingers spread, claw-like. They press into the flesh. Hard. And harder. Until Simon starts to bleed. Then to burn. INT. KATHERINE'S HOUSE - NIGHT Katherine startles abruptly in her bed at the faraway sound of Simon's screams. Screams carried either on the wind or her dreams. INT. MARY'S HOUSE - NIGHT Asleep, sweaty, shivering, Mary suddenly opens her eyes. INT. THE SCHOOL BUILDING - NIGHT Gabriel releases his grip on Simon, letting him fall back against the wall, afire. His clothes twist and blacken. His skin creeps and pops. His sunglasses melt and fall away; revealing two hollow pits beneath. Gabriel lifts Simon's entire body up off the floor by just the disintegrating face, and stares into the hollow pits. GABRIEL Not yet. And the fires go out. Gabriel drops the crackling, acrid body onto the floor. Impossibly, through the sizzling mucus and molten hair, it breathes. It gasps in pain. It won't die. GABRIEL I can do this for five months, Simon... DISSOLVE TO: EXT. THE TOWN The skies above lighten and smear blue and red. KATHERINE Finishes dressing for school, picks up her teaching bag, and crunches out across the gravel to her pick-up. INT. THE SCHOOL BUILDING Gabriel's lizard boots pace back and forth past Simon's writhing, burning body. Gabriel's more jittery now. Losing his patience. He bends down and pulls Simon's face up to his. GABRIEL This is getting boring, Simon. JERRY Amen. GABRIEL Where is it? Where did you put it? The seared skin around Simon's mouth comes off in Gabriel's hand. But Simon is still, even now, silent. GABRIEL Where is it! He flings Simon with a horrible crunch against the wall. GABRIEL I'm just about out of tricks here. You're a tough one, friend. Old school. He walks over and places a hand with something like friendship on Simon's charred shoulder. GABRIEL God loves you, Simon. And with the other hand Gabriel JAMS his fist into Simon's chest, PULLING OUT a lumpy, burned heart. Simon's mouth springs open and hisses emptily. Gabriel slips the heart into his pocket and lets go of Simon's shoulder. The body instantly disintegrates and crashes to the floor. EXT. THE TOWN - MORNING Katherine squints at the morning glare as she drives through town. Pulling into the school's drive she sees, parked at the building's back door, a sheriff's patrol car. INT. SCHOOL BUILDING Katherine comes up the stairs of the building's abandoned floor, passing the stacks of rotting desks toward where she last saw Simon. There's a bad smell in the air. At a turn stands a deputy that looks up as Katherine approaches. DEPUTY You may want to skip this, ma'am. Katherine looks past him to where a second deputy crouches down beside... beside something. It's human shaped, but like a shadow. A shadow twisted in agony and slicked with a tarry, smoldering ooze. The smell is overpowering. The crouched deputy has a handkerchief over his mouth. CROUCHED DEPUTY God damn... DEPUTY (to Katherine) Were any of your students up here? KATHERINE Mary... EXT. MARY'S FAMILY TRAILER - DAY Katherine pulls-up and parks. INSIDE Mary is still in bed, droopy-eyed and sweating. Her grandmother is there, and so is an elderly Navaho. He stands beside Mary's side, holding above her body a clenched pouch that he passes slowly back and forth. KATHERINE (to grandmother) How is she? GRANDMOTHER Same. KATHERINE Did the doctor come by? GRANDMOTHER He found nothing. But something is in her. I know. Something the Belagaana doctor can't see. The night people have been around two days now. It is a warning. (nods to Navaho man) So we have called the hand trembler. To find if she must have an Enemy Ghost Way. The old man mumbles a soft chant as he moves the pouch back and forth across Mary's body. EXT. MARY'S FAMILY TRAILER - DAY Katherine walks back out toward her pickup. She stops. Thirty yards away, almost invisible in the sage say for the glare of its evil, intelligent eyes, is a coyote. As she feels it's gaze a shadow suddenly crosses her shoulder. Katherine turns quickly but only barely catches, out of the corner of her eye, a glimpse of something very large. And winged. CUT TO: A huge semi ROARING deafeningly past on an empty desert highway, KICKING UP a dusty cyclone that drifts over a one- horse gas station and Thomas, sitting there in his car checking a map. CUT TO: EXT. COUNTY BUILDING - DAY Small townish; old adobe and stucco walls, cannon on the front lawn, every door loudly declaring itself a department: SOCIAL SERVICES, COURTS, and, SHERIFF. INSIDE The Sheriff's personal office is turn of the century regal, with high beam ceilings and rotating fans. Nothing seems newer than 1940, including the coffee pot the Sheriff pours a mugful from. Trim with glasses, bolo tie and boots, he looks like Barry Goldwater. SHERIFF And to what do I owe the thrill of a visit from a So Cal homicide cop? He hands the coffee to Thomas, sitting in a chair beside his solid oak desk. DAGGETT Run of of the mill psycho killer body dismemberment on our end. The usual. SHERIFF Lovely place, Los Angeles. DAGGETT Got a lead I wanted to run down Chimney Rock way. Thought I'd do the courtesy of telling you first. SHERIFF Big of you. DAGGETT You're welcome to put a babysitter on me if you like. The Sheriff smiles. SHERIFF Son, this is the third biggest county in the country, not even counting the 25,000 square mile Indian reservation right next door, and I've got fewer men than just one of your little palm tree precincts to cover all of it. 'Fraid the only help you're gonna get from me, short of another shoot out at the OK Corral, is that cup of coffee in your hand. A middle-aged secretary enters with a stack of paper. SECRETARY Here's the last week's watch reports. She hands them to the Sheriff, who passes them on to Thomas. He flips through the stack, comes up with nothing. The secretary hands another, single sheet to the Sheriff. SECRETARY Bobby just called this in from Chimney Rock. Thomas perks at The Town's name. SHERIFF (to Thomas) Sent a car up there this morning. Teacher complained some vagrant was sleeping in her schoolhouse. The Sheriff's brow crinkles in consternation as he reads further. SHERIFF (to secretary) Damn it, get Bobby on the phone, Clarice. What the hell is this suppose to be? DAGGETT (re report) May I? The Sheriff hands it to him. Glancing at it we pick up words like BURNED, BLACK SLICK, BODY OUTLINE. Thomas copies the name of the school down, gulps his coffee, and shakes the Sheriff's hand. DAGGETT Thanks for the coffee. SHERIFF (as Thomas turns to leave) Small piece of advice, Lt. Dagget, that I give free of charge to all visiting big city policemen: It's wild country up there. Always has been, always will be. You come across anything that snarls, you call me first, hear? DAGGETT I never turn down advice, Sheriff. Especially when it's free. DISSOLVE TO: Thomas's sedan passing through the vast, empty land. FAR ON THE HORIZON A small clump of buildings emerge clinging hopelessly to the earth. The Town. EXT. TOWN HOTEL - DAY A former miner's hotel, stone walls and sagging wrought iron. INT. HOTEL ROOM Thomas tosses his bag onto the bed, opens the balcony door, and looks out on the crumbly shale hills, the abandoned prospecting shacks, and the Chuska Mountains, clouds brewing darkly across its shattered back. CUT TO: A close-up of the circled newspaper obituary for General Hawthorne. The paper lowers and reveals behind it the general's grave. The dirt around the tomb is loose, recently filled. The grave keeper, a young, gangly, drifter type stands nearby with his shovel. DAGGETT How long ago was he buried? GRAVE KEEPER Which time? DAGGETT What do you mean? GRAVE KEEPER Somebody dug him up last night. I just finished putting him back. DAGGETT Did they take anything? GRAVE KEEPER Nothin' on the outside. INT. THE SCHOOLHOUSE Thomas's breath escapes in warm clouds here in the unheated, abandoned part of the building. Rats scurry away from feeding on the dark, human-like stain on the floor as Thomas crouches down beside it. He probes the dried, black, crusty flotsam with his ball-point pen. Just like the burned body back at the morgue. Far away you can hear the sounds of children. Of a teacher's voice. DOWNSTAIRS It's only past the final door, into the smallest corner of the building, that the walls become clean and brightly painted by eager third graders. The creepy silence transforms itself into the giggles of children as they bang open the classroom door and whoop themselves outside for recess. The last one out is Katherine. She's surprised to see Thomas. DAGGETT Hello. KATHERINE (suspicious) Can I help you with something? DAGGETT Tom Dagget. I'm with the police. KATHERINE About the guy upstairs? DAGGETT I'd like to ask you a few questions. KATHERINE I've kinda got my hands full right now. DAGGETT I'll just tag along. Katherine unlocks a hall cabinet and pulls out a stack of volleyballs. She tosses two to Thomas. KATHERINE Here, make yourself useful. Arms full, she pushes the building door open with her shoulder and backs out into the sunshine. She tosses the balls out to the kids. KATHERINE Okay, everbody stays on the courts today. (kids groan) -- I mean it. She sits down beside Thomas on the building's stone steps. DAGGETT What grade is this? KATHERINE All of 'em. DAGGETT Town doesn't look that small. KATHERINE Nearly all ghosts now. When the copper mine closed it took most of the town with it. We just teach out of this one corner of the schoolhouse now. Rest of it's been abandoned for years. DAGGETT You're the only teacher. KATHERINE Yup. Just me. (to kid threatening another) -- Randy... RANDY But he -- KATHERINE Do it again and I'll put your head in the door and slam it. (to Thomas) Love and understanding are important tools in education. DAGGETT Clearly. The children skitter back and forth playing. DAGGETT The man upstairs, did you talk to him? KATHERINE I wanted to know what the hell he was doing there. DAGGETT What did he say? KATHERINE That it wasn't part of the plan. He looked hurt. Bloody. Like someone had cut him. That happens here. (beat) Was that... stuff... on the floor really him? DAGGETT Did any of the children talk to him? KATHERINE Yes. DAGGETT Who? KATHERINE (protective) She's home sick from school today. DAGGETT Can I speak with her parents? KATHERINE They're dead. She lives with her grandmother. I'll have to ask her. DAGGETT All right. (stands, hands her slip of paper) This is my number at the hotel. Thomas starts away. Pauses. DAGGETT Did you know Arnold Hawthorne? KATHERINE The General? Saw him here and there. It's a small town. DAGGETT Military man? KATHERINE About a million years ago. His interests lately were more like gardening and herbal tea. DAGGETT Did you go to the funeral? KATHERINE Everyone did. He lived here. DAGGETT No dark hidden secrets? KATHERINE There are no secrets in small towns, Mr. Dagget, dark or otherwise. ACROSS THE STREET Up the crumbly embankment, sitting perched on the roof of an abandoned house, is Gabriel. He watches Thomas walk to his car. He watches the children playing, lifting his nose to snort the air, like a coyote. INT. THE TOWN LIBRARY Thomas sifts through some clippings on General Hawthrone. Tactical genius. The man who saved Korea. Brutal. Almost court marshalled a dozen times for his inspired savagery. A truly ruthless man -- who spent the last twenty years quietly tending his garden in a dying town. INT. THE TOWN CHURCH Small, simple, and woodplanked. The church we saw at the beginning. Thomas sits there, staring at the candles, the altar, the crucifix. He's alone there. But for a creeping buzz. A feeling in the air. GABRIEL'S VOICE It's unusual to see someone of your age in church on a weekday. Thomas turns in surprise. Gabriel is kneeling in the row behind, inches from his ear. GABRIEL Don't get me wrong. I think it's an excellent sign of character. There's something cold and creepy about Gabriel. Out of place in here. There's another sound. Teeth chattering far in the back. Thomas turns and sees Jerry, deep in the shadows of the choir box. Jerry waves. GABRIEL Never mind him. He shouldn't even be in here. Least not standing. Those sunglasses. Impenetrably dark. Like at the skid row flophouse. GABRIEL You're not from here. DAGGETT Either are you. GABRIEL I'm looking for something. DAGGETT Have you found it? GABRIEL I will. Have you found what you're looking for? DAGGETT I will. GABRIEL (appraising him) I don't doubt it. (stands) You'll let me know? When you find it? DAGGETT Where are you staying? GABRIEL I'm around. And he walks out, leaving Thomas alone in a place gone suddenly cold. INT. THOMAS'S HOTEL There's a note waiting for him at the front desk: "Her name is Mary Tsosie. You can talk to her at noon tomorrow. I'll be at the VFW hall tonight -- Katherine." DISSOLVE TO: INT. VFW HALL - NIGHT Thomas sticks his head in through the door. MICROPHONE VOICE ...B-26... B-26... It's an Indian bingo game. Thomas' eyes drift down the table packed with elderly faces and find Katherine and John the Navaho bus driver. Katherine waves him over. Both her and John are totally obsessed with the game, keeping track of several cards. DAGGETT I got your note. KATHERINE Have a seat. You need a card. Here, play one of mine. DAGGETT No, it's okay. Really -- JOHN You must learn to shed your high- strung ways, pale face. You must learn the spirit joy in patience, peace, and making fifty or sixty bucks. MICROPHONE VOICE ...G-19... G-19... KATHERINE John, this is Mr. Dagget. Says he's with the police, though judging by his coat and basic command of the english language, I don't think it's from anywhere around here. DAGGETT (shakes John's hand) Tom. From Los Angeles. JOHN That near Oxnard? DAGGETT Sort of. KATHERINE Long way from home, Tom-from-Los- Angeles. MICROPHONE VOICE D-9... D-9... Thomas lazily glances at his card, his eyes opening suddenly wide. DAGGETT -- Hey, wait. I won. I won! KATHERINE -- What? No way -- JOHN Recount! Recount! CUT TO: INT. TOWN HALL - NIGHT A Navaho social in full swing -- square dancing. The Indian band on stage plays deeply traditional, inspiring, -- Hank Williams. John easily whirls Katherine around; a steely-eyed, master square dancer. Thomas leans against the wall tugging on a beer. When John releases her for another partner she points at Thomas. KATHERINE Your turn. DAGGETT Oh, no thanks. KATHERINE C'mon, don't be a drip. She leads him out onto the floor. DAGGETT I'm not very good at this... KATHERINE (as they dance) No, you're not, are you? She smiles. Gets a smile out of him. KATHERINE Let me lead. EXT. DANCE HALL - NIGHT Couples drift off the building's porch and into the street to cool off, smoke, and take a few hits off paper bags. John leans against the brick wall, tugs liberally from his paper bag, and exchanges war hoops with some friends across the street. He passes the bag to Katherine and Thomas. JOHN So how's our star pupil feeling today? KATHERINE Mary? The school doctor came by. Declared it "Non-specific gastrointestinal disorder". JOHN Latin for "I don't have the slightest fucking idea". DAGGETT Will she be able to talk with me? KATHERINE That's up to her. (to John) Mary's grandmother called a hand trembler. JOHN Uh oh. Hocus pocus time. DAGGETT Is that serious? JOHN Depends what the hand trembler says. People call them in when they think a witch or a Yei is trying to sprinkle corpse sickness in their hogan, or if the Night People have been hanging around too much. Night people screw around a lot, but they're good at warning of evil ghosts. DAGGETT Who are the Night People? JOHN They come as coyotes. EXT. ROAD - NIGHT Thomas sits in the truck's bed as they Katherine drives through town. John, on the near side of royally toasted, has his boot stuck out the passenger window. Thomas looks up at the night sky. At its blaze of stars. DAGGETT Beautiful stars out here.