ACT ONE


NARRATOR (VOICEOVER) The time is 1863, the place the state of Virginia. The event is a mass bloodletting known as the Civil War. A tragic moment in time when a nation was split into two fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation. And a moment in time, as in all wars, when men are coerced into making fateful choices.


EXT. SMALL TOWN IN NORTHERN VIRGINIA 1863 AFTERNOON

(CUT TO)


EXT. CLEARING IN WOODED AREA, OVERLOOKING THE TOWN AFTERNOON


EXT. CAMPSITE, NEARBY WOODS, WHERE SERGEANT PARADINE HAS GONE, CAMERA FOLLOWING AFTERNOON

SERGEANT PARADINE
I thought I heard somethin’.

PRIVATE DOAGER
(seated on log, holding coffee cup)
Yanks?

SERGEANT PARADINE
I don’t hear ‘em no more.


Private Doager now holding cup in both hands, which are trembling violently.

Sgt. Paradine looks at him with dismay, then forcefully reaches down and picks up Doager’s rifle, looks at Doager again.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Doager, you figure this’d fire if you pressed the trigger?

PRIVATE DOAGER
I reckon.

Sgt Paradine tosses the rifle to Doager, forcing him to drop his coffee cup in order to catch it. Doager stands up swiftly, annoyed.


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PRIVATE DOAGER
What’s the idea, Paradine?!

SERGEANT PARADINE
The idea is, Doager, you ain’t a right arm to me, or a left arm. You’re just some extra baggage that breathes hard and splits my rations. You figure you’ll grow into that uniform ‘fore this war ends? I’ve known ten year-old boys who’d fill it better than you.

PRIVATE DOAGER
I cain’t help it. It used to...it used to be, I never give it any thought (squats back down). It used to be like some kinda game we wuz playin’, like kids. King o’ the mountain, hide and seek, blind man’s bluff.

Paradine squats down beside him, looks him in the face.

PRIVATE DOAGER
But it ain’t that way any more, Paradine. I seen too mucha this business...I was at the Second Manasses.

Sergeant Paradine gets up, moves away, squats down further away from Doager, as if in abhorrence, and looks back at him.

PRIVATE DOAGER
You ain’t got a nerve in your body, have you, Paradine?

SERGEANT PARADINE
Just as many as you, son, from head to boot. Only I don’t concern myself as much as you. You’re worried about dead men and lost battles. That’s just too much area to fret in. I’m worryin’ about two scouts on a mission...and a dirty piece o’ brown paper. It says the Yanks are fixin’ to take up position in the Chano Valley. We gotta scout ‘em and report back, as soon’s they get into that town down there below, town o’ Laysdell.

Both men are silent, Doager looking vaguely ashamed. A sound of horses from the town down below catches both men’s attention. Both are up, grabbing rifles, heading back to the clearing where Paradine was minutes before.


EXT. CLEARING IN WOODED AREA, OVERLOOKING LAYSDELL AFTERNOON, AS BEFORE

PRIVATE DOAGER
Yanks?

SERGEANT PARADINE
Yanks, probably. Horses, positive.

PRIVATE DOAGER
How many?

SERGEANT PARADINE
It’s a patrol. I figure twenty, thirty men.

Men and horses in the town suddenly fall eerily silent now. Paradine strains his ears, eyes darting around, confused. Doager obviously nervous, staring straight ahead at the town.

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SERGEANT PARADINE(mystified)
That’s funny.

PRIVATE DOAGER
I ain’t laughin’, Paradine. What’s ‘funny’?

SERGEANT PARADINE
I know I heard horses, and it ‘uz comin’ from down there...the Yanks, it ain’t any question ’bout that.

PRIVATE DOAGER(glancing nervously around)
Listen, Joe, we’re exposin’ ourselves here. This ain’t no place to stand, not out in the open.

Paradine takes a step further down the slope.

SERGEANT PARADINE
If they are Yanks, they’d be in the town by now. It’d be noisy as a county fair.(Listens). There ain’t a sound down there anymore.(Listens some more) I reckon...I reckon I better get down there and take a closer look.

PRIVATE DOAGER
Listen Joe, let’s pull out. I don’t like it. (grabs Paradine by the arm. Paradine shrugs it off, goes on back to camp site in woods)

EXT. CAMPSITE, NEARBY WOODS, WHERE SERGEANT PARADINE AND PRIVATE DOAGER HAVE RETURNED, CAMERA FOLLOWING SAME AFTERNOON

PRIVATE DOAGER
You heard ‘em! We found out what we needed to find out, the Yankees are in the valley, all right. So we go back and report.

Doager watches Paradine grabbing reins of his horse, and responds in exasperation.

PRIVATE DOAGER
So what’s the point in goin’ down there?

SERGEANT PARADINE
The ‘point’ is, we gotta count their heads, their horses and their guns. Gotta get a look at their regimental number. That enough ‘point’ for you, Mister Doager?

PRIVATE DOAGER
I don’t care. Just don’t care anymore. I just got one big mission left, and that’s to stay alive! (watching Paradine getting ready to mount up) All right, I say we go down in that valley, an’ we wave a shirt, and thrown down our carbines.

Paradine, shocked, turns around and steps forward, backhanding Doager across the face, staring angrily at him.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Mister Doager, I extend my sympathy so long as your yellow eats away at YOUR insides. But when it crawls into my bivouac and tries to climb up on my horse, I withdraw my sympathy and give you the back o’ my hand.
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Paradine turns away, and mounts up. Doager remains standing there, watching him.

SERGEANT PARADINE
So far, you and me have pledged nothin’ to the Confederacy ‘cept a lack o’ sleep and empty bellies. But there’s a coupla hundred thousand others, who pledged a lot more. You’re makin’ it appear like they did it for nothin’.

Doager looks ashamed. Paradine looks down at him disdainfully.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Now, you stay here. If you hear a shot, you get back to the lieutenant at a fast gallop, 'cause that’ll mean they’re down there in force, an’ you tell him what happened. If y’ haven’t heard from me in fifteen minutes, you get back here anyway.

PRIVATE DOAGER (seizing reins)
Listen, you goin’ down there alone? (disbelief)

SERGEANT PARADINE
Yeah, just me an’ this brave horse--for want of anythin’ else. (exits to left, on horse)

NARRATOR (voiceover) This is Joseph Paradine, Confederate cavalry, as he heads down toward a small town in the middle of a valley.

NARRATOR appears, wearing contemporary coat and tie, standing next to bush.

NARRATOR (speaks to camera) But very shortly, Joseph Paradine will make contact with the enemy. And he will be faced, as men in war often are, with fateful choices to make...choices that may redound even unto...the Twilight Zone.

EXT. MIDDLE OF LAYSDELL, VIEW FROM UNDER PORCH OF A COLUMNED BUILDING, LOOKING INTO AREA BEHIND OTHER BUILDINGS, WHERE SERGEANT PARADINE IS SEEN RIDING HORSE AT A DISTANCE, COMING TOWARD CAMERA. AFTERNOON

EXT. DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE BETWEEN TWO BUILDINGS AS SERGEANT PARADINE IS SEEN MUCH CLOSER. AFTERNOON

Sergeant Paradine halts his horse next a large wagon, dismounts and pulls rifle from its holster on the horse’s back. Tethers his horse to wagon’s wheel. Makes his cautious way up this dirt sidestreet, next to a brick building, FOLLOWING BACKWARD-MOVING CAMERA. Stops at whitewashed porch post, looks around. Starts to dash to other side of sidestreet, hits the dirt when he hears a steeple-bell ringing. Looks up at it, and realizes the wind rang it. Pigeons fly out of belfry and overhead as bell rings. Paradine gets up, runs to side of wooden-frame building on other side of sidestreet.

Paradine rounds corner, walks a short distance up the covered board sidewalk, then looks up the town’s main street in disbelief. Comes out into the middle of the dirt street, with CAMERA STILL MOVING BACKWARD IN FRONT OF HIM. Stops.

PAN SLOWLY BACKWARD. We now see two Union soldiers in front of Paradine, standing in marching posture, with full backpacks and rifles a-port. Paradine glances from one to the other, incredulous. He walks between them. PAN SLOWLY BACKWARD FURTHER. We see more Union soldiers, lined up in formation behind the first ones.
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CAMERA ANGLE CHANGES, and we see Paradine from behind now, marching through the middle of the column of Union soldiers, staring at them. Waves hand in front of the eyes of one, with no response--they are like a column of manikins.

Paradine turns, walks over to a wagon, where one Union soldier is paused in mid-drink with a canteen lifted to his mouth. Another is leaning over, appears to be frozen in the middle of checking his rifle.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Hey! Hey Yank! Must be sleepin’! Or are you dead?

Leans over wagon wheel momentarily. Looks back at the column. Walks back into its midst.

SERGEANT PARADINE (walking back down column)
Plague, maybe? Some kinda sickness? But that would take hours. You wouldn’t all be like this. Not all at the same time. Must be asleep! No wounds. Not a sign o’ blood. Wake up! Wake up! (prods one Union soldier with rifle) Go on! Wake up, go ahead! You aren’t dead! None of y’ are dead! WAKE UP, YANKS! NONE OF Y’ ARE DEAD!

Sergeant Paradine exits the rear of the column, feeling emboldened by what he’s seeing.

SERGEANT PARADINE
All right, Yanks! You’re all my prisoners! Come on, Yanks! You’re all my prisoners!

Paradine COMES UP TO CAMERA, WITH CLOSEUP ON HIS FACE--an expression of wide-eyed disbelief. Sees a covered supply wagon off to the side of the street, with two Union soldiers frozen in the middle of unloading and securing it. Paradine stares a moment, walks over for a closer look.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Well, you come to the right place. You sure come to the right place, boys.

Walks to the rear of wagon to look inside.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Food...clothin’...

Walks back up to front of wagon, climbs up to peer at the driver’s seat, and a wooden box sitting behind it.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Ammunition! What you got is what we need! You hear me, Yank? You come to the right valley! (addressing frozen soldier on edge of seat) Nothin’ around here but hungry Confederates!

Paradine climbs down, grinning in his incredulity. Turns, looks around and walks over to a boyish Union soldier standing next to a gazebo, holding an American flag.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Don’t understand...(turns away) Don’t understand...(looking around, mystified) What’s happened to you? Why are you...why are you all quiet like this? None of you can speak. None of you can move.

Paradine walks back over to soldier that was unloading barrel from rear of covered wagon when frozen. Turns over a stacked box and barrel sitting on ground, peers into barrel. Discarding it, he opens up the box. Tearing into a small burlap sack within, he stands up and looks at its contents.
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SERGEANT PARADINE
First meat I’ve had in a coupla months, you hear? (bites into some beef jerky)

(CUT TO)

EXT. PORCH, WHERE A FLOWER-POT TOPPLES FROM AN OPEN WINDOW SILL, SHATTERS. AFTERNOON

(CUT TO)

EXT. PARADINE’S POSITION BY WAGON IN STREET AFTERNOON

Paradine lowers the jerky from his mouth, looks toward the window where flower-pot fell. Drops bag with jerky, seizes up his rifle. Heads toward window, warily. Walking past locomotive in middle of street, crossing front yard of house with the window. Change to closer FOCUS as he climbs up front steps, approaches window.

Paradine picks up a piece of the flower-pot.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Wind...must be the wind...has to be the wind! (looks around)

Paradine turns away from window and walks to end of porch. FOCUS on window as a human hand creeps up onto the window-sill. FOCUS in closer as the hand moves forward to get a firmer grip on window sill. Hand shifts, and something else is heard to clatter to the ground (perhaps another flower-pot fragment). Paradine whirls back to window and sees the hand. Hand withdraws. Paradine lunges toward the window, rifle held at the ready.

SERGEANT PARADINE
All right, in there, you best come out now. You hear? You better come out now, or I’m comin’ in!

Paradine listens intently, hears footsteps within house, moves away from window to take a commanding position in front of the nearby door.

An elderly, grey-bearded man, in dark trousers and shirt with hat, holding a large, leather-covered book, steps through the door, regarding Paradine with mild annoyance, but not fear. Paradine’s expression softens, and he lowers the barrel of his rifle. The old man doffs his hat.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Hello there, old man. You don’t know how close you come to dyin’ just then.

Old man steps close enough to look directly in Paradine’s face.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Now, you better tell me just who you are, and what you’re doin’ here.

OLD MAN
I was just about to ask you for the same information, son...when I first seen you comin’ up the street, I thought you was a Yank.

Paradine regards old man curiously, turning his head slightly and looking askance at him.


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OLD MAN
You don’t know how close YOU come to dyin’.

FOCUS on Paradine, who looks amused.

SERGEANT PARADINE
What was you gonna use, Grandpa? That book? That’s a pretty heavy thing to be throwin’!

OLD MAN (smiles, touches book almost reverently)
This book. But I wasn’t aimin’ to throw it. Just use it.

The old man looks out at street.

OLD MAN
Like I used it on them.

Old man takes a step toward street, staring out into it, pleased by what he sees.

OLD MAN
I done that, you know.

(CUT TO)

EXT. LARGE TENT WITH GUARDS IN FRONT OF IT, NEXT TO GAZEBO WITH CHURCH BUILDING WITH BELFRY IN BACKGROUND AFTERNOON


OLD MAN (Voiceover)
Put ‘em all to sleep.
(CUT TO)

EXT. PORCH WHERE PARADINE AND OLD MAN STILL STAND AFTERNOON

Old man still looking out with evident pride and pleasure at the frozen soldiers in the street. Turns and looks at Paradine.

OLD MAN
You don’t believe me, do you? You think I’m lyin’.

SERGEANT PARADINE (doubtful expression)
I ain’t callin’ you no liar. SOMETHIN’ happened to ‘em. But there must be some natural explanation. They just couldn’t...

OLD MAN (laughing)
Natural explanation!

Focus on baffled look on Paradine’s face.

OLD MAN
Now don’t that take all! (looks down at book fondly, rubbing it reverently) This here’s what done it! (turns it and holds it up for Paradine to see) This here book.

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FOCUS on book. Leather cover, gilt lettering, and the title reads “Monumentum De Omnis Magicum Artium.”

SERGEANT PARADINE
Listen here, old man. You may be harmless enough, but I got no time to fiddle around with black magic, or any other old man’s games (walks past, knocks book from the old man’s hands).

OLD MAN
Games? Games, you call it? There in front of you stands the enemy. Not even a twitch. Not even movin’ a’ eyeball. Well! (bends over book on ground, reads aloud from it) “Ye soldier conjured here, in the name of the Prince of Darkness, ye shall remain silent and still.”

FOCUS on Paradine’s face as he bends over the old man.

Paradine freezes, as completely as the Union soldiers out in the streets of Laysdell.

FOCUS on old man's face, looking up with mischievous joy at what he has wrought.

OLD MAN
How ‘bout it now, Johnny Reb? You believe me? I reckon you believe me now, bein’ as you can’t move a muscle. Bein’ as you can’t speak even a word out loud, you’re just gonna have to stand there, and listen...listen to me speak at you. (slowly stands up)

Teague chuckles a little.

OLD MAN
Oh, I know you can still hear me. I only used a little bit of what power I COULD have put into that spell. My name’s Teague. I live down yonder by the creek. I’m a witch man, from way back. I know conjurin’ stuff backwards and forwards, and up and down. It’s my livin’. An’ then the Yanks come. All the people runnin’ a’fore ’em. Except me. Invaders! Tyrants! Thievin’ skunks in blue! I fixed ’em! I didn’t do no runnin’. I opened the book, and I read the words. You can see what happened to them. Now...now, you listen to me Johnny Reb. You’re a secessionist. You fight the Yanks. Now, you be good, don’t give me no argument. Blink yore right eye. (Paradine’s right eye blinks) Now, you’ll be able to move again as soon as I read the words. (bends over book again) “Ye soldier conjured here in the name of the Prince of Darkness, ye can now move and speak.”

Teague looks up. Paradine moves once again, straightening up and flexing his hand, breathing in, as if shaking something off. He looks at Teague skeptically.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Hypnotism!

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Hypnotism? Hypnotism? This is conjure stuff!

Teague laboriously tries to straighten up. When he can’t make it, Paradine reaches down and helps him up. Teague looks at him with a glimmer of gratitude.

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OLD MAN TEAGUE
Son, I’m forgettin’ my manners. Come on inside here, and I’ll tell you what all’s goin’ on here, from start to finish. It’s a bit of a long story, longer’n you’d wanna be standin’ up to hear it all.

Sergeant Paradine shakes his head, and casts another doubtful glance at the frozen tableau in the street.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Don’t worry about them none. They ain’t goin’ nowhere.

Paradine (still somewhat dazed) goes inside with the old man.

INT. COLONIAL-STYLE SITTING ROOM, WITH BRICK FIREPLACE AT FAR END, WOODEN WARDROBE TO LEFT OF FIREPLACE, LARGE LEATHER COUCH IN FOREGROUND. TEAGUE CIRCLES AROUND COUCH, SITS ON IT.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Folks that live here, they fled when the Yanks come. So, I’m just helpin’ myself to some hospitality, seein’ as how I done such a service to the town. I figure they owe me. And yore name might be...?

SERGEANT PARADINE (sitting down on couch himself)
Paradine. Joseph Paradine. Sergeant, Ninth Virginia Cavalry.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Fine, fine, Mr. Paradine. There’s some whiskey and a glass on that end-table beside ye there.

Paradine looks at it, doubtfully.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Go on, go on, Mister Paradine. I wouldn’t p’ison y’. If I wanted to kill you, I’d have done it already. That lieutenant of yores ain’t gonna know, either.

Paradine looks up sharply at this.

SERGEANT PARADINE
My lieu--Mr. Teague, how do you know about him? Are you a Yankee spy?

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Oh, no, I make it mah business to know, Mister Paradine. Like I said, I’m a conjurer, like my pappy before me, and his before him, and on back for another four generations. Back to my great-great-great-great grandpappy, man name o’ Sennacherib Teague, man what lived in the Old Country, in Surrey, England. He was a seventh son o’ a seventh son, and come to Jamestown when he was fifteen. He had seven sons, too. And so did ever’ generation since then, right down to me. All my ancestors back to him was seventh sons, an’ I’m the seventh one that’s a seventh son.

Interested in spite of himself, Paradine picks up the bottle and a small glass on the end-table, and pours himself a whiskey.


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OLD MAN TEAGUE
Anyway, Mr. Paradine, that ancestor of mine, Sennacherib Teague, he weren’t much good as a father or husband. He run away from home after his seventh and last son was a-born, and he went wanderin’ around the world. Put it all down in the first pages of this here book, the record of all his wanderin’s. He weren’t no coward, if we are to believe his writin’s about himself, and I figure they’re true enough. But he was a vain man, and what he wrote about himself was full of descriptions of himself, and the way he looked and acted, the things he said to people, the battles he fought.

Teague rises from couch, reaches up to two crossed sabers that are mounted on the wall, above the fireplace’s mantelpiece. Takes one down. Going into a crude parody of a swordfighter’s stance, he slices and stabs at the air, but not at Paradine, who remains calm but alert with his rifle still clutched in right hand.

(FLASHBACK)

EXT. ROCKY HILL WITH A LARGE STONE CASTLE AT SUMMIT, SOMEWHERE IN EASTERN EUROPE, PARTIALLY SHROUDED IN MIST. ALL SUFFUSED WITH A REDDISH LIGHT, GIVING IT A SURREALISTIC LOOK. MORNING, APPARENTLY.

Standing on lower slopes is a tall, broad-shouldered man in Puritan garb--large broad-brimmed hat, greatcoat, booted feet, leather belt with musket pistols thrust into it. Carrying a longsword in one hand, and a curiously-carved walking staff in other. Looking up at castle, then continuing to make his way up toward it.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
(SIMULTANEOUS VOICE-OVER)
One time, he ingratiated hisself with a Bulgarian count, givin’ him a sack of gold coins right off the bat, an’ sayin’ he had taken it off a travellin’ Frenchman, who had thought him to be one of the count’s lackies, an’ sayin’ the count was known to exact ‘tolls,’ as he called ‘em, from travellers passin’ through his land. He told the count he wanted to join such a man, and be his ‘muscle,’ the one who would actively waylay and rob people, and bring back the ones worth takin’ hostage. Once he had the count’s confidence, he found out that he (the count) kept a dungeon full of women he would impregnate, an’ sacrifice the children to a heathen demon name o’ "Tollig." Eventually, when the women’d lose their looks or start to get ill from conditions in the dungeons, he’d sacrifice them, too. Once Sennacherib saw it done, an’ heard the words to invoke Tollig, he wrote ‘em down, and then it was
off with the count’s head, and all the remainin’ women, too. Then he moved on.

A series of silent scenes depicts the described actions.

(DISSOLVE TO)

EXT. SWAMPY AREA IN EQUATORIAL AFRICA, WITH THE BLACK-CLAD SENNACHERIB TEAGUE TRACKING A SLAVE CARAVAN ALONG A RIVERBANK. EARLY MORNING


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OLD MAN TEAGUE
(SIMULTANEOUS VOICE-OVER)
Sennacherib got hisself captured by these Arab slave-traders, and got in good with the slaves, and led ’em in a uprisin’, and the slaves thought he was...well, thought he was a savior incarnate, or somethin’. Onlyest thing he axed was, could he interrogate the slave- traders, and have their personal things, an’ the slaves could have all the other stuff in the caravan baggage? They was agreeable, so he questioned the traders, and come to find out the very freezin’ spell I use was what they used to immobilize their slaves ’fore they chained ’em up. It took him some studyin’ and cipherin’ to render it all into English, but he figured it out, and wrote it in the book.

More silent scenes depict these actions.

(DISSOLVE TO)

INTERIOR A TORCHLIT GOKHANG TEMPLE IN NEPAL, ONE DOMINATED BY STATUE OF A DARK, HUGE-FANGED DEMON WITH GOLD JEWELRY AND FLAMING CROWN.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
(SIMULTANEOUS VOICE-OVER)
Ol’ Sennacherib thought he bit off more’n he could chew this time. This temple was a-guarded by warrior monks with swords, and it was high up on a mountain where y’ couldn’t sneak in. He hid out in a cave on a nearby mountain and watched all the traffic that went in and out. He saw people bring in entrails o’ animals--for offerin’s!--and he got this flash o’ intuition--if he brung in human body parts, an’ offered THEM, maybe he could get in good with the lama--the head priest in this place. So, after seein’ a woman fall off a cliff and die the next day, he went and sawed off her arm--he’d a killed her hisself, he wrote, but she beat him to it--an’ he came up to the temple gates, with the silk cloth around his neck, holdin’ his offerin’ on high, and got to come in and hear the lama offer this an’ ’bout a hundred other people’s offerin’s up, and give an initiation to all those in the temple into this black god’s worship, an’ how they could offer up requests. Sennacherib managed to steal one of the liturgy texts--he could already speak the language, the Tibetan tongue--an’ he put it all in here, in the book. Didn’t even have to kill nobody, that time.

Silent scenes to depict these actions.

(DISSOLVE TO)

EXTERIOR. ON A WIDE, FLAT EXPANSE OF PRAIRIE LAND IN THE AMERICAN WEST, WITH A LARGE VILLAGE OF TEEPEES IN BACKGROUND. MORNING

Large crowd of Native Americans are gathered around a display, where a man dangles from leather cords tied to the top of a tall pole, attached by hooks or needles thrust through his pectoral muscles. In the foreground, a garishly-garbed medicine man beats a drum, puffs a pipe, turns to the successive four points of the compass, and utters incantations.


OLD MAN TEAGUE
(SIMULTANEOUS VOICE-OVER)
Among the Blackfoot, in the Wyomin’ territory, Sennacherib proved his bravery, endurin’ the beatin’ o’ the gauntlet when he told ‘em he wanted to join ‘em, and proved (CONTINUED)
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his equestrian skill, and hunted buffaloes with ‘em, and finally spun around the pole, doin’ the Sundance with the best of ‘em. He came out of that with a song and a dance routine stuck in his head that he said would give him th’ insight into what others was thinkin’, an’ all he hadda do was hum a few notes and do a few steps o’ the dance, after a few practice runs, and he’d know what they knew. Had to kill the chief to escape, though.


Silent scenes depict these actions.
(DISSOLVE TO)

INTERIOR. A MAJOR LIBRARY IN EUROPE, IN THE OPEN AREA OF GROUND FLOOR WHERE INDIVIDUAL STUDY DESKS, ILLUMINATED BY LANTERNS, ARE AVAILABLE, AND INDIVIDUAL SCHOLARS PORE OVER BOOKS AND DOCUMENTS.


OLD MAN TEAGUE
(SIMULTANEOUS VOICE-OVER)
Back in “civilized” climes, Sennacherib Teague could use his new-found skills o’ mind-readin’ to pick the brains of scholars a-studyin’ the works of Pico della Mirandola, Cornelius Agrippa, Giordano Bruno, people like that. He didn’t have to read all that-- they did it for him, an’ he just eavedropped on what they were learnin’. He had the book with him, at his own table, hummin’, tappin’ his feet--but not too loud--and writin’ like a writin’ fool in it for days. The spells, the incantations, the curses, the hexes, the talismans, the initiations, the invocations o’ the dark powers--he got it all.

Silent scenes to depict these actions.

(DISSOLVE TO)

BACK TO HOUSE IN LAYSDELL, SITTING ROOM
EARLY EVENING, AS SEEN THROUGH WINDOW

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Sennacherib Teague was a man who travelled the world, by ship, by horseback, on foot. He was at home wherever he was, whether it was with a bandit chief in the Bavarian forests, or a feudal lord in Transylvania, or a Turkish pasha, or a witch-burnin‘ cleric in Salem, or a village wizard down in the Congo or a medicine man among the Plains Indians out west. He was a quick study to learn new languages, too, and to learn the lay of the land in foreign places. Most often, he’d end up killin’ these men he got the magic from. Lotta times, there was people who’d been under the heel of these men of magic, an’ they’d think he did it to free them. THEY thought of him as a hero. ‘Lotta them worshipped the very ground Sennacherib Teague walked on, and thought he was an avenging angel sent by...well, you know what I mean. They thought they knew the man. They thought he was a fighter against oppression, a man tryin’ to forge justice in the world. But he really was after the ones who oppressed with magic, so he could take their spells and their potions and their amulets and their curses away from ‘em--takin’ ’em for his own. He wanted to be the king of all the conjurers. Sounds strange to say that ’bout a man born and raised a Puritan, don’t it? But still, that’s (CONTINUED) //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////what he wanted. That’s what he hunted for---newer and stronger magic, and he wrote it all down in this here book. The title’s in Latin, and it means “Book of All the Magic Arts.” The gilt title inscription and the illustrations on the pages weren’t done by him; he
forced a monk in Italy to do all that for him, and the monk ended up committin’ suicide after he was done. He couldn’t handle that he’d been a part of somethin’ like this here. Anyhow, that’s the story o’ where the book come from. It’s been handed down from seventh son to seventh son till it finally reached me.
I don’t claim to be the warrior or adventurer that Sennacherib Teague was. I don’t have to be. I’m a better conjurer than he ever dreamed o’ bein’, ’cause I’ve had the book to read and conjure from all my life, with all the latent power of a seventh son of a seventh son, seventh in a line of seventh sons of seventh sons. Sennacherib’s descendants, the seventh sons of seventh sons, my ancestors, they mostly were content to use it to settle feuds and vendettas, get petty revenge on people what wronged em, that kinda thing. They was short on imagination. ’Course, they didn’t have no great, earth-shakin’ cause to use the book for, like I got now.

Sergeant Paradine has been thoughtfully handling his glass. He looks up sharply at this last statement, sets down the glass, and rises to his feet, almost guiltily, feeling as if another spell upon him has finally been broken.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Mr. Teague, that cause is one I believe in, too. And I need to do my part in it. I need to get back to my unit, make my report. But listen here, Mr. Teague, what about you? You got all this power in that book. I seen for myself what it can do (gestures vaguely at the window). Why don’t you use it to bring us victory, once and for all? Why not use it to freeze-up every Union soldier everywhere? Bring all those armies to a halt! Why don’t you do it, Mr. Teague?

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Once upon a time, son, I could’ve. What I done to them, I could do to the whole Union army. Freeze ‘em all in their tracks. Once, I coulda opened up a path to Washington, so that Bobby Lee could ride in there with three Confederate troopers, and take over the whole country.

SERGEANT PARADINE
You keep sayin’ you could’ve, old man. Why not now? What’s changed? Why can’t you do it now, old man? What’s stoppin’ you?

OLD MAN TEAGUE
One good reason. An’ one good reason only (turns to look at Paradine). I’m gonna die.

Teague puts sword back on wall, hangs onto his book as he walks back through door, back onto porch.

EXT. PORCH WHERE PARADINE AND TEAGUE WERE BEFORE.
MID-EVENING

SERGEANT PARADINE
How do you know that, Teague? How can anybody know that?


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
OLD MAN TEAGUE
Whoa! Hold up there, boy! I told you at the beginnin’, there’s things I make it my BUSINESS to know. I’m gonna die before the sun goes down. Got a feelin’ in my bones. I can smell death. Hear him comin.' On a white horse. Gallopin’ straight at me.
Gallopin’, gallopin’ straight at me.

Paradine is looking sidelong at Teague, disturbed at what he’s hearing, and disturbed that this spinner of elaborate tales is once again the plain-spoken old man he first encountered.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
Ol’ Mistuh Death. Come to pluck me outta the livin’. So, I ain’t gonna be around to do what’s got to be done. I’m leavin’ it up to you.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Me?

OLD MAN TEAGUE
I can tell about a man’s looks. His eyes. His head. His hold on his weapon. I can tell all about that man.

Paradine is looking very doubtful about all this.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
I’m choosin’ you. (lifts up the book and proffers it to Paradine) You’ll find everythin’ you need in this book. Sometimes, you’ll swear it’s talkin’ to you, or singin’ at you, or even invadin’ your dreams. Here (thrusts it out more insistently). Take it.

Paradine lifts up his left hand, takes the proffered book.

SERGEANT PARADINE
It don’t seem right (lifts his head, looks Teague in the eye). Don’t seem right at all. There’s somethin’...somethin’ unclean about it. Like bein’ in league with the...

OLD MAN TEAGUE
That’s it. You got it right, Johnny Reb. You said it like it’s got to be said. The devil. That’s who you’re in league with. The devil himself.

Teague turns and looks back out into the street and the frozen Union soldiers again.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
That’s who we’ll have fightin’ on our side (almost yelling now). The devil.


Teague is hanging onto one of the whitewashed posts that hold up the porch. He grips it with one arm, and begins to slide down it, sinking down onto the whitewashed boards of the porch.

OLD MAN TEAGUE
The devil.

FOCUS on Paradine’s face, troubled, staring out into the swiftly-falling night.

EXT. CAMPSITE IN THE WOODS OUTSIDE LAYSDELL WITH TWO OFFICERS IN FOREGROUND, DISTINGUISHED BY SIDEARMS AND SABER NIGHTTIME

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SENTRY AT EDGE OF CAMP
Halt! Who goes there?

SERGEANT PARADINE
Paradine. Troop scout.
SENTRY
Step forward and be recognized!

Paradine, on horseback, comes around a tree, advances a little further, dismounts.

LIEUTENANT
You been gone a long time, Paradine.

An exhausted-looking Paradine comes forward as a private takes his horse, and advances over to the lieutenant. In his right hand is the book.

LIEUTENANT
We give you up for dead or prisoner by this time.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Neither, lieutenant.

LIEUTENANT
You had time for readin’, it appears.

Paradine looks down at the book, self-consciously.

LIEUTENANT (sarcastically)
Well, a man’s got to do his readin’, don’t he?

Private Doager comes up, offering a cup of coffee to Paradine, which he declines with a shake of the head. Doager offers it to the lieutenant, who also declines.

FOCUS ON LIEUTENANT.

LIEUTENANT
Well, out with it, man. What’d you see?

FOCUS ON PARADINE, WITH DOAGER IN RIGHT BACKGROUND.

SERGEANT PARADINE
More’n you’d believe, Lieutenant.

FOCUS ON LIEUTENANT.

LIEUTENANT
Where was their advance party? We haven’t heard a sound from that valley all day.

SERGEANT PARADINE (unwavering in his gaze)
Their advance party’s in that town. And the main body’s spread out behind.


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
LIEUTENANT (eyeing him sharply)
Are you drunk or somethin’, Paradine? Now, there hasn’t been a sound from down there all day. Not a sound!

FOCUS ON PARADINE, WITH HIS HEAD THROWN BACK, A DETERMINED GLEAM IN HIS EYE.


SERGEANT PARADINE
Lieutenant, you got every right to call me mad. But the reason you didn’t hear ‘em is...is, they’re all asleep.

(CUT TO)

PAN BACK, BRINGING DOAGER AND THE LIEUTENANT INTO PICTURE WITH PARADINE.

Lieutenant turns toward camera, staring at the ground contemplatively. Paradine comes closer, still looking at him and speaking to him.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Put to sleep by magic. Black magic. (pause) It’s right here in this book. A little old man by the name of Teague, he done it. (holds the book in front of lieutenant for his perusal).

LIEUTENANT (hesitant)
Paradine...the order’s out. You’re to take yourself to bed. You’re to sleep the night. Make your report to me in the morning (starts to turn away).

SERGEANT PARADINE
This IS my report, Lieutenant!

FOCUS, ALTERNATELY, ON PARADINE AND THE LIEUTENANT.

Shaking his head in exasperation, Paradine speaks again.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Where’s Mallory’s troop?

LIEUTENANT
They went up on the north ridge, late this morning.

SERGEANT PARADINE
And there was a group of Yankees camped up there, wasn’t there? Company strength, at least, wasn’t there?

LIEUTENANT (perplexed)
That’s what we figured. But what’s that go to do with all this?

SERGEANT PARADINE
On the way back here, Lieutenant, I...I...I opened the book, and I...read from a page of it. I conjured up a spell! An I...I...turned in the direction of that ridge!

In background, Private Doager looks increasingly disturbed at these words.


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
SOUND TO LEFT draws attention of all three men--all turn their heads in that direction. Another officer is in foreground, stepping forward with arms held at an odd angle. In background, behind him, we see several troops on horseback filing along to the right.

LIEUTENANT
Mallory? Paradine says...

At the look on Mallory’s face, the lieutenant stops speaking. Doager and Paradine watch him intently, also.
MALLORY
I just seen somethin’...I can’t explain...no more’n any o’ my men can explain it. But they seen it too!

FOCUS ON MALLORY.

MALLORY
We was walkin’ up that ridge in a skirmish line, scared outta our boots...’cause it was so quiet! We thought them Yankees was waitin’ for us, just beyond the parapet. They was waitin’ all right...

FOCUS ON PARADINE AND LIEUTENANT, WHO EXCHANGE A MUTUAL GLANCE AT THIS

MALLORY (VOICE-OVER)
...standin’ straight ‘n tall, guns-to-port...

FOCUS ON MALLORY, THEN BACK TO PARADINE AND LIEUTENANT

MALLORY (VOICE-OVER)
...frozen like statues!

LIEUTENANT(with Paradine watching him)
Dead?

MALLORY (VOICE-OVER)
Not dead...

Paradine looks back to Mallory.

MALLORY (VOICE-OVER)
Not dead...

The lieutenant looks back at Paradine now.

MALLORY (VOICE-OVER)
Not alive.
(CUT TO)

PAN BACK, SHOWING (L-R) MALLORY, DOAGER, PARADINE, THE LIEUTENANT

MALLORY
Just frozen stock-still, like rocks!

The lieutenant looks at a set of written orders in his hands, absently. Paradine lifts up the book, points to it.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
SERGEANT PARADINE
Lieutenant, it was this that done it!

The lieutenant glances at it, then at Paradine.

LIEUTENANT
Paradine, this is the devil’s work!

MALLORY
Well, what’s this all about?!

Paradine thrusts the book forward toward Mallory.

SERGEANT PARADINE
This book...an old man give it to me in town...It IS the devil’s work!(glances at lieutenant) I know that. But maybe it’s time we called muster on the devil.

FOCUS ON MALLORY, who looks appalled and baffled.

SERGEANT PARADINE (VOICE-OVER)
Maybe it’s the only thing left for us.

FOCUS ON PARADINE

SERGEANT PARADINE(staring at lieutenant)
We ain’t got enough guns, we ain’t got enough food, we ain’t got enough of anythin’! We’re losin’, Lieutenant! The Confederacy’s crackin’ up into little pieces right in front of our eyes! It’s bleedin’ to death everyday! We ain’t got enough blood left to make a change!

Paradine shakes his head slightly.

SERGEANT PARADINE
I don’t know much about Satan...but this cause of ours is dyin’ right in front of us.

Lieutenant turns his head to look at some of the enlisted.

FOCUS ON GROUP OF ENLISTED MEN, looking uneasily at the lieutenant and his small group.

FOCUS ON DOAGER AND PARADINE.

Doager steps in front of Paradine to speak directly to him now.

PRIVATE DOAGER
Paradine...open up the book and read from it out loud. Make it good for every Union soldier in the field. Freeze ‘em! Put ‘em into the earth or somethin’! But make it good!

Paradine glances in the lieutenant’s direction, back at book. Opens the book up.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Satan...Satan, I call upon ye, an’ in so doin’, I revoke the name of...(pauses)
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Sergeant Paradine pauses, looks around uneasily, first in the lieutenant’s direction, then back at Doager.

PRIVATE DOAGER
Go on, Joe, read it!

Paradine looks in the lieutenant’s direction again.

SERGEANT PARADINE
It calls upon us to revoke the name of God.

FOCUS ON THE LIEUTENANT, GRIM-FACED.

Private Doager lunges at Paradine, wrestling the book out of his hands. Book falls to ground. Doager goes down to his knees, scrabbling to grab it up. Paradine wrestles it away from him.

SERGEANT PARADINE
Leave it be, Doager!

Doager’s expression is anguished.

PRIVATE DOAGER
You said it yourself, Sergeant, it’s the only thing we got left!

LIEUTENANT
He’s right, Paradine. God help us...it IS all we have left.

Paradine looks up at the lieutenant with a haunted look.

SERGEANT PARADINE
What do we call ‘em...DAMN YANKEES, don’t we, lieutenant? That’s the phrase, isn’t it? DAMN YANKS! If I read aloud from this book, it’ll be the Confederacy that’s damned!

PRIVATE DOAGER
It’s that book, or it’s the end!

SERGEANT PARADINE
Then let it be the end! If it must come, let it come! If this cause is to be buried, let it be put...

Just as Sgt. Paradine is about to reach the decision to consign Teague’s book to the flames of the nearby campfire, he is forcibly distracted.

LOUD SOUND OF HORSE HOOVES FROM LEFT

A Confederate mail courier enters the camp. The courier, exhausted, filthy and minorly wounded (bullet graze on left side of face) rides up to the group where Sgt. Paradine stands with Doager and the lieutenant.

MAIL COURIER
Is this the 9th Virginia Cavalry?

LIEUTENANT
Yes, Corporal, it is. State your business, boy.
(CONTINUED)
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
SERGEANT PARADINE(eyes courier curiously)
Say, don’t I know you, son? Aren’t you Arch Pellington’s boy--Tom? From my hometown?

The mail courier gets down from horse and guides the Sgt. over toward a large, downed tree trunk.

MAIL COURIER
That’s right, Mr.--Sgt. Paradine. I’ve got bad news sir. Please sit down. (They both sit on the tree trunk). I...we... I’m sorry to tell you your wife...and...your... five children...have gone missin’...after the Union shelled Maceyville last weekend. The local militia group drove ‘em off, but one man saw the whole thing from Barrington Peak. He saw your family run to the house--and saw the house disappear under fire from mortars. He said they musta...the Yankees musta thought it was a arms depot or somethin‘ like that.

A long, unhappy pause ensues. Paradine almost falls from his seat, and is helped by Private Doagley (who has dashed over, seeing his sergeant in distress) and Tom Pellington, who help him stay upright .

MAIL COURIER
I’m not really a soldier, Sgt. My older brother Hank came home wounded. When I found out about your family, I didn’t know what to do. I took his uniform and rode up this way after some men from your unit told me you was here. They were comin’ around lookin’ for food, y’ know. I’m sorry, Joe...Sgt. Paradine. I was one of your wife’s students at the school. I thought someone you knew should tell you, sir. I’m sorry.

FOCUS ON PARADINE. CHANGE OF LIGHTING, TO AN UNDERLIT LIGHT PERSPECTIVE--DARKER, MORE SINISTER.

OVERHEAD, A BRIGHT FLASH OF LIGHT, bright as any lightning, followed by a horrifyingly total darkness.

LIEUTENANT
What in God’s name--Paradine, is this your doin’? There’s not a cloud in the sky. Is this magic--from that book?

Paradine doesn’t answer.

After a couple of seconds, THE BLACKNESS SUBSIDES, REPLACED BY THE “NORMAL DARKNESS” of a few moments before.

Paradine’s expression has changed--his eyes have gone wide, and seem to smolder with hate. The corners of his mouth have turned downward into a grim, sad/angry expression.

After a period of blank, incoherent despondency, the Sgt. pulls himself together. His voice assumes a hard, cold edge. He addresses the courier once again, who still stands before him.

SGT. PARADINE
Thank you for informin’ me of this, son. You’ve got a big choice to make here, son. You can skedaddle back home right now, if you want. If not, I’m going to insist you take the induction oath right now. Because this war ain’t over. Not by a damn sight! I can bring victory. After today, I don’t count the cost. Period.

The sergeant has been holding Teague’s book this whole time. He looks at it again, seeing it in a totally new light. A grim smile tugs at the corners of his mouth.

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////A SHELL suddenly EXPLODES nearby. SMOKE ENVELOPS THE CAMP SITE. When it clears, we see all rising from sitting or prone positions, dusting themselves off and checking themselves for injury.

CORPORAL PELLINGTON (coughing, waving his arms to dissipate smoke and dust) Sgt. Paradine...sir, are you all right?

Paradine has fallen off the tree trunk, and arises now. He touches his left shirt pocket, which shows a tear--directly above his heart. He reaches in the pocket, and pulls out a small book, much smaller than the black magic book in his other hand.

FOCUS on book with shrapnel-torn hole, in Paradine’s hand.

CORPORAL PELLINGTON
Sir, are you all right?


SGT. PARADINE (speaking dazedly)
Yes...Tom. I think that was a dud shell from an earlier battle here, goin’ off late. There’s been no enemy activity in this whole valley...not today, and not since we come here two days ago.

Other troops are picking themselves up, gazing around with anxiety.

SGT. PARADINE
Yes, I’m all right, Tom (looks at the book in his hand, which Tom leans around to get a look at).

CORPORAL PELLINGTON
It’s a bible, sir. Looks like it just saved your life, sir.

Tom points to the shell fragment embedded in the book.

SGT. PARADINE (staring at one book, then the other) No matter...Tom. It doesn’t change what I’m gonna do.

Sgt Paradine puts the smaller book back in his pocket. He opens Teague’s book, and starts to read aloud (AUDIO FADE OUT, SCENE FADE OUT).

END OF ACT ONE


ACT II

INT. LOOKING DOWN LONG CORRIDOR IN AN OLD STONE SPANISH FORTRESS, WITH SUNLIGHT STREAMING IN THROUGH BARRED WINDOW IN THE EXIT DOOR. AT ITS END, CAMERA MOVING SLOWLY TOWARD IT. MID-MORNING


PARADINE(VOICEOVER)
Mr. President, Mr. Lincoln. It’s not often I get to address the two o’ you. A big honor for a Virginia farm boy, I will admit.

PRESIDENT JEFFERSON DAVIS (VOICEOVER)
I must confess, I too am swept up by the grandeur of this moment. I could never hope to meet a more worthy adversary, Mistuh Lincoln. I hope this summer’s day finds you healthy and in good spirits. I hope the hospitality of the state of Georgia is acceptable, sir, and that it will be memorable for you, as it is for Ser--Mr. Paradine.

ABRAHAM LINCON(VOICEOVER)
Gentlemen, I suppose I must express some token amount of thanks for the fact that you continue to allow me to go on living. Having expressed it, I now feel free to say that I consider my detention here illegal, just as I consider the continued existence of your supposed “nation” illegal and contrary to the laws and the essential spirit of the American constitution. I must request that you release me and transport me back to Washington, or at least refrain from hindering my return under my own means. I know full well you won’t grant my request, Mr. Davis. But perhaps you will at least consider granting another request--that you feed me whatever is standard prison fare in Georgia, and do not serve me again with “breakfast al fresco,” as you call it. It’s just not meet or proper that Union soldiers are undoubtedly still languishing in your prison camps while their commander-in-chief is feted in such a luxurious manner. And, of course, my original request still stands--that you, if you have any shred of American decency left in your souls and in your institutions, give me my right of due process and a speedy trial, even if the verdict be guilty and the sentence be hanging. Does the Confederacy no longer value these things?

PRESIDENT DAVIS(VOICEOVER)
Mr. Lincoln, I am most regretful that the mere fact of your detention is one you find onerous. I have no wish to impose any discomfort upon you whatsoever, whether physical or moral. But the moral discomfort you feel is of your own makin‘, and beyond my power to alleviate. The special circumstances of your capture and the political circumstances prevailin’ in our two countries make it impossible for me to release you, OR to try you at this time. An’ sentencin’ you to death would be the most egregious breach of morality. In due course, I judge there will be a fitting time for your release and return to YOUR OWN country. Consider it to be the rulin’ of the highest court, one consisting in the unitary executive authority of the Confederacy, that has sentenced you to at least ten years’ time.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN(VOICEOVER)
Sophistry to whitewash creeping autocratic practices, Mr. Davis? Given your countrymen’s (and I use the term loosely) desire to let states’ rights prevail, I wonder what the government of the state of Georgia--for instance--would think of your “unitary (CONTINUED) ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
ABRAHAM LINCOLN (VOICEOVER)
executive court” and its broadly-defined powers? Not very much, I suspect!

PAN BACK to show the three men and the two guards escorting them, reaching the door at corridor’s end, door opening, and the whole party stepping outside into bright sunlight. One is dressed in white, with a white hood. The door shuts behind them.

FOCUS ON THE THREE MEN, STANDING IN FRONT OF DOOR WITH THE WHITEWASHED STONE OF THE BUILDING FRAMING THEM.

Outside in the sunlight, Paradine, the one hooded and dressed in white now, is squinting painfully against the sun’s brightness. His hood has a peaked crown, and openings for eyes and mouth. He also carries a leather briefcase.

Blinking against the sunlight himself, President Lincoln makes condescending note of Paradine’s attire. He is moved to comment on it.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Mr. Paradine, is it? Sir, why do you wear such ludicrous garb? I suppose it is of little consequence, as you seem to have obtained remunerative employment and are in no danger of losing it. Still, I must pose the question--why wear such a thing? You appear ready to attend some European monarch’s costumed ball. Is Mr. Davis intent upon imitating them in this respect? What’s next? His coronation as king?

President Davis seems no more eager to answer this question than the previous one. Paradine answers as they all amble toward an outdoor dinette set, complete with linen table cloth, silver and wine goblets.

PARADINE
Well, Mr. Lincoln, that’s a bit of a story. I will tell you, if you really want to hear it.

PRESIDENT DAVIS (interrupting briefly)
If you gentlemen will seat yourselves, I’ll go get the wine and the servants will bring our breakfast out (departs to right). By the way, Mr. Lincoln, I see my tailor has already visited you. I hope the suit is to your likin’. He’ll have a couple more made in the next day or so.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN(sitting down)
It’s actually rather well-done, Mr. Davis. Thank you.

Lincoln turns to Paradine as President Davis strides away.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Well, why not tell me the story of your peculiar mode of dress, Mr. Paradine? Leisure time is something I have no shortage of these days, galling as that is to my soul.

PARADINE (also sitting)
All right, Mr. Lincoln. The truth is, I come down with an ailment after I had a near-brush with an unexploded shell, the day before we were supposed to head up to Gettysburg. I think it had somethin’ to do with my affliction. My skin and my eyes just have a hard time bearin’ sunlight ever since then, Mr. President.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
That was right around the same time as the calamity that overtook the garrison in (CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Washington,, Mr. Paradine. All those men suddenly became paralyzed, as still and lifeless as mannikins in a clothing shop. I saw some clearly that morning, on a little rise in the road about half a mile from the White House, a wagon full of enlisted men and their driver and horse. That was just a few minutes before you men and your lieutenant rode up to the front entrance and kicked the door in. Coming down the stairs, I saw that even my own Secret Service men were paralyzed, too. How fortuitous for you and your cause.
What do you know about that, Mr. Paradine? I’m curious. Men don’t just spontaneously freeze for any natural reason. And what happened to the rest of the Union’s armed forces? You waltz in, seize my capital, and take me and most of the Congress prisoner. You ship me off to this Georgian swampland. I have heard no sound of armed conflict since I was brought here. It’s as if the war was preemptorily ended by totally unnatural, even supernatural means.

PARADINE
Well...that’s a pretty incredible story, Mr. Lincoln. As I recall, we shot those Secret Service agents of yours, and they was movin’ around pretty spry and frisky, to MY recollection. We just outmaneuvered your troops, and Lee struck at Washington when you wasn’t lookin’, Mistuh President. An' as for the troops you saw in that wagon, I think you’re mistaken about them, too. They was probably Confederate soldiers, an’ the city of Washington had already fallen, and they were probably drunk, sir. They had started celebratin’ early, evidently--contrary to orders, of course.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Mr. Paradine, with all DUE respect, YOURS is a pretty outlandish story. I had been unable to sleep that night, and I was up most of the night, and I never heard any sound of musketry or artillery or the cries of men in combat that night or anytime that morning before your unit crashed into the White House. If any invasion of Washington had occurred under Mr. Lee and his army, I would have heard it well ahead of its arrival. With all DUE respect, sir, I know a lie when I hear one. And I also must ask you this, Mr. Paradine. Why do you always keep that briefcase so close to you, and have it chained and handcuffed to your hand? What could be so important to the president’s assistant that he must treat it like an outgrowth of his own body?

Paradine is spared having to make any answer by the re-arrival of President Davis, carrying two bottles of wine and a corkscrew, followed by three black servants bearing platters with numerous plates. The plates hold steaming heaps of steak cuts, omelettes, mashed potatoes, biscuits, and fruit. Gravy boats, mugs and pots of hot coffee are also perched atop the serving platters. They swiftly spread out and arrange these items atop the large, oval-shaped dining table.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
As I said before, Mr. Davis, this kind of lavish hospitality is wasted on me. I’ll take a steak cut and one of those biscuits, and a mug of that coffee. That’s all I want. It’s not right, all this gluttony while so many Union soldiers are imprisoned with barely enough to sustain life. Especially imbibing wine in the morning--the immorality of such sensuality! More importantly, sir, I see some very disturbing hints of what’s going one here--disturbing from the standpoint of your condition for all eternity, sir. I was just telling Mr. Paradine here that his story of General Lee taking Washington by feinting and outmaneuvering the United States Army in the field simply does not bear up under scrutiny. I was awake nearly the whole night, and never heard anything remotely like the (CONTINUED)
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
sound of thousands of troops invading the city. That would not be something any commander could hope to keep quiet. Mr. Paradine has told me of his affliction of sensitivity to sunlight, and I myself have noted his refusal to ever relinquish that briefcase. I think Mr. Paradine’s soul will not
bear too much light shone upon it, either. Nor will he ever relinquish his sinful role in this set of unnatural events, judging by what I‘ve seen of his character so far. That he had a major role in all this is apparent from the fact that a mere sergeant--yes, I’ve heard you start to call him that, then check yourself--should be elevated to the position of permanent advisor to the president of the Confederacy. And what he carries in that briefcase has something to do with it, I’m sure.

FOCUS ON PARADINE. His eyes redly flash with anger, momentarily, glaring out of the openings of the white hood.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Mr. Paradine, I think you have most grievously transgressed. I think you will live to see all you have wrought; I don’t know HOW you did it, but that’s unimportant. I think you will be denied the comfort of entering the hereafter and being blind to the ramifications of your doings. You’ll live to see hell on earth for yourself before you see it down below. Mark my words well.

An uncomfortable silence reigns with the other two. Lincoln, for his part, devotes himself to eating his frugal portion and polishing off his cup of coffee. Then he speaks again.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
And like all who become vassals to the prince of this world, you’ve failed to understand his limitations. I hear things. I’ve learned the Seminole tongue, earlier in my career, and learned their drum and sign languages as well. The power you have doesn’t even extend over this whole continent. A couple of Seminole prisoners you keep here have said between themselves--within my hearing--that a priest in Louisiana, a Father Ricard, has built a chain of mission stations along the western side of the Mississippi. One of these Seminoles evidently became a Christian and left his old life behind when he went to the Mansfield area of Louisiana, to one of Father Ricard’s missions.
Your power will not extend to that side of the river, these Seminoles were saying between themselves. They spoke as though they had been there, and seen this. They said, more or less, that there is a “cloud of evil over the land, from the Great Water to the Great River,” which I take to mean between the Atlantic and the Mississippi. I think he told the truth about the limits of your power.

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Mr. President, I suspect you place too much faith in the maunderings of heathen Indians. The armed struggle between our countries continues on the other side of the Mississippi, though the Confederacy IS prevailin’ there, with California already firmly in our grip. Also, I think you place too much faith in the nefarious machinations of the Romish church. Those heathen devils do seem to have snagged three more dupes--the two Seminoles, and yourself, sir.


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
PARADINE
I grew up not far from the Maryland border, Mr. Lincoln. That state is a haven for papistry. I heared tell of blood offerin’s in their popish churches to that there goddess of theirs many a-time as I was growin’ up.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN (ignoring this for the moment)
But the fact that a fight HAS gone on there is proof enough that your strategy of freezing everyone into mobility has failed there, unlike what you have evidently been able to do on this part of the continent, Mr. Davis. You but prove my case, sir. Your wine undermines your deception. As for the church of Rome, I don’t agree with all their doctrinal and theological assertions. But I do remember the prophet Joel’s admonition: He who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. I believe that puts them in good standing, those who genuinely believe. Indeed, I even entertain the possibility that Father Ricard might be the “eagle” referred to in Revelation 8:13. “...and I heard an eagle, flying in mid-heaven, saying with a loud voice, ’Woe, woe, woe to them that dwell upon the earth...’ “ Perhaps the words of the Seminole prisoners are carrying that eagle’s voice to you. You’ve broken faith with God, so you hardly dwell in heaven. You dwell on the earth, sir. And I will also reiterate, I note that your days of walking in the sunlight have come to an end, Mr. Paradine--spiritually as well as literally. Your new-found master may give you great strength and great abilities, but he will also give you a life that will be lived increasingly behind that mask of yours, as befitting a creature of darkness. And it will be a long life of misery, too, no doubt, spent in worry about the one who will overthrow you coming out of the west.

PARADINE (almost inaudible)
I think you’re puttin’ on airs, Mr...Lincoln. You...you think you can pose as some kinda prophet. Bein’ a lawyer has got y’ thinkin’ you’re all kindsa highfalutin things.

PRESIDENT DAVIS(pronounced drawl coming out now)
And might ah remind yew, Mistuh Lincoln, that you ah no longuh president now? I dew think you’d benefit from a drop o’ this St. Martinville chablis! It might take some of the edge offa yore bad mood!

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
No thank you, Mr. Davis. One man acting the fool in his cups is more than enough, thank you. May I return to my cell now, sir?

Lighting a cheroot, Jefferson Davis waves a hand dismissively.


PRESIDENT DAVIS
Yes. Get him outta my sight, Paradine. I’ve nevuh seen such atrocious mannuhs!

Lincoln deliberately makes a pun out of what Davis has just mispronounced.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Manna comes from heaven, sir, but I doubt it falls for you or your cause. You can probably count on frogs, locusts, burning hail, and water-turned-to-blood, though.

Davis ignores this parting shot. Lincoln and Paradine head back toward the door to the long corridor.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
INT. LONG CORRIDOR, PARADINE AND LINCOLN HEADING BACK, TOGETHER WITH GUARDS.

PARADINE
Sir, I think that it’d be better for you if you were to apologize to the President the next time we come to see y’. Mr. Davis is a proud man, and he cain’t take insults too well. Keep in mind, sir, you ARE a guest in the Confederate States of America.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
No, Mr. Paradine, I will NOT! I am NOT a GUEST! I am a PRISONER! And one does not apologize for speaking truth to usurping TYRANTS! Only the fair-weather believers hold their tongues in the face of danger!

PARADINE
Mr. Lincoln, please don’t go quotin’ scripture again! I got my fill o’ that as a child.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
There! You see? It’s obvious who YOUR master is, Mr. Paradine. I suspect that any words of reproof or correction are like scalding water to your ears now, AND to those of your leader, Mr. Davis. HE is perhaps in worse straits than you, Mr. Paradine, because HE won’t even touch that briefcase you carry--a man of lukewarm moral manifestation.


The rest of the walk back to Lincoln’s cell is made in silence.

Paradine wordlessly, angrily gestures to a guard to open the cell. Mr. Lincoln disappears inside. The stout oak door slams heavily shut, and the guard’s key scrapes with a rusty sound inside the lock.

(FADEOUT)

(FADE-IN)

EXT. TIME-LAPSE FOOTAGE OF SUN RISING AND SETTING OVER A SIGNIFICANT BUT INDETERMINATE PERIOD OF TIME, PRISON WALLS AND TOWERS IN FOREGROUND. TIME-LAPSE STOPS.

EXT. TIME-LAPSE FOOTAGE ENDS, SUN RISES OVER PRISON
MORNING

President Davis and the robed, hooded Paradine are seen from behind passing through prison’s main entrance again.

(CUT TO)

INT. ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S CELL DOOR. GUARD IS USING KEY TO OPEN IT, AS PARADINE AND PRESIDENT DAVIS WATCH, SEEN FROM BEHIND.

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Well, good mornng, Mistuh Lincoln! I trust we are in a cheerier mood today? I certainly don’t begrudge a man havin’ a bad day, ‘specially under these circumstances.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
You may trust in anything you like, Mr. Davis. Like as not, it won’t be the same thing that I trust in.
(CONTINUED)
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
PRESIDENT DAVIS (indefatigable in his cheerfulness)
Aw, fiddlesticks, Mistuh Lincoln! I’m sure another “breakfast al fresco” in the fresh mornin’ air will fix ye right up!

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
As you wish, Mr. Davis. I will just have my usual portion of your extravagance--enough to keep body and soul together, nothing more.

The guard locks the door as Lincoln exits, and the four of them head down the long corridor.

Paradine is robed and hooded as usual, but now also has a large, plain cross, of brass or bronze, dangling from his neck on a thick silk cord. He troops silently along beside the other three men, saying nothing.

(CUT TO)

EXT. THE PRISON COURTYARD AGAIN, WHICH NOW HAS A SQUARISH HOLE CUT IN WALL, TO WHICH A HINGED DOOR HAS BEEN ATTACHED, ALLOWING A VIEW DOWN INTO THE NEARBY RIVER VALLEY.
MORNING, AFTER DAWN, OVERCAST

(CUT TO)

FOCUS ON DINING TABLE (from above), with the four men standing on its four sides. At a gesture from Davis, Lincoln and Paradine sit. The guard withdraws to a discreet distance. Empty plates, platters of food, silverware, and steaming mugs of coffee are already sitting, waiting for the three of them. A household slave appears now, and begins serving the three. Paradine hitches up the lower part of his hood, folding it upward to allow him to eat.

(FADEOUT)

(FADE-IN)

The meal is finished, Davis enjoying a glass of Napoleon brandy, Lincoln and Paradine sitting silently.


PRESIDENT DAVIS
I know these affairs are not to your likin’, Mr. Lincoln, but I think we can spice up these proceedings a bit, and make it a mite more entertainin’, even for the likes o’ you. I believe Mistuh--oh my, the brandy is hittin’ hard an’ early today--Mr. Paradine has somethin’ he’d like to show you, sir.

Lincoln sits stock-still, evincing an utter lack of enthusiasm for anything his captors might stir up for him. He sits up and re-buttons his suit coat, but his expression remains utterly stony. Davis nods to Paradine.

Paradine speaks for the first time on this oddly dark, gloomy day.

PARADINE
Yes, I do have somethin’ to show you, Mr. Lincoln. A matter which you been curious about before--you’ll get to know somethin’ about it, now.

Paradine reaches down to the briefcase, sitting by his left foot, chained and handcuffed to his left hand, as usual. He opens it, and brings forth the book Teague bequeathed to him, laying it open on the linen
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
tablecloth, from which a black slave has taken his plate and wine glass moments before.

PARADINE
This is what I carry around in the briefcase, Mr. Lincoln. An’ you done guessed right, last time we met--it’s what gave us the victory. The war IS over, Mr. Lincoln. An’ WE WON! An’ all your troops everywhere were frozen like fish in a goldfish bowl left out in the winter-time.

Lincoln doesn’t blink, barely breathes.

PARADINE
Now, now, don’t fret, Mr. Lincoln. We didn’t kill ‘em. Warn’t no need to. Once I learned how to use the book proper (touches it reverently), we were able to disarm ‘em all, and build stockades around ‘em, and I could wake ‘em up when we were good an’ ready to. Let ‘em wake up to bein’ prisoners of war. Mr. Davis and I felt that sparin’ ‘em was proper, since they could still be useful to us--when we forced your Congress to negotiate peace. Havin’ huge numbers of your defeated men was useful ’cause they were a guarantee of your Congress’s good faith in its dealin’s with us. As the negotiations went along, we’d release a few more of your troops each week and march ’em back to the border under armed guard, and release ’em to you . One o’ the terms of the peace was that your country pay reparations to mine for our losses. An’ part of those reparations we got by keepin’ all the money that was in the safeboxes of your paymasters in all those units we captured. ‘Lot of it went to entrepreneurs--your people call ’em carpetbaggers--who snuck into your country, set up legitimate businesses there, and are funnelin’ money back to the Confederacy--in just a few years, we’ll more than make back the money of YOURS that we invested--

PRESIDENT DAVIS (interrupting)
Mr. Paradine, there’s no need to divulge such things--

PARADINE
Nonsense, Mr. President, I’m only tellin’ HIM, and we’ll never let him go.

PRESIDENT DAVIS (angry now)
Mr. Paradine, that is classified, sensitive information--state secrets that only I am authorized to divulge...


PARADINE
See here, Mr. President, who won your war for you? Who is the Keeper of the Book? (pats it for emphasis) An’ I could punish even YOU for bitin’ the hand that’s fed you so well! Learn to leave well enough alone, MISTER DAVIS! YOU have YOUR job, I have MINE! Be thankful I don’t take yours!

President Davis, sullen and unrepentant, but no longer defiant, sits back now and subsides into uneasy silence.

As if the stage has been set for Lincoln’s “entertainment,” Paradine rises now, removing the cross and cord from around his neck, and holds it in his left hand, raising it to head level. He begins to read aloud from the book.

PARADINE
“I beseech ye, the Prince of Darkness, to take me to the place of my heart’s desire, to find (CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
the one I wish to find, and to exercise my will with regard to her--and to do this in the time it takes to tell of such a thing.”

He pauses, then adds, eyes still firmly on the book:

“An’ the book that I leave here, I leave in your all-powerful care. Let he who tries to touch it in my absence be struck down, deep down into earth, buried alive!”

FOCUS on Paradine. Flames lick at the eyeholes of Paradine’s hood, and to pour forth from the bronze cross in his left hand. Paradine flies suddenly upward, laughing maniacally, trailing flame, clearing the prison walls, and heads to the west, opposite the sun which is climbing steadily upward, though its light seems more wan and sickly now. The air in the prison courtyard and the image of everything within it shimmers and dances in the blast of heat Paradine has left behind.

Mr. Lincoln is speechless, eyes wide in horror. But even now, his eyes do not leave the book. He finally glances up, at one of the silver candle-holders on the table, and the tapered red candle that burns on top of it. Clearly, a desperate plan is forming in his mind.

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Mr. Lincoln, please don’t get any foolish notions. My guard is watchin’ you intently. (turns, looks at the guard, and addresses him) Mr. Frazier, if Mr. Lincoln makes any move toward that book, give him one verbal warning, and if he doesn’t instantly move away from it, shoot him!

FRAZIER
Yessir.

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Mr. Lincoln, I share your fear in some degree. I wouldn’t take Mr. Paradine’s book if he gave me an engraved invitation to do so. But he DID use it to give us victory. I couldn’t very well refuse. If I had, he’d have eliminated me and given the presidency of the Confederacy to someone else--maybe himself! He’s also used it to give us--certain other things. This cloud has its silver lining. At some point, I think his negative traits can be tamed, even...neutralized.


ABRAHAM LINCOLN
MISTER Davis, I see moral cowardice at work here. I saw in naked, bold detail who really is the power behind the throne in your so-called “nation,” just now. Even you don’t dare to move against him. The man is far gone into the clutches of evil. Don’t follow him into hell, dragging the Confederacy with you. If and when he comes back, have that man of yours shoot him! Shoot him yourself, if you be armed! If you will stand by my side in this matter, when I return to Washington I will put my political career and reputation on the line, and commit myself totally to a just, negotiated, genuine peace. This, what we have now, is not peace. This is a state of institutionalized violence! It’s immoral, sir. We cannot have aught than God for the king of our consciences. Do what’s right, man! That is the one thing I will beseech of you.


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


PRESIDENT DAVIS
I cannot, sir. He is...not evil. He is misguided. I will not surrender victory for the nation I have helped birth. Does a father throw away his children’s home and sustenance?

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Your home is burning down, sir. Your children are in danger...

Their frenzied conversation is interrupted by a blaze of flame descending from the air above the courtyard. Paradine is returned, and has one gripped around the neck of a woman.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
Mary! Oh, my God! Unhand her, you devil! By all the white wrath of God’s righteousness, unhand her!

PRESIDENT DAVIS(coming to a decision)
Release her, Paradine! I order you to release her!

Paradine stands motionless, silent for a moment. He suddenly shoves Mary Todd Lincoln over toward her husband, contemptuously.

PARADINE
There you go, Mr. Lincoln. Mainly, I just wanted to show you what I’m capable of. I can go anywhere, do anything. No one is safe from me.

He steps over to the table, and the book closes of its own accord, slips back into its briefcase, and the briefcase jumps back up into Paradine’s hand.

Unexpectedly, the voice of Frazier, the one guard present in the prison courtyard, is heard.

FRAZIER
St. Ricard, servant of God, pray for all of us to the Lord our God, together with the Apostles, all the angels and saints, and Blessed...

Paradine laughs explosively. Frazier, stops momentarily, then resumes. Paradine talks over him, jeeringly.

PARADINE
You mean FATHER Ricard, son? He’s not even dead yet. I don’t think that bunch of fools-on-the-Tiber are ready to canonize him just yet. And they won’t, after I prove that myth about him wrong. After I prove ALL their myths wrong, their followers will be looking long and hard at me, believe me!

Lincoln whispers quietly to his wife.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN
I’ve met this man before. He wasn’t nearly so intelligent or articulate before. What we’re seeing is not Sergeant Paradine, the man I knew before. He’s possessed, no doubt about it. Demon-possessed. Pray for us. Pray for his end. He’s dangerous! Stay by me!

MARY LINCOLN
Always, Abe, always. To the end.
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


ABRAHAM LINCOLN
To the end, Mary, my love. Which is not yet!

At this moment, unaware of what has been transpiring in the prison courtyard, a black slave comes out, ready to begin toting away all the dirty dishes and glasses. He stops, confused, at the tableau that presents itself to him here.

Catching sight of him, Paradine responds vehemently.

PARADINE
Get him out of here, Davis! Now!

PRESIDENT DAVIS
It’s all right, Atticus. Go back in and wait.

The worried-looking slave goes back inside.

EXT. PRISON COURTYARD, WITH SAME SITUATION AS BEFORE
LATE MORNING


PRESIDENT DAVIS
Mister Frazier, consider yourself on report! You’re still on duty! Stop slouching! Stand at attention!

Frazier goes ramrod straight. Paradine laughs in a voice crackling with flame.

FOCUS on President Davis

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Remember, Mr. Frazier. A good soldier is always ready to meet any exigency. (glances around at no one and nothing in particular) ANY EXIGENCY!

FRAZIER
Yes, Mr. President. Any exigency--at any time! (his eye catches Davis’s, then Lincoln’s)

Paradine is spreading open the book on the table once again. Casually, President Davis steps forward to pour himself another brandy.

PRESIDENT DAVIS
Care for another brandy, Mr. Paradine?

PARADINE (calm & polite for once)
No thank, you, Mr. President. If you want one, by all means, go ahead. I can see where a man of your...temperament might feel himself in need of another drink.

President Davis pours himself one and steps a little closer as Paradine starts to read from the book aloud once more. He makes a final glance at Frazier and Lincoln.

President Davis suddenly reaches long, and throws the brandy onto the book. At the same instant, Lincoln lunges forward and grabs Paradine from behind. Frazier levels his carbine at Paradine and fires. The bullet strikes the bronze cross, and glances off it. President Davis now seizes a silver candle-holder and dumps the lit candle over onto the brandy-soaked book.
PARADINE
You bastards! What have you done! I’ll eat you all alive in hell!

He struggles ferociously, but Lincoln, a long-time wrestler and former bar-tender, hangs on, and tries to throw Paradine bodily to the ground. Paradine starts mumbling the words to a spell.

Frazier, stepping forward, sees them tumble to the ground, and angles his carbine downward and shoots Paradine in the throat. A strangled cry erupts from Paradine’s ruined vocal cords, bringing the spell to a halt. Blood gushes onto the white robe.

At a motion from Paradine’s left hand, the briefcase springs up from the ground and whacks Frazier across the face, knocking him backwards. His right hand, with its flaming cross, whips around and blows fire, even as he wrenches free of Mr. Lincoln. He turns and stands up to aim the full force of the demonic weapon at Abraham and Mary both. The Lincolns are engulfed in flames, screaming in agony, collapsing into a dark, fuming heap, together even in death.

President Davis, taking advantage of Paradine’s turned back, has seized the bottle of brandy, broken its neck off against the table’s edge, and held it up to catch it afire from some of the flames licking backwards from Paradine’s satanic torch. He pours the entire bottle on the book now, then lunges forward to attack Paradine from behind with the jagged bottle end.

A wall of flame leaps forward to meet him, even as Paradine still faces the Lincolns. Davis, aflame himself now, screams but still manages to throw the bottle at Paradine, winging him with it. Paradine turns now and gives President Davis the same end he gave the Lincolns, even as blood flows from the gash in his neck the jagged glass has opened.

Private Frazier, still hanging onto his carbine, has revived and fires now from a prone position. He misses. Paradine leaps over like a fluttering bird and kicks the carbine from his grip. He seizes Frazier by the shirtfront and lifts him up by hands no longer aflame.

Paradine speaks in his now strangled-sounding voice.

PARADINE
I’m willin’ to forget that you shot me once, and tried to shoot me again. You WERE just followin’ what you thought the President’s orders were. But he was gone mad. The fire that killed him was a thing of an escaped prisoner’s makin’. The Lincolns were never here. No one knows where they ever went. You got it, son? I know where your family lives. And I can still go anyplace I please, as quick as I please--I used the spell to give me the flight of a hawk and the fire of a dragon, PERMANENTLY. I still got that, even without the book.

FRAZIER(petrified)
Y-yessir. It’s like you said.

PARADINE
I’ll even give you a break, son. I got shot by somebody else. That prisoner on the second floor, the one in cell fifteen-B. He escaped and set the fire that killed our UNdistinguished guests, and also shot me. What’s his name?

FRAZIER
That would be Mister Booth, sir. John W. Booth.

PARADINE
Very good, Private. Send a courier over to Dr. Mudd’s place and fetch him. I’m in need of some attention here. Then write your report about Mr. Booth’s rampage.

FRAZIER
Yessir. Take it easy, sir, and I’ll get Dr. Mudd over here, lickedy-split. Boy!

One of the black slaves pops out of the kitchen into the courtyard.

FRAZIER
Fetch Dr. Mudd, NOW!

Gasping at the carnage around him, and the noisome smell of grilled human flesh permeating the courtyard, the slave beats a grateful retreat.

As Paradine strides angrily back toward the table, brooding over the loss of Monumentum De Omnis Magicum Artium, a sudden deep, profound pain strikes him, unconnected to any of the wounds he has suffered. He reaches inside his robe, and pulls forth the pocket Bible from his shirt pocket, the one that intercepted the piece of shrapnel in Still Valley, months before. Now it feels like a red-hot poker, branding him on the chest. In fact, uncovering the flesh beneath, he sees that he has indeed been burned by it.

Looking at it disdainfully, Paradine impusively tosses it up in the air.

FOCUS ON THE BATTERED BIBLE TUMBLING THROUGH THE AIR IN SLOW MOTION. AS IT SPINS END-OVER-END, BOTH ITS COVERS LIFT UP LIKE WINGS, SEEN FROM BEHIND AND FROM SLIGHTLY BELOW.
(CUT TO)

FOCUS ON MODERN JETLINER, SEEN FROM BEHIND AND AT THE SAME SLIGHTLY LOW ANGLE, ITS WINGS IN SAME ATTITUDE AS THE BIBLE'S FRONT AND BACK COVERS WERE IN PREVIOUS SHOT.

(FADE OUT)


END OF ACT II


ACT III

(FADE IN)

FOCUS ON JET AIRLINER FROM PREVIOUS SCENE

(CUT TO)

EXT. CONTEMPORARY CITY STREET IN DALLAS, TX, WITHIN AUDIBLE RANGE OF AIRPORT SOUNDS MORNING

Bob Wilson, salesman, pointing upward at the plane we have just seen, as he walks with his wife from the curb into a hotel room, coming off a contemporary suburban city street.

BOB
...and that’ s a perfect example of what I’m talking about, Julia. That plane represents a monumental change, one that changed the face of human existence. Where would we be if Orville and Wilbur Wright had listened to all the naysayers who said “Man will never fly”?

As he unlocks the hotel room door, he changes subject slightly.

BOB
And I’m fixing to give the world another stiff shot of change. The temperature and light sensors on this lawn seeder and fertilizer are going to change things on a far more basic level: the family lawn. And everybody will end up wanting these things for their lawns. Even people who have NO lawn--people with dead dirt in their yards--will wanna try this thing out, and they’re liable to be in for a surprise. They’ll find they now have a lawn, and they didn’t have to lift a finger to make it. The Baltex Autocultivator will do that for thousands!

A short pause.

BOB
And tomorrow, I unveil it for the world. Richmond will see it first. Richmond is where it’ll all start! Change is in the air, Julia! I can smell it! I can smell a shower of accolades, too! (Bob is grinning slyly now)

JULIA(teasingly) Bob, are you sure the world is ready for something like that? A lot of people get a lot of ego mileage out of the amount of labor they pour into their lawn. You’re taking that away from them, it looks to me.

BOB
Honey, people want change at a very visceral level. It’s the essence of human happiness--as long as you don’t try to fight it.

JULIA (tiring of this often-heard spiel)
Okay, Bob. I’ll be in the bathroom.

BOB: (ignoring her last words)
...and I’m going to make sure fewer people fight it. I’m gonna place at least a hundred advance orders. That’s my goal!
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


JULIA (from within bathroom)
Bob, I’m going to take a quick shower.

She opens door a crack, leans out, and picks up a towel from the wall rack and withdraws back into the bathroom.

BOB
By the way, honey, why don’t you try airdrying sometimes? Constantly using towels is actually bad for your skin, they’ve shown.

JULIA (muffled, from within bathroom)
Whatever, Bob.

FADE OUT briefly, then back in to the same scene a short time later, we see Bob and Julia in nightwear, settling into bed, Bob still pontificating about the inevitability of change.

BOB
However many thousands of years people used scythes, things eventually DID change, Julia. First, the one-hand sickle. Then mule-and-harness-pulled cutters. Eventually mechanical lawnmowers. Then electric mowers. Then gas-drive mowers. And from each advance to the next, a shorter and shorter time interval. Shorter and shorter lead times.

JULIA
And what do you think will happen when your mower or cultivator, the brand-new, top of the line model that just came out, is already obsolete while you’re still in the line at the store to pay for it? Eventually, the market’s not gonna be able to keep up with the pace of change. That’ll put the brakes on it, if nothing else.

BOB
Nonsense! At that point, they’ll come up with drugs to speed up the human nervous system, our perception and reaction time. Kinda like H.G. Well’s “New Accelerator.”

JULIA(giggling, not unkindly)
I should have known better than to argue with the prophet of endless change. Touche!

Just before turning off bedstand light, Bob changes topic slightly.

BOB
And speaking of change, I wish they’d change the paint on these walls. This bilious green color is enough to turn your stomach. Needs something in a nice bright yellow, or something like that. Thank God we’ll be out of here by nine.

JULIA(dutifully)
Yes, Bob.

Julia intones this listlessly, already turned over on her side, with covers pulled up.


LIGHTS OUT.

(FADE OUT)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
(FADE IN)

INT. HOTEL ROOM WITH LIGHT STREAMING IN WINDOW
MORNING

Bob opens his eyes at the sound of the alarm clock.

FOCUS ON BOB We see the first thing to greet his eyes.

CUT TO

FOCUS ON YELLOW-PAINTED WALL

BOB
Julia, the wall color’s changed. Kind of attractive-looking, actually. Not that bilious green muck. How’d that happen?

JULIA (yawning)
Beats me, Bob. How DID it happen?

BOB(never without an answer)
Must be from the power of my positive thinking--which is always receptive to CHANGE!

FADE OUT, briefly.

FADE IN.

The two are dressed in suit and dress, both with overcoats, walking out the door. Taking one last look at the walls of the room, Bob waxes poetic.

BOB
I tell you, Julia, this is a good omen. A harbinger of how smashingly successful the rest of this day will go. Baltex is gonna sell a million of these babies, thanks to yours truly. Today, the hotel room walls, tomorrow suburban America and beyond! America‘s lawns will never know what hit ‘em!

Outside the closing door, Bob glances up, notices an odd-looking flag atop the flagpole, which stands on a concrete circle in the middle of a grassy area just across the drive from the block of hotel rooms. It hangs slackly in the breezeless day, so he can’t see it distinctly.

Dismissing the thought, he takes his wife’s arm and leads her up the drive, to the curb over by the thoroughfare running in front of the hotel.

BOB
I see the shuttle to the airport coming, honey. Let’s hurry.

They reach curb, and shuttle bus pulls up in front of them.

(FADE OUT)


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
(FADE IN)

INT. TICKET COUNTER, DFW AIRPORT.

The sign lists Bob and Julia’s flight, Flight 665, from DFW to Richmond, as on time, leaving 12:30 PM. Shooting his mouth off, Bob launches into contemporary youthful slang, and describes himself grandiosely.

BOB: I’m going to be the greatest salesman on earth--one who will change the earth--one lawn at a time. I‘m simply THE BOMB!

Airport security doesn’t take utterances of the “B” word lightly, and he’s hustled off into a separate room (to the tune of a snatch of playful, even flippant, music) for a patdown, stripdown search--but not before his wife gives him a supremely dirty look over her shoulder as she’s taken off to a separate room for her own search.

(FADE OUT)

(FADE IN)

INT. SMALL CARPETED, WHITE-PAINTED ROOM

Bob has been searched. The security officer who has searched him speaks now.

SECURITY OFFICER
Well, I don’t see any problem here, Mr. Wilson, except with your choice of words. Just watch the language from now on, okay?

BOB(dutifully)
Yessir. Careless of me. Won’t happen again.

SECURITY OFFICER
See that it doesn’t. Now, wait a sec while I call FAA headquarters in Richmond.

Bob is nonplussed, thinking it was headquartered in Washington.

BOB (softly aloud) Richmond?

He quickly dismisses the thought as irrelevant.

FADE OUT.

FADE IN.

INT. IN WAITING AREA BY BOARDING GATE

Bob and Julia, looking somewhat worse for wear, have finally gotten luggage checked in, and collected boarding passes.

BOB
Sorry again. I can’t believe I was that stupid.

JULIA
Tell me again, Bob. It didn’t sink in the first fifty times.

(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
BOB
Those people just aren’t receptive enough to change. Don’t they realize that plane hijackings and 9/11-type scenarios are passe now?

JULIA(horrified)
Bob, shut up! Do you want them down on us again!

BOB (annoyed)
Okay, okay. Take it easy.

A PA announcement signals they can board now.

CAMERA FOLLOWS behind them, down corridor, into the plane’s entrance--where a clipboard-toting attendant takes their boarding passes. They pass by a young man in suit and tie, writing something in a pocket notebook, who also has a laptop computer on his lap, sitting in a passenger seat near plane entrance.

Bob and Julia pass on and reach their seats, where Bob opens overhead luggage bin and stashes both overcoats.

Just as they have seated themselves, a ripple of applause from the front of the plane signals the arrival of a celebrity in their midst, on the heels of which follows a strange, icy silence. The man in question is making his way back, and Bob recognizes him, and speaks his recognition out loud.

BOB
Look, honey, the governor of California!

A tall, muscular, ruggedly handsome man in a summery khaki-colored suit, white shirt, black tie. Julia sits up and takes notice herself. The governor plants himself in the aisle seat right across the aisle from them.

BOB(leaning over toward the opposite seat)
Mr. Governor, it’s an unexpected honor to be seated next to you, sir. I’ve always been an admirer of yours. If only Texas had a governor like you!

GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA
Well, thank you, mister..?

BOB
Wilson. Bob Wilson. This is my wife Julia.

GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA
Nice to meet you, ma’am. I’m on my way to Richmond, to do a press conference with President Wallace, and then we’ll go off to the presidential retreat at Still Valley.

In his enthusiasm, the governor of California unthinkingly pulls the typed, folded pages of his speech from his inner jacket pocket as he says this, punching the air with it for emphasis, then returns it to the pocket. He swiftly turns his attention to his cell-phone, making a few last calls before he has to turn it off.

BOB (to Julia)
President Wallace? He must have misspoken. He must be talking about the governor of Virginia...but isn’t Matthiesen the governor of Virginia?


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


JULIA
Yes, he is. So who’s Wallace?

BOB
Good question.

CUT TO:

The governor’s assistant, whom Bob has just noticed, sitting on the opposite side of the governor--the one African-American Bob has seen on the whole plane, or the DFW airport, for that matter; he is looking a bit uncomfortable at the governor‘s openness about his intentions, glancing nervously around, a discomfort which he quickly covers with a wide, toothsome grin.

GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA(speaking while his phone has been put on hold)
Mr. Wilson, this is my assistant. Mr. Frederick Douglass V. I’d be lost without this man.


MR. DOUGLASS
Hello. (reaches over and shakes Bob’s hand)

BOB
Nice to meet you. By the way, by any chance, are you related to the abolitionist?

It seems an innocuous-enough joke to Bob. The entire first-class cabin’s complement of passengers turns around and stares sullenly at Bob when he says this.

MR. DOUGLASS (leans across the governor and hastily murmurs, just loudly enough for Bob to hear)
Uh, yes, he actually is an ancestor of mine. But we’ll talk more later. (then he promptly sits back and disappears behind the governor’s great bulk)

GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA (in conclusion, folding up his cellphone)
It was nice meeting you, Bob, Julia. I need to get a little shut-eye before Richmond.

The “audience” is over. The governor stares straight ahead, shuts his eyes, untouchable now.

PAN AROUND, SHOWING ALL PASSENGERS. ALL CAUCASIAN, EXCEPT FOR THE GOVERNOR‘S ASSISTANT.

(FADE OUT)

(FADE IN, short time later)

The navigator shuts the door to the cockpit, with a resounding WHUMP! Bob jumps slightly.

FLIGHT ENGINEER: (can be heard on the phone to the cockpit) Cabin door secured.

A stewardess makes a final walk down the aisle before takeoff.


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


STEWARDESS (to Mr. Douglass, with ill-concealed annoyance)
Sir, can you fasten his seat belt? (pointing at the governor’s seatbelt).

GOVERNOR OF CALIFORNIA: (who wasn‘t really asleep, opening his eyes)
It’s not his job to do that. I can fasten my own seat belt, thank you very much. (His annoyance with her is plain to see)

FOCUS ON BOB.

A mystified Bob sits back and ponders what he has seen.

NARRATOR (voiceover)
Portrait of a baffled man. Robert Wilson, thirty-seven, husband, salesman for Baltex Yardware, and would-be big-hitter in the world of corporate sales. A man who has just been bowled over by a change too great and too profound to be grasped.

FAST PAN to the omniscient NARRATOR, in suit and tie, standing beneath an airport direction sign that reads: "TERMINAL --->"

NARRATOR
Bob Wilson, a man enamored of change for its own sake, and self-proclaimed prophet of the beneficial effects of change in human life, is about to discover that great change does not always produce great improvement, that change on the scale that he dreams of can often only be purchased at an unacceptably high human price--a lesson often available only to those who have providentially drifted into...the Twilight Zone.

(FADE OUT to sound of revving plane engines)

(AUDIO FADE IN sounds of plane in flight)

(VISUAL FADE IN on the unlit NO SMOKING and FASTEN SEAT BELT signs at the front of First Class cabin)

A stewardess (one we haven’t seen before) enters through the front cabin entrance.

CUT TO:

The governor of California, asleep. His assistant, beside him, glancing nervously around every few seconds.

CUT TO:

Bob Wilson, holding up an empty cocktail glass and gesturing to the 1st stewardess we saw earlier.

BOB
Ma’am? Another, please.

JULIA
Bob, take it easy. That was your third one already. Drinks hit you harder at high altitude, you know.

(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
BOB
Nonsense, my dear, I’m just reaching a pleasant state of relaxation. (to stewardess) Miss? Another please--if you don’t mind!(perhaps a touch belligerently)

STEWARDESS
Perhaps later, sir. How about some hot coffee?

BOB
ANOTHER VODKA MARTINI, IF YOU...(his wife insistently grabs his arm at this point, and looks directly into his face, shaking her head firmly)...

Bob, sullen but relenting, lets it go.

JULIA
Aren’t you glad you have me around when your people skills lapse like that?

BOB
My people skills are fine (slightly slurred) They just need a bit of lubrication once in awhile. Vodka’s one of the best lubricants.

JULIA (glad the tense moment is past) Well, I think they’re plenty lubricated now. (encircles his left arm with hers and leans her cheek against his shoulder) Thanks for being understanding, Bob.

BOB
Okay, okay. I’m a good boy. Don’t pat me on the head too much. It’s likely to give me a conk--a concussion. (slightly slurred again)

Julia returns to reading a paperback book of hers, smiling. Bob idly looks past her, out the window.

CUT TO:

The PLANE flying through dust clouds, from which the sun glints with overpowering brightness, almost flame-like in its intensity, cutting visibility through the side windows to almost zero.

CUT TO:

PLANE CABIN, where Julia lies back in her seat now, asleep, the paperback fallen into her lap now.

Bob gets up and steps past her to sit in window seat, on other side of Julia. Squinting through the unnatural glare, he spots something. The glare off the dust particles dissipates slightly, and he sees even brighter glare from another source--a cross, flaming, sitting squarely on the chest of a white robe of the KKK variety, worn by a man-like figure, also wearing a white hood with small eye-holes. He is standing on the plane wing, just above the outboard engine. The wind velocity at this speed should have blown him away instantly. Yet he stands upright easily, casually, as if there is no wind, no dust, no airspeed. He turns his head and looks at Bob with flaming eyes. Something about his body language suggests he is smiling underneath the hood, a crazy, deranged grin, invisible though his mouth is. He is scrutinizing Bob with a seemingly sadistic intent.

Alarmed, Bob looks around for one of the stewardesses. He remembers the button above his seat, next to the light switch. He presses it frantically, and twists his head around to keep the creature in his field of view as he does so. The Klansman From Hell is still watching him with a predatory manner. A stewardess finally enters the cabin, and Bob beckons frantically to her.

BOB
Ma’am, look out there, through my window. Look! See that? (pointing out window, punching the air in that direction with his index finger)

Stewardess leans over Julia, looks out window.
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

STEWARDESS
What did you see, sir?

BOB
There’s a man out there, a man in a white robe with a cross. He’s walking around on the wing...He looks like he’s on fire!

Bob looks out window again as he says this, sees the Klansman gone.

BOB
Sorry, I could’ve sworn I saw...

JULIA(awakening, confused momentarily at seeing Bob to her left, in window seat) Bob? What is it? What’s wrong?

STEWARDESS
It’s nothing, Mrs. Wilson. Don’t worry...sir, can I get you something?

Bob thinks a moment.

BOB
Yes, just a glass of water.

STEWARDESS
Certainly, sir. (departs)

JULIA
I heard you say something about...something on the wing?

BOB: (rubbing eyes)
Uhhh...

JULIA
Is something wrong, Bob? What was it?

She is plainly unused to seeing him at a loss for words, and this is unsettling.

BOB
No, I just...thought I saw something out there

JULIA
What, Bob? What did you THINK you saw?

BOB
Oh...I think I’m overtired. I think I’ve put too much time and mental effort into this presentation tomorrow. I thought I saw a man out there on the wing. (snickers with his characteristic bravado) Imagine that!

Bob quietly snorts with laughter at his own behavior. He closes the window’s curtain, not wanting to see the wing.

BOB
I’m gonna get some sleep.
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


JULIA
Bob, are you sure you’re all right? Maybe you need to cancel your presentation tomorrow...

BOB: No! Are you crazy? (voice rising in pitch, then suddenly feeling self-conscious) No, honey, it’s all right. I’m fine. There’s no reason to do that. It’ll be fine. Really. It’s all right.

The stewardess arrives with a clear plastic cup of water.

BOB
Thank you, ma’am. (gulps it, returns it to her) Thanks.

Bob turns off his overhead light

STEWARDESS
You’re welcome. (departs)

CUT TO:

The PLANE continues to fly through the dust cloud with its incandescent particles, which are glowing more mutedly now. The cloud seems to move with the plane.

CUT TO:

The plane's CABIN, a little later, where Julia is ready to go back to sleep.


JULIA
Sure you‘re okay?

BOB
Yeah, I‘m good.

JULIA
Wake me up if you need me. Okay?

BOB
I will. Promise. Scout’s honor.

Bob holds up two fingers in a mock scout-salute.

Julia settles back into a contented sleep. Bob takes a deep breath and closes his own eyes. But they don’t stay shut. The vision of the man on the wing is still bothering him. He reaches for the curtain, then pauses, afraid. For a long moment, he hesitates. Making a decision, he reaches over and whips the curtain aside. The flaming cross is centered directly in front of the window, right-side-up, and the hand holding it is reaching down from above the window. Petrified, Bob can only stare. Suddenly, the hooded face, with eyes of flame, thrusts down into his field of view as well, next to the hand and the cross. Smoke from the cross drifts lazily upward, as oblivious of the air currents around the plane as the hooded man with the laughing eyes of flame. Bob freaks, shutting his eyes and covering his mouth with his hand to keep from screaming. A muffled sound escapes anyway, attracting the notice of one or two other passengers.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Julia slumbers on. He opens his eyes, glances at her fearfully, then fixedly forward, refusing to look out the window again. He looks back at Julia, hesitant about what to do. Then he catches sight of their stewardess again.

BOB (gestures to stewardess)
Quickly!

While Bob looks frantically at her, the hand, the cross, and the hooded face disappear upward, out of the window’s field of view. The stewardess comes even with Bob and Julia’s seats just as Bob turns back toward the window.

STEWARDESS
May I help you, Mr. Wilson?

Bob stares out the window at the swirling dust, wordless.

STEWARDESS
Mr. Wilson?

He tries to regain composure.

BOB
Are we heading into a rough stretch?

STEWARDESS
Just a little turbulence, Mr. Wilson. Nothing to worry about.

Stewardess walks off. Bob shuts his eyes and tries to get a grip.

BOB (to Julia)
Honey? Can you wake up for a second?

While Bob is bending over Julia and gently shaking her arm, we see the Klansman From Hell leaping lightly down from top of plane and landing on wing, behind the outboard engine once again. Turning and looking out the window again, Bob’s eyes lock with the flaming ones of the Klansman From Hell. Tossing his hooded head in childish glee, the Klansman looks down at the engine on which he is seated. He holds the flaming cross down near it, and the metal of the cowling plate under it begins to glow. With his free hand, he tentatively pulls on the red-hot part of the cowling and it begins to peel back. More glowing metal can be seen under the peeled-back part, the metal of the engine itself.

The Klansman looks up at Bob again.

BOB (silently mouthing words)
No!

The Klansman lets go of the cowling plate, and reaches in a pocket of the white robe. He pulls it back out again. It looks like coins in his hand, spare...change? The pun is not lost on Bob.

BOB
“Change!” (he is speaking aloud now) I always want change in life. “Change!” He’s giving it to me! Only a devil would think that was funny!


////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

He stares, slack-jawed with horror. The Klansman, without warning, playfully flings the handful of coins at the window. One sticks to the window, right at Bob’s eye level. Redirecting his horrified gaze from the Klansman to the coin on the window, Bob squints at it. It is about the size of a quarter. Its reverse side is showing. It shows a man on horseback, a man with riding gloves and saber and plumed hat. Above and behind him waves the Stars-and-Bars battle flag of the Confederacy.

(FLASHBACK)

SUPERIMPOSITION OVER BOB’S FACE
THE IMAGE OF THE FLAG OUTSIDE HOTEL, EARLIER THAT DAY

(CUT TO)

(FADE OUT OF BOB’S FACE)

(FADE IN SUPERIMPOSITION OVER BOB’S MENTAL IMAGE OF FLAG--COIN STUCK ON WINDOW)

(FADE OUT OF FLAG IMAGE)

PAN BACK
COIN ON WINDOW, WITH BOB STARING OUT AT IT, AGAINST BACKGROUND OF THE LEERING, FLAME-EYED KLANSMAN STARING AT HIM FROM HIS SEAT ASTRIDE THE ENGINE, WHICH COMES INTO FOCUS NOW

(CUT TO)
BOB, AS SEEN FROM SIDE ANGLE; COIN AND SCENE ON WING NOT VISIBLE NOW

With a shock, Bob realizes something.

BOB(aloud)
That was the flag we saw this morning outside the hotel! That wasn’t the only thing that was changed, either! The paint on the wall...

Julia wakes up now, hearing part of this last spoken comment.

JULIA
What did you say, Bob? What are you looking at out there?

Bob jumps, startled by the sound of her voice. He glances over at her, then quickly glances back out the window, in time to see the Klansman From Hell leap off the wing, flaming cross in hand, and disappear back onto the top part of the plane.

BOB
You remember when I told you I thought I saw a man on the wing?

JULIA
Yes.

BOB
I wasn’t mistaken. There IS somebody out there on top of the plane. When I tried to show the stewardess, he jumped from the wing to the top, where she wouldn’t see him.
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Julia gives Bob a blank, uncomprehending look.

BOB
I mean, not a man...not what you’d think of...look, it was covered in a robe and hood, like a Ku Klux Klansman, with a burning gold cross in his hand. I think he must be a terrorist or something...

Julia gives Bob a blank look.

BOB
Julia, don’t look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking, and no, I haven’t been sneaking more drinks while you were asleep.

JULIA
Bob...

BOB
I’m not lying, and I’m not...I haven’t been drinking any more either. There IS a man out there. Like I said, he hides from view, on top of the plane, when anybody but me looks out there.

Julia glances at the window.

BOB
Don’t bother looking, he’s not there now. He’ll come back when it’s just me watching. I know he will. He’s done it several times. I know it sounds nuts, but look at me. Do I look crazy? Do I?

JULIA
Maybe you HAVE been working too hard on the presentation, and maybe focusing too much on work generally, Bob.

BOB
Honey, do I look or sound insane? Just answer me!

JULIA
No, Bob, no, you don’t.

BOB
Look, I blew it off the first time. I mean, no sane man can be sure about seeing something odd if he just sees it once. Would a crazy man blow it off? No, he’d swallow the whole thing hook, line, and sinker right off the bat!

JULIA (momentarily confused by the mixed metaphors)
It’s all right, Bob, it’s all right!

BOB
Julia, I know you love me, and you’ve always been a sympathetic ear for me. I love you for that. But don’t patronize me. I’m not goin’ crazy!

JULIA
Bob, I didn’t say...

(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


BOB
I KNOW you didn’t say it. But it’s written all over you that you DO think that! But NEVER MIND! We’re losing sight of one very important, nut-cutting fact! THERE’S A MAN OUT THERE! This is a matter of everybody’s life and safety here! He’s tampering with an engine! And let me tell you, the way he was goin’ at it, it damn well looks like he could do so successfully! Think anything you want! Just tell the captain to watch that outside engine, that there’s something funny goin’ on with it!

One or two nearby passengers nudge each other and stare at Bob.

JULIA
Me?

BOB
Yeah, you! I’d do it, but there’s already a couple of people who’ve noticed me talkin’ loud, actin’ nervous, and I think one already told a stewardess. They’re more likely to listen to you! C’mon honey! (almost pleading) I’m not saying tell him a man who looks like he’s flying back from a Klan rally is on the wing. Just say you noticed something funny. Maybe sparks flying out of the engine, if that makes it easier. If you’ll do that, I don’t care if you think I need to be fitted for an I-love-me jacket! Think that if it pleases you! Just please draw his attention to the engine!

JULIA
If it pleases...?

BOB
All right, I’m sorry, forget I said that--please! But for God’s sake, tell the captain about that engine! If they don’t find anything, I’ll...I’ll cancel my presentation tomorrow. I’ll even talk to your sister’s shrink--Dr. Lloyd, that his name? I’ll get fitted for a straitjacket--anything! Just tell the captain, please! And if they do find something--

Julia tries very hard to react to him as she would to a mentally sound person. An exercise in futility, of course.

BOB
At least consider the possibility, won’t you?

JULIA
It’s okay, Bob, I’ll tell them. I will. Right now.

BOB
I know it’s asking a lot. It’s like putting a sign around your neck that says “My married name is Looney Tunes.” I’m sorry. Thank you for doing this, Julia.

JULIA
It’s all right, Bob. I’m going to tell him right now.

Julia unbuckles her seatbelt, gets up, heads up the aisle to the cockpit, and urgently knocks on its door. The stewardess they spoke to earlier hurries up to her from the other end of the cabin aisle.


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


STEWARDESS
Mrs. Wilson, what‘s wrong? Can I help you with something? The captain and his crew are locked in. It‘s standard security these days. What’s wrong?

JULIA
I...yes, you can. My husband wanted to see the flight engineer.

STEWARDESS
All right, stay here and I’ll let him know. Hold on.

JULIA
Thank you. This is very important.

Still seated, Bob looks out the window again just as the Klansman From Hell lands on the wing again, just inches away from the outer engine.

JULIA (to stewardess)
This is urgent. Please hurry.

Bob watches the robed figure as it once again applies the flaming cross to the metal on the engine cowling as if it were a cutting torch. A straight line of glowing metal appears, and the huge, powerful hands poking out of the white sleeves start to flex and work a portion of the cowling back and forth, widening the opening in the cowling and once again revealing the red-glowing engine within.

BOB (looking up the aisle toward Julia)
Hurry! Hurry!

The flight engineer is talking to Julia just outside the cockpit door. He rushes over to Bob, with Julia following.

BOB (to flight engineer)
He’s there! Look! Look for yourself!

FLIGHT ENGINEER (looking straight into Bob’s face) What’s going on?

BOB
He’s pulling one of the cowling plates off the engine! He’s sabotaging it!

FLIGHT ENGINEER
“He”?

BOB
Didn’t she tell you...? There’s a man out there on the wing! He’s trying to tamper with that engine!

FLIGHT ENGINEER
Let’s keep it down, Mr. Wilson. No need to alarm people.

BOB
I’m sorry, I just had to...
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
FLIGHT ENGINEER
Now, tell me again, what’s going on?

BOB
Will you please look out there, at that engine?

FLIGHT ENGINEER
Mr. Wilson, jokes are not taken kindly in this business, especially after 9/11. And I was informed of your previous little “joke” at DFW. Do you want to be investigated and possibly put on a no-fly list?

BOB
Sir, I swear to you this is no joke. All I ask is that you look out there. (Bob sounds calm, but sweat stands out on his forehead)

All three peer out the window. The engine appears untouched. A long pause follows.

FLIGHT ENGINEER
Well, Mr. Wilson? What am I supposed to be looking for?

BOB (baffled and angry)
Now, wait a damn minute! I saw this man in white robes and white hood, using a torch that looked like a burning...cross-thing to cut open that cowling. He was there!

Julia and the flight engineer look at Bob blankly, Julia with increasing sadness.

BOB
I saw it, I saw him tamper with that engine! I swear, sir! I wouldn’t joke about this!

FLIGHT ENGINEER
All right, you saw him, Mr. Wilson, but let’s stay calm. Like I said, let’s not worry the other passengers.

BOB (surprised)
You mean you’ve seen the man, too?

FLIGHT ENGINEER
Yes, of course, Mr. Wilson. But we don’t want to frighten the whole planeload of passengers. That could be far more of a problem. Can you understand what I’m saying?

BOB (realizing he’s being humored)
Yes...yeah, I understand.

FLIGHT ENGINEER
Now, let’s just remember, Mr. Wilson...

BOB (angrily)
You can stop now, mister. Go ahead. Risk the plane. Get us all killed. I’m through trying to talk sense to...to smug bureaucrats who only excel at buck-passing.

FLIGHT ENGINEER (placatingly)
Sir, I can see that you’re sincere about this. I can see you’re trying to help. If you’d just...
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


BOB
I said you can stop. You can leave us alone now. It’s your baby. Do what you want.

JULIA
Bob, please!

FLIGHT ENGINEER
Mr. Wilson, please try to see where we’re coming from on this...

JULIA
Bob, I’ll be right back.

At her silent urging, Julia and the flight engineer head to the back of the cabin. Bob sits digging his nails into the arms of his chair, furious, his face a vicious scowl.

BOB(aloud)
Crazy fools! I saw it! He was cutting open the cowling! Why should we have to die for their stupidity? It’s not right!

In the rear of the cabin, flight engineer drops some pills into Julia’s upturned palm. Sedatives. Meanwhile, Bob watches out the window again as the Klansman From Hell once more seats himself astride the engine-wing junction point and gleefully goes to work with his cross-torch again. The flaming eyes look up and directly into Bob’s eyes every few seconds. The hooded head bobs and quivers as if in laughter, and the fiery eyes seem to dance in Bob’s field of vision like hovering fireflies. Bob looks back at Julia, impotently rendered silent, condemned to watch the systematic destruction of the plane. Julia starts back up the aisle toward him, and the Klansman From Hell jumps back up, out of Bob’s field of view, right on cue. Julia reseats herself next to Bob.
JULIA
Honey, I was talking to the flight engineer. He suggested this (holds out sedative pill and cup of water she has brought back).

BOB
For me?

JULIA
Yes. It’s Librium--it’s pretty mild. We’ll be at Richmond in another hour anyway. It’ll help you get through the hour, and then we’ll be on the ground and we can put all this behind us, Bob.

BOB
Okay, give it here.

He takes pill and washes it down with the entire glass of water, to all appearances. Both lean back in chairs and a tense silence reigns here.

(CUT TO)

The flight engineer walks down the aisle and speaks to the stewardess who has been dealing with them throughout this.

FLIGHT ENGINEER (exhales sharply)
Glad that’s over with.

STEWARDESS: What’d you do, get her to give him one of those pills?

(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


FLIGHT ENGINEER
Yeah. What I didn’t tell her was, it’s Librium Ultra. It’s strong. We’re talking in the same league with Seconal or Quaalude. He’s probably gonna have to be carted out of here in a wheelchair. Suits me.

STEWARDESS (giggling slightly)
Me, too. That’s one way to pull the rug out from under a screwball.

FLIGHT ENGINEER
And a good thing, too. This turbulence just seems to keep following us. And it’s gradually getting worse. I don’t need that joker on top of everything else.

The stewardess heads for the rear. The flight engineer heads back to the cockpit, knocking, entering when the captain opens it, and closing it firmly behind him. The lock clicks back into place. Julia is dozing again. Bob is...awake, with eyes open again. He looks out the window, seeing nothing. With hand to mouth, he removes the unswallowed sedative, and now sees the Klansman From Hell take up his position near the engine once again. Bob quietly drops the pill on the floor, and silently rises to a crouching position. He looks around, quietly but frantically.

He sees what he’s looking for. A few rows behind him, on an aisle seat, sits a burly security guard-type, in black slacks, white shirt with goldbraid and epaulets...and a .45 sticking out of a holster on his left hip, the one facing the aisle. Probably the security for the governor of California (who has continued to snooze through all these goings-on), who came aboard a little later, unobtrusively, Bob reflects. And he is just as soundly asleep as the governor. Some security, Bob notes ruefully.

Bob has a plan now. He exits his seat with elaborate casualness (but quietly, not disturbing Julia), and makes his way back along the aisle to where the security man is, fumbling with his own pocket notebook computer as he does so. He goes up to the stewardess and asks her an unexpected question.

BOB
Ma’am, I’m trying to keep track of my accumulated frequent flier miles. Can you give me an exact figure for the distance from DFW to Richmond?

Bob is (supposedly) looking at the computer’s display and punching in numbers. In reality, he’s edging his way next to the security guard’s seat while concocting this excuse to get her out of the vicinity for a few moments.

Relieved to see him taking an interest in something “normal,” the stewardess replies amicably.

STEWARDESS
I’ll check, Mr. Wilson. If you can return to your seat, I’ll bring you that information.

Concentrating on the computer and acting distracted, Bob temporizes.
BOB: Okay...Just let me finish setting this up...

The stewardess falls for it, and turns to go back to the front area of the cabin. Bob “drops” his computer, right next to the security man’s seat. Bending over to pick it up, he pulls the weapon from its holster quickly but unobtrusively. He clasps it to his midsection, using the computer to conceal it. Back in his seat, the one between Julia and the window, he moves the firearm around behind him to keep it concealed. The stewardess returns with the mileage figure, and he makes a big show of entering it in the notebook computer, then covers for the fact that he’s still awake and active.
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


BOB
Ma’am, I’m really tired. That pill’s startin’ to kick in, I think. Please wake me up right before we get to Richmond.

STEWARDESS
Yes, Mr. Wilson. We’ll be there in less than an hour.

Once she’s gone, Bob looks around the cabin, then looks out the window. The demon dressed in white is right where Bob left him, cutting and ripping merrily away at the engine, the flaming cross in his huge hands blazing brighter with each metallic cut. Judging by the gaping hole and the amount of wire and parts he’s pulling out, and by the sudden cessation of engine sound from that side of the plane, Bob realizes it’s probably too late already.

PILOT’S VOICE (FROM PA)
Ladies and gentlemen, please resume your seats and put seatbelts on immediately! A...a situation has developed, and we’re going to have to make an emergency landing! Please remain calm.

Bob straps himself into his seat. He‘s damned if he‘s not going to at least try to stop it, and he knows that it’s going to be awkward and difficult to shoot through the window at the Klansman From Hell. But what choice does he have? Leaning his seat backwards as far as it will go, and leaning himself back away from the window (toward Julia), he thumbs the safety to the “off” position, and shoves the muzzle of the pistol right against the transparent plastic of the window. He draws a bead on the Klansman From Hell, who stops tearing at the engine and looks fixedly at Bob. The Klansman’s body language changes subtly, indicating hostility, but no fear. He leaps upward and out of view in the split second before Bob fires.

Pandemonium ensues in the plane cabin after the window shatters. Decompression causes the oxygen masks to drop from above the seats, and some passengers pull them on. The swirling air currents that are exiting from the shattered window hurl a multitude of papers and wrappers and paper cups and other small, light objects into the air and send them tumbling and gyrating in every direction. People scream, hit or blinded by the blizzard of debris suddenly assaulting them.

A massive, ear-rending sound of ripping metal soars momentarily above all the screaming of passengers and whistling of decompressed air. The plane loses all stability. Bob feels the whole plane beginning to twirl on its axis, the cabin spinning crazily through upside down and rightside-up orientations in quick, sickening succession. The bastard must have torn off the vertical stabilizer! That’s what that tearing-metal sound was! he thinks in his panic-addled brain. He finds himself looking downward from his seat as the whole plane noses over and begins to head almost straight down. He flings the gun away, and hears it discharge as it hits something. Bob grabs Julia’s arm, and looks into her fully-awake, terror-stricken face, wanting to look at her in his last moments.

BOB
Julia!

JULIA
Bob!

But the last thing Bob sees before impact is the governor of California, across the aisle from them, fully awake himself now, leaning forward in his own seat, gripping the seat in front of him, leaning into Bob’s field of view. The man has a thick sheaf of papers clutched tightly in his left hand--maybe the speech he had prepared for the press conference in Richmond, just before going to Still Valley? With President
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


WALLACE? A number of things suddenly fit smoothly together in Bob’s mind.

Then engulfing sound, massive impact, and a momentary feeling of unbearable pressure fill his being, followed by black, star-strewn, forced unconsciousness.

(FADE OUT, BLACK AND ABRUPT)


(FADE IN)


EXT. OPEN MEADOW IN HILLY COUNTRY, STREWN WITH SCATTERED, FLAMING PLANE DEBRIS AND SURVIVORS
EARLY AFTERNOON

(CUT TO)

POINT OF VIEW SHOT

A trickle of light blurrily comes through blackness. A field of view, blurred, slowly comes into focus. A grassy field, littered with metallic wreckage, plane seats, multitudes of scattered personal effects, and dead bodies, sprawled in all manner of bizarre attitudes, in various states of dislocation, injury, and combustion. Much debris still burns, as does the sole recognizable chunk of plane fuselage, off to the left. All seen from upside-down point of view.

PAN BACK slowly to enlarge the field of view and take in more of the panorama of carnage and debris, with an individual row of three seats, containing Bob and Julia, eventually becoming visible in foreground (still upside-down), with their seat propped-up partially by debris, their heads thrown back over seat tops (though appearing to be hanging down in this upside-down position).

(CUT TO)

Bob, finding himself on his back, still strapped into his seat, with Julia still strapped in beside him, the whole bank of seats still being intact. The seat has been flung far away from what’s left of the plane fuselage. Bob looks down at Julia’s hand still clasped in his. He looks at her, lying unconscious, and checks her pulse at her throat.

BOB
Strong pulse! Good! Hang on, honey!

He unstraps himself, and then her. He uses her seat to turn her sideways, enough to check her for injuries while carefully supporting her head with one hand. None apparent. Her breathing is good, too. Her eyes flutter open slowly.

BOB
Julia! We made it! We’re alive!

JULIA
Bob! Bob, where are you, Bob? I can’t see you!

Leaning over her, still clasping her hand, Bob speaks again.


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
BOB
Julia, I’m right here! I’m right in front of you. Can’t you see me?

He notices, for the first time, she is not totally injury-free. A small trickle of blood comes from beside her left eye, and on the opposite side, a fine, needle-thin piece of metal projects from the same area near her right eye.

JULIA
Bob, I can’t see. I’m blind, Bob! Oh, Bob, where are you? Don’t leave me, Bob!

BOB
I’m right here, Julia. I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m right here. I won’t leave you. We’re safe. We made it. Help will be here shortly, I know it will. (pauses, then tells her some encouraging lies) The captain was transmitting a distress message and our coordinates before the crash. They’ll be here to help us before long. All we have to do is wait. We’re out of danger now. Stay still so you don’t hurt yourself further. Okay?

She is weeping now, with shock setting in. Her fear seems abated, however.

JULIA
All right, Bob.

BOB
I think there’s a reason for all this, Julia. When we woke up this morning, little things were different. I think it’s a different world...one we’re supposed to change...and not just one lawn at a time.

They both laugh at this.

BOB
I think this world has to be brought to an end, somehow...it’s just not...right.

JULIA
Even if that means all the people have to die, Bob? (as stunned as she is, none of this seems strange to her right now)

BOB
Maybe that’s not necessary...

Bob looks around. Debris burns. Dazed, bleeding, disheveled people moan and pull themselves away from flames, stagger to their feet in some cases, looking around for loved ones.

From behind a snapped-off tree, Bob sees the tall, muscular figure of the governor of California come staggering along. The governor recognizes him after a moment, and walks over to Bob unsteadily. The governor’s face is etched with pain, though he stoically holds it at bay.

GOVERNOR
Bob, isn’t it?

BOB
Yes...governor. I’m glad you made it. We’re...(mindful that Julia is listening)...we’ve been roughed up pretty good here, I’d say...

(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
GOVERNOR
What the hell happened? Does anybody know?

BOB
I know what happened, but if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me. You’d think I must have gotten some kind of head injury.

GOVERNOR
That’s as may be, Bob. It’s not important now. Listen, I’ve got injuries myself. I don’t
think I’m going to make it till help arrives. I’ve got internal injuries. (he sinks to his knees) I need somebody...I guess it’s you...to get this out to the world, somehow.(hands over the thick sheaf of papers, which he seems to have held onto throughout the crash and the aftermath) My...security guard didn’t make it. Cut in...half. I’d have had him do it. I’m depending on you, Bob. Don’t let this...information...be lost to the world. It’s vital. The future of our country...of both countries...may go badly if this doesn’t...go public.

Still dazed, Bob doesn’t know what to say. Finally, some words sort themselves out and pop out of his mouth.

BOB
I’ll do it governor. I will. But tell me one thing. What country IS this? What’s it called?

GOVERNOR: (looking at him quizically)
You did get a hit on the head, Bob. (laughing slightly, though it pains him) The Confederate States of America, Bob. All fifteen states of it. And there’s our neighbor, the United States, with its twenty states. And the Mormon Kingdom. The Indian Nation. Our northern neighbors--the Canadians and the Russians.

BOB
And what, pray tell, Governor, is Still Valley? I know it’s a presidential retreat, but what...?

GOVERNOR (completing the thought for Bob)
...why is it special? That’s where it all began, Bob. The diary of Nathaniel Achilles Dudleymore--my maternal great-great...(pauses to cough up blood, then continues)...great-great grandfather...recorded what really happened...why the war turned around that day...in Still Valley. A place in Northern Virginia, outside the town of Laysdell.

BOB
During the Civil War, you mean?

GOVERNOR
I’ve never heard that name...for it. But I guess that’s a fitting...name...too...

He points to the sheaf of papers in Bob’s hands.

GOVERNOR
I won’t be giving it to the world, Bob. You’ve got to do it. Swear to me you’ll do it.

BOB
I swear, Governor. One way or another, it’ll happen.

(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


GOVERNOR
Good, Bob. (looks at him with dawning perception) You’re not from around here, are you, Bob?

BOB
I guess that’s becoming obvious, isn’t it?

The two men share a friendly chuckle at this. The governor of California slumps over, dead.

VOICE FROM BEHIND
Too bad you made a promise you can’t keep.

This scares the daylights out of Bob. He jumps, whirls around. What he sees scares him all the more--the Klansman From Hell. Flame billows from his cross and the eyeholes of his hood , seemingly in time to the flames still licking at scattered plane debris.

But the most bizarre thing of all is the thing in the white-clad nightmare’s other hand. A twelve-foot section of metal from the plane’s vertical stabilizer--the one Bob remembers hearing torn from the tail--which the Klansman carries as if it were no heavier than a suitcase.

KLANSMAN FROM HELL (speaking in a menacing, cracked-sounding bassy voice, which has the sound of an educated Southerner)
Before I snuff out your crummy little lives, I want to hear what that fool from California was going to say. I could use a little DI-version before gettin’ down to serious business here!

BOB: (too angry to be fearful)
Why don’t you read it yourself, you murdering sonofabitching monster? (thrusts the packet out defiantly)

The Klansman looks around, and suddenly spies somebody else from the plane, lying on the ground. He lunges over and seizes him by the slack of his suit coat--the governor’s assistant, the one black person on the plane. The Klansman drags him back over in front of Bob. With his other hand, he raises the section of tail menacingly, like a giant cleaver.

KLANSMAN FROM HELL
I now have two victims I can cut up at will--the governor’s Uncle Tom here, and that pretty little lady of yours, whom I know you don’t dare move (gestures at Julia with the tail section). Now read that letter, SIR!

BOB (speaking in weary resignation, yet one tinged with an indefinable hope)
Well, why not? Here we go:
‘To all my Confederate American brothers and sisters, greetings. As always, my hopes are that this day finds you all prosperous, healthy and happy.

‘But for as long as you all have known me and known about my background and my career, you know that my hopes have always been tempered by my realistic perception of the way things are in the Confederate States, and that things have been this way since the War Between the States. A pessimistic realism has always tempered my hopes.

(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


BOB
‘Today, however, I can say that the converse is true now. The problems that beset our nation have at long last been tempered by my hopes, in a most unexpected way.

‘I will explain why, but in order to explain why my hopes are gaining ground against my perceptions of the hard realities we all face, I must first tell you the story of a great man, a giant humanitarian of a man who went largely unnoticed by the world during his lifetime, and has been unnoticed for well over a century. But that has changed.

‘His name was Ricard Dentreanoux, a French Catholic priest who founded the parish of Dometier (northwest of New Orleans) and the mission of Our Lady of the Sorrowful Deluge, in the early 1700s. His journals were discovered in a private document collection that was recently donated to the Historic New Orleans collection.

‘Father Ricard was a missionary of great zeal, converting many Native Americans, including most of the members of the Poisson Karankawa nation. He was also a doctor and apothecary, and was a physician to many white and Native American communities in the area--healing, preaching the Gospel, and disbursing medicine, food and sometimes money from the mission’s coffers as he was able.

‘And Father Ricard was exceptional in another way as well. He was not only priest, missionary, and physician--he was also a man of psychic insight, a seer and chronicler of future events.

‘His journals contain numerous examples of his predictions for the short-term future, for himself, for the mission church, or for his parishioners. For instance, he once predicted unerringly that a woman of the parish, a mother of six, would be in labor for almost four hours with her seventh, even though this had happened with none of her earlier children. He also predicted it would be a boy with a reddish birthmark between his shoulder-blades. It all came true.

‘In his later years, before his disappearance, he began having visions of the future that were farther-off in time. These predictions were mostly written in verse form. His recordings of these in his journals tend to be more vague, and more filled with metaphorical or symbolic language. But they seem none the less true. One of them seemed to predict governor John F. Kennedy’s assassination in correct, if very concise form.

Governor? thinks Bob Wilson. Never mind.

‘What does Father Ricard and his amazing talents have to do with why my hopes are greater and my pessimism less where our great country is concerned? It is this: one of his verses seemed to describe the conditions we have faced for so long, seemingly for time without end--and an end to those conditions. To some, this time will no doubt have seemed even longer, considering their continuous oppression, endured for centuries now. Surely the uprooting of such a deep-rooted order of things--or perhaps one should say DISorder of things--will change and transform every aspect of our world. The verse in which he predicted this change was as follows:


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
BOB
“Vagabonds will make up a people,
As surely as they split a people,
While living on their knees
A stumbling block unto all.”

‘I think we all know the curse of slavery when we hear it described.

‘And some other verses of his hold out the hope of an end to all this.

“A broken heart hath broken the world.
A man from without shall come to it.
He will be an apostle of real change.
A physician with the only possible cure.

“This world, unlike God’s world, is failed.
Not merely fallen, but failed.
A creation of no true or noble intention.
If it must be buried in time, with death as cure,
Let the interment be in hallowed ground,
And the apostle of change eulogize it.”

‘Today, my friends, we face a time of ripening discontent among all our enslaved brothers and sisters, of broken hopes and the weight of smothered aspirations for these great many people. We SHOULD be able to refer to them as our fellow citizens, but we can’t.

‘Not yet, anyway.

‘But that day is coming. Father Ricard spoke truly. The apostle of change he prophesied is among us. He said so.

“The trusted one, one whose world
Lies many suns distant from us
Yet nearer than the next street
Will read these golden words to all.”

‘The “trusted one” is reading this letter of mine, and will have done so before the rest of you can hear it.

‘When you do hear this letter, brothers and sisters, it will be the “apostle of change,” the “trusted one,” the one Father Ricard prophesied, reading it to you, not me. Father Ricard, prophet that he was, foresaw this, too; that is how I know.

‘The good father, as I have showed you, foresaw the apostle reading this very letter, and gave him something else to read, too. A document written by the priest’s own hand, splattered with what I believe is a few drops of his blood. For Father Ricard was also a stigmatic, a man whose body bore the same wounds as Christ. ’

Bob turns to the third and last page of the letter, and sees that another piece of paper, a fragile, old piece of paper, browned with age, has been STAPLED to the last page of the letter. At the top of the old piece of paper, in a flowing but perfectly readable cursive script, appear the words A PRAYER FOR A NEW WORLD, BEING IN THE HEAVENLY TONGUE, TO BE READ AT WORLD’S END BY THE APOSTLE OF THE CHANGE. Toward the bottom, there is indeed a dark, reddish-brown stain.
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Bob begins reading something in another language, one he’s never heard, yet he reads it flawlessly, without hesitation.

(AUDIO FADE-OUT)

of Bob’s voice, and

(AUDIO FADE-IN)

of a sound of breathing and heartbeat.

(CUT TO)

POINT OF VIEW shot from KFH’s viewpoint. FOCUS IN increasingly tightly on Bob’s mouth, which continues to speak the words of the sublime prayer, unrenderable in any human language, though we can’t hear it--all we hear is the sound of the KFH’S breathing and heartbeat.

Bob finishes and looks up. At the same moment, AUDIOFOCUS on KFH’s breathing and heartbeat stops. Silence for a few moments, as we see Bob staring fixedly at KFH.

(CUT TO)

POINT OF VIEW shot from KFH’s viewpoint.

FOCUS OUT is on Bob‘s whole face.

FOCUS BEGINS TO JIGGLE AND VIBRATE, CAUSING BOB’S IMAGE TO TILT AND SHAKE, BLURRING IN AND OUT OF FOCUS.

KFH VOICEOVER
Sir...Bob, I...I...what have I done? My wife, my children...how can I let go...but I must. I will. I am letting go...of them. This whole war...this whole world...it’s the devil’s creation, and I helped him do it! God have mercy on my soul, I did it. I remember...I was gonna do the right thing...then I heard about...Anna, and Paul, and John, and Portia, and Cordelia, and little Matthew. I just...I got so angry, I lost my way. I couldn’t see anythin’ but hate, and wantin’ to get revenge on the Yanks. I turned my back on my God. I turned the country...the Confederacy, I turned ITS back on God. Lord knows why the decision was left up to me alone, right then, but it was. Christ forgive me!

BOB
I...I can’t...I don’t know what to say to you.

Suddenly, a tall man, bearded and black-haired, with Mediterranean features and olive complexion, clad in a black cassock, comes into Bob’s field of vision. Bob doesn’t remember seeing THIS man on the plane!

MAN IN CASSOCK
I know what to say to him, Bob. Go back to your wife and give us some space...

KFH
Father? Father...Ricard?


(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


MAN IN CASSOCK
Yes, my son. It’s about time we met. Do you wish me to take your confession?


KFH
Uh...I’m not a pap--I mean, I’m not Catholic, Father. Does that make a difference?

MAN IN CASSOCK
Not now, it doesn’t. Repeat after me: Bless me, Father, for I have sinned...

Bob doesn’t hear the rest, having gone back to Julia. Somehow, he feels safer now.

BOB
Julia, I think that man’s been disarmed. Or something. Maybe he’s mentally ill. Anyway, I think we’re out of danger. Just lie still.

JULIA (sounding relieved)
Oh, Bob, poor you, having to take care of a blind invalid!

BOB
You’re worried about something that may be no problem at all. Even if it is, eye transplants are practically a dime a dozen now! We’ll have you eyeballing every dress store in Dallas before long, little lady! Don’t you fret about THAT! The main thing is, we’re ALIVE!

JULIA
Yes, we are, Bob! Thank God! (blindly extends her arms upward for a hug, which Bob gives.)

A few minutes pass. Presently, Father Ricard and the KFH come over to them, the priest leading the erstwhile mass-murderer by the hand.

FATHER RICARD
Bob, do you still have the governor’s letter? It’s necessary for something I need to do.


BOB
Right here, Father.

Father Ricard takes it in hand, turns to the page written in his own hand, so many years before. He holds it in front of the KFH’s face. Light leaps from the bloodstain on the old, yellowed page onto the KFH’S forehead.


FOCUS STEADILY ONCE AGAIN, THIS TIME ON THE FACE OF THE KFH.

The Klansman From Hell takes off his hood. The face we see, the one we haven’t seen since the night in Still Valley, is that of Paradine, former sergeant in the Ninth Virginia Cavalry, and former chief advisor to the first president of the Confederate States of America. It is aged unbelievably, almost decaying and falling off his skull, withered, dried, greyish, with old scars all over the throat and neck, but still
(CONTINUED)
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////


recognizable as the man who single-handedly won the war for the southern states.

PAN back slowly, bringing Bob (seen from behind) into foreground.

(CUT TO)

POINT OF VIEW shot from Bob’s viewpoint. Greyish smoke leaks from the now-empty eye sockets of Paradine. The cross, attached somehow to the chest of the robe, is smoking, too, its flame gone out. The mass murderer of this age and betrayer of another, Paradine slumps over, lifeless, his flesh disintegrating in a shower of grey dust, his whitened bones sticking out of the charred, dirty white robe at random points.

BOB (speaking aloud)
Wait a minute...I remember...

SUPERIMPOSITION

Image of a young man scribbling in a pocket notebook, with laptop computer on his lap, sitting in a passenger seat near plane entrance as Bob and Julia first boarded earlier...

VOICEOVER (Bob’s voice)
...maybe he was a journalist. Is he still alive?

(CUT TO)

Bob looks around frantically, and sees the young man, dirty and disheveled now, staggering up toward a small hilltop, with the laptop in one hand and a cellphone in the other.

BOB
Sir! Are you all right? Any injuries?

YOUNG MAN
Yeah, I’m okay. I ‘uz gonna get on top of that hill and try to see if my cell’d reach somebody.

Bob watches as the young man successfully accesses the local 911 system, who reassures him that Civil Air Patrol and Air Force personnel will be coming their way, and that this phone link will make it happen much quicker. After the operator tells the young man to stay on the line, to allow for radio directional finders to pinpoint his exact location, Bob speaks to him again.

BOB
By the way, have you tried the laptop? Are we near enough a tower to access the ‘net?

YOUNG MAN
My laptop’s workin‘. Maybe you could get the ‘net. You need to reach somebody? Go ahead an‘ try.

BOB
I sure do! (takes laptop as the young man hands it over distractedly) Thanks!

Bob first looks around to find Father Ricard. Gone!

Shaking his head resignedly, Bob tries the internet hookup. Miraculously, the laptop seems unharmed, and makes the connection quickly. He goes to his YouTube sight, and types the content of the letter into it, down on one knee with the laptop propped on the other.

SUPERIMPOSITION

A couple of changes of camera angle, showing Bob typing, and showing the passage of a short period of time as he completes his task.

Now, Bob takes his own cellphone, and plugs its camera-phone element into the appropriate port on the laptop, using his own adapter--which is miraculously a good fit. He first sends pictures of Paradine‘s remains, his skeleton lying prone with smoke still issuing from hood and cross, together with some spoken commentary. Then he takes numerous shots of the whole scene of the crash, trying to give a panoramic picture from his point of view, adding his own comments here as well.

POINT OF VIEW

Small sections of the scene of the plane crash site, as seen through the small square of Bob’s cell-phone display in successive FREEZE-FRAMES.

FOCUS on Bob, from above and behind, as he is doing this.

PAN OUT AND UPWARD on whole scene.

(SLOW FADE-OUT of plane crash scene)

(SLOW FADE-IN of scene in stadium, where Bob is standing and speaking at podium on stage in the middle of stadium)

VOICE-OVER (voice of Bob Wilson, speaking one of the verses of Father Ricard:)
“This world, unlike God’s world, is failed.
Not merely fallen, but failed.
Sired by no true or noble intention.
If it must be buried in time, with death as cure,
Let the interment be in hallowed ground,
And the apostle of change eulogize it.”

NARRATOR (VOICEOVER)
For Bob Wilson, would-be big-time player in the world of corporate sales, an utterly unanticipated outcome to a trip and to his self-styled role as prophet of change. A trip that has ended in disaster, and brought him a new vocation as herald of a change larger than any he could ever envision, a change to alter a history and a world...in the Twilight Zone.

AUDIO FADE IN (gradual) of end-credit music.

PAN OUT AND UPWARD on whole scene. Crowds of enthusiastic people, large numbers of them African American, giving Bob standing ovations. Images from his YouTube sight show on a screen behind him.

(SLOW FADE OUT of stadium scene)


(SLOW FADE IN
of the present-day Confederate president at a signing ceremony, surrounded by numerous men in suits {presumably Confederate governors, with badges on their jackets identifying them and their states} clapping and cheering as the president arises from his seat at the table and holds up the PROCLAMATION OF EMANCIPATION for the TV cameras {and presumably two jubilant nations} to see)

FREEZE FRAME.

FULL AUDIO FADE IN of end-credit music.

ROLL END CREDITS.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 19.03.2010

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