A proposed short wordless teaser
that shows PA in desperate danger ending with a presumed death.
1. New York
City, the office of FROBISHER. He explains to MA and BOB the situation with PA,
ending with them taking the position of occupying the cabin on Deacon’s Peak.
2. They
collect DAISY from MRS. GURTON’s school, where she has been raising a ruckus.
3. Cut to
Cumberton, a small town in the mountains, and MR. CULPEPPER’S store, where the
family buys supplies. DAISY insists on purchasing the bumblebee JAR.
4. CULPEPPER
drives them up the mountain to the cabin. Along the way they pass THUNDER, who
is sleeping (after a harsh night).
5. They arrive
at the cabin, and CULPEPPER introduces them to the DEACON, who is a corpse in a
standing, windowed tomb. CULPEPPER leaves.
6. They spend
the day fixing up the cabin then bed down for the night. MA puts the rest of
their money in the JAR and entrusts it to Daisy’s keeping.
7. A
thunderstorm strikes in the night, damaging the cabin. BOB sees the DEACON
looking in at the window during a lightning flash but dismisses it as
imagination.
8. The next
morning, they find the main staple of their supplies ruined by the leaking
roof. MA must go back down to the town to see what can be done.
9. Left on
their own, BOB decides to take his SLING out to forage, leaving DAISY to tend
the house.
10.
When BOB returns, he finds Captain McALLISTER and
his gang looting the house. When DAISY refuses to let go of the JAR, the gang
rides off with her into the mountains.
11.
BOB takes PA’s rifle from its hiding place and
chases the gang. By the time he catches up, it is night.
12.
BOB challenges McALLISTER to a duel for the release
of his sister. The captain cannot refuse, or he will lose face. They assume the
positions.
13.
At the crucial moment they turn and fire. BOB cannot
see, but DAISY can, a shadowy figure in buckskins rise and fire at McALLISTER
from behind BOB. The captain goes down and all is chaos.
14.
BOB drops the heavy rifle and he and DAISY flee. She
still has the JAR in her clutches. They stop and rest.
15.
A dark figure approaches them and uncovers a
lantern. It is THUNDER. He is wearing buckskins but has no gun. He tells them
he is in the woods fleeing the DEACON, which puzzles them. They all move along,
with his promise of returning them to the cabin.
16.
They go higher up the mountain. As they rest,
THUNDER tells them the story of the DEACON.
17.
Long ago, THUNDER saved the DEACON’s life. The
Deacon was a magician who came to America in search of fresh magics. THUNDER, a
medicine man and the last of his tribe, taught him much before realizing his
evil intent. When a particularly bad spell backfires and starts to kill the
DEACON, the evil magician works a curse that will take THUNDER’s life and
restore his own. He has only to catch THUNDER, who flees him at night and rests
during the day when the corpse must stay in its tomb.
18.
The children are skeptical, but suddenly the DEACON
appears over the ridge in all his incandescent rotting glory. They run down
into a valley hidden on the other side of the peak.
19.
They stop on the verge of a lake below. THUNDER
makes an invocation, then pulls out a canoe hidden in the willows. They begin
rowing across.
20.
The water does not stop the DEACON, who begins
walking over the lake in pursuit. They cannot paddle very fast as THUNDER is
weary from his long flight and the children find it hard to move the heavy
canoe.
21.
There is a flash of pearly white and suddenly ONARI,
a serpent-like spirit-creature arises from the waters and attacks the DEACON.
This was THUNDER’s last desperate plan.
22.
ONARI and the DEACON fight, and it looks like the
sorcerer might win. BOB thinks about all the stories PA told him about
supernatural aid.
23.
As ONARI sinks into the lake, BOB asks DAISY for a
piece of silver money from the JAR. He uses his SLING to shoot it into the
DEACON’s forehead. The silver “unknits his undead sinews” and shorts out his power.
ONARI arises triumphantly from the lake and snaps him down. THUNDER faints from
the breaking of his magical tie to the DEACON, and BOB passes out.
24.
BOB comes to on the other side of the lake. He and
DAISY get the nearly comatose THUNDER out of the canoe and try to find their
way back home, the girl attempting to ‘sing life back into THUNDER’.
25.
They get lost and find themselves in forbidden
territory. Finally, they must sit down and rest beneath what looks like the trunk
of an old, blasted tree.
26.
This turns out to be the WOOD-GIANT, who picks them
up and carries them the rest of the night to the verge of familiar land near
the cabin. He fades away into the morning light.
27.
BOB and DAISY return to find MA is back and has
raised a posse to go in search of them. When BOB tells them the (more natural)
adventures of the night, the posse scoffs, but investigation proves the episode
with the McALLISTER gang. It seems BOB is due a reward.
28.
Meanwhile THUNDER stays under their care while he
recovers. One night he just slips away, and he and BOB witness the
disintegration of the DEACON’s grave as final proof that his power is broken.
29.
Some days later FROBISHER arrives with the reward
money, which DAISY insists must be shared with THUNDER, who she believes really
shot the captain.
30.
BOB and Daisy’s quarrel is interrupted by the
arrival of PA. It was he wearing the buckskins, come searching for his
children, that shot McALLISTER, then was separated in the dark and lost in the
mountains. The family is joyfully reunited.
--9/1/2021
Notes
In 2021 I considered trying my hand at expandinding my Tales of the Bureau of Shadows 'franchise' by seeking to produce a proposed film script and then flogging that. After the only bit of original work, a Prologue (published here on the Niche) I worked on fleshing out this Outline, which petered out after about Scene 8. Lately I've been haunted with the idea that with the developement of AI generated films (short though they now be) a complete film of AGODP (or any of my other projects) might just be a short jump away. A guy can dream.
No comments:
Post a Comment