In God’s Good Grace

FADE IN:

INT. CATHEDRAL - NIGHT

Rancid shadows quiver in putrid obscurity, concurrently begot and begone by a throbbing, thrashing lamplight, silhouetting a rotting figure: Jesus Christ.

Amongst this ravenous cacophony of horrors resides a stoic figure, a sullen priest, DANTE, clutching a revolver, stumbling forward.

A fierce murmur regurgitates feral falsehoods. Dante resists, heaves another foot forward.

Demonic murmurs.

Dante restrains, hesitates.

A civilian enters, passes, kneels, prays. Dante gawks, awestruck by shame.

The civilian bows, stands, steps away, back the way she came, out the door and far away, abandoning Dante to his insufferable fate.

A shot to the head. Dante falls to the floor, dead.

INT. CAR - NIGHT

Dante comes to, dressed in blue jeans and a flannel, leg torn open, engulfed by fire. Next to him lies a woman, punctured, bleeding, not breathing. Dante reaches for her, whimpers, whispers, cries, shakes her, yells, screams, begs, pleas. Riga mortis.

A whimpering child, 8 years old, crying, choking. Dante turns to the boy caked in gore.

The fire rages on with an inexhaustible fury.

Dante tears off his seatbelt and reaches for the boy’s. Dante pushes, pulls, writhes; the boy flails, panics, his belt twists, knots.

The fire grows ever hotter.

The boy howls, screams. Dante attempts to soothe him, a hand upon him. The boy calms, a moment of delerium. Dante smiles. The boy reciprocates.

Glass shatters. A door opens. Wicked hands entangle upon him.

Dante flails, gropes, clutches the boy; but his grip is weak, the boy’s weaker, and Dante is wrenched out of the vehicle.

EXT. FIELD - NIGHT

Dante writhes, struggles, strains; monstrous men in full body armor drag him away.

A thunderous boom. A climactic shock. The car erupts. Obliteration.

Dante howls, beyond devastation. The men pause, awestruck by horror.

Dante breaks free, hobbles, limps, fueled by a maleficent, shameful terror.

EXT. PUB - DAY

Hounded by unrelenting exhaustion, Dante succumbs to his futile misery, stumbling to the ground in unkempt fatigue.

Two men withdraw from the pub, chuckle at the fallen figure, help Dante up, and drag him into the pub.

Wobbling, stumbling, Dante fumbles out, tumbling between the arms of two others.

An open door. A purring engine. Dante sat upright near the ignition.

Dante mumbles drunkenly. The two men chuckle, patronizing.

The two men close the door, rattle the hood.

Dante jumps, alert, startled. The two men smile. Dante stares at them oddly. The two men wave, fervently, adamantly. Dante nods, points, and the two men confirm.

Dante obliges, drives off.

EXT. DESERT - DAY

The car swivels, swerves, lumbers, hurdles, clanks ratchet old gravel.

The flash of neon lights. The wail of sirens. Dante slows, veers off the road.

A police car pulls over. An old man disembarks from its shadows.

The officer knocks on the window and Dante pushes a button. Another and another. The window won’t open. The officer grows impatient. Dante fumbles, blunders. The officer gestures wildly. Words muffled and confused through glass and metal.

Dante opens the door, stumbles out, vomits. Keys fall to the ground next to him.

The officer sighs, bends over. Dante snatches the keys from him, cradles them in his cocoon of drunkenness.

The officer chuckles, helps Dante up.

The officer studies him with a sad, lonely sort of smile, and reaches for the keys.

Dante reels back, accidentally bumps into the car door, inadvertently closes the door.

The officer tries for the keys. Misses. The officer glares at Dante, moves as if to leave, tries again for the keys, misses.

The officer, in missing the keys, falls to his knees. Dante, pitying the old man, holds out his hands.

The officer pushes him away and climbs to his feet, withdraws a pad from his back pocket, scribbles a ticket, and shoves it at him.

Dante gawks at it, turns back around and fumbles with the keys, misses the lock.

The officer pulls him back around with a forceful stir and Dante glowers a glare vengeful with fury.

Dante pushes him off. The officer pushes back. Dante pulls back to punch. The officer lays a hand upon his gun.

Dante hesitates, pushes, tries to run.

The officer pulls out his gun and fires a few shots. Dante trips, falls, strewn across the concrete.

A car screeches, honks, just misses Dante.

The officer approaches. Dante climbs to his feet. The officer cocks his gun. Dante hesitates.

The officer withdraws handcuff, entraps one hand, grasps the other. Dante writhes, slams his head into the officer’s.

The officer stumbles, falls, withdraws his weapon, threatens to fire.

Dante hesitates, holds his hands high, the handcuffs clanking from his left wrist. The officer climbs to his feet.

The officer approaches Dante, one step, two steps, three. Hands upon the weapon, eyes upon Dante.

Closer. Closer. Too close.

Dante grabs the barrel. The officer clutches the trigger. One shot. Another. Another.

The two struggle with the weapon, fall to the ground, one on top, then the other. Another shot fired.

Riga mortis. The officer shot in the head with his own weapon.

Dante reels, gawks, searches the dead man’s pockets, finds a key, and releases his bondage.

Dante fumbles, plunges, scavenges the desert floor for lost idols, discovers keys dropped, unlocks the car door, and peels off.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY

Dante’s breath is frantic, hectic, anxiety ridden, restless.

The scream of a horn hurdles Dante back to consciousness. A careening pick up truck narrowly dodges Dante.

The two cars stall on opposite sides of the street.

Curses and expletives make their way closer as the pick up truck driver leaps out of his truck and towards Dante.

The man adjusts his blue suit and bow tie too.

Dante flips the ignition but the car stalls, won’t start.

Dante turns and turns but the car won’t turn over. With each turn the man in the blue suit steps closer, closer.

One final turn and the man is upon him, at the window, brandishing the fragile glass with a brutal fist of fury.

Dante locks the car and jumps over the divider, unlocks the door and stumbles out of the car.

Dante looks to his left, then to his right, then back at the man full of crude hatred.

The man leaps over the car and Dante stumbles into a corn field.

The man chases after like a ravaged wild animal.

EXT. CORNFIELD - DAY

Rotting corn husks grip and grope and haggle and molest, fondling weary legs and heavy breath.

Dante trips, falls, tumbles over a rotten corn husk. Dante looks back. No one.

Dante sits up, looks around. Sight hindered by corn stalks.

A crackling whoosh. The wheeze of a summer breeze. The hush of another man hesitating.

For a long moment, all is quiet.

A footstep. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Faster. Faster. Dante hesitates, doesn’t move.

Footsteps ever closer, ever louder. Dante climbs to his feet.

Pushed. Shoved. Tackled. Dragged back to his feet.

Dante struggles, strains. The man throws Dante into a ditch.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY

The man spits in his face, walks away. Dante, irate, trips the man and drags him down into the mud with him.

Dante mounts the man and shoves the man’s face into the mud. The man struggles and moans and suffocates.

Weaker. Weaker. Weaker still. The man hardly moves but still Dante persists.

The cock of a gun. Dante hesitates. Cold, brutal metal pressed against his skull.

Dante releases the man. The man gasps for breath. Dante climbs to his feet.

The man in the blue suit coughs blood, mud, doesn’t move. Alive, but too weak to act upon it.

Dante turns, a woman at his heels, a shotgun aimed at him.

Dante holds his hands just above his shoulders. The woman shakes with fury.

Dante offers a smile, a guilty, remorseful smile. Dante receives only further fury.

Dante sighs, scowls, and clutches the gun barrel.

A shot fired. Another. Another.

Dante falls to the ground. The woman does too. The rifle skids across the street.

Dante pushes, pulls, escapes the woman’s grasp, leaps to his feet, sprints across the road, clutches the weapon, reloads.

The woman hovers over her husband. Dante cautiously takes a few steps forward.

The woman doused in blood, not bleeding. The man lying next to her, under her, not breathing. The wife next to her husband, shot dead by her shotgun.

Dante swallows a heavy burden. The woman turns to him, screams bloody murder. Dante takes a step back. Another. Another.

The screams of a banshee no human can muster.

Dante bumps into a truck, their truck, struggles with the door, fumbles into the car, finds the keys, and drives off.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY

A vast, barren landscape, devoid of everything, even tumbleweed. Amongst this cacophony of destruction lumbers the haggard priest, swerving haphazardly across the street.

A miscellaneous speck parades across the horizon, a dark figure amongst a hazy mirage.

Dante squints; the car hurdles forward. The figure of a man, a thumb out stretched far beyond him.

Dante scoffs. The car crawls further, farther. The man steps out onto the road, in front of him.

Dante honks, yells, screams. The man doesn’t move.

Closer, closer, Dante refuses to give way, a dangerous game of chicken beginning to be played.

The figure juxtaposes the mirage with brilliant clarity, a homeless man, all disheveled and filthy.

The homeless man gives a big, toothless smile.

Dante slams on the brakes, swerves, just misses the man, plummets into the desert. The homeless man offers a belligerent grin.

Dante slams on the wheel, turns the ignition, and leaps out of the truck towards the oblivious man.

The homeless man holds out a callused, withered hand, obtuse to any misgivings.

Dante punches the man as hard as he can. The homeless man stumbles, spits blood, cradles a broken nose.

Dante awaits retaliation. None given.

Dante takes another step forward and the homeless man trips, falls, hits his head on the gravel.

Dante smirks and struts back to his vehicle. The homeless man follows.

Dante inspects the tires. No damage.

Dante steps into the truck, turns the ignition, checks his mirrors, and jumps, curses, glares. The homeless man sits next to him.

Dante reaches over the homeless man and opens the door. The homeless man buckles his seat belt, closes the door.

Dante unbuckles his seatbelt, stomps out of the car, heaves the passenger’s door open, unbuckles the homeless man, and drags him out.

The homeless man relents, apathetic.

Dante steps around the vehicle and climbs back in. Again the homeless man sits next to him.

Dante again steps out of the vehicle, walks around the bumper, opens the passenger door, and drags the man out, locking the door behind him, dragging the man much farther than before.

Sprawled across the desert floor, the homeless man lays in unobtrusive submission.

Dante sprints back to the car, back to the door, only to find the door locked, the keys within the car.

Dante pounds upon the glass in fury. The homeless man approaches, pats Dante on the shoulder.

Dante punches the man as hard as he can. The homeless man topples.

The man no longer moves, unconscious.

Dante studies the man, searches for breath: still breathing.

Dante sighs, checks the man’s pockets, withdraws a small wallet, checks for a license: none.

Dante returns the wallet.

Temper tamed, Dante picks up a rock and smashes the window, unlocks the door, and steps into the car.

Dante hesitates, drives away, stops, turns around, drives back.

The homeless man climbs to his feet, limps onto the street.

Dante studies the roadside, searches the embankment. No sign of anyone.

Dante squints, furrows, curses, dips his head further towards the embankment, eyes oblivious to the road before him.

A thunderous whack.

Dante slams on the brakes. The windshield doused in blood. Dante hesitates.

A boisterous, heaving wail.

Dante closes his eyes, prays, opens the door, looks out.

The homeless man splayed across the concrete, wailing in agony. Dante slams the door shut, incredibly afraid, failing to breath, hyperventilating.

Dante clutches the door handle, hesitates.

Dante releases the handle and wipes the windshield clean, locked into his seat in unkempt shame.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - NIGHT

Wails of agony finally dissipate. Cautiously, Dante opens the car door.

The homeless man, covered in blood, fast asleep, snoring.

Dante sighs and steps out of the vehicle.

Dante approaches the haggard man and searches for broken bones: none.

Dante sighs, hesitates, looks around, picks up the body, and drags him towards the car. The lights of another.

Dante drops the body and dives in behind him, hidden within a frigid ditch.

Lights flicker, fade. Dante peers out onto the paved way.

Two men approach the stolen vehicle.

One approaches the steering wheel, a man with a mustache, the other the passenger, a man clean shaven.

The clean shaven man looks through the window. The other mumbles. The two convene upon the broken window.

The mustachioed man surveys the horizon. The other steps into the car, finds the keys in the ignition.

The man tries the car; won’t start: drained battery.

The man steps out of the car and confers with the other. Dante eyes the two men, their car, his own.

The man with the mustache steps to his car, opens the trunk, and withdraws a set of cables.

The man throws the cables into the front seat and maneuvers his car in front of the other.

The clean shaven man connects the wires and tries the other. The engine rumbles.

Dante steps out of the ditch with his hands held high, pleading submission, covered in frozen mud and sopping blood.

The two men share a glance of confusion and suspicion.

Dante approaches, pulling his hands together in a pleading sort of manner.

The man with the mustache locks his door and looks away. The other does just the same. But neither escapes, for the two cars are still held together by cables.

Dante approaches the man without a window, the clean shaven man. The man cowers, ducks, so as not to be wrenched out of the vehicle.

Dante falls to his knees, begging for sanctity. The man pulls out his phone and dials a number, pressing the phone to his ear as he stares across from him.

The man with the mustache looks down, stares at the blinking light, the ringing, and denies the request. The clean shaven man curses, hangs up, and searches for another number.

Dante stands again, exemplifying a loving grin. The man nods and offers a peevish, awkward smile.

Dante tries the door but the door won’t open. Dante tries again to the same effect. Dante reaches into the car, hesitates, cleans the glass from the broken window, and opens the door.

The two stare at each other.

The clean shaven man unbuckles his seatbelt and steps out of the vehicle.

Dante steps back, as cautious as the other. The clean shaven man holds his hands high.

The man trips, stumbles, sprints, fumbles, knocks on the window of the other vehicle, tries the door handle. The door won’t open.

The man slams on the window, desperate to open. The mustachioed man refuses.

Dante takes a step forward and the man runs away, tripping no more than a few feet away, falling into a ditch, screaming a horrid, fearful strain.

The mustachioed man jumps out of his car, umbrella in hand, swinging it rapidly in feigned courage.

The man steps towards Dante and Dante steps back, just out of reach of the metal weapon.

The man steps closer and Dante steps farther. Another step, another.

Loose soil, false footing, Dante tumbles back into the ditch, gasping for breath.

The homeless man groans, awakens, crawls up the embankment.

The man with the umbrella approaches the precipice, searches the ditch, jumps, squeals. A bloodied hand gropes the man’s ankle.

The mustachioed man squawks, leaps, kicks the homeless man hard, sprints back towards his car.

The homeless man topples, rolls back down the embankment.

Dante whispers a harsh curse and climbs back up the embankment towards the man with the mustache.

The man struggles with his keys searching for the right fit.

Dante charges the man, tackles him. Keys skid off.

The two wrestle upon the pavement, first one on top, then the other. Dante gains the advantage, strangles the other.

A kick in the head.

Dante fumbles, gasps, wheezes, catches his bearings. The clean shaven man helps the other to his feet.

Dante spits, coughs, stabs a tire with a shard of broken glass.

The clean shaven man lifts Dante and drags him to the embankment, dropping him down next to the homeless.

Dante goes limp.

The mustachioed man removes the cables from the two cars and steps into his own, windows darkly tinted. The other follows.

The two drive off.

Dante drags himself out of the mud, onto the road, and into the truck.

Dizzy and discombobulated, Dante makes a u-turn and follows the two men.

INT. CAR - NIGHT

Dante surveys the landscape in putrid hatred, mumbling cruel curses in whispered indignation.

A small light grows incredibly bright. Brighter, brighter, brighter still. Dante approaches the enigma.

Dante slows to a stop as the figure gains focus.

EXT. DESERT - NIGHT

A scathing fire consumes a familiar vehicle.

Dante steps out of his car and towards the other, the two men’s car, a tire blown, the car flipped over, airbags deployed, glass shattered. The mustachioed man crawls out of the car. The other does not.

Dante limps to his car and removes a tire iron, approaching the man crawling across the desert.

Dante hobbles, stumbles, fumbles, limps, gains on the other.

The man falls in exhaustion. Dante reaches the man. The man holds up his hands as Dante holds up his weapon.

Dante stares into the pupils of that meager soul, that cowardly man, and Dante turns away, paces, turns back, lifts up the tire iron. Doesn’t strike.

Dante paces, mumbles, argues with himself, turns back, sighs, screams a rebel cry, charges.

Still he doesn’t kill him or hit him or hurt him.

In futile frustration, Dante chucks the weapon.

Dante approaches the fire, the man within the flames, but the fire is scorching, all consuming.

Dante sighs, whispers, prays.

Dante looks back to the mustachioed man, all bruised and injured, approaches him, picks him up, and drags him to his truck.

With moans and groans, Dante stuffs the man into his back seat, climbs into the front, starts the car, and drives off.

EXT. GAS STATION - NIGHT

A thick, putrid haze encumbers a queer, suffocating darkness, a stolen truck gasping and coughing with every infallible jolt, wheezing a pitiful, unintelligible groan.

The truck slows, stops. A single gas pump. Dante steps out, peeks through the back window.

Dante dips into his pocket and withdraws an empty wallet.

Dante sighs and steps into the station. A long moment passes.

A door to the car opens. The man with the mustache groans, slumps out, rests on the concrete, attempts to crawl off.

Dante returns with another. A little person, half Dante’s size.

From inside the station stares another, gawking through the window, a face as cold as stone.

Dante and the little man discuss some enigmatic drama.

The two step around the truck and to the open door. Dante pauses, as does the other. Dante looks around, searching for the body: none to be found.

The little man cackles, pats Dante lightly, spits, and offers some chew. Struck dumb, Dante doesn’t move.

The little man shrugs, takes some, and waddles back to the station. Dante stares at the blood stained leather.

Dante takes a step closer. Another. Another. Studies the blood splattered upon the leather, the ground, the gravel.

Dante follows the splatter as it rounds the truck, pass the wheels and into the grass. The track dissipates.

Dante surveys the fog: no sign of anyone.

Dante sighs and steps back to the truck, then stares at the seat the man escaped from.

Under the truck, the mustachioed man holds his haggard breath.

Dante hesitates, pauses, closes the door and climbs back into the truck. An engine purrs and the truck sputters off.

The mustachioed man sighs an ecstatic breath of relief.

INT. TRUCK - NIGHT

Dante screams and yells and slams his hands against the steering wheel.

Fury jostles the rear view mirror. Dante readjusts it.

A figure appears. The man with the mustache, struggling to move.

Dante slams the brakes and leaps out of the truck, hurdling towards the man crawling away.

EXT. GAS STATION - NIGHT

The man cowers and pleads. Dante runs past him.

The man gropes gravel, clutches concrete, flails, struggles, strains, gains only a few feet.

Dante pulls and pushes and drags the short man out of the shop and to the other. The little man’s coworker, curious, confused, follows too, though hesitates at the precipice of the station.

The little man sighs and offers some chew. The man cackles, drops, arms no longer able to hold him up.

The little man and Dante look to each other. The little man sighs, drops to his knees, and presses his ear to the man’s chest.

The little man shakes his head, closes the man’s eyes. Dante steps back, horrified.

The little man stands, cradles Dante’s hands, exasperates an exhausted look of sorrow. Dante looks away.

The little man sighs, waddles back to the shop. Stoppped by his subordinate. The little man shoves him off.

The remorseful coworker steps towards the dead body, towards the sullen priest, growing fierce in rage and fury.

The man shoves Dante, knocks him into the truck. Dante grunts, groans, gathers himself, steps back up.

The man pushes again. Same affect.

Again. And again. And again. Dante stoic in stride.

The man punches Dante. Dante staggers back, spits blood. The man goes for him again.

Missed, dodged, thrown head first into the truck. The man lies on the ground, next to the corpse, unconscious.

The little man steps back with two shovels and a bottle of whiskey. The man hesitates at the sight of the new body.

Dante shakes his head. The little man nods, steps over, crouches, checks for breath.

The little man cackles, taps the man on the chest, steps over the body, throws the two shovels into the bed of the truck, opens the bottle, sips a swig and shoves it forward.

Dante chugs a quarter of the bottle. The little man snatches it from him, swallows too much. Snatched back, forth.

The bottle without a drop.

Drunk, the two men gather the corpse, ignore the other, and stuff the corpse into the truck.

Dante climbs into the truck. The little man waddles back into the station, back out with another bottle, climbs into the truck.

The unconscious man wakes up, sits up.

Dante starts the truck, presses the peddle, slams on the brakes. The little man’s coworker in front of the truck.

The two men stare at the third. The third at Dante. Dante honks his horn. The man doesn’t move. Dante turns to the little man.

The little man shakes his head, suffers a swig, locks his door. Dante sighs, snatches the bottle, sips, coughs, steps out of the truck.

The man hits him as he exits. Dante falls to the ground, struck blind and dumb.

The man goes to kick him while he’s down. Thwarted, grabbed by the foot, pulled down.

The two wrestle upon the ground. First one on top, then the other. The two roll under the stuttering truck.

The man on top, Dante below. The man strangles Dante with hands tight around him.

Dante struggles and groans and grabs the man’s head and slams it against the bottom of the truck.

One time, two times, three. The man bleeding, growing weak, thrown off, unconcious

Dante sighs with relief, rolls out from under, reaches for the body, and drags it back to the station, propping him up.

The little man honks and Dante staggers back, climbs in, drives off.

EXT. GRAVEYARD - NIGHT

A haggard engine clunks limply across a barren, vapid plain, hissing and hawing weary laments. The engine stutters, stalls, stops. Dante steps out, the little man follows.

A feral, volatile fog inhibits their view.

Percolating gravestones conspire with moisture, producing dilapidated limestone and grimy moss. Dante drags the limp body out of the truck.

The little man, with shovels in one hand, a bottle in the other, waddles away from the truck. Dante follows, struggling with the strain of his cumbersome burden.

The little man stops and Dante does too, dropping the corpse in unkempt exhaustion, doubling over in breath forgotten.

The little man tosses the bottle, pierces the dirt with one of the shovels, steadies it upright, and digs with the other. Dante grabs the other shovel and digs also.

The two push the man into the grave, sip the final contents of the glass bottle, throw it in behind the rotting corpse, and bury the two.

Dante mumbles a few words and crosses his body.

The little man, of no religious faith, walks away. Dante follows. The little man climbs into the truck, starts the car, drives off.

Dante gawks, mesmerized by the figure consumed by the haze.

Dante sighs and stumbles into the haze.

EXT. CHURCH - NIGHT

Dante coughs, moans, trips, falls, wails upon the steps of an archaic monstrosity, suffocating upon a putrid haze.

Abandoned, dilapidated, filthy with grime, two priests depart from the once decadent facade.

Dante moans unutterable, guttural lies.

The two men pause, look to each other, whisper, nod, and drag Dante into the home of god.

INT. CHURCH - DAY

Dante comes to, afresh, anew, tragedies no more than a nightmare forgotten. But alas, life is cruel, and Dante soon gathers his miserable truth.

Within a small hovel, Dante studies the shabby room, dressed in a holy man’s perpetual attire.

A knock, a thud, a door pushed open, a holy man delivers a meager plate of food.

Dante refuses, stands, refutes, but his feet are weak, his legs too, and his knees give in, betraying his courage.

The holy man sighs, sets down the plate of food, and drags Dante back into bed. The man caresses Dante and abandons the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

A sliver of light. A small window aglow.

With all of his strength, Dante hobbles, groans, limps to the window. A small garden of carnations.

Dante pushes, pulls, opens the window, lifts his body, struggles, strains, grows incredibly tired. Dante curses, moans, sighs, stumbles back, defeated.

A nun enters, gathers half eaten food, smiles quite pitifully, and lumbers out of the room, abandoning a paper of discarded news.

Dante lifts the paper and studies the front page: Mother and Son Killed in a Fiery Blaze.

Dante stares at the paper, the black and white picture, folds the paper, and tucks it into his coat pocket.

Dante cackles a shrill, devastating laughter.

A nun and holy man enter aghast, concern and worry and anxiety forthcoming. Dante cackles and coughs and flails and thrashes.

The holy man whispers and the nun refutes, argues, submits, rushes out of the room.

Holy men gather and grope and clutch, limbs flailing wildly this way and that. Dante thrashes, slashes.

The nun scurries back, a syringe gripped tight; jabs, stabs, pierces Dante’s bicep.

Dante relaxes, succumbs to slumber.

INT. CHURCH - NIGHT

Dante comes to, startled, frightened.

Dante clutches a ragged coat pocket. Newspaper crumples. A heavy sigh of despairing relief.

Dante gathers his bearings and climbs to his feet.

A grunt, a groan, a feral moan. Dante hobbles to a door. Pushes. Pulls.

An abandoned sermon long forgotten. Dante abandons his own compartment.

INT. CHURCH - NIGHT

Screaming, bleating, shouting, gun fire.

A man hidden behind a mask, protected by a revolver, thrown against a door heavy and rotten.

Footsteps gather, linger, reform, disperse. The thief sighs, removes his mask. The woman holds a stout finger to pudgy lips.

The thief nudges the door open, studies the street, turns back to Dante, smiles, salutes, waves, leaves.

Dante pauses, hesitates, follows.

EXT. FOG - NIGHT

Dante mumbles, moans, whispers curses, indignant groans.

A disfigured body. No longer disembodied.

A man, a boy, a child. The child smiles at Dante.

Dante smiles, kneels, dips into the boy’s lamplight.

The boy holds out his hand. Dante shakes the boy’s hand. The boy turns around and waddles away.

Dante hesitates, follows.

Inbred hallucinations, prostitutes and pimps and thieves and scoundrels, each coniving and beckoning with no thrill but apathy.

Dante gags, wreaths, struggles to breathe.

A bell rings. A chugging chime.

Metal upon metal. Steel upon steel. Steam coagulates. A train before Dante.

A sign upon the train: Abandon hope all ye who enter here.

Dante steps onto the train.

INT. TRAIN CAR - NIGHT

A sparse but spacious cabin which spans twelve feet in every direction, lauded by dirt and dust and cheap furniture stolen.

Exhausted, Dante lies on the floor, far too wary to test any of the furnishings.

Dante studies the wails of other passengers: yelling and screaming and moaning in ecstasy.

Dante listens with nothing more than apathy, only the slightest curiosity curdling at the anger before him.

Dante sighs, lies on his side. A knock on the door, neither to his left nor his right: behind him. Dante turns, wary.

Dante stands, paces, places his hand upon the handle. Hesitation.

Not a sound beyond him.

Dante whispers a prayer, crosses himself, and opens the door.

INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT

No one.

Dante looks to his left, then to his right, not a single soul in sight.

Dante closes the door.

INT. TRAIN CAR - NIGHT

Footsteps. Pitter patter. Whispers. Terse words.

Dante arms himself with an umbrella next to the door. Dante takes a step forward. The creaking of wood.

Voices seize. Footsteps too. Not a single sound in the room.

Dante hesitates, steps forward, into the shadows, hidden from the single throbbing lightbulb.

Cursing. Thrashing. Crashing. Dante thrown to the ground, cascaded by electric light.

The mustachioed man, resurrected. Smirking, leering, sneering.

Dante jumps to his feet. The man charges. Dante pivots, turns, trips the corpse with his umbrella. The man falls to the floor, tumbles into darkness.

A rope from behind, taut, tight. Dante coughs, chokes, strains. The umbrella kicked out of his hand.

The mustachioed man stands once again, before him.

Dante wreathes and writhes and slams the man behind him, the other of the two dead men, once, twice, three times.

The rope grows tighter, tighter.

The mustachioed man punches Dante hard in the stomach. Dante dry heaves, coughs, spits blood, pulled back for more.

The man throws another punch and Dante gasps for breath; no way to find it.

The man laughs, cackles, shakes his bruised knuckles. Hits him again, blood spewing across the floor.

The man stumbles back, disgusted, blood shot on him. The man curses and wipes the blood off him.

Dante goes limp. The two hesitate. The man with the rope shakes him, as if to wake him. Dante doesn’t stir.

The man with the mustache grows malicious and slaps the other with indignant ferocity.

The other man drops Dante, soothes bruised skin, and whispers to the other who hisses back violently.

Dante opens his eyes, reaches for a weapon. Creaking wood, old and rotten.

The two men turn, thrown askew by the disturbance. Dante closes his eyes, as if to hide.

The two men revert to guttural insults.

Dante opens his eyes, clutches the weapon, whispers a prayer, and swings the umbrella at the man with the mustache.

The man falls to the floor, head cracked open and bleeding. The other man gawks.

Dante swings again, seized by the rope. The man pulls Dante close only to be kneed in the stomach, wrapped from behind, choked unconscious with the umbrella.

The man falls just like the other.

Dante sighs, rubs his neck, and wipes the blood from him.

The man with the mustache climbs to his feet. A knock on the door.

The man turns, startled, hit again, unconcious for certain.

Another knock on the door.

Dante steps over one body and then the other and then opens the door, though only a smidgen.

A man in khakis smiles, looks in.

Dante looks to him but the man looks beyond him, towards the two bodies, frozen in terror with a brochure in front of him.

Dante snatches the brochure, slams the door behind him, and tosses the religious pamphlet onto the bloodied floor.

INT. TRAIN CAR - DAY

Tattered rays of morning light pirouette across bleached floors, Dante scrubbing and brushing with a calm, dilligent stoicism.

Dante stands, studies his work, and opens the door to the closet. Two bodies spring from the cluttered room, expunged by overabundant supplies, caught by Dante just in time.

Dante throws in the cleaning supplies, brush, mop, towels, the like, and pushes back the two bodies. Dante shuts the door with a laborious sigh.

A church bell tolls. A whistle blows. The landscape slows.

Dante sighs, studies the room one final time, and steps out into the hall, closing the door gently behind him.

EXT. FIELD - DAY

Wildflowers. Springtime. Birds and gophers and delicate, small creatures.

A rusted door opens. Dante disembarks.

Dante surveys the landscape, hesitates, turns back. The train chugs away. Dante turns back to the landscape.

A mother and child.

Dante stumbles, fumbles, blunders. Slips. Trips. Falls.

A hand held to hold. Flaky. Peeling. Rotten. A hand decomposed and shaking.

An engine shifting.

Dante looks from the hand to the body. The little boy, a corpse of a body, gaping holes where eyes should be, bone where flesh should be.

Dante screams, yells, crawls back in terror.

Honking.

The rotting woman comforts the child. Dante’s eyes expel unfettered terror.

Dante stumbles onto gravel, concrete, sun faded lines.

Screeching and screaming and smoke and burning rubber. A van stops no more than 2 feet before him.

Two men, burly and monstrous, leap out of the van, all maleficence and righteousness. One picks up Dante while the other snaps a bag over him, Dante wreathing and writhing and struggling and straining.

One of the two men, the one not holding him, punches him hard in the stomach. Dante heaves, coughs, gasps.

The two men lift him and throw him into the van.

The two climb in behind him, rev the engine, and sputter off into the horizon.

EXT. MANSION - DAY

A vast, inhospitable landscape. A barren environment. A putrid, acrid desert.

A van approaches, slows, stops, throws Dante out, sputters off.

Ruffled by gravel, Dante struggles to stand.

A man in gray exits the mansion, approaches Dante, his countenance serious with the recognition of his office.

The man clutches Dante but Dante resists, pushes him off, stumbles back, walks off.

Another approaches, along with the original.

Dante’s pace quickens. The men’s do too.

Faster. Faster. Running. Sprinting. All out heaving. Through the parking lot and towards the desert. No life anywhere.

Dante stops at the precipice, where gravel meets desert, hesitates. The men do the same.

Dante looks back to the mansion, then to the desert. Dante, again, hesitates.

The men smirk, seize the moment, rush him, tackle him, conquer. Dante is held back, down, and forced into the mansion.

INT. OFFICE - DAY

Thrown to the ground with the door locked behind him, Dante groans, moans.

Dante struggles to his feet.

A desk, some pencils, a leather chair, another. One window, closed and barred; a lamp, turned off.

Dante sits in a chair and palms a book from the near table: The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Short Stories.

The door opens and the book is thrown aside.

A woman, in casual attire, sits in the chair across from Dante.

The woman clicks a pen, scribbles, smiles, studies Dante, scribbles some more.

Dante attempts to study her writing, but her script is illegible, unreadable. Nonetheless, the woman raises her clipboard.

A long time passes.

After what can only be considered a lengthy eternity, the woman sets down her pen and clipboard also. Another glamorous smile.

Dante cowers at her exuberance, her fertile ecstasy.

The woman, in a moment of fervent joy, clutches Dante’s hands, the two intertwined, bound by assurance. Dante counts his exits.

The woman stares at Dante. Dante clears his throat.

A telephone rings. The woman answers, nods, whispers, mumbles, scribbles something baroque, exits the room, locks the door behind her.

Dante reaches for the clipboard and studies the insignia, the letter head, the paper. Written in code. The echoing of footsteps, the jingling of keys. Dante thrusts the clipboard across the room.

The woman smiles a devilish, furtive smile, regains the clipboard, and steps back out of the room.

Dante hesitates, waits for footsteps to fade, then stands and circles the room.

Each door locked, the windows barred, the bars impenetrable, the walls thick too.

Dante curses, paces, up and down, back and forth, again and again.

Dante stops, hesitates. The faint echo of footsteps.

Dante rushes to the door, near the hinges, waits.

The door opens and the woman returns, all smiles and giggles until surveying the room.

The woman gasps and runs out of the room.

Dante catches the door just before it closes, allowing the footsteps to fade before making another move.

Footsteps disbanded, voices unheard, Dante peeks out the door: no sign of anyone.

Dante sneaks out of the room.

INT. HALLWAY - DAY

Dilapidated carpet, fraying rugs, homogenous doors stretched across a damp corridor.

Dante looks to his left, then to his right, steps left, hesitates. The chime of an elevator. Dante turns around, steps right.

A flock of menial laborers shuffle, stop, huddle, pounce upon a wooden door. The horrid mockery of torture. Dante walks past, ignored.

A yelp. A wallop. A feverish command. Dante turns to find the woman behind him.

Dante’s pace quickens. The woman’s does too.

Dante rounds a corner, tries a door, another, another, another. All locked. Each and every door.

The clicking of heels approaching.

Another door. Another. Another.

The shadow of the woman.

A door clicks open. Dante rushes in and closes the door behind him.

INT. ROOM - DAY

Dante leans against the door, eyes clenched in terror.

Footsteps gather, closer, closer. Stop. Pause. Hesitate.

Dante holds his breath.

Feet scamper off. Dante sighs, relieved.

A man across from Dante, a man of no more than 20, gawks, blood spewing from empty eye sockets.

Dante smiles an awkward, clumsy sort of smile. The man screeches, screams. Dante flees.

INT. HALLWAY - DAY

Men and women scurry and worry and dash this way and that, ignoring Dante, approaching the horrid scene of the bleeding man screaming.

Dante fumbles, blunders, stumbles to the end of the hallway. A steel door. Dante turns back, studies the flurry.

All bustling and shuffling and shoving and pushing.

Dante pushes the door open to the outside world.

EXT. PARKING LOT - DAY

Bitter rays of scattered sun scar delicate skin as Dante makes his feral escape.

Dante tries the door to a car, then another, another: locked.

Dante moves from one lane to another, systematically testing each and every door.

A door opens.

Dante steps into the driver’s seat and searches for keys: none.

The woman exits the mansion, along with a few men, sending each one in a different direction.

Dante ducks, plunges, hides under the rear window.

Dante closes his eyes and whispers a prayer, crossing himself and begging for mercy.

The men and women relent.

Dante sighs, falls asleep.

INT. CAR - NIGHT

Dante jumps with a fright. Honking, headlights. Doors click. Locks unlock. A woman approaches.

Dante looks around, tries to get up, sees the woman approaching, hides. The woman climbs into the front seat.

The woman starts the car and drives off, Dante still hidden in the back seat.

EXT. SUBURBS - NIGHT

The car pulls into a drive, into a garage, and the woman steps out and into a house.

INT. GARAGE - NIGHT

Dante sits up, gathers himself, studies his prison.

The car rumbles. Dante climbs to the front seat and tries the keys.

Won’t turn. Won’t move. Won’t budge. Stuck. Fumes begin to rise in the small garage.

Dante curses, groans, searches the car. Visor, glove compartment, miscellaneous drawers. No sign of any remote.

Dante curses, pauses, recognizes a light, stumbles fumbles, struggles out of the car, to the light.

Dante heaves a heavy hand upon the quaint button. Futile. The button does nothing.

Dante lunges onto the car, on top of the car, pulls a red strap, leaps off the car, and tries the garage door.

Won’t open.

Dante fumbles back to the button. Still no function.

Fumes begin to suffocate.

Dante searches the miserable prison, finds a door, tries it, locked. Dante moves to knock, to slam, to heave upon the door. Hesitates, searches the room again.

A sliver of light, the quaintest of shadows. Dante, falling ill, feeling sick, struggles to the other door across the room.

Dante slams into the door. Pushes, pulls. Strains. Grows weak.

Rotted wood creaks, cracks, the door sputters open.

Dante plummets onto wet soil.

EXT. HOUSE - NIGHT

Wheezing and dry heaving, coughing and breathing.

Dante looks back to the home, awaiting some atrocity. None occurs, at least for the time being.

Discarding putrid grime, Dante struggles to his feet and limps down the street, hobbling in and out of flickering lamplight.

EXT. BRIDGE - NIGHT

Sour lamplight sputters and spews, pirouetting dank sewers and rancid walkways.

Amongst filth and grime wallows Dante, approaching a tattered old haggard bridge.

Dante hesitates at the precipice of a tunnel formed by the bridge.

Dante studies an incline, a hill, formed by the bridge, then the tunnel again: dark and ominous.

Dante climbs the hill.

Ravenous roots dip and dive across the steep incline, clutching and grabbing and groping enviously. Dante trips, falls, tumbles back down to the base of the incline.

Dante sighs, stands, and wipes himself off. A figure emerges, rancid and disfigured.

The homeless man, drunk and high, stumbles and sputters with eyes glazed over.

The homeless man trips, laughs, fumbles to his feet, studies Dante. Dante gawks, frozen in horror. The homeless man pulls out a knife.

Dante holds his hands high, tries to step closer.

The homeless man jabs, stabs, misses, thrown to the ground. The homeless man slashes the knife across Dante’s thigh.

Dante curses, trips, fumbles, limps, blood spews all down his leg.

The homeless man jumps to his feet, tackles Dante. The two tumble into a ditch.

Dante pushes and pulls and dodges the knife and clutches the homeless man with all of his might.

The homeless man gropes and clutches and punches Dante. Dante grunts and groans and pushes the man off him.

The homeless man cackles, stands, taunts with his weapon. Dante snarls, snatches, misses, falls to the gravel. The homeless man patronizes, tosses the weapon.

Dante reaches for it, howls, hand stepped on by the other, kicked in the stomach.

Dante heaves, howls, cradles his stomach.

The homeless man waits. No reaction. The homeless man sighs, nudges the knife towards him. Still no reaction. The homeless man bends over, picks up the weapon, and offers it to him. No reaction.

The homeless man sighs, grows bored, tosses the knife, waddles away.

Dante picks up the knife, stands, tries to chase after, but his limp is severe and the homeless man is far.

Dante howls in anger. Birds scatter.

Dante limps back to the bridge, looks up the steep incline, sighs, and hobbles into the tunnel, dropping to the ground and leaning against the wall formed by the tunnel.

EXT. TUNNEL - DAY

Honking and hawing and screeching and screaming.

Dante comes to.

The tunnel sputters, aglow with natural light, couples strolling down the pedestrian street.

The cut in Dante’s leg has scarred and coagulated, healed enough to walk, though only in retched pain.

Dante climbs to his feet as others avert their gaze.

Dante limps off into the tunnel.

EXT. PARKING LOT - DAY

Dante hesitates, stares at the sign before him. A local drug store, sparsely populated with profane poverty.

Dante hobbles into the store.

INT. DRUG STORE - DAY

Dante scans the aisles, one after another, until stumbling upon bandages, swaying before them.

Blood sputters and spews and stains Dante’s leg, the cut reopen, Dante cringing in pain.

No one takes much notice.

Dante rips open one of the boxes and wraps his leg. A store manger approaches.

Dante limps away as fast as he can, but the manager is faster, and Dante is held back by a furious hand.

The manager drags Dante forward, to a dust ladened counter, where a teenage girl reads David Foster Wallace.

Laboriously, the girl lifts her eyes from the book and to the manager, Dante, the injury. The girl turns back to her novel.

The manager sighs and pushes the girl aside and scans the package of bandages ripped and torn open. The total comes to 3.12.

The manager taps his foot, pitiless. Dante grumbles and groans and digs through his pockets. Only loose change.

Dante reveals all that he owns. The manager counts the pittance. Short.

The manager looks to Dante expectantly. Dante shakes his head. The manager sighs, holds out his palm. Dante stares at his hand.

The manager makes a gesture to his leg, his wound, then to his hand.

Dante hesitates, steps back. Another step. Another. Another.

The manager seizes Dante in front of the doorway. Dante tries to push past him but the manager won’t let him.

In fury, agitation, Dante pushes harder. The manager trips, falls, retaliates, grabs Dante’s leg, trips him, and climbs on top of him.

Dante squeals as the man clutches his wound. Dante grabs him by the hair, tries to throw him off.

The manager won’t let go.

Dante punches and kicks but the manager holds tight, steadfast.

The two tumble and wrestle, first one on top, then the other, until the manager gains the advantage and rips off the bandages.

Dante delivers a terrible blow and the manager rolls.

Bleeding, Dante limps out of the shop.

EXT. PARKING LOT - DAY

Past teenagers and toddlers, millennials and baby boomers, Dante makes his way down the long row of overheated cars.

One of the cars starts as Dante passes by.

Dante waves the car on, waves them off, but the car follows on, a pace so slow small children could pass by.

Dante collapses. A woman steps out, drags Dante in, and drives off.

A sordid, bloody trail occupies Dante’s failed escape.

INT. ROOM - NIGHT

Pristine. Eerily clean. The epitome of OCD. Beeping machines, prickling needles, ominous tools. Dante comes to.

Across from him slumbers the woman, slumped over in a sun bleached leather recliner.

Dante rattles, shifts, restraints strapped to him.

The young woman stirs, groans, opens groggy eyes, lumbers out of the room. Fervent whispers and muffled exaggerations. The woman returns, dangles keys.

Dante flails, pleas. The young woman relents, releases Dante.

Dante cradles swollen wrists, bruised tendons, consoles his pride, his ego, gathers his courage, tries to stand.

Pushed back down again. Too weak to retaliate. Dante relents, lays back down again.

The woman paces, back and forth, back and forth, again and again, mumbling nonsensical soliloquies.

The woman pauses, hesitates, peers out the window, witnesses some confidant, scurries out.

Dante tries to stand, falls with a lethargic thud.

INT. ROOM - DAY

Dante comes to, slams his head against the railing under the bed. Dante moans, groans, cradles his aching skull.

A middle aged woman, dressed in white, enters the room. The woman gasps and rushes out of the room.

A half dozen professionals hurry into the room.

Out the window. To the bathroom. To the closet. All rush and gush and pace anxiously about.

The youngest of the cluster, a boy of about 8, recognizes Dante curled under the bed.

Dante moves to speak but the boy shakes his head.

The boy stumbles back to his mother, shrugs, and the mob scurries off.

The boy winks and waddles out of the room.

INT. ROOM - NIGHT

The boy, alone, waddles back into the room. Dante smiles and shimmies out from under the bed.

The boy carries a toy, a plane, and some food.

The boy sits next to Dante and opens a bag of potato chips. The boy offers the bag and Dante complies, studies, chews.

The boy empties the contents, crushes the bag, and throws it like a ball, towards a waste basket. The boy misses.

The boy grumbles and groans and slumps over to the ball. Tries again. The ball rebounds off the rim and towards Dante.

Dante shifts his position, sits upright, and throws the ball straight into the wastebasket.

The boy’s hands go high. Dante concedes a half smile. The boy again sits next to Dante.

The boy shows off his airplane. Dante nods in mock amusement. The boy runs with his airplane all around the room.

The boy opens the window and throws the toy. The toy tumbles down two treacherous stories.

The boy leans out, tries to find it. Can’t see it. Leans further. Farther. Slipping. Tripping. Falling.

Caught.

Dante at his feet, clutching the little boy’s body.

Dante pulls the boy in. The boy hugs Dante. Dante hugs him too, joy and terror intertwined with disbelief.

Dante fingers his wound: scabbed over and healing.

Dante takes a few steps forward. Tolerable. Dante paces to the door.

Outside the door people hustle and bustle, shuffling from one room to another.

Dante pulls a small finger to his chapped lips. The boy does too.

Pressed against the wall, Dante pushes the door ajar. No retaliation.

Dante closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and steps out of the room.

The boy follows.

INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT

Dante flounders, stumbles, past a crowd of scrupulous spectators. The boy, oblivious to the spectacle, follows.

The two pause; the hall diverges.

The boy points to the left. Dante hesitates.

The boy pulls and tugs and Dante relents.

INT. HALL - NIGHT

A dead end. A door closed, looming.

Dante turns back, studies the long hallway. The boy resists, insists.

Dante opens the door and the two step in.

INT. OFFICE - NIGHT

Four plush cushions, two leather chairs. A dark, dingy room with degrees strewn allover.

Bookshelves, hundreds of novels, price tags still splattered on them.

Dante limps to a shelf and studies the selection.

Jung, Freud, Heller, Joyce. Dante hesitates, studies the last: The Bell, by Iris Murdoch.

An old man shuffles in and collapses into one of the two chairs.

Dante returns the novel and turns back to the boy: disappeared. The old man shakes his head and offers the other chair. Dante obliges.

The old man stares at the younger with a piercing, gum-less smile, an intellect long forgotten for more base prerogatives.

Dante smiles a polite, courteous smile and stands again, tries the door.

Locked. The old man chuckles.

Dante kicks. Punches. Slams. No use.

Dante tries the window. Futile. The old man giggles.

Dante searches the room for doors to other rooms, but all the doors, for there are many, lead only to closets.

The old man hyperventilates upon his relentless laughter, coughs, chokes, calms, goes steady.

Defeated, Dante sits in the chair across from the old man.

A woman enters the room.

The old man stands and Dante does too and the woman waves the two down, sitting on the floor.

The woman studies the old man, then Dante, scribbles something nonsensical, stands, shakes the hand of the old man, then Dante, then abruptly leaves.

Dante stares at the door, flabbergasted.

Gaining composure, Dante tries the door again: no different.

The old man giggles and cackles harder than ever and falls to the floor, suffocating, coughing, choking, seizing.

Dante falls to his knees, tries to calm him, tries to relieve him, but the man can’t garner the slightest knack for breathing.

Dante sprints to the door and struggles and pulls and kicks and slams and yells and screams.

The old man seizes, moves no more.

Dante hesitates, lingers, presses a foot into the old man’s bloated stomach: no reaction.

Dante checks for a heartbeat, breath, anything: nothing.

Dante stumbles, blunders, trips, falls, crawls behind a chair, hidden from the open eye of the glaring corpse of the dead body.

The door heaves, writhes. Dante cowers behind the leather chair.

Two massive men emerge, lift the old man, and drag him away, taking no notice of Dante hardly hidden. The door is left open.

Dante sprints out of the room.

INT. HALL - NIGHT

A throbbing, thrashing, flickering bulb, dangling precariously upon a single, frayed thread, simmering and stuttering and fading rapidly.

Dante fumbles, stumbles, falls to the floor, curses instability. Light disintegrates.

Utter, impenetrable darkness. Dante shuffles, clutching the darkness with curses and thrashes.

Dante bumps into a wall, flails, fidgets, finds a switch. An industrial hall, a warehouse, illuminated.

Garage doors bend and writhe as if hammered or jackhammered or slammed against hard.

Dante looks down the hall in the direction he faces, then turns in the opposite direction.

Dante hobbles down the hall, periodically flinching at the shrieks and grinds beyond the many doors.

Dante pauses to catch his breath. Across from him, one of the doors lies hardly open. Dante approaches the door and looks under. Nothing discernible.

Dante looks to his left, then to his right, makes up his mind, drops to his stomach, and rolls under the garage door.

INT. HANGAR - DAY

Industrial tools, anachronistic technologies, archaic flying machines.

Jets and planes rusted and forgotten.

Dante wanders through the hangar in true astonishment.

Dante hesitates before the most luxurious of the aircrafts. Stairs alluring, doors wide open.

Dante hesitates, pauses, assesses his environment. No one but him and his conscience.

Dante hobbles up onto the plane.

INT. PLANE - DAY

Exuberant luxury. The epitome of fortune. Modest only in modesty. Dante fetishizes every detail about it.

A bump. A push. A jolt.

Dante trips, falls, rolls. The plane gathers speed.

Dante hobbles to the controls. No one.

The plane speeds along at a harrowing pace, soon to be airborn.

Dante’s eyes grow vivid with fear. Dante lurches to the exit, slams the door open.

The ground passes by at a feverish speed. Dante curses, hesitates.

Tracks upon gravel. Iron upon iron. Steel meeting steel. Metal striking metal.

Railroad tracks.

INT. TRAIN - DAY

Dante closes the door and looks down the corridor. Homogenous doors strewn across the corridor.

Dante opens the door to the first room. Two men having relations. Dante closes the door quickly.

Dante steps to another, knocks. No answer.

Dante opens the door. A woman bound to a chair, gagged and beaten. Dante closes the door quickly.

Dante steps away, turns back, hesitates, paces, back again, away again, decided, undecided, never sure.

Dante opens the door.

The woman pleads and moans, struggling with her restraints. Dante studies the room, the woman, the hallway.

No one.

Dante steps into the room.

INT. ROOM - NIGHT

The woman struggles and groans as Dante releases her bondage, first her hands, then her feet, then her gag.

The woman spits in his face. Dante stumbles.

The woman smiles and stands and holds out her hand.

Dante studies it, shakes it, wobbles with misguided disfunction, hyperbolic ill comfort. The woman stares.

Dante smiles and nods and approaches a window, pulls back the curtain, and finds the day gone, night begun. The train has stopped moving.

Dante opens the window and looks down the tracks: nothing but fog, steam too, blocking every direction.

Dante closes the window and turns back to the woman. The woman studies him.

Dante looks away, as if in shame, and with eyes glued to the floor, Dante makes his way back to the door.

Dante pushes and pulls. The door won’t open. The woman, much like the old man, cackles.

Dante lurches but only threatens. The woman shrugs and sits in the chair she was previously bound to.

Dante calms, tries to open the window, won’t open. Dante pushes, pulls, harder, harder.

The woman smiles, leers, cackles. Hysterical, maleficent.

Dante grows fervent, feverish, frantic. The woman stands, approaches. Dante grows ever more hectic. Closer, closer, practically on top of him.

The woman reaches out, pulls, opens the window, turns Dante around, kisses him, and pushes him out. Dante plummets to the ground.

A mansion before him, a window open, two stories up.

EXT. MANSION - NIGHT

Dante stumbles to his feet, hobbles away.

A man, dressed in an Italian suede suit stained navy blue, creeps, stalks, follows.

EXT. GHETTO - NIGHT

Amongst rusted lampposts and flickering lamplight, Dante makes his way through the tattered ghetto.

As Dante encroaches darkness the man behind him emerges from it. Back and forth, again and again, the two men flicker in and out of darkness.

The rustle of leaves, whispering trees, rubber upon gravel. A car approaches.

Dante stumbles aside, onto the sidewalk, and the car passes by. Dante steps back to the road, hesitates, looks back.

The flurry of a figure withdrawing from lamplight. Dante hesitates, approaches the figure.

Nothing. No one. Dante steps into shadows.

Rustling, tumbling, the man in the blue suit scuffles gravel.

Dante approaches, hesitates. A knife cradled within the man’s hand.

The man attacks, charges, dodged, missed, thrown into darkness. Dante studies the precipice. Flickering lamplight. A whistle, a rustle, a step, two, Dante pivots, turns, too slow. The knife at his throat.

Dante holds up his hands, surrenders prematurely. The man cackles, knees, pushes him to gravel.

Dante feigns innocence, weakness. The man steps closer, closer. Dante clutches dirt. The man sneers above him.

Dante pivots, turns, pitches dirt at him. The man yelps, screams, drops his weapon, clutches his eye sockets, stumbles towards darkness.

Dante jumps to his feet, charges, tackles. The two on the ground, at the precipice of darkness, reaching for the weapon.

Knocked away, up the street, revealed in the halo of another lamplight.

Dante kicked off, thrown aside, the other diving into darkness.

Dante chases after, lost too in darkness. The thumping grind of two men falling.

A hand, a finger, inches from the weapon. Pulled back. The two men thrown into lamplight.

Dante on top, the man below him. Dante tries to punch him, held back by the other.

Kneed in the stomach. Dante gasps, thrown onto his back, in the middle of the lamplight, choking, choking, gasping, wheezing, grabbing, clutching, swiping the knife in front of him.

The man yelps, screams, tumbles to his feet. Dante struggles to his own two feet.

The two pace around the illuminated circle.

The man dissipates into the shadows. Dante steps into the middle of the circle.

An acrid wind, a palpating breeze, footsteps hardly audible over crickets and bees. Dante turns and turns and bends his knees.

A long time passes.

Dante steadies, breathes, studies the darkness. Nothing emerges.

Dante hesitates, steps closer, closer, into the shadows.

Tumbling and pummeling and mumbling and moaning. The knife bounces and skids into the lamplight.

Dante tumbles, rolls, thrown.

Dante reaches, grabs, clutches the weapon. Stepped on, stomped on, crushed, broken. Dante’s hand shattered by the other man’s boot of leather.

Dante struggles, strains, beats the man’s leg. The man kicks him in the head. Dante drops, unconscious.

The man kicks Dante away, picks up the weapon, looks all around, drops to his knees, straddles Dante.

Tires rustle. The man turns. A car approaches.

The man drags Dante into the shadows.

The car passes, stops, reverses. A car door opens. Footsteps, dragging feet. A door closes, a window opens. The clattering of metal. The car peels away.

The knife glitters upon the concrete.

INT. CAR - NIGHT

Sprawled across the back seat, Dante comes to, two men fidgeting with a radio before him.

Dante cradles his swollen skull, his bleeding wounds, curses, whispers, sits up.

The click of a gun. The tsk of pity. The man in the passenger seat ironic in his sympathy.

Dante shivers and the man removes his blue jacket, his suit jacket, and wraps it around the him. Dante nods and stares blankly at the gun pointed at him.

Dante looks to the man. The man only shrugs. Dante looks to the other, not a man, a woman, his wife.

The woman mumbles to the man. The man nods and turns a knob. Blaring incoherent jibberish.

The car pulls over to the side of the road.

EXT. COUNTRYSIDE - NIGHT

The two captors step out of the car and into a field, peering back periodically at the prisoner held captive. Dante struggles and strains with the back door but the door is locked, child locked, as are, somehow, all the other doors.

The two bicker and batter with vehement whispers, pausing at the passing of each and every vehicle.

The two bite and snarl until some plan is decided. Agreed, the two climb back into the vehicle.

The man sighs. The woman glares. The man cocks his gun and disillusions Dante. All hope disintegrates. The woman insists. The man resists, rests his finger upon the trigger. Dante swallows hard. The man fires.

Misses.

Blocked. Stopped. Pushed. Hand on the barrel, another on the trigger.

Another shot fired. Another. Another.

The woman stomps out of the car, around the bumper and to the passenger, reaches under the car, removes a shotgun, cocks her weapon, and fires.

The man drops dead. The gun slips from his hand. Dante scrambles, clutches, fires.

Out of bullets. The gun just clicks.

The woman gestures with her gun at the man not breathing Dante hesitates, nods, and tucks the gun into the man’s pocket.

The woman opens the front door and drags the man out.

The car skitters and stutters. Dante speeds off. The woman heaves a reluctant sigh.

EXT. HIGHWAY - DAY

The car sputters and stutters, stalls, pulls over. Out of gas.

Dante searches his pockets: nothing on him. The glove compartment: nothing either. The entirety of the car: just gum wrappers.

Dante sighs, steps out of the car, walks down the street.

EXT. HIGHWAY - NIGHT

Illuminated by rampant light, car lights and lamplights and miscellaneous construction sites, Dante blunders.

Dante holds out his arm, his hand, his thumb. Futility if there ever was.

Dante sighs and kicks a small rock. The rock tumbles off into a quaint field of wildflowers.

Dante stops, studies, steps into the field.

EXT. FIELD - NIGHT

Intrepid daffodils brave a cool breeze, bending but not breaking with every step of Dante.

Horns screeching, tires screaming, rubber burning, smoke careening. Dante jumps, cowers, resists the urge to flee.

A car flipped over. Dante hesitates, rushes over.

A tumultuous fire. Children screaming. Dante steps forward, backward, the fire impenetrable.

Smoke clutters. Dante blunders, clutches, flails.

Light pierces the heavy smog. Dante approaches. Two beams. Ghostly moaning.

Metal against steel. A police officer approaches. A gun withdrawn, held high, pointed at him.

Dante stops dead in his tracks.

The officer yells something nonsensical, muffled dire demands. Dante resists nothing. The officer takes a step closer. Another. Another.

The officer seizes Dante’s arm, another by another. Handcuffs, throws him against a car hood, searches his pockets.

Nothing on him.

The officer pushes Dante forward and opens a back door. Without resistance, Dante climbs into the car.

The officer closes the door, climbs into the car, and skitters off.

INT. POLICE CAR - NIGHT

Dante witnesses the insufferable flames, that eery haze, that maleficent, apathetic man.

The officer’s voice muffles the silence, shattered by a glass divider.

A city before him. Rugged, abandoned, forgotten, mostly homeless.

The car stops and stalls and the officer withdraws, opens the back door, and drags Dante out.

The two step into a precinct.

INT. PRECINCT - NIGHT

Three rambunctious officers solute their commander, offering upmost courtesy without any of the effort. A receptionist babbles on beyond a glass divider, mumbling incoherently, beyond bother.

The commander removes Dante’s handcuffs, sits him on a bench, handcuffs him again, this time to the bench, and sits betwixt the other’s, nodding to each.

The four whisper excitedly.

The youngest, only eight, nods, stands, solutes the others, and approaches Dante.

The boy rushes, charges, clutches Dante: a bearish hug. Dante pauses, reciprocates. The boy doesn’t let go.

Dante chuckles, smiles, whispers, grumbles. The boy’s grip tightens.

Dante grows nervous, lightly pushes, pulls, tries to wrench the boy off of him. The boy yells, screams, screeches.

Dante struggles, strains, the boy digs his nails into Dante’s body. Dante flails, thrashes. The boy digs his teeth into Dante’s throat.

Dante screams, kicks. The boy tumbles, rolls, cackles, wipes blood from his teeth.

The boy threatens. Dante jumps, winces. The boy cackles. Dante cowers. The boy holds out his hand in negotiation.

Dante hesitates. The boy shrugs, turns around, walks away, waddles back to his compatriots.

Another officer, a woman scarred and bleeding, cut up and soaked in rancid gore, approaches Dante.

Gently, gruffly, the officer removes Dante’s handcuffs, smiles, hugs, and sits next to him. Dante nods his gratitude.

The woman sighs, whimpers, cries. Dante hesitates, shifts awkwardly, stares forward. The woman bawls against his shoulder. Dante feigns empathy. The woman dries her eyes. Dante smiles politely. The woman slaps him across the face, drawing blood.

Dante coughs. The woman laughs, steps back to the others.

The final officer approaches, much older than the others, the old officer resurrected, limping with the aid of a miserable shabby cane.

Dante studies the pitiful failure. The figure smiles a gummy, toothless smile.

Dante shivers, winces. The old officer juts out a withered hand. Dante hesitates, obliges, shakes it.

The officer hands over a set of keys, wobbles back to his seat. Dante stares at the keys. The four officers ignore Dante.

Dante studies the keys, the officers, closes his eyes, crosses himself.

Dante sprints to the door, pushes, pulls, heaves. No use.

Dante fidgets with the keys, tries each and every one of them. Ill fit.

The receptionist knocks on the window, the glass, the divider, turns his phone aside, and points to a long hallway.

A dingy, dark, filthy corridor.

Dante hesitates, looks to the officers: enthralled by irreverent gestures.

Dante sighs, stuffs the keys into his pocket, and approaches the corridor.

INT. HALL - NIGHT

Darkness enraptures the ominous catacomb, palpating flickering bulbs which stutter and spew.

Dante looks back to the four officers: babbling melodiously. Dante sighs, steadies, encroaches sterile darkness. Impenetrable shadows.

A thud, a groan, a moan. Dante clutches a door handle. Pushes, pulls. Locked.

Dante fumbles, rattles his coat pocket, tries a key, then another.

The door opens.

INT. ROOM - NIGHT

An abandoned, dilapidated room, lauded by dirt and dust and grime too. A single, flickering bulb cascades a perilous, scathing light across the small room. A single chair, dull and unused, occupies the middle of the room. Across from him, on the other side of the room, lies a door, slightly ajar.

Dante approaches the door. A thumping toll reverberates from the catacombs. A creeping, shrill scream of utter terror. Dante succumbs to his own cowardice, falters, stumbles.

Louder. Dante stumbles further, farther, back to the door behind him. Closed shut sometime prior.

Dante pushes, pulls, won’t open. Dante turns, back to the open door, struggling with the other; still won’t open. Kicking and beating and yelling and screaming.

All sound seizes.

Dante swallows hard, looks back to the open door. No sound of any kind.

Dante closes his eyes, crosses his body, and approaches the door slightly ajar.

Growling and gurgling and babbling horror. Dante stops, hesitates, looks back to the closed door. A small laugh. A chuckle.

Dante removes the keys from his coat pocket and steps to the door closed and locked.

No lock. Mock ease contorts terror.

Dante pushes and pulls and slams on the door, the howling from the other growing more and more frantic.

Dante turns on his toes, back against the wall, glaring at the door which spews pure horror.

A deep breath. A heavy gasp. Dante charges the door, slams it shut. Terror dissipates along with the song of the devil.

Dante heaves a heavy sigh, gawks at the door.

Dante hesitates, knocks, slams on the door. No reaction.

Dante studies his keys, the lock, tries one, then another. The door opens. Dante stares past the door: a cement wall. Dante gawks, closes the door.

The other door opens. The old man waddles in, nods to Dante, and closes the door behind him.

The man shuffles to the chair and reaches under, struggles, strains, withdraws a revolver.

The old man loads the weapon and cocks the hammer, directing his venom without hesitation.

Dante surrenders, back against the door in pure terror.

The old man motions and Dante obliges, approaching the door which will not open. The old man follows, hobbles, limps.

Dante reaches the door. The old man pushes the gun into Dante’s shoulder.

Dante winces, grumbles, pulls the door handle. The door opens.

Astonished, Dante steps into the hallway.

INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT

Four desks filthy and messy but abandoned by officials. Only Dante and the officer.

The old man pushes, shoves. Dante stumbles, fumbles, hobbles down the corridor.

Dante stops. A door locked. The old man pushes the gun deep into Dante’s shoulder. Dante winces, tries the keys offered.

The second key opens. Dante hesitates. The old man pushes harder.

Dante stumbles into the vacant room. The old man follows.

INT. BATHROOM - NIGHT

Dante wavers before a mirror, hands held high, the old man before him and behind.

The old man kicks Dante behind the knees and Dante falls painfully, grunting and groaning and dropping the keys.

The old man’s hands shake with fury. The old man clutches the gun with both of his hands, drops his cane.

Anxiety consumes the wrinkled old body.

Dante rests his hands against the dark vanity, clutches the counter with bleached white knuckles, and glares at the reflection through the mirror darkly.

The old man breathes heavily. Dante closes his eyes in vain resignation. The old man repositions himself in an effort to breathe steadily. Dante slams his head against the dark vanity.

Dante falls to the ground, unconscious. The old man steps back, trips on his cane, misfires.

Dante opens his eyes, jumps to his knees, straddles the old man, and wrestles for the weapon, two, three, four shots fired. The gun skitters across the concrete.

The old man reaches for the weapon but is pinned down by Dante. The old man spits in his face. Dante reels back, infuriated.

The old man crawls towards the gun, grabs the weapon, moves to fire, slapped away by the cane. Another misfire.

The old man clutches the cane, climbs to his feet, pushes, pulls. Dante lets go. The old man knocks his head into the vanity.

Dante pulls the doorknob. The door.

The old man crawls to a corner, towards the weapon, unnoticed by Dante who still pulls the door frantically.

The old man flips over and cocks the weapon. Dante stops, turns, steps aside.

The old man clutches the keys, climbs to his feet, approaches the door, threatens, wriggles, writhes; clutches the trigger, fires the weapon. No ammunition. Brief hesitation.

The old man fumbles with the keys, slammed against the wall.

The old man fumbles in his belt, clutches a weapon, tasers Dante. Dante whimpers, moans, crumbles to the floor.

The old man struggles with the door, the lock, the keys, pushes the handle, opens the door, hobbles out.

INT. HALLWAY - NIGHT

Tackled.

Dante seizes, writhes, clutches the taser and throws it sideways.

The old man squabbles, flails, punches Dante in the larynx. Dante heaves, coughs, spits, reels.

The old man climbs to his feet and limps down the hallway, lurching beyond the grasp of the dry heaving priest, hobbling painfully, slowly.

INT. PRECINCT - NIGHT

The old man thrashes upon a glass pane, begging for mercy, but Dante is soon upon him, and the old man is tackled and pushing and shoving and gasping for breath.

Dante punches and punches until the man is unconscious.

Dante sighs, stands, steps over to the desks, shuffles through a drawer, another, another, withdraws a revolver, cocks the weapon, and shoots the old man three times in the head.

The secretary jumps, startled, gawks at the bloody priest. Dante wipes down the weapon, nods to the secretary, and walks out of the precinct.

Dante walks back in, searches the officer’s pockets, withdraws an envelope, studies it, sets it aside, finds a wallet, removes the cash, and exits the precinct.

Dante steps back in, gathers the envelope, and escapes again.

EXT. ALLEY - NIGHT

A damp catacomb of a once bustling city, abandoned by wealth and position for long gone industry. What was once luxury is now poverty, prosperity now despair. Beaten and broken and rotting chastity.

Dante stands amongst this pitiable hullabaloo, surrounded by the homeless and impoverished and evil too.

Under a flickering rusted lamp post Dante withdraws the contents of the envelope.

A paper folded, a headline: Mother and Son Killed in a Fiery Accident.

Dante’s breath grows heavy, ragged. Dante hyperventilates, can’t breath. On the ground, gasping. The homeless man watches.

Dante heaves, writhes. Can’t catch his breath. Flails wildly. Loses consciousness.

The homeless man looks to the others. The others pay no notice.

The homeless man picks up Dante and drags him away.

INT. HOUSE - DAY

Bitter rays of tattered light splinter rotting wood, arousing Dante in head splitting discomfort.

An abandoned home, once glorious in its splendor, now disturbing in its decay. The walls act as no more than a rancid display, half broken and rotting.

Dante witnesses smoke, hops to his feet, rushes towards flames.

Nothing but steam. The homeless man warms tea by an ancient stove.

The homeless man nods to Dante and then to two chairs, a table as rotten as the home, balanced between two moldy recliners.

Dante refuses. The homeless man shrugs and pours two cups of some viscous concoction.

The homeless man offers a mug and Dante obliges. Dante cradles the sour liquid as the homeless man lounges, again offering the other recliner. Dante shakes his head, again declining the offer.

The homeless man shrugs and withdraws an envelope from his front pocket.

Dante hesitates, swallows, approaches.

The homeless man giggles, cackles, holds out his hand in search of pittance. Dante shakes his head, stops, pauses, removes the little cash, stolen, in his pocket.

The homeless man nods, obliges, studies the man, and throws the envelope into the fire.

Dante twitches, fidgets, throws a hard punch at the other. The homeless man takes it, spits blood, wipes his nose, laughs. All Dante can do is relax.

Dante sits across from him.

A knock on a door. The homeless man stands and approaches the front door, though most of the walls surrounding the door are shabby at best. Nonetheless, the homeless man opens the door.

A bearded man, homeless too, steps into the room. Dante nods to him kindly.

The bearded man falls to his knees, presses his head into the soil, and pleads guilty whispers in desperate exoneration.

Dante watches the figure with no animation. The bearded man looks up again, searches for forgiveness.

Dante sips his coffee, sighs, and climbs to his feet.

The bearded man cowers. Dante helps him up.

The homeless man scoff, heads back to his seat, spills most of the coffee not already drunk.

The bearded man dips his hands deep into his pockets and withdraws a baseball. The bearded man shoves the ball into Dante’s hands.

Dante shakes his head, tries to return it, but the man is adamant, insistent, going so far as to refuse to touch it.

Dante takes a step closer and the bearded man flees, out the door and far away, abandoning Dante.

Awestruck, Dante plummets into a recliner.

The homeless man offers more of the concoction. Dante refuses, stares into the dark abyss that is the unlit cavities of the torrid home.

The homeless man shrugs, gulps down the liquid, and saunters out of the room, out of the house, closing the door behind him. Dante doesn’t move.

The homeless man peeks back through the door and waves his hand.

Hypnotized, Dante follows, baseball in hand.

EXT. CITY STREET - DAY

Rabid dogs and feral cats. Trash, garbage, waste strewn about. Men and women and children consumed by filth, dressed in other’s forgotten prosperity.

The homeless man among them, one of them, acting as a politician, a leader, greeting the elderly and adolescent alike, an entire society brought up in this dangerous part of town.

Dante follows warily, haphazard in nothing but his curiosity.

The two reach a door, a door to an abandone museum. The homeless man looks back to Dante to make sure he’s watching. He is.

The man knocks on the door, a memorized rhythmic beat. The door opens. The man is let in.

Dante follows, held back. The homeless man waves him off. Dante is allowed in.

INT. MUSEUM - DAY

Through shattered glass and rotting doors light pirouettes, silhouetting rancid figurines and putrid statues.

Amongst dust and dirt and acrid grime scurries the homeless man followed by Dante, dipping in and out of corridors with a familiarity that astonishes Dante.

The homeless man pauses, awaits Dante. Dante approaches, stops. The homeless man steps onto a stage.

The homeless man takes three steps, stops, center stage. A foot tapped three times, carefully, hypnotically, steadily. A trap door opens. The homeless man smiles, climbs down.

Dante hesitates, follows.

INT. TUNNEL - NIGHT

Moldy grime spews across acrid walls, floors too, coagulating rank dirt and muddied waters, wetting shoes and socks too.

The homeless man paces down the tunnel without a thought for direction, weaving through miscellaneous items strewn across the concrete.

The tunnel divides and the homeless man stops. Dante bumps into him. The homeless man grumbles. Dante muddles some half baked apology.

The homeless man points to one tunnel and walks down another. Dante hesitates.

The homeless man dissipates into the fog.

Dante looks back, forward, mumbles grumbles, hobbles, turns around, back, hesitates, paces. Undecided, unsure. First one tunnel, then the other. Two steps forward, three steps back. Dante stares at the two diverging corridors.

All the while, a thick, impenetrable fog encompasses Dante. Sight nothing but a forgotten dream.

Dante holds out his hands, reaches for a wall, flails, stumbles. Nothing but fog. Dante turns, 90 degrees, takes a few steps. Nothing still. Dante repeats this task a third time, a fourth: all the same.

Dante stands still, unsure what to do.

A quaint, flickering light encroaches the horizon. Dante steps towards it.

Enamored by harsh whispers and feverish howls, Dante pauses, looks all around. Only fog hardly scattered by light. Dante steps closer.

A flame, two flames, one taller than the other, a few feet apart. Dante steps closer.

The flames take shape, form. Long, thin flames, enraptured by apathetic inhabitants. A woman and her child, consumed by holy fire.

Dante stares at this monstrosity, the two searching beyond him, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, showing no sign of pain.

The boy, no more than eight, holds out his hand. Dante backs away. The boy holds out the other, both, heaving a growling moan.

Dante steps faster, farther, trips, falls, crawls upon his back, his eyes upon the boy’s.

Dante bumps into another, turns around, a figure looming above him, a bottle for each hand. The man dumps the contents of the bottles upon him.

Dante kicks, coughs, climbs to his feet. The other is gone.

Dante turns back to the two flames, running away, hesitates, chases in haste.

Fire dims. Dante runs faster, faster. The light dissipates.

Dante succumbs to exhaustion, hands upon knees, heaving ferociously.

A man runs into Dante, knocking him over.

Enraged, Dante leaps to his feet in a wild, ferocious manner.

The homeless man offers a sip from a dark bottle.

Dante downs a good swill and shoves the bottle to the other. The homeless man takes a sip, nods, and steps into the haze. Dante follows.

EXT. BAR - DAY

A rickety old bar disheveled and abused. The homeless man pauses. Dante does too.

The homeless man holds out a hand. Dante shakes it.

The homeless man steps into the bar. Dante follows, tries the door. Won’t open.

Dante pushes, pulls, shoves, knocks. No response.

Dante curses, silently, indignantly, kicks the door, and shuffles off, bewildered and confused.

EXT. RAILROAD TRACKS - DAY

The day grows heavy with thick, humid shadows and dilapidated rays of putrid sunlight.

Dante shields his skin with hefty layers of burdensome cloth, blinded by a rising sun.

The clunk of iron, the clash of steel. A whistle blows. Dante steps off the tracks and watches the train pass.

The train chugs along, proliferating tumultuous steam, screeching wheels against iron as the train slows before Dante.

Dante stops, hesitates, stares at the train.

Within the barren windows not a single figure emerges, not a soul nor shadow nor an inkling of life. From window to window Dante studies the queer enigma; not a single shadow emerges, not a single soul embarks.

The whistle blows and the train chugs off, revealing a station just across the tracks.

Dante looks both ways and crosses the tracks, steps onto the platform, and approaches a closed door.

Dante tries the door, locked. Dante knocks on the door, looks through the window. No one.

Dante looks all around, searches for entry. None. Dante rounds the corner to the other side of the station.

EXT. STATION - DAY

A light flickers judiciously above Dante’s head, silhouetting a jarring screen which whittles and rattles.

Dante searches the landscape for some source of life: none to be found.

Dante turns back to the station and tries the front door: locked.

Dante takes a step back and studies the frame, the glass within. Dante sneers a quixotic, leering smile.

Dante picks up a rock and smashes the glass window.

Dante clears the glass, unlocks the door, and steps through.

INT. STATION - DAY

A claustrophobic room with a sporadic disbursement of unoccupied cushions.

A man stands at a counter, smiling politely.

Dante looks back to the door, the window, the man behind the counter. The man only smiles a blank, lonely smile.

Dante approaches the desk. The man rings a bell. A woman appears from a door just behind him, scantily clad and caked in makeup.

The man whispers to the woman and the woman nods, climbs over the counter, and approaches Dante.

One step, two steps, three, the sinful woman approaches Dante. Dante stands frozen in worry.

The woman stops, just before Dante. The woman holds out her hand. Reservedly, Dante shakes it.

The woman removes from her pocket a pack of cigarettes, withdraws one, bites it, and offers another. Dante refuses.

The woman shrugs and searches for matches. An empty matchbox.

The woman tosses the box and holds out her cigarette. Dante shakes his head.

The woman sighs and paces and leans over the counter, clutching a book of matches and lighting her cigarette, throwing the burned matches onto the floor.

The woman climbs onto the counter and sits with her legs crossed, blowing smoke into the only light source.

The woman taps her ashes onto the counter which the man wipes off in an agitated sort of manner.

All this Dante ponders, struck dumb, still standing in the middle of the station.

The haunting howl of a whistle blown. The screeching cry of steel upon metal. The man behind the counter opens a drawer, withdraws a piece of paper, a ticket, and stamps it.

The man hands the woman the ticket.

The woman smiles a devious, flirtatious smile, and delivers the ticket, seductively tucking the ticket into Dante’s pocket.

The woman kisses Dante and steps back over to the man behind the counter.

The train wails again, desperate in its motivation. The man nods towards the train. Dante hesitates.

The man whispers to the woman in harsh, guttural tones. The woman nods, stands, approaches Dante.

The woman clutches Dante and pulls him out of the station. Dante relents, doesn’t resist.

EXT. STATION - DAY

The two share another kiss, forlorn and forsaken, pitiable in revery.

The train shrieks and Dante is pushed on. The door shut immediately before him.

Dante tries the door. Pushes, pulls, tugs, wrenches, writhes, anything to loosen the hinges, but the door won’t budge, the locks dead set.

The train scurries away with him trapped in it.

INT. TRAIN - DAY

Dante succumbs to his tragedy and sighs a heavy burden, releasing his fears along with his anxiety.

Dante finds a meager seat, a single window seat, and sits amongst no one upon the abandoned train.

Dante sighs and tries the window. The window opens only an inch.

Dante slams on the window in fury. The window quakes. Dante hesitates.

Dante removes his jacket, wraps his hand, and tries the window again, again. The window falters but does not shatter.

Dante pauses in exhaustion.

The train jolts, stops. Dante falls forward onto the booth before him.

Dante gathers himself and steps towards the exit: wide open. Again Dante hesitates.

The train screeches and Dante jumps off, the door closing curtly behind him as the train chugs off.

EXT. FARM - DAY

A quaint, shabby structure settles before the weary priest, burdened by rustic windows and molding frames.

A look of recognition enthralls Dante, gaily galloping towards the abode.

Dante knocks. No answer. Dante mumbles to himself, shuffles through small trifles, searches for something within meager pockets.

Only the baseball stuffed into his pocket. Dante mumbles, grumbles, tosses the ball.

Dante knocks again. No answer.

Dante bends over and maneuvers a welcome mat, a key below. Dante unlocks the door and steps into the home.

INT. FARM HOUSE - DAY

A humble abode with moderate furnishings. Neither new nor old nor stylish nor ugly.

Upon the walls hang dilapidated photos. Brothers and sisters and sons and daughters.

Dante pauses, smiles, reminisces, steps into the kitchen.

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

A sparse, anachronistic nook, claustrophobic and rotting. A fridge, a stove, an oven.

Dante approaches the fridge, pulls the door open. Empty, except for a single bottle.

Dante withdraws the bottle and attempts to open it: won’t open.

Dante grumbles and groans and searches the cabinets. Nothing.

Dante clucks his tongue and looks all around. A closet. Nothing in there either.

Dante again tries the cap but the bottle won’t open.

INT. HOUSE - DAY

Dante searches the house, one room after another, searching for something, anything, beyond furniture.

Nothing.

A knock on the door. Dante hesitates.

Another knock. Louder, more aggressive. Muffled words. Anger.

Dante holds out the bottle in a threatening sort of manner and approaches the monstrosity. The door quivers.

Dante leans against the wall, next to the door, the hinges on the opposite side of the door.

More yelling and screaming.

Dante whispers a prayer, sighs a final breath, and opens the door.

A man steps in. The bottle shatters across his face. The man curses, falters, stumbles.

Another approaches, more cautious than the other. Dante maneuvers the serrated weapon, half of the broken bottle.

Dante stabs and misses and the bottle is blocked, smacked, tossed, a wrist held tight in the hand of the captor.

The man pulls and Dante pushes, maneuvering momentum to tackle the villain.

EXT. HOUSE - DAY

The two fall to the ground outside the door, tumbling through acrid mud and rancid dirt.

The man tackled by Dante throws him off violently and jumps to his feet, Dante leaping to his own only to be pulled from behind by the man hit with the bottle.

Dante entangles the man’s legs and pushes forcefully backward, plummeting onto the man’s stomach

The man coughs, spits, rolls over. Dante climbs to his feet, tackled by the other.

The two wrestle and roll, first one on top, then the other.

The man gains the advantage, clutches Dante, and presses with all his might to crush Dante’s larynx. Dante coughs and chokes and tries to break free but the man is relentless.

Dante heaves and writhes and struggles and strains and notices a piece of glass benevolently near.

Dante snatches the shard, cutting his own hand, and stabs the other in the stomach. The man tumbles, clutching his wound.

Dante leaps to his feet heaving and hawing but the two men are too injured to fight any longer.

Dante wipes his forehead with a bloody palm, gathering his senses and his surrounding.

A fierce electric shock. Dante falls to the ground seizing.

A woman in white tucks the taser into her pocket, picks up the body, drags him wearily, pushes, shoves, and stuffs him into a van.

Rounding a bumper, the woman whistles, rattles, revs the engine, and abandons the two men.

INT. VAN - DAY

Dante jitters, convulses, strapped to a gurney.

Dante struggles, strains: all in vain. Leather straps hold him. Dante studies his captivity.

A spotless, disinfected van. Bottles and beakers align dusted shelves, dark, ominous, cloudy concoctions.

Dante strains, struggles, slams the gurney against the back door. Again. Again. Again.

The door gives in. The gurney hangs upon the precipice. Dante hesitates. The road speeds by at a fatal pace.

Screeching tires. Burning rubber. The gurney thrown forward towards the woman.

Dante crashes into the divider between himself and the driver. The woman sighs, bothered, and slithers out of the vehicle.

The woman studies the rear doors, Dante discombobulated. Dante moans, all cockeyed from being thrown. The woman sighs, climbs into the van.

The woman looks through the cabinets, picks out a bottle, withdraws a syringe, and pricks Dante’s forearm.

Dante writhes. The woman presses down hard. Dante wails feral mercies. The viscous concoction dissipates.

The woman withdraws the syringe. Dante struggles again.

The woman cackles, kisses, climbs out of the van, closes the door again.

The woman tries the front door: locked. The woman tries again. Still locked.

The woman tries the other doors, the rear doors. Locked.

The woman mumbles, grumbles, slams the van, kicks the metal, dials a number upon her telephone.

The woman paces, yells, screams, hesitates, nods, calms, hangs up the phone.

The woman sighs, slumps over to the side of the road, and plops to the ground in exasperated melodrama.

Dante struggles, moans, groans, slams his gurney into the door. Bottles and beakers tumble, roll.

Smoke, fire. An intrepid flame.

Dante strains against his leather chains. Pleas. Prays.

The fire grows, amalgamates.

Droplets of sweat pour off Dante, agonizing signals of what’s to be. Dante kicks and pulls and tries to break free all while the fire consumes everything.

Dante bashes the gurney into the door again and again, the intrepid flames at his feet.

The door bursts open and Dante throws his whole body against the gurney. Leather ripping, metal moaning, Dante rolls onto pavement as the gurney flips over.

EXT. CLIFF - DAY

Splayed across pavement, the gurney thrown off him, Dante watches in horror as the fire grows larger and larger.

The wail of a horn. The ache of rolling tires. A screeching car just misses Dante and slams into the gurney.

Dante moans, inches off the road. The woman rushes over; the driver steps out in a fury.

Dante coughs, chokes, vomits. The driver hesitates. The echo of sirens. The driver flinches, cringes, fumbles, speeds off.

A car bleats and woos and blares. A tow truck nears, halts before the shivering priest.

A middle aged man disembarks from the truck, approaches, hesitates, witnesses the monstrosity.

The woman soothes Dante, places a hand upon him, steps over to the tow truck driver, the two whispering fervently.

Dante worms and writhes and moans in agony; struggles, hobbles, limps to his feet, falters, stumbles, falls, weak kneed.

Dante closes his eyes, blacks out.

The woman tugs the tow truck driver. The man resists, pushes, steps back towards his vehicle.

The woman blocks him.

The man tries to push past her, tries even to lift her, but the woman latches on to the car door handle. The man sighs, looks at his watch, then to Dante, then across the horizon.

The man grumbles, groans, paces, studies Dante’s wounds. The man sighs and holds out his hand. The woman hesitates, offers all the cash on her.

The man counts the bills, grumbles, searches Dante’s pockets. A wallet but no money.

The woman moves to speak, to stop him, but the cold look in his eyes stop her. The man tosses the wallet and tucks the woman’s money into his pocket.

The man tosses the keys to the woman and nods to the truck. The woman scurries over and opens the back door.

The middle aged man picks up Dante, drags him over, and stuffs him into the back seat. The woman paces nervously, rustling the keys. The man snatches the keys and steps into the vehicle.

The woman tries the door to the passenger seat, locked. The woman knocks. The man shrugs, starts the car, drives off.

Abandoned, the woman sits upon the precipice, sweating from the heat of the still burning fire.

EXT. MANSION - NIGHT

The middle aged man parks the old tow truck near the shabby curb, drags Dante out, and abandons him there.

Two burly men lumber out of the mansion. One gestures to the other. The two analyze Dante’s condition, bicker, squabble, hurry back into the mansion.

Dante groans. The two return with a gurney.

Dante rolls, crawls. The two overtake him, lay him upon the gurney.

Dante screams, thrashes, strapped to the gurney.

Dante wearily thrashes as the two bulky men pull him into the mansion.

INT. ELEVATOR - NIGHT

Pushed into an elevator with the grace of a clown, Dante bumps into one wall and then another. Readjusted, then pushed into another. Eventually, the two incompetent men manuever Dante into the elevator.

A mother and son step into the tight corridor just before the doors close. The mother is young for a boy so old and the boy is shy, terribly so.

Both the mother and son avert their gaze.

Dante’s energy wanes. Thrashing dissipates, though reiterates in short spurts of random spontaneity.

The boy whispers to his mother, glances at Dante. The mother sighs, studies the man, nods.

The mother hands the boy a flower, one of the many in her boquet, and pushes the boy over. The boy awkwardly leans over the gurney.

The boy holds out the hand which clutches the flower. Dante gawks at the boy, strapped to the gurney. The boy stares at Dante.

A laborious moment passes. The elevator doors open. The incompetent men push, pull, bump into one wall, then another, then abandon the boy with the flower.

INT. ROOM - NIGHT

Despite the calamity of the men’s gangly ill confidence, the three reach their destination, a small, claustrophobic room with insipid furnishings. The two men shove Dante into a corner and abandon him there still strapped to the gurney.

Dante flails, thrashes. Useless.

An elderly woman in an oversized lab coat steps into the room. Relief radiates Dante’s countenance.

The elderly woman studies a chart, mumbles, nods, studies Dante, and steps to a corner opposite the gurney, igniting a blue light of anachronistic technology.

The elderly woman disembarks. Dante gawks at the image, the television.

A fire. A reporter. The creator of the monstrosity: a dilapidated car, wrecked and totaled.

The reporter babbles on in unquestionable condemnation, words unheard by the dull mute sign which flashes above her.

The film cuts to an image of a son and mother.

The video cuts back to the reporter who now steps near the fire, revealing scorched footprints leading away from the fire. The tv then reveals another picture.

A horrible, gruesome horror. Dante, smiling with the son and mother.

A knock on the door. The boy and woman enter. The boy from the elevator, the tv, the woman too, his mother.

The two approach Dante, all sheepish grins and worry, the very picture of an idyllic family, the very resurrection of carcasses.

Dante writhes, thrashes. The woman’s grin contorts into a gruesome grimace. The boy matches the woman in everything but stature.

The two step closer, closer. Dante screams with unkempt horror.

Two men rush past the son and mother, pressing sharp needles into Dante’s abdomen.

Dante grows incredibly tired. The woman confers with the two others.

The men nod, mumble, leave, take the boy with them, close the door and lock it behind them.

Dante strains but his body is useless, arms anvils, legs anchors, head that of solid iron.

The woman leers over Dante’s paralyzed body, eyes stricken with unknown horror.

Dante tries to yell, to scream, to screech in terror, but his windpipes are paralyzed, broken. All Dante can do is watch this maleficent being torture his fortune.

The woman removes a pillow from behind Dante’s head, leers a terrible, crooked smile, and suffocates Dante as best she can.

Monitors go wild.

Men and women bash the door, pushing and shoving and trying to break through. The woman cackles at the lame effort.

Dante flat lines. The woman smiles.

The woman opens the door and saunters out of the room. A team of concerned citizens push past and rush into the room.

Pushing and pressing and mumbling gibberish. Switches and monitors and jolts of electricity.

Dante heaves, writhes, alive once again.

Doctors and nurses celebrate their victory, shake each other’s hands, and walk out of the room, a pack of wolves hunched together in unity.

Abandoned, forgotten, left alone in a dark, dingy corner, Dante gawks at the tv left groaning and moaning.

INT. ROOM - DAY

Light splatters across tepid curtains, startling a priest once enthralled by darkness.

Dante struggles, strains, rattles metal rails. Futile. Dante gives in to leather restraints.

Dante gawks at the television mumbling nonsensically, cackling at used cars and infomercials and soap operas.

A woman in white enters the room.

With a smile as wide as false, the woman closes the door curtly behind her. Dante turns at the creek of hinges shrieking.

The woman drags a chair across the room and to the gurney. Dante turns. The woman smiles, sits, nods to the television.

Dante looks back to the television: blank, black, off. Dante chuckles. The woman sighs.

With a remorseful grimace, the woman stands and paces and withdraws a scribbled chart. The woman mumbles, studies Dante, then the chart. A quixotic, anxious countenance briefly disturbs her false manner.

The woman returns the chart, approaches the door, and opens it narrow. The woman looks left, then right, then closes the door behind her.

The woman drags her chair across the room and props it against the door handle.

The woman searches a drawer, then another, then another. Grumbles, mumbles, smiles. The woman withdraws a scapal.

Dante tenses. The woman lingers. Dante thrashes. The woman steps closer.

Dante whinnies, whines, strains, struggles. The woman smirks a devilish sort of smile.

Closer. Closer. The knife upon him. Dante screams guttural horror.

Jab. Stab. Slash. Dante is set free.

The woman discards the knife and opens a window.

The woman looks out, back, paces, smiles, turns, gestures, fervent, anxious.

Dante stands, hesitates, approaches the window. Dante looks back to the woman. The woman smiles a crude, encouraging smile.

Dante looks out, down, ten stories to the ground. Dante turns back to the woman.

The woman leers, creeps, smirks, stalks, clutches Dante, kisses him gently, and pushes him gruffly.

Dante fumbles, tumbles, wrenches, writhes, flails from ten stories high.

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

Dante comes to; a ferocious, rambunctious fright. Blood, sweat, tears. Dante surveys the room.

A bed, a table, sheets; soaked, filthy, bloody.

Dante reaches for his leg: a gaping, open wound.

Dante winces, moans, rolls to the edge of the twin sized bed, sits up. Dante puts weight upon both of his legs: an agonizing pain.

Dante looks to the window no more than a few feet away.

Dante closes his eyes, crosses himself, lunges, biting his tongue in feral pain.

Dante leans all his weight upon the sill, opens the window, looks out.

A farm. A cornfield. No one anywhere around.

Dante looks back to a door, footsteps, pitter patter, hushed whispers.

Dante climbs out the window, stumbles onto grass, steadies himself, balances all of his weight upon his one good leg.

EXT. FARMHOUSE - DAY

Dante attempts a flaccid step. Agonizing pain. Another. More excruciating than the last. Another. Dante plummets, clutching his leg, screaming in pain.

A woman rushes over and kneels in horror. The woman reeks of worry and shame.

The woman surveys the acrid field, the barren landscape, sets a soothing hand upon Dante’s shoulder, scurries away.

The woman returns with a boy, her child.

Dante pushes, pulls, heaves, tries to get away. But his countenance is weak, his legs even weaker, and crawling alone garners no great escape.

Fatigued, exhausted, Dante gives in.

The boy and the woman carry him away.

INT. BEDROOM - DAY

Bloodied sheets replaced. Dante awakens.

Dante rolls out of bed, onto his side, sits up and gasps shallow breath.

Dante stands, winces, moans, tumbles, falls.

The mother rushes in; the boy lethargically follows. Dante is put back into bed.

Dante attempts speech but the woman hushes him quickly, pats him patronizingly, and kisses his forehead.

The mother walks away. The boy stares at the man. Dante looks away. Still the boy stares.

Dante offers a smile. The boy’s brow furrows. Dante clears his throat. Still the boy gawks at him.

Dante shifts in the bed, shuffles to the side, and climbs to his feet, hands resting heavily upon a leather chair.

With herculean grit, Dante shuffles from one piece of furniture to another.

The boy stands statuesque. Dante stands before him.

Dante grumbles, points past him; the boy resists.

Dante smiles a half smile, tries to push past him. Pushed to the ground, Dante huffing and hawing, the boy not moving.

Dante climbs to his feet, gulps a lung full of air, and tackles the boy.

The two fall to the ground, the boy apathetic.

Dante tries to crawl past him, but the boy pulls him back. Dante struggles and writhes but the boy nonetheless flips him over and straddles him and restrains him until Dante grows tired.

Dante gives in. The boy relaxes. Dante struggles again. The boy holds him tighter.

Dante, again, gives in.

The boy waits another long minute before relenting.

Standing, the boy offers his hand. Dante stands. The boy helps Dante back into bed.

The boy steps out of the room, closing and locking the door behind him.

Dante pulls off the cover to one of the pillows, wraps it around his knuckles, and tucks the weapon behind a pillow.

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

The two return, food in hand, the mother carrying a tray of meager proportions.

The boy guards the door as the mother approaches.

Dante garners a false smile, clenches his fingers, and tightens his grip.

The mother sets down the tray and leans over.

Dante seizes the moment and grabs the woman by the neck with the silk cover.

The mother wreathes and writhes and Dante pulls tight. The boy lurches but hesitates as Dante’s grip tightens.

The boy steps back and Dante’s grip lessens.

The boy holds up his hands and takes a step forward. Dante’s grip tightens once again. The boy hesitates.

Dante gestures to a broom within an open closet. The boy, a bit confused, grabs the broom.

With one hand, Dante tightens his grip upon the woman, holding out the other for the broom.

The mother’s breath weakens. The boy hurdles the broom at him.

Dante lunges, dodges, misses the broom, releases the mother in evading the broom.

The boy rushes to his mother.

Dante clutches the broom, breaks it in half, and climbs to his feet with the help of the broom.

The boy charges Dante. Dante smacks him in the head with the cracked broom. The boy drops with a thud.

Dante limps past him and steps to the door.

The door closed. Locked. A key required.

The mother cackles. Dante limps over and holds out his hand.

The woman spits in his face. Dante draws back his broom, hesitates. The woman kicks Dante, puncturing his wound. Dante screams and falls and writhes in agony.

The mother climbs to her feet, gathers the broken broom, and drags Dante, still moaning in wretched agony, onto the bed.

Dante succumbs to his pain, knocked unconcious.

INT. BEDROOM - DAY

Dante comes to tied up and broken, blankets removed, furniture too. Just him and the bed in an empty room.

Hands tied behind him, together against the bed frame, his feet tied too, though not attached to anything.

Dante struggles and plunders and makes quite a ruckus. The mother enters, all devilish smiles.

Dante struggles. The mother chuckles, eager to witness the poor man suffer.

Dante gives in and the mother sets down her food, tears off some bread, and sits next to the man.

Dante turns away but the woman pulls him back, glares, and stuffs the bread down his gullet.

Dante attempts to spit but the woman holds him firm, one hand upon his lips, another upon his nose.

Dante swallows and the woman smiles.

The woman offers water. Dante obliges.

The mother steps to a window and opens it wide, a slight breeze. The woman smiles and turns back to the man.

The woman straddles Dante and slaps him hard across the face. Again. Again. Dante coughs up blood.

Satisfied, the woman gags Dante and steps out of the room.

Dante struggles against his seething chains. The effort is futile.

INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT

The boy steps into the room and towards the window, ignoring the moaning and groaning of Dante begging for mercy.

The boy sits on the window and removes a pack of matches. The boy lights one, flicks it, cackles, the lit match dangerously close to Dante’s body.

Again. And again. And again. The boy taunts Dante.

Dante struggles against the rope, moans feral curses beneath his gag. The boy laughs. Footsteps.

The boy jumps, startled, dropping the matches. Footsteps fade. The boy sighs, winks at Dante, and waddles away.

Dante waits a long moment. Time passes.

Dante wiggles, writhes, drags his feet off the bed and onto the floor.

Inch by inch Dante approaches the dropped matches; just able to reach them with the tip of his toe. Slowly, Dante pulls the matches towards him.

The doorknob turns and Dante rolls back onto bed.

The mother enters and sits next to him. Homemade food in hand.

Dante obliges, apathetic to the whole process. The mother smiles, pats him on the hand, and steps out of the room.

Dante grows incredibly dizzy, nauseous, unable to move. The world contorts in kaleidoscopic fluidity. Dante reaches for the matches in a battle of desperation.

Light grows incredibly bright despite the darkness of night, blinding Dante in a last ditch effort to fight.

Dante pinches the matches between his feet and pulls the matches as close as he can to his hands.

A gap of about six inches lies between his hands and his feet.

Dante hesitates, breaths, drops the matches, slipped between his fingers, horrific defeat.

Dante screeches through his gag with eyes aflame, calming once again and pivoting his head, dragging his skull against the matches.

Little progress is gained and so Dante flips over, dragging the matches down his face.

The matches reach his gag and Dante presses down, against the single sheet, tearing skin, slowly pulling the gag off his mouth. Removed, Dante bites down, clutches the matches between his teeth, and flips back over.

Dante closes his eyes in a moment of focus.

Dante opens them again, heaves a great breath, and spits the matches out as far as he can: onto his forehead.

Dante heaves a heavy sigh, crooks his neck, and bites down again. Dante spits again with a similar result.

Again and again Dante attempts his futile effort. Sisyphus in the flesh.

Dante sighs. Tired. Exhausted. The sun begins to rise.

Dante spits again and catches the matches. The door opens.

The mother and her son, the mother with a tray, the boy with his gloom.

The boy opens the window. The mother reveals her tray of food. The boy steps out of the room.

The mother scoffs at Dante’s gag so haphazardly abused, clucks at his ill behavior, and stuffs food down his gullet.

Dante refuses. The mother sighs, pinches his nose. Dante gasps, bites, won’t let go.

The woman yelps, screams, pushes, pulls. Dante lights a match. Won’t light. Another. Won’t light. A third. The woman haws and heaves. Dante sets the rope afire.

Dante grits his teeth and breaks free, hands covered in blisters, the fire alighting the bed.

Dante releases the woman only to clutch her by the neck.

The woman tries to scream but Dante covers her mouth and the woman blacks out.

Dante unties his feet as the boy rushes in.

Dante grabs the mother and cradles her neck, the fire between them, ready to kill without hesitation.

The boy hesitates. Dante climbs to his feet, an excruciating agony.

Dante limps to the window, looks out, back, releases the woman, jumps out.

Dante tumbles into the growing light of day.

EXT. COUNTRY ROAD - DAY

Dante limps along at a harrowing pace, heaving and hawing in miserable exhaustion.

The revving of an engine. The raving of a fire. The yelps and screams of a boy and his mother.

Dante turns his furrowed brow, a fire upon the horizon. Dante limps faster. Faster.

Coughing and groaning and heaving and moaning. Off the road and onto a dried up gulley.

Dante coughs, chokes, gasps, slows, tumbles, falls, climbs back to his feet. Heaves, haws, writhes in agony, falls to the ground, doesn’t get back up again.

INT. BEDROOM - DAY

Dante comes to, arms out stretched and legs together, limbs heavy with the burden of time forgotten, dressed in blue jeans and a flannel.

A knock, a murmur, the turn of a door handle. An 8 year old boy peeks into the room.

BOY

Dad?

Dante sits up, pats the comforter, a wedding ring wrapped around his finger.

The boy stumbles, hesitates. Again Dante gestures. The boy waddles over and sits next to him.

The boy looks to the ground, then to his shoes, too embarrassed to move. Dante pats the boy, soothes, whispers.

The boy offers a peevish smile and walks out of the room; back in with a collection of bottles. Dante feigns a false smile and gathers the bottles, downs one, then another.

The boy quivers a peevish smile. Dante slumbers. The boy mumbles. Dante stirs. The boy tries to wake him.

Dante mumbles, groans, tries to ignore him, but the boy is persistent, shaking his father with all of his effort.

Dante sighs, rubs his eyes, sits up.

Dante notices the boy’s shoes, cleats, his costume, a baseball uniform, different from the blue jeans of a few seconds prior.

The boy smiles, stands, and pulls Dante up.

Dante grumbles, groans, grabs a bottle, and downs the contents.

The boy waddles out of the room. Dante hesitates. The boy looks back, pauses, waits. Dante follows.

INT. KITCHEN - DAY

Smothered by the hassle of laborious domesticity, a woman grumbles and groans and scurries about, collecting a hodgepodge series of frivolous items: snacks, coffee, lunches.

Dante and the boy stagger into the room, falling into chairs in the dining room.

The woman glares at Dante but doesn’t dare slow, gathering item after item and stuffing them into the boy’s backpack.

Everything gathered, the woman throws on the backpack, grabs her purse, and attempts to drag the boy out of the room.

Dante stands as she goes, clutches her arm, a sorrowful frown morose and disarming.

The woman glares, tries to shake him, but Dante’s grip is strong, his stubbornness apparent.

Dante pulls the woman close and kisses her hard, stealing the keys from her open palm.

The woman reaches and grabs but Dante is fast, leaping and jumping past the dining room table. The woman chuckles, laughs, fury overcome by pure, sublime ecstacy.

The woman whispers to the boy and the boy rushes over; the woman rushes too, but Dante out maneuvers them and runs out of the room.

The boy runs after him and the woman follows too, a hopeful, gleeful smile as she walks out of the room.

EXT. FARM - DAY

Dante honks the horn of an old, dilapidated vehicle, revs the engine, and excites the boy with muffled inspirations.

The woman smiles, climbs into the vehicle, and squeezes Dante’s arm in loving admiration.

INT. CAR - NIGHT

Kaleidoscopic fog. Maleficent apparitions. Putrid, acrid, twisted figures. Shadows lurk beyond the hidden.

Dante looks to the woman, feigns self-confidence, and looks back to the unkempt, rancid absurdity.

A figure before them. A horrific monstrosity. Dante veers, swerves, trades collision for destruction.

Steel grates steel. Bones crackle. Yelling and screaming and screeching and shrieking.

Unfettered darkness.

INT. CAR - NIGHT

Dante comes to, leg torn open, engulfed by fire. Next to him lies his wife, punctured, bleeding, not breathing. Dante reaches for her, whimpers, whispers, cries, shakes her, yells, screams, begs, pleads. Riga mortis.

The whimpering child, crying and choking. Dante turns to the boy caked in gore.

The fire rages on with an inexhaustible fury.

Dante tears off his seatbelt and reaches for the boy’s. Dante pushes, pulls, writhes; the boy flails, panics, his belt twists, knots.

The fire grows ever hotter.

The boy howls, begs for mercy. Dante attempts to sooth him, a hand upon him. The boy calms, a moment of delerium. Dante smiles. The boy reciprocates.

Glass shatters. A door opens. Wicked hands entangle upon him.

Dante flails, gropes, clutches the boy; but his grip is weak, the boy’s weaker, and Dante is wrenched out of the vehicle.

EXT. FIELD - NIGHT

Dante writhes, struggles, strains; monstrous men in full body armor drag him away.

A thunderous boom. A climactic shock. The car erupts. Obliteration.

Dante howls, beyond devastation.

INT. CHURCH - NIGHT

Dante comes to, startled, frightened.

Dante clutches a ragged coat pocket. Newspaper crumples. A heavy sigh of despairing relief.

Dante gathers his bearings and climbs to his feet.

A grunt, a groan, a feral moan. Dante hobbles to a door. Pushes. Pulls.

An abandoned sermon long forgotten. Dante abandons his own compartment.

INT. CHURCH - NIGHT

Screaming, bleating, shouting, gun fire.

A man hidden behind a mask, protected by a revolver, thrown against a door heavy and rotten.

Footsteps gather, linger, reform, disperse. The thief sighs, removes his mask. The woman holds a stout finger to pudgy lips.

The thief nudges the door open, studies the street, turns back to Dante, smiles, salutes, waves, leaves. Forgotten is her weapon.

Dante shuffles over and picks up the revolver. Dante fiddles with the weapon and finds it loaded.

Dante closes his eyes, whispers a prayer, and opens his eyes again: Jesus Christ rotting before him.

The gun cradles his aching skull.

A civilian enters, paces, whispers, kneels, prays, confesses. Dante stands, shocked, horrified, frozen. The civilian ignores him, departs.

Dante hesitates, resists, relents, presses the barrel to his temple, closes his eyes, pulls the trigger.

The retaliation of sirens.