The Girl Who
Walked Home All
Alone in the Dark
©2009
The Angst Guy (theangstguy@yahoo.com)
Feedback (good, bad, indifferent,
just want to bother me, whatever) is appreciated. Please write to: theangstguy@yahoo.com
Synopsis: Jane Lane tells a slightly
twisted bedtime story to the Gupty kids, in the manner of the “Legends of the
Mall” tales.
Author’s Notes: This
story was another PPMB “Iron Chef” entry, this time for a contest set up by
MMan asking for a new “Legends of the Mall” tale, this time set in the 1970s.
The original version of this tale called it “Sub-Urban Legend #1,” but I
couldn’t think of any more to go with it, so . . . here you are!
Acknowledgements: Thanks to MMan for the
contest! You da MMAN!
*
INT: Interior scene
EXT: Exterior scene
VO: Voice over
1. INT: ONE EVENING AFTER DARK, AT THE GUPTYS’ HOUSE
We find Daria Morgendorffer
and
TAD: A story! You promised a story!
TRICIA: Good sitters never break their promises!
DARIA: Good sitters know better than to take jobs at
this house.
TAD: Good sitters have flying umbrellas and handbags
that hold everything!
JANE: Those handbags can hold small children, too.
Maybe we should test their load capacities.
TAD: Tell us a story that Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t
tell us!
DARIA: I know a good one about President Clinton.
Once upon a time in the White House, there was—
TRICIA: Oh, I already know that one!
TAD: They told us about it in school. Gross!
JANE: Okay, I’ll tell you a story that I heard from
the sister of a fellow classmate of mine. It’s true, too.
DARIA: Quinn told you this?
JANE: No, Jodie’s little sister, Rachel. She knows
some good stories. This one’s a little scary, though.
TAD: I’m not scared of stories!
TRICIA: Ha! Me, neither!
JANE: Good. This story is called, “The Girl Who
Walked Home All Alone in the Dark.”
A moment of silence follows.
TRICIA: I’ve changed my mind. I’m really
sleepy!
TAD: Me, too! I’m going to bed now!
JANE: [ignores
children] Once upon a time, long ago in the nineteen-seventies, there lived
a popular high-school girl who had a boyfriend.
Tricia pretends to be asleep and makes fake snoring
sounds. Tad covers his head with pillow and shivers.
DARIA: [eyes
children, to Jane] Okay, you can stop. The kids are ready to—
JANE: [ignores
everyone] But this boyfriend was not a very smart boyfriend. . . .
2. STORY: INT: SOMETIME IN THE LATE 1970S, AT A
HIGH-SCHOOL DISCO DANCE
We see a number of
teenagers, dressed in clothing that comes right out of the movie Saturday
Night Fever, dancing under a huge disco mirror ball in a
high-school gymnasium. Prominent among the students is a couple that looks
remarkably like Brittany Taylor and Kevin Thompson.
JANE: [VO]
One night, they went to a disco dance at their high school. They boogied until
it got dark, and then they decided it was time to go home. First, of course,
the girl had to visit the girls’ room to freshen up, because she planned to
kiss her boyfriend goodnight for an hour or two on the way home. Meanwhile, her
boyfriend decided to talk to a friend of his on the football team.
As Jane speaks, we see
KEVIN: Hey, bro! How’s it’s going?
MACK: I’m fine, and don’t call me “bro.”
KEVIN: Sure thing, bro! What’s happening with you
tonight?
MACK: [groans]
Oh, my girlfriend’s got to go home and write a paper on Georgia peanut farming
and the Presidency, so I’m going home to watch Monday Night Football.
KEVIN: [startled]
Whoa! I forgot all about that, bro! Hey, my parents are out of town. Come on
over to my place and watch it on our set! We can listen to the Bee Gees on my
new eight-track stereo!
MACK: [looks
pained] The Bee Gees?
KEVIN: I got a new Charlie’s Angels poster, too!
MACK: [pained]
You know, maybe I’d better just go home and—
KEVIN: And I found my dad’s entire collection of Penthouse
magazines!
MACK: [after a
moment of hesitation] Okay.
KEVIN: Cool, bro!
MACK: Don’t . . . oh, forget it. Let me talk to my
girlfriend a moment, and let’s go.
As Jane speaks, Kevin and
Mack leave the gymnasium together, heading out into the parking lot—just as
Brittany comes out of the ladies’ room, looking around for Kevin.
JANE: [VO]
When the girl came out to find her boyfriend, she saw
no trace of him at all.
Brittany walks
up to a female student who looks just like Jodie Landon, except with a gigantic
Afro, a brown leather skirt, high black boots, and a black turtleneck. She wears huge gold hoop earrings and gold bracelets.
BRITTANY: Have you seen my boyfriend? He was
supposed to drive me home so I could give him a goodnight kiss!
JODIE: He has to drive you home so you can kiss him?
BRITTANY: See, I had a really special goodnight kiss
that I wanted to try out on—
JODIE: [holds
up a hand] Stop! I have enough information now. I’m sorry, but your
boyfriend just went off with my boyfriend to go watch Monday Night Football. Don’t you have another ride home?
JODIE: [calls
after
JANE: [VO]
But the girl was too angry to want to be around anyone else right then. She was
determined to walk home by herself. But it was very dark out now, and the road
that led to her home from the high school was unlit, and it passed through a
deep, dark, haunted forest.
3. STORY: EXT: A SHORT WHILE LATER AT NIGHT, ALONG A
ROAD IN A DEEP, DARK, HAUNTED FOREST
BRITTANY: [angrily,
to self] I even gave him one of my mood rings so we could kiss every time
it turned green, but did he thank me? No! And I wore those pink hot pants for
his birthday and I got him six glasses of Cola Blast, with two ice cubes each,
but did he appreciate me for that? No! And when he had an owie after that game
with Loserville, and I pretended I was a M.A.S.H. nurse to make it all better,
did he—
Suddenly, a man wearing a
white hockey mask and holding a butcher knife jumps out from behind a tree. As
Michael Myers of Halloween strikes down
at her with the knife, she snags his right arm with one hand, turns, and throws
him flying over her head to land flat on his back with a loud WHUMP! He
lies stretched out on the highway, with
MICHAEL MYERS: [in
Jeffy’s voice] OOOOOWWW!!!!! Brittany, what did you do that for?
She stamps
down on Michael Myers’s chest, then kneels over him and twists his arm in a
direction that nature did not intend it should go. The butcher knife flies out
of Myers’s hand and bounces around on the road like the rubber knife it really
is.
MICHAEL MYERS: [in
Jeffy’s voice] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! Brittany! It’s me, Jeffy! AAAAAAA!!!!
I’m in a costume! This is just a bedtime story! Don’t—AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
MICHAEL MYERS: [in
Jeffy’s voice] Help! Joey! Jamie! Tell Quinn I
love her! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
At this point, two more
figures rush out of the bushes by the roadside. One is Freddy from Nightmare
on
FREDDY: [actually
Joey in costume]
LEATHERFACE: [actually
Jamie in costume, drops his chainsaw] Oh, shi—
Freddy and Leatherface turn
and flee in panic. Brittany leaps from the prone Myers, does a handspring,
bounds on her feet into the air and crosses thirty feet of space to kick both
Freddy and Leatherface in the back and knock them sprawling, with her on top of
them.
FREDDY: [prone]
Help! Police!
LEATHERFACE: [prone]
Quinn!
FREDDY: [prone]
Save me, Quinn, not him!
LEATHERFACE: [prone]
No, me!
FREDDY AND LEATHERFACE: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!
We mercifully cut away to
see yet another monster, the Wolfman, jump out from behind a distant telephone
pole and run away at full speed.
WOLFMAN: [Upchuck
in costume, panicked] Feisty psycho girlfriend! Feisty psycho girlfriend!
JANE: [VO]
As she walked through that deep, dark, haunted forest,
she had only one ambition, one goal that burned in her fevered brain.
FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER: [actually Mr. DeMartino, trying to fend off
4. STORY: INT: A SHORT WHILE LATER, IN A 1970S
LIVING ROOM
We are in a 1970s-style
living room with orange and brown furniture with silver trim. A color TV on a
bookshelf shows ABC’s Monday Night Football, while an
eight-track stereo system plays various Bee Gees songs. Kevin and Mack sit on a
couch, looking through a huge pile of Penthouse magazines,
eating popcorn and drinking Cola Blast.
HOWARD COSELL: [on
TV] We’re back, and this is Howard Cosell. The two
teams playing before us tonight are a disgrace to the name of football. How
anyone dared let these absolutely abominable players into this stadium under
the pretense of participating in an allegedly serious sports event is an
incomprehensible mystery that challenges the very foundations of logic and
reason. I ask you, the home audience, have you ever seen anything that defies
the imagination as stupendously as the pathetic, unmitigated disaster that we
are witnessing before us here tonight?
KEVIN: [holding
up a magazine centerfold to Mack] She
defies the imagination, doncha think?
MACK: [glances
at picture, shakes head] I don’t know where they find the women to do this.
KEVIN: Not our high school. [finds a picture that looks remarkably—no, perfectly—like
MACK: [not
looking at picture, flips through his own magazine] Yeah, sure, right.
DIFFERENT ANNOUNCER: [on TV] We interrupt this program to bring
you a special news bulletin! We take you live to Long Dark Road, where our
television action team is standing by!
Both Kevin and Mack look up
at the TV with interest. A female news reporter (who looks amazingly like Ms.
Barch, the
REPORTER: [on
TV] I’m here on Long
Ms. Barch turns and looks in
the darkness down the road. A nearby row of high-tension power-line towers
suddenly explodes and falls over. Police shout at each other, and gunshots can
be heard.
VARIOUS POLICE: [on
TV] Pull back! Pull back! She’s coming through the
roadblock! Get everyone out of here! Nothing can stop her!
REPORTER: [on
TV, smirking] It’s a she, eh? Sounds like a cheerleader who’s been
stood up on a date! Boy, I know how that feels! Men! They’re all alike! You
think they’ll remember your name in the morning, but nooo—
VARIOUS POLICE: [on
TV] Here she comes! Run for it! Evacuate this
area! Abandon your cars! Call the mayor! Get the governor! Red alert!
The camera suddenly focuses
in on a single female figure stomping along the road, silhouetted by police
floodlights. The figure is clearly a furious
REPORTER: [on
TV, VO] Go get ‘em, honey! Go get ‘em! Yaaaa-hoooo!
The TV picture suddenly is filled with static. Both
Kevin and Mack stare at the screen in shock.
MACK: Uh-oh.
KEVIN: Hey, bro! Did you see that?
MACK: Yeah, and stop calling me “bro.”
KEVIN: That was the same girl that’s in this month’s
Penthouse! Look! [holds up magazine]
MACK: That was your girlfriend, man! Did you forget and leave her back at the school
gymnasium?
KEVIN: What? Did I . . . [face changes, suddenly seems to remember something] . . . Oh. [weak laugh] Ha, ha! You know, bro, I think maybe I did.
MACK: [panicked]
Man, I am hauling my ass out of here! [jumps up, runs for sliding glass door in living room, opens it, then
runs out into the darkness—and screams, VO] AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! Not me!
Not me! He’s in there! Please don’t—AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!
KEVIN: [startled,
looks at open glass door] Hey, bro—you’re letting in a draft!
Kevin gets up to close the
sliding glass door. As he does, he looks out into the backyard and sees someone
approaching. He blinks, startled, and his mouth falls
open.
KEVIN: [waves
weakly] Uh . . . hey, babe! Did you forget to give
me my goodnight kiss?
Kevin’s face is suddenly filled with unspeakable
horror.
KEVIN: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—
5. INT: AFTER THE STORY, BACK IN THE GUPTY
CHILDREN’S BEDROOM
The children are not
visible, buried deeply under their covers. Daria stares at Jane with one
eyebrow raised.
JANE: And that’s the story of the girl who walked
home all alone in the dark.
Both Gupty children reappear
from under their covers. They are smiling and look excited.
TAD: That was cool!
TRICIA: Tell it to us again! But in slow motion!
DARIA: Slow motion?
TRICIA: When she tears her stupid boyfriend in half!
Tell that part in slow motion!
JANE: Nah, it’s time for bed. Maybe another night.
TAD AND TRICIA: [disappointed]
Awww!
DARIA: Go to sleep now, and the next time we come
over, we’ll tell you about the teenage artist who starved to death because no
one would hire her as a babysitter anymore, and she was forced to eat all her
paint and canvases before she died.
TRICIA: Neat!
TAD: Excellent!
JANE: [to
Daria, mild glare] Were you planning to
tell that one, by any chance?
Original: 05/18/03; modified 09/04/06, 10/06/06, 07/11/09
FINIS