ACT ONE
FADE IN:
EXT. PALM GLADE STATE PRESERVE - MORNING
A blast of sky and sun. The wet smell of brine lays a heavy canopy over three-hundred year old mangroves. A place where
lush green earth meets clear blue sky.
A wave of humid air pushes Spanish moss out over Fisheating Creek, a dark, handsome river that cuts through Palm Glade, Florida. One of many Pinkberry communities that sprung up east of Tampa in the last half-decade, thanks to cheap mortgages and really bad ideas. We know how that worked out.
CREDITS over its indigenous beauty; a virtual Garden of Eden, a million years old and still in the game. Caladium the size of an elephant's ear anchor a line of flowering plants, herbaceous fern and fleshy white magnolia. Peach palm sagos, entwined in passion vine. A leggy Blue Heron picks at the mud bank. A couple of small gators drift silently among the lilies, little more than a pair of eyes, keeping an eye on everything. Such as
A RED SUV
Parked thirty feet from the creek. Von Dutch detailing, 20 inch rims, suggesting an owner of a certain age.
INT. RED SUV - MORNING
Inside, a man and a girl, asleep. Not cuddling, hardly even touching. Oh, and the girl - she's not wearing pants. Just an oversized man's jersey riding up high enough to see a pair of pink and blue striped panties. From GAP, if I had to guess.
The man, JUSTIN, is a good looking kid of 22, with an athletic build. The girl, ERIN, is 16. Soft blonde hair, a hard and tight body. Two kids from middle-class families, exploring the nature of things. Both dead asleep...
Until one of those heron leap off the bank with a shrieking whoop, and glides, whooping, out over the swamp.
Waking Justin. His eyes open and we know immediately this kid did some drinking last night. Red, bleary eyes. Head pounding. He struggles for short term memory, looks over at Erin, dead asleep, vintage tee and panties - jogging some of last night back to him. He fishes around a dashboard cluttered with beer cans for his smokes. She stirs but does not wake.
Justin studies her body. More of the night returns to him in a flood of drunken memories, driving his need for fresh air.
EXT. FISHEATING CREEK - MORNING
Justin steps out, shirtless, barefoot. He scratches at his face, rolls the kinks out of his neck and shoulders.
Heads for the creek over cypress root that knob like veins along the ground.
He drops to his knees at the creek, running water over his face and through his hair. Shakes out a smoke, which he lights and inhales, deeply. He turns to look back at the SUV, to see that the girl has not moved. The cigarette is making him sicker, so he flicks it into the creek, the butt dying in the black water with a tsssst, not far from a body. A dead one.
A MIDDLE AGED WOMAN
Without a head, hands or feet, lies in the shallow mud. The better part of her right leg and shoulder bitten clean off.
JUSTIN
Stares at the body for a long beat. Trying to focus. He struggles through the knee-deep water to get a closer look, stopping a few yards away. The closer look sends him stumbling back for shore, where he collapses on the bank to get sick.
INT. RED SUV - MORNING
Erin wakes to the sound of his RETCHING. She sits up, sees Justin at the edge of the creek -- events of the night quickly returning to her, but a different night from the clarity in her eyes, causing her to reach for something around her neck - a locket that apparently is missing.
Her eyes dart around the car's interior, looking for, then finding the LOCKET on the floor. She grabs it, opens it up --
Whoever's photo is inside, giving her pause. She stares at it with sad purpose. Then closes it, looping it around her neck as she fumbles around the dash of the car for her watch, checking the time.
ERIN
Shit.
She stands on the horn.
ERIN
Justin! Shit.
The HORN sends Justin into a second wave of retching.
Off which, the camera CRANES up and over the mangrove to FIND the tri-bay area of Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater, a mile and
FADE IN:
EXT. PALM GLADE STATE PRESERVE - MORNING
A blast of sky and sun. The wet smell of brine lays a heavy canopy over three-hundred year old mangroves. A place where
lush green earth meets clear blue sky.
A wave of humid air pushes Spanish moss out over Fisheating Creek, a dark, handsome river that cuts through Palm Glade, Florida. One of many Pinkberry communities that sprung up east of Tampa in the last half-decade, thanks to cheap mortgages and really bad ideas. We know how that worked out.
CREDITS over its indigenous beauty; a virtual Garden of Eden, a million years old and still in the game. Caladium the size of an elephant's ear anchor a line of flowering plants, herbaceous fern and fleshy white magnolia. Peach palm sagos, entwined in passion vine. A leggy Blue Heron picks at the mud bank. A couple of small gators drift silently among the lilies, little more than a pair of eyes, keeping an eye on everything. Such as
A RED SUV
Parked thirty feet from the creek. Von Dutch detailing, 20 inch rims, suggesting an owner of a certain age.
INT. RED SUV - MORNING
Inside, a man and a girl, asleep. Not cuddling, hardly even touching. Oh, and the girl - she's not wearing pants. Just an oversized man's jersey riding up high enough to see a pair of pink and blue striped panties. From GAP, if I had to guess.
The man, JUSTIN, is a good looking kid of 22, with an athletic build. The girl, ERIN, is 16. Soft blonde hair, a hard and tight body. Two kids from middle-class families, exploring the nature of things. Both dead asleep...
Until one of those heron leap off the bank with a shrieking whoop, and glides, whooping, out over the swamp.
Waking Justin. His eyes open and we know immediately this kid did some drinking last night. Red, bleary eyes. Head pounding. He struggles for short term memory, looks over at Erin, dead asleep, vintage tee and panties - jogging some of last night back to him. He fishes around a dashboard cluttered with beer cans for his smokes. She stirs but does not wake.
Justin studies her body. More of the night returns to him in a flood of drunken memories, driving his need for fresh air.
EXT. FISHEATING CREEK - MORNING
Justin steps out, shirtless, barefoot. He scratches at his face, rolls the kinks out of his neck and shoulders.
Heads for the creek over cypress root that knob like veins along the ground.
He drops to his knees at the creek, running water over his face and through his hair. Shakes out a smoke, which he lights and inhales, deeply. He turns to look back at the SUV, to see that the girl has not moved. The cigarette is making him sicker, so he flicks it into the creek, the butt dying in the black water with a tsssst, not far from a body. A dead one.
A MIDDLE AGED WOMAN
Without a head, hands or feet, lies in the shallow mud. The better part of her right leg and shoulder bitten clean off.
JUSTIN
Stares at the body for a long beat. Trying to focus. He struggles through the knee-deep water to get a closer look, stopping a few yards away. The closer look sends him stumbling back for shore, where he collapses on the bank to get sick.
INT. RED SUV - MORNING
Erin wakes to the sound of his RETCHING. She sits up, sees Justin at the edge of the creek -- events of the night quickly returning to her, but a different night from the clarity in her eyes, causing her to reach for something around her neck - a locket that apparently is missing.
Her eyes dart around the car's interior, looking for, then finding the LOCKET on the floor. She grabs it, opens it up --
Whoever's photo is inside, giving her pause. She stares at it with sad purpose. Then closes it, looping it around her neck as she fumbles around the dash of the car for her watch, checking the time.
ERIN
Shit.
She stands on the horn.
ERIN
Justin! Shit.
The HORN sends Justin into a second wave of retching.
Off which, the camera CRANES up and over the mangrove to FIND the tri-bay area of Tampa/St. Pete/Clearwater, a mile and
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