An orphan girl and a traveling nightmare salesman team up to exact revenge on the villagers who expelled the girl from their utopian community.  

Please enjoy the following excerpt:

CLOSE ON:

A white paddy wagon with THE HOUSE ON THE HILL – INSTITUTE FOR WAYWARD CHILDREN emblazoned on its side door. 

DR. ABLER (30’s) steps into view, sparkling in his white lab coat, unyielding optimism radiating from his every unclogged pore. 

He slides open the paddy wagon door, giving a glimpse of what’s inside:

Tranquilizer guns, straitjackets, cages, muzzles, vise grips, electrically-charged batons.

GRETA

Is all that necessary, Dr. Abler?

WE ARE:

EXT. LUDDLETOWN FARM HOUSE — MORNING

The paddy wagon is parked outside the farm house. 

Dr. Abler addresses Greta and all the assembled parents and children. 

DR. ABLER

The methods used to bring in a wayward child don’t always make sense to the uninitiated.  Let me assure you, however, they are effective.

Greta signs a document attached to a clipboard, which she hands over to Dr. Abler.

DR. ABLER

Thank you, Dr. Luddle.  Folks, I want you to know that I don’t enjoy having to use these tools.  No enjoyment whatsoever. 

(beat)

Rest assured, I will do what I can to contain the girl in the most humane possible way.  How old is she?

GRETA

Eleven.

DR. ABLER

Eleven.  Let’s see.

Dr. Abler selects a BATON from the display in the wagon. 

He adjusts a small dial, squeezes a button.  Short barbs of electricity spark out of the baton. 

The Luddletowners let out a collective “OOOHHH.”

Dr. Abler bows and removes his lab coat.

DR. ABLER

Dr. Luddle, you said the girl ran into the forest behind the farm?

Greta nods.

Dr. Abler tosses the coat into the wagon, fits a hiker’s hat on his head and assembles more equipment.

The Luddletowners move in for a closer look.

Greta’s eyes well up with tears.  She blinks them away, tries to reclaim her expression of cold contentment.

EXT. FOREST — MORNING

Carmeline straddles the branch of a full elm tree.  She looks out in every direction like a nervous animal.

Her eyes are bloodshot, the bags beneath them puffier, darker. 

She scales down the tree and moves further into the forest.

FOREST — MORNING

Dr. Abler, now wearing the rugged clothes of an outdoorsman, moves at a brisk but jovial pace, a walking stick in one hand and a large pack strapped to his back.  

FOREST — DAY 

The morning haze has burned off. The sun is high in the sky. 

Carmeline trudges onward.

FOREST — DAY

Dr. Abler stops at the same elm tree Carmeline had been hiding in.  He examines the bark of its trunk, runs a finger over nicks and scuff marks. 

He picks up his pace.

FOREST — DAY

Carmeline squats at a stream to splash water into her face.

She looks up and sees a fawn watch her briefly and scamper off.

FOREST — DAY

Dr. Abler strides along ever vigilant, poised for action.

DISSOLVE TO:

FOREST — DUSK

Carmeline rests on the trunk of a fallen tree. 

FOREST — DUSK

Dr. Abler sees something in the distance and stops abruptly. 

He ducks behind a clump of vegetation.  Takes off his pack, unzips a pocket and removes a kazoo.

He sticks the kazoo in his mouth and unscrews the handle off his walking stick.  Tips the stick and slides out the baton.

He blows into the kazoo, producing BIRD CHIRPS.

FOREST — DUSK

Carmeline hears something.  She holds her breath.  Listens.

FOREST — DUSK

Dr. Abler blows again into the kazoo. 

FOREST — DUSK

Carmeline leaves the tree trunk and approaches a clump of vegetation, her curiosity piqued.

FOREST — DUSK

Dr. Abler listens to APPROACHING FOOTSTEPS.  He sets the baton dial to its highest level.

The kazoo drops out of his mouth to reveal a cruel smile.

FOREST — DUSK

Carmeline stops at the clump of vegetation.  A TWIG BREAKS.

She turns.  A rabbit dashes away.

Carmeline turns back, steps around the vegetation.  She GASPS.

FOREST — DUSK

Dr. Abler lunges ­out, jabs the baton OFF-SCREEN. 

Electricity CRACKLES the air. 

A FAWN shudders violently, slumps dead at Dr. Abler’s feet.

His eyes blaze a little too brightly. He tightens his grip on the baton.

 DR. ABLER

Absolutely no enjoyment whatsoever.

 FOREST — DUSK

Carmeline looks down at a demolished nest of dying baby birds SQUAWKING out their last breaths.

She stares, powerless. 

The bird cries become too excruciating.  Carmeline runs away.

CUT TO:

Light flickering on aged hands with spindly fingers gently polishing away with a cotton cloth the smudges streaked across a glass eye.

OFF-SCREEN, an owl HOOTS.  The hands pause.  The fingers quiver over the eye like a pair of antennae. 

Dancing flames are reflected in the eye’s sharp green pupil.

WE ARE:

EXT. FOREST — EVENING

A MAN STEPS BACK INTO THE SHADOWS, beyond the reach of a campfire built in the center of a forest clearing.

He returns with a blackened, long-handled pot.

FOREST — EVENING

Carmeline stumbles forward, pushes against her stomach to force down the wincing pangs of hunger. 

Fatigue takes out her legs and she falls to the forest floor. 

Carmeline just lays there.  She starts to CRY.

MAN WITH THE CAMPFIRE (O.S.)

Nightmares nibbling gnawing no!  Frightmares fiddling frying foe! 

She lifts her head up.  Her nose quivers.  She SNIFFS.  Swallows hard to moisten her throat.

CARMELINE

Soup.

She forces herself to her feet. 

MAN WITH THE CAMPFIRE (O.S.)

Ladies and gentlemen, step up to see, step up and see! 

The girl pushes through ripping thorn bushes and over ankle-hobbling rock-strewn paths.  Driven to find the voice and the source of the thick lingering scent teasing her nose.

Finally, Carmeline can see the fire casting its shadow-plays on the surrounding trees. 

The contiguous forest breaks, opens into a wide clearing.

Carmeline’s momentum thrusts her into the clearing.  But just as quickly she falls back to the forest edge. 

She looks into the clearing from behind a tree.

FOREST CLEARING — EVENING

The MAN, a tall, thin black line in his dark coat and pants, a black bowler on his head, stands back turned to Carmeline. 

He talks to the oval funhouse mirror attached to the side of a circus wagon, which is hitched to an old panel truck.

MAN WITH THE CAMPFIRE

New nightmares, frightmares, dark fantasies!  Twisted reveries to satisfy all your curiosities!

(beat)

Good. That’s very good.

He turns, his face aglow in the firelight. 

This is BERNARD SANDS (40’s), a twitching, prematurely aged patchwork of freakish features, most prominently a right eye made of glass disproportionately larger than the real eye on the left.

CARMELINE shrinks back.

BERNARD clears the long-handled pot and a soup-stained bowl, hides them under the panel truck.

CARMELINE follows him with her eyes.  Licks her lips.  She takes a cautious step forward.

A FLOATING LIGHT appears at the opposite side of the clearing. 

A BELL RINGS.

BERNARD

Ack!  They’re early.

BERNARD opens the back of the circus wagon and slides out a ramp.  He climbs up the ramp, disappears inside the wagon.

CARMELINE retreats again as two TEENAGE GIRLS on a tandem bicycle enter the clearing from a dirt path.

The girls lay the bike in the grass, approach the wagon.

TEENAGE GIRL #1

Hello?

TEENAGE GIRL #2

Where is he? Hellooowww? 

The air BUZZES and SNAPS. 

And the wagon is lit up with flickering golden lights that spell out: BERNARD SANDS AND HIS NIGHTMARE MACHINE.

TEENAGE GIRLS

Wooaaahhh.

CARMELINE squints in the sudden brightness.

BERNARD steps down to the ground as if strutting onto stage, big smile, wide eyes, both real and fake. 

He holds two large rockets attached to sticks, each with a long fuse trailing out of its bottom.

BERNARD

Good evening, ladies!  Step up and see, step up to see!  Nightmares, frightmares, fantasies!  Twisted reveries to satisfy all your curiosities! 

He stabs each rocket into the ground, dips their fuses into the campfire.

BERNARD

You want more than what lurks beneath your own waking mind.  You desire the secrets of another’s subconscious whispered into your brain.  I alone hold the key into that hidden, forbidden world! 

CARMELINE looks on, mesmerized.

BERNARD leads the girls to the ramp.

BERNARD

Tonight only, two nightmares for the price of one!  Four freakmares for the price of two!  So step up and see, my darlings!  The dark delights of my Nightmare Machine­!

The rockets WHISTLE into the sky. 

CARMELINE watches them EXPLODE in a burst of brilliant color.

And illuminate DR. ABLER.

On the attack with his electrocuting baton!