Bloodrunners

EXT. SEEDY BAR - EVENING

It's a stormy night in a rough section of a nondescript town, where a darkly-clothed and hooded individual makes their way through the rain to a seedy bar.

INT. SEEDY BAR - EVENING

It's smoky and raucous inside, filled with individuals as rough and sketchy as their surroundings, but the individual slithers unperturbed through all the noise and chaos. There's a table in the corner, where FRANK - forty years old but grizzled and hardened by military service - and four other hard-eyed men and women have gathered. They grumble amongst themselves with half an eye locked on the newscast airing on the TV above the bar.

NEWS ANCHOR
- once again, Rori O'Connor has defied
all expectations as the charges
against him were abruptly dropped this
Thursday, withdrawn at the request of
the plaintiff with little to no
resistance offered by the prosecutors
leading the offense. When questioned
about the sudden change of heart, the
plaintiff admitted that they had been
urged to falsify their claims against
the industry titan –

LAMENT WALKER wanders over to their table, his pale, gaunt face still swathed in shadow, his rangy form garbed head to toe in black.

LAMENT
(smiles)
Good evening.

FRANK
(gruffly eyes Lament)
You lost?

LAMENT
Not at all. In fact, I'm exactly where I want to be.

Lament lowers his hood, revealing short, dark auburn hair. It's when the hunters see his eyes - a motley mixture of green and red, with slit pupils - that the hunters immediately begin to get up, expressions hostile as they reach for their concealed weapons. Lament cocks his head, languidly wagging a single finger.

LAMENT
Ah ah ah...

Lament flicks that same finger downwards. The group abruptly drop back into their seats, alarm on their faces, eyes wildly flicking about as they struggle to act, and find themselves unable to. Lament has rendered them helpless and silent with his powers.

LAMENT
No need to be rude. After all, the only reason I'm here is
because I have a job offer for you - a once-in-a lifetime
opportunity that only a fool would turn down. (expression
abruptly brightens) May I sit?

When there's no response save heated glares from the hunters, Lament smiles, revealing sharper than average canines, as though at some private joke.

LAMENT
Much obliged.

Visibly pleased with himself, Lament takes a seat at their table and leans forward, fingers laced together.

LAMENT
So let's just cut right to the chase,
shall we? How interested would you be
in an opportunity to take down the Red King?

Frank scowls ferociously at Lament for a moment longer before his flinty eyes slide up to the bar's TV.

NEWS ANCHOR
I suppose the real question after all
of this is... Who is Rori O'Connor,
really? And how does he keep getting
himself out of these things?

SECOND NEWS ANCHOR
I'm tellin' ya, it's gotta be mind control.

LAMENT
(offers Frank a sly smile)
After all, he's the one who took your
darling daughter from you, was he not?

Frank's gaze flinches back to Lament with a mixture of rage and surprise.

LAMENT
Now, what was her name... Ah, yes,
Scarlet. Poor, poor Scarlet. Tell me,
Frank. How many nights have you
fantasized about what you would do if
you ever had the opportunity to get
your hands on the vampire who killed
your only child? Wouldn't you give
anything to be able to finally avenge
her? To finally end the creature so
many consider to be utterly and
completely untouchable?

Frank's expression darkens, murder in his eyes. He manages the barest semblance of a nod, and a slow smile oozes across Lament's ashen lips.

LAMENT
(feral smile)
Excellent. Let me tell you what I want
you to do.

-x- To Be Continued… -x-

So, like it? Hate it? Wish it would spontaneously combust? Leave me a review and tell me all about it! C'mon, I wanna know everything!

So this is just a little bit of a departure from what I usually do, but after literally a couple of years debating whether or not I should share this, I figured, what the hell, why not. I wrote this in my first year of college, for what was basically a story-development and writing class for digital content. This is the first screenplay I've ever written, and you'll have to forgive me if the format isn't technically correct. Celtx documents don't translate very well to any of the formats or document types that Fictionpress allows, so I've had to change it up a little bit.

Ultimately, the content will be the same as what I submitted for my course, but I might take a little time in later "chapters" to flesh things out and fine-tune them more than they were in the original. (The ending is pure cringe.) We had a ten-page limit for this project, and I still wound up going way over that by submitting a monster in the form of some 40-odd pages. I lost marks for that, but even my professor couldn't think of any way to shorten it without losing a good chunk of the story and beats we needed to hit in the process. He really liked it, though, and strongly encouraged me to "get my words out there". So… That's what I'm doing. At some point I would really like to write a prose version of this for the full story as I see it - significantly more detailed and, yeah, probably a lot more graphic - but for now, this will do. I hope you guys like it!