THE HAMMER OF TIME (U.K.)

"END OF THE HUNT"

written by Thommy Melanson

PANEL 1 - PAGE WIDE ESTABLISHING - A cheery TEN YEAR OLD BOY and his precocious FIVE YEAR OLD SISTER are playing along the banks of a backwoods creek. The sister - the very model of cherubic cuteness and innocence - plays in the FOREGROUND - All attention should be on the girl...

1 CAPTION: There she is...

2 CAPTION: ...just as my heart remembers her.

PANEL 2 - EXACT SAME SHOT AS PANEL 2 - only a LARGE BLACK-FUR COVERED CLAW snatches the shocked girl OUT OF FRAME. The boy whips his head around at the sound of his sister’s cry.

3 GIRL (off panel, electric): GERALD!!

4 BOY: Ginny?!

PANEL 3 - CLOSE on the boy’s horrified face, which is now splattered with blood!

PANEL 4 - PULLING BACK we see the boy standing catatonic from fear and drenched in his sister’s blood. The front of his pants dampen as urine trickles down his leg.

5 CAPTION: And there they are...

6 CAPTION: ...those awful, loud chewing sounds.

PANEL 5 - CLOSE on an OLD MAN (60’s) sleeping face. It appears pensive and disturbed.

7 WOLF (off panel) I’ve got your scent now, boy!

PANEL 6 - TIGHT as the old man’s eyes spring open!

8 CAPTION: GINNY! NOOOO!

PANEL 1 - The old man bolts up - disoriented. He appears to be in bed at some fleabag motel room.

1 OLD MAN: Okay...okay. Just another nightmare.

PANEL 2 - CLOSE - As he collapses back down on the bed, a scarred human hand suddenly grabs his face! The old man’s eyes bulge in the same mortal terror as they did in his nightmare/memory of youth!

2 OLD MAN: Just another damn nightma--

3 WOLF (off panel): I’ve finally caught you, boy.

PANEL 3 - BIG PANEL - PULL BACK TO REVEAL that hand belongs to an imposing, regal man in refined dark attire. His age is hard to determine, but his long black hair is gray at the temples. The most jarring thing about him though is the old burn scars which mar half his face.

4 WOLF: You raise your voice, and I’ll tear out your throat to find it.

PANEL 4 - MEDIUM SHOT - This strange man has removed his hand from the old man’s face, and moves to sit in a shabby chair adjacent to the bed. The old man is petrified beneath sheets wet with spreading urine.

5 WOLF: What’s it been? Ten years since our last encounter?

6 WOLF: Are you going to speak, or just lay there pissing yourself?

7 WOLF: Old habits die hard, eh Gerald old boy?

PANEL 5 - MEDIUM SHOT of “Wolf” sinking into the chair and old Gerald stammering to speak.

8 OLD MAN: I-I-I thought you’d be -

9 WOLF: What? Dead by now? No, no, no, no, no.

10 WOLF: You’ll be dead far sooner than I. By the look in your eyes, I believe you know that.

PANEL 6 - ANGLE ON “Wolf”.

11 WOLF: Did you ever think as a child in that backwoods hick town that life would end like this?

12 WOLF: Utterly alone. A frightened old man with no family nor friend in the world? Tragic, really--

13 WOLF: --you spend your whole miserable life running to avoid the inevitable.

PANEL 7 - ANGLE ON old Gerald, eyes darting in panic and trembling with uncontrollable fear. PANEL DISSOLVES

14 WOLF (off panel): It’s like I told you some fifty-odd years ago, boy.

15 WOLF (same): Once I’ve got your scent, all the running in the world’s not going to save you.

*ARTIST NOTE: RESUME PAST STYLE - We’re back at the exact moment we left off in the nightmare...

PANEL 1 - 3/4 PAGE SPLASH...only now our P.O.V. is behind the frozen and blood-splattered ten-year-old Gerald as he watches A HULKING SEVEN FOOT BLACK WEREWOLF holding his dead sister in its arms.

The blood-soaked werewolf’s tearing out her jugular vein with gnashing fangs. Its eyes are red burning coals. This should be a truly horrific and disturbing image.

1 TITLE: END OF THE HUNT

2 CREDITS

PANEL 2 - The boy Gerald, staring paralyzed with fear.

PANEL 3 - The boy’s finally snapped out of it and is running away.

3 BOY (electric): DADDY! HELP! DADDY!

PANEL 1 - ESTABLISHING - A modest, rural house. His salt-of-the-earth FATHER bolts out of this house with shotgun in hand - alarmed by the boy’s cries. The MOTHER - kindly and bit overweight - follows him out the door.

1 FATHER: Gerald! What the Sam Hill are you carrying on about?!

PANEL 2 - The boy’s run straight into his mother’s arms. The father looks down in concern.

2 FATHER: Where’s Ginny?

3 MOTHER: Shhh! It’s alright.

4 MOTHER: My God, Frank. He’s shaking like a leaf!

5 FATHER: Where’s your sister?

PANEL 3 - The sobbing boy can barely get the words out through his tears.

6 BOY: Th-there’s a monster!

PANEL 4 - ASKEW ANGLE - In the extreme foreground, we watch the gravity of the situation break across the Mother’s face. In the background, the Father takes off into the woods like a shot.

7 MOTHER (lowercase): ginny...my ginny.

PANEL 5 - The mother tries to run after the father, but Gerald drags on her, begging her not to go.

8 BOY (electric): NO, MOMMY! PLEASE!

9 MOTHER: Gerald! Stop it! Let me go!

PANEL 6 - The mother fights her way through low hanging branches and tall sticker-brush.

10 MOTHER: Hold on baby, Mommy’s coming!

PANEL 1 - HALF PAGE SPLASH - The Father in the extreme foreground, overcome with grief, tears streaming. Rather tight on him - we know what’s in his arms and what the readers will imagine is ultimately far worse than what we’ll render. Behind him, we see the Mother as the horror hits her like a fist.

1 FATHER (lowercase): oh, my sweet virginia.

2 MOTHER (electric:): NO!!

PANEL 2 - HALF PAGE SPLASH - NIGHT - A hard rain falls from the black, moonless sky. SEVERAL ANGRY NEIGHBORS have gathered outside the Chaney home. They are a vigilante mob - nary a soul without a SHOTGUN, TORCH or PITCHFORK.

They listen to Father Chaney as his grief-stricken wife and son stand embraced nearby...

3 FATHER: I want you all to know, it does my heart proud that you good Christian folks would come to my family’s aid in our time of need.

4 FATHER: Now, I don’t know what lies waiting in those woods, but I swear on the soul of my poor dead Ginny that I’m sending it back to Hell tonight!

PAGE SIX (Remember, it’s raining!)

PANEL 1 - On their somber march into the woods, passing men offer condolences to the teary mother and son.

1 (tailless): Ma’am, I’m so sorry for your loss.

2 (tailless): If there’s anything my family can do...

3 (tailless): It’s a damn shame.

PANEL 2 - A DARK CLAD MAN WITH A WIDE HAT passes the boy.

PANEL 3 - The boy looks up.

PANEL 4 - BOY’S P.O.V. - TIGHT on a much younger and unscarred WOLF - obviously its human form - staring daggers at “us” from beneath the wide-brimmed hat. Very threatening.

PANEL 5 - STILL BOY’S P.O.V. - We watch this dreadful man blend back into the mob entering the woods.

PANEL 6 - BIG PANEL - The grim posse of neighbors has spread out, scouring every bush and tree hollow for their prey. The Father is front and center.

4 (tailless): Stay sharp, men!

5 (tailless): For Virginia!

6 (tailless): Whatever you are, your time has come!

PAGE SEVEN (Still raining...)

PANEL 1 - Close on the Father, in the midst of other mob members. A distant cry whips his head around.

1 FATHER: Any sign of--

2 BOY (off panel): DADDY!

PANEL 2 - The boy runs full-tilt into the clearing where his annoyed Father and the townsmen are.

3 FATHER: Gerald! I told you to stay with your mama, boy!

4 BOY: But daddy, that man--

PANEL 3 - BOY’S P.O.V. - His pointing finger is large in the frame as it damns Wolf.

5 BOY: --he’s the wolf! He killed Ginny!!

PANEL 4 - The Father stares coldly at Wolf, who seems almost proud of his damnation.

6 WOLF: Obviously the boy is upset. Watching your baby sister get eaten alive - I imagine - has that effect.

7 FATHER: You...you son of a bitch!

PANEL 5 - WOLF’S P.O.V. - Illuminated by torchlight, we see the jury of grim men facing “us”. The boy is hiding behind his father, who’s leveling a shotgun at “us”.

8 WOLF: No need to get personal, old boy. After all...

PANEL 6 - Turning from human to werewolf, Wolf snarls through growing fangs and changing eyes!

9 WOLF (electric): ...it was only lunch!

PAGE EIGHT (Rain, rain...)

PANEL 1 - BLAM! The Father and others blast away at the monster with their shotguns!

1 SFX: BLAMM!!

2 SFX: BLAM! BLAM!

PANEL 2 - WORM’S EYE VIEW - The shell-riddled beast - somewhere between human and wolf - curled on the ground in a pool of blood, addresses the boy, who’s peeking out from behind his father’s side.

3 WOLF (lowercase): should’a killed you, boy...

4 WOLF (lowercase): ...gonna kill you slow...

PANEL 3 - BIG PANEL - A couple of the torch-bearing townsfolk ignite the werewolf!

5 WOLF: YOU HEAR ME, BOY?!

6 WOLF (electric): AAARRRGGGHHHH!

PANEL 4 - In the light of the bonfire - where we see the slightest trace of the wolf’s form - the mob is abuzz with what they’ve just witnessed. The Father and boy - still cowering behind his Father’s side - are front and center.

7 TOWNSMAN: What in God’s name was that--thing?!

8 FATHER: God’s got nothing to do with it, I reckon.

PANEL 6 - TIGHT on the boy, tense and with a single tear streaming down his cheek - he knows he’s doomed.

DOUBLE PAGE SPREAD - MONTAGE

I thought maybe approach these pages like an animation cel - in layers.

The first layer (background): a generic map outline of the United States...

Second layer - random scenes of Gerald’s sad life: As a shaggy 60’s teenager hitchhiking -- As a homeless man, long of matted hair and beard, paranoid and cowering in an inner city alley during a rainstorm, clutching a knife in his trembling hand -- An older 80’s yuppie Gerald, in anguish as the Werewolf disembowels a visibly pregnant pretty young woman, she’s obviously Gerald’s love and the carrier of his child -- intermingled with these images are a TIGHT shot of Wolf, looking frustrated behind the wheel of a car, and as the Werewolf on his haunches, sniffing the air. Front and center though is a classic Greek tragedy-style pose of Gerald and the Werewolf locked in eternal combat.

Third layer - the captions which explain all this:

1 CAPTION: They thought they killed me - your pa and all those fools. But it’s hard to kill me, boy.

2 CAPTION: I promised you I’d kill ya slow. I didn’t think it’d take quite this long, however.

3 CAPTION: I heard you ran away not long after that night. You knew I wouldn’t stay in the ground long...

4 CAPTION: ...so you made me hunt you.

5 CAPTION: Every ten years or so I’d find you, holed up in some far-slung corner of this country.

6 CAPTION: You had heart, I’ll give you that.

7 CAPTION: Fifty years of running, just to hold on to what barely passes as a life. In a way,--

8 CAPTION: --looking back on it now,--

9 CAPTION: --I’ve already taken your life.

And then finally the fourth layer - blood splatters! Take the art that you’ve done and make it look like it was airbrushed with arterial spray! Flecks and specks of blood everywhere.

PANEL 1 - TIGHT on Wolf as he begins to rise from the chair.

1 WOLF: Let’s just make it official, shall we?

PANEL 2 - He begins transforming into the werewolf! His clothes shred as his bulk increases! His face is elongating, his eyes morphing into lupine slits, his ears are pointy, nails are curving into claws and tufts of fur are sprouting!

PANEL 3 -CLOSE on old Gerald as his hand slides beneath the pillow.

PANEL 4 - The werewolf lunges at Gerald - raking his claws across the old man’s chest. At the same time Gerald ferociously plunges a LARGE SILVER BLADE deep into the monster’s side.

2 SFX: thok!

3 WOLF: GGRRRAAAA!!

PANEL 5 - Old Gerald yanks the blade out, and holds his chest, which bleeds profusely from the werewolf’s strike. The werewolf is curled wounded on the floor.

4 WOLF: H-How did you--?

5 OLD MAN: I figure...if you’re real, then that >koff!< legend about...silver must be too! >koff<

6 OLD MAN: Cost every penny I’ve ever saved...worth it, as long as you--

PANEL 6 - 3 PART TRIPTYCH - Gerald gone wild! An orgy of psychotic stabbing - each panel more sanguinary than the next as Gerald savagely, desperately, tries to kill the beast. His eyes are alive with frenzy!

7 OLD MAN (electric): --DIE!!

PANEL 1 - PAGE WIDE PANEL - The old man, drenched in his enemy’s blood, grows very faint. He clutches the deep wound on his chest, about to pass out. The werewolf looks like fur-covered, bloody Swiss cheese, laid out on the floor, inches from death.

1 WOLF (lowercase): i knew you could do it, boy...

2 OLD MAN: Don’t feel...so good.

PANEL 2 - DRAMATIC BIRD’S EYE - “We’re” above them, like a fly on the motel room ceiling. The two lay dead, locked together in death just as they were in life. A pool of blood spreads beneath them.

PANEL 3 - DRAMATIC WORM’S EYE - Now “we’re” a, well, “worm” in that room. “We’re” close as blood drips from the Wolf’s mortal wounds and old Gerald’s open mouth lay in the pool.

PANEL 4 - Old Gerald rouses, he feels for his mortal chest wound, only it’s all but healed!

3 OLD MAN (lowercase): oh god, my head - it’s pounding!

4 OLD MAN: My chest - the wound--?!

PANEL 5 - The old man spasms suddenly - we see fur spreading and his hands curl into claws!

5 OLD MAN: All I wanted was my life back--

6 OLD MAN: --but not like this!

PANEL 6 - TIGHT on his face - as a single tear streams from lupine eyes! He’s screaming, which enables us to see the array of sharp fangs lining his mouth! He’s become what he’s spent his whole life running from...

7 OLD MAN (electric): NOT LIKE THIS!!