 Copyright 2001 by Matthew Gallagher. Note: Voodoo Train is a ten-minute screenplay I wrote on a whim for the "Place Called Sacramento" film festival. We did not produce the film. It's just kinda fun, and predated the rise of the zombie craze by a few years.... |
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FADE IN: EXT. 1985 - TRAIN TRACKS RUNNING THROUGH MIDTOWN SACRAMENTO - AFTERNOON Train speeds by, close to us, a blur of movement and thunderous sound. The horn of the engine wails, piercing the still afternoon air. As we look through the gaps of the speeding train, we see an empty sidewalk leading down a long street in Midtown Sacramento. As the tail of the train whizzes by, a figure of an old black woman suddenly appears. She is dressed out-of-the-norm. Rather like a homeless woman, but with menace in her eyes. INT. RAILROAD MUSEUM An older man and two teenagers admire an old steam engine. UNCLE MIKE, a docent at the Museum, is about sixty years old. He beams with pride as he lovingly looks at the old steam engine. His nephew TODD stands close to his girlfriend SHERRY. Both are fresh-faced youths, about to embark on the exciting journey of life. TODD Gosh, she sure is a beaut, Uncle Mike. UNCLE MIKE (polishing the engine with a chamois) If I had to pick any specimen in the place to be my favorite, I’d have to pick Ol’ Sally here. SHERRY Why’s that, Uncle Mike? UNCLE MIKE Let’s just say she’s been good to me. SHERRY Todd, sounds like your Uncle has one of his stories to tell. TODD Well, we’ve gotta get goin’, Uncle Mike! Don’t wanna miss the opening of the movie, ya know. SFX The banshee wail of a passing train. Uncle Mike shudders at the sound. SHERRY Wow! That sounded so close! UNCLE MIKE I haven’t heard a train whistle sound like that since... since... TODD Since when? When?!? UNCLE MIKE Look, you two kids run along...I’ve got to close up the museum, and you...well, I know how you hate to miss the beginning of a movie, young man! SHERRY I guess we’ll have to wait till later for that story, Todd. TODD Okay, Uncle Mike. I’ll see you later on at Mom’s for dinner. As Todd and Sherry leave, Uncle Mike follows them with his eyes. He turns to Ol’ Sally, and starts to polish her again. It seems as though he’s talking to her. EXT. OLD SACRAMENTO - AFTERNOON Todd and Sherry walk down the wooden sidewalk, holding hands and slightly swinging their arms. SHERRY Your uncle sure started to act funny, Todd. TODD Yeah, well, he gets like that sometimes. SHERRY I know. Your whole family is nuts, but this time it was...different. TODD How? SHERRY I don’t know... I hope he’s okay. TODD He’s okay, baby. Everything’s okay. Todd stops and wraps his arms around Sherry. He pulls her up to him and kisses her lovingly. SHERRY (as Todd nuzzles her neck noisily) Todd! People... are watching... we don’t want to miss the beginning of the movie... oh.... EXT. STOREFRONT IN OAK PARK - SAME VERA VAUDOUN sits in front of a pan decorated with magical symbols. She sways back and forth and in a slow circle, tranced out like a fiend. She shakes her hands, holding something that rattles that we cannot see. VERA VAUDOUN Baron Samedi... Baron Samedi...no...no! She throws the contents of her hands down into the magical pan. BONES tumble over each other. VERA VAUDOUN No! No! INT. CREST THEATRE LOBBY - SAME Todd and Sherry stand in line for popcorn. Sherry’s hair is noticeably mussed up. Some other kids mill about the lobby, ashen and dead looking. One walks right into a pillar, as if he were sleepwalking. Todd runs over to help him. TODD Whoah, Buddy! Are you all right? BUDDY All... right... right... TODD (him Buddy to his feet) Look, man, maybe you’d better sit down. Or go home. BUDDY ...better... home... SHERRY (carrying a large bucket of popcorn and a large drink) Todd, all the other kids in here look really out of it. TODD I know, Sherry. (starting to eat the popcorn) Mmmm... good popcorn! SHERRY The Crest has the Best! The other kids start to shuffle toward Todd and Sherry. PUNK ZOMBIE BOY (reaching for the bucket of popcorn) Hungry. SHERRY (pulling the bucket back) Well, get your own. A ZOMBIE GIRL grabs Todd’s arm and prepares to take a bite out of it. TODD Hey!!! SHERRY (shoving the zombie girl away) Like I said, get your own! TODD She tried to bite me! SHERRY Oh my gosh, Todd...these kids are... zombies! The throng of Zombie Teens growl and shuffle more menacingly toward Todd and Sherry. Sherry throws the bucket of popcorn on them as a distraction. Todd and Sherry run away as the zombies start to eat the popcorn and pick it out of each other’s hair like chimps grooming each other. Suddenly, they clutch their throats and begin to fall down, dying. INT. HOUSE - DINNERTIME TODD’S MOM sets a large platter of food down on the table. Uncle Mike sits there, looking hungrily at the food. He greedily reaches for it as Mom turns her back. MOM Don’t you even t’ink about eet, mon. We will wait until Todd gets here. UNCLE MIKE Oh he’s probably not going to be here for dinner, Mae. He’s out with Sherry. MOM Sherry or no Sherry, he will be here. At least we will wait, come what may. Todd and Sherry suddenly burst into the room. TODD Mom! Uncle Mike! You’ll never guess what happened! SHERRY Everyone down at the Crest theatre was turned into flesh-eating zombies! MOM What?!? Zombies in Sacramento? For dees I left the Caribbean? Mom goes to the kitchen noisily, flustered by the news. SHERRY It was like an old Michael Jackson video. TODD It was horrible! UNCLE MIKE Oh, no. I was hoping it wasn’t coming to this. TODD Uncle Mike, what are you talking about? If you know anything about this, you’ve got to tell us! UNCLE MIKE Todd, maybe it’s time you knew... TODD Knew? Knew what?? SHERRY "Know." TODD Sherry, don’t say "no" now. If there is something we need to know, we need to know it now! UNCLE MIKE Zombies...flesh eating zombies... it all started back in 1965... FLASHBACK - 1965 SAC CITY COLLEGE CAMPUS Students mill about the Quad. YOUNG MIKE, a total square, sits at the brick water fountain, surrounded by his friends. UNCLE MIKE (cont’d) I was at Sac City College. Just about to get my AA degree. Soon, I’d be off to pursue my dream of becoming an Engineer. Young Mike looks at a book on TRAINS. UNCLE MIKE (V.O.) (cont’d) I was going to travel the rails. See the world. Then suddenly, the world came to me. An African-American girl walks slowly across the quad. As if she notices someone watching her, she turns her face toward the sunlight. She stops and stares. UNCLE MIKE (V.O.) LeKeshia Mojo. That was her name. Her family had just moved to Sacramento. She moved in the sunlight like silk through water... LEKESHIA MOJO suddenly gets caught in the spray of sprinklers coming on. UNCLE MIKE (V.O.) We really fell for each other. TODD But Uncle Mike, I thought you were going with another girl back at Sac City. UNCLE MIKE That’s the problem. I was. VERA VAUDOUN storms up to Mike and LeKeshia, who sit laughing at the fountain on the quad. She pulls LeKeshia away from Mike by her hair. UNCLE MIKE (V.O.) And Vera Vaudoun wasn’t a girl you crossed. SHERRY Isn’t the Vaudoun family the one that owns all those voodoo magic shops in town? UNCLE MIKE The one and the same. But the Vaudouns don’t just sell voodoo paraphernalia. They practice it... FLASHBACK: Vera chants while cuts the neck of a chicken and lets the blood drip into a copper bowl. UNCLE MIKE Vera knew how much LeKeshia and I liked each other. But...she said she’d never give me up to a negro girl. She called upon her dark gods and summoned some mighty powerful black magic. Several white kids circa 1965, pick up tomatoes and throw them at LeKeshia. UNCLE MIKE I tried to stop Vera. But by that time it was too late. LeKeshia who stands on the steps of a building, covered in dripping red tomato juice and screaming silently. Vera stands at the edge of the crowd of co-eds, gesturing wildly. YOUNG VERA She’s a witch! A voodoo witch from New Orleans! Do you want people like her coming here and taking our men?? CROWD No!!! YOUNG VERA Take her! Take her and destroy the witch! LeKeshia is pulled from the steps by the crowd and dragged off. EXT. TRAIN CROSSING - NIGHT The enthralled crowd has tied LeKeshia to a post in the middle of the tracks. Far down the tracks, the sound of a distant train whistles comes. Young Uncle Mike fights his way through the chanting, ravenous crowd. He is held back before he can reach the captive. YOUNG MIKE LeKeshia! No! Vera, how can you do this?!? You have to make them stop! YOUNG VERA What did you expect, Mike? She’s a voodoo witch! She’s getting what she deserves! YOUNG MIKE She’s not a witch! I know who the witch is. You are! The crowd is suddenly illumined by the brilliance of the train headlamp. The whistle blairs, drowning out everyone’s voices. Young Mike breaks free of the thralls and closes in on Vera. With one punch, he knocks her to the ground. The crowd stops its chanting. Mike runs to LeKeshia and starts to untie her from the post. YOUNG LEKESHIA Michael... it’s too late. Save yourself. YOUNG MIKE It’s like these knots were tied by a sailor! YOUNG LEKESHIA Michael! It’s coming! MIKE AIIIIIIIYAAAHHHH! The lamp of the oncoming train turns the night into day. Mike jumps out of the way in just the last minute. The train roars forward, the world nothing but light and scream from the whistle. PRESENT DAY TODD And that’s how you lost your legs. MIKE Oh, no, I lost these in Viet Nam. The strange thing is, there was never any trace of a body found. It was like the train just... carried her away... I tried to save her... SHERRY And now you think LeKeshia Mojo is back? TODD Why? How? What to you think she wants? UNCLE MIKE To exact her revenge... SHERRY By turning all of Sacramento into blood-thirsty zombies! TODD We’re doomed! SHERRY Well, zombies are easy enough to kill. They move slowly and they’re allergic to salt and you can easily blow their heads off with a shotgun. But the Mojo Woman...she can just make more zombies... we’ve got to stop her! TODD But how? How?!? UNCLE MIKE There might be a way.... INT. VERA VAUDOUN’S VOODOO EMPORIUM - DAY Vera Vaudoun sits in a smoke-engulfed atmosphere. Candles and incense everywhere around a table/altar in the middle of the room. She busies herself shaping a wax doll and sticking things to it like feathers and bits of black hair. Placing the newly-formed doll in a large shallow bowl, she takes a chicken and holds it, fluttering, in circles over the effigy. She chants in low tones. VERA VAUDOUN Baron Samedi... gimme the aid of your loa... Chacun à son goût.. ma sangré à votre sangré... à votre sangré... votre sangré!! She takes a large ceremonial knife from the table-altar in front of her. Holding the bewildered chicken over the bowl, she slices it’s neck. Blood splatters all over Vera, and drips into the bowl over the little wax figure. The wax doll floats freely in the middle of a little lake of blood. EXT - SACRAMENTO TRAIN STATION Zombies file into an old train on the tracks. It is the one that whisked LeKeshia Mojo away decades ago. Sherry, Uncle Mike and Todd hide behind a corner, watching. SHERRY There are the zombies... but where is the Mojo Woman? Mojo steps from behind from behind the engine of the train. She gestures to the Zombies to continue to enter the Voodoo Train. MOJO One at a time! Single file! There’s room for all! Uncle Mike is visibly moved by seeing her in person. UNCLE MIKE My god... LeKeshia... TODD Must be something to see her, after all these years, hunh Uncle Mike? UNCLE MIKE She’s gotten so fat. TODD Baby’s got some back! SHERRY Todd! TODD Don’t be jealous, Sherry. You know I like your back, too. Todd begins to put the moves on Sherry. SHERRY Todd, not now! We’ve got a voodoo priestess to stop! UNCLE MIKE You kids stay here. This is my job. Uncle Mike steps out from the shadows of the depot building. UNCLE MIKE LeKeshia! LeKeshia Mojo! Mojo stops directing the zombies. She turns to him. MOJO Michael... UNCLE MIKE LeKeshia... don’t do this... MOJO You want me to stop, Michael? I must continue. UNCLE MIKE Why? Things have changed, LeKeshia. Why can’t we forget the past, and move on? MOJO I have moved on, Michael. That night in 1965, I was forced to move on. Now I have work to do. SHERRY (running up to Uncle Mike) So you’ve come back to turn our town into zombies? Where will your revenge stop? Todd runs to catch Sherry. His shirt is mostly unbuttoned. TODD Sherry! Mojo stops and looks at the two young adults. She slowly crosses to them, staring. MOJO This boy... Michael, this boy, he looks like you, and yet... UNCLE MIKE That’s right, LeKeshia. He’s black. TODD Bi-racial, thank you. MOJO Is he...is he your--? UNCLE MIKE His mother married my brother, years after...after what happened to you...us... I tried to find you. I road the rails up and down the coast... but then I was drafted, lost my legs, and then they wouldn’t let me be an engineer any more. They stuck me in the Railroad Museum. I never married. SHERRY So you see, you have to stop turning our town into flesh-eating zombies! Vera Vaudoun walks up. VERA VAUDOUN Yes, Mama Mojo. Stop what you are doing! UNCLE MIKE Vera Vaudoun! MOJO It was that one -- your resident voodoo priestess -- who caused this infestation. I am using my voodoo train to save these poor creatures. VERA VAUDOUN When I felt your evil presence, I knew I had to do something to bring you out of hiding! To stop you -- once and for all! TODD I forget... which is the good voodoo priestess, and which is the bad one again? VERA VAUDOUN You have come back to take Mike and his loa away! You will never take him away from me! UNCLE MIKE I haven’t seen you in years either, Vera. VERA VAUDOUN My powers have kept you close to me always, Mike! Now, witch, I shall stop you once and for all! SHERRY You said that already. But I don’t see it happening yet. TODD Yeah! You and what army? Vera gestures wildly. She takes a small leather bag from inside her poncho and starts to spread it’s dusty contents on the ground in front of her. VERA VAUDOUN By Setebos the Under-God, I command my army to attack... attack them! TODD That army! UNCLE MIKE Vera’s the one who created the zombies. TODD Less explanation -- more running! The trio begin to run away as the zombies shuffle after them. MOJO NO! These poor unfortunates will harm no one this day! Arretez-vous, mortes-vivants! Arretez-vous! The zombies stop. VERA No! My power is stronger than yours. My people are voodoo royalty! MOJO You’re people are not worth the mud on the bottom of my ancestors’ feet. Mortes-vivants! Attaquez-la! Emportez-la au train de vaudoun! The zombies shuffle forward, grabbing at Vera. VERA VAUDOUN No! No!!! Attack the evil Mojo! Noooo! The train engine starts and steams begins to cover the platform of the depot. The zombies converge on Vera, pulling her up into the train as she kicks and screams. The voodoo train begins to move down the track. LeKeshia Mojo turns to board it. UNCLE MIKE LeKeshia! Don’t leave! MOJO My work here is done, Michael. I did what I came to do. It’s time for me to go. Uncle Mike stands facing LeKeshia on the platform. He takes a couple of steps toward her. She steps toward him. He pulls her to him and they kiss. As they kiss, THEIR BODIES ARE BATHED IN AN UNEARTHLY GLOW. They are transformed briefly into the youths they had once been. When they break the embrace, they turn back into present-day Mike and Mojo. She turns and boards the train. Mike, Todd and Sherry watch as the train pulls away. The train whistle sounds, getting lost in the distance with the Voodoo Train. FADE-OUT. |
| Voodoo Train copyright Matt Gallagher. All rights reserved. For information, contact the author. |
Content copyright 2009 The Mighty Gargoyle. All rights reserved.