Here’s how I think it all plays out:
1. Jeff links Randall up with Clay (and Paul’s already written the scene when they meet up en route to the roof)…Jeff just extend from the last scene with Randall in 2.4…it’s like a couple paragraphs at most I think.
2. Joe needs to look at the Randall/Jenny reunion final scene in 2.4 and decide if he wants to add a scene from Jenny’s POV where she says she loves him, etc.
3. Clay goes into maternity ward per earlier email, kills everything, and leaves with my couple and their baby.
(I’ve made bolded notes in 2.4 where these scenes need to go…just use the search function and search for the asterisks in the manuscript*)
Let’s brainstorm in the next day or so about the order of scenes and from whose POV they’re written to wrap up the big finale.
Blake
• • •
It’s now 2.5. I gave it a quick read and corrected a few typos and corrected one of my movie quotes.
Blake — I fear you’ve done too much damage to Adam for him to be good for anything. A fractured humerus makes that arm good for nothing, and we need him helping get Stacie upstairs and stacking chairs and spilling blood later on.
Jeff — can we draw out Benny’s death just a tad more? He’s been such a great nemesis, I feel he needs little more drama - I’m talking maybe a dozen words or so. And maybe a drawn-out fart before he goes…I mean, making a clown a human whoopee cushion is kind of appropriate, yes?
BTW, how DO we get Stacie up to the roof?
WHAT IS CLAY DOING? HOW DOES THIS END FOR HIM? I’M NOT SURE IF HE’S JUMPING ONTO THE HELICOPTER SKIDS ANYMORE WITH HE ADAM GOING BACK INTO THE HOSPITAL.
Adam blows up, making meat confetti. Jenny tell Randall she loves him. He dies. Just as she’s surrounded, the army drops a bomb.
Shanna sees the explosion.
We cut away after that.
Back to Shanna later: Watches the helicopter come. Clay isn’t on it. She weeps.
Meets another survivor. Young guy. He’s calm and a bit flirtatious.
How about he’s dressed in scrubs? Looks vaguely familiar. (We need to set up that Mort’s changing back to human. He goes to doctors lounge for clean clothes - we don’t need to see him putting on scrubs)
Shanna’s in isolation in the trailer. She watches copter rescue and the hospital’s fiery demolition through the 1-inch glass window. The 4 kids are brought in. Dr. Driscoll hands her the baby (“I don’t do babies.”) Then a young guy shows up in scrubs. Says he’s Dr. Michaels, a pediatrician. He’ll take care of the squalling baby. When Driscoll returns, Shanna learns there is no Dr. Michaels.
DOES CLAY SURVIVE? REUNION WITH SHANNA?
I see Clay leaving Adam, rushing up to the roof and finding the stairwell clogged with draculas. Okay, he’ll find another way out. But as he’s passing the pediatrics floor, he’s compelled to detour and find his beloved Taurus Raging Bull (which Randall told him he left behind). He finds it, and as he’s cradling it, the hospital explodes around him. I like the contrast of him saving the human love of his life but dying while attempting to rescue a non-human love.
Paul
• • •
Nice job, everyone.
I did a global search-and-replace to unify all the punctuation, and saved it as 2.6. I’ll write the Jenny/Randall Reunion, then stick it in there.
I’ll also throw it on my wife’s Kindle and see if she digs it so far. So everyone please stay out of 2.6 for the time being while I work on it this morning. When I’m done I’ll save it as 2.7.
If Blake and Jeff want to add to their scenes as Paul suggested, you guys need to do it one at a time and coordinate so you don’t save different versions.
@Paul - I used the “my middle name is” joke with Clay during the infodump scene. I figure Clay’s daddy gave him the middle name “Rambo”, as a survivalist very well might. We could save that punch line until Clay does the “Careful” line at the end of your section, or we could kill it if you don’t like it.
Joe
• • •
Randall bit Benny…so he’s already infected.
Paul
• • •
Paul, Adam’s injury concerned me as well, and started to really get on my nerves because I had to mention it constantly…I’ll go back into 2.whatever it is later tonight, and dial that back to a bruise or something so he can be ready to help Clay…and re: getting Stacie up to the roof…it’s just one flight, so I think maybe they’ll have to struggle to carry her stretcher and the (blood-transfusion stand thingy - what do they call those?)
I like your thoughts on Clay’s journey to the end. I’m for it.
Re: Moorecook…here’s where we need some magic…I love what Joe did earlier, implying he was undergoing some change, but I don’t want to telegraph that he’s truly changing back to human…maybe we need an ambiguous Mort section, (Joe?) hinting that he’s undergoing a reverse metamorphoses, but nothing anyone would suspect might lead him back to full on external humanity.
So after this young pediatric doctor has taken the baby, perhaps we have a scene in his POV (I know exactly how to do it), and only in the last paragraph do we realize this is Mort, heading back out into the world.
Blake
• • •
works for me
Paul
• • •
I was planning on doing the exact Mort/change scene you describe, Blake, right after the Jenny scene I’m working on.
Will be done in a bit, and add it to the manuscript.
Joe
• • •
You could dunk a cross in a pool of urine while environmentalists burned the American flag and Randall would not have been more outraged than he was at the sight of Benny the Clown holding his precious chainsaw.
Awesome line, Jeff.
Joe
• • •
Funny how Jeff and I both have adult male characters in love with their toys.
Paul
• • •
And they’re also able to provide their women with the best sex they’ve ever had in their lives!
Jeff
• • •
In the dropbox. Added the Jenny scene and the Moorecook scene, extended the Randall saves Jenny scene for a bit more emotional impact, and made a few minor fixes.
Randall doesn’t get bitten. He’s going to change because he swallowed some of Benny. That’ll start to happen once they’re on the roof.
As for getting Shanna up the stairs, I’m thinking a piggy-back, which would be rough enough that she’d lose more blood than she’s getting from the IV. Pretty extreme stuff, having a woman on your back who is sluicing blood down her legs. That could be how she dies…
