EVIL DEAD: THE SERIES: "Meet the Creeper"
TITLE CARD: Way Too Early, Yesterday Morning
FADE IN
on the apartment of one Ashley J. Williams.
There is a rapid knocking at the door. Ash sits up, grumbling.
He has slept on the couch, and an open pizza box is on his chest. The TV set flickers with the images of infomercials.
"What time is it?" he groans, staggering to his feet.
There is another rapid knocking.
"Just a friggin' minute," he groans. He stares at his VCR until his eyes focus:
3:45 a.m.
"The hell?"
Ash staggers to the door. "Whoever you are, this better be pretty goddamned good..."
He throws open the door. "And if you're another bat-thing I'll..."
Ash's eyes widen. A remarkably beautiful black woman stands in the doorway, clad in a tight-fitting but impeccable blazer and skirt, with moderately high heels and long, shapely legs. Behind her, an elderly black man scans the hallways of the apartment building. He wears a weathered trenchcoat and a fedora worn low over his eyes, and has wire-rimmed glasses.
Ash is not able to take his eyes off the woman, who extends a hand.
"Ashley Williams?" she asks.
Ash takes the hand and shakes it. "Who wants to know?" he asks, far less pissed off than he was before he opened the door.
The elderly man turns. "We need to talk, inside, for privacy, Mr. Williams," he says.
Williams steps aside and lets the two in.
"My name is Eldridge Stone," the elderly man says, "and this is my daughter, Rosetta."
Ash nods appreciatively at the woman.
"We need to talk with you about your skills as a monster slayer."
"As a whaa---?" Ash asks. "Look, pal, I don't know what you've heard, but I'm just a working joe.."
"Who kills demons," Stone says. "And who has survived multiple attacks by the creatures invoked by an ancient tome called the Necronomicon Ex Mortis."
Ash crosses his arms. "How'd you find all this out?"
"Research, Mr. Williams, research," Stone says. "We've been studying you for more than half a year, trying to determine if you really are a 'deadite slayer'..."
"Any deadites come near me, I slay 'em," Ash says. "That good enough for you?"
"Works for me," Rosetta says, a smile at the corner of her lips.
"We had hoped to do this gradually, inconspicuously," Stone continues.
"Inconspicuous?" Ash says, his eyes focused on Rosetta. "I can't say I'd notice you in a crowd, fella, but your daughter isn't exactly the 'blend in' type... and I mean that in a good way."
Stone coughs. "Be that as it may, we didn't want to bother you this soon..."
"I sense a 'but' coming on..."
"BUT," Rosetta says, "a circumstance has arisen that needs your attention."
Ash lifts an eyebrow. "A... circumstance? Why do I have a feeling I'm not going to like this?"
Eldridge Stone grins. "He's got good instincts, you have to admit..."
FADE OUT.
OPENING CREDITS ROLL.
ACT ONE
TITLE CARD: "Meet the Creeper"
SPECIAL GUEST STAR: Morgan Freeman as Eldridge Stone
SPECIAL GUEST STAR: Vivica A. Fox as Rosetta Stone
FADE IN
as a white 1978 Mercury Cougar speeds down the dark highway, heading out of Detroit.
Ashley J. Williams sits in the back seat, arms crossed. His chainsaw case is by his side, along with his sawed-off shotgun and a backpack containing shotgun cartridges, a silver dagger or two, a Crucifix, a first aid kit, and various other tools of the "trade".
Rosetta Stone is at the wheel of the car, and Eldridge Stone sits in the passenger seat, bopping his head merrily to the sounds of Kool and the Gang on 8-track.
"A little more explanation would be nice," Ash says loudly, to be heard over the music.
Eldridge looks back at him, then reaches forward and turns off the tape player. "Certainly, Mr. Williams, certainly... we need you in place just in case a certain nefarious evil arises as promised at a cemetary in Rhode Island."
"The boss'll have my balls in a vice for missing work...." Ash complains.
"Consider this a test run," Rosetta says. "See if you're man enough to deal with the things that go bump in the night."
"Man enough?" Ash snaps. "Listen, sister, I've killed creatures you haven't even dreamed about in your worst nightmares!"
"I doubt that," Rosetta says with a smirk.
Ash regards her for a moment, and decides not to pursue the argument further.
"Well, couldn't we at least fly there?" Ash asks.
Eldridge Stone shakes his head no. "The airlines are too carefully monitored. There are forces out there watching our every movement. If they notice that you or I tend to fly to places where unnatural phenomena are detected, we may be noticed...." he leans his head back. "And being noticed by them is a bad thing, Mr. Williams. A very bad thing."
Ash yawns. "Well, how long will it take us to get there?"
"18 hours, give or take," Rosetta says without turning her attention back. "Assuming I drive fast without speeding enough to attract the attention of law enforcement."
Ash blinks, trying to add it together. "That'll put us in Providence around..."
"10 p.m.," Eldridge says. "Giving us a good two hours leeway, in case of traffic jams. The... uh, 'shit' isn't supposed to 'go down' until midnight."
"And you took the time difference into account between Detroit and Providence?" Ash asks.
Eldridge Stone's expression goes pallid. "Um... one hour leeway, that is."
"Not much room for error, there, champ," Ash says. "Or potty breaks, for that matter. Why didn't you come to me sooner?"
"I just learned about this threat myself, Mr. Williams," Eldridge replies. "From one of my many Internet contacts, a young woman in the fringes of the 'Gothic' community of Providence, whose friends are obsessed with the supernatural and came across an obscure but very troubling legend..."
CUT TO:
Quite a bit more than 18 hours later, in a cemetary on the outskirts of Providence, on a moonlit night.
Fog rolls off a lake adjacent to the cemetary, and the limbs of gnarled trees sway in the wind.
All would be deadly quiet were it not for voices in one of the darkest corners of the graveyard.
Five young people sit around, two leaning against tombstones, one sitting on top of one, one stretched out across a mausoleum, and the fifth pacing back and forth. Three of them are girls, and all look to be in their teens. They are all dressed in black, save a few grey garments here and there and some jewelry, most of it silver. To call them Goth punks is exaggerating a bit; they are more like Goth wannabes.
The kid who is pacing is a lean 17-year old boy, his hair bleached blond and spikey. He wears a trenchcoat, and a T-shirt that reads 'Bauhaus'. "Are you sure this is supposed to be THE night?" he asks impatiently.
The person stretched out across the mausoleum lid looks up. She is a skinny 18-year old girl with bright red hair on the left side of her head and jet-black hair on the right side, and her lipstick and eyeliner is a reverse of that color scheme. She has a pierced lip, a nosering, pierced eyebrows, and about half a dozen earrings in each ear. "Of course I'm sure," she says indignantly, holding up several wadded pages of photocopies. "I e-mailed this old occultist kook I know, and asked him to verify the book I found this in was for real." She grins playfully. "He said it was, and got all worried about why I had the book in the first place."
"That smelly old leather-bound book you hide in your closet?" a black 17-year old girl asks.
The red/black-haired girl nods, then clears her throat and starts to read:
" 'And verily it shall be that at midnight on the 222nd anniversary of his death, Icarus DeStrait shall arise, and seek he vengeance upon the descendants of those who shot, stabbed, hung and burned him as a warlock, this 24th day of August, in the year of our lord, 1777.' He was buried in an unmarked grave here, from what I've read."
"1777? Wasn't that, like, the bisontennial or something?" asks a chubby-faced brunette boy, who is leaning against one of the tombstones. The blond girl beside him gives him a light slap.
"Why would he choose 222 years?" asks the black 17-year old girl, who is sitting atop a tombstone, her legs crossed in yoga position. "That doesn't make sense...""It's one-third of 666," the red/black-haired girl replies. "And he only sold a third of his soul to Satan when he became a warlock."
"You're making this shit up, Beatrice," the blond boy says.
"Am not!" the red/black-haired girl replies defensively.
"Yes you are!" the chubby-faced boy says. "Let's just go score some beers and watch a Raimi flick."
Beatrice waves the photocopied pages. "If I'm making this up, where'd I get these?"
"Well, the devil doesn't buy partial souls," the blond boy says. "Whoever wrote that made it all up."
"No, he didn't," comes another voice, gravelly and feral.
All heads turn to the fog rolling in off the lake as a figure moves closer, either coming out of the mist or materializing from it. His hair is a wild, tangled mass of black, his beard long and shaggy. His eyes are sunken and hollow, the pupils yellow and seemingly casting a glow of their own. His skin is cadaverously pale, leaning toward greyish. He is clad in a ragged black waistcoat and a torn silk shirt, and a rusty empty scabbard is at his side.
He also has a bullethole through his forehead, droplets of blood trickling down from it across the bridge of his nose.
"It's all part of Lucifer's mind games with mankind. He doesn't need to buy any souls anyhow," the man says in a low, gutteral tone as he unsheathes his scabbard. "Enough people are going to hell as it is..."
FADE OUT.
ACT TWO
And special guest star Rob Zombie (www.robzombie.com) as Icarus DeStrait
FADE IN
As the teens stare at the creepy figure before them.
"Icarus?" Beatrice asks. "Icarus DeStrait?"
"No," the man growls, "I'm some other warlock who rose on the date of his foretold return by sheer coincidence." He snarls. "Of course I'm DeStrait, who are you whelps?"
"I'm Lou," the blond says, waving to the blonde girl and the chubby-faced boy, "And those are Trixie and Dave, and that's Desiree on the tombstone over there, and that's Beatrice."
Dave stands. "And this is bullshit," he declares. "this guy ain't no supernatural force."
"What makes you say that?" the man identifying himself as DeStrait sneers.
"You're casting a shadow, dickweed," Dave replies, motioning to the ground behind him. "Ghosts don't do that, same as vampires don't cast reflections."
"Yeah!" Trixie says.
DeStrait looks down at the ground behind him, sees the shadow, and nods. "You know, you make a compelling argument."
Dave smiles triumphantly.
"Here's my rebuttal," DeStrait says, waving a hand as he chants something in Latin.
Dave looks down as the ground beneath his feet takes on an eerie pale greenish-white glow. The glow slowly rises, like a three-foot wide disc floating upwards and passing through Dave's legs. As it rises, there is a hissing, searing sound and the flesh beneath the glowing disc is gone, leaving nothing but charred skeleton. Dave screams desperately, unable to move, as the glowing disc makes its way up his thigh.
"Holy shit!!" Desiree cries.
Trixie takes off running, and Beatrice drops behind the mausoleum.
"Stop it!" Lou yells, trying to be heard over Dave's pitiful moans of unimaginable agony.
The disc stops rising, mere inches from Dave's crotch.
DeStrait looks over at Lou. "Not til I've finished stating my case," he says, a cruel smile playing at the corner of his lip.
The disc resumes its path, and Dave cries out louder than before as it makes its way past his navel and partway up his belly.
His upper half is still fully human, and the half below the glowing disc is nothing but skeleton, still standing in position through some unknown means.
Dave gurgles, the shock of the pain having shut out any coherent thoughts.
DeStrait snaps a finger, and the glowing disc vanishes.
Dave falls to the ground, his inner organs splashing across the ground and the bones of his lower skeletal half clattering as they fly in different directions. He seems to try to raise his head, then it falls back, and his eyes roll back.
DeStrait looks across the graveyard, where Trixie is running for her life. He flicks his wrist, mutters a Latin chant, and a ball of fire shoots from his fingertips, tiny at first, but growing larger every moment. By the time it reaches Trixie, it is the size of a basketball. She screams as the fireball strikes her, its flames engulfing her in seconds. She falls to the ground in a heap, her whimpers drowned out by the crackling of the fire and sound of sizzling flesh. They still see movement in her fallen body well beyond the time she should have died... then, finally, the flames die down, revealing a charred husk.
DeStrait looks around at the others. "Anybody else care to debate?"
CUT TO:
A white 1978 Mercury Cougar pulls up to the outside gates of Swan Point Cemetary.
"You sure this is the place?" Ash asks, leaning forward in his seat.
Ahead of them, the remaining Goth kids scale the cemetary gates, screaming, and run off into the night.
"I think so," Eldridge Stone replies.
"Stupid road work," Rosetta mutters as she parks the car. "Looks like we're too late."
"Not if Mr. Williams can stop him," Eldridge Stone replies. "As long as the warlock doesn't step foot outside the cemetary walls, we're safe."
Ash gets out of the car and takes off his mechanical hand, replacing it with his chainsaw, then picks up his shotgun and straps it across his back. "Soon as this little jamboree's over, we're finding a bar and you're paying, old-timer."
"It's a deal, Mr. Williams," Eldridge Stone replies.
Ash strides resolutely toward the cemetary's front gate, which is heavily padlocked. He glances back over his shoulder. "By the way, what happens if the warlock does step foot outside the cemetary walls?"
"The streets run red with blood, and his power increases tenfold for every soul he destroys belonging to someone descended from those who killed him," Eldridge replies. "
"Oh, is that all?" Ash turns his attention toward the front gate. With a tug on his chainsaw, he activates it and cuts through the chains binding the gate.
Behind him, Rosetta holds up a small camcorder and starts recording his actions.
"Should he risk wrecking his weapon like that?" she asks her father without turning from her taping.
"Mr. Williams is not a man who pauses to consider things like that, my dear," Eldridge replies. "If he did pause, he would be dead by now. A deadite slayer must be a man of action, whose instincts lead him at all times."
"Should he be a cute but uncouth lout?" Rosetta asks.
Eldridge thinks a moment. "Most likely, yes."
Ash steps back and, with appropriate flourish, kicks the gates wide open.
"Daddy's home," he calls as he steps through the gates.
Fog billows across gravestones.
Footsteps fall ahead of him. Ash looks up as a figure steps around a mausoleum.
Icarus DeStrait and Ashley J. Williams regard each other curiously.
"Make up your mind, pal, are you a pirate or a warlock?" Ash asks. "You look like Blackbeard and Ozzy Osbourne had a kid."
DeStrait seems perplexed. "Ozzy who?"
"Doesn't really matter," Ash says, pulling the shotgun from across his back and firing. DeStrait is knocked backwards. After a long moment, the warlock stumbles to his feet and looks down at the blood gushing from his shoulder.
"How rude," he says, clenching his fist and muttering a spell in Latin.
Mystic energy flows around his fist, its greenish white glow brightening as he concentrates.
"Nah, I don't think so," Ash says, firing another shot, this time aiming at the fist.
A startled DeStrait holds up the stump of his hand. "Bastard, ye didn't give me time to cast the spe---"
DeStrait looks up just as Ash bears down on him, chainsaw roaring, and cuts the warlock's head off.
The body remains standing, staggering a bit. Ash takes another swing, chopping through his opponent's torso.
The pieces fall to the ground, and Ash scowls at them. "It couldn't be that easy."
"Correct, lad," the head of DeStrait says, laying on its side in the grass. "In a second I'll re-form and ye'll be sorr---"
Ash takes a step back, then runs forward and kicks DeStrait's head like a football laying in the grass, sending it hurtling over headstones a dozen yards away. As it flies through the air, the head lets loose with a stream of profanities.
Over to one side, the torso of DeStrait pulls back together, tattered but now intact, and his headless body starts to stumble in the direction of the head.
Rosetta Stone, standing beside the gate, adjusts the focus on her camcorder. "This ghoul isn't putting up much of a fight, Pappa," she says.
"It's early in the game yet," Eldridge replies.
Up ahead of them, Ash strides past the stumbling headless body, walking in the direction of the head of Icarus DeStrait.
"I just drove a whole frikkin' day to get here," Ash growls, "Here I am itching for a fight and all I've got to beat on is you..."
DeStrait's head lays up ahead, chanting something in Latin.
"And I gotta point out, pal, you're not much of an opponent," Ash continues as he moves closer. "You wouldn't get past PFC in the Army of Darkne---"
Skeletal hands jut out from graves all around. Ash looks around surprised. Bodies emerge from their tombs, most of them no more than skeletons in tattered rags. And there are dozens of them.
As Ash takes his chainsaw to the nearest ones, the torso of DeStrait stumbles past and picks up its head, putting it on backwards at first but then correcting its mistake. Muscle and bone reconnect and DeStrait flexes his muscles. "Ah, better," he says.
He turns, crossing his arms and watching with an amused gleam in his eyes as dozens of skeletons swarm over Ash....
FADE OUT.
ACT THREE
FADE IN
With Ash swinging his chainsaw wildly, sending bones clattering in all directions, as he tries to fight his way out of a skeletal army.
"Ye caught me off-guard, boy," Icarus DeStrait says, cracking his knuckles as he watches his army swarm over Ash. "It won't happen again."
Ash grunts as he fights the skeletons, his chainsaw on his right hand buzzing away while he fires the shotgun held in his left hand; he blows one skeleton's skull to pieces with his shotgun and then swings the stock of the weapon to knock a rotting cadaver off its feet. He then reloads the gun, puts the barrel under the cadaver's nose, and pulls the trigger before it has a chance to react.
Ash wipes the gore off his face, and stares over at DeStrait. "I've been fighting corpses for years, jackass, can't you do better than that?"
At a distance, Eldridge and Rosetta Stone watch the battle. Rosetta lowers her camcorder.
"Pappa, shouldn't we be helping him about now?" she asks.
"He doesn't need our help," Eldridge replies with a wide grin. "Look at him go... he's a natural."
"I can't tell if he's got supernatural powers of if he's just an incredibly persistent fighter," Rosetta says.
"Not sure," Eldridge replies. "One theory someone suggested in an e-mail is that Ashley Williams has enhanced reflexes, coming from the fact that he was once possessed by the deadites. He overcame them, but perhaps a fraction of their mystic energy remained in him, 'supercharging' him, as it were..."
"Interesting," Rosetta says, "which would imply there could be more deadite slayers like him..."
"Very few people could expunge a deadite that had possessed them," Eldridge says. "It takes the willpower of a... well, someone like him." He motions back toward the battle.
Icarus DeStrait looks at the battlefield before him; Ash stands amidst the tombstones, shattered bones around him as he continues to fight the seemingly countless undead.
"It does... lack a certain something," DeStrait says. He looks around himself at the tombstones, contemplating.
Then, a diabolical smile tears its way across his ghoulish face.
Eldridge takes notes in a small notepad as Rosetta continues taping the battle.
"You know, none of the skeleton zombie things are heading toward us," Rosetta points out. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you..."
"They're operating under DeStrait's commands, and he perceives Mr. Williams as a threat," Eldridge explains. "We're incidental to the current situation... though if DeStrait's side were to win that fight, I have no doubt they'd turn and attack us."
Rosetta glances over her shoulder, gauging the distance to the fence.
Ash starts to swing his chainsaw at another skeleton, when his opponent collapses suddenly.
All around him, the skeletons and corpses drop to the ground.
Ash catches his breath as he looks around at the bodies scattered everywhere. All is silent. Icarus DeStrait stands, arms crossed, regarding his opponent from a distance.
Crickets chirp.
Ash reloads his shotgun.
"Whatever you've got planned, yer gonna fail," Ash says. "The bad guys always fail against me. So why not give up like a nice little warlock-pirate-whatever the fuck you are?"
DeStrait grins smugly and recites a new verse of Latin.
Ash glances around. There is a mild grinding noise, growing all around him.
"What the---?" Ash asks.
He looks down at the tombstone nearest him, which is starting to shake ever so slightly.
The tombstone has a skull with wings on either side of it, and the inscription "Here Lies The Body of Neville Crumb, died of the pox 1841" beneath.
Ash lowers his shotgun toward the ground just in front of the stone, ready to blast the skeleton of Crumb should it emerge.
Instead, there is a loud shrieking noise.
The winged skull tears itself from the marble, emerging as a three-dimensional object. Despite the fact that that it appears to still be composed of stone, and therefore supposedly quite heavy, the winged skull flies about frantically, like a panicking bat, screaming as it swerves up and hits Ash in the jaw.
Ash is thrown backwards. By the time he gets to his feet, winged skulls from other headstones have joined this one, flying through the air and emitting ghastly cries.
From other tombstones, Ash sees cherubs, angels, and even a few lambs emerge.
Ash stares incredulously at a stone lamb, barely a foot tall, that stares up at him with red glowing eyes and bares serrated fangs.
It lunges, and he brings his chainsaw up to deflect its attack.
There is a shower of sparks, as the lamb is broken in half and the chain of the chainsaw tears apart and jams.
"Now, this is more like it," DeStrait says with a malevolent chuckle. "Looks like one of yer weapons is... what's the word?... dead..."
Ash does not have time to reply before a swarm of flying skulls and winged cherubs take turns dive-bombing him.
Eldridge adjusts his wire-rim glasses. "That is not a favorable development," he says.
"Should we help him?" Rosetta asks.
Eldridge bites his lower lip. "Not just yet... but get your holy water ready, just in case."
Rosetta nods, continuing taping with one hand. She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a small mace canister, and grips it in her other hand.
Ash swings his defunct chainsaw like a club, pulverizing the head of a foot-tall dancing stone skeleton at his feet. He then swings it upwards, knocking one flying stone skull into another one. Concrete angels grab at his pants legs, distracting him long enough for another marble lamb to make its move, striking him hard in the stomach. Ash crumples.
The lamb bleats menacingly as it starts to rear up and bring its hooves down on him. Ash does a cartwheel backwards and comes up, rolling around and pulling up his shotgun. The blast breaks the lamb and an angel next to it to pieces. Ash uses his heavy workboots to kick an advancing cherub, then reloads his shotgun. A group of winged skulls arc high in the air and dive toward him as fast as they can. Ash does a backflip, landing atop a nearby tombstone.
He nearly loses his balance as the winged skulls crash into the base of the tombstone, several of them shattering.
"He sure is... limber," Rosetta says with a hint of admiration in her eyes.
"It may be something in his heritage," Eldridge says. "My preliminary research turned up some very interesting anecdotes involving his father."
Standing atop the tombstone, Ash uses his teeth to pull the strap that holds his chainsaw onto his right wrist. It falls from his arm, and he uses the stump as a brace to level his shotgun at Icarus DeStrait.
Ash fires, knocking his opponent off his feet.... and the force of the shot does the same to Ash, who tumbles backwards off the tombstone.
Ash gets to his feet, reloading his shotgun.
The stone attackers lay scattered on the ground, not moving.
He stares curiously at them, then at DeStrait, whose chest is re-forming to seal the gaping wound left by the shotgun blast. DeStrait chants something in Latin, and his minions rise again.
Ash grins.
Ash ducks and rolls as winged skulls and foot-tall marble angels dive at him. He no longer pauses to fight them back, focusing instead on dodging them as he makes his way across the battlefield toward DeStrait.
"You have to be concentrating to keep 'em going." Ash says. "You get distracted, they fall down."
DeStrait narrows his beady eyes, scowling at his opponent. "I won't be caught off-guard again." He recites a verse of Latin, and his eyes glow with pale yellow energy.
Ash grabs a cherub and throws it in front of him, just in time to avoid being vaporized. The cherub turns to dust in his hands.
DeStrait repeats the verse, his eyes glow again. This time, Ash dives behind a tombstone, which crumbles under the force of the energy bolt, leaving only the bottom third of it, with the inscription 'I Am Providence', intact.
Ash jumps onto tombstones, running across the tops of them and leaping to dodge the energy blasts DeStrait fires. Ash stumbles, falling to the ground.
DeStrait strides that direction, chuckling malevolently. His stone warriors follow.
Rosetta lowers her camcorder and draws her pistol.
Eldridge puts a hand on her shoulder. "Wait it out," he says. "If we act before the battle is over--"
"Then what?" Rosetta asks angrily. "We save that man from getting killed? Good God, Poppa, this isn't some lab rat you're observing..."
DeStrait, muttering his Latin verse once again, looks over the tombstone as Ash gets to his knees.
"Boo," DeStrait says, the glow of the mystic energy welling up in his eyes.
"Hoo," Ash replies, jamming his shotgun under the man's chin and pulling the trigger.
DeStrait is thrown backwards. Behind him, the stone army falls to the ground again.
Ash gets to his feet and looks at DeStrait, whose head has been blown apart. The blackened gore is slowly restructuring itself.
Ash looks around on the ground, and sees bone and flesh rolling through the grass heading back to DeStrait's body. Ash's eyes focus on one particular object. He grabs the top of a nearby tombstone and, with tremendous effort, pushes it off its base, landing flat with a loud thud.
Ash then reloads as he strides over toward DeStrait, who is nearly complete.
DeStrait mumbles something incomprehensible.
"Aw, what's the matter, cat got your tongue?" Ash asks. "No, come to think of it, it's under a tombstone back there..."
DeStrait's eyes widen.
"And from what I can tell, you can't cast your spells without reciting them, can ya?" Ash asks.
DeStrait roars and lunges forward... And Ash blows his head off again.
"And you can't revive your stone army, or the skeleton army for that matter, without reciting your spell again," Ash says. "And you need them to keep me distracted. Looks like you're outta luck, pal."
After the smoke settles, bits of flesh begin to coalesce on the undead warlock yet again... and before they come together fully, Ash blows DeStrait's head off once more.
"Yo, Professor," Ash calls. "I'd rather not keep doing this all night, if you have any suggestions."
Eldridge and Rosetta Stone step over the skeletal bodies and stone objects and walk up next to Ash, as he reloads and fires yet another shot.
"He's just gonna keep coming back together til I run out of cartridges," Ash says. "And somebody's gonna notice all the shots coming from the graveyard eventually."
Eldridge Stone taps his forefinger on the side of his head, contemplating. "We can cut him into small pieces and scatter them in different mausoleums, maybe take the jawbone with us when we leave and bury it another state, just to be sure..."
"That's fine, but... hold on..." Ash shoots again... "My chainsaw got screwed up back there, so what do we cut him up with?"
Eldridge taps on the side of his head some more. "I think I saw an S-Mart a few miles down the street. They're open all night, right?"
"Twenty-four seven three sixty five point two five, like they say in the ads," Ash replies.
"I'll go buy a replacement chainsaw, and perhaps some hacksaws as well," Eldridge says.
Rosetta grimaces at the thought.
"Hurry up, before I run out of ammo here," Ash says as he leans against a tombstone.
Eldridge turns to go.
"I'll stay here, and keep Ash company," Rosetta says.
Eldridge raises an eyebrow at his daughter, then nods and heads off.
Rosetta sits down on the tombstone beside the one Ash is leaning against. "You're a very brave man."
"And you're a very perceptive lady," Ash replies, lowering his shotgun once again to blow DeStrait's head apart.
Rosetta flinches at the shotgun blast.
"I hope that hurts him," Ash says.
"It can't feel good," Rosetta suggests with a laugh. "Poppa's going to try to recruit you to fight the forces of darkness, you know..."
"I figured he wasn't just researching me for fun," Ash replies. "But you're perceptive, so I think you'll know what my answer's gonna be."
Rosetta looks up at the stars, considering this. "I'd say... you'll turn him down, because you want to lead a normal life and, even if the deadites won't let that happen, you want to face them on your own terms..."
"Give the lady a prize," Ash replies. "I never was very good at following orders."
"Poppa's very stubborn," Rosetta says. "He'll keep coming around."grins. "As long as you come with him, that won't be so bad."
Rosetta blushes.
On the ground in front of them, DeStrait has almost fully reformed and starts to sit up.
"Oops, you distracted me with those brown eyes of yours," Ash says, reloading his shotgun and blowing DeStrait's head apart yet again.
"Lovely night, apart from the stench of gunpowder and corpses," Rosetta says.
"Ah, you get used to it," Ash replies as we....
FADE OUT.
End.
TITLE CARD: Way Too Early, Yesterday Morning
FADE IN
on the apartment of one Ashley J. Williams.
There is a rapid knocking at the door. Ash sits up, grumbling.
He has slept on the couch, and an open pizza box is on his chest. The TV set flickers with the images of infomercials.
"What time is it?" he groans, staggering to his feet.
There is another rapid knocking.
"Just a friggin' minute," he groans. He stares at his VCR until his eyes focus:
3:45 a.m.
"The hell?"
Ash staggers to the door. "Whoever you are, this better be pretty goddamned good..."
He throws open the door. "And if you're another bat-thing I'll..."
Ash's eyes widen. A remarkably beautiful black woman stands in the doorway, clad in a tight-fitting but impeccable blazer and skirt, with moderately high heels and long, shapely legs. Behind her, an elderly black man scans the hallways of the apartment building. He wears a weathered trenchcoat and a fedora worn low over his eyes, and has wire-rimmed glasses.
Ash is not able to take his eyes off the woman, who extends a hand.
"Ashley Williams?" she asks.
Ash takes the hand and shakes it. "Who wants to know?" he asks, far less pissed off than he was before he opened the door.
The elderly man turns. "We need to talk, inside, for privacy, Mr. Williams," he says.
Williams steps aside and lets the two in.
"My name is Eldridge Stone," the elderly man says, "and this is my daughter, Rosetta."
Ash nods appreciatively at the woman.
"We need to talk with you about your skills as a monster slayer."
"As a whaa---?" Ash asks. "Look, pal, I don't know what you've heard, but I'm just a working joe.."
"Who kills demons," Stone says. "And who has survived multiple attacks by the creatures invoked by an ancient tome called the Necronomicon Ex Mortis."
Ash crosses his arms. "How'd you find all this out?"
"Research, Mr. Williams, research," Stone says. "We've been studying you for more than half a year, trying to determine if you really are a 'deadite slayer'..."
"Any deadites come near me, I slay 'em," Ash says. "That good enough for you?"
"Works for me," Rosetta says, a smile at the corner of her lips.
"We had hoped to do this gradually, inconspicuously," Stone continues.
"Inconspicuous?" Ash says, his eyes focused on Rosetta. "I can't say I'd notice you in a crowd, fella, but your daughter isn't exactly the 'blend in' type... and I mean that in a good way."
Stone coughs. "Be that as it may, we didn't want to bother you this soon..."
"I sense a 'but' coming on..."
"BUT," Rosetta says, "a circumstance has arisen that needs your attention."
Ash lifts an eyebrow. "A... circumstance? Why do I have a feeling I'm not going to like this?"
Eldridge Stone grins. "He's got good instincts, you have to admit..."
FADE OUT.
OPENING CREDITS ROLL.
ACT ONE
TITLE CARD: "Meet the Creeper"
SPECIAL GUEST STAR: Morgan Freeman as Eldridge Stone
SPECIAL GUEST STAR: Vivica A. Fox as Rosetta Stone
FADE IN
as a white 1978 Mercury Cougar speeds down the dark highway, heading out of Detroit.
Ashley J. Williams sits in the back seat, arms crossed. His chainsaw case is by his side, along with his sawed-off shotgun and a backpack containing shotgun cartridges, a silver dagger or two, a Crucifix, a first aid kit, and various other tools of the "trade".
Rosetta Stone is at the wheel of the car, and Eldridge Stone sits in the passenger seat, bopping his head merrily to the sounds of Kool and the Gang on 8-track.
"A little more explanation would be nice," Ash says loudly, to be heard over the music.
Eldridge looks back at him, then reaches forward and turns off the tape player. "Certainly, Mr. Williams, certainly... we need you in place just in case a certain nefarious evil arises as promised at a cemetary in Rhode Island."
"The boss'll have my balls in a vice for missing work...." Ash complains.
"Consider this a test run," Rosetta says. "See if you're man enough to deal with the things that go bump in the night."
"Man enough?" Ash snaps. "Listen, sister, I've killed creatures you haven't even dreamed about in your worst nightmares!"
"I doubt that," Rosetta says with a smirk.
Ash regards her for a moment, and decides not to pursue the argument further.
"Well, couldn't we at least fly there?" Ash asks.
Eldridge Stone shakes his head no. "The airlines are too carefully monitored. There are forces out there watching our every movement. If they notice that you or I tend to fly to places where unnatural phenomena are detected, we may be noticed...." he leans his head back. "And being noticed by them is a bad thing, Mr. Williams. A very bad thing."
Ash yawns. "Well, how long will it take us to get there?"
"18 hours, give or take," Rosetta says without turning her attention back. "Assuming I drive fast without speeding enough to attract the attention of law enforcement."
Ash blinks, trying to add it together. "That'll put us in Providence around..."
"10 p.m.," Eldridge says. "Giving us a good two hours leeway, in case of traffic jams. The... uh, 'shit' isn't supposed to 'go down' until midnight."
"And you took the time difference into account between Detroit and Providence?" Ash asks.
Eldridge Stone's expression goes pallid. "Um... one hour leeway, that is."
"Not much room for error, there, champ," Ash says. "Or potty breaks, for that matter. Why didn't you come to me sooner?"
"I just learned about this threat myself, Mr. Williams," Eldridge replies. "From one of my many Internet contacts, a young woman in the fringes of the 'Gothic' community of Providence, whose friends are obsessed with the supernatural and came across an obscure but very troubling legend..."
CUT TO:
Quite a bit more than 18 hours later, in a cemetary on the outskirts of Providence, on a moonlit night.
Fog rolls off a lake adjacent to the cemetary, and the limbs of gnarled trees sway in the wind.
All would be deadly quiet were it not for voices in one of the darkest corners of the graveyard.
Five young people sit around, two leaning against tombstones, one sitting on top of one, one stretched out across a mausoleum, and the fifth pacing back and forth. Three of them are girls, and all look to be in their teens. They are all dressed in black, save a few grey garments here and there and some jewelry, most of it silver. To call them Goth punks is exaggerating a bit; they are more like Goth wannabes.
The kid who is pacing is a lean 17-year old boy, his hair bleached blond and spikey. He wears a trenchcoat, and a T-shirt that reads 'Bauhaus'. "Are you sure this is supposed to be THE night?" he asks impatiently.
The person stretched out across the mausoleum lid looks up. She is a skinny 18-year old girl with bright red hair on the left side of her head and jet-black hair on the right side, and her lipstick and eyeliner is a reverse of that color scheme. She has a pierced lip, a nosering, pierced eyebrows, and about half a dozen earrings in each ear. "Of course I'm sure," she says indignantly, holding up several wadded pages of photocopies. "I e-mailed this old occultist kook I know, and asked him to verify the book I found this in was for real." She grins playfully. "He said it was, and got all worried about why I had the book in the first place."
"That smelly old leather-bound book you hide in your closet?" a black 17-year old girl asks.
The red/black-haired girl nods, then clears her throat and starts to read:
" 'And verily it shall be that at midnight on the 222nd anniversary of his death, Icarus DeStrait shall arise, and seek he vengeance upon the descendants of those who shot, stabbed, hung and burned him as a warlock, this 24th day of August, in the year of our lord, 1777.' He was buried in an unmarked grave here, from what I've read."
"1777? Wasn't that, like, the bisontennial or something?" asks a chubby-faced brunette boy, who is leaning against one of the tombstones. The blond girl beside him gives him a light slap.
"Why would he choose 222 years?" asks the black 17-year old girl, who is sitting atop a tombstone, her legs crossed in yoga position. "That doesn't make sense...""It's one-third of 666," the red/black-haired girl replies. "And he only sold a third of his soul to Satan when he became a warlock."
"You're making this shit up, Beatrice," the blond boy says.
"Am not!" the red/black-haired girl replies defensively.
"Yes you are!" the chubby-faced boy says. "Let's just go score some beers and watch a Raimi flick."
Beatrice waves the photocopied pages. "If I'm making this up, where'd I get these?"
"Well, the devil doesn't buy partial souls," the blond boy says. "Whoever wrote that made it all up."
"No, he didn't," comes another voice, gravelly and feral.
All heads turn to the fog rolling in off the lake as a figure moves closer, either coming out of the mist or materializing from it. His hair is a wild, tangled mass of black, his beard long and shaggy. His eyes are sunken and hollow, the pupils yellow and seemingly casting a glow of their own. His skin is cadaverously pale, leaning toward greyish. He is clad in a ragged black waistcoat and a torn silk shirt, and a rusty empty scabbard is at his side.
He also has a bullethole through his forehead, droplets of blood trickling down from it across the bridge of his nose.
"It's all part of Lucifer's mind games with mankind. He doesn't need to buy any souls anyhow," the man says in a low, gutteral tone as he unsheathes his scabbard. "Enough people are going to hell as it is..."
FADE OUT.
ACT TWO
And special guest star Rob Zombie (www.robzombie.com) as Icarus DeStrait
FADE IN
As the teens stare at the creepy figure before them.
"Icarus?" Beatrice asks. "Icarus DeStrait?"
"No," the man growls, "I'm some other warlock who rose on the date of his foretold return by sheer coincidence." He snarls. "Of course I'm DeStrait, who are you whelps?"
"I'm Lou," the blond says, waving to the blonde girl and the chubby-faced boy, "And those are Trixie and Dave, and that's Desiree on the tombstone over there, and that's Beatrice."
Dave stands. "And this is bullshit," he declares. "this guy ain't no supernatural force."
"What makes you say that?" the man identifying himself as DeStrait sneers.
"You're casting a shadow, dickweed," Dave replies, motioning to the ground behind him. "Ghosts don't do that, same as vampires don't cast reflections."
"Yeah!" Trixie says.
DeStrait looks down at the ground behind him, sees the shadow, and nods. "You know, you make a compelling argument."
Dave smiles triumphantly.
"Here's my rebuttal," DeStrait says, waving a hand as he chants something in Latin.
Dave looks down as the ground beneath his feet takes on an eerie pale greenish-white glow. The glow slowly rises, like a three-foot wide disc floating upwards and passing through Dave's legs. As it rises, there is a hissing, searing sound and the flesh beneath the glowing disc is gone, leaving nothing but charred skeleton. Dave screams desperately, unable to move, as the glowing disc makes its way up his thigh.
"Holy shit!!" Desiree cries.
Trixie takes off running, and Beatrice drops behind the mausoleum.
"Stop it!" Lou yells, trying to be heard over Dave's pitiful moans of unimaginable agony.
The disc stops rising, mere inches from Dave's crotch.
DeStrait looks over at Lou. "Not til I've finished stating my case," he says, a cruel smile playing at the corner of his lip.
The disc resumes its path, and Dave cries out louder than before as it makes its way past his navel and partway up his belly.
His upper half is still fully human, and the half below the glowing disc is nothing but skeleton, still standing in position through some unknown means.
Dave gurgles, the shock of the pain having shut out any coherent thoughts.
DeStrait snaps a finger, and the glowing disc vanishes.
Dave falls to the ground, his inner organs splashing across the ground and the bones of his lower skeletal half clattering as they fly in different directions. He seems to try to raise his head, then it falls back, and his eyes roll back.
DeStrait looks across the graveyard, where Trixie is running for her life. He flicks his wrist, mutters a Latin chant, and a ball of fire shoots from his fingertips, tiny at first, but growing larger every moment. By the time it reaches Trixie, it is the size of a basketball. She screams as the fireball strikes her, its flames engulfing her in seconds. She falls to the ground in a heap, her whimpers drowned out by the crackling of the fire and sound of sizzling flesh. They still see movement in her fallen body well beyond the time she should have died... then, finally, the flames die down, revealing a charred husk.
DeStrait looks around at the others. "Anybody else care to debate?"
CUT TO:
A white 1978 Mercury Cougar pulls up to the outside gates of Swan Point Cemetary.
"You sure this is the place?" Ash asks, leaning forward in his seat.
Ahead of them, the remaining Goth kids scale the cemetary gates, screaming, and run off into the night.
"I think so," Eldridge Stone replies.
"Stupid road work," Rosetta mutters as she parks the car. "Looks like we're too late."
"Not if Mr. Williams can stop him," Eldridge Stone replies. "As long as the warlock doesn't step foot outside the cemetary walls, we're safe."
Ash gets out of the car and takes off his mechanical hand, replacing it with his chainsaw, then picks up his shotgun and straps it across his back. "Soon as this little jamboree's over, we're finding a bar and you're paying, old-timer."
"It's a deal, Mr. Williams," Eldridge Stone replies.
Ash strides resolutely toward the cemetary's front gate, which is heavily padlocked. He glances back over his shoulder. "By the way, what happens if the warlock does step foot outside the cemetary walls?"
"The streets run red with blood, and his power increases tenfold for every soul he destroys belonging to someone descended from those who killed him," Eldridge replies. "
"Oh, is that all?" Ash turns his attention toward the front gate. With a tug on his chainsaw, he activates it and cuts through the chains binding the gate.
Behind him, Rosetta holds up a small camcorder and starts recording his actions.
"Should he risk wrecking his weapon like that?" she asks her father without turning from her taping.
"Mr. Williams is not a man who pauses to consider things like that, my dear," Eldridge replies. "If he did pause, he would be dead by now. A deadite slayer must be a man of action, whose instincts lead him at all times."
"Should he be a cute but uncouth lout?" Rosetta asks.
Eldridge thinks a moment. "Most likely, yes."
Ash steps back and, with appropriate flourish, kicks the gates wide open.
"Daddy's home," he calls as he steps through the gates.
Fog billows across gravestones.
Footsteps fall ahead of him. Ash looks up as a figure steps around a mausoleum.
Icarus DeStrait and Ashley J. Williams regard each other curiously.
"Make up your mind, pal, are you a pirate or a warlock?" Ash asks. "You look like Blackbeard and Ozzy Osbourne had a kid."
DeStrait seems perplexed. "Ozzy who?"
"Doesn't really matter," Ash says, pulling the shotgun from across his back and firing. DeStrait is knocked backwards. After a long moment, the warlock stumbles to his feet and looks down at the blood gushing from his shoulder.
"How rude," he says, clenching his fist and muttering a spell in Latin.
Mystic energy flows around his fist, its greenish white glow brightening as he concentrates.
"Nah, I don't think so," Ash says, firing another shot, this time aiming at the fist.
A startled DeStrait holds up the stump of his hand. "Bastard, ye didn't give me time to cast the spe---"
DeStrait looks up just as Ash bears down on him, chainsaw roaring, and cuts the warlock's head off.
The body remains standing, staggering a bit. Ash takes another swing, chopping through his opponent's torso.
The pieces fall to the ground, and Ash scowls at them. "It couldn't be that easy."
"Correct, lad," the head of DeStrait says, laying on its side in the grass. "In a second I'll re-form and ye'll be sorr---"
Ash takes a step back, then runs forward and kicks DeStrait's head like a football laying in the grass, sending it hurtling over headstones a dozen yards away. As it flies through the air, the head lets loose with a stream of profanities.
Over to one side, the torso of DeStrait pulls back together, tattered but now intact, and his headless body starts to stumble in the direction of the head.
Rosetta Stone, standing beside the gate, adjusts the focus on her camcorder. "This ghoul isn't putting up much of a fight, Pappa," she says.
"It's early in the game yet," Eldridge replies.
Up ahead of them, Ash strides past the stumbling headless body, walking in the direction of the head of Icarus DeStrait.
"I just drove a whole frikkin' day to get here," Ash growls, "Here I am itching for a fight and all I've got to beat on is you..."
DeStrait's head lays up ahead, chanting something in Latin.
"And I gotta point out, pal, you're not much of an opponent," Ash continues as he moves closer. "You wouldn't get past PFC in the Army of Darkne---"
Skeletal hands jut out from graves all around. Ash looks around surprised. Bodies emerge from their tombs, most of them no more than skeletons in tattered rags. And there are dozens of them.
As Ash takes his chainsaw to the nearest ones, the torso of DeStrait stumbles past and picks up its head, putting it on backwards at first but then correcting its mistake. Muscle and bone reconnect and DeStrait flexes his muscles. "Ah, better," he says.
He turns, crossing his arms and watching with an amused gleam in his eyes as dozens of skeletons swarm over Ash....
FADE OUT.
ACT THREE
FADE IN
With Ash swinging his chainsaw wildly, sending bones clattering in all directions, as he tries to fight his way out of a skeletal army.
"Ye caught me off-guard, boy," Icarus DeStrait says, cracking his knuckles as he watches his army swarm over Ash. "It won't happen again."
Ash grunts as he fights the skeletons, his chainsaw on his right hand buzzing away while he fires the shotgun held in his left hand; he blows one skeleton's skull to pieces with his shotgun and then swings the stock of the weapon to knock a rotting cadaver off its feet. He then reloads the gun, puts the barrel under the cadaver's nose, and pulls the trigger before it has a chance to react.
Ash wipes the gore off his face, and stares over at DeStrait. "I've been fighting corpses for years, jackass, can't you do better than that?"
At a distance, Eldridge and Rosetta Stone watch the battle. Rosetta lowers her camcorder.
"Pappa, shouldn't we be helping him about now?" she asks.
"He doesn't need our help," Eldridge replies with a wide grin. "Look at him go... he's a natural."
"I can't tell if he's got supernatural powers of if he's just an incredibly persistent fighter," Rosetta says.
"Not sure," Eldridge replies. "One theory someone suggested in an e-mail is that Ashley Williams has enhanced reflexes, coming from the fact that he was once possessed by the deadites. He overcame them, but perhaps a fraction of their mystic energy remained in him, 'supercharging' him, as it were..."
"Interesting," Rosetta says, "which would imply there could be more deadite slayers like him..."
"Very few people could expunge a deadite that had possessed them," Eldridge says. "It takes the willpower of a... well, someone like him." He motions back toward the battle.
Icarus DeStrait looks at the battlefield before him; Ash stands amidst the tombstones, shattered bones around him as he continues to fight the seemingly countless undead.
"It does... lack a certain something," DeStrait says. He looks around himself at the tombstones, contemplating.
Then, a diabolical smile tears its way across his ghoulish face.
Eldridge takes notes in a small notepad as Rosetta continues taping the battle.
"You know, none of the skeleton zombie things are heading toward us," Rosetta points out. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you..."
"They're operating under DeStrait's commands, and he perceives Mr. Williams as a threat," Eldridge explains. "We're incidental to the current situation... though if DeStrait's side were to win that fight, I have no doubt they'd turn and attack us."
Rosetta glances over her shoulder, gauging the distance to the fence.
Ash starts to swing his chainsaw at another skeleton, when his opponent collapses suddenly.
All around him, the skeletons and corpses drop to the ground.
Ash catches his breath as he looks around at the bodies scattered everywhere. All is silent. Icarus DeStrait stands, arms crossed, regarding his opponent from a distance.
Crickets chirp.
Ash reloads his shotgun.
"Whatever you've got planned, yer gonna fail," Ash says. "The bad guys always fail against me. So why not give up like a nice little warlock-pirate-whatever the fuck you are?"
DeStrait grins smugly and recites a new verse of Latin.
Ash glances around. There is a mild grinding noise, growing all around him.
"What the---?" Ash asks.
He looks down at the tombstone nearest him, which is starting to shake ever so slightly.
The tombstone has a skull with wings on either side of it, and the inscription "Here Lies The Body of Neville Crumb, died of the pox 1841" beneath.
Ash lowers his shotgun toward the ground just in front of the stone, ready to blast the skeleton of Crumb should it emerge.
Instead, there is a loud shrieking noise.
The winged skull tears itself from the marble, emerging as a three-dimensional object. Despite the fact that that it appears to still be composed of stone, and therefore supposedly quite heavy, the winged skull flies about frantically, like a panicking bat, screaming as it swerves up and hits Ash in the jaw.
Ash is thrown backwards. By the time he gets to his feet, winged skulls from other headstones have joined this one, flying through the air and emitting ghastly cries.
From other tombstones, Ash sees cherubs, angels, and even a few lambs emerge.
Ash stares incredulously at a stone lamb, barely a foot tall, that stares up at him with red glowing eyes and bares serrated fangs.
It lunges, and he brings his chainsaw up to deflect its attack.
There is a shower of sparks, as the lamb is broken in half and the chain of the chainsaw tears apart and jams.
"Now, this is more like it," DeStrait says with a malevolent chuckle. "Looks like one of yer weapons is... what's the word?... dead..."
Ash does not have time to reply before a swarm of flying skulls and winged cherubs take turns dive-bombing him.
Eldridge adjusts his wire-rim glasses. "That is not a favorable development," he says.
"Should we help him?" Rosetta asks.
Eldridge bites his lower lip. "Not just yet... but get your holy water ready, just in case."
Rosetta nods, continuing taping with one hand. She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a small mace canister, and grips it in her other hand.
Ash swings his defunct chainsaw like a club, pulverizing the head of a foot-tall dancing stone skeleton at his feet. He then swings it upwards, knocking one flying stone skull into another one. Concrete angels grab at his pants legs, distracting him long enough for another marble lamb to make its move, striking him hard in the stomach. Ash crumples.
The lamb bleats menacingly as it starts to rear up and bring its hooves down on him. Ash does a cartwheel backwards and comes up, rolling around and pulling up his shotgun. The blast breaks the lamb and an angel next to it to pieces. Ash uses his heavy workboots to kick an advancing cherub, then reloads his shotgun. A group of winged skulls arc high in the air and dive toward him as fast as they can. Ash does a backflip, landing atop a nearby tombstone.
He nearly loses his balance as the winged skulls crash into the base of the tombstone, several of them shattering.
"He sure is... limber," Rosetta says with a hint of admiration in her eyes.
"It may be something in his heritage," Eldridge says. "My preliminary research turned up some very interesting anecdotes involving his father."
Standing atop the tombstone, Ash uses his teeth to pull the strap that holds his chainsaw onto his right wrist. It falls from his arm, and he uses the stump as a brace to level his shotgun at Icarus DeStrait.
Ash fires, knocking his opponent off his feet.... and the force of the shot does the same to Ash, who tumbles backwards off the tombstone.
Ash gets to his feet, reloading his shotgun.
The stone attackers lay scattered on the ground, not moving.
He stares curiously at them, then at DeStrait, whose chest is re-forming to seal the gaping wound left by the shotgun blast. DeStrait chants something in Latin, and his minions rise again.
Ash grins.
Ash ducks and rolls as winged skulls and foot-tall marble angels dive at him. He no longer pauses to fight them back, focusing instead on dodging them as he makes his way across the battlefield toward DeStrait.
"You have to be concentrating to keep 'em going." Ash says. "You get distracted, they fall down."
DeStrait narrows his beady eyes, scowling at his opponent. "I won't be caught off-guard again." He recites a verse of Latin, and his eyes glow with pale yellow energy.
Ash grabs a cherub and throws it in front of him, just in time to avoid being vaporized. The cherub turns to dust in his hands.
DeStrait repeats the verse, his eyes glow again. This time, Ash dives behind a tombstone, which crumbles under the force of the energy bolt, leaving only the bottom third of it, with the inscription 'I Am Providence', intact.
Ash jumps onto tombstones, running across the tops of them and leaping to dodge the energy blasts DeStrait fires. Ash stumbles, falling to the ground.
DeStrait strides that direction, chuckling malevolently. His stone warriors follow.
Rosetta lowers her camcorder and draws her pistol.
Eldridge puts a hand on her shoulder. "Wait it out," he says. "If we act before the battle is over--"
"Then what?" Rosetta asks angrily. "We save that man from getting killed? Good God, Poppa, this isn't some lab rat you're observing..."
DeStrait, muttering his Latin verse once again, looks over the tombstone as Ash gets to his knees.
"Boo," DeStrait says, the glow of the mystic energy welling up in his eyes.
"Hoo," Ash replies, jamming his shotgun under the man's chin and pulling the trigger.
DeStrait is thrown backwards. Behind him, the stone army falls to the ground again.
Ash gets to his feet and looks at DeStrait, whose head has been blown apart. The blackened gore is slowly restructuring itself.
Ash looks around on the ground, and sees bone and flesh rolling through the grass heading back to DeStrait's body. Ash's eyes focus on one particular object. He grabs the top of a nearby tombstone and, with tremendous effort, pushes it off its base, landing flat with a loud thud.
Ash then reloads as he strides over toward DeStrait, who is nearly complete.
DeStrait mumbles something incomprehensible.
"Aw, what's the matter, cat got your tongue?" Ash asks. "No, come to think of it, it's under a tombstone back there..."
DeStrait's eyes widen.
"And from what I can tell, you can't cast your spells without reciting them, can ya?" Ash asks.
DeStrait roars and lunges forward... And Ash blows his head off again.
"And you can't revive your stone army, or the skeleton army for that matter, without reciting your spell again," Ash says. "And you need them to keep me distracted. Looks like you're outta luck, pal."
After the smoke settles, bits of flesh begin to coalesce on the undead warlock yet again... and before they come together fully, Ash blows DeStrait's head off once more.
"Yo, Professor," Ash calls. "I'd rather not keep doing this all night, if you have any suggestions."
Eldridge and Rosetta Stone step over the skeletal bodies and stone objects and walk up next to Ash, as he reloads and fires yet another shot.
"He's just gonna keep coming back together til I run out of cartridges," Ash says. "And somebody's gonna notice all the shots coming from the graveyard eventually."
Eldridge Stone taps his forefinger on the side of his head, contemplating. "We can cut him into small pieces and scatter them in different mausoleums, maybe take the jawbone with us when we leave and bury it another state, just to be sure..."
"That's fine, but... hold on..." Ash shoots again... "My chainsaw got screwed up back there, so what do we cut him up with?"
Eldridge taps on the side of his head some more. "I think I saw an S-Mart a few miles down the street. They're open all night, right?"
"Twenty-four seven three sixty five point two five, like they say in the ads," Ash replies.
"I'll go buy a replacement chainsaw, and perhaps some hacksaws as well," Eldridge says.
Rosetta grimaces at the thought.
"Hurry up, before I run out of ammo here," Ash says as he leans against a tombstone.
Eldridge turns to go.
"I'll stay here, and keep Ash company," Rosetta says.
Eldridge raises an eyebrow at his daughter, then nods and heads off.
Rosetta sits down on the tombstone beside the one Ash is leaning against. "You're a very brave man."
"And you're a very perceptive lady," Ash replies, lowering his shotgun once again to blow DeStrait's head apart.
Rosetta flinches at the shotgun blast.
"I hope that hurts him," Ash says.
"It can't feel good," Rosetta suggests with a laugh. "Poppa's going to try to recruit you to fight the forces of darkness, you know..."
"I figured he wasn't just researching me for fun," Ash replies. "But you're perceptive, so I think you'll know what my answer's gonna be."
Rosetta looks up at the stars, considering this. "I'd say... you'll turn him down, because you want to lead a normal life and, even if the deadites won't let that happen, you want to face them on your own terms..."
"Give the lady a prize," Ash replies. "I never was very good at following orders."
"Poppa's very stubborn," Rosetta says. "He'll keep coming around."grins. "As long as you come with him, that won't be so bad."
Rosetta blushes.
On the ground in front of them, DeStrait has almost fully reformed and starts to sit up.
"Oops, you distracted me with those brown eyes of yours," Ash says, reloading his shotgun and blowing DeStrait's head apart yet again.
"Lovely night, apart from the stench of gunpowder and corpses," Rosetta says.
"Ah, you get used to it," Ash replies as we....
FADE OUT.
End.