FADE IN
1 - Int - The Living Room
COSMO is crouched, listlessly stoking the enormous fire in the large, severely underfurnished room. It is immediately apparent from his velvet dressing gown and his wild wild hair that he is a true eccentric.
Above him, on the mantle, a framed snapshot gazes down at him – Cosmo,
Emily and Felix, from the good old days.
Cosmo turns and there, in the doorway, stands EMILY. Prim and dapper
as ever. Her luggage is as compact as only a true ‘girl in control’ can
manage.
EMILY
She starts to blubber a little, trying to hold back.
She drops her bag and runs to Cosmo’s arms. Her crying becomes less
restrained.
The embrace goes on a moment too long for Emily’s comfort. She resists
a little. Sensing the reticence, Felix holds her away from him and looks
amusedly into her eyes.
Emily breaks away and moves towards the fire.
COSMO
He suppresses a laugh at his own little joke.
COSMO
EMILY
She walks nervously across the room
A burst of static noise catches Emily’s attention. She turns to stare
at the device which sits incongruously on the ancient dresser.
COSMO
Cosmo is back staring into his fire, remembering.
CUT TO
2 - Int - Felix's Bedroom.
Only candles light the room. FELIX, lying on his back, is wrapped up tightly in his huge four poster bed. His bedcovers are flat and unruffled. He is so close to death, he cannot even toss the sheets. On a chair, beside the bed, sits Cosmo, his head slumped on the bed.
Wind crashes against the house, rattling naked branches against the window panes. The rain beats down in torrents and the thunder and lightning is fearsome. Felix is certainly going out with a bang.
When he speaks, Felix is completely still except, that is, for his eyes.
His eyes dart unceasingly around every corner of the room, trying to see
his death coming.
COSMO (V.O.)
CUT TO:
3 - Int - The Living Room
COSMO
CUT TO:
4 - Ext – Day - The Graveyard (1889)
From a bird’s eye POINT OF VIEW, a small group of black clad men stand
around an expensive looking closed casket which has just been disinterred
from an adjacent open grave. There are patches of snow around and it is
obviously bitterly cold. On a trestle-table, next to the grave, an impressive
collection of war-medallions struggle to hold their place in the wind.
Cosmo giggles but it quickly becomes a consumptive cough.
From a POINT OF VIEW within the coffin, blackness gives way to blinding light as the heavy lid is prised off. As it is lifted away the bloodstained and torn silk inside the lid is apparent. The men lean over and stare into the coffin with an apprehension which turns immediately to horror.
CUT TO:
5 - Int - The Living Room
EMILY watches COSMO as he paces the room nervously.
COSMO
EMILY:
COSMO:
6 - Int - Felix's Bedroom.
FELIX is fighting the restraint of his sheets, trying to sit up. He needs to reach out to FELIX to drive home his last wish.
Outside the storm has reached new levels of frenzy.
His scream, when it comes, is high pitched, alien, and terrified.
CUT TO:
7 - Int – The Living Room.
CLOSE UP of the radio transmitter, quietly exuding its innocuous white
noise.