A Play A Day #8

Selected Scenes from the Stage Play "The Curse Of The Thing"

Scene 1: A graveyard, should have trees that are large and creepy and sturdy enough to be climbed, yet lightweight for their easy removal at the end of the scene. Dry ice but also a strong wind moving the low branches of the trees which creak under the strain. Lightning and thunder moving in. Sinister music should provide a low bed throughout the scene, except when noted. Large tombstones are arranged across the stage. These must be real granite for the tombstone tipping scene to have its proper impact, the largest tombtones should be placed near the false floor spots to facilitate their breaking through "the earth". There are several recently dug graves- large piles of dirt next to each of them. Karl, standing three feet deep in a grave is digging feverishly, tossing shovelfuls of dirt everywhere as he works, the wind blows the dirt around the stage. A large car pulls up beside Karl's grave, Brant and Melissa exit from car. Karl doesn't notice anything, shovels dirt onto the hood of the car. The car headlights provide most of the illumination on stage, except for some periodic glow of the moon as clouds race in front of it.

Brant (in loud whisper): Hey, watch the dirt! Hey!

Karl: (panics upon hearing a voice, cowers down into grave) Wha...

Brant: Karl! Karl! It's alright, man; it's just me.

Karl: (emerging, eating some chicken, mouth full) Man! You scared me!

Brant: Why are you eating chicken?

Karl: I'm hungry.

Brant: Yeah, but you gotta get this done soon. It looks like it's going to rain pretty hard. (lightning and thunder increase, wind picks up in intensity, add more dry ice)

Karl: Listen, this is the fourth one; it's got to be in this one. I know it's in here. (Continues digging throughout)

Melissa: O.K., but don't you think we're pushing our luck, the cops, your parents. I mean your Dad's a Senator.

Brant: Not to mention you're tempting fate.

Karl: I don't believe in that crap! Those are just rumours, old stories that maybe used to scare'm fifty years ago.

Melissa: But what about the fourteen missing kids; none of them ever found? I told you this thing is cursed.

Karl: You can leave anytime you want, you know; you didn't have to come tonight.

Melissa: I want to help, but maybe we should do more research first?

Brant: Yeah, Karl, let's pull back a little. I'm worried about the curse too.

Karl: Just help me; you know you want this thing. You know you want the power it could bring us! Think of it!

Melissa: It's protected. It can't be found.

Karl: (Shovel strikes something, he stops and dives down, with excitement) I hit something! I think this... is... it... (he is scrounging in the dirt below stage level, dirt is flying out of the hole) if I can... just get... my fingers... (massive lightning strike on tallest granite cross tombstone, tombstone explodes and burning chunks of granite fly everywhere. Melissa and Brant both get hit. They are both screaming in terror and pain. Melissa's dress starts on fire, she runs around on stage on fire for a while screaming the whole time. A fist-sized chunk of burning granite has smashed Brant's face in, he moans and stumbles about with the flaming rock embedded in his face. A hologram of a forty-foot tall hellbeast appears on stage and speaks to Karl and his burning, screaming, moaning friends.)

Hellbeast: Oh! The Curse lives! You can not escape its power. It will consume you.
(Hellbeast hologram exits through backstage wall with piercing screams. In the distance, we hear wolves howling, a heavy rain starts, the stage runs with mud and blood.)

Karl: (out of the hole now, he holds the thing in his hand, he has already started going mad with its power) Brant! Melissa! I've found it! I have the power! The glory is mine! The world is mine! (Brant and Melissa are not responsive. They've collapsed moaning and burning to the stage; Karl doesn't notice their problems. He jumps in the car and peels out on stage, whipping around and driving off stage left. The wolf pack enters stage right, and begins feasting on Brant and Melissa. Lightning strikes again, exploding several tombstones and collapsing other tombstones through the ground. Several wolves catch on fire, wolves exit through right and left aisles in the house, dragging the half-eaten corpses of Brant and Melissa. Wolves on fire run into the trees, which catch on fire. Lights fade as lightning and thunder continues and trees and remnants of stage begin burning intensely.)


Scene 2: Lights up on a pristine white stage, interior of the perfectly-appointed Art Deco mansion of Karl's father, The Senator. Nearly everything in the mansion, from the five sofas in the sitting room, to the marble fire place, to the kitchen counters and twenty-seat dining table, to the deck and diving boards of the pool and the pool house stage left is a dazzling white. Enter the Senator, he proceeds to the pool, takes off his bathrobe and executes and beautiful swan dive into the pool. He comes out picks up a towel, dries himself off. Enter Karl. He is obviously not well, his hair is bleached platinum blonde and he has a matching evil-looking platinum blonde moustache. His skin gives off a slight yellowish glow. A foul smell wafts across the stage and follows Karl wherever he goes. His footsteps have an odd, hollow ring to them. He is completely lost inside his owwn head, paying no attention to his own father.)

Senator: Hey, son. What's the news? (pause) That's fine, don't tell me. It's probably about me, and they're probably making it sound as bad as possible. (small laugh, pause) Karl? Son! I am talking to you! What is going on? What did you do to your hair? Are you turning yellow? Hey! Karl! (getting right in Karl's face) Son, you had better shower; what kind of stink did you roll in? Wha... what's wrong with your eyes, son? You'd better say something now!

Karl: (looks at Senator, his eyes start glowing bright red, his hair starts on fire and yellow steam escapes from his mouth. He steps back from the Senator, raises his arms skyward, and bright red lasers shoot out from his eyes and coil themselves aound the Senator who is lifted rapidly toward the ceiling. With jerks of his head, he starts the now-screaming Senator spinning rapidly and flying up and down. He shakes his head violently, smashing the Senator into the walls, the fire place, the pool house, large blood spatters cover the surfaces the Senator has hit. The Senator is now unconscious. Karl slams him into the pool to revive him. He holds him underwater for a full minute with his laser eyebeams, which have changed color many times and are now back to the original red. He pulls him out, the Senator is coughing and mostly conscious now. About twenty feet above the pool, Karl meets his eyes and says in an incredibly low, growling voice that echoes and reverberates) Something... now! (The lights begin to fade as the Senator's body is ripped in half and his internal organs plop into the pool waters below.)

(end)