Chapter 13: Precipitation

STALL, LADIES’ ROOM, SHOPPING MALL (LATE MORNING)

Valerie stands in a narrow, claustrophobic stall.

She snatches up the pill bottle and strides back out to the:

LADIES’ ROOM, SHOPPING MALL (CONTINUOUS)

The lighting is a sick chartreuse that makes the lipstick on the mirror appear tar-black and wet:

THEY FOLLOW IT

Valerie checks her phone and exits the ladies’ room.

FOOD COURT, SHOPPING MALL, CITY (CONTINUOUS)

Halfway through the constellation of occupied tables Valerie stops and looks up at the skylight: rain is starting up in THICK BLACK DROPLETS, EXPLODING on the glass like paintballs.

Mall-goers look up at the barrage of rain as it crescendoes to all the clamor of a pachinko parlor. Valerie shares a glance with Bruce across the court and begins to BOOK IT toward the stairwell as the glass SHATTERS, raining down onto the people, the tables, the food.

Bruce shoves away the table, grabs up the large duffel concealed beneath it, and rockets for the elevators.

BLACK RAIN fills the mall, puddling on the floors and staining the fountain-water in the atrium far below. People, where struck on their exposed flesh, tear at the tar as if scalded. SCREAMS fill the air.

The puddles of tar swell into humanoid shadows and lurch toward Valerie as she sprints toward the stairwell.

The mall descends into UTTER CHAOS as masses scramble for the escalators, Bruce a bull among them charging through the stampede. The elevator doors open a split second before he pulls a fire alarm and barrels inside.

The elevator doors close on him just as Valerie shoulders into the:

STAIRWELL, SHOPPING MALL (CONTINUOUS)

Eight floors of identical concrete flights stretch from the food court to the ground floor. Valerie takes the steps two at a time. The pounding of her feet echoes through the hollow.

ELEVATOR, SHOPPING MALL (CONTINUOUS)

Bruce (panting) watches the floor numbers tick down against a backdrop of CALMING ELEVATOR MUSIC.

STAIRWELL, SHOPPING MALL (CONTINUOUS)

Valerie pounds down more flights, around and around. Stairwell doors burst open in her wake, drawing in trains of lurching shadow shapes.

She touches her earpiece, drowning the chaos out with her music.

The pill bottle rattles in her fist.

ELEVATOR, SHOPPING MALL (CONTINUOUS)

The numbers continue to tick down in front of Bruce. The CALMING ELEVATOR MUSIC continues to contrast the mood elsewhere in the mall.

STAIRWELL, SHOPPING MALL (CONTINUOUS)

Valerie achieves the ground floor and surges through the EMERGENCY EXIT out into:

BACK ALLEY, DOWNTOWN (CONTINUOUS)

Skyscrapers frame the narrow strip of black sky overhead. The blades of UNSEEN CHOPPERS buffet the air as VISCOUS BLACK RAIN pours down.

Valerie glances to her sides before sprinting down the alley in the direction of her gut.

ATRIUM, SHOPPING MALL, DOWNTOWN (A MINUTE BEFORE)

The elevator opens on the ground floor and out comes Bruce, immediately TRUCKING through a confused horde of people intermixed with faceless black shadows.

The shadows are not interested in the people but on a certain point outside the mall, drawn in like hooked fish.

The congested doors spell doom: bodies wedged into the gaps, fallen, trampled upon, rising like so much floodwater.

Bruce removes the SUBMACHINE GUN from his duffel and uses it to smash his way through a tall ground-floor window. He drops the gun and emerges out into:

STREETS, DOWNTOWN (CONTINUOUS)

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Bruce (in disbelief) recognizes the truck parked up on the curb. The door is unlocked.

PICKUP TRUCK, STREETS, DOWNTOWN (CONTINUOUS)

The keys from Bruce’s pocket turn the ignition.

He pulls onto the street, swerving to avoid hysteric people, as Valerie comes sprinting out of the alley. He slows down only long enough for her to clamber up and into the bed.

Valerie crawls headfirst through the rear cab window, unfurling MAJESTICALLY into the passenger seat. She’s rehearsed.

Helicopters descend between the buildings, kicking up TORRENTS of black water with their blades. Black-armored soldiers begin to repel.

Valerie wastes no time selecting a sequence from the NEXUS app, filling the cab with a pink mist.

The mist completely obscures the windshield before dispersing without a trace.

The helicopters, the soldiers, and the rain are all gone.

Bruce slams on the brakes to avoid crashing into a car that wasn’t there a second before. Valerie’s head hits the glovebox.

FLASHFORWARD: ROOFTOP, PARKING GARAGE, DYSTOPIA (TWILIGHT)

The city has fallen to utter ruin below: cars are crashed and mutilated rusty heaps, buildings mounds of blown-out rubble.

An older Valerie (forties) stands empress over this hollow concrete empire, hair long and tangled. A wave of WRITHING LIQUID SHADOW approaches from the horizon. She holds her phone in hand. She starts at the voice behind her.

BRUCE: I knew I’d find you here.

VALERIE: It’s the only place left. (turning) Do I know you?

Bruce, BRUTALLY SCARRED AND BATTLE-WORN, stands at a distance.

BRUCE: That’s a complicated question.

VALERIE: Is it?

BRUCE: You’ve asked it a hundred times and I still don’t have an answer.

VALERIE: If you’ve come to finish me, you won’t be far behind.

As the WRITHING LIQUID SHADOW grows nearer it becomes clear that it’s not one continuous wave but wrought of hundreds of thousands of grotesque bodies.

BRUCE: I’m here to offer a solution.

Bruce takes several steps forward.

VALERIE: Who are you?

BRUCE: I’m the Bruce who chose not to help you. The first time.

The gravity of the situation dawns on Valerie.

VALERIE: We’ve had this conversation before.

BRUCE: I’ve lost count.

VALERIE: Who am I?

BRUCE: You’re the Vale who started this. And the Vale who’s going to finish it. Fix it. This time.

VALERIE: Have you said that before too? (no answer) What will you have me do?

Bruce walks closer.

BRUCE: Use it.

VALERIE: I can’t.

BRUCE: You do. Every time.

VALERIE: This world will end.

BRUCE: (within the distance of a handshake) Would that be so bad? (pause) Tell me how you got here.

VALERIE: Don’t you already know?

BRUCE: (shaking his head) I never asked.

The WRITHING LIQUID SHADOW devours cars and fallen streetlights and covers teetering buildings.

VALERIE: Do we have time?

BRUCE: Just enough.

VALERIE: (raising her phone) I made this.

BRUCE: What is it, exactly?

VALERIE: A nexus. A hub from which our singular existence can branch to a plural one. I couldn’t begin to brain the ramifications...

BRUCE: No one can.

VALERIE: My work was wrested from me by bad actors, acting with reckless abandon.

BRUCE: That’s putting it mildly.

VALERIE: You can’t put the cats back in the bag.

BRUCE: (gesturing at the HORDE OF LIQUID SHADOWS) Some cats.

VALERIE: They’re from some far-off future. We made contact and they followed us back.

BRUCE: They follow it everywhere.

VALERIE: The nexus?

BRUCE: (nods)

VALERIE: How do we purge them?

BRUCE: In layman’s terms: We gather them up, ship them out, and slam the door in their face.

VALERIE: How, exactly?

BRUCE: You run.

VALERIE: That sounds too simple.

BRUCE: You break quite a sweat.

VALERIE: You’re joking.

BRUCE: (shakes his head)

The wave of SHADOW reaches the bottom of the parking structure and starts climbing.

BRUCE: Open it.

Valerie opens the app. Her phone starts radiating a faint pink aura.

BRUCE: It’s not you exactly. It’s the you that could and would and will be. We need to help her.

VALERIE: (nodding along) And then die.

BRUCE: Nothing that never lives can die, Vale. There’s no extant verb for what’s gonna happen to us.

The wave of SHADOW mounts the roof, rushing toward them from all sides.

BRUCE: This time have the one thing you misplaced before.

A pink mist surrounds them, obscuring and then blotting out the scrambling horde.

VALERIE: What’s that?

BRUCE: Faith.

PICKUP TRUCK, STREETS, CITY (NOON)

All is calm. Traffic slugs along, obeying all stoplights.

Valerie groans.

BRUCE: Tryin to give me the slip back there?

VALERIE: Trying to stay alive. Where’d you find the wheels?

BRUCE: Just waiting for me. All but the keys in the ignition.

VALERIE: It’s like we’ve got a guardian angel working for us.

Bruce drives on.

VALERIE: What year are we in?

BRUCE: What does your phone say?

VALERIE: (furrowing her brow) Present day. Present time. (No reaction) Whatever that means.