Today I'm going to share one of my favorite stories I have ever written. With this story I planned out a cast and even have a little bit of an idea where I would go with it for a full length screenplay.
The one thing I got criticized on the most was the fact that the couple said "I love you" too much. I did have a plan for this. There was an underlying meaning as to why they said it that much, but I didn't get the time to put it in. I plan to rewrite and make it better, and add more to the story, but this is the first draft. The one I fell in love with.
In case you were wondering, I put Rob Morrow in the spot of Paul, and Sarah Wayne Callies for Shayna. She was my choice from Prison Break, not from Walking Dead. Lori is the worst ever.
Please read and enjoy: Ominous
Premise: Shayna Miner is afraid of the dark. She has had
this feat since she was four when her father was brutally murdered and her
mother was attacked. Now, she is 28, married, and cant seem to shake the fear,
and it is destroying her life and her marriage. On a routine evening, a man
breaks into her house and makes her remember why she is afraid of the dark.
Message: The message in this story is “ When its dark, you
can’t see who sees you.”
Central Question: Can Shayna get over her fear of the dark
before it ruins her marriage and possibly ends her life?
Character Arc: Shayna decides that her fear is getting out
of hand and wants to change it for her husband, Paul. She starts to change
everything for him.
Ominous
This was a night like any other in Lawrence, Kansas
1981. It was the middle of the night, and everyone in the town was asleep,
everyone except the family that lived on Wellington Road. Inside the house, in
the upstairs bedroom lays a little girl, Shayna, scared, crying and didn’t know
what to do. She could hear the screeching coming for the room down the hall.
She hides under her blanket, and tries to listen for something else. Down the hall and to the left you find
the parents room. There is a crack in the door where light shines through.
Inside the room is a man standing by the bed, stabbing the father several
times. The mother was scared and screaming, but out of fear could not move.
After the father was dead, the man moved over to the mother, hitting her
repeatedly with the other end of the knife until she passed out. The man went
to exit the room, closed the door, and went down the hall frantically looking for
the little girls room. Every door he passed he would throw open, and continue
down the hallway. He finally got down to the last door on the right, and knew
this had to be the one. He opened the door slowly, walking over to the bed. He
pulled down the covers only to find no one in the bed. He started to walk out
the door when he saw the closet. He pulls open the door forcefully, but no one
was in it. He walks out of the room, goes down the stairs and out the front
door. Shayna had hid under the bed until the man had left. She heard the front
door close and ran down the hallway to see what had happened. She stands
outside the door, “mommy, daddy?” She opens the door, and screams the most
horrific scream that the city has ever heard.
Present
Day: “Dr. Miner, please report to curtain area three, Dr. Miner please report
to curtain area three.” Shayna Miner comes rushing down the hallway, passing by
injury and blood to get to curtain three. “Nancy, what is going on, I leave him
here for five minutes and….” Nancy interrupted her before she could go on with
too much of a tangent. “Shayna, calm down. The labs are back, Mr. Grey isn’t
doing too well, His labs show stage two-lung cancer, and we knew that his was
coming…. Shouldn’t you be out of here?” She asked in a concerned way. Shayna
looked at her watch, then peeked outside to notice dusk. “Right, I will get out
of here…take care for the night Mr. Grey, I will be back in the morning.” She
turned, lipped thank you to Nancy, and was on her way to the staff room. She
ran into the door, pushing it open with her weight. “Jules, hey, Mr. Grey Is
declining, and I wanna see if we can do a surgery, I feel awful I didn’t catch
it earlier, and I don’t…” Interrupted again, this time by Jules. “Shayna, its
ok, I can get all the info from Nancy, you should really get going. I will see
you tomorrow.” Slightly embarrassed, Shayna nodded her head and headed out of
the room, passed all the sick and injured in the hallways. She exits the
hospital, enters the parking garage to find her car. She looks at her watch, then
looks outside. It’s getting dark earlier now. She finds her car, and drives to
her house. The lights are on outside, and a few inside, just like she left it
this morning. She unlocks the front door, and walks in bending down to pick up
the mail that had made its way from the slot. She walks through the hallway,
and on to upstairs passing by photos of her and her husband Paul from various
occasions, birthdays, proms, wedding and various random photos. She heads to
her closet, to pick out her most comfortable pair of sweats, and one of Paul’s
sweatshirts. She changes and heads back downstairs to take place on the couch
and not move for as long as possible.
The
sound of the key in the door makes a familiar sound, one that makes Shayna feel
more comfortable. She knows that Paul is now home from work as well, and she
can feel more at ease. “ Hey Shay, How was your day? I love you.” Saying all of
this while managing the door and his briefcase. “Hey. Stressful, yours? I love
you.” She responds back. Paul answers back trailing up the stairs, “I would
have to say stressful as well, I’m going to change, we will talk in a minute”
He loosens his tie, and gets to the bedroom. He comes back down, flipping off
lights has he comes down the stairs. Shayna has a flashback of darkness, her
dad’s body, and a scream. Paul’s entrance knocks her out of it and he sits next
to Shayna on the couch, placing his arm around her, and she pulls in close
laying her head on his chest. “ Mr. Grey is getting worse, his lungs are
failing and I didn’t catch it in time. It was my responsibility, and everyone
is making it sound ok. Its not ok.” Paul holds her closer, “You can’t blame
yourself for that, you can’t control someone’s lungs, you did what you have to,
and you are still doing what you can.” Shayna picks her head off of his chest
and looks at him with a slight smile, “So, how was your day?” Paul pauses, “
One of my clients confessed to a crime today, I was not prepared for that, he
is a good guy. He must have put on one Hell of a show for me, I thought he was
innocent.” Shayna got a little closer to him, putting her head on his shoulder.
“I guess the day really did suck for both of us. “ Paul responded with a laugh,
and a receipt for from Rudy’s Pizzeria, he had ordered it before he left the
office, and it was being delivered any minute.
The
doorbell rings, Paul gets up, grabs his wallet from the table for the tip, and
goes to the door. He unlocks the door, opens it and a man stabs him in the
chest, and makes his way into the door and goes straight for Shayna. She
screams, but she cannot get up. She screams again. She is stabbed, and the man
says, “Is this why you are afraid of the dark?” and keeps stabbing her. She
sits up. She was dreaming. –Plot point one
Act II
For
Shayna, The nights have been dragging on. Her sleep pattern has basically
become non-existent as she keeps having these awful, vivid nightmares. She
would dream about the man before, the man who has no face, and no voice. She
has often called him the shadow. The dreams however, had stopped. She hadn’t
seen his shadow in years. Why are they back now? What did she do to make them
re appear? Paul has had his fair share of doubts about Shayna and her fear of
the dark. He knows that she has been traumatized, and he understands that,
however, he seems to get highly irritated when she tells him to turn on a
light, or leave a door open. They have fought about it before, as a matter of
fact, it is the subject of most of their fights. He can’t see why she won’t do
anything about it, since she is a doctor and everything. She knows that it has
hurt her marriage, but doesn’t think that anything will help at this point. She
has dealt with this for most of her life, and just wants to deal with it on her
own. Paul was starting to worry, about Shayna, their marriage, and how she was
dealing with her stress. He felt she was using her work as a release that she
wasn’t talking to him. All her energy was at the hospital, and when she got
home she was on edge, going to bed early, leaving all the lights in the house
on. Shayna is starting to run on nothing but coffee and the occasional meal.
She is jittery, scrambled and unfocused. At the hospital, people are beginning
to wonder what is wrong with her. Usually she is on top of her game, catching things
other doctors have missed, chatting with the nurses, going on runs, and her
favorite thing, getting to know her patients. She has been distant, un-like
herself. Shayna has no idea what is happening to her.
“Shay,
you gotta get up, its close to six… you really gotta get going.” Paul nudged
her, trying to get her up. This was odd for Paul; usually Shayna would be
wide-awake by six, poking him, tickling him to get him out of bed. This time he
had to wake her up. He couldn’t do it, not like she did. He was half angry with
her as it was, and he couldn’t even begin to imagine how he could be all sweet
and romantic right now. “Ok, I’m up. Six? Really?” She questioned. He could
hear the disappointment in her voice. She hated being late. She hated not being
the first awake. She hated that he was angry. She got out of bed, rummaged
through her closet to find what she considered to be descent work clothes, ran
to the bathroom, turned on the shower and cried. She was loosing all control
she had in her life, for what? For this shadow in her dreams? She realized that
she was hurting Paul more that anything, and if it wasn’t for him she most
likely wouldn’t be alive today. Paul left for work without saying a word. He
knew that she was upset, but he wasn’t starting to feel bad. He already felt
bad, for himself. His life was falling apart. Shayna was the only girl that
Paul had ever loved. He always thought that she would be there forever, and he
never imagined this would happen.
“Dr.
Miner, please report to Curtain one, Dr. Miner curtain one.” The PA system
blared again, this time with a more urgent sound. Shayna was dazed. She was
standing in the staff room, her eyes glazing over. She couldn’t seem to move.
“Shayna, are you hearing that?” Nancy asked concerned. Shayna snapped out of
it, gave Nancy a slight smile, and ran to curtain one. “ What’s going on? “ As
soon as she gets there she sees an empty bed where her patient used to lay. “He
went AWOL. As soon as you left, he did too.” A nearby nurse shouting from the other
side of the room. “That’s impossible, he has tests, the results aren’t back yet
on the ones we did, and there are so many more. Why would he do that?” Shayna
started to freak out a little. This was the man she had been seeing for some
time. He has some sort of lung disease, and he has been back to her many times
to try to figure things out. He is a nice man, always asks her how she is, and
how her husband got to marry a beautiful woman like her. Why would he run out
on what they had started? She couldn’t understand with his health in jeopardy
why he would just give up. He never ran out before. He was all for his
wellness. They had built a relationship, he can’t just abandon that. Tears
started to run down her face, she knew exactly how he felt. “Paul, hey its me.
No, I’m not ok. I’m sorry that I have hurt you. I know I need to take care of
myself and our marriage. I love you so much. I will see you at home.” Shayna
had realized that Mr. Grey leaving had triggered everything in her mind that
she had been doing. Her husband was unhappy because of her fear; she was going
to lose him like she did Mr. Grey. She couldn’t let that happen.
She
left the hospital early that Thursday. She wanted to go home, get cleaned up
and make some phone calls. She needed to clean up her life. She cleaned her
house, including the always-messy bedroom. She now was ready to sit down and
make the phone call. She was going in to a therapist that specializes in fears.
She had recommended him to several of her patients over the years, and decided
it wouldn’t hurt to try. A few hours passed, and she was sitting on the couch
waiting for Paul to come home. She was going to surprise him, take him out to
dinner and express her deepest apologies. Paul walks in the door. There was
silence, none of his usual banter, no I love you. She was concerned. In all the
years they had been married, he always said I love you when he walked in the
door. She stood up, looking at him with a concerned face. He ran up to her and
gave her the most passionate kiss that he had ever given her. She pulled back,
and all he could do was smile, and then pulled her back into it. Finally, he
pulled away, smiled, and all he could say was “I love you.” “I know that I have completely screwed
up our relationship, in all the years we have had one, I took all of my fears
alone. I promised to love and cherish you, and that is what I will do. I want
to take you out to dinner, I have something I want to tell you, plus I want to
hear about your day and… “ Paul interjected. “Out? Are you kidding me? You have
to tell me now.” “Fine… I called Dr. Kellerman today, the therapist, I’m going
in on Tuesday, we are going to figure out what my dreams are, and if my fear of
the dark can go away.” Paul didn’t know what to say. He knew that she was going
to do something awesome, but this was beyond his expectations. “I love you.”
That’s really all Paul could say. “I’ll tell you what, how about we order in,
watch The Die Hard Trilogy, and we can just be.” Shayna knew that if Paul had
mentioned the Die Hard Trilogy, everything was going to be OK. She agreed. They
ordered some Pizza, Rudy’s of course, and sat together on the couch for the
duration of the evening.
It
was getting late, Paul had already zonked out during Die Harder, and Shayna was
perfectly content with lying there in Paul’s arms. However, she was starting to
be in pain from sitting in the same position for almost four hours. The movie
had ended and the credits were rolling. She decided to wake up Paul to go to
bed. “Thud”. A large noise came from the upstairs that woke Paul, and made
Shayna shutter. “What was that?” Paul asked Shayna half awake. “I have no
idea.” “Well, I better go check it out, most likely the window just fell shut
from the wind.” Paul was going to get up when Shayna pulled his arm. He
continued to the stairs. Shayna was alone, in the dark. She hadn’t thought
about it until that second. She yelled up at Paul, telling him to turn on a
light. By this time he was half up the stairs and didn’t want to come back
down. “Shay, its ok, I’m going upstairs for a second, I will come back down, I
will even talk to you the entire time.” Shayna was still worried. Paul started
to trail off. Shayna closed her
eyes. All she could she was the shadow. “AHH.” “Thud”. She opened her eyes. She
knew that yell; it was Paul’s yell. She couldn’t stand up, she couldn’t even
move. She still heard footsteps up the stairs, someone was up there. And now,
someone was coming down. –Plot Point Two
Act Three
Shayna was struck by fear. She could not even begin to fathom what was really
happening to her at this moment. She sat on the couch, shivering, not
really because she was cold, but more because she was so scared that not one
part of her body could stop moving. The footsteps have become closer,
coming down the stairs, loudly, but they weren’t coming as fast as she
expected. She knew that if she ran now, she could get out the back door,
and to the neighbors to call the police. She tried to convince herself of this,
that she could actually move. It wasn’t working. She couldn’t do it. The
footsteps were to the bottom of the stairs now. She had a little hope that it
would be Paul that he would come down the stairs, jump on the couch next to
her, and it would all be fine. These were not Paul’s footsteps however. He was
a soft stepper; he would try to be quiet even if no one was there. Even with
her eyes closed she could tell someone was standing at the foot of the
couch. She couldn’t open her eyes. A haunting voice came out of the
figure. “Is this why you are afraid of the dark?”
Shayna couldn’t seem to open her eyes, even after he spoke. She wanted to know
who this was, and why he was doing this, but she just couldn’t do it. He stood
at the end of the couch, tormenting her. She wouldn’t budge. Finally, he
grabbed her by the hair, pulling her off the couch. She fought back. She
couldn’t just sit there and do nothing. She didn’t want to go wherever
this man wanted her to go. She still couldn’t seem to get her eyes open, not
even for a moment. “Why are you doing this? What do you want from me? She
finally screeched. Nothing. Silence. He wasn’t even going to clue her in at
this point. He wanted out of this house, there was nothing there for him, and
he knew she would freak out, being outside in the dark. How did he know these
things? Only the people closest to her knew about her fears, not total lunatic
strangers. He grabbed her arms, and dragged her out to the back porch. She gave
up fighting back. She knew that if she was going to die today she wanted to go
peacefully, and not full of pain. He forced her to sit in a chair that
they Paul and Shayna had got as a wedding present all those years ago. She
remembered the chair, how it felt, and the memories that came along with it.
She was beginning to calm down. She opened her eyes.
She looked around for a minute, not seeing the man right away. He was standing
behind her; she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. She was startled
and began to turn around. He had moved. He didn’t want her to see him, not just
yet anyway. He picked up the chair and moved it, doing so without her seeing
his face. She was now facing the house, looking at the glass screen door.
There was a little light coming from the inside of the house, it was the black
screen from the TV. It never got turned off. She could see the reflection of
the man. She couldn’t see his face, but she could see his outline. She knew
where he was standing. He began to talk to her. “Why are you so afraid,
Shayna? Look how beautiful it is out here, so serene, so peaceful.” He knew her
name. She was startled at this, but then realized it shouldn’t surprise her at
all. “ The dark is perfect. You can get away with practically anything.”
He continued. She could start to recognize the voice a little bit. She couldn’t
put a face to it yet, but she knew she had heard it before. After a little
while, the DVD player would go to a screen saver, and the whole room would
light up blue, Shayna was looking forward to this. She would have more light,
and she would be able to see the face of this man. “Who are you? Why are you
doing this?” She starts to ask, calmer than before. She knew that
in minutes she would know who he was. “I’m just a fan of yours, I have
been for a while…” That’s all he would give her for now. The house starts to
turn blue. She can see who he is. “Mr. Grey?”
Owen
Grey, the patient from the hospital, the one that she had spent many hours
worry over, the one that she left get away, he was the one doing this? “Why?
Why you?” She had never been so confused, so hurt, and had never felt so lied
to. Mr. Grey was one of the nicest patients she had ever had. He always made
the time to talk to her, to ask her how she was, and how her husband was lucky
enough to marry such a beautiful girl. Her head was spinning, she could not
fathom this. Was this really happening to her? She turned around to see
him, to see what he was really trying to do. “Do you remember when you were four
Shayna? Do you remember what happened?” She looked at him, puzzled. How
could he possibly know that? “Yes, I remember but how did you” He cut her off
before she could finish. “ I was there that night. I was the one who killed
your father,” She just looked at him, tears beginning to form. “ I saw you in
the park earlier that day. You were on the swings with your dad behind
you. He had stepped away for a moment, and I was walking up behind you.
Your dad came back and hassled me, like I was doing something wrong.” She began
to realize that the nice Mr. Grey that she knew was a lie. There was nothing
nice or friendly about this guy. He was telling her he tried to kidnap her as a
child, and her dad got in the way, he then stalked her all these years, and is
waiting to make his move, to do what exactly? She started in on him, tears
running rapidly, “Why, what do you want from me?” He just stared her down, the
eyes that she used to know, and used to be comforted by have just turned into
the devils eyes. “ You need to pay for all the years of pain you have caused
me. I have loved only one person in life, and that is your fault, you caused
this.” Again,
Shayna is scared to the point that she cannot move. She cannot do anything but
think about all of this, why this is happening, and why to her. She looks up to
the glass again. A sigh of relief leaves her lips. Paul is stumbling down the
stairs. He is dripping with blood; he had been stabbed in the stomach,
but was still coming to her rescue. He had one had over his stomach and a phone
in the other. He motioned at her, to be quiet. She obeyed. Owen was standing
behind her still, not noticing Paul coming towards the door. Owen looked up
again, seeing Paul this time, and seconds later the door was broken down, the
cops had arrived. Owen dropped to his knees right in front of Shayna,
expressing his love to her. Not the romantic kind of love, but the fatherly
kind. She couldn’t even look at him; he pulled a gun out, and tried to
shoot Shayna, but was tackled in the nick of time. The EMTs had pulled in
to check on Paul. They were stern with him that he needed to go to the hospital
right now, and didn’t have a choice. Shayna had suffered a headache, and a few
bruises, but she was fine. “Wow, its really dark in here Shay.” Paul added
sarcastically. “I love you,” she added, giving him a little glare. He was off
to the hospital; she grabbed her keys and was going to follow behind.
All
of a sudden she feels calm. A sort of calm that she hadn’t felt in 28 years. The
only light that was on was the light from the TV, and this time she didn’t
care. She decided to go flip on a light, so she could find her purse, and
get going to the hospital. She walked over to the light, and a voice comes out
from nowhere. “ I wouldn’t turn that on it if I were you…” Mr. Grey was
standing behind her. Before she could even understand what was happening, he
shot her. As she was falling down, she saw the cop car with the doors open and
the cop on the ground. “Now, you don’t have anything to fear in the dark.”
