ScriptFrenzy 2011: "Dead and Breakfast", pages 26-31

by Diane Duane



 
(back to pp. 18-25)
 

[scrippet]INT. ORMONDE HOTEL LOBBY DESK — NIGHT

Joy’s finger pressing down hard on the RING HERE FOR SERVICE bell, with the associated strident RINGING. After a few moments, Doris appears, looking sleepy and confused.

JOY
I want you to find me another place to stay. Right now.

DORIS
(not sure what’s wrong)
Why, if there’s something wrong, do let me —

JOY
I met your husband.

DORIS
(uneasy)
And…?

JOY
He’s dead! And so is everyone else here but us!

DORIS
Uh, yes.

JOY
And you let them stay here!

Doris comes out from behind the desk and starts unnecessarily “tidying” the front of the reception area. She’s becoming annoyed in a way she can’t usually allow to show.

DORIS
Well, of course I do! Everybody has to have somewhere to stay! Do you think I want them to have to live in the street in cardboard boxes, like homeless people?[/scrippet]

[scrippet]
JOY
Boxes is where they belong!

DORIS
Not if they’re not properly dead.

JOY
Well, why aren’t they?

DORIS
How should I know? Some people just don’t go…wherever dead people go. They wind up wandering around alone, hiding in shadows, lying in doorways, and people don’t even see them, the way they don’t “see” the homeless. It’s not right!

Finally Doris stops tidying and sits down on one of the chairs. She’s less vehement now, and sadder.

DORIS
When George died after he retired, and he didn’t go on…we had to move out of the hotel we were running in the Midlands: the neighbors would have noticed. We came down here and started running this place… and we found so many others who hadn’t gone on, either. They had nowhere else. I had to give them somewhere to stay. Surely you understand!

Joy is caught between astonishment and growing pity, and the “common sense” reaction, which asserts itself —

JOY
I understand that I’m not staying another night in a shabby old hotel full of corpses!

DORIS
(indignant)
They’re not corpses! They’re very clean. It’s just hard to afford help to keep the place up.

JOY
I guess with all your rooms full of the undead all the time, you don’t get a lot of paying guests.

Doris gets twitchy again, GETS UP to straighten things on the reception desk.

DORIS
Well, no! And I can’t ask the others to pay. What have they got to pay with? You try keeping your bank account after you’re dead. Or your credit card.

JOY
No, I guess Visa might not understand.

Joy sits down where she was, makes a pretence of looking at one of the magazines on the nearby table while the dialogue continues… then tosses it away. Doris frowns and comes over to straighten up the pile again.

DORIS
And it’s not like they can just go out and get a job. Things are hard enough for live people these days.

JOY
Yes….

DORIS
They just need someone to take care of them, that’s all. Their families won’t do it. One little girl who got killed in the Blitz, she tried to go home and they exorcised her! Others… all the people they knew are dead, and gone on. They don’t know the way to wherever the next thing is. There’s nowhere else for them.

Joy gets up, hesitates, her face unrevealing. Doris studies the face, sees no sympathy there, turns away and goes back behind the desk.

DORIS
I’ll call around and see what I can find for you.

Joy says nothing.

George comes out of the little office. Joy looks at him and Doris. Doris holds out a hand to him. George looks at her in some confusion. Wordlessly, Doris insists. George reaches out to her, as if to take her hand. His hand GOES THROUGH hers.

Joy sees this. A moment’s beat as she registers the painful look that passes between Doris and George. This would seem to be an old story: they keep trying…but it never works.

GEORGE
(to Joy)
You see how it is. We can touch things. But not the living.
(to Doris: dull sorrow)
Not each other.

JOY
Oh… oh dear. I see.

DORIS
(to George)
Where’s the hotel list, love?

GEORGE
Second drawer down in the desk.

Doris gets up, goes back into the little room. George just looks at Joy: then gets up and goes off toward the front door. Joy stands there a moment, stricken.

In the little office, Doris is dialing. She waits.

DORIS
Yes, reservations, please… thank you. Michael, this is —

From behind, Joy’s hand reaches to the phone and pushes the hang-up button.

JOY
No.

DORIS
But you said —

JOY
Forget what I said. I’m sorry.

DORIS
But don’t you want —

JOY
Probably I should get some sleep. So should you.
(beat)
Does he? Sleep?

DORIS
Oh yes. And he snores.

A slight smile — they really do like each other, these two women, despite the shocks of the moment.

Joy heads for the lift, passing George as she goes. A look between them: nervous, on both sides. But Joy likes him too.

JOY
I’ll leave the TV off.

GEORGE
(for more than that)
Thank you.

Rubbing her head like a woman who has an Excedrin headache coming on, Joy gets into the lift and goes upstairs.

EXT. STREET OUTSIDE ORMONDE HOTEL — NIGHT

Joy at her window. She looks out: hers is the only light on. A detector van of the kind we saw earlier PULLS UP outside the hotel on the opposite side of the street, SHUTS OFF lights and engine. Joy shuts her curtains: her room lights GO OUT.

INT. DETECTOR VAN — NIGHT

Like something the CIA would love to be able to afford — crammed with high-tech monitoring devices, video and audio. Two men, FIRST TECH and SECOND TECH, are inside. They look rather blue-collar: the second one is reading the News of the World (the headline says DWARF RAPES NUN, FLEES IN UFO).

FIRST TECH
Mike was right. We’ve got a nice strong multiple reading in there.

SECOND TECH
How many?

FIRST TECH
At least ten. All self-aware and better than level six.

SECOND TECH
Right.
(peers at his buddy’s reading)
We’ll come back with a test matrix set for one. If the quality’s good we’ll bring another matrix tailored for twenty and make a clean sweep.

The First Tech adjusts one of the pieces of machinery: it emits a soft HUM which we will hear again later under other circumstances. He adjusts it again, and the hum softens down.

FIRST TECH
Why not just sweep it now?

SECOND TECH
Without a quality assay? No way. Remember Geoff on the day shift?

FIRST TECH
Yeah.

SECOND TECH
He was surveying over by Bishopsgate –found three hundred residuals in a single batch. Geoff thought he was in for a fat productivity bonus, and grabbed the lot without assaying a sample first. When they were decanted, the whole load turned out to be leftover loonies from Bedlam. Didn’t even know they were dead. Useless.

FIRST TECH
Bloody hell. What happened to Geoff?

SECOND TECH
They reassigned him to Customer Service.

FIRST TECH
‘Strewth. Right, let’s wait till tomorrow.

They drive off.
[/scrippet]

(to pp 32-37)

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» ScriptFrenzy 2011: “Dead and Breakfast”, pp 32-37 April 10, 2011 - 8:32 am

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