Episode 3.0 The Serpent Mound pt. 2

CRYPTIC Season 1

Written by Adam Hoffman

Episode Three: “The Serpent Mound pt. 2”

CHARACTERS:

Cole Kurtz

Julie Kurtz

Ruthie Platz

Introduction

Narrator:

Adams County--a patchwork of history and culture. You know you want to come. And why not?

You dreamed about it last night. You felt the draw. The cold, sweat poured from your face as

you looked out the window, knowing you would come here, be compelled to be here, be forced

to see what you saw in your visions….and the Outlet Mall has a shiny train for the kids! Plus

an IHOP. Adams County-----what did the dreams tell you?

You’re listening to Cryptic

Cryptic Episode Two:

  Serpent Mound

Written by Adam Hoffman


Characters:

Julie

Cole

Ruthie Platz

######

COLE:

Um, where did she go?

JULIE:

Ruthie Platz!

Ruthie calls out, it’s hard to tell where she is…

Ruthie:

Over here! My hand, it...it got my….

COLE:

Come on. Hurry.

JULIE:

Hold on. I don’t think we should just rush off onto the fog, at night, at this place least of

all. At least show a bit of caution.

COLE:

Julie, don’t be such a wimp.

JULIE:

“Don’t be such a wimp.” What are we, twelve?

COLE: (under his breath)

You would have handled yourself better at twelve….

JULIE:

I think something ate her hand, dumbass. Don’t make me smack you. Give me a

flashlight.

JULIE tries to turn on the flashlight, it clicks but shows no signs of life, even with her persuasively smacking the tool in an attempt to coerce it.

JULIE:

I can’t see a thing…. Did you charge these batteries?

COLE:

They’re brand new. It’s this place. Ruthie mentioned it in her mail. Electrical

disturbances. Lights, sounds.

WE hear an echo.

ECHO COLE:

Electrical disturbances, lights, sounds.

JULIE:

Okay, nice echos.

COLE:

There shouldn’t be any echos...

ECHO COLE:

Echos any be shouldn’t…..

JULIE:

Reverse echos. Nice. Dad ever talk about reverse echos?

COLE:

Do you remember anything?

JULIE:

Not a thing….

JULIE ECHO:

Thing a not….

JULIE:

Mixed up echos. Hoo ha. This is fantastic….

COLE:

Hmmmm...okay, new plan.

JULIE:

I’m listening.

COLE:

We’ll look for Platz for another five minutes and if she hasn’t shown up by then we’ll get

the hell out of here.

JULIE:

That’s the first reasonable thing you’ve said all evening.

Another environmental sound, a pressure change.

JULIE:

What the...You feel that? Like a pressure change.

COLE:

Yeah, just like…..never mind. Ruthie! Ruthie!

JULIE:

Sweet Christmas!

COLE:

What?

JULIE:

There was a really intense chill back there. Arctic .

COLE:

Oh, that’s never a good sign.

JULIE:

Not ghosts. Please not ghosts. Stupid stupid ghosts, they are so lame! Ghosts are idiotic….

WE hear JULIE’s first line at the mound

ECHO JULIE:

I’m freezing, Cole.

JULIE:

Uh….

COLE:

Let’s keep going.

JULIE:

That was no echo.

COLE:

I know.

JULIE:

I said that like ten minutes ago.

COLE:

Julie, please don’t restate the obvious. Ruthie!

JULIE:

Ruthie!

The sound of very heavy, very large footsteps accompanied by growling and a rhythmic clicking sound.

JULIE:

Cole. You hear that?

COLE:

Yeah, yeah, I hear it. Is anyone there? C’mon man!

JULIE:

Ruthie?

COLE:

Sounds big.

The footsteps continue.

JULIE:

Yeah. I don’t see anything but…..oh. I spoke too soon.

They see something in the fog.

COLE:

Ah, man…..I don’t like the look of that.

JULIE:

Yeah. Not what you want to see late at night….

COLE:

See those...

JULIE:

Claws. I noticed. If there’s one thing I know, it’s claws, Cole.

THE THING moves closer.

COLE: (to JULIE)

Back away. Nice and slow. Nice and….Wha...where’d it go?

Suddenly we hear the footsteps, clicks, and growls from a

different direction.

COLE:

Oh. It’s behind us now.

JULIE:

So we reverse back away….

COLE:

What?

JULIE:

Run, you idiot!

JULIE runs, music swells and the siblings are separated.

JULIE:

Cole! Cole! Are you there? Come on, answer me….Great. So typical, leaving me

alone with a ...a…..a thing with claws. I know claws when I hear them, Cole! And a

dead flashlight. Huh. That rural lock-up is looking really good right now.

Ruthie: (right next to her)

I see you...

JULIE:

Ahhh! Ruthie? Is that you? The fog is too….

Ruthie:

Please...my hands are….changing….it…..I’m changing...

Ruthie:

I see you!

JULIE:

I’m trying….I….Cole? Are you there? Cole?

Music/effects. We are now with COLE.

COLE:

Julie! Listen---I remember something Dad said about this place. Don’t wander from

the mound. Stay near it. I got off the

path and----it’s like a void here. Keep on talking-----we can find each other if...

...if...if...I can’t believe it. That’s impossible. That’s impossible.

Music swells as we transition back to JULIE.

JULIE:

Keep your hands on the mound, Julie, gotta know where you’re going, can’t afford to get

lost. Not now. Not…..oh. That cold again…..

Ruthie: (as if at a distance)

Help me! My face, it itches, it itches, it itches…..

COLE: ( as if at a distance)

Help me, Julie!

JULIE:

Cole….Cole, over here. Over here. My flashlight... (she shakes the flashlight again, and this time it sparks a bit, but lights) thank God. Follow the light Cole!

I’m by the light!

COLE:

J...Julie?

JULIE:

By the light!

COLE:

Please, no Poltergeist references….

HE stumbles into her arms.

JULIE:

Hey. I’m here. I thought I lost you there for a minute.

COLE:

A minute...It was more than a….

Ruthie:

Help me! Please! I have too many…..my arms….the itching….

JULIE:

She’s close. Real close.

COLE:

That thing is close, too.

JULIE:

I don’t know if there’s a difference anymore.

COLE:

Oh.

JULIE:

Aw, man. Thoughts?

COLE:

Don’t walk too far from the mound. I can tell you that. It’s...it’s not safe.

JULIE:

It’s not safe here, now. What are we going to do? We have to get out of here right now…

COLE:

What would Dad do?

JULIE:

Really? That’s the best we’ve got?

COLE:

Jules, please…Like with the patterns we do we….

JULIE:

Patterns, patterns...okay...“Finish what you started”. He always said that helps with

these things...What do we have to finish here, Brainiac?

COLE: (quickly)

Look, this Mound….. No one knows why the Adena made it but it’s a trail, a path, a

symbol…. Of capture. A prison maybe? You know how you keep things in or out with a

protective circle, right?

JULIE:

How many times do I have to tell you---I slept through that stuff.

COLE:

We need to make the full circuit around. A full circle, a full pattern. We’re caught in...in

a….I don’t know, an unfinished journey? An unfinished time? Maybe that’s why we can’t

find Ruthie---she’s here, just not now. Or maybe she’s here now forever. Maybe she’s

changed, somehow. Maybe she triggered this, maybe we did...I don’t know. I’m not a

freaking quantum physicist!

JULIE:

Calm down. Triggered what? What did you see out there?

COLE:

(As Cole beings to tell Julie what he experienced we are taken back with him, and we hear his experience)

I stepped away from the Mound, Julie, when I was looking for you. I stepped away and

it wasn’t night anymore, it was day.

WE hear the nighttime sounds fade away replaced by the sounds of song birds and a gentle breeze

No fog. It was…. It was different, this place.

The Mound wasn’t complete, people were building it, using….

WE hear the rhythmic sound of tools (hammers? chisels? Pick axes?) the rhythm sounds familiar…

I can’t remember exactly what

they were using but it felt wrong, wrong on a primal level. I stepped away from them

and then I was somewhere else, some time else. No Mound, no people, just a forest

and something streaking down from the sky.

-The rushing, burning sound of a heavenly body entering Earth’s atmosphere can be heard-

And then we were there again, you and

me, and other people in different clothes, all part of this place where they built

a ...a...trap.

JULIE:

A trap. A trap for what?

MUSIC fades and the sound of the night swell back into our consciousness

COLE:

Something that’s still here. Or something that is created here. I don’t know, damn it.

A beat.

We have to go. Keep on moving around the Mound. Finish the pattern...

THEY start to move quickly.

JULIE:

You couldn’t have told me that first? Before your long-ass speech.

COLE:

Julie, I swear if we get out of here….

JULIE:

We’ll do something just as stupid. We never change, Cole. We keep making the same

dumb choices. Even when we try to get away…

COLE ECHO:

Try to get away…

JULIE ECHO:

Try to get away….

JULIE:

That’s us…..not just the echos...that’s us in the fog! Do you see that?

Intense music begins to fade in as they continue walking

COLE:

That’s not us. We have to keep moving.

JULIE:

But that’s…

COLE:

Don’t look back, Julie. Don’t look back.

JULIE:

You see that? Up ahead, by the mouth. It’s us!

COLE:

We’re about to start!

COLE and JULIE:

Look over here! Look over here!

ECHO COLE:

What did you say?

ECHO JULIE:

Nothing. I thought that was you.

JULIE:

Well, that was a bust.

COLE:

Come, on. Faster.

JULIE:

I hear you, I hear you.

JULIE ECHO:

It’s got me!

COLE:

Julie?

JULIE:

Just an echo. Keep moving.

WE hear the footsteps and clicks again, this time faster.

COLE:

It’s back.

JULIE:

I know.

COLE:

In front? Behind? I can’t tell.

JULIE:

Don’t waste time thinking---move. I….ahhh!

A growl and a ripping sound.

JULIE:

It’s got me! Cole! Please, don’t leave me!

THE sound of tearing cloth. THEY run off, as music swells

Ruthie’s VOICE:

Don’t leave me….stay with me….don’t let me change…..

COLE:

I’ve got you, come on, come on. Did it hurt you?

JULIE:

My backpack….I touched it, Cole, I touched it...it’s...it’s not right, we have to go, go….

THEY run

COLE:

Stay with me. Stay with me. Stay with…..huh. Do you feel that?

The music tails off…

COLE:

The fog is...it’s gone.

JULIE:

Ruthie?

COLE:

She’s gone. Or in there. Either way, we need to get out of here.

THEY start to move off. They start to laugh,

slightly hysterical.

JULIE:

Oh man….I hate this so much. I love this so much.

COLE:

Right back at you.

JULIE:

Damn it---why did I miss this?

COLE:

You can’t stay away from this stuff. You know it.

JULIE: (laughing)

Geez.

COLE:

Everytime, right? Always the same rush.

JULIE:

Nothing like mind numbing terror to end the day…

COLE:

You know you missed it. You’ve got that glow now.

JULIE:

Fear glow.

COLE:

Right? Typical night for the Kurtz kids. How does it feel to be back in the game?

JULIE:

How does it feel? Fantastic. I feel fantastic.

COLE:

So do…..ow!

Stupid log!

They laugh and continue on as the nighttime noises fade away.

THE END

“Narrator:

Cryptic is presented by Crooked Path Productions

And is produced and directed by Jeremiah Isley

Written by Adam Hoffman

Starring

Kristin Larsen as Julie Kurtz

Joshua Isley as Cole Kurtz

and Becky DeHart as Ruthie Platz

Sound design, Foley and editing by Jeremiah Isley

Additional Foley by Benjamin Payne, Sarah Isley, Xavier Isley and Ralph Isley

Music by Corey Heddleston and Benjamin Payne

Executive Producer Jeremy Sneed

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