Well the votes are in - from all over the place. I'm sorry to report that you were no help at all! ;D Out of four choices, you voted in a three-way tie for first place. *Sigh* So I will just rely on your helpful comments to make these better.
Today's installment is Episode 1 of the web-series thriller, Favorite Haunts.
Favorite Haunts
By
Kim Anderson
All rights reserved to the author. 2010.
Mother-Lode Media
EPISODE 1 SCENE 1
Seventeen-year-old LEXI stands on her front porch, checking her wayfinding gear. She looks up, noting the surveillance cameras at the corner of the house and on the light pole down the street. There is absolutely no one on the street. She scrolls through various screens on her cell phone, showing the nanny-cam views of the interior and exterior of her house. LEXI sees herself in the porch shot. She takes a step casually and disappears from the nanny-cam screen.
LEXI
(Nodding with satisfaction)
I’m in the zone!
She frowns, scrolling through the screens again.
LEXI
Where is he?
TROY
(grinning from the bush beside the porch)
I’m in the zone, too!
Twelve-year-old TROY is loaded with hiking gear, all ready to go.
TROY
You weren’t thinking of leaving without me?!
LEXI
No, just worried about being off the grid too long.
TROY
(nodding sympathetically)
Yeah. Dad will go all renegade on us. Do you think we should wait til after the evening sweep?
LEXI
No, we’ll lose the light. We’d better hurry.
They begin to walk away from the house, under a tree that screens them from the cameras. They flip their cell phones to screens that show maps of camera angles along their street, and navigate a course that leaves them out of camera sight. As they walk they converse.
LEXI
Don’t worry. I’ve been working on a project that will allow us to be gone as long as we want without tipping Dad off.
TROY
Yeah?
LEXI
Look!
LEXI thumbs off the camera-plot map on her cell phone to play a nanny-cam recording of herself studying, then one of herself making dinner.
TROY
That only works for you!
LEXI snaps down to a recording of TROY playing a video game.
TROY
If Dad sees that for hours, I’ll still get killed! Maybe we should just file for a hiking permit like everybody else.
LEXI
Relax! I’ve got lots more. I just need a few more cuts and I’ll be able to patch it into the security cams on a loop I can control from here. Besides, you know we’d never get one without a "responsible adult" on the request.
She taps her cell phone. They have arrived at the end of the street. Pavement is locked off at the entrance to a hiking trailhead. The sibs hesitate, peering into the trees. TROY still has the camera-plot map up. The display shows a solid barrier of camera-coverage lighting up the edge of the forest for as far as the display shows.
LEXI
(wistfully)
Remember when Mom used to bring us here and we thought it was a game walking single file in her footsteps?
TROY
(nods, trying to be brave)
I miss Mom....It’s like all the air went out with her.
LEXI
Yeah, the accident changed everything....(she gathers herself) I hope it didn’t change the song.
They stand in the last camera-free zone and whistle a 3 or 4 note signal. They look at their cell phone maps. Nothing changes.
LEXI
Maybe we weren’t loud enough to trip the jammer.
They try again. This time the camera coverage blinks off their cell phone maps. They sigh with relief and start running.
SCENE 2
A law-enforcement office bristling with computer monitors. It is lit only by the many computer screens. One monitor has a blinking light and and irritating claxton sounds in time to the blink. The officer manning the monitor swings around in her chair to call her supervisor.
SAM
Sir! Surveillance perimeter breach: sector 5!
COL. RUGER
(Leaning in to look at SAM’s display, reaches down to adjust the view.)
That’s right down the street from my house!
We see the same display the kids were seeing on their cell phones.
SAM
Shall I arm the perimeter lasers?
Cut to LEXI and TROY slamming a button on an electrical device in a plastic bucket buried under a fallen log. They collapse in relief.
The blinking light on the police monitor goes off. The display is back to normal. We see the two officers’ faces peering at the screen.
COL. RUGER
Probably just a wildlife bogey. Curfew is in 30 minutes. No lasers. Post Sector 5 sweep officers early, and make sure they go door to door tonight.
SCENE 3
TROY and LEXI are circling a huge, live tree, searching for something that isn’t there. A dead tree has fallen against the tree, lodging solidly with the upper part of the dead tree resting in the crook of a large branch of the living.
TROY
The web entry said it was gone...
LEXI
Maybe some fool left food inside and a coon got to it.
LEXI leans against the living tree, her shoulder just under an arrow pointing up crudely scratched into the trunk.
TROY
(pointing at the arrow)
Things might be looking up!
They look up and see a squirrel’s nest just about where the dead tree connects with the living. TROY scrambles up the dead tree, using its branches as ladder-rungs.
TROY
Whoa! Amazing!
LEXI
What! What is it?
TROY
A new improved cache - but it isn’t our placer.
He lowers an ammo box down by a pulley which has been anchored to the tree in the squirrel’s nest.
TROY
Hey! This nest is big enough for me! Kinda pointy, though...Waaaiit! This isn’t a squirrel’s nest. Just looks like it. There’s a platform. A man-made platform!
LEXI
Get back down here! This is weird!
TROY comes to look into the box with LEXI. They start to unload it.
LEXI
Our old logbook. Two self-charging flashlights. Two MREs. Two space blankets (she pauses significantly) non-reflective.
TROY
Are you thinking it?
LEXI
Resistance...But why here? Our placer coordinates are still out there.
TROY
Yeah? Someone reported that cache missing or damaged. Check the logbook.
They open the book to the last page. A string tied to the spine of the book swings free.
LEXI
Our signature stamp is gone.
TROY
(pointing to the last page)
It was here just two weeks ago. Look! And....
LEXI
It’s...Mom’s...signature stamp and a rubbing of her forest geo-coin.
TROY
(troubled)
Mom!...We saw her...
We see in memory, a small plane taking off. Then close-ups of flames, emergency vehicles, flashing lights. We hear sirens, screams.
Suddenly we realize the sirens are in the present. The sibs are frantically re-packing the ammo box. LEXI tears the last page of the logbook out, stuffing it into her shirt.
LEXI
(gasping)
Early sweeps!
TROY
(climbing the tree)
Hurry! Tie it on! Hurry!
They hoist the box to the squirrel’s nest. And race for home.
