The Final Draft

The first thing JT noticed about Los Angeles was the smell.
Exhaust fumes, hot pavement, marijuana, and something that smelled suspiciously like human waste.
The second thing he noticed was that nobody seemed particularly happy to be there.
Which was strange, considering how many people had spent their entire lives dreaming of coming.
At twenty-three years old, JT had traveled nearly twenty-two hundred miles from Knoxville, Tennessee, with two suitcases, a backpack, and a screenplay he genuinely believed would change his life.
He had always loved movies.
Not just watching them. He loved the way they worked. The way an ordinary person could sit in a darkened theater and be transported somewhere impossible.
He wanted to create those worlds.
He wanted people to feel something because of words he had written.
Most importantly, he wanted to prove that the people who had told him he would never amount to anything were wrong.
His mother had cried when he left Knoxville.
His father had shaken his hand and slipped him two hundred dollars.
"Just remember," his father said, "there's no shame in coming home."
JT hadn't responded.
He wasn't planning on coming home.
Not until his name appeared on a movie screen.
He had no idea that within three months, he would be willing to give everything he owned just to see Tennessee again.

Los Angeles wasn't what JT had imagined.
There were beautiful neighborhoods, of course. Expensive houses tucked into hillsides, immaculate lawns, and people driving cars worth more than everything his family owned combined.
But there were also tents beneath overpasses, people screaming at invisible enemies, and entire streets that smelled like they were rotting beneath the California sunshine.
His apartment was a converted garage in North Hollywood.
The landlord called it a studio.
JT called it a garage because it still had the metal tracks for the overhead door.
The rent was eleven hundred dollars a month.
He shared a bathroom with a man named Victor who claimed to have been an actor in the eighties.
Victor never explained what he had acted in.
JT suspected pornography.
For six weeks, JT sent out screenplays, submitted applications, and attended networking events.
Nobody wanted to read his work.
A few people offered to read it for a fee.
One man offered to represent him for three thousand dollars.
Another suggested JT would have a better chance if he completely rewrote his screenplay to include a talking dog.
By the beginning of his second month, JT was working nights cleaning offices.
By the end of it, he had started wondering whether his father had been right.
Then came the email.
SUBJECT: YOUR SCREENPLAY — THE HOLLOW MEN
JT nearly deleted it.
He had received enough scams to recognize the usual promises.
But this one was different.
Mr. Taylor,
My name is Daniel Sloane. I represent a private production company currently seeking original horror material.
Your screenplay was brought to my attention by an associate.
I believe you have an unusual talent for writing fear.
I would like to discuss a potential development opportunity.
Please contact my office at your earliest convenience.
Regards,
Daniel Sloane
Executive Producer
Meridian Pictures
JT read it six times.
Then he searched for Meridian Pictures.
Almost nothing.
An outdated website.
A few obscure credits.
One photograph of Daniel Sloane standing beside a famous actor at a film festival twenty years earlier.
JT didn't care.
Someone wanted to read his work.
Someone important.
He called the number.
A woman answered on the first ring.
"Meridian Pictures."
"Hi. My name is JT Taylor. I received an email from Mr. Sloane."
There was a brief silence.
Then the woman said something that would haunt him later.
"Oh, yes. We've been expecting you."

The meeting took place on a Thursday evening.
Meridian Pictures occupied a small production facility behind a gated entrance in Sun Valley.
The buildings were old, but the grounds were maintained.
There were no advertisements.
No billboards.
Not even a recognizable studio logo.
A security guard checked JT's identification before allowing him inside.
Daniel Sloane was waiting in an office decorated with framed movie posters.
He was perhaps sixty years old, with silver hair, expensive shoes, and a smile that seemed practiced.
"JT! The young man from Tennessee!"
He shook JT's hand enthusiastically.
"Knoxville, wasn't it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Beautiful country. I spent some time there years ago."
Sloane gestured toward a leather chair.
"Please. Sit."
For the next twenty minutes, the conversation was everything JT had dreamed about.
Sloane praised his dialogue.
His pacing.
His imagination.
He even mentioned specific scenes from The Hollow Men.
It was a horror screenplay about a group of strangers trapped inside an abandoned hospital where the people they encountered weren't entirely human.
They looked human.
They spoke human languages.
But something about them was fundamentally wrong.
"You understand something most young writers don't," Sloane said.
"What's that?"
"Monsters are much more frightening when they resemble us."
JT smiled.
"That's what I was going for."
"Indeed."
Sloane leaned forward.
"Tell me something, JT. Why horror?"
JT considered the question.
"Because horror can make you feel things you don't want to feel. Fear, dread, helplessness. But when the movie's over, you get to leave all that behind."
Sloane's smile widened.
"Do you?"
JT laughed.
"Usually."
For the first time, Sloane didn't laugh with him.
Instead, he opened a drawer and removed a folder.
"We're developing something special. Something that could launch your career."
He slid the folder across the desk.
Inside was a contract.
And a number.
$75,000.
JT stared at it.
Seventy-five thousand dollars.
More money than he had ever seen in one place.
"For my screenplay?"
"For your talents," Sloane corrected. "We have something already in production. What we need is a writer capable of finishing it."
"Finishing what?"
"A film."
JT looked up.
"What's it about?"
Sloane smiled again.
"Survival."

The soundstage was enormous.
JT had never been inside a real movie studio before.
Sets stood throughout the building like pieces of different worlds.
A suburban living room.
A hospital corridor.
A police station.
A narrow city alley.
Some appeared unfinished.
Others looked disturbingly realistic.
Sloane guided him past a row of cameras toward a set resembling a small apartment.
A young woman sat on a couch beneath the lights.
She had dark hair, tired eyes, and a bruise on her left wrist.
"This is Elena," Sloane said. "One of our performers."
The woman looked up.
For a moment, her expression changed.
Fear.
Not the exaggerated fear of an actress.
Something genuine.
"Hello," JT said.
She glanced toward Sloane.
"Hi."
Sloane clapped his hands.
"Elena, why don't you show our new writer the scene?"
The woman hesitated.
"Please," Sloane added.
It wasn't a request.
Elena stood.
A cameraman moved behind a large digital camera.
Another employee dimmed the overhead lights.
Sloane handed JT several pages.
"Read along."
The scene was simple.
A young woman awakens alone in an apartment.
Someone knocks at the door.
She asks who it is.
No answer.
Another knock.
She approaches the door and looks through the peephole.
Nothing.
Then a voice whispers from the other side.
"Let me in."
JT smiled slightly.
It was conventional horror material, but it had potential.
The cameraman raised his hand.
"Rolling."
Elena took her position.
A knock came from the set's front door.
She froze.
"Who is it?"
Silence.
Another knock.
She approached the door.
"Hello?"
"Let me in."
The voice was strange.
Wet.
As if someone were speaking through a mouth full of water.
JT watched Elena's hands begin to tremble.
She looked through the peephole.
Then staggered backward.
"Oh God."
There was another knock.
Louder this time.
"LET ME IN."
JT glanced at Sloane.
The producer was smiling.
"She's very good," JT whispered.
"One of our best."
The door began shaking.
Elena backed into the furniture.
"Please," she said.
The lock turned.
JT stopped smiling.
The door opened.
And something stepped through.
At first, he thought it was a man wearing an elaborate costume.
It stood nearly seven feet tall.
Its body was impossibly thin, with arms that reached below its knees.
Its skin was gray and stretched tightly over bones that didn't seem arranged correctly.
But the face was what caught JT's attention.
It had the face of an elderly woman.
Not a mask.
A face.
The mouth smiled.
The skin pulled apart at the corners.
Something cracked beneath its cheeks.
And then it opened its mouth.
Much too far.
Elena screamed.
JT stumbled backward.
The creature lunged.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?"
Nobody answered.
The camera continued recording.
The creature seized Elena by the throat and lifted her from the floor.
She kicked.
Clawed at its hands.
Gagged.
JT turned toward Sloane.
"STOP IT!"
Sloane looked irritated.
"Quiet, please. We're filming."
"IT'S KILLING HER!"
"Yes," Sloane replied.
"That's generally how these scenes end."
The creature pulled Elena closer.
Something long and black emerged from its mouth.
It wrapped around her face.
JT heard a muffled scream.
Then a sound like wet paper tearing.
The woman's legs went limp.
The cameraman never stopped filming.

JT ran.
He didn't remember deciding to run.
One moment, he was standing beside Daniel Sloane.
The next, he was sprinting toward the soundstage exit.
A security guard stepped into his path.
JT collided with him.
They fell against a stack of equipment.
The guard grabbed his jacket.
JT drove his elbow into the man's face.
Something crunched.
He pulled free and kept running.
He reached the door.
Locked.
He slammed against it.
Again.
Again.
Behind him, someone began clapping.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
JT turned.
Daniel Sloane stood beside the darkened apartment set.
The creature was gone.
Elena lay motionless on the floor.
"That," Sloane said, "was an exceptional reaction."
JT could barely breathe.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything."
"That woman—"
"Was an actress."
"YOU KILLED HER!"
Sloane sighed.
"Technically, our guest killed her."
JT stared at him.
"Guest?"
Sloane gestured toward the apartment.
"Come now, JT. You're a horror writer. Surely you understand that the world contains things we haven't explained."
JT shook his head.
"No."
"Your problem," Sloane continued, "is that you've spent your whole life believing monsters are imaginary."
He stepped closer.
"They aren't."
A scraping sound came from the set.
JT looked past him.
Something moved behind the apartment window.
A long gray arm pressed against the glass.
Its fingers opened.
Six of them.
Then seven.
The thing was changing.
"Most of them have been here much longer than we have," Sloane said. "Some live beneath us. Others exist in places our science hasn't discovered."
He straightened his jacket.
"And some are very interested in human beings."
JT looked toward Elena.
Her body had vanished.
Only a dark stain remained on the carpet.
"What do they want?"
Sloane considered the question.
"Different things. Some want flesh. Some want pain. Others simply enjoy watching."
"Watching?"
"Fear is quite entertaining when it belongs to someone else."
JT felt sick.
Sloane placed a hand on his shoulder.
"We provide a service. Our clients pay extremely well for authentic human experiences."
"You murder people."
"We produce entertainment."
JT pulled away.
"You're insane."
Sloane chuckled.
"No, JT. I'm successful. There is a difference."

The next hour destroyed whatever remained of JT's understanding of the world.
Sloane showed him the other sets.
Not because JT wanted to see them.
Because the guards made certain he followed.
Behind the hospital corridor was a room containing several people strapped to medical tables.
One was awake.
An older man with blood around his mouth.
He watched JT pass.
"Please," the man whispered.
JT stopped.
A guard shoved him forward.
Beyond the police station set, something massive moved behind a curtain.
JT caught a glimpse of black hair and a hand large enough to wrap around his entire head.
In the alleyway set, a woman stood beneath a flickering streetlamp.
She looked perfectly ordinary.
Beautiful, even.
Until she turned her head.
The back of her skull was open.
Inside, dozens of tiny white things shifted and crawled.
She smiled at JT.
"You're new."
He nearly vomited.
Sloane continued walking.
"People imagine monsters as ugly things with claws and teeth. Sometimes they are. But that's hardly a requirement."
They passed an office where two men in expensive suits watched surveillance monitors.
One was laughing.
The other was eating a sandwich.
On the screen in front of them, a man was crawling across a floor, dragging a leg that bent in the wrong direction.
JT stared.
Those were the human monsters.
The men who organized this.
The people who watched.
The ones who smiled and ate lunch while someone begged for their life.
He understood then that there were two kinds of horror inside Meridian Pictures.
And he wasn't sure which frightened him more.

Sloane eventually brought him to a small editing room.
On the desk sat JT's original screenplay.
The Hollow Men.
Beside it were dozens of folders.
Each contained a name.
A photograph.
And a script.
JT opened one.
MARCUS REED — AGE 27
Inside was a headshot of a smiling young man.
An aspiring actor.
Another folder contained a woman who wanted to become a singer.
Another held information about a man who had come to Los Angeles to work in special effects.
All young.
All hopeful.
All desperate for an opportunity.
JT realized what the folders represented.
"These are people you've killed."
Sloane shook his head.
"People who were given opportunities."
He opened JT's screenplay.
"We found your work fascinating. Your descriptions of the creatures were remarkably accurate."
JT looked at him.
"What?"
"Not perfectly accurate, of course. But close."
Sloane flipped through the pages.
"The long limbs. The stolen faces. The voices coming from places where no person should be standing."
He stopped at a particular passage.
"Have you ever wondered where your ideas come from?"
JT said nothing.
"Perhaps imagination isn't always invention. Perhaps sometimes it's recognition."
JT remembered the nightmares he'd had as a child.
The figure standing outside his bedroom.
The person with his mother's voice whispering from beneath the bed.
Dreams he hadn't thought about in years.
Sloane closed the script.
"Our clients are always looking for new experiences. New scenarios. We need creative people to make those experiences interesting."
He placed a pen on the desk.
"Write for us, JT."
JT stared at him.
"You can't be serious."
"Seventy-five thousand dollars was merely the beginning. In time, you could be very wealthy."
"And if I refuse?"
Sloane's expression changed.
For the first time, the practiced smile disappeared.
"Then I suppose we'll have to find a use for you in front of the camera."

JT sat in the editing room for nearly forty minutes.
A guard stood outside.
The computer was connected to the studio network.
A screenplay template waited on the screen.
At the top was a title:
UNTITLED SURVIVAL PROJECT
Beneath it were instructions.
One male subject.
Age: 23.
Location: Residential interior.
Entity: Available.
JT stared at the screen.
They wanted him to write his own death.
He thought about Knoxville.
The mountains.
The smell of rain on the pavement.
His mother's kitchen.
His father's old truck.
He remembered the final conversation before leaving.
There's no shame in coming home.
He would have given anything to hear those words again.
Then he noticed something.
A small window in the corner of the computer screen displayed the security cameras.
He could see the editing room.
The corridor.
The main soundstage.
And the loading bay.
The loading bay doors were enormous.
A delivery truck sat just outside.
Two employees were unloading equipment.
The doors were open.
For the first time that evening, JT saw the possibility of escape.
He clicked through the cameras.
The guard stood outside his room.
Beyond him was the equipment corridor.
Beyond that, the main stage.
Then the loading bay.
He began typing.
Not a screenplay.
A plan.

The guard entered when JT called for him.
"Mr. Sloane wants the scene finished."
"I know," JT said. "But I need to see the set. I can't write proper blocking without knowing the layout."
The guard frowned.
"Blocking?"
"Where people move. Camera angles. That kind of thing."
He hesitated.
JT continued.
"Mr. Sloane said he wanted something special. I can give him special, but I need to see the stage."
The guard considered this.
Then reached for his radio.
A moment later, he nodded.
"Let's go."
JT followed him into the equipment corridor.
Stacks of lighting equipment lined the walls.
Electrical cables crossed the floor.
A maintenance cart sat beside a large panel marked:
STAGE LIGHTING — MASTER CONTROL
JT glanced at it.
The guard noticed.
"Keep moving."
They entered the main stage.
The apartment set remained standing.
The dark stain on the carpet was gone.
Someone had replaced the furniture.
There was no evidence that Elena had ever existed.
Except for the small silver bracelet beneath the couch.
JT recognized it.
She had been wearing it when he'd arrived.
He bent and picked it up.
"Leave that," the guard ordered.
JT slipped it into his pocket.
"I need to check something."
He moved toward the rear of the set.
The guard followed.
JT stopped beside a wheeled lighting tower.
"What's this?"
"Lighting rig."
"Can you turn it on?"
"Why?"
"I need to know how bright it gets."
The guard rolled his eyes.
Then leaned toward the control box.
JT grabbed the metal handle of a heavy equipment case and swung it.
The blow struck the guard behind the ear.
He collapsed.
JT dropped the handle.
For several seconds, he couldn't move.
He had never seriously hurt another person before.
The guard groaned.
Alive.
JT felt an absurd moment of relief.
Then something laughed in the darkness above him.
A woman's voice.
Elena's voice.
"That wasn't very nice."
JT looked up.
Two pale hands gripped the lighting truss.
A face appeared between them.
Elena's face.
Except her eyes were too far apart.
And her mouth ran almost from ear to ear.
"You should apologize."
JT ran.

He reached the equipment corridor as the studio lights began shutting off.
One after another.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Darkness swallowed the far end of the building.
JT heard something land behind him.
Something heavy.
Then footsteps.
Too many footsteps.
He slammed his hand against the master lighting controls.
Nothing.
A red indicator flashed.
REMOTE OVERRIDE ACTIVE
The footsteps grew louder.
He yanked open the electrical cabinet beneath the controls.
Rows of circuit breakers filled the panel.
He didn't know which one he needed.
So he threw all of them.
A deafening electrical hum filled the corridor.
The overhead work lights exploded into brightness.
Something screamed.
JT turned.
The creature was crouched halfway through the doorway.
Its borrowed face had split open.
Beneath the skin was something black and muscular, with thin white teeth growing in uneven rows.
Its arms folded inward at impossible angles.
The bright lights appeared to hurt it.
It scrambled backward.
JT grabbed a portable work lamp from the maintenance cart.
He plugged it into a live outlet, wheeled it toward the creature, and switched it on.
The thing recoiled again.
Not imaginary.
Not a costume.
Not special effects.
A living nightmare.
JT left the lamp facing the doorway and ran toward the loading bay.
Behind him, an alarm began sounding.

He was almost there when Daniel Sloane stepped into his path.
The producer held a pistol.
"JT."
His voice was calm.
Almost disappointed.
"I had such high hopes for you."
JT stopped.
The loading doors stood perhaps thirty feet away.
Outside, he could see a section of parking lot.
Freedom.
So close.
Sloane raised the gun.
"You don't understand what you're throwing away."
JT looked at him.
"I understand exactly what you are."
Sloane smiled faintly.
"Do you?"
"You're worse than those things."
The producer shook his head.
"No. They're predators. They behave according to their nature."
He glanced toward the dark corridor.
"I'm a businessman."
Something moved behind him.
JT saw it first.
A pale hand descending from the ceiling.
Then another.
Then a long, narrow head.
The creature lowered itself silently toward Sloane.
JT stepped backward.
Sloane misunderstood.
"Now, there's no reason—"
The creature wrapped both arms around his shoulders.
Sloane screamed.
"NO!"
His pistol discharged.
The shot struck the ceiling.
The thing lifted him from the floor.
"WE HAD AN AGREEMENT!"
The creature opened its enormous mouth.
Sloane kicked and thrashed.
"YOU CAN'T DO THIS! I PAID YOU!"
JT watched the creature press its face against Sloane's.
For a moment, their features seemed to merge.
Then the producer's screams stopped.
The creature lowered itself to the floor.
It stood upright.
Straightened its jacket.
Smoothed its silver hair.
And smiled.
Daniel Sloane looked at JT.
"Well," the thing said in Sloane's voice.
"That's better."
JT ran.
He threw himself through the loading bay doors.
A delivery driver shouted.
JT sprinted past him.
Across the parking lot.
Through the open security gate.
And into the streets of Los Angeles.
He didn't stop running until his lungs felt ready to burst.

The police arrived at Meridian Pictures shortly before dawn.
JT told them everything.
The sets.
The murders.
The creatures.
Daniel Sloane.
The police searched the facility.
They found several empty soundstages.
Office furniture.
Old cameras.
Nothing else.
No bodies.
No blood.
No signs of violence.
The security guard denied ever seeing JT.
The company representative stated that JT was an unsuccessful applicant who had become aggressive after being refused employment.
The detectives were polite.
But JT saw their expressions.
They didn't believe him.
One suggested he speak to a mental health professional.
Another asked whether he'd been using drugs.
JT stopped talking.
There was nothing else he could say.
Three days later, he found Elena's bracelet in his jacket pocket.
He sat on his bed, turning it over in his hands.
Inside was a tiny engraving.
E.M. — NEVER STOP DREAMING
He cried for a long time.
Not only for Elena.
For himself.
For the young man who had left Knoxville believing that success was simply a matter of working harder than everyone else.
For all the people who had traveled to Los Angeles with the same impossible hope.
And for those who had vanished without anyone noticing.

A week later, JT bought a bus ticket back to Tennessee.
He packed his suitcases.
Deleted his social media accounts.
And abandoned the screenplay that had brought him to California.
He was finished with Hollywood.
He would find a job back home.
Maybe write something someday.
Maybe not.
He didn't care anymore.
On his final night in Los Angeles, someone knocked on the garage door.
Three slow knocks.
JT froze.
Nobody ever knocked on the garage door.
He waited.
Another three knocks.
Then a voice.
"JT?"
A man's voice.
Familiar.
Warm.
Daniel Sloane.
JT backed away.
"JT, open up. We need to talk."
He moved toward the small window beside his bed.
Outside, the alley was empty.
The voice continued.
"I understand you're upset. But think about your future."
JT grabbed his backpack.
"There's no reason to throw everything away."
Something scraped against the garage door.
Metal flexed inward.
A long crease appeared near the bottom.
JT climbed through the window.
He landed awkwardly in the narrow alley.
Behind him, the garage door rattled.
Then Sloane's voice changed.
It became Elena's.
"JT?"
He started running.
"Please don't leave me here."
He ran faster.
Then another voice called from behind him.
His mother's.
"Sweetheart?"
JT stumbled.
That voice.
Exactly as he remembered it.
"Come home, baby."
He turned.
Just for a second.
At the far end of the alley stood a figure beneath a streetlight.
A woman.
Her head tilted slightly.
Her arms hung too low.
Even from a distance, he could see that her feet weren't touching the pavement.
The streetlight flickered.
The woman's body began to stretch.
And stretch.
And stretch.
Until her head nearly touched the light.
Then she smiled.
JT ran toward the bus station without looking back.

The bus left Los Angeles at 6:15 the following morning.
JT sat near the middle, beside a window.
He watched the city disappear behind him.
The traffic.
The palm trees.
The endless buildings.
He had come here wanting to write horror movies.
Now he knew something that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Monsters were real.
Some hid in shadows.
Some wore stolen faces.
Some crawled through places that shouldn't exist.
But others wore expensive suits.
They drove beautiful cars.
They shook your hand.
They promised to make your dreams come true.
And perhaps those were the worst monsters of all.
JT closed his eyes.
For the first time in weeks, he felt almost safe.
Then someone sat beside him.
The seat had been empty when the bus departed.
JT opened his eyes.
A young woman smiled at him.
She had dark hair.
Tired eyes.
And a bruise on her left wrist.
"Hello, JT."
His blood turned cold.
Elena.
She looked exactly as she had before the creature killed her.
JT couldn't speak.
The woman leaned closer.
Her smile widened.
Farther than it should have.
"You didn't think we'd let our writer leave, did you?"
JT tried to stand.
Her hand closed around his wrist.
Six fingers.
Then seven.
She leaned toward his ear.
"Mr. Sloane loved your screenplay, JT."
Her voice deepened.
Something moved beneath the skin of her throat.
"And we've already started working on the sequel."
The bus continued east.
Nobody noticed the young man struggling in his seat.
Nobody heard the muffled scream.
And nobody saw the woman beside him open her mouth.
Not even the driver.
He was too busy watching the road.
And smiling at something in the rearview mirror.
THE END