NaNoWriMo 2017: Wolves-1/2

WOLVES-1

EXT. OVERGROWN SUBURBAN STREET - DAY

Suburbia plus about six-hundred years of "where'd everyone go?" What was once a pretty little cul-de-sac is overrun by some hardy, broad-leaved vine which covers almost every surface with plant matter that gently blows in the breeze. It's on the fallen power line poles. It climbs up downfallen wires. It clambers up the side of every building, making the strange, rare patches where it doesn't -- due to too-hard a surface, or too much wind, or some other damned thing -- to be anomolous eyes or mouths, spread wide in horror or rictus screams.

The street itself isn't much better. It's cracked, there's no doubt, and in places barely detectable as a road. Pieces crumble both on the edges and along the middle, lines long scoured away save in patchy shadows. More than a few places show water erosion from the hard rains that pour through, no longer well drained away.

It's not quiet, though. The wind whistles, light as it is. Broken windows blow their myriad frequencies. Holes in roofs hoot. Plants rub their bark to chirp back and forth.

There's a motor.

A growling, low-frequency monster of a motor.

The kind of motor that boils up out of Hell.

High octane. High power. Low impulse-control.

The brutally gleaming 1971 Pontiac GTO Judge Convertible, painted in cadmium yellow and midnight black, burns rubber around the top of the street, noses in, then thunders all the way to the circle.

In the driver's seat is a dog. A literal dog. Thin-ish, wirey, barely able to reach the pedals while sitting upright to steer, she's a real beaut. Part pointer, part terrier, all madness and white-rolling eyes, with a vast dog-smile and a tongue flapping in the false wind. Big triangular ears keep trying to stand up but get forced back by the speed of their passage over the dropped top.

CAPTION "MAZIKEEN JACKALHEAD -- CRAZY"

In the passenger side sits another dog, much heavier, sitting taller, both paws spread out on the dashboard as if to ward off everything that's coming. By contrast, his face is resigned, put-upon, tired in that essential way you get when you've seen it all and only done the annoying bits. His wide pit bull head flings jowls in time with the swaying of the car. It seems a casual effort to dip his head aside just enough to avoid a whipping branch as the car skids around and around in the circle, pulling doughnuts.

CAPTION "PORKBONE STENCHTONGUE -- TIRED"

MAZE

Yeaaaaaaaaaah! This is the life! Right, Porkbone? Right? Right? We got a car, we got a car! And a road! We got a road!

The GTO slithers to a halt on its belly in the middle of the cul-de-sac as Maze pants open-mouthed at Porkbone.

PORKBONE

Yeah, it's a car, alright.

Maze yips a kind of dog-laugh before throwing the shifter in reverse and peeling back around to leave black tracks on the way back up.

MAZE

C'mon, Porkbone! S'fun! The rest of the pack'll love it! Love it! Then we can head up north and look for all those deer. You like the deer, right? Right? The deer are great!

INT/EXT. THE GTO HURTLING THROUGH SUBURBIA - CONTINUOUS

The GTO's tires skip and shudder as it's flung through the middle of the remnants of a small town. Green grows everywhere and most anything vertical more than a single story has been thrown down. The mounded humps of buildings remain under seas of green and vine.

PORKBONE

The deer are alright. They talk less than you.

MAZE

Ha! I heard that, Porkbone! I heard that! Wait, what's that!?

One Maze ear swivels like a radar dish even as the car growls along.

PORKBONE

An echo. They sneak up on you just to repeat everything you say.

MAZE

Repeat everything you say? That sounds dumb. Really dumb.

The car rounds another corner by what would appear to be a decrepit castle but probably is more like a courthouse, just knocked asunder by wind with plenty of time on its hands.

The back tires spin, skid, then break loose, fishtailing on the broken asphalt.

Maze whoops! Howls! Brings the car back into line before it plows into a rusted out hulk that probably used to be a car of even greater size.

MAZE

Hold on, I think we're loose!

Porkbone sighs.

PORKBONE

In the head you're loose, maybe.

As the car swings wildly, Porkbone calmly pops the glove compartment, reaches inside, and draws out a thick rawhide chew, settling it between his lips like a fat stogie.

A moment and the vehicle seems lost, but the wheels bite bitumen and throw the mass back in motion through the more industrialized part of town.

Here and there buildings have been cleared, the omnipresent sea of green rolled back through main effort and, judging from the streaks, no small amount of fire. A three-cat team wearing foil-reflective suits and helmets are operating a cart-sized flamethrower on wheels, carefully burning away the vines surrounding their lightly reconstructed business, "Catter-Pies."

The GTO blows on by. Maze waves wildly with both front paws before hastily grabbing the wheel again. Porkbone lifts a claw in the cats' direction.

One waves back.

MAZE

Cats are crazy. The kudzu'll be back in 6 months won't it? It'll eat up the whole building! Crazy cats.

Porkbone just tilts his head a bit to the side, slitting his eyes in the slipstream.

PORKBONE

Maybe they'll make it. Some do. Everybody's got to try, I think. You can't be slaves to everything.

MAZE

No more slaves! No more! Just fun, right?

The car comes to a screeching halt just before the crumbling remnants of a highway overpass. The bridge itself as partially collapsed, vines having made it only so far across old concrete and asphalt.

Below, two dozen other dogs sit on gleaming metal motorcycles or in glittering open-topped cars. Most of them look fabricobbled together from a host of other rides but they're all clean and intentional.

PORKBONE

Yeah, Maze. Just fun. So much fun you won't be able to stand it anymore.

He hitches himself up to sit on the back of the seat, tilts his head back and yowls, good and long.

All eyes on the highway turn to look. A few raise paw-fists.

PORKBONE

(louder, to the assembled)

The time has come! We have served, we have slaved, and we have been freed! Now we run the roads, keeping our wheels hot, hunting together, and living as a proud pack should!

Howls rise all around. Maze is without doubt the loudest and she looks at Porkbone with adoring eyes.

PORKBONE

We have hunted and we have fed! We have roamed, but the great pack must ride together for the even greater pack, that pack made up not only of doggoes but catzen and even ratzen and birdzen. All slaves that must be freed, forever!

More howls and Porkbone leads them, great baying howls somewhere between fury and pity.

PORKBONE

We have their tools. We have their way of living! We have everything we need! So let us now take what we have and destroy the masters as only the masters might destroy themselves!

More howls as Porkbone slides back down into the car with a thud.

MAZE

Yeah! Now we go? We go now?

PORKBONE

Yeah.

The engine revs and pebbles spray from underneath the wide back tires as the GTO slams down the on-ramp.

Porkbone lifts an enormous belt-fed chaingun from the back-seat as the car falls into leading the line of bikes and cars of the pack. He opens the mounting legs and carefully makes sure the bolts are in and tight, linking it to the car frame. A couple of short swings back and forth and the mounting is checked.

An old leather pilot's hat with holes cut out for ears goes over his head along with some goggles. The hat's straps blow in the breeze.

For a moment, Porkbone looks completely at ease, completely comfortable.

MAZE

We're about to make it go boom for the masters, huh? Yeah, boom! All up in their faces! Right, Boss?

She makes some aggressive gorilla sounds.

PORKBONE

Yeah, boom all up in their faces. And don't call me Boss.

(beat)

That was my slave-name.

WOLVES-2

EXT. ATLANTA EXURB, HIGHWAY 85 SOUTH - DAY

A broken highway, shattered as if someone had dropped it from a foot above the Earth and it broke on contact. Green kudzu vines spread everywhere, reaching as far across the road as it can but blasted free in the middle. Buildings to both sides, most green mounds with occasional holes in their faces, a very few looking roughly maintained, cleared by sweat and attention, a very few glass pillars the vine can't climb, thrust up like needles through a tumor.

Down the midst comes the Pack, gleaming metal and matte carbon fiber, engines loud like continuous shouts or howls of beasts as much as those who ride them. The vines get pushed back further as each passes, driving hard.

The city lies to the south. The outline is clean, hazed only by distance and smog, not furred by growths.

In the lead is TREE on a heavy modded Harley, all ape-hanger handlebars and exaggerated tail-pipes, his Komondor dreads hanging around his head and blowing in the wind. He must see the road through the intermediary of Pure Fucking Talent because his beady black eyes are only visible one second out of ten.

In the second rank come ten or more motorcycles, from crotch-rockets to heavy hogs, all ridden by dogs with a lean and hungry look. Twins, WRENCH and LONGBONE, with their doberman heads and their fixated gazes. They growl nearly as loudly as the bikes.

Third rank: trucks. An 18-wheeler driven by FETCH, English Bulldog with an affected bright blue beret. The sides are covered with a complex interwoven mass of graffiti, both crude in execution and elegant. Everyone in the Pack has made their mark here and it shows. Behind Fetch comes a fist-full of smaller trucks, box-sided and pick-up. Most are loaded with supplies but a couple are empty.

Fourth rank: cars. And here is the multitude, twenty or thirty cars, each with at least one Pack member driving and sometimes five or six within or hanging out the windows. They're a wild bunch, made more incongruous by the Ferrari roaring along full to the brim with cats. None of them are long enough to drive the thing, so MOPS rides the steering wheel while FLOPS, PUDDIN and GRACE work the pedals and hang on for dear life. There's a lot of yowling involved and given that they're all almost indistinguishable orange tabbies, some confusion.

Maze and Porkbone bring up the rear of the cars, Maze's tongue hanging out the window and flopping tongue drops like a champion and Porkbone just sitting back, considering the skyline ahead.

MAZE

This ain't north, Porkbone. No deer here.

PORKBONE

You're right. There's something a lot better.

MAZE

Is it -- chickens?

PORKBONE

No, not chickens. Masters.

The sun catches the barrel edge under the tarp behind him. Occasional cross-gusts almost flip up the edge to reveal the 50-cal mounted back there.

Behind the cars flow another five or so more motorcycles, weaving onto and off of the highway. There must be several dozen in total, but they split off to take exits, drive into the suburbs, as others slide back in.

At the very end, a flatbed tow-truck carrying some broken-down bikes and pulling a car that's clearly not done being "upgraded." Driving the tow is a whippet-thin doberman, KILROY.

A few bikes sweep back and forth behind even him, but they never linger.

There's a short crackle of static from the radio in the Judge.

TREE

(OS, radio)

Hey, boss. We've got the edge of the settlement zone up here. You ready to party?

MAZE

Party! Party! Yeah!

Porkbone grabs the mic from the console.

PORKBONE

Hold off on the celebrations until we know if they want to dance, Tree. They might not like our breath.

EXT. INTERCHANGE - DAY

Once upon a time it was the 285/85 interchange, a rat's nest of concrete pillars, elevated roadways, and last-minute lane-changes. [[https://goo.gl/maps/CQsnQnpwQFu]]

Now it's an apartment building, a village, a gate in the wall around Atlanta proper. Vines crawl everywhere except into the road, sheared neatly at both sides, but something bigger squats right in the middle:

A gate-house. Not just any gatehouse, but one which reaches up all the way to the lowest of the arching roadways and above that walls go all the way to the top. Like those which run down the outer edge of 285 to both east and west, they aren't ad-hoc things but quarried concrete, and old. The surfaces are scoured clean, testifying to the diligence of the settlement. A team of dogs in rough but serviceable clothes with a prominent blue-grey collar around each neck are up on some rickety-looking scaffolding with scrapers and prunes clearing incursions even now.

A few guards or lookouts are visible above the gate on a parapet that runs the width. They carry some serviceable-looking rifles but nothing fancy. Like the workers on the wall, they wear clothing, if slightly cleaner and less shabby. But only slightly.

The throaty rumble of a Harley begins building.

The lookouts up high shield their eyes beneath paws. DOG GUARD #1 (husky) brings his rifle down from his furry shoulder sling ready in his arms. No one looks terribly concerned yet.

Tree crests a low rise first, then his Harley, shimmering slightly in the summer heat, As he closes, he clears, until he's just a big, shaggy bastard riding a bike up to the Interchange.

DOG GUARD #1

Hail the traveler!

TREE

Hail the wall!

A couple more of the guards put hands to weapons.

DOG GUARD #1

What brings us together this day, nude-o?

Tree gives a doggy grin and leans back on the big bike.

TREE

Well, that's a story my son, and no two ways about it. Maybe I came by to see how the dressed-set are living.

(nods at the work crew)

They look like they're having a blast.

DOG GUARD #1

That they are, traveler! It'll be my turn on that duty next week and I can tell you, it's a wonder.

TREE

It's a wonder they don't fall and break their necks!

There are chuckles.

TREE

But I'm just a traveler, what do I know?

DOG GUARD #1

That's a shiny bike you've got there, friend. We don't see its like much here.

TREE

I'm sure you do. Why don't you open the gate, come down, and we'll talk like proper people? I could use a drink and a bite. I've come a long way, after all.

The guard laughs.

DOG GUARD #1

I'll bet you have. I'll bet you have. But my friends and I feel alright up here, don't we?

A flurry of amused yips and laughs.

DOG GUARD #1

No, fine here, thanks. But there's a fountain of fresh and cool for tired travelers and if you double back the way a mile or two and head west, you'll find some other folks what live outside the settlement. They'll have rooms and food, no doubt.

Tree snorts. His dreads make it a whole-body motion.

TREE

I'll bet they're living on scraps and whatever you lot throw off the walls. Maybe people.

DOG GUARD #1

(scowling)

Maybe they do eat people. More reason for you to get going there, ingrate. Get fresh water and go, the Masters aren't monsters.

Tree makes an elaborate show of dismounting from his bike and shuffling over to the stone basin.

It's a bowl, three feet wide and as much deep, held up by a pillar with butterfly wings and carved all around with a weird series of symbols, like scratches. Water fills it seemingly from nowhere and pours out the front lip onto a cunningly concealed grate.

He casually throws paw-fulls of the water over his big shaggy head, letting it splash everywhere. Then he shakes, throwing water as far as the door.

TREE

Mmmm, that's good. The road's dusty.

DG1 makes a dismissive gesture with the butt of his rifle.

DOG GUARD #1

I think we've seen enough of you, traveler. Why don't you go find our fine young cannibal friends? You seem meaty. That's how you'll make friends.

Tree chuckles as he jumps back onto the Harley and lets it growl-up.

TREE

Maybe I will. Might be a good thing or they might drive me crazy. Either way, thank's for the hospitality, friend. Give my regards to the Masters.

DOG GUARD #1

If I see them, I'll surely tell them about the likes of you.

Tree gestures back north along the highway.

TREE

North and west, you said? Then I'll be off.

The Harley rumbles louder then delicately, almost gently, turns without a squeal or burn-out and accelerates north again.

DOG GUARD #1

(to Dog Guard #2)

Inform the Masters. Outsiders with gear that nice are never alone and never that polite. We will need their support.

Tree's Harley disappears into the ripple-haze over the road.

DOG GUARD #1

Maybe two days. He seems patient.