THE STAGE 32 LOGLINES

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FOE

FOE
By Lee Matthias

GENRE: Sci-fi, Horror
LOGLINE:

In a near-future world shattered by an alien invasion, a lone Special Ops soldier, unaware that he's the key to victory, stumbles on a group of disabled war vets holding their abandoned VA Hospital as the invaders lay siege.

SYNOPSIS:

A hellish rain of asteroids is showered on Earth by... someone. A kind of nuclear winter begins to destroy most of humanity.

Four years pass. The world has fallen into chaos. Civilization is all but lost. It’s survival of the fittest again.

Wandering the southwest, a lone soldier, MIKLOVITCH, on a mysterious search, stumbles across a group of variously disabled war veterans surviving somehow in an otherwise abandoned VA hospital. They face hordes of savages, remnants of humanity, using their own unique combat abilities and weapons designed around their individual disabilities. They’re led by a wheelchair-bound former unit commander, LYNCH.

The survivors from the city surrounding the huge complex are led by JEREMY, former head of hospital security, now determined to take it for himself and his army of barbarians. The hospital is a prize: filled with drugs, medical supplies, its own power and water good for several more years, and vast amounts of food (some grown onsite) and supplies, even now, years after “the end of the world”.

Having sheltered overnight in the bowels of the hospital, and unaware, at first, of the surviving vets on the upper floors, Miklovitch finds himself in the middle of an attack by the barbarians (called by the vets with sarcastic irony, “Abnormals” or “Abs,” where, in their world, disabilities are the norm). So he ends up helping in the Veterans’ defense. The vets have all manner of weapons and tactics developed over the years since the hospital staff had abandoned them. WE MEET some who specialize in disability combat techniques, others specializing in makeshift weapons design, and others handling electronics and logistics. In the aftermath of the latest Abnormal attack, they force him to choose: friend or foe. Reluctant to give up his independence, but realizing the need, both theirs and his, for the present, he joins them.

Now, we learn Mik is not an American soldier. Though originally born in the U.S., he’s Russian, former “Spetsnaz” (Russian Special Forces). On a quest that, so far, he keeps to himself, he’s the sole survivor of his unit, originally dropped into a mostly destroyed U.S. to secure and control a rumoured cutting-edge weapons installation that could be used in the world’s defense.

So, Miklovitch assimilates into the military culture maintained by the disabled vets and a pair of nurses who stayed with them. He gets to know Lynch, their leader, and the former Head Nurse, WILLY, devoted to Lynch, and herself, formidable with a gun. Others include former ward nurse, ANGIE, and a couple dozen variously disabled vets. Mik learns they’re running out of supplies and ammunition, and they need a generator for their lone, otherwise still-running truck. Mik describes seeing an abandoned “sister-model” armored truck with a generator in a parking garage deep in the city. So, they decide to risk taking a “Night Run”.

Miklovitch and some of the vets slip out of the hospital that night and head into the city.

Moving through the ruined landscape, Miklovitch and the others locate the generator they need in a downtown parking structure. They encounter some “abs” and fight them off. On their return trip, Miklovitch shows them a stash of Spec Ops weapons he has hidden on the outskirts of the city, and they load up. Heading back to the hospital they witness some kind of “ship” landing and burrowing into the desert.

At the hospital, Lynch and the vets decide that the strange ship must be investigated. So Mik and three vets head back out. At the desert location, they find nothing, so they decide to check the abs’ HQ. They arrive at an abandoned industrial complex and find the abs have been attacked. The bodies are eviscerated, some nearly digested by their attackers, yet left scattered across the scene like an afterthought. Mik goes into the complex to investigate while the others hold position behind some cover. Inside, at first, he senses just an odor… worse than a slaughterhouse. Then, getting only a glimpse, he sees what appear to be creatures so strange and different he can’t make sense of them. Backing out and away, he finds his companions dead, just like the abnormals. He runs.

Barely getting back, he reports what happened and that he’s probably been followed. A faction of the vets who manage with only canes or a single crutch, led by “caner,” JENKS, another former unit commander, confront Lynch and the others arguing for escape before they’re wiped out. When Lynch refuses, Jenks and his group abandon them. The remaining vets realize they must prepare for an enemy and a fight they’ve never imagined. Having defeated their adversary, Jeremy and his “abnormals,” time after time, Lynch and these “half-men” must prepare for something beyond the “whole men” they’ve faced up to now.

The invaders lay siege to the hospital.

As the enemy moves in, the vets begin to learn their adversary’s nature, creatures whose bizarre biology is unlike anything they know. In the DIM LIGHT, the ALIENS advance: tall, bipedal, yet insect-like, moving in short bird-like bursts. From chitin-covered heads, thick, ropy "antenna" hang above shoulders with two segmented arms ending in claw-like pincers, and below, powerful legs. Behind, single, narrowing, scorpion-like tails curl upward, ending in massive, dripping, scimitar-shaped thorns. Then, their chests seem to “open”. Dozens of spindly, spider-like THINGS burst out, hopping from wall to wall in two-meter jumps. From each, RED POINTS reflect in the dimness: EYES. The clinging things seem to serve their alien hosts in a weird, symbiotic manner.

Later, after an intense fire-fight that may have shown a weakness in their attackers, Willy and Mikovitch decide to slip out of the hospital and try to enlist Jeremy and his fighters. They meet and explain that they’ve found a vulnerability in the aliens, and that the things they can use against them are in a storage-room at the main loading dock. Jeremy stiffens and tells them to stay away. He lets slip that there’s more to the hospital than the vets know. He describes an entrance to a vast underground complex known as FACILITY NINE, and says it was the military’s center for developing and testing black weapons technology. He says it’s all underground and “ten times” the size of the huge hospital complex itself. The hospital’s loading dock allowed the military cover and access to Facility Nine. This, WE now realize, is what Mik has been trying to find since the beginning. His unit had been tasked by the Russian FSB (formerly KGB) with capturing or, failing that, destroying it to deny it to the invaders. But Jeremy refuses to offer his help, and, after Jenks reveals himself, now allied with the abs, Willy and Mik return to the hospital.

In a fierce series of running battles in the bowels of the hospital complex, the vets begin to understand their foe. Put to the ultimate test, their training is nearly overcome. Several vets, however, are able to get to the truck dock. There, pursued by the invaders they’re pinned down at the storage room. Within, one of the vets bumps a button on a panel, and outside in the main dock room, a wall opens exposing a ramp large enough for a semi, leading to an underground tunnel. The vets combine their fire on the aliens, forcing the creatures down the ramp, and one of the vets hits the button again, trapping them in the tunnel leading to Facility Nine.

Back at their defensive redoubt, as the main body of aliens moves to close in, the vets prepare for a last stand in the one remaining part of the complex still under their control. There, they meet their adversary with everything they’ve learned, and, with the arrival of Jeremy, his Abs, Jenks and his “caners,” after a withering struggle with their above-ground enemy, Miklovitch, Lynch, and the rest destroy their foe.

But, in a final shot at the deserted Loading Dock, the door to Facility Nine stands immobile as WE slowly move in, setting the stage for another entry in the saga.#

Tasha Lewis

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Rutger Oosterhoff

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