LOGLINE:  At the end of the world, a garbage man learns the difference between sacrifice and survival as he leads a rag-tag band of survivors through monster-inhabited streets to a place where they can all earn redemption.  Once Upon the End combines elements of Tremors and Aliens with the sentimentality of Where the Heart Is.

     SETTING:   In a coastal city a group of people barricade themselves inside the penthouse suite of a hotel as the city comes down around them.  Eventually, they are forced to leave and make a run for the ocean.

     BACKGROUND:  From Alabama to Afghanistan, the world is in chaos.  Creatures called Maggies have appeared and seek only to cleanse the earth of its current occupants.  Varying from the size of a maggot to a Cadillac, their only vulnerability is salt.

     OUTLINE:  Huddled in the penthouse suite apartment of the Franklin Hotel in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina, is a rag-tag band of survivors who have managed to board up the windows and doors as a temporary guarantor of their survival.  Buckley Adamski, an African-American garbage man, is the self appointed leader who journeys from confident to coward back to confident as he discovers the differences between survival and sacrifice.
     Also in their redoubt are- 
     Grandma Riggs, a retired school teacher with glaucoma and the need to use illicit substances in order deal with the pain, the only side-effect her penchant for precognitive children’s nursery rhymes.
      Sissy Phillips, a young blonde wallflower whose best days where in elementary school, matures in a new world were good looks are far less important than ability and determination.
     Bennie Moreno, a young Hispanic dope pusher whose unique gift is a bag of crack that keeps Grandma Riggs from writhing in agony.
     Little Rashad Richards, a small African-American boy who plays the trumpet and discovers magic in the sounds of his music. 
     Gertrude Lowenstien, a mediocre whore who rented her love for decades, finds a truer love with Travis MacHenry.
     Travis MacHenry, a king on any used car lot, finds love at the end of the world with Gertrude.
     Samuel Reeves, a recent high school graduate with a scholarship to NC State as an offensive lineman, learns that brains are what he needs to survive.
     Lawshawna Jones, girlfriend of Samuel, breaks the cardinal rule: Don’t Open The Door.
     And Sally Struthers, a look-alike, name sake for the TV spokesperson for children, who travels in search of souls to save.
     As the larger Caddies that hungered for brick, mortar and steel descended on a city of the dead, the group leaves their safe haven before it crumbles beneath them.  They’ve discovered that salt kills the creatures and they dream of the ocean that lies a tantalizing 20 miles away.  Using salt-water Super Soakers and salted Molotov Cocktails, they blast their way free of the apartment in a desperate run to freedom.
 

This screenplay is represented by 
M.Jane Letty, The Star Chamber

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     LOGLINE:  An Original Story: The ghostly inhabitants of a haunted hearse exorcise the personal demons of the hapless slacker who attempts to car-jack them. 

The day begins as ELSIE WHISTLER, June Cleaver and Stepford-perfect, backs her 1970s black station wagon down the driveway.  She sits primly behind the wheel, the epitome of a careful driver.  She’s talking as if the car has other occupants.  Eventually, she pulls into a parking lot of a grocery store and finds a parking space.  In the store she moves from aisle to aisle, an island of calm amidst a sea of runny-nosed babies, out of control children and big women in jogging suits.  Impossibly polite, she buys her goods and returns to her car.

Simultaneously, behind a nearby strip mall, our slacker NATHAN JONES tosses a stolen purse, pockets everything of value, then drops it in a nearby dumpster.  Looking for more trouble, he finds another strip mall. 

The two converge as Elsie begins to back out of her parking space and Nathan opens the passenger door and climbs inside.  Jerking out a plastic, but authentic-looking pistol, he orders her to drive.  She complies with her usual aplomb and admonishes him to be careful of the upholstery.  He’s further astonished as she corrects his grammar and poor sentence structure.  Although she’s following his orders, he wonders at his level of control.

When Elsie parks the car behind a gas station on the edge of town, he orders her to give him her purse.  Instead of being afraid, she claps her hands excitedly as she passes it to him.  Nathan discovers a 4-inch stack of bills in the purse and is at once thrilled and curious where she got the cash.  Elsie explains that she gets money from ne’er-do-wells like him, convincing him that she’s crazy.  As he makes to leave, the door locks click shut.  He orders her to open the door, but she tells him that it isn’t up to her – it’s up to him.  Nathan grins, thinking this is her attempt at a psychological conversion of him, so he explains to her his philosophy.  She sees that he’s not a lost cause, but can’t help but correct his grammar once again.

Tired of keeping quiet, the other occupants of the car finally speak.  First the ghost of HARRY EPSTIEN who inhabits the dome light speaks.  Thinking it some kind of hidden speaker, Nathan wraps his knuckles against the plastic, infuriating the ghost.  Nathan’s confidence in the joke slips as SUZANNE in the vanity mirror, ALICE in the front passenger seat belt, BORIS in the floor mat, TONY in an armrest ashtray and MABEL in the dangling scented pine tree join in the conversation.  Now terrified and confused by the voices, Nathan scrambles into the backseat.

One-by-one the ghosts are introduced to him.  Elsie explains why each ghost inhabits a different part of the former hearse.  Nathan does his best to ignore her.  He tries every door, but each is irrevocably locked.  He admits he doesn’t believe in the ghosts.  He admits he doesn’t believe in the possibility that he could be special.  Elsie insists that these two concepts are inexorably linked and explains to him that if he can see the ghosts then he can be special.  He tries to see the ghosts,.  After several false starts, he succeeds.  He’s both stunned and wondrous about the possibilities posed by the existence of ghosts.  Nathan learns that the hearse is purgatory for its residents.  Not good enough for heaven, they aren’t bad enough for hell either.  The motherly ghost Mabel is ready to try and achieve heaven.  Understanding that she must do something to help another if she is to attain salvation, she volunteers to help Nathan. 

The doors unlock and Nathan leaves with the scented pine tree inhabited by the ghost of Mabel around his neck.  They walk towards an uncertain but hopeful future.  Across the hedgerow in a field behind them are several freshly dug graves making one wonder if this was a future that Nathan narrowly escaped...
 

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     LOGLINE: A modern LOGAN’S RUN in a rural setting.
 

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(Based on the short story that appeared in Appalachian Galapagos.)
 
 

     LOGLINE: After killing a coyote on a lonely desert highway, a disenfranchised young man must choose between taking the dead coyote's place in the pack or loving the woman of his dreams.

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(Based on the short story that appeared in the anthology A Midsummer Night's Terror)