An American Werewolf in Paris

She shoves his hand away and pulls Andy past him. Gaston grabs her and spins her around. This time Andy grabs Gaston's hand and pulls it off her. He holds up Gaston's three fingered hand and glares at him.

andy

Well, this explains the two fingers they found in Liberace's asshole.

Gaston jerks his hand away. He stabs his finger in Andy's chest.

gaston

In Paris we have an expression for people like you: Enculé d'Americain.

andy

Yeah? In New York we got an expression too. Goes like this...

CRACK! Andy hauls off and belts Gaston in the jaw as hard as he can. But Gaston doesn't even lose his footing. He sneers with rage and hits Andy with a vicious combination. His glasses fly off as he reels into the crowd, knocking a few people into a gr oup of nearby SKINHEADS. The skinheads erupt into randomly directed violence- a full fledged BRAWL breaks out. It's chaos.

On the floor, Andy squirms away from the skinheads and retrieves his glasses. He hears Serafine call his name. He gets up amidst the mayhem and sees Serafine being carried away by the crowd.

andy

Serafine!

Someone knocks into Andy and he falls to the ground. He gets back on his feet- Serafine's nowhere in sight. He pushes his way through the crowd, looking for her. He catches sight of her white dress in a distant corner. It's there for a second and then gone again - apparently into a tunnel. He runs over to it.

Andy peers into THE TUNNEL, which houses some old pipes. It fades quickly into darkness. He grabs a kerosene torch from the wall and runs into the tunnel. About a hundred yards in he passes an ALCOVE.

He leans in with his torch and peers around. The cave like room is empty but something catches Andy's eye. Scratched into the stone wall, amidst various graffiti, is A PENTAGRAM. It looks to be centuries old.

Andy's transfixed by it. The sound of his own breathing suddenly becomes deafening and his vision begins to distort: the textures of the stone wall begin to churn and crawl, and the flames from his torch melt into different hues. The pentagram glows an d seems to grow out of the wall...

The hallucinatory flash is over as fast as it began. Panting, stunned, Andy shakes it off. He wipes his face, checking for traces of paint. He tries to reassure himself.

andy

Whoa. C'mon.

A woman's SCREAM echoes through the tunnels. He runs towards it.

Andy

Serafine!?

Another scream- anguished, tortured. Andy runs faster. He arrives at an intersection with another tunnel, turns the corner and finds...

A decrepit old WINO hogging a bottle from his warty HAG companion, provoking her to scream like she just lost her only son. They look up at Andy. The hag shuts up. They fix Andy with an odd stare.

andy

Sorry...I, uh, did you see a girl, la femme, um, avec, la dress blanc?

They just stare at him. Spooked, he walks past them. They follow him with their creepy stare as he continues into the tunnel, which slopes downhill.

He comes to an old stairway leading down into darkness. WATER pours out of a hole in the ceiling. The steps are severely eroded and slick with flowing water and moss. Andy sees something. It's SERAFINE'S SHOE, laying on a landing a few yards down the s tairs. He leans in further, loses his footing and slips.

andy

Ahh! Son of a bitch!

He shoots down the stairs on his back, past the shoe which lies at the mouth of an intersecting tunnel. His glasses come off. The torch goes out. He stops at the bottom of the stairs on a gravel surface.

He winces a bit as he sits up. It's too dark to make much out. He feels around the gravel, finds his GLASSES - they're shattered. He scowls. He stands up and walks ahead, feeling his way along the slick wall, peering into the darkness.

ANDY

SERAFINE!?

The echo sounds different- like he's in a larger space. The echo decays into a familiar low RUMBLE.

A reflection of light appears in a puddle on the floor. The light gets brighter until Andy sees the subway tracks at his feet. The rumble gets suddenly louder as

A METRO TRAIN

barrels around the corner, flooding the tunnel with light and closing on Andy fast.

andy

Oh shit!

He turns and runs for THE STAIRWAY. He skids on the gravel and overshoots it. He scrambles back and up into it just as THE TRAIN whooshes past.

Andy scurries a few feet up the slick steps, using a rusty pipe for a handhold. As he looks back at the SPARKING, RUSHING TRAIN WHEELS, his heart pounding in his head, he has another HALLUCINATORY-FLASH: the sparks explode into streaking patterns of co lor and light.

It passes quickly. The train goes by and its rumble fades. Andy squeezes his temples and takes a deep breath. Before he finishes exhaling, an UNEARTHLY HOWL echoes through the tunnels. The howl literally takes his breath away- he's frozen there, eyes w ide, not breathing for a long moment.

Quietly, carefully, he makes his way back up the dark, wet stairs. He comes to the landing, picks up Serafine's shoe, and steps into the INTERSECTING TUNNEL. He squints into the darkness. Without his glasses, ANDY'S POV is a bit blurry. He walks into the tunnel. Another HOWL. Andy swallows hard.

andy

Jesus Christ...

He hurries along. WATER DRIPS from the tunnel ceiling, down the walls, onto the cobblestone floor, flowing into rivulets around Andy's feet and joining a stream that flows ahead of him, disappearing into the blackness ahead. He approaches another inter section. He stumbles over something.

He looks down and makes out a GIRL'S BARE LEG lying in a puddle in the dark intersecting tunnel. He follows the leg up with his eyes- it's messily severed above the knee. He gasps.

He looks further into the tunnel and sees A PAIR OF GLOWING YELLOW EYES staring back at him out of the darkness. Andy turns and runs.

With a horrible ROAR, the eyes lunge after him and turn the corner. As it gains on Andy, we see the dim outline of the massive wolf-like beast.

Andy dives for a SMALL CONDUIT, barely big enough for his body, and wriggles into it. Behind him the yellow eyes appear at the mouth of the conduit - the beast SNARLS but can't fit in. Andy can see a dim light at the end of the conduit. He crawls along .

He emerges into ANOTHER TUNNEL. Some thirty yards away, light and street noise come through a GRATE on the ceiling of an antechamber beyond an iron gate. Relieved, Andy starts off towards it. A SNARL stops him in his tracks. THE BEAST comes tearing aro und a corner fifty yards behind him.

Andy breaks into a sprint towards the antechamber. He slips on the wet floor and lands in a puddle, drenching himself. The beast closes in.

Andy gets up, runs into the antechamber and slams the iron gate shut. There's a rusty DEADBOLT lock on the gate, but no key. The beast is twenty five yards away and closing fast - it's massive silhouette filling the diameter of the tunnel.

Andy whips out his SWISS ARMY KNIFE, opens the screw driver and tries it in the old-fashioned keyhole- it doesn't work. The beast is twenty feet away. Andy tries the can opener- no luck. Ten feet. Andy jams the corkscrew into the hole. The beast leaps. The corkscrew turns. The DEADBOLT SLIDES.

SLAM!! The beast rams the gate, shaking the anteroom. But it holds. Flashes of CLAWS and TEETH thrash through the bars, but it's still too dark to make the beast out clearly. Andy runs across the anteroom, grabs the steel sewer grate on the ceiling, an d hoists himself up.

Through the bars, he sees a BUSY BOULEVARD in the Pigalle (the "Times Square" of Paris). There's a COP a few paces away. Andy screams to him.

ANDY

HELP! OFFICER!

ON THE BOULEVARD- Over the roar of traffic and midnight revelers, the cop can barely pinpoint Andy's screams. He looks around, confused. He sees Andy and angrily shakes his baton at him.

cop

(French)

Hey! You shouldn't be down there!

ANDY

FOR GOD'S SAKES, LET ME OUT!!

THE BEAST slams the gate, wrenching one of the iron bars loose- two more bars and it'll fit through. Andy jumps down, picks up the loose bar. It's got a STAR SHAPED SPEAR TIP.

He rushes at the gate and jams the spear through the gate, aiming for the thrashing teeth and eyes in the darkness.

The beast ducks and the spear sinks a couple of inches into the BACK OF IT'S NECK and stops, apparently on bone. It recoils and ROARS with pain, shaking the spear free.

ON THE STREET- The cop raps the bars with his nightstick and peers into the dark anteroom.

COP

(in French)

You are not allowed down there!

IN THE ANTEROOM- The beast rams the gate- it's rage redoubled. Andy jumps up and grabs the grate.

andy

GET ME THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!!

ON THE STREET

COP

(French)

"Fuck"? You think I don't know this word "fuck"? Is that how you talk to policemen in America?

Enraged, the cop runs to his car, muttering to himself. He opens the trunk and rummages around for something.

IN THE ANTEROOM- The beast knocks another bar off the gate. Andy watches in horror as it rams even harder, loosening the NEXT BAR.

andy

(to the cop)

FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! FUCK!

ON THE STREET- The cop looks over at Andy, incensed. He takes a crowbar from the trunk, runs back cussing in French, and struggles with the grate.

IN THE ANTEROOM- The NEXT BAR on the gate gives. The beast sticks its head through the gap and focuses it's searing yellow eyes on Andy. It rears back, ready to pounce...

THE GRATE- comes up. The cop grabs Andy and pulls...

IN THE ANTEROOM- Andy's legs dangle like bait. The beast lunges, teeth and claws bared.

ON THE STREET- Andy screams as a bus roars by. The cop pulls him up and out. Andy's right pants leg is torn open and he's bleeding from a GOUGE in his ankle.

cop

(French)

Okay, what the hell are you up to?

ANDY

It bit me! My leg! Jesus, it's down there, shoot it! Shoot it for Christ's sakes!

He points frantically at the open hole. The cop aims his flashlight in the hole. It's empty. He looks Andy up and down.

COp

(French)

Your passport.

Shaking, Andy takes his passport out of his pocket. The cop takes it and copies some information. Andy raves at him- a blur of English and broken French.

andy

There's something down there! A bear or something! A god damn monster! Beau coup teeth! Huge, Grande, with yellow eyes, all this hair, it killed Serafine! My God...

cop

You on drugs? Huh?

andy

(he falters)

No...I...

He looks disoriented, half-crazed. He definitely seems like he's on drugs. The cop shines his flashlight in Andy's eyes- his PUPILS are like saucers.

ANDY'S POV

The cop's flashlight sparks another HALLUCINATORY FLASH. The cops face melts like liquid, sounds swirl together, the garish neon signs of The Pigalle explode into streaking colors and we BURN INTO WHITE.

cut to:

EXT. TERRENCE'S APARTMENT BUILDING

The cop car pulls to a stop. The cop gets out, opens the back door, and pulls Andy out. He pushes Andy towards the building.

cop

(French)

Stay off the street.

The cop gets in the car and drives away. Andy staggers to the gate in a daze and fumbles with the keys.

INT. APARTMENT BUILDING

Andy walks up to the apartment door. Disoriented and shaking, he manages to open the door and walk in. He locks the door, and switches on the lights. He looks out the small PEEPHOLE. No sign of anyone or anything. He leans back against the door and rub s his hands across his face.

andy

Oh god. Je suis seriously messed up...

There's a DRIPPING sound coming from the kitchen. Andy looks across the living room into the dark kitchen. The DRIP continues. He steps forward cautiously. Suddenly he feels something and looks down sharply.

UNCLE TERRENCE, bloody stumps and all, is clutching Andy's legs and looking up at him desperately. He's trying to speak but can't seem to make a sound. Blood from his wounds soaks the WHITE BEAR RUG beneath them.

Andy's terror struck, he tries to jump away but falls backwards to the floor. Terrence crawls up and gets close to Andy's face. He croaks out two words in a rasp-

TERRENCE

Saint Severin...

INT. TERRENCE'S HOSPITAL ROOM - SAME TIME

The EKG monitor shows a FLATLINE. Alarms are BEEPING. Terrence's body lies motionless under the oxygen tent. A DOCTOR and a NURSE rush to the bed. The nurse rips the oxygen tent away and the doctor SLAMS his fists down on Terrence's chest. The EKG show s a tentative blip. The doctor SLAMS again. An erratic heart beat starts back up on the EKG.

INT. TERRENCE'S APARTMENT - SAME TIME

Andy lies passed out on the floor. Terrence is gone, and the rug is free from blood.

FADE TO BLACK.

INT. LEDUC'S OFFICE - DAY

Marcel sits next to the patrol cop, PEROTIN, who rescued Andy. They're hysterical with laughter. Even Leduc, sitting behind his desk, is chuckling.

LEDUC

(French)

What else did he say?

perotin

(French)

Yellow eyes...big teeth...

(he can barely choke out the words between laughs)

Covered with hair! Ha-ha-ha!

Perotin playfully growls at Marcel. They laugh even harder.

LEDUC

(French)

Okay Perotin. You can go.

Perotin nods, still laughing. Marcel walks him to the door. Before he steps out, Perotin bares his teeth, growls again, and cracks up some more. Marcel, laughing, claps him on the back and shuts the door- then he and Leduc go instantly stone faced. The y look at each other gravely.

leduc

(French)

Well?

marcel

(grim)

Okay. So maybe you were right.

leduc

Hmmph. At least now there's one person around here who doesn't think I'm crazy.

Leduc walks to a map of Paris on the wall covered with colored push pins. He sticks a blue pin in it. He points to a green pin on another part of the map.

LEDUC

(French)

Twelve thirty-six a.m. here. Twelve forty a.m. here. There's two of them. At least.

marcel

Merde.

Leduc looks at his calendar. Four days are circled in red ink.

LEDUC

(French)

Two more nights in this lunar cycle.

marcel

Double merde.

Leduc opens a tall cabinet, revealing a bookshelf stuffed with dusty tomes. He browses past dozens of titles about black magic and demonology.

LEDUC

You better follow that McDermott kid. He's going to wind up like his uncle if he's not careful.

marcel

Right. Little twerp thinks he's Colombo.

Leduc selects an old book and hands it to Marcel.

LEDUC

And do some research, will you?

Marcel takes the book. He inspects the cover (it's in French)- "Werewolves through the Ages: from St. Severin to the present".

marcel

(confused)

Saint Severin...

leduc

You never heard the story of Saint Severin driving the werewolves from Paris?

marcel

You think that's what McDermott was raving about in the ambulance?

leduc

What, you think everyone's as ignorant as you?

Marcel considers this.

marcel

Pretty much.

Leduc grunts, exasperated.

marcel (cont'd)

Inspector, you're not exactly typical. I mean c'mon...

(holds up book)

This thing isn't sitting on a lot of coffee tables.

cut to:

INT. TERRENCE'S APT.- LATE MORNING

THE SAME OLD BOOK, sitting on the coffee table. The pages are stuffed with notepaper place markers, many covered with scribbling, and CHEMICAL NOTATION. In the background, on the floor, is Andy- fast asleep and snoring where he collapsed the night befo re.

We hear a key in the lock. The door opens, smacking Andy in the head once, twice.

andy

Aoww! Hey! What the hell...?