INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE

The overseer turns and comes towards them, with the bloodied whip.

LESTAT
Why the bloody whip, Carlos?

The overseer looks into his eyes, shivers with terror, drops the whip and runs for the trees. Lestat is on him in an instant. He sinks is teeth in his neck. Louis runs to him, tries to pull him off. But Lestat turns to Louis and smiles, with his bloodied mouth.

LESTAT
Let's call that a start.

LOUIS
I can't do it.

LESTAT
You've just done it -

LOUIS
Kill me if you will, but I can't do this...

He flees, as Lestat ends to finish off the overseer.

EXT. POINTE DU LAC. NIGHT.

Louis running up the steps leading to the gallery. He is crazed with guilt. He looks up and sees -

LESTAT --

Sitting collected at the head of the steps.

LOUIS

Backs away as Lestat rises and descends the steps so fluidly he hardly seems to move.

LESTAT
Don't worry. He was white trash, they come at two a penny. I dumped him in the swamp and untied the slave, licked his wounds clean.

LOUIS
You're the devil, aren't you? That's who you are.

LESTAT (GENTLY)
I wish I were. But if I were, what would I want with you?

LOUIS
I can't go through with it, I tell you.

LESTAT
Your perfect. Your bitter and you're strong.

LOUIS
But why do you want me?

LESTAT
Because you're as strong as I was when I was alive.

Louis takes out his flask and drinks. Drunkely, he turns and heads for a nearby swamp.

EXT. CEMETERY. NIGHT.

Louis stops again in front of the crypt. Drinks from the flask, leans his forehead against the stone.

Lestat appears beside him, radiant, beautiful.

LESTAT
You really want to be with them?

LOUIS
Yes. Kill me. Kill me like you promised -

LESTAT
You asked for death. I didn't promise it -

In a quiet rage, Lestat raise his fist and shatters the marble face stone, revealing a coffin below. His fist shatters that in turn, revealing the half-rotted body of a women, holding an infant, no longer recognisable as individuals, a tangle of gruesome rotted hair, flesh, eaten away lace, insects and worms crawling over it.

Louis gasps.

LESTAT
It's not your wife and child my friend. It's death. Just that simple. Think and choose. It happens to everyone. Except us.

Lestat stares at him, smiling, becoming a hazy dreamlike vision, then hyperclear. Louis again is spellbound. He drops the flask, which shatters on the stones.

Lestat appears angelic in his radiance.

LESTAT
We shall be this way always, my friend. Young as we are now. I'm lonely for a companion, lonely for your strength. But I'm not that lonely. Do you want to come or not?

Louis capitulates in one long sigh.

LOUIS
Yes...

Lestat comes closer, smiling.

LESTAT
Did I hear a yes?

LOUIS
Yes...

Lestat embraces Louis, obscuring his face. He drinks his blood. We hear two heartbeats, out of sync, coming together. We see Louis' face, growing paler, paler, as his blood is drained. His eyes stare upwards, losing thier focus.

LOUIS POV --
The moon, through hanging vines. The marble statue of his wife and child smile at him, as if come alive. Her hair blows in the breeze, wonderful gold tresses, the child's fingers reach out...

BACK TO SCENE
Lestat lets Louis fall down beside the broken crypt. Louis looks from the rotting bodies to Lestat above him. radiant. Lestat speaks gently.

LESTAT
I've drained you to the point of death. If you drink from me you live for ever. If I leave you here you die.

Lestat lifts his hand to his lips and blows Louis a kiss.

LOUIS
No. Don't leave me here. Give it to me.

Lestat lifts his own right wrist to his teeth. Fangs slash his own flesh, blood falls.

LESTAT
You're sure?

LOUIS
Sure...

Louis rises to accept the first drops with his open mouth. Lestat gathers him up, as Louis clamps his hand on Lestat's arm and drinks from the wrist.

The VAMPIRE THEME swells.

Lestat watches him drink his wrist with wry amusement. Louis finishes, staggers away from him as if drunk.

LOUIS' POV -

Vampire vision. The world is transformed, the swamp, the moon, the clouds, the cry of the night birds all come to him with unnatural clarity. He looks down with pity at the corpses of his wife and child who appear beautiful in death now rather than repulsive. He closes the lid of the coffin and replaces it in the ground, astonished at the ease of it.

He turns and stares at Lestat whom he sees now with vampire's vision. Lestat's eyes are brighter, his buttons are glimmering in the light. Everything is clearer, brighter, containing more facets of light and colour.

LESTAT
Stop staring at my buttons. Didn't I tell you it was going to be fun?

Lestat leads him into the swamp. Everything astonished Louis, as if he's never seen it before. Louis is suddenly racked by shudders of pain.

LESTAT
You're body's dying. Pay no attention. It will take twenty minutes at most.

LOUIS
Dying?

Louis dry-retches.

LESTAT
It happens to us all.

Lestat wipes Louis' brow.

LESTAT
Come, you're going to feed now.

LOUIS
I want a woman.

Lestat laughs and his laughter echoes like bells in Louis' ears.

LESTAT
That doesn't matter anymore, Louis. You'll see. Come...

LOUIS' VAMPIRE POV - SWAMP

Small high ground. Camp of runaway slaves. Several share a bottle of rum around the fire. A male slave rises. A gorgeous hunk of flesh in the moonlight and goes into the swamp to relieve his bladder.

LESTAT
They're all beautiful now. Men, women, the old, the young...simply because they are alive. -

The slave walks towards them in the darkness. A crucifix gleams round his neck.

LESTAT
Take him.

LOUIS
The crucifix -

LESTAT
Forget the crucifix. Take him.

Louis hesitates.

LESTAT
Resist no more Louis. Feed...

The slave looks up and sees them. Two gleaming white beings standing before him with devil's eyes. The he runs.

Louis can resist him no more. He swoops on him with a vampire's rapid movement, brings him to the ground and sinks his teeth in his neck.

Close on Louis feeding on the slave, the magnificent body shuddering in its death-throes. Lestat stands above, laughing.

The slave dies. Louis rises from him, drunkenly, engorged with blood.

LOUIS
What have I done?

LESTAT
You have fed. You were made for this...

Louis looks down at the body of the slave. Lestat's laughter echoes around him.

LOUIS
Dear God, what have I done?

LESTAT
You've killed Louis. And enjoyed it.

Lestat laughs harder. Louis runs from him, screaming in anguish.

EXT. GRAVEYARD. NIGHT.

Louis reaches his wife's grave. He falls to his knees, throws back his head and bares his new fangs to the moon.

LOUIS
Dear God, what have I become????

INT. ROOM. SAN FRANCISCO. NIGHT.

Malloy stares at Louis, terrified and enthralled.

MALLOY
You said the slave had a crucifix...

LOUIS
Oh, that rumour about crosses?

MALLOY
You can't look at them...

LOUIS
Nonsense, my friend. I can look on anything I like. And I am particularly fond of looking on crucifixes.

MALLOY
The story about stakes through the heart?