"LOOPER" (2012)

I first wrote a brief treatment for Looper in 2002, a three page prose document which then sat in a drawer for six years. The first half of the screenplay (up to the introduction of Sara) was written in Belgrade over the winter of 2008, and the second half was written (and then re-written) in Los Angeles in spring of 2009.

This document is the final draft of the screenplay before we went into production, essentially what we sent the actors for casting, and so it differs in many ways from the finished film. Besides cuts big and small, many scenes in the first act were shuffled around in the edit for pacing. This draft also references Paris as Joe’s destination, not China, though the sequence is otherwise pretty much the same. The chapter breaks were never intended to be represented in the finished film.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoy it.

Rian December 2012

Looper

a science fiction film by

Rian Johnson

3.2

Joe

A pocket watch. Open. Ticking. Swinging from a chain.

Held by a young man named JOE in a clearing beside a Kansas corn field. Sky pregnant with rain.

Waiting. He checks the watch, removes his earbud headphones, stands.

Without much ceremony a BLOODIED MAN in a suit appears from thin air, kneeling before the young man. Hands and feet tied. Burlap sack over his head. Muffled screams, gagged.

With no hesitation Joe raises a squat gun and blows the man apart with a single cough of a shot.

LATER

Joe loads the corpse into the flatbed of his truck.

Cuts open the back of the body’s jacket, revealing FOUR bars of gold taped to the dead man’s back. Joe takes them.

Massive, in the middle of nowhere. Black smoke.

Joe drives up and parks his truck, removes the wrapped corpse from the flatbed.

Cavernous and empty. Joe carries the body to an iron hatch, opens it, and dumps him in.

The body slides down a long chute. Vanishes in a little flare of angry red fire.

A sidecar roadside diner in the middle of nowhere. Joe’s truck in front.

Nearly empty, Joe at a booth listening to headphones.A waitress sets down coffee.

Her bright red name tag: BEATRIX.

Cream in the coffee. White clouds boil deep down.

Joe’s truck zooms from the flat fields towards a mid sized city on the horizon.

Grungy, heavily fortified. Joe enters and puts his gun in a basket labeled “LOOPERS - BLUNDERBUSSES”

Slips down a narrow passage, which ends at a steel wall with a protruding duct taped camera and microphone.

Joe fishes the two gold bars from his jacket.

A small narrow slot slides open in the wall, and gnarled old hands take the gold bars. It slides shut again.

In the background the front door to the pawn shop dings open.

The slot slides open and Jedd’s hands push a wad of cash.

Joe pockets it, and backs around Dale, another Looper.

Dale hands four gold bars through the slot as Joe retrieves his gun and exits.

High ceilings, big clean windows overlooking a sooty city.

Joe finishes smoothing out an oriental rug and scoots a coffee table in place over it.

Puts a bebop LP on a turntable.

LATER

On the bed, shooting at the ceiling with his fingers.

Suit-and-tie Joe pulls a tarp off a cherried-out 1992 Mazda Miata. Lingers over it. His baby.

Joe drives through the sooty city streets. A muted beep, and he fishes a matchbook sized screen from his pocket.

A young looper named SETH on the side of the road, kneeling beside a motorcycle without wheels called a SLAT BIKE.He kicks it in frustration.

A VAGRANT approaches and SETH pulls a gun, identical to Joe’s.

The vagrant crosses the street. Joe pulls up.

Seth kicks the bike.

Seth and Joe.

Seth holds a quarter idly in his palm.

The coin lifts, floats several inches in the air, quivering.

Joe notices the floating quarter.

Seth catches the quarter, sullen.

A shitty but bright nightclub in the heart of the city.

Flashy people shiver behind a velvet rope, huge black cars, big rollers in odd suits swept in by the bouncers.

All trying very hard to be big time.

Drives past, revving the engine.

Down the street. Joe tosses the keys to an attendant.

A dingy stage door in back of the building. Joe and Seth ring a buzzer, smile for a camera, and the door opens.

A long dark hallway leads to a tiny antechamber with a coat check room used for guns. BIG CRAIG leans out of it, and stops the two.

Seth backs towards the door, Joe stops him.

Big Craig pats them down, waves them in.

A claustrophobic maze of twisty halls and passages. DANGEROUS MEN and half naked SHOW GIRLS weave through.

Joe expertly navigates the turns, going someplace. Seth struggles to keep up.

Joe has vanished. Seth stops meekly, butted by passing men.

An ornate parlor, LACY WOMEN entertaining men. A velvet curtained doorway leads to back rooms.

Joe lingers by the entrance, watching one girl in particular, SUZIE. Bold dark eye makeup. A BIG MAN leads her off through the curtains. Joe’s eyes drop. Pained.

A fat MADAME doesn’t look up from her ledger.

He ducks out.

Joe plods. Dale, the Looper from the pawn shop, passes fast. Curious, Joe follows. They pass Seth, who tails after them.

And Seth loses them again, butted back by passing men.

A starkly lit steep stairwell leads down. Five or six young loopers gather at the top. Joe and Dale join them.

Dale makes a quarter float above his palm. Joe rolls his eyes.

This lands heavily on Joe.

The door at the bottom of the stairs opens, and ZACH, another looper, steps out. An OLDER MAN’S HAND pats his shoulder then retracts into the door.

The loopers watch him in awe.

Zach stands waiting, checking his wristwatch, gun in hand. Obviously performing a similar ritual to Joe’s.

Zach raises his gun.

A flash of light, and a HOG TIED MAN with a sack over his head kneels in front of Zach.

Zach fires, and the man’s chest explodes.

Zach rips open the back of the corpse’s jacket, revealing several dozen gold bars taped to his back.

Zach freezes. Looks at the shape of the corpse’s face through the sack.

Zach reaches the top of the stairs, a grin on his face.

At the bottom of the stairs, a skinny young thug in ratty jeans. This is KID BLUE.

The loopers collectively flip him off.

Lurid and very loud mixture of a dance club and cabaret.One by one the LOOPERS emerge from side exits, sneaking in. Paupers at the feast.

Joe and several other Loopers pass around an EYE DROPPER. Pupils slacken. The drug spins him into a slurred revelry.

Joe staggers out on the dance floor. Miles high.

Joe and the loopers are kicked out by burly GAT MEN, followed by Kid Blue, pointing and yelling at them. The loopers laugh their asses off.

Joe’s Miata screams through the abandoned city streets, racing with several other loopers in trucks and sports cars.

IN THE CAR

Jammed with Seth and Loopers, Joe at the wheel. Still so high. Suddenly one of the Loopers SHOUTS -- Joe slams the brakes

Screaming to a halt just shy of a malnourished BEGGAR KID.

Caught in the headlights. Behind him, a miserable vagrant village in a field.

IN THE CAR

Joe stares at the kid, frozen. A moment. Then spins the wheel, peels out. The Loopers hoot and shout. Joe’s Miata screams along the dirt road bordering the vagrant village, whizzing past open fires and dirty huddled families.

JOE’S FACE - serene and focused. Going somewhere.

Joe drops Seth off at his building with its bright red garage.

Seth holds his hand under fuzzy dice hanging from Joe’s mirror, and they spin.

Seth stumbles toward his door, checks his pants.

Seth slumps against the car.

Seth pats Joe’s cheek, and waddles off towards his apartment.

An alarm wakes Joe, red-eyed.

In his bathrobe, Joe checks his apartment mailbox. A slip of folded paper inside, with “14:30” handwritten on it.

Dressed now, Joe double-checks his french book for a phrase and heads out.

Joe’s truck zooms away from the city, into corn fields.

Joe’s pocket watch at 2:29, ticking away.

A hog-tied MAN with a sack on his head appears before Joe. Shoots the man in the chest, without hesitation.

Joe sits at a booth, the waitress Beatrix brings his coffee.

JEDD, 70s and knarled, sits in a tiny closet of a work room. Following a BUZZ, Joe appears on a fuzzy monitor, standing in the hall.

Jedd opens a slot and takes two gold bars from Joe, then hands him out a small stack of cash.

Marks in a notebook Joe’s name, the date and the number ‘2’. All the other transactions have the number ‘4’.

Joe smooths out the oriental rug.

Joe drinks with Dale, watches a group of Loopers celebrating at another table.

Dale casually makes a fork float above his palm, lifting his eyebrows at passing ladies.

On the stage, flinging her legs with a line of can-can dancers, is Suzie. The girl Joe watched in the bordello. As her dance ends Joe stands and goes backstage.

Suzie weaves towards her dressing room. Joe catches her.

She leaves him watching her go.

He turns - sees Kid Blue leaning in the shadows. He’s seen this whole exchange. The Kid smirks.

Joe bursts back into the club with a vengeance.

Joe staggers in. Not doing so hot.

Looks at himself in the mirror. Eyes red as candy. He pops open a hidden drawer next to his medicine cabinet, pulls out an eye dropper and puts one in each.

A harsh POUNDING.

Joe, flopped on the bed, stirs. Then wakes with a jump, shaky on his feet.

Goes to the door. A screen shows nobody in the hall outside.

Still punch-drunk, Joe listens. POUND POUND POUND. The window. Joe slides it open. Seth tumbles in off the fire escape.

Joe’s eyes focus a bit, he tunes in to the situation.Turns the apartment lights off.

CRASH! Seth knocks something over in the dark. Joe opens the fridge, pale light. Seth sits at the kitchen table.

Seth lifts his eyes to Joe.

FLASH: a hog-tied man with a sack over his head appears.

Singing.

Seth, with his gun raised, hesitates.

Seth pulls the sack off the man’s head.

Seth standing with his gun in his limp arm, receding behind us as we run away.

Seth breaks down crying.

Seth, sucker punched.

POUND POUND POUND. On the door this time. Seth makes a sound like he’s going to die, Joe closes the fridge, hisses

Goes to the door. Two GAT MEN and Kid Blue stand outside.

Joe spins from the door. Considers briefly.

Seth crumples to his knees, grasping Joe’s hand.

POUND POUND POUND.

Watching Seth, Joe’s face breaks in a moment of decision.He flips the lights on, and briskly pulls back his oriental rug.

A FLOOR SAFE with a touch pad. He enters a code, opens it. Wide and deeper than you’d expect, lined with gold bars.Big enough for a man. Seth scrambles in.

Joe takes one last look at Seth’s frightened, grateful face, framed by the gold bars, then closes the safe and smooths the oriental rug.

POUND POUND POUND- Joe opens the door.

Kid Blue storms in, his gun drawn, sweeping through the apartment with over-eager purpose.

One gat man stays outside, the other casually sits at Joe’s kitchen table. Kid Blue gets in Joe’s face.

Joe grabs a jacket.

Kid Blue leads Joe down the stairs and into the door at their base.

Dingy with a few benches. In one wall three steep stairs lead to a high door. Kid Blue knocks. Muffled voice from within:

LATER

Joe and Kid Blue on benches, facing each other. The Kid stares daggers and spins his gun. Joe tries his best not to engage.

His gun spinning gets fancier. His gun meaner looking than Joe’s blunderbuss, long and slim and chrome.

The Kid almost snaps back, but then grins.

He clicks the safety off. Joe shifts uncomfortably.

Joe stifles a chuckle.

In a flash, the Kid stands and pistol-whips him across the face. Joe falls back. The Kid raises his gun at Joe.

Frozen in that tableau a moment, the Kid savors his victory. Lowers his gun.

The high door swings open fast, SMACKING Kid Blue hard on the side of the head. His gun goes off, firing into the wall.

Out of nowhere three gat men burst into the room, guns drawn. ABE, a sallow man in his 50s, appears in the high doorway.

Humiliated, the Kid tries to stand, but falls over again. After a moment everyone realizes what’s happened, and the tension breaks.

Joe climbs into the doorway. Kid Blue stands shakily.

The door closes, and the gat men laugh at the Kid.

Cluttered, with a big desk. Joe sits, Abe hands him a handkerchief for the ugly gash on his cheek.

Abe settles in his chair. Regards Joe.

A beat of silence.

Genuine. But Abe shakes his hands, not where he’s going.

Pause. Both their eyes go to a hammer sitting on the desk.

Joe holds Abe’s gaze for a moment, then his eyes drop and it’s over.

Silence.

One of the gat men quietly exits.

Abe leads Joe out, past gat men and Kid Blue, smirking again.

After Joe exits, Abe and Kid exchange looks.

Joe slumps in. Several girls, none of them Suzie.

He pushes through the velvet curtained door.

A large gat man pushes past Joe.

At the end of the hall, Suzie leans in a doorway smoking a cigarette. Not sexy, just tired. She sees Joe, and is about to say no. But she sees Joe’s eyes, and doesn’t.

Exhaling a plume of smoke, she withdraws into her doorway. Joe follows. Through her smoke.

Suzie naked at the mirror. She goes to Joe, lying on the bed, distant.

He takes Suzie’s hand strokes it over his hair. She smiles briefly, tired, then takes her hand away and puts drops in his eyes.

His face clouds.

Joe gets home. Empty, quiet. Everything in place. He goes to the rug, pulls it aside. Opens the safe.

All the gold, and nothing else. One bar juts from the side, knocked out of place.

He pushes it back, and when he lifts his fingers they have a bright smear of fresh red blood.

A hunched figure sprints through an abandoned lot towards a train yard.

It is a 55 YEAR OLD SETH. He limps up to a razor-wire fence bordering the train yard.

Surveys the sharp wire, rips the lining from his jacket and wraps first his left hand then his right.

But stops.

On the palm of his right hand, a WEATHERED SCAR. Clearly carved in the shape of an arrow, pointing down to his wrist.

Old Seth squints at it, confused. He pulls back his sleeve, revealing his clean bare forearm.

Then his face changes.

Because his arm is no longer bare. Suddenly, out of nowhere, more intricate scarring has appeared down its length.

The scars spell out clearly: “BE AT 75 WIRE STREET IN 15 MINUTES”

Old Seth’s breath returns, jagged. He pulls his sleeve up and hoists himself up the fence, climbing fast.

He reaches the top, gets a good grasp on the wire to hoist himself over... and stops again.

His right hand is missing a finger. The ring finger is just gone, its stump worn with age.

Old Seth stares. And now his middle finger is gone as well.

A freight train whistle moans. The cars, open and inviting, leading out of town. Behind him, the city.

Terror and indecision seizes his chest, so much so that it takes a moment for him to realize the sound of his breathing has changed to a ragged whistle.

He lifts his hand, now with just two fingers, to his face... and the smooth scarred hole where his nose used to be.

The train yard far in the distance. Old Seth RUNNING back into town.

He looks down at his right hand, fingerless now but for his thumb.

He speeds up, desperate. Cuts through an alley. And has no right hand, just a stump.

A bell-like DING. Old Seth spins, sees a WEDDING BAND lying on the sidewalk.

He picks it up with the four remaining fingers on his left hand, stuffs it in his pocket, sobbing.

Bursts out of the alleyway, limping now, straight into the street and into the headlights of an oncoming car.

The car screeches to a halt, and its harsh white light shows Old Seth’s missing right ear, and deep scars down his face.

IN THE CAR

Old Seth throws open the drivers side door and throws out the DRIVER. Jams on the gas.

Speeding through the streets, hands slipping on the wheel.

His pant leg crumples. Empty boot tangling with the pedals.

The car hits a pole.

Out climbs what’s left of Old Seth, his face mangled, missing a foot, one arm gone to the elbow.

Street sign - WIRE STREET. The numbers, 45.

He runs. Howling, missing his tongue. Arm totally gone.

Then falls as his leg goes to the knees. And he’s crawling, an animal form, bellowing wordlessly.

Makes it to an iron street-side door. 75. And with his one arm, slams it.

Slumps against it, heaving. After a long moment it swings open.

With no hesitation, a BLAST from the darkened doorway, and Old Seth’s head mists open. He slumps to the pavement.

Kid Blue steps from the doorway, drags the body inside.

Deep in the dark doorway we glimpse a DOCTOR in a surgical frock smeared with bright red blood. The door SLAMS.

Joe wakes with a start.

Joe’s pocket watch at 2:29, ticking away. He takes his stance. Earbud headphones, the drone of French lessons.

A hog-tied MAN with a sack on his head appears kneeling before Joe. Joe raises his gun without hesitation and shoots the man in the chest.

Walks to the body, flips it. The man’s hands, tied and purplish. Joe hesitates. Puts his hand next to them. Similar.

He flips the man onto his back, stares long and hard at the shape of the man’s face under the cloth sack.

Tears it off. An older Asian man’s face, frozen in terror. Joe smirks, the spell broken. His face hardens.

Joe watches the Asian man’s body slide down the hatch and vanish in a puff of distant fire.

BEGIN MONTAGE:

1. Joe in the club, drinking, watching more loopers celebrate.

2. Joe in the field, he shoots a hog-tied man.

3. Joe in his floor safe, setting more gold bars.

4. Joe in the field, BANG.

5. Joe in the club, watching Suzie with her red hair.

6. Joe in the field, BANG.

7. In the plant, a body sliding into the fire.

8. Joe in the field, BANG. BANG. BANG. His face more determined with each shot.

Our montage comes to an end suddenly and all is silent.

Joe in the corn field, in his stance, ready to draw.

But nothing happens. Silence. Joe checks his watch, confused.

2:30 and change. Waits. Watching the blank space where the man is supposed to appear.

Hand on his gun. Breathing shallow. Something is wrong.

2:32. An eternity. Then, there he is.

But different. Not kneeling. On his side, so he flops over and has to straighten himself. The man’s hands are UNTIED. Holy shit.

Joe raises his gun, scared. Time slows. Finger tightens on the trigger.

Then he sees: the man has NO SACK ON HIS HEAD. And the face that stares back at Joe is his own.

57 YEAR OLD JOE. His eyes fixed on Joe. And for just one split second, Joe’s face slackens, and his finger eases on the trigger.

It’s all the hesitation Old Joe needs. He throws his body into a spin.

Joe snaps out of it, and PULLS THE TRIGGER.

The shot catches Old Joe square in the back, and the impact blows him forward. But instead of blood beneath his torn jacket’s back, we see the layered gold bars spill out.They caught the blast.

In what seems like one fluid motion Old Joe’s fingers grab one of the bars, he spins again, throwing handfuls of dirt and the bar back towards Joe.

Joe flinches, again just for a moment, and when his eyes focus again and his arm steadies the gun it’s too late.

Old Joe is on top of him, with a heavy blow knocking the gun aside, and with an even heavier one swinging down on Joe’s head, a fist and then

THE CORN FIELD, HOURS LATER

Joe wakes. Blood caked on his face. Headphones beside him, still squawking French lessons. Sits up.

Gold bars scattered in the dirt. But no Old Joe. And no truck. Joe staggers to his feet, shaky. Head thick. But realizing.

Joe runs, shaky, towards town. Fishes his phone-device from his pocket, chucks it.

Across the street, Joe huddles behind a car, breathing hard. Looks up at his lit window. Debating.

Joe walks silently towards his apartment door.

It is ajar. He hesitates. Knows he shouldn’t.

Holding his breath, Joe edges in. It’s ravaged, torn to pieces. The floor safe is open, about half the gold bars missing. But the apartment seems empty.

Exhaling, Joe works quickly. Knocks a tile aside, pulls a wad of cash from the wall. A heavy jacket from the closet.

Eyes dart around the room - what else? But too late -- footsteps in the hallway. Joe ducks into the bathroom just as Kid Blue and a TALL GAT MAN enter the apartment.

Joe crouches. Outside, Kid Blue piles the man’s arms full of gold bars.

Joe gently lifts himself off his haunches.

The Tall Gat Man exits, Kid Blue stays crouched over the floor safe hefting out bars, his back to the bathroom.In the distance, a GUNSHOT. Kid Blue’s head perks up.

CREAK! From the bathroom. Quick as lightning, the Kid draws his gat and spins - but Joe is already upon him, full sprint. SLAM! Joe tackles the Kid backwards. But while Joe uses his momentum to leap over the OPEN FLOOR SAFE, the Kid tumbles back into it, vanishing inside with a painful thud.

Joe scrambles to a stop, lifts the heavy safe trap door and SLAMS it down - just as the Kid’s hand grasps the open edge. With a sickening CRACK, the trap door closes on the Kid’s fingers.

A bellowing howl, his fingers withdraw, and the safe door clicks shut. The ELECTRIC BOX rigged to the code pad to crack it clatters off, and whirrrr, CLICK. Locked. Joe, panting, goes on hands and knees to the safe door and shouts clear and earnest:

CRACK CRACK! The wood paneled floor above the safe door splinters upwards with gunshots, and a chunk of Joe’s right ear explodes.

More blood than you’d think spills down his neck, Joe falls back. Three more shots - CRACK CRACK CRACK! And now footsteps running down the hall.

Joe on his feet, slipping in his own blood, sprints across the apartment. The TALL GAT MAN appears in the doorway, shooting blindly at Joe, chunks of wall and plaster exploding as Joe doesn’t stop but JUMPS OUT THE WINDOW.

5 floors up, Joe leaps out, hits the fire escape, bullets shattering the window. Blind with blood, ears ringing, Joe barrels down the fire escape. A confused blur of iron steps, slipping and scrambling down, but now the tall gat man is out the window and shooting down at him.

Somehow Joe slips and rolls, grabs at thin air, falling - three stories at least, falling.

When he hits the ground the world goes away.

Old Joe

We abruptly CUT ON to a very familiar scene.

Young Joe stands alone in the corn field, in his stance, ready to draw. But nothing happens. Silence. Joe checks his watch, confused. 2:30 and change.

This is exactly the scene where Old Joe appears, being replayed before our eyes. But when Old Joe does APPEAR, it’s different: his hands are tied, his head covered with a sack.

And something very different happens:

Joe raises his gun and without hesitation PULLS THE TRIGGER. Old Joe’s chest explodes. He falls dead.

Joe approaches the body, and slows. Sensing something. He pulls off the sack. The face of his older self. Old Joe. He flips him over. Gold bars CLINK beneath a bloody jacket.

Joe has closed his loop.

The other LOOPERS buy Joe drinks and cheer him, celebrating.

His belongings in boxes. Joe unloads the GOLD BARS from the trap door.

Out at sea. Joe, bundled against the cold, leans on a railing, eagerly watching the horizon.

Joe smoking in window of an empty apartment, half unpacked.

Joe walking the city streets, breathing deep. Alive.

Joe picks up a bottle of beer.

Several FRENCH GANGSTERS in suits shake down the OWNER of the shop for money from the register. One holds a gun in the owner’s face.

Joe ignores them, walks out.

Loud and dark. Joe shotguns eye drops right out in the open, dances like a madman.

Joe’s apartment, unpacked and lived in. Joe smokes.

In a NOOK behind a wall panel - stacks of CASH.

Cloudy and cold. Joe wanders alone. Buffeted by strangers.

Music pumping, Joe deadened at a table, in another world.

Beside him a YOUNG PUNK makes a glass float using his TK power, then shatters the glass. Red liquid goes everywhere.

Joe takes money from the stacks in the nook, which have grown drastically low.

LATER - sets a hypo down in the ashtray.

A GUN in the face of the shop’s OWNER. Held by Joe. Several years older now, in his mid thirties.

Dressed in a suit, surrounded by fellow GANGSTERS. Now part of their gang.

A shoot-out between rival gangs. Joe’s guns blaze.

A remorseless killer. Blasting away, cold and skillful. Smashing up shops that won’t pay protection. He’s muscle.

A dingy dark hallway. Distant thumping bass indicates it’s maybe behind a club.

The hall is lined with French Gangster, all similarly dressed. Reminiscent of the Gat Men. It takes us a moment to recognize Joe among them.

In his EARLY 40s now. His face a hard weathered mask. A soldier. (Note - it is here we transition from the actor playing Young Joe to the one playing Old Joe.)

Snow on the ground.

Old Joe high as a kite, in an all out brawl. Punched to the ground. Laughing his ass off.

A bar fight blossoms in slow motion all around.

Old Joe looks up, sees the woman who will be his WIFE for the first time. Long red hair (reminiscent of but NOT Suzie.) In a green dress. She flees the fighting, towards the exit. “SORTIE.”

Transfixed and high, Old Joe follows her. Puts his hand on her shoulder. She turns, looks him over. Flips him off. Leaves. Old Joe watches her go. In love.

Old Joe hits on his future Wife, she tells him to fuck off.

Old Joe in bed with his future Wife. They kiss.

Old Joe shoots up a storefront with his gang.

Old Joe’s future wife yells at him, holding his gun holsters accusingly. She throws them across the room.

LATER - He holds her in bed, both of them troubled.

Old Joe driving. Deep in thought. His future Wife beside him, her hand on his. He hits the brakes.

The car screeches to a halt on a beach side road. Old Joe gets out, runs across the beach to the water, pulling his gun out of its holster. He fires it out to sea till its empty, then throws the gun into the ocean.

He runs back to his Wife, standing on the beach. They kiss. They fall to the sand, and kiss.

A cottage in the country.

Old Joe sweats and shudders out his drug addiction. His Wife tends to him.

Old Joe in his mid 50s, his Wife lying on a hammock with him, reading. Hands lazily entwined. A good life.

The Wife cuts vegetables. Headlines (in French) scroll across a small floating screen, against images of destruction. “Gangland Terror Spreads, Who is The Rainmaker”

She turns it off.

Lazy, dust motes hanging in the sunlight through the windows. Old Joe in bed, in his late 50s.

His Wife walks through, says something inconsequential, puts her hand on his foot. Draws it away, fingers sliding off gently. And is gone.

We stay with Old Joe. His deep breath. The sun warming the sheets. Running water from the kitchen.

His eyes focus on his hand. Written in faded ink on the palm is a number we do not recognize: 07153902935.

A long moment.

With all the violence in the world, the cottage’s green front door is KICKED OPEN.

Joe runs out of the bedroom half dressed, and GANGSTERS grab him, taking him down with a rifle butt to the head.

His Wife is dragged from the kitchen screaming.

Dark cars parked out front. We watch the quiet facade for a moment too long, violence that we don’t want to think about happening inside.

Then the door BURSTS open and Gangsters drag Joe out, sobbing thrashing and bleeding from his head.

Concrete, nondescript. The Gangsters carry Joe in, now hog tied. Put a sack over his head.

Lead him towards a machine, an iron monstrosity with a hatch.

One of the men taps his watch - hurry. Another man pulls a large lever, and the machine hums, warming up.

Joe’s face, covered with the sack. Breathing. Remembering: flashes of his WIFE, screaming.

Then Joe LUNGES and somehow his hands are loose, he PUNCHES one man, tears off the sack, PUNCHES another man, a flurry and then it’s over. He stands among a pile of broken men.

Slowly takes stock. Looks at the exit. Looks at the faded number on his blood-smeared hand.

A million things in his mind. But just one choice. The machine hums angrily. Ready.

Like an iron coffin. Old Joe climbs inside. Braces himself. Closes the hatch behind him.

Flash and crack and he is sent.

And appears in front of his younger self.

The scene now plays out as it did the first time. Joe hesitates, Old Joe gets the upper hand, knocks him out.

Old Joe looks around, gets his bearings. Stares at his younger self a moment. Then goes to the truck.

Old Joe drives the truck into the city.

Cramped. Old Joe walks in quickly, gets aspirin, wrapped sandwiches, bandages, big bottles of water. Removes his torn jacket, dumps it.

At the register, the CLERK bags everything up. Old Joe pulls the blunderbuss on the clerk.

Wearing the clerk’s jacket, Old Joe takes four aspirin. Holds his head a minute, rocking gently.

On the street outside the building. Old Joe approaches, watching the window high above. Weighing his options.

He scans the street. Spots an ARMORED VAN in the alleyway. Movement from behind it - Kid Blue and the Tall Gat Man loading their bars in the back.

Old Joe turns to go, but STOPS when his eye catches movement between parked cars.

It’s Joe. Young Joe, hid between the cars, looking up at the apartment building weighing his options.

After a moment Joe dashes across the street and into the building. Old Joe stays still a moment, watching him go.

Ducks into shadows as Kid Blue and the Tall Gat Man step from the alleyway, wiping their hands.

They enter the building.

Old Joe takes a breath, then casually walks down the sidewalk, past the alleyway, scoping the Armored Van.A GAT MAN DRIVER in the driver’s seat.

The Gat Man Driver watches Old Joe disappear from view.

Suspicious, he uncovers a GAT on the seat beside him.

When he looks back up Old Joe stands in his headlights, blunderbuss raised. BANG! The windshield shatters, the Gat Man Driver is torn apart.

Old Joe runs up, flings open the door, digs through the bloody mess frantically, finding the GAT.

Old Joe dashes out onto the street as gunfire cracks from the high apartment window. Sharp eyes will notice that Old Joe’s right ear is now clipped off, an old wound.

He dashes towards the apartment door, gun in hand, but stops when the window five stories above shatters with gunfire.

Old Joe backs up, and sees Joe scrambling down the fire escape as the TALL GAT MAN fires down at him.

Old Joe takes expert aim with the gat, and fires three shots upwards. The Tall Gat Man’s gunfire stops.

Joe slips on the fire escape, falls two stories and lands on the hood of a parked car.

Old Joe goes to him, checks his pulse.

Behind them the TALL GAT MAN hits the sidewalk with a SPLAT.

Old Joe goes to the tall gat man’s remains, picks another gat out of them, and goes back to Joe’s inert body on the car hood.

He lifts him in his arms.

Joe wakes slowly, pained. Lying alone in an abandoned lot on the outskirts of town.

Slowly he takes stock of himself. Nothing broken. A tight bandage on his ear.

A mournful train whistle, and he turns. Through a chain link fence, the train yard. He was put here for a reason.

A man and a young boy in rags hop onto an empty cargo car, heading out of town. Joe watches the boy, his eyes angry.

Stands shakily. And walks away from the train yard.

Something like a HELICOPTER sweeps overhead, a spotlight zigzagging the area. Joe ducks into shadows, heading towards the city.

A swarm of activity, Gat Men rushing in and out.

Map spread on a table. Gat men gathered around Abe.

Kid Blue slumps in a chair, holding a rag to a wound on his head. Eyes wet from crying. Abe storms in.

Abe leans in next to his ear and shouts

More helicopters sweep the streets, searchlights blazing. Cars with Gat Men circle slowly, shining spotlights themselves.

Joe leaps from the shadows, ducks behind a dumpster.Barely avoiding the light. He won’t last long out here.

He sprints into an alleyway, but Gat Men are coming down the other side with flashlights.

Goes back the way he came, turns a corner.

Joe finds himself in front of a familiar BRIGHT RED GARAGE.

Seth’s apartment. Three stories up, Seth’s darkened window. He looks up at it, hesitant but desperate.

A window shatters inward, punched through by a wrapped fist.

A big reading hall, empty and dark. The broken window opens, Old Joe slides in. Weaves his way past the reading tables, finds what he’s looking for at a desk.

A suspended sheet of thin plastic turns out to be a computer.

Checking his hand, he inputs the number. Navigates menus and windows, information flashing, searching.

Gat Men in cars and helicopters patrol the streets.

Kid Blue sits on the curb, smoking a cigarette. Seething at his bandaged hand. Deep in thought. His eyes lift. An idea.

The familiar red garage. And three stories up, Seth’s lit window.

Kid Blue pulls a small caliber gun from a holster concealed on his boot, enters the building.

Old Joe finishes printing several large documents that look like maps. He folds them up, pockets them.

Dashes to the window, starts to heft himself up - And stops. On his hand, a smooth aged scar. Of an arrow. Pointing to his wrist.

Old Joe’s breath catches. He pulls down his sleeve, revealing “B” then “E”

Then “A then “T”... He bares his arm, reading the entire message.

The peephole screen on the inside of Seth’s apartment door. Kid Blue manipulating a device, a shower of sparks blows the screen out momentarily, and the door swings open.

Kid Blue storms in, his gun drawn, sweeping through the apartment with over-eager purpose.

Empty. He deflates. Thinks.

Goes to the peephole screen, touches it and a menu comes up. A little manipulating, and the image is rewinding.

An empty hall, scanning back half an hour. Then: young Joe.

Kid Blue stops scanning, hits ‘PLAY’. Joe feels around the door jam, retrieves a key, and enters the apartment.

Kid Blue exhales. Well Joe was here.

Taps the screen again, it goes back to a live feed, and he’s about to step away when his eye catches something.

He pushes a square on the screen, and the view changes.To a live feed from a camera in the ceiling of the apartment. Excited, Kid rewinds this half an hour.

On the screen: Joe enters the apartment. Rifles around a little, then sits at the table. Head in his hands. Staring into space.

Then goes to a kitchen drawer, opens it, gets something.

Goes to the front door, takes something off the wall, briskly exits.

Kid Blue stops the screen.

He goes and sits where Joe sat. Stares where Joe stared. The kitchen counter. A blender, sink. Can labeled “COFFEE.”

Kid goes to the kitchen drawer Joe opened, pulls it open. It’s full of knives.

Kid goes finally to the door, looks at the wall. A small rack for keys, several hanging and one empty hook.

Kid Blue stares into space, trying to put these pieces together. Lights a cigarette.

The sun rises over a flat endless field of corn stalks.

We push forward through the green stalks at a brisk pace. They part before us, endless, hypnotic.

The same from the previous flashback.

Old Joe in bed, half asleep. A woman’s arm under his neck. It slips away, and he kisses its wrist. Comfort, warmth.

The woman, leaving. Her hand touches and slides off his foot, moving away.

Old Joe emerges from the corn fields bordering the sidecar roadside diner. Fumbles in his jacket, dry-swallows four aspirin. Regains his footing. Walks around the diner cautiously.

Parked in back behind a dumpster, SETH’S SLAT BIKE.

Joe sits at a booth. Old Joe enters, steps up slowly, sits. A moment of silence.

Along with his ear, Joe’s hand and arm are now wrapped in bloodied bandages. Joe’s eyes go to Old Joe’s arm. Old Joe pulls his sleeve back and shows him the scar spelling “BEATRIX.”

Beatrix the waitress steps up breezily.

She goes. Another pause.

His arm.

Beatrix sets Old Joe’s black coffee next to Joe’s white.

Joe’s face registers obvious incomprehension.

OLD JOE JOE

I’m sorry to cut off - sorry -are mine they’re not yours to cut off this spiel you’ve they’re not yours anymore you been practicing all night, can say anything you want but but I need you to need you to you’re not walking outta here listen. Listen. alive

Old Joe downs two aspirin. Takes a breath.

He pushes the left straw slowly towards the right, and it pushes the pepper with it.

Beatrix brings their food, two identical plates. Old Joe awkwardly clears away the pepper and straws.

Old Joe takes a worn double of Joe’s POCKET WATCH from his pocket, clicks it open. We don’t see inside it, but he stares at it intently.

Old Joe makes eye contact with Joe, for maybe the first time, and holds it. Unexpectedly naked on his face is the deepest sort of grief. Deep and unrelenting. Joe can’t look at it, he breaks off his gaze.

The grief is too much for Old Joe to swallow back down, so he turns it into anger.

A GREEN DOOR - Kicked in with all the violence in the world.

His Wife spins, as Gangsters burst into the entryway.

Old Joe in bed. It plays out again. He leaps to his feet, is tackled by the Gangsters. They drag Old Joe from the bedroom. Though the hall, Joe sees the woman struggling against two Gangsters, her dress torn and bloody. One approaches her with the knife.

Old Joe screams, struggles, but cannot stop them from doing what they do to her.

Joe is not sure where to put his eyes.

Old Joe pulls the folded papers he printed at the library out of his jacket, puts them on the table.

On the back of his papers he scrawls the number: 07153902935. As he writes it, a phone starts ringing, bringing us into:

An 8th story office, under siege. Gangsters down in the street fire up at the windows with guns. Helicopters pass by. The office door is blocked shut with a filing cabinet.

On the phone - the looper DALE, but in his mid 50s. Battered and terrified. Holding a piece of paper, reading off it, on the phone with Old Joe.

The wall with the door in it EXPLODES inward.

The line goes dead. Old Joe hangs up. Looks at his hand, with the number. Standing in his cottage, before he was sent back. Through the window, his wife working in the garden. Old Joe closes his hand.

Old Joe showing the number to Joe.

A beat. Old Joe holding the pocket watch, gazing at it. Then he snaps it closed in his fist, drawing it back.

He puts his hand on the folded papers.

A quick beat. Joe goes for his gun. But Old Joe is fast, he jams his foot into Joe’s crotch, crushing the hidden gun into him. Joe cries out, Old Joe grabs his hair and plants his face into the table.

When Joe’s hands go to his face Old Joe grabs them and pulls. Foot in his crotch, pulling his arms tight over the table.

Joe’s face loosens, his eyes on their coffee cups.

Old Joe realizes, looks around. The diner is eerily quiet. Beatrix and the staff have all quietly left. Fled.

Old Joe swings out of the booth, still holding Joe by the hair, dragging him like a doll. Joe’s blunderbuss clatters to the ground. Old Joe drags him to the window. They look out. Nothing in the parking lot. Too quiet.

Joe’s fearful face says ‘no.’ Old Joe draws his gat.

Joe punches Old Joe square in the jaw, and he goes down.His papers and gun fall. The diner door EXPLODES.

A GAT MAN barrels in, his gat blazing. Joe scrambles but Old Joe gets the gat.

With an expert shot Old Joe puts the Gat Man down, but there are two more behind him. Pinned behind a booth, Old Joe returns fire, glass breaking and chaos.

Joe grabs at the papers, Old Joe grabs them first and yanks. Leaving Joe with a torn-off top sheet.

Joe scrambles away, down the length of the diner behind the booths, back to their table, as the Gat Men and Old Joe have their fire fight. Joe’s blunderbuss on the ground beneath the table. He scoops it up. Turns, and fires at Old Joe.

Joe’s blunderbuss hacks another shot, and the window behind Old Joe explodes. Old Joe makes his break, sprints for the broken window, jumps...

...and hits the dusty parking lot running. Towards the corn.

Kid Blue squats on his haunches with four more Gat Men, their guns trained on the diner door. Three Gat Men burst out, followed by Joe.

They all run around back, where Old Joe is halfway to the corn but not there yet.

The seven Gat Men and Kid Blue and Joe fire their guns after him while running but they’re too far away (and they’re running) so nothing hits. Joe blasts at the old man blindly, sprinting with all his might, eyes streaming tears in the dust.

When Old Joe hits the wall of corn he seems to vanish.Four of the Gat Men follow him in, while the remaining pursuers slow to a stop, doubled over, panting. Defeated.

It takes a few seconds for Kid Blue to realize that Joe is there with them. It takes another second for Joe to realize that the dynamic has changed. He turns and runs back towards the diner, Kid Blue and the Gat men in pursuit. One of the Gat Men fires.

Joe makes it to the Slat Bike, jumps on, hits the ignition. CLICK.

CLICK CLICK. The Kid and the Gats closing in, and just the moment that Kid Blue lays his hands on the back of the bike the engine turns over with a ROAR.

The back of the bike kicks up, heat and air blasts from the open slats beneath, blowing Kid Blue back on his ass.The bike HOVERS a few feet off the ground.

Joe roars off into the corn. The Kid is on his feet running back to the Gat Men.

Joe riding at full speed through the thick corn stalks.He BAILS, snapping through corn stalks and rolling to a painful stop. The bike ZOOMS onward through the stalks, quickly out of sight.

Pained, Joe lies still, breathing hard. Pulls Old Joe’s torn paper from his pocket. On one side, the number Old Joe scribbled: 1027363259 He flips it over. It’s a map.

Mostly of empty farm land, bisected by a bold highway and scattered farm houses.

One of them is CIRCLED IN BLACK.

Sara

A bare field of churned chocolatey earth. Near its edge juts the dead stump of an old tree.

A YOUNG WOMAN in work clothes named SARA chops away at the trunk with a large axe. Over and over, splintering it apart.

Endless plains of corn surround the field. In the near distance, a two story farm house with an adjacent barn.

Sara focused on her work as the sun rises.

Sara fiddles with a garbage can sized DEVICE, and with a crackle of mechanic thrusters it floats up and over the corn fields, spraying something chemical.

Sara makes coffee.

She sits on a rocking chair, and mimes smoking an invisible cigarette.

Our first good look at her face. Clear and beautiful, but it has been here for awhile.

The morning light changes from steel blue to pale white.

Rocking gently, fake smoking and drinking coffee. Not going anywhere.

Blinds drawn, dark. A FIGURE lies in bed. Sara steps in, puts her hand on the sleeping figure’s foot.

Cooking eggs. The front door bangs. She looks up.

The screen door bangs in the wind. Sara inspects it. The latch is broken. She sighs.

Then freezes.

Through the screen door, some fifty yards across the front lawn, the dark figure of a MAN stands at the edge of the corn fields. Watching her.

She watches right back for a long moment.

Then grabs a shotgun mounted above the door and with no hesitation at all plows outside.

The dark figure vanishes into the corn fields.

Sara storms down the porch and stalks across the lawn, shotgun extended. Not fucking around.

Does not slow her pace until she is ten yards from the corn fields, where she plants herself and shouts:

Silence. Just the wind in the corn. A long beat. Then Sara turns, walks briskly back.

Moments later Joe’s face pokes through the corn stalks.He takes in the farm. The barn behind it. The fallow field.

LATER

Joe sits in the same spot, a few feet in the corn but with a clear sight line at the house.

His gun on his knee.

JOE’S FACE - Pale, sweating. Something’s wrong. He winces. Pinches his eyes. Headache.

The sun pounds down. He looks at the piece of map.

Helicopters sweep by.

Abe stands fuming, flanked by two Gat Men. Kid Blue sits like a kid in detention.

Fighting tears now, Kid puts his gun on the desk. But he doesn’t take his hand off it.

Abe puts his hand on the gat. Kids’ finger still on the trigger. A tense moment. Abe pulls the gun away, across the table.

Abe grabs the hammer. SLAMS it on Kid’s bad hand, crushing it. Kid howls, the Gat Men grab him.

Kid is literally dragged up the stairs by a Gat Man.

The Gat Man shoves Kid Blue through the twisty maze of backstage, past girls and Loopers and men.

The Kid blubbers and bleeds. Humiliated. But he pulls himself halfway together. Make a show:

Raining. The Gat Man pushes the Kid out the back entrance door, into the alley. The Kid instinctively turns towards the street.

But the Gat Man steers him back, deeper into the alley.The Kid realizes what this means. Everything changes.

He fights in vain to break from the Gat Man’s grip. Weeps, begs, clasps at whatever he can grab.

The Gat Man turns a corner -- towards the alley’s dead end.

Shrieking. Annoyed, the Gat Man throws the Kid hard to the concrete. The Gat Man pulls his gun, raises it without ceremony.

BANG. The Gat Man’s face explodes. Staggers, his gun FIRES into the wall. He drops like a doll.

Kid Blue lies in the rain, hyperventilating. His pant leg hiked up, showing his boot with its holster.

In his mangled left hand, the small caliber PISTOL he keeps stashed. His pinkie on the trigger.

Cradling his crushed hand, dazed, he scampers off like a soaked rat.

Silent and still. Sara comes out onto the front porch. She gathers up a few things, turns out the porch light.

Notices a floodlight still lit on the BARN across the yard. She turns the porch light back on.

The dark corn fields, silent and vaguely threatening.She steps back in the house, emerging again with the shotgun.

Sara stalks towards the barn, shotgun in hand. Shadows loom across the yard. All is silent.

She reaches the barn. A hard pool of light from a mounted floodlight falls off to inky darkness.

Hits a metal switch near the barn door and the light snaps off. In its absence the darkness swarms.

She briskly walks back towards the house, but slows.Stops. Turns. In the darkness by the barn, crunch crunch. Crunch. And maybe a shape. Deep in the swarming dark.

Sara levels the shotgun at the darkness, and steps back.

Quiet but definite - crunch crunch. And now, definitely a shape. A man. coming towards her.

Joe slumped over unconscious where we left him, in the corn.

Sara’s shout wakes him with a start. Sweating, pasty. Disoriented. Something is wrong with him.

In a flash of panic he parts the corn stalks, sees Sarah backing away from the barn. The dark hulking figure of a man pursues her slowly but steadily.

His hand goes to his holster but his gun has fallen out, he scrambles in the dirt for it.

Sara backing up still, shotgun leveled. The man, still in darkness, comes towards her.

She fires her gun in the air. The man pauses, but then continues towards her. She trips on a root, FALLS.

From a CHILD’S POV - We run across a darkened bedroom to the WINDOW. A child’s hand smacks the glass, and framed through the pane, through the unseen child’s eyes, this is what we see:

Sara on the ground, fumbling the gun. In trouble. The DARK MAN, advancing towards her menacingly.

At the last moment, from the corn fields, JOE runs into the light and steps directly between them, shouts, his gun raised at the Dark Man.

And the Dark Man STOPS.

Joe’s gun leveled, face set. But the porch light on the man’s face: it is not Old Joe.

It is a man in his 30s, filthy, with down’s syndrome.A greasy sign around his neck: “PLEASE HELP MUWTE FOOD $ GOD BLESS YOU”

Joe lowers his gun, face melting.

But the man scampers off, leaving his sign.

The child, in darkness, watching. He recedes into the bedroom, his hand slipping off the glass.

Sara stands, picks up the sign, calls after the MUTE.

Joe turns away from her quickly, but doubles over, crumpling to a heap on the grass. Sara checks his face.

Joe PUKES. She steps away. Takes a moment. Breathes.

She drags Joe up onto the porch, under the light.

Sara SLAPS HIM. Hard. His eyes snap open. He sees her face. She feels his head. Checks his eyes. Cherry red and veined, swollen under the lids.

Sara mimes an eye dropper.

She leans back on her haunches, looks at him, deep in thought. Deciding what to do. Joe lies prone, shaking, sweating.

Sara looks at his shoes. Beneath the caked mud, fine leather. Her eyes linger on his gun. They turn cold.

She stands quickly without a word, vanishing into the house. Joe lies still, breath shallow. Turns his head, hazy.

Soft footsteps approach. Small bare feet padding towards him through the front door. A young boy steps out onto the porch, 6 years old, named CID.

Cid looks Joe over. His eyes linger on Joe’s gun. Then he kneels, his small hands feeling Joe’s sweaty face. Pushes a straw to Joe’s lips. Joe’s hands clasp around a plastic cup with a cartoon tiger, and he drinks.

Cid goes back into the house, leaving his cup with Joe.

Sara tries to pick Cid up but he dodges, walks up the stairs.

CID Who’s that man?

Sara leads him down the hall and into his bedroom.

CID No he’s not.

CID His shoes are too shiny.

He gets in bed.

CID Is he sick?

CID Will he get better?

CID Promise?

Kisses him.

CID Night Sara.

Lingers over him in the pale light. Then goes.

A darkened highway, the lights of the farm house distant.A small STAKE BED TRUCK rumbles up, stops on the soft shoulder. Sara at the wheel. Sits a second. Then climbs out.

Roughly pulls Joe out of the flatbed. He lands in the dirt. Sara avoids looking at him, closes up the flatbed.

Joe weakly grabs her ankle. She pries his hand off, and discovers CID’S CUP in the dirt beside him. Takes it angrily, strides back to the truck.

Sara gets in, drops Cid’s cup on the seat beside her.Looks in her rear view mirror. Leaving a man to die. Looks down at Cid’s cup. For a long moment.

Sara lights a gas lamp. Threads a hose from a tank of water around the cot. Joe on a metal cot, covered with blankets.

Moves a metal bucket next to the bed. Adjusts the blankets.

The last thing she does is handcuff his wrist to the cot and take his gun. On her way out she puts it on a bench beside the door, and turns out the floodlight.

Dawn breaks. Exhausted Gat Men dutifully patrol the streets with flashlights, stopping every passerby.

On the outskirts of the city. Vagrant fires burn distant orange. A large drainage pipe drips into a brackish creek.

Underground. We move through it.

Cavernous space beneath a high street grating, damp and cold.

Old Joe sits on the ground, methodically cleaning and loading his gun. He finishes. Places the gun on top of his folded, torn maps. Closes his eyes. Sees:

A bank of fog clears, revealing Sara’s face looking down at us. She slaps us hard.

Old Joe touches his temple. Head aching. Remembering.

Sara’s face. SLAP!

His POCKET WATCH sits open in front of him. He picks it up.

Sara’s face. SLAP!

Old Joe holds his pocket watch tight like a talisman. Fingers dug deep in his head.

A fist comes straight at us. SMACK!

We reel back, revealing: the Paris club, crowded and rowdy. A piece of Old Joe’s life that we’ve seen before.

Joe (mid 40s) lies on the ground, lip bloodied, laughing hysterically at a YOUNG PUNK who has just hit him. A bar fight blossoms in slow motion all around.

Joe looks up, sees the woman who will be his Wife for the first time. In her green dress. Whisps of fog drift into frame.

Inside Old Joe’s pocket watch, a picture. Of his WIFE.

The sun breaks in through the grate above. Old Joe closes the pocket watch, holds in tight. Then he stands and picks up the gun and goes.

A child stands in a massive doorway with blinding white light beaming through.

JOE’S FACE - wrecked, but his eyes flutter. Blink.

Joe lies on the cot. Blinks. The barn doors, the morning sun rising through. If the child was there, he’s gone now.

Cid draws at the kitchen table. Sara enters.

CID The man’s up.

Sara stiffens, looks out the window.

CID (CONT'D) Is he staying here now?

A WALL OF LEAVES

Fingers part the green, and Old Joe peers through the dense foliage.

Old Joe hides in the trees across the street from a suburban track home.

A young boy in a bright jacket runs out the front door and off down the street.

Old Joe checks the folded map in his trembling hands.On it, this house is circled in black, exactly like Sara’s farm.

Stuffing the map in his pocket, he pushes out through the trees.

Sara approaches the barn, her shotgun in hand.

Joe sits on the ground just outside the open barn door, the metal cot behind him still handcuffed to his wrist.

Methodically cleaning and loading his gun.

Joe freezes. Then, half annoyed

Tosses it into the dirt. Sara lowers the shotgun slightly.

She tosses him a key, he unlocks his handcuff.

Sara raises the shotgun.

He takes the map from his pocket, unfolds it. Tosses it over to her.

Sara turns the map over. Sees the NUMBER that Old Joe wrote on the back. 07153902935.

And everything changes.

She shows him the number. She is not asking what the number is - she knows. Joe is suddenly not so relaxed.

For the first time in their conversation, Joe looks in her eyes. Sara stares daggers, searching. Very different than she was ten seconds ago.

Joe scoots back

And without hesitating Sara hefts the shotgun and SHOOTS HIM.

BLAST! Rips his shirt open bloody, blows him back screaming.

Old Joe STOPS in his tracks, children running around him.

His hand goes to his temple.

Fog clears from Sara blasting us with her shotgun.

Old Joe’s hand runs from his temple to his neck. Feels a new but old scar, just a little divot behind his ear.

Sara drags Joe in by the foot. She heaves the barn door closed. In the lamp lit dark Joe rolls and groans in the dirt.

She shoves the shotgun barrel in his face, a rush of fury

Joe breathes hard, bleeding in the dirt with a shotgun in his nose. But he forces calm. A beat. Then he starts talking.

A suburban park. On its far end, a birthday party.

The YOUNG BOY in the bright jacket we saw run out of the house earlier sits alone under a tree.

Old Joe approaches him.

Old Joe leaves, walks across the grass. Having trouble breathing.

Sara sits. Joe weakly talks, the end of a long explanation.

Sara stands. Paces away. Deep in thought.

The same track home Old Joe studied from the trees earlier. Daniel trots towards it, coming home from the birthday party.

Well tended by someone who loves growing things. Laurels, ivy on trellises, flowers and trees.

Daniel comes through the side gate. Lifts the back door matt, revealing a dusty key.

Sara takes a pen from a workbench. Shows Joe the numbers:

07153902935

She draws lines with the pen, thus:

07/15/39[02935]

Joe’s face, taking this in.

Old Joe. Sitting in a corner of the yard. Face set hard.

Daniel stands, key in hand. Drops the matt. Slow motion. Turns. Sees Old Joe, standing now.

Stillness between them. OLD JOE’S FACE. Struggling to be stone, and then it is.

He draws his gun in one fluid motion and FIRES.

We don’t hear the shot. We just hear the garden, the wind through the plants.

And we just see Old Joe’s face. Struggling now to remain stone.

Numb he puts his gun away and exits.

Old Joe walks across the park. Map in his hand. Children play in the distance. Children’s voices all around.

Old Joe spins, his breath up into his head.

The map falls to the ground. The park around him, green and full of children.

He keels over onto his knees and cries. Grabs the grass, holds it in his fingers, thick and green.

The Wife stands at the edge of a bed. 35 and Full of life. Old Joe on the bed. Mid 40s.

She unsnaps her GREEN DRESS and it falls, leaving her naked in the sunlight.

LATER

On the bed. Old Joe and the Wife. Faces close. Drifting into sleep. From a neighboring apartment, a BABY CRIES. Loud and insistent.

Old Joe opens his eyes, joking-annoyed at the crying baby. “God you have to be kidding me.”

Then he sees her face. Her smiling eyes, listening to the neighbor’s baby cry. Like she’s listening to music. She touches his hand.

Old Joe. Staring at the grass. On the map beside him: three circled houses around the city. And the torn corner.

Sara holds the torn piece of map in her hands. Their house circled.

Sara caught that, and she did not like it.

She turns the paper over in her hands.

They sit on the steps, Joe stripped to the waist. Sara picks salt chunks from his chest with tweezers and antiseptic.

Joe surveys the surrounding land, cleaning his gun.

Sara realizes he’s seriously asking.

Joe finishes assembling his gun. Sara’s eyes flick to it.

He hisses as she applies antiseptic to a gash in his arm.

Caught off guard, Joe almost smiles. Then grimaces.

She spots Cid at the screen door, watching them.

She goes to take him inside.

Sara leads Cid back into the house.

CID I wanna help the man.

CID I could help him with my toys.

Cid squirms out of her grasp, bats her away with a light but angry slap. She grabs his arm harder.

CID Is he not good?

Old Joe’s little hide-out. He violently washes his hands in a trench of water.

Slumps back, eyes blood red. Streaks of tears down his face. Reddish light fading to blue through the grating high above.

Runs fingers across his forehead, spreading cooling water. His eyes close. His breathing shallows.

In one hand he holds his pocket watch. He places the other on the gat. The map beneath it.

Daniel’s map location CROSSED OUT. Two others remaining. And the missing corner, edge torn.

CLOSE ON Old Joe’s face. Slipping to sleep.

Then from nowhere a CHILD’S HAND enters frame and rests on his forehead. Old Joe’s eyes gasp open with terror

but it’s Joe who wakes up with a start. Slumped against the steps, gun in hand.

Cid’s hand on his forehead. Cid steps back quickly, puts his finger to his lips. Shhh.

Cid leads Joe inside, beckoning him to follow.

Dark. Cid leads Joe to the kitchen table. Laid out on it: an arrangement of toys.

With the deliberateness of a man at work Cid clicks on a flashlight and sets it on the table.

Works on several toys, cracking open cases, pulling out wires. Hands moving fast. Joe sits, watching Cid.

CID Hand me that Phillips.

Joe hands him the screwdriver. Cid keeps working.

CID (CONT'D) Tell me if you hear her coming.

CID Commundication.

He pushes a button on a small plastic box in his hands, and an identical one next to Joe lights up.

The way Joe looks at Cid changes slightly.

CID (CONT'D) But I need to make it stronger.

CID Bigger battery.

Joe idly fingers a toy.

CID Do you kill people?

Joe half laughs. Cid keeps working, his face in shadows.

After awhile:

CID With your gun?

Cid looks at him in the dark. Not scared at all. Then he goes back to fitting the backing on a toy.

A long beat, Joe thinking.

Broken by a PIERCING NOISE.

They both jump - the toy truck Joe has idly played with is shrieking, sirens blaring.

Joe fumbles with it, Cid reaches over and switches it off, they both freeze.

And look up at the ceiling.

Silence in the house.

With a look of reproach beyond his years, Cid takes the truck from Joe and finishes up his work.

CID She’s not my mom. My mom got killed when I was a baby. Someone bad, bad men killed her.

Cid sets the two finished BUZZERS on the table.

CID Sara doesn’t think I remember cause I was a baby. But I remember my mom. I couldn’t stop her getting killed. I don’t remember it all but I remember. I was a baby. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t stop it. Cause I was a baby.

Cid is crying. Joe has never been more at a loss.

Takes the buzzers. Stands, fumbling. Retreating.

CID She’s not my mom. She’s a liar.

With one last look back at Cid in the dark, Joe exits.

Old Joe. Running hard. Sirens, flashlights behind him. Being chased.

Zig zags through an alleyway, a pursuing car smashing up behind him.

Bursts out onto the street, nearly hit by another car. Shouts all around, a few shots. Surrounding. He runs.

A Gat Man briefing Abe, who hasn’t gotten much sleep lately.

Cars, motorcycles, cop prowlers, all roar to life and blaze through the city streets in one direction.

Kid Blue, squatting in the 10th story of a half finished highrise, looks down on the activity in the streets.

Spread on the floor are maps with notes. He’s been searching for Old Joe.

And now his eyes are alight. He bolts for the stairs.

A small park on one block. With a playground. Swings, and a merry-go-round. Gat men sweep the park.

After they pass, Old Joe’s face pops up under the merry-go- round. He crouches in a shallow space beneath it.

He sees: Across from the park, a cheap APARTMENT BUILDING. He checks his map - the 2nd circled address. Kid number two.

He waits.

Sara chops the dead tree trunk in the field, greatly diminished but still formidable. Joe approaches.

She keeps chopping.

Joe pushes one of Cid’s BUZZERS into her hands, which we now see is a colorful plastic frog toy with a light bulb nose.

Joe pushes the button on his buzzer, and Sara’s lights up and vibrates. She regards the toy, then stares hard and cold at Joe.

Sara rolls her eyes, turns away. Starts chopping again. Joe doesn’t leave.

This hits Sara hard. She resumes chopping to cover it.

The word “city” has weight for her. Implies volumes.

When Sara’s eyes hit him they’re daggers.

Icy silence from Sara, and an odd stare.

She goes back to chopping. Joe lingers, then leaves. She hacks away.

Sara sits with coffee, looking out at the fields. Deep in thought.

She takes a drag from her pretend cigarette.

A motel style building. Gat Men in cars pass occasionally with spotlights and radios, but the activity has calmed.

Old Joe slips around a corner. Staying hid. Checks the address on the map. 12 Talbott Dr, #205.

Makes a break for stairs leading to the 2nd level. But just at that moment a car pulls into the building’s lot.

Old Joe ducks under the stairs. Holding his breath.

The car parks. Door slams. Footsteps. A WOMAN. Slumping exhausted, up the stairs.

And through the slatted steps Old Joe sees her face flash by.

It is Suzie, the girl from Abe’s brothel. Old Joe’s face, pure disbelief. He recognizes her instantly. It can’t be.

He gingerly steps half a foot out. Looking up he can see the apartment doors above. Suzie walks down the landing. Towards apartment 205.

Jesus it can’t be.

Then she passes it. Keeps walking. Old Joe’s eyes, relieved.

She stops at the next door over, knocks. It opens, vaguely indistinct conversation between her and the girl that answers.

Suzie disappears into the apartment. Re-emerges, holding a sleeping 6 year old girl. She whispers goodbye to the neighbor and walks back to APARTMENT 205. She enters.

Old Joe, frozen. Gun in his hand. Face numbly: “You have to be shitting me.”

He climbs the stairs. On the 2nd story landing. To 205. Breath held, back against the wall. Peeks in the window.

On the couch, Suzie holding her daughter. Head in her lap. Stroking her hair. Suzie’s back is to us, and with her long red hair down, she is eerily reminiscent of Old Joe’s wife.

Old Joe watches them for a long time.

Joe sits, watching the corn. It rustles in the wind. Hand on his blunderbuss. Beside it, his frog buzzer.

The tension is constant. And it’s a long, long day.

Sara vacuums while Cid plays with toy trucks.

In the basement, bare concrete. Sara empties the dryer.

Sara sits on the floor with Cid, putting numbered tiles on a plastic multiplication table.

CID How long can you not sleep?

CID We should help Joe watch.

CID Cause he can’t stay awake all the time.

CID He’s keeping us safe

CID I want to help him.

Sara is distracted by a distant bell-like DINGING.

She goes to the window, looks out, nervous.

But it’s just a loose LAUNDRY LINE down in the yard, whipping in the wind against its metal pole. In the distance, Joe paces the yard.

Relieved, Sara returns to Cid. He sets the tile, petulant.

CID Thirty two.

CID Thirty two.

CID Eight. Sixteen. Thirty two.

CID No.

Deliberately, Cid lifts the tile and sets it straight back down on the same spot.

Then like a knife in a fist fight:

CID He’s protecting us cause you can’t do it.

CID I never did anything

CID So?

Cid is building into a temper tantrum fast.

CID So?

CID You can’t tell me what to do you’re not my mom. (a deadly beat) You’re not my mom! You’re a liar and you’re gonna get killed and you won’t stop lying!

Cid lunges at her, Sara slaps him back.

Not hard, but Cid scoots back, eyes furious.

CID You’re a liar! Liar! I hate you because you’re lying! I hate you! Liar! You’re lying to me!

Sara scoots back.

CID You’re lying!

Cid stands, balls his fists, SCREAMING at her. Sara pushes back away from him.

Maybe a cloud passed over the sun. The room darkens.

And we see it now, in her eyes: Sara is afraid. She bolts out of the room.

Sara walks fast down the hall

Not slowing, through her bedroom

Into her walk-in closet, to a huge steel safe tucked in back.

She opens the safe with trembling hands. And climbs inside.

Closes the heavy door. Turns on a small LED light.

And waits. Cid’s screams distant but not lessening.

Cid’s screams from the house, clear as day.

Joe paces in front of the barn. Turns his head back towards the house, not sure what to think.

The screams stop. Joe turns uneasily back to the swaying corn.

The math game scattered, numbered tiles everywhere. Cid lies face down on the bed, cried out.

Sara enters quietly. Sits on the bed beside him. Strokes his hair. He folds into her, and they’re holding each other tight.

A Gat Man named CANADY strolls out of a donut shop, coffee in hand, and gets in his car.

Canady starts the car up, starts driving.

Somehow not seeing Kid Blue crouched clear as day in the passenger side foot-well.

Canady sees him, jumps and yelps.

The sedan swerves, scrapes to a stop against a parked car. Coffee everywhere.

Canady glares at him, but pulls the car into a narrow alley, parks it.

Canady locks the car doors.

And in that one moment, Kid Blue pulls Canady’s gun from his holster. Holds it on him. A tense moment.

BANG and the drivers side window explodes outward bloody.

A moment, then Kid Blue stumbles out, holding his ears in pain. Off down the alley and out of sight.

Sara lies with Cid, both asleep.

Distant but sharp, a bell ringing. It’s unmistakable this time. The DINNER BELL. Sara’s eyelids flutter. She hears. Stiffens.

The bell stops suddenly. She stands, careful not to wake Cid.

Sara rushes quietly down the stairs.

Through a doorway, she sees the Frog Buzzer sitting on the living room coffee table. Lit up and buzzing.

She goes to the front door, throws it open. And is face to face with a tall Gat Man named JESSE. She freezes.

Joe is nowhere in sight.

Back in the house somewhere, a screen door bangs.

Jesse shifts his weight, and Sara notices his heavy boot is now a few inches over the door jam.

Hanging above the door, just over Sara’s head: the shotgun. Possibilities whirling through her mind.

Silent decision, and she steps aside to let him enter.

Joe slips in through the screen door, gun in hand. Freezes in the kitchen, listening.

Footsteps, as they walk deeper in the house. Joe can’t tell if they’re coming through the living room or hall. He hesitates.

Then at the last moment Joe slips out the hallway door, as they enter from the living room.

Sara leads Jesse in, holding a photograph of Joe. She pours him some water. Jesse hands her a second photograph.

This one is a print-out from a security camera in the Bodega, of Old Joe holding a gun on the checkout clerk.

Sara’s eyes linger on Old Joe’s photo, side by side with Joe’s. Mind spinning. Maybe making the connection, we’re not sure.

She tries to hand the photos back but Jesse doesn’t take them. He notices the toys on the table.

Jesse pokes his head into the hallway, just missing Joe slipping through the hall and into the living room.

He lifts his glass, drinks.

Sara holds the screen door open for him.

Jesse strolls into the living room, and we follow him.

He sits on a couch, taps on a small folding phone. Sara follows him.

Behind the couch, Joe crouches unseen. He looks up and sees Cid in the foyer, standing halfway down the stairs.

If Jesse turned his head he would see Cid clear as day.

Joe motions for Cid to get out. Cid points to Jesse, makes a GUN with his hand. Asking Joe.

Joe shakes his head, sharply motions: get out! Cid silently creeps down the stairs.

He is in full sight of the living room, but Jesse doesn’t look up from his phone.

Cid vanishes down the hall. Jesse looks up, stands.

The screen door in the kitchen creaks and bangs. Jesse looks sharply at Sara.

Jesse is already moving fast to the kitchen. The instant Jesse exits, Cid appears again in the hallway.

Opens a small door under the stairway and beckons Joe.

Joe hesitates, then silently dashes over and in.

Cid follows him in, down steep concrete stairs. Pulls the door closed behind them. It CREAKS. Jesse steps out into the hallway, gun drawn. Sara behind him.

Jesse walks to the thin wooden door. Opens it. Closes it. CREAK. He looks at Sara.

Jesse opens the door, then looks at Sara gravely.

Jesse motions - her first.

Bare concrete basement, starkly lit by a hanging bulb.The only things in the basement are a small washer and dryer, and a large canvas hamper the size of a fridge.

No windows. Nowhere else to go. Jesse levels his gun at the hamper.

He raises his gat. Sara stiffens slightly.

Sara stays silent. A long beat.

Then Sara strides over, pulls the hamper open. Empty.

She throws open the washer and dryer. She takes the bucket and shakes it upsidown, dumping out the water, shows him it’s empty.

She storms up the stairs. A little cowed, Jesse holsters his gun and follows her.

The water from the bucket flows in a small stream across the room, and into a drain hole under the hamper.

Dark and earthy. Cid leads Joe with his flashlight.

Just outside the barn, a trap door covered with earth opens two inches. Joe and Cid prop it open, and peer out at the house.

A deep large hole capped with a wooden trap door. Joe squats, Cid stands.

CID My granddad built it, but he didn’t tell anyone of us why. Nanna said cuz he was nuts.

CID That wasn’t the man.

They watch in silence for awhile. In the distance, Jesse leaves the house alone and scopes the grounds before walking back towards the highway.

QUICKLY, SILENTLY WE SEE- FOUR YEAR OLD JOE dragged into darkness by rough men, screaming. Then we’re back to the scene.

CID But you didn’t.

CID I’m not gonna let Sara get killed.

Joe looks at him. Wants to put his hand on his shoulder but doesn’t.

He opens the trap door, climbs out.

Joe reaches down to help Cid out. Looking down at Cid in a hole with a trap door. Like Seth.

He grabs Cid’s hand and lifts him out.

Sara comes out, sees Cid and her face breaks with relief. Cid runs to her, and in the distance they embrace.

Sara and Joe share a look. Joe quickly turns his eyes back to the corn fields.

A tiny, dark concrete room. Kid Blue watches a screen, his hand on a toggle wheel. A security cam view of Suzie’s apartment building upper landing. Playback of last night. It scans quickly forward.

The APARTMENT SUPER leans against the wall behind him, counting money.

On the screen, Suzie comes home. Picks up her daughter from next door. Goes into 205. Kid Blue keeps scanning. And an instant later, Old Joe climbs the stairs. Kid Blue slows the playback.

Old Joe goes up to the window, his back to the wall.Watches Suzie through the window for a long while. Kid watches him intently.

Then very suddenly, without going inside, Old Joe leaves. Down the stairs, shoving his gun in his jacket.

Old Joe vanishes down the street in a swarm of pixels.

Kid Blue emerges from a passage, into the parking lot.Looks up at Suzie’s apartment door. Then down the street. A few drops of rain fall.

Driving on a highway along the beach. A few drops of rain on the windshield. Old Joe (late 40s) and his Wife in intense conversation, her hand on his.

She smiles but does not believe him. Old Joe sees this. A moment, in thought.

The car screeches to a stop, and Old Joe runs to the sea. THROWS his gun in the ocean. Above the waters, the sun breaks the clouds. Rain falls.

He runs back to her. Falls on her. Kissing her. He holds her face like the most precious thing in the world.

Rain beats against stained glass. Old Joe kneeling in a pew. Fists clenched as if in prayer. He stands, stumbles out.

Oddly quiet. Old Joe walks down the sidewalk towards the side entrance to the theater. Face uncovered. In plain sight. Not caring. Stops 30 feet shy of the entrance, at a street garbage can.

He draws his gun and leans over to drop it into the can.He lets it dangle from his fingers above the trash can.

His pocket watch, hanging open from its chain. The picture of his Wife inside. Spinning. His gun slowly slipping from his grasp.

With each spin of the watch, the photo of his Wife appears cloudier. Blurred. Indistinct.

Gun on the tips of his fingers, about to fall. Then the photo is nearly gone.

OLD JOE’S EYES.

Old Joe staggering to his feet from a fight.

We’ve seen this before, it’s the IDENTICAL SCENE to the previous flashback.

But when he sees his Wife for the first time, whisps of FOG grow, blotting out the scene. Deep in the fog are other backgrounds - a street, a house - and unfamiliar faces. Other eventualities, clouding this one as it becomes less likely Old Joe will meet his wife and have this memory. Erasing it.

OLD JOE’S EYES.

Old Joe in bed with his wife. Baby crying outside. Her face. Then, whisps of FOG thickens, obscuring them.

OLD JOE’S EYES.

The thrown gun splashes in the sea, and Old Joe turns back to the beach. But where his Wife was in the previous memory, now there is the FOG.

A wall of it, massive, reaching to the sky. Old Joe dwarfed against it. Caught between the roiling waves and this wall of nothingness falling towards him.

OLD JOE’S EYES.

The gun on his fingertips. About to fall. A moment of decision.

Sara lies in bed. Eyes wide open. Still and quiet in the dark. Her hand moves over her bare leg. Slides across the sheets. Finds the Frog Buzzer lying next to her.

A moment of hesitation. Then she pushes it.

Silence. Her eyes go to the window. A long beat. Then sound: a door opening in the house below.

Quick footsteps approaching. Her eyes follow them. The door flies open. Joe, gun in hand, buzzer in the other. His eyes adjust to the dark.

Closes the door, kisses him. The adrenaline in his head doesn’t know where to go.

She pulls him to the bed, lifting his shirt off. The rain starts to fall against the windows.

LATER

Lying beside each other. Joe still stunned.

Sara smokes a real cigarette, taking a deep joyful drag.She sets the lighter on her palm. It floats about a foot in the air, spinning, then drops.

She doesn’t seem angry but deeply curious. Joe sits up.

A beat.

Joe sitting up still, Sara lying beside him, maybe crying. He touches her hair.

A DOOR FRAME - kicked open with all the violence in the world. Old Joe sweeps into the small apartment, gun drawn. Suzie cooking in a robe, opens her mouth to scream.

Old Joe trains the gun on her. She goes silent.

At the kitchen table. Quivering, she does. He keeps the gun on her.

Joe sleeping alone in the bed. Sara’s voice, distant.

He wakes. She is calling him from downstairs.

Joe comes down the stairs half dressed.

Jesse holds Sara at gunpoint in the living room. Staring at Joe with a cool lack of malice.

Joe steps into the living room, stands facing them.

Jesse lets Sara go and trains the gat on Joe.

Old Joe stands, walks towards the back hall. Suzie screams

And runs at him but he shoves her back hard.

Joe’s face falling.

Old Joe, gun ready, down the darkened hallway towards the door at the end with a rainbow on it. He puts his hand on the knob.

CREAK. Cid on the stairs, sleepy eyed. Jesse, purely on instinct, spins and draws on Cid.

Cid’s POV - Jesse’s gun, snapping like a snake, barrel leveled at him. Cid makes a strange shouting noise, falls back.

Everything slows down.

Old Joe pushes the door open. Blackness within.

The room darkens. As if the sun passed behind a cloud.

Jesse realizes it’s a kid. Lowers his gun. But Cid is mid- scream, falling back, his foot misses the step and he tumbles down the stairs.

Confused, terrified, falling. Joe runs into the foyer, to catch Cid. Sara runs behind him.

The room is very dark now. Knick-knacks around the room rattle, then LIFT INTO THE AIR. All of them. Floating. Spinning. Sara’s LIGHTER, on the coffee table: it RISES into the air.

Old Joe readies his gun, staring into the blackness.But his eyes lower. He touches his temple. Remembering.

Fog clears - Joe is almost to Cid, who is still tumbling, nearly at the bottom of the stairs.

But just before he reaches him, Sara shoves Joe from behind. Shoving him TOWARDS THE FRONT DOOR. He’s confused but her face is set.

Cid hits the hardwood floor of the foyer, face contorted with rage now, hand raised to Jesse, palm outstretched. Screaming. His scream louder than it should be.

Bigger things in the living room RISE OFF THE GROUND. Chairs. The couch. And Jesse. He rises five feet in the air, terrified.

Sara pulls Joe through the front door, and he looks back and sees Jesse suspended in the air and Cid on the ground screaming like an animal, and just as they cross the threshold, Jesse explodes in a bright red fan of blood.

Old Joe’s face. Remembering.

Frozen in a tableau - Cid screaming, raw power. Jesse EXPLODING. A bright red fan.

Joe and Sara fall out and down the stairs.

The front door and windows EXPLODE in a burst of splinters and glass.

Old Joe’s eyes lift. Realizing.

A bare bulb hanging from the ceiling turns on.

A six year old girl’s room. But the only person in it is Kid Blue. He shoots Old Joe with a blue tazer.

Old Joe hits the ground, mouth foaming, paralyzed. Knowing the answer now, knowing the who and the how but helpless and defeated.

Kid Blue kicks him in the face.

Cid

A Gat Man circles a spot on the map in red ink, Sara’s farm.

Abe slumps in a chair, taking oxygen from a tank.

From a high vantage point. Cars, bikes, Gat Men on foot, all heading towards the club. An army, all meeting at the Belle Aurore. Massing to attack.

Moments after the blast. Joe and Sara lie in the dirt. Jesse’s TRUCK parked nearby.

Joe stirs first. Stands shakily. The front door jam is splintered. Windows broken. He goes inside. Sara gets up, staggers in after him.

Joe bursts out of the screen door, holding his Blunderbuss and wiping off Jesse’s gat.

Bloody Cid-sized footprints lead out the screen door and streak across the lawn, into the corn.

Sara comes out after Joe, sees him heading for the corn.

She lunges for him, wild. Wrenches his arm and he spins, throwing her to the ground.

Sara holds his gaze. Then everything breaks inside her and she collapses in sobs. Heaving.

This breaks Sara out of her sobs

Joe heads to the corn, Sara scampers after him but slips on the wet grass, and Joe hits the corn with a head start.

She runs into the corn.

WITH SARA as she stumbles blindly through the tall stalks.

WITH JOE through the corn, following traces of blood on the stalks.

Tries cocking the GAT but it’s broken. Tosses it, wields the Blunderbuss.

Joe emerges from the corn.

Cid crouches at one end of the small clearing. He looks at Joe. Terrified. Half covered in blood. Hair matted over one eye.

Joe looks back at him. Approaches him, gun not raised, but in hand. Cid, like a frightened animal. A long moment.

And just like that, Joe puts his hand on Cid’s head.Cid leans against his legs, crying.

Sara bursts into the clearing, sees this. Runs to Cid and embraces him, wiping the blood from his face. Joe steps back.

Joe takes the Frog Buzzer from his pocket, presses it. Sara’s buzzes in her pocket.

He vanishes into the stalks, towards the highway.

Crowded with Gat Men, all preparing.

BUZZZZ. Abe turns, annoyed, and sees the security monitor. On the screen - Kid Blue rips the sack off and holds Old Joe’s bloodied face up to the camera.

The door buzzes open. Kid pushes Old Joe through the long entrance hallway, past a dozen Gat Men, who watch him with shocked amazement.

Old Joe’s hands bound back. Kid Blue glows. He comes to the tiny coat check room, and Big Craig stops him, then sees Old Joe.

This happens very fast:

Old Joe uses his legs to kick himself off the wall and back into Kid Blue, SLAMMING him against the opposite wall.

Old Joe grabs (behind his back) Kid Blue’s gun, and blasts one shot through the chains binding his wrists and into the Kid’s midsection.

He whips the gun from behind his back and shoots Big Craig in the face. Then blasts the Gat Men in the entrance hallway while he reaches into the coat check and pulls an automatic rifle.

He blasts like hell into the hallway. A few shots return but mostly the men are trapped. Then it’s over. All is smoky still for a moment.

Old Joe stares at the exit door ajar, down the long hallway jammed with bodies. Then at the passage that leads deeper into the club.

A Gat Man runs in, and Old Joe shoots him down.

He steps into the coat check and loads his pockets with guns and grenades. Then launches himself into passageway towards the club.

Old Joe weaves his way through the backstage area, chucking grenades in front of him, then unloading his automatic rifle into the smoky aftermath.

And with a mixture of dumb luck and skill from years of being gangland muscle takes out Gat Man after Gat Man.

The corridors are tight, twisty. Old Joe uses that. Throwing grenades. Blasting away. Purging. Killing everyone he lays eyes on. Wiping them out. All the bad guys.

It’s horrible. Men maimed, bleeding and crying, dying the way people actually die from gunshots. Old Joe forges on, deeper.

Empty. Old Joe kicks the door open. Takes it in, the office. Hammer on the desk. He reloads a gun. Eyes find the door to Abe’s inner den.

Abe and two Gat Men, guns out, crouched behind the table. Watching the door. A display screen shows Old Joe on the other side.

Abe, eyes dull. Shouts at the door

Old Joe. Breathing hard. Reloaded. Closes the gun.

Joe breaks out of the corn, panting. He steps out into the middle of the highway.

Storm clouds on the horizon. He cleans and readies his Blunderbuss.

Kid Blue’s eyes flutter open. He lifts himself painfully. Checks his chest. Most of the shot caught his shoulder, his chest is grazed.

The Gat Men in the hall. Big Craig. All dead.

Kid Blue wanders the smoky halls. Dead and dying men.

Abe, shot once in the head, twice in the chest. Kid Blue stands over them. Stunned. Tears well in his eyes.

Then on the wall, he sees the map. The farm circled in red.

Clothes and boxes piled in the back of Jesse’s truck.Sara loads one last bundle. Calls to Cid, in the front seat.

Joe waits. Then, a CLOUD OF DUST on the distant highway.He tenses. The cloud gets closer. It is a truck. An armored truck.

Joe squints. It’s the ARMORED TRUCK that Kid Blue loaded his gold bricks into. The front windshield blown in.

The truck stops fifty feet away, and Old Joe steps out.He throws a gold bar, which lands in the dusty highway between them.

Joe raises his Blunderbuss and FIRES. Too far away, the shot scatters. The old man flinches, backs away.

Joe walks forward towards Old Joe, stepping over the gold.

Joe fires again, close enough now to draw blood off Old Joe’s chest and knock him back.

Out of nowhere a SLAT BIKE careens around the van, which has until now blocked our line of sight down the highway.

Kid Blue.

The bike clips Joe’s leg, sending him spinning violently to the dusty pavement.

The bike shoots off down the highway, a cloud of dust in its wake. It takes a hundred yards for the Kid to pull it to a stop and spin it around.

Joe is hurt bad. He grapples for his blunderbuss.

Kid Blue guns the engine, gat in hand. Levels it, steady as a rock.

Joe shoots at the Kid, but he’s out of range, the gun fires scattershot.

Kid Blue fires, a bullet hits dangerously close to Joe.

Panicked, Joe begins firing at the pavement around him, round after fiery round.

Kicking up dust. Lots of dust. Raising a cloud.

KID BLUE’S POV - zooming towards Joe, now obscured in a cloud of dust and smoke. He fires his gat into the cloud, tries to slow the bike but can’t in time.

In the dust cloud Joe hears the bike roaring down upon him. He covers up and when he feels the bike roaring past blindly FIRES his buss.

A moment later the bike emerges from the dust cloud.Without a driver. It skids, crashes.

When the dust clears away Joe lies still, arms over his head.

Besides him, the broken remains of Kid Blue.

Painfully, Joe raises himself. Then realizes:

Old Joe is gone.

Sara starts the truck up.

They roll down the dirt road that leads to the highway.

At the far end of it, at a distance but walking towards them, is the dark figure of Old Joe. Gun in hand.

Sara hesitates a minute, then guns it. Straight for him.

CID Stop

CID Stop please he can shoot us

Half the distance closed, but he’s still far off. A shot cracks the front grill, another cracks the windshield.

CID Stop!

The truck lurches horribly, and flips straight back in a graceful arc, landing upsidown.

Sara and Cid, dazed, hanging by their seatbelts.

CID I’m sorry

In the rear view mirror, Sara sees Old Joe getting closer.

She unfastens them and they both climb out, and Old Joe stops suddenly, taking aim.

Sara pulls Cid behind the flatbed for cover as two bullets glance off the overturned truck.

Old Joe lowers his gun and runs towards them.

They both sprint off the road.

The wide bare field. Cid runs ahead towards the corn, Sara not far behind. The earth soft, their feet sink in, like a nightmare.

Old Joe crosses the road and chases them onto the field, firing at them on the run.

Bullets thunk in the earth. Sara stumbles, exhausted. Cid turns, about thirty feet ahead of her.

Old Joe stops running and steadies his gun.

A distant gunshot CRACK. A fan of crimson blood sprays from Cid’s head. His neck twists and he crumples to the ground.

Sara is stopped in her tracks by an invisible force.

The topsoil of the earth around them RISES in a fine dust.

Old Joe reacts as the topsoil rises, an eerie moment.

Sara struggles to reach Cid but is still about twenty feet behind him.

Cid raises his head. The bullet grazed his jawline. Not severe but lots of blood.

Cid’s eyes locked hateful on Old Joe. Blood soaks his shirt. Far behind him, the barn splinters apart as if in a tornado.

With a sudden jolt the field ripples out from Cid, like a stone thrown in a pond.

Sara lifts into the air.

Old Joe is hefted off the ground. His gun falls.

Joe struggling through the fields, limping, desperate. Something like a furious wind rushes through the stalks.

Cid stands. Intense, eyes dark, in another place.

Old Joe, suspended mid-air, realizes what’s about to happen. He lifts his hand defensively and SCREAMS

Cid’s face straining, about to scream.

Cid’s focus adjusts from Old Joe to Sara. She floats, reaching out to him. Frightened. Yelling something he can’t hear but he can see her eyes.

Cid’s face breaks. He barely mouths the word

CID Mom

And everything FALLS. Sara, Old Joe, the earth. All comes crashing down.

The corn stalks shiver then are still.

Joe breaks out of the stalks and onto the field. Gasping for breath. Gets his bearings. In the far distance across the field, Old Joe, Sara and Cid.

Too far.

Cid runs to Sara, who sits up slowly. They embrace.

Behind them, Old Joe struggles to his feet. Sara kisses Cid.

CID No

CID No no mom no

She pushes him away and Cid runs. Then she turns. Standing her ground. Directly between Old Joe and Cid.

Old Joe TRIPS in the mud, fumbles his gun. Sees Cid approaching the safety of the CORN STALKS. Blocked by Sara.

Still too far away, struggling as fast as he can, helpless as Old Joe closes in on Sara. He fires his buss at Old Joe, but is way out of range.

Old Joe gets his gun, rises with it. Cid about to hit the stalks. Sara between them.

Cid nears the corn fields, running. Seconds from safety.

Old Joe. Gun raised. Pocket watch wrapped around it. His wife’s picture in it. Clear as day.

No time to move around Sara. Now or never.

Joe running, useless gun in hand.

Sara, not going anywhere.

He pulls the trigger.

Joe running. Time slows. Watching:

Everything is a little surreal. Dream-like. Slow.

Old Joe shoots Sara.

We hear no gunshot. Just the wind in the corn, and young Joe’s breathing. She falls, giving him a clear shot at Cid.

Joe watching:

Just as Old Joe gets him in his sights, Cid breaches the corn fields and is gone, vanishing in the stalks.

Old Joe lowers his gun, stunned but still frantic. He stumbles towards the corn, still far off, his face breaking.

Trips, falls in the mud. Corn field vast in front of him. Cid is gone. He lost him. He holds his pocket watch. Sobs. Lost.

Joe watching:

On the horizon, a train.

Joe watching:

Cid sits in a darkened car, holding a bloody rag to his jaw.

Joe watching, seeing:

Cid’s face. Bloody. Dirty. His eyes full of hate. The train rumbles towards the dark city.

Joe watches. Sees, in his mind’s eye, all of this.

And through all of this we have only heard the wind.And Joe breathing.

Time hanging, slowed nearly to a stop. A moment of decision.

Joe turns his blunderbuss back on himself and FIRES.

Revealing that all we saw was in Joe’s head, and we are still in the moment where Old Joe is about to shoot Sara.

But this time, just as he’s pulling the trigger, a distant shot is heard.

And Old Joe DISAPPEARS.

Sara stands shell shocked just for a moment. Then she doesn’t process any of it, she just turns and yells

Cid stops just shy of the corn. Turns back to the field. There’s his mom, Sara, unharmed and smiling. The bad man is gone. The field is empty.

We don’t see Joe, but far across the field Cid runs to his mom, into her arms. Sara lifts him, holds him.

She carries him. Walking fast back towards a far distant figure lying still on the edge of the field. Joe.

Then a faint buzz. The flasher, in her pocket. She pulls it out. Two flashes.

She slows. Stops. Looking at him, far away. Two flashes.

CID Where’s Joe?

CID He took the bad man with him?

She kisses him.

In the distance, Sara turns away and carries Cid back towards the farmhouse.

Sara bathes Cid, dresses the wound on his jaw.

She tucks Cid in, holds him close. Kisses his forehead.

Sara emerges from the ruined front door, crosses the porch.

Sara crosses the lawn, and walks across the field.

Joe’s body. Sara goes to him, slowly. She kneels beside him. His pocket watch in the dirt. Open. No photo inside. Ticking away. Around and around.

She closes it.Touches his hair. The wind through the corn.

After a long while, the sun breaks through the clouds.