The Shadows

CHARACTERS:

ALLIE: 19-year-old female. She needs direction. She wears a camo outfit that is a size too big.

She wears a black gas mask with a hot pink middle. She is very bubbly and wants to help everyone she can, but after Levi’s death, she waits for Ryan to tell her what to do.

RYAN: 23-year-old male. He is looked up to as a leader. He wears black and dark blue oversized

clothes he has to tuck and tie to semi-fit. He has a black gas mask with blue highlights. He cares a lot about Allie but tries to keep her at arm's length after the death of their other friend Levi.

??:         Are seen wearing tattered gray clothes with a dirty white undershirt and a black gas mask.

Any gender. They are heavily depressed.

SETTING:

The living room of an abandoned farmhouse. An open-facing house that shows the other rooms that are trashed and gutted. The overgrown grass can be seen in the backyard and the abandoned cars and ruined roads out front of the house.

A barn behind the farmhouse hits up against a fence that leads to abandoned train cars.

SYNOPSIS:

Shadows may be lurking in the dark and toxic gasses may slowly be killing them during the day, but they are not giving up. The plan is to make it to the bunker that may not even exist. Even if you lose people along the way you can always make new friends and keep moving forward.

(A whistle blows in the distance. The lantern flicks on. ALLIE & RYAN are lying on the

hardwood floor in an abandoned farmhouse.)

ALLIE: Ryan… Did you hear that? Wake up, Ryan!

RYAN: (Whisper) Shhhh… Are you nuts!? Why are you yelling?

ALLIE: (Voice Low) I think I heard someone blow a whistle.

RYAN: That's great, Allie. Even if you know for sure you heard it, we can't trust these at night anymore. Not after last time when we found out the shadows learned to use them.

ALLIE: That was only one shadow… and… Levi… Levi risked his life to kill it.

(RYAN rolled off of his back and onto his other side to get away from ALLIE’S words.)

RYAN: Yeah, but another shadow could have learned. why else would it be blown at night? If we hear it again during the day we can go look, but I don't have a death wish. Now go back to sleep.

ALLIE: Alright, but we will look for it in the morning, right?

RYAN: If we hear it blown in the morning, yes we can go look.

(The lantern light fades as ALLIE lays back down and falls asleep.)

— — —

(An alarm buzzes. A dim light shifts above them. RYAN turns to wake ALLIE as he pulls on his gas mask.)

RYAN: Allie, get up and put your gas mask on. The sun is rising.

ALLIE: (Whines.) Time to move already?

RYAN: Yes. I am going to go check the upstairs one more time for anything I think we can use.

Why don’t you go che… (A whistle blows)

ALLIE: I knew I heard a whistle! I told you, it’s another person.

(She gets a smug look on her face and crosses her arms proudly. As Ryan shoots her a look she uncrosses her arms confused.)

ALLIE: Why would they have blown their whistle when the shadows could have been alerted to their position though?

RYAN: Good question. Let's go ask.

ALLIE: What’s the plan? It sounded like it was coming from the east, farther away than last night, and echoed a little.

RYAN: I will go out the front, go right, and make a beeline for the abandoned barn.

ALLIE: Are you sure about that? The sun is not up all the way yet and the shadows could be hiding in the barn.

RYAN: I will stick to the light and not draw too much attention to myself. You go out the back door, crawl through the grass, and wait to see if they blow the whistle again. I will meet you there.

ALLIE: And if they don’t?

ALLIE: Wait 10 minutes before heading back here. If I don’t make it back to you in 20 leave without me.

ALLIE: (Sadly.) Right.

(They work their way toward the sound from which the whistle came. Waiting for another blow while Ryan avoids the dark places in case the shadows hide within. ALLIE drags herself along the ground through the waist-high grass toward the abandoned train carts that had flipped off the tracks long ago.)

— — —

(A whistle blows from the opening of a storage container.)

ALLIE: Are you good, Ryan?

(ALLIE calls out as she crouches beside a fence separating the grass field from the train carts. RYAN makes it through the dark abandoned barn before running along the fence to answer ALLIE).

RYAN: Yes.

(RYAN turns away from ALLIE to look at the stranger sitting at the open door of the train car on the other side of the fence.)

RYAN: You, why in the world were you blowing that thing while the shadows were out!?

??: (Wait.) The shadows killed the two people I have been with from the beginning. I had no desire to live alone so I didn’t care who found me.

(ALLIE and RYAN look at each other before looking back at the stranger.)

ALLIE: You are the first person we have run into since the beginning; over 5 years ago. (Pause.) We are trying to reach the underground bunkers. You can come with us if you would like.

RYAN: You should come with us.

End of Play