The Final Battlefield Read online

  Copyright © 2012

  by Barry Richert

  Library e-Book : 978-1-5384-7322-1

  Trade e-Book : 978-1-5384-7323-8

  This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  DANIEL CONWAY – Army private who is happy to be home after a tour in Viet Nam, but is haunted by visions of his recent stay in a POW camp; 20’s

  FRANK CONWAY (PA) – Big, friendly bear of a man who would do anything to help his son; as a World War II veteran and a past POW himself, he empathizes with his son’s struggles; 60’s

  HANGMAN – Cruel Viet Cong tormentor of POWs; has a wicked sense of humor and no regard for human life; 40’s

  MERLE BASS – Tough-as-nails owner of the town’s hardware store; grizzled Korean War veteran who in his own gruff way tries to help Daniel deal with his nightmares; 50’s

  KEITH MOLLOY – Feisty cellmate of Daniel’s who endures an unthinkable torture; 20’s

  LIEUTENANT – Friendly, good-humored Navy SEAL from Texas; 30’s

  CORPORAL – Navy SEAL officer who escorts Daniel out of the prison; 20’s

  CAB DRIVER – Amiable cabbie who drives Daniel home from the airport; 30’s

  SOLDIER – Unidentified cellmate of Daniel’s who suffers unbearable torture at the hands of The Hangman; 20’s

  SOUND:

  Signature opening.

  MUSIC:

  Fangoria theme.

  ANNOUNCER:

  You can run but you can’t hide. It’s far too late for that. Welcome to the dark side, where the night never ends – as Fangoria presents. . .Dreadtime Stories. With your host, Malcolm McDowell. Tonight’s Dreadtime Story: “The Final Battlefield” by Barry Richert.

  SOUND:

  INTERIOR OF A MOVING VEHICLE.

  DANIEL:

  There! It’s right there at the end of the road. . .see it?

  CAB DRIVER:

  Yup, I see it.

  DANIEL:

  It hasn’t changed.

  CAB DRIVER:

  How long did you say you were in Viet Nam?

  DANIEL:

  Four years.

  CAB DRIVER:

  You know, I’ve driven a lot of soldiers home from the airport. . .but you’re my first POW! Must be good to see the old place after staring at prison walls for a couple of years.

  DANIEL:

  You have no idea. (a beat) There’s my dad!

  SOUND

  CAB STOPPING AND ENGINE SHUTTING OFF.

  PA:

  (off) Daniel! Come out of that taxi and let me take a look at you!

  SOUND:

  CAB DOORS OPENING, UNDER.

  DANIEL:

  Hi Pa.

  PA:

  Come here, boy! (gives Daniel a big bear hug with plenty of back slapping) It’s good to see you son. Real good. I missed you.

  DANIEL:

  I missed you.

  CAB DRIVER:

  Where do you want the suitcases?

  DANIEL:

  The porch is fine.

  CAB DRIVER:

  Sure thing.

  SOUND:

  CAB DRIVER WALKING AWAY ACROSS GRAVEL, UNDER.

  PA:

  So, how are you, Daniel? Did they hurt you in those camps?

  DANIEL:

  Nothing permanent. There were guys who had it worse. Guys who didn’t make it.

  PA:

  I heard stories about how those Viet Cong treated POWs. How’d you get through it?

  DANIEL:

  I just kept thinking of being back in the world. . .riding down that dirt road right there. . .standing here talking to you in front of the house - I didn’t let them inside my head. That was the only way to survive.

  SOUND:

  CAB DRIVER WALKING BACK ON GRAVEL, UNDER.

  PA:

  I’m sorry you had to go through that, son. Seems like a different war from the one I fought in Europe. Well, it’s over - for you, at least.

  CAB DRIVER:

  All set!

  DANIEL:

  What do I owe you?

  CAB DRIVER:

  Seventeen seventy-five.

  PA:

  I’ll take care of that, Daniel.

  SOUND:

  RUSTLE OF MONEY.

  PA (cont’d):

  There you go. . .and that’s for you.

  CAB DRIVER:

  Thank you, sir. (to Daniel) Good luck, buddy.

  DANIEL:

  Thanks.

  SOUND:

  CAB DRIVER GETTING INTO CAB, STARTING ENGINE, AND DRIVING AWAY DOWN DIRT ROAD, UNDER.

  PA:

  I’ll help you get these suitcases in the house.

  SOUND:

  THEIR FOOTSTEPS ON GRAVEL.

  DANIEL:

  (takes in a breath) Mmm. . . haven’t smelled that clover in a while.

  PA:

  Seems to be especially fragrant today.

  DANIEL:

  Smells good. Smells like home.

  SOUND:

  THEIR FOOTSTEPS WALKING UP THE WOODEN STEPS.

  PA:

  I think you’ll find the old place hasn’t changed much.

  SOUND:

  WAY OFF IN THE DISTANCE, A MAN SCREAMS IN AGONY. DANIEL’S FOOTSTEPS STOP.

  PA:

  Daniel? What’s wrong?

  SOUND:

  IN THE DISTANCE, ANOTHER SCREAM. . .THIS ONE ESPECIALLY HAIR-RAISING.

  PA:

  Son? Are you okay?

  DANIEL:

  I thought I heard something. It sounded like. . .

  PA:

  Like what?

  DANIEL:

  (a beat. . .then, uncertainly) Nothing. . .nothing. I think it was a couple of. . .of crows out in the field.

  PA:

  Wouldn’t surprise me. Come on. . .let’s get you settled in.

  SOUND:

  SCREEN DOOR SQUEAKING OPEN, THEIR FOOTSTEPS WALKING IN, THEN DOOR SLAMMING SHUT, UNDER.

  NARRATOR:

  The year: 1968. The place: Clover Ridge, Iowa. The scenario: the return of Private First Class Daniel Conway from a four-year tour of duty in Vietnam. . .a year-and-a-half of which was spent in prisoner-of-war camps. And although he’s delighting in sensations he never thought he’d experience again - seeing the cherished house he grew up in, embracing his beloved father, and smelling the clover he so closely identifies with home - Private Conway will soon learn that there is one final battle in which he must engage. . .a battle that has been known to drive some men to madness.

  ANNOUNCER:

  Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories will continue in a moment.

  ANNOUNCER:

  Now back to Fangoria’s Dreadtime Stories and “The Final Battlefield.”

  NARRATOR:

  As the sun sets on Daniel Conway’s Iowa home, he unpacks his belongings - marveling at how well he is able to navigate the room he’s been away from for four years. He maneuvers around as if he never left to go to boot camp. . .as if he never saw hard combat and watched his fellow soldiers die gruesome, bloody deaths. . .as if he hadn’t spent a year-and-a-half in filthy, vermin-infested prisoner-of-war camps, where survival was a test of one’s physical and mental capacities.

  SOUND:

  A KNOCK AT THE DOOR.

  DANIEL:

  Come in.

  SOUND:

  DOOR OPENING AND PA WALKING IN.

  PA:

  How you comin’, Daniel? Just about unpacked?

  DANIEL:

  I think so. Didn’t have that much, really. It’s funny, I’ve been gone for four years, but I remember absolutely everything about every inch of this

  DANIEL (cont’d):

  room. I even remember which floorboa
rd I hid my Roger Maris baseball card under! I didn’t even have to think about it! It’s like I never left.

  PA:

  The mind’s a funny thing. It tucks away all kinds of odds and ends we thought we forgot. (a beat) Well, you’ve had a long day. I won’t keep you up.

  SOUND:

  PA’S FOOTSTEPS WALKING TOWARD DOOR, THEN STOPPING.

  PA (cont’d):

  I’m sure you’re looking forward to sleeping in a real bed.

  DANIEL:

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. No rats, no leaky roof dripping on me, no late night interrogations. . .this is one night’s sleep I am really going to enjoy!

  MUSIC:

  EPISODE SCORE MARKING PASSAGE OF TIME.

  NARRATOR:

  Sleep comes easily for Daniel, as well it should. With the welcome fragrance of clover gently wafting in through his open window, he drifts off shortly after his head hits the pillow. But his slumber is short-lived.

  SOUND:

  DANIEL’S ROOM LATE AT NIGHT. WE HEAR ONLY THE CRICKETS THROUGH THE WINDOW. SUDDENLY, IN THE DISTANCE WE HEAR A MAN SCREAM. HE IS CLEARLY IN TORMENT.

  DANIEL:

  (waking up) Wha. . .? What was that? What time is it? (a beat) Three AM.

  SOUND:

  THE MAN SCREAMING AGAIN, THIS TIME EVEN MORE AGONIZED. THE BED CREAKING AS DANIEL SITS UP.

  DANIEL (cont’d):

  Who is it? What’s going on?

  SOUND:

  THE MAN SCREAMING.

  HANGMAN:

  (off in the distance, with a Vietnamese accent, very angry) You tell us now?

  DANIEL:

  It. . .it can’t be!

  HANGMAN:

  (off) You tired, no? You tell me, I let you go nighty-night.

  DANIEL:

  How could he be here? Come on, Daniel. . .you’re not in ’Nam anymore. You’re back in Clover Ridge - and Charlie isn’t in Iowa. (pause) It was obviously a nightmare. (sighs as he settles back into his pillow)

  SOUND:

  JUST THE CRICKETS, THEN. . .THE MAN SCREAMING.

  HANGMAN:

  (off) I can do this all night! I not sleepy!

  DANIEL:

  Sounds like he’s right in the field behind the house. I must be losing my mind. I’ve got to get it together. . .

  SOUND:

  THE MAN SCREAMING. IT IS A SUSTAINED, AGONIZING SCREAM. . .THE SOUND OF A MAN AT THE END OF HIS ROPE.

  HANGMAN:

  (off) You no talk, you die. We have deal now?

  SOUND:

  SHEETS RUSTLING, BED CREAKING, AND BARE FEET PADDING ACROSS FLOOR, UNDER.

  NARRATOR:

  Frightened, yet mesmerized, Daniel gets out of bed and heads toward the sound. Before long, he finds himself walking through the clover behind his house.

  SOUND:

  DANIEL WALKING THROUGH CLOVER OUTSIDE.

  DANIEL:

  This is ridiculous. . .It’s the middle of the night and I’m walking through a field in Iowa looking for Viet Cong.

  SOUND:

  HIS WALKING STOPS.

  DANIEL (cont’d):

  I don’t even hear anything anymore. I’m going back to the house before I. . .

  SOUND:

  MAN SCREAMING, MUCH CLOSER NOW.

  HANGMAN:

  (off) You no like how that feel? Okay – I give you one more chance!

  DANIEL:

  It’s coming from the edge of Jud Parker’s cornfield!

  SOUND:

  DANIEL WALKING AGAIN, UNDER.

  HANGMAN:

  (off) You tell me what I want to know!

  SOLDIER:

  (off, in agony) I don’t know what you’re talking about!

  HANGMAN:

  (off, but closer) I losing patience!

  SOUND:

  DANIEL STOPS.

  DANIEL:

  (a whisper. . .astonishment, terror) Oh my god!

  HANGMAN:

  (no longer off) You no talk, you pay consequences!

  SOLDIER:

  But there’s nothing to tell you!

  HANGMAN:

  We going in circles. I tired of you.

  DANIEL:

  It’s The Hangman! How could he be here?

  HANGMAN:

  My patience gone. (an order) Guard. . . pull him up higher!

  SOLDIER:

  No!

  SOUND:

  THE SQUEAL OF A PULLEY.

  SOLDIER (cont’d):

  Please! Stop!

  SOUND:

  MAN SCREAMS IN AGONY AND TERROR AS WE HEAR THE PULLEY STRAIN WITH HIS WEIGHT.

  SOUND (cont’d):

  THEN. . .SLOWLY, AGONIZINGLY. . .THERE IS THE HORRIBLE CRACKING OF BONES DISLOCATING AND BREAKING.

  DANIEL:

  (a panicked whisper) No! This can’t be happening, not here!

  SOUND:

  DANIEL RUNNING BACK TO THE HOUSE THROUGH THE BRUSH, UNDER.

  NARRATOR:

  Daniel runs back to the house in a panic, tormented by what he has just seen: a Viet Cong officer torturing an American soldier. It is a sight he knows all too well. But how could he be seeing it here. . .in the field behind his serene Iowa home?

  SOUND:

  DANIEL RUNS INTO THE KITCHEN, LETTING THE DOOR SLAM BEHIND HIM.

  DANIEL:

  I can’t let him get me! He can’t know I’m here!

  PA:

  (off) What’s going on?

  DANIEL:

  Pa! He’s here! He’s followed me home somehow!

  PA:

  Okay now, just settle down, son. You’ve had some kind of nightmare.

  DANIEL:

  I’ll never be rid of him, Pa, never.

  PA:

  Just sit down and take a few deep breaths.

  SOUND:

  CHAIR SCRAPING ON FLOOR, UNDER.

  PA (cont’d):

  You know, when I came back from Germany I had a lot of nightmares. You just got home yesterday. . .you have to give yourself time. Trust me, the nightmares will go away.

  DANIEL:

  (calmer now, but still upset) But this was real. It was. . .it was one of my cellmates. . .he was being tortured. But Pa, worst of all. . .He was there.

  PA:

  Who was there, Daniel?

  DANIEL:

  (a beat) You know how I told you I got moved around to two or three POW camps while I was in country?

  PA:

  I remember.

  DANIEL:

  Well, in the last camp there was a Viet Cong officer who ran the place. He was a sadist. . .you could tell he wasn’t just following orders. . .he loved to torture American soldiers. He knew all the tricks: nightly beatings, sleep

  DANIEL (cont’d):

  deprivation - and a few other. . .nastier things. He would torture guys right in their cells, so their roommates could see it. . .even guys who didn’t get physically tortured were traumatized by what they’d witnessed. I finally decided if that was the game he wanted to play, then I wouldn’t let him inside my head. So I started thinking about home. I’d fantasize that I was in my bedroom. . .I’d mentally put together one of my model airplanes, or lay out my baseball cards on my bed and recite the stats for each player.

  PA:

  Sounds like you found a good way to ride out the storm. But you said he did other. . .nastier things.

  DANIEL:

  When I first got to the camp, I had two cellmates. One was a marine named Keith Molloy. You’d have liked Keith, Pa. He had a good sense of humor despite the circumstances. My other cellmate was a Vietnamese prisoner named Lai Kim. He was captured and accused of being a

  DANIEL (cont’d):

  spy. . .even though he wasn’t. One night, The Hangman came in with his guards and started interrogating Kim.

  PA:

  The Hangman?

  DANIEL:

  That’s what we called the Viet Cong officer.

  PA:

  I’m afraid to ask, but why?

  MU
SIC:

  OMINOUS, UNDER.

  DANIEL:

  (grimly) Because of what he used to do to prisoners. . .because of what he did to Kim that night. The Hangman had a rope and pulley mechanism he’d bring to the cell when he wanted to torture a prisoner. His guards would attach this pulley setup to a beam in the ceiling with both ends of a rope hanging down from it. With one end of the rope, he’d tie the prisoner’s arms behind his back at the wrists.

  SOUND:

  THE SLOW SQUEAK OF AN OLD PULLEY HAULING UP A HEAVY WEIGHT, UNDER.

  DANIEL (cont’d):

  Then he would have the guy hauled up off the floor. His arms would bend all

  DANIEL (cont’d):