Hiding Billy

By Scott Mullen

A Movie Length Tale™ from Aisle Seat Books™.

A woman tries to protect the ghost of a little boy from the angry spirit of his undead father.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aisle Seat Books
• Release date: Apr 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781935655749

Book preview

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A Movie Length

Thriller and Suspense Tale

For Readers

13 and up.

Written by

Scott Mullen.

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Lyme, New Hampshire

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Copyright © 2013 Scott Mullen

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1-935655-74-9

ISBN-10: 1-935655-74-4

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013936149

Published by Aisle Seat Books, an imprint of

GrayBooks LLC

1 Main Street

Lyme, New Hampshire 03768

www.Tales2Film.com

www.AisleSeatBooks.com

Electronic Edition

About Tales2Film™ and Aisle Seat Books™

Read a good movie lately?

Every good movie starts with a script, and every good script tells a riveting story. Long before the actors are chosen and the filming starts, a writer sits down, crafts that story, and submits it for consideration by the producers, directors, and other creative talents in the film industry. It can take a long time. A script may spend years making the rounds before getting the elusive Hollywood green light. If it ever does. Some of the greatest movies ever written are ones that none of us will ever see on the screen.

Tales2Film finds the best of those not-yet-produced tales and brings them to you as Movie Length Tales™ just as the writer envisaged them. Each of the tales in this series has been converted by the script’s writer from the technical shorthand of screenplay format into the familiar prose format you see here, a process called novelization.

These little books are not novels, or even novellas. Think of them as written movies. Like the screenplays they come from, each is presented in real time, written in the present tense to allow you to see the movie’s scenes in your mind’s eye as if they were unfolding on a theater’s screen before you.

So. Here’s a movie. Take your favorite aisle seat and enjoy it.

And when it’s over, take a look at out Featured Previews in the back of this book. Your next Movie Length Tale™ is already here...

Now Showing:

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Thriller & Suspense

Ages 13 and up

Theater lights dim.

Fade in:

A water tower looms against a sunset sky. The image is odd, dreamlike, the point of view of an unseen person.

A ladder at the base of the tower. The person climbs. Hands reach up, grabbing rungs.

The top. A railing. Fields and houses in the distance.

The person looks down. It’s a long way.

Falling. The ground rushes up fast. There’s a haunting cry.

>>

Abby Martin sits up in the semi-darkness, crying out. Tousled hair frames her pretty-but-tired 24-year-old face. She’s still half-asleep from her dream.

Next to her a man rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Abby moans, rubbing her head, then stiffens at the sight of something.

She cries out, terrified. On the other side of the room is an off-white glow, in the shape of a human figure.

Abby grabs at the sleeping man. Todd!

Groggy, he looks at her. You’re dreaming. Go back to sleep.

You don’t see that? Near the chair?

Todd groans, then sits up. He follows Abby’s gaze, but there’s nothing unusual. It looks like an ordinary bedroom.

There’s nothing there.

It’s gone now.

Abby turns to him. There’s blood on the right side of her scalp, seeping from a bright red mark.

Todd gasps. What did you do?

Abby looks at her hand, and sees blood on it. She moans. This isn’t happening, this isn’t happening…

Mommy?

A little girl stands in the doorway watching, scared. The white shape is now behind her. Abby shrieks.

Leave Jenny alone!

Abby stumbles to her feet, and lurches toward Jenny, who takes a step back in confusion and fear. And then Todd crashes hard into Jenny, taking her down to the carpet.

He whispers firmly into her ear. You need to calm down.

It’s going to—

There’s nothing there.

Abby looks at her daughter. Jenny stands alone, terrified. There’s no sign of the shape.

Todd holds Abby, gently but firmly. You’re going to have to go back to the hospital.

Abby sobs, hard. A wild-eyed, crazed mess.

LATER:

Onscreen: Five years later.

Abby walks down the sidewalk of a suburban street. There’s something off about her: Her clothes are a bit mismatched, her gait is slow and stiff.

Closer. Abby’s face is slack, her eyes vacant and lost, without vitality. Her hair is a mess, as if she took two strokes with a brush and called it done.

Closer. Scars are faintly visible on her face: a small circle on her forehead, a slash on one cheek, faint jagged cuts on her skin. They all seem just slightly unreal.

A dog barks. The sound is tinny. In fact, the color everywhere is a bit washed-out.

Suddenly a big dog charges around the corner of the house, right at Abby, barking loudly.

Abby doesn’t flinch. She just walks on, past the dog. Frustrated, it barks a few more times, then retreats.

LATER:

Abby sits in a booth, glass of water and cup of coffee on the table in front of her.

Her watch beeps. Abby shakes two big green pills from a vial in her purse, and washes them down with a gulp of water.

A woman sits down across from her. She’s in her fifties, stern, wearing a maid’s uniform. She speaks with a Russian accent.

Are you Abby?

Abby looks at her. Yes. When Abby speaks, she sounds completely emotionless and detached, talking in short, flat, numb sentences.

I am Olga. Show me hands.

Abby lifts her hands.

Olga rubs them with her fingers. Soft. You are not a cleaner.

There are harsh scars on Abby’s wrists. Unlike the others, these are ugly and all too real.

Abby pulls away. I can clean.

Olga shows Abby her own hands. They are cracked, calloused.

I can clean, says Abby.

Olga looks at her. Okay. You get one chance.

LATER:

Olga drives a van. Abby sits next to her, disengaged, silent.

Olga looks at her, then back at the road. Last girl not work out. She not clean toilets. You clean toilets?

Yes.

Other girl, she had idiot boyfriend kept coming around. You have idiot boyfriend?

No.

Olga glances at her.

Abby sees it. No boyfriend.

You are on something. Drugs?

Medicine.

Crazy people medicine?

Abby looks at her. Yes.

It makes you feel good?

Abby rubs her face. It makes me feel nothing.

Silence. The road unfolds.

Olga looks at Abby again. You do toilets, we will be fine.

LATER:

Olga stands outside the van, smoking a cigarette. The van door opens, and Abby steps out, in a maid’s uniform. She tugs on it. It’s a little too small.

Olga surveys her. It will do.

They walk up the driveway, toward a mansion.

LATER:

The dining room is posh. Olga watches Abby wax the table. In her dazed way, Abby is focused and adept. Olga returns to dusting.

LATER:

Abby kneels beside