FIGHTBACK - A SCREENPLAY

FIGHTBACK - A SCREENPLAY by Lloyd Mattson

FIGHTBACK - A SCREENPLAY by Lloyd Mattson

CUT - EXT NIGHT CLUB - OPEN TO THE SEA. PALM TREES. EARLY EVENING.

A taxi pulls up. Maria steps out.

CAB DRIVER - Enjoy the music. I'll pick you up in an hour - to the hotel for your bags - then the airport. You still have a few hours till the plane leaves.

MARIA - Sounds good. These fourteen days went too fast.

The cab drives away. Maria hears Colombian and Caribbean music coming from inside.

DISSOLVE TO INTERIOR NIGHT CLUB

WAITER - Would you care for a drink, Señorita?

MARIA - A soft drink, please...

She sits back to enjoy the music.

One drunk leaves his gang and approaches Maria's table.

DRUNK - Would you care to dance, Señorita?

MARIA - No thank you.

He makes a rude gesture, rejoins his group. The music stops and dancers seat themselves at the half dozen tables. The four noisy men at the corner table drown out any other conversation. Young thugs, well on their way to getting sloshed. Maris can't hear what they are saying, but lewd gestures, stares in her direction, and boisterous guffaws from time to time don't leave much to the imagination.

When the music resumes, two of them get up and dance with the meseras, waitresses who work there, and grope them the whole time. The girls pretend to be enjoying it, but their laughs are phony.

MARIA (to herself) - The women need the job and have to put up with that crap. I don't envy them.

This place is wearing out its welcome These goons seem to have everyone scared of them. Time to pull out of here. Guess I'll go out to the patio and enjoy the ocean breeze and the moon.

The drunks leer at her as she leaves. She steps outside.

EXT. OUTSIDE DECK OF NIGHTCLUB

MARIA - What a view!

Through the open window area she can see the dancing. She stops a moment to admire the sunset ... and is grabbed from behind and immobilized by the four thugs. The uneven struggle is brief and the outcome as might be expected. Her assailants carry her struggling toward a nearby grove of trees.

She lies huddled in a heap at her captors' feet. The thugs pass around a bottle, taking swigs till it is empty. Momentarily they relax their vigilance. The supposedly terrified captive springs into action.

She bites. She grabs a baby finger and breaks it. Her claws tear at an eyeball. Her knee drives with such force into a groin it appears to drive right through. She sinks her teeth into an ear, crunching cartilage and flesh ... the blood spurts. And she runs on winged feet, back toward the nearby town, passing between jungle and ocean.

Meanwhile the least damaged of the would-be rapists jumps in his parked vehicle and races in hot pursuit. In his lap he holds a weapon retrieved from the glove compartment. He attempts to run over the fleeing fugitive, who dives behind a tree to save herself, tripping over a root and falling to the ground. The man aims the weapon to mutilate his helpless prey.

THUG - (pointing a handgun to maim the woman) You will die slowly. No one will hear your screams.

Luis, an older guy,  has been observing this latest development from behind a tree. He grasps a sturdy chunk of wood intended for the fire.