Watch Pocket

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

LIAM (O.S.): Alexa, stop.

EXT. WOODS - DUSK. From overhead, we see a 180-degree view of the forest. We're talking pine trees for days. We dip down into the thick of it. Where you can’t tell which way is boo unless you have a compass or a boy scout—the one who even if you blindfold and spin him around three times, can still point out the North Star.

We come to an opening where a small tent is pitched (yeah, yeah, get your laughs out now before the sun goes down). Where milk crates are positioned around a campfire. On the crates sit LIAM (14, prepubescent, with the pocks in his cheeks to prove it), OWEN (also 14, but apparently has located the Proactive vending machine in the mall), and an electronic device the folks these days are calling ALEXA.

ALEXA: The candle burned in the window and the brothers stared at the flame...

LIAM (leaning closer to the device): Alexa—Stop!

ALEXA: ...stared at the flame, knowing that this would be goodbye.

LIAM (hanging his head): I swear, it’s like talking to Mom. Helloooo??

Owen flashes a sad smile at Liam. Toes at some rocks with his sneakers.

Liam lifts his head and attempts the command again, this time using that robotic voice typically reserved for an automated phone menu after the third, I’m sorry, I did not understand your request.

LIAM (CONT’D in robot): Can. You. Hear. Me?

ALEXA: But the older brother was not—

OWEN (quietly to the speaker): Alexa, stop.

All is still for a moment, then the wind WHISTLES, and the fire POPS. As the flames threaten to die, Owen rushes to his feet, knocking over the speaker. He grabs wood from the nearby pile and stacks it in Lincoln Logs fashion, side-eyeing Liam for approval, then begins blowing on the coals.

LIAM (shaking his head and crossing his arms): Have I taught you nothing? Get under it for Chrissakes!

OWEN gets down on all fours and huffs and puffs near the base. This time, the fire CRACKLES and blazes.

LIAM (pointing at the tipped-over speaker): Why’d you even bring that?

Owen shrugs. Turns the speaker right side up but leaves it on the ground.

OWEN (to self): Just trying something new I guess…

LIAM: (looking around): And where are the marshmallows? Don’t tell me you forgot the marshmallows.

A scuzzy cat joins them, hissing as it struts past Liam to rub its nose against Owen's milk crate. Owen gets up and disappears into the tent. Returns with a can of tuna for the cat, a candle (which he sets behind the speaker), and an empty book of matches. He folds open the flap and closes it again. Sits back down on the milk crate.

Liam shoots Owen a glare.

OWEN: You think I want to do this? (beat) Well, I don't.

A WHIMPERING cuts through the wind and Liam’s posture stiffens.

Owen picks up a twig and snaps it in half, then snaps those halves in half, and so on and so forth until the twigs are too small to snap. He throws the bits, along with the empty matchbook into the fire, then picks up a new twig and starts again.

OWEN: It’s time.

The wind WHOOSHES through the campsite, lifting a heap of glowing embers and carrying a flap of matchbook ash through a SERIES OF OVERHEAD EXT. WOODS SHOTS - WITH DUSK REWINDING TO DAYTIME.

—We land at a stream where TWO BOYS (14 and 10) stand shin-deep in the water. The younger boy holds a rod at an upward angle while the older boy threads a worm on a hook. The younger boy casts his line and reels in a fish. The older boy cleans it. Arranges a tangle of twigs. Pulls a match from his pants pocket and strikes it on his jeans, the younger boy watching in awe.

—A breeze reignites the flap of ash and sails it above the stream. We follow it downriver to the sound of LAUGHTER where the SAME TWO BOYS duck behind trees and chase after another. The younger boy sprints ahead, past a GIANT ROCK, and out of sight. The older boy stops running and turns to face east, then west…or is it north, then south? He scratches his head. Cups his hands around his mouth and HOLLERS for the younger boy.

—The ash floats past the older boy and leads us through the understory, through the thicket, before giving way to a cabin in the woods. Moss shingles the roof. Milk crates litter the yard. The younger boy stands knee-deep in grass as the older boy catches up to him, breathing hard.

OWEN (V.O.): Once upon a time, there were two brothers who lived on the edge of a great woods.

The boys walk around the cabin's perimeter, stopping at each window for a boost and peek: The older boy sticks out a knee and the younger climbs up, grips the sill with one hand, and with the other, rubs a dent of grime away; peers in to see.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): Every morning, the brothers raced outside, the screendoor banging behind them. And every morning, their mother would catch them by the earlobes and march them back to the porch, yelling Beware the Vilomah. Wagging her finger to never go past the giant rock. To never to carry a book of matches. And should they ever stumble upon an old abandoned cabin—to never, ever step foot inside.

I know, I know, the boys would say.

But occasionally, the younger brother would skirt around the giant rock, keeping one finger pressed against it at all times, so that technically, since he was still touching it, he had done as his mother had asked.

And occasionally the older brother would stuff a loose match in his front pocket. So that if they happened to hook a trout at the creek, and if he happened to get lucky and strike fire on one try, the brothers could enjoy a fresh meal without a bellyful of guilt accompanying it.

(beat)

One day, in the midst of a silly game, the younger brother lost track. And when he finally stopped to look up, he saw that he had ventured past the rock.

At the final window, the older boy wants a turn, so this time the younger boy sticks out his knee and gives the boost. But as the older boy peers in, the younger boy loses his balance and tumbles to the ground, causing the older boy to thump forward into the pane. Which, being old and rotted as it is, gives in, leaving the older boy with his legs kicking in the open air behind him, and his front half inside the cabin.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): He had gone past the rock up to a cabin, which surely was the very cabin his mother had each and every morning warned him about, but which he had never actually stumbled upon until now.

And although the younger brother itched to see inside, he hooked his thumbs into his belt loops.

The younger boy gets back to his feet and asks, “Is she in there? Do you see the Vilomah?”

But the older boy scrambles backward fast as he can, falling to the ground with a THUD and scratching up his arms on a bed of prickers.

“Let’s get out of here,” the older boy says and starts home. But when no leaves rustle behind him, the older boy turns back, just in time to catch a glimpse of the bottom of a sneaker disappearing into the window opening.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): No, the younger brother had no intention of setting foot inside that cabin, but you see, the younger brother heard this sound. This cry, like a baby or a kitten might make.

The older boy races back to the cabin, to the tipped-over mess of milk crates below the broken window. The older boy restacks the crates and climbs up so that his mouth reaches up above the sill, and whisper-screams into the house, “Owen? Owen!”

But the younger boy does not reply.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): And so he followed the sound of that poor little kitty or baby. At first, he followed it to the broken out window and the next thing he knew he had climbed inside and was batting his way through cobwebs, just following the sound from room to room, like a mother searching for her child. Or a child searching for his mother. But every room he searched seemed to push the sound into the next.

From outside, the older boy tries a little louder, “Owen? Owen, answer me!”

But the younger boy still does not reply.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): Until finally, he looked up. And above the exact spot where he stood, saw this panel in the ceiling.

Now the older boy ho-hums. Because being as he is the older of the two, the boy has no choice but to follow the younger boy and drag him back. And so he too disappears into the opening.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): In the movies, these panels have a rope. And all you have to do is get up on your tippietoes and pull down, and voila—the panel opens into a staircase that you can just climb into the attic. Well this rope, when the boy pulled on it, crumbled like the sand on the bank of the stream, where when the fish weren't biting, he and his brother sifted for fool’s gold.

Inside, the crusted-up windows keep what little daylight is left out. The older boy pauses to let his eyes adjust, then carefully makes his way through the room.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): This shiver crawled right up the younger brother's spine and just as he was about to get out of dodge, there started the crying again, right above him, a whimpering really, and scratching too.

Gotta be a kitten, he thought, and in that same thought he pictured his own little Amelia, the stray he had rescued from the stream. And the idea of leaving this poor mewing thing, which for all he knew coulda been Amelia’s brother or sister, up in that dingy attic, never to slurp a little saucer of milk or brush its tongue bristles on another hand, well…

The boy gathered up some more of those milk crates all strewn about, and made them nice and tall, and hooked his fingers around the handle.

Makes his way through the room, which appears to be a bedroom—but not just any bedroom: here’s a crib. A layer of dust. Two hand-carved mobiles.

Two tiny trucks. A wicker rocking chair. All strung with spider silk.

The older boy claws cobwebs from his forehead and continues through the doorway.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): The younger boy popped his head into the attic. “Here, kitty kitty. Here, kitty kitty.”

Here’s a hallway. A bedroom. A bathroom.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): A set of eyes answered.

A living room. A kitchen.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): Not Amelia-eyes. Not Mother-eyes. Eyes like the snake from his dream that had squirmed through the fish he'd caught's belly and bit its way through the lining and then through Owen’s thumb so that he dropped it back into the stream, and when it landed on the water, its tail split into two legs with hooves that rode at him full speed with a net that swooped down upon him as he sat up in bed soaked in sweat.

Milk crates stacked to the ceiling where the door to an access hangs on its hinges.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): The younger boy backed away on his hands and knees. Feeling the floor for the opening from which he came. Where was it? Where was it?

The older boy climbs.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): The noise he’d followed...followed him.

Shimmies up through the opening.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): He backed up and backed up again, blind with his eyes, but with his hands, made out the shape of a window.

Crawls across the floor, feeling with his hands for the next move.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): Squinted his eyes and made out the shape of a candle. Thought of Liam. Thought of the fish they ate, of the used-up match.

The older boy, all he can see is that blizzard of red and blue dots that live behind your eyelids, but with his hands, he feels his way along the walls. Comes to a window. And in the window, feels a candle. With just the nub of a wick.

“Owen?” Liam whispers. He’s up here, he’s gotta be.

Liam slips his fingers into that tiny pocket on the front of his pants—the one where cowboys used to keep their watches—the one where Liam keeps his backup match.

He presses the stem between his fingers and strikes the head on the leg of his jeans.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): Thought of his mother.

Liam cups a hand around the wavering flame, his eyes affixed on the tip as it touches the wick. His ears deaf to Owen’s screams to stop.

OWEN (V.O. CONT’D): The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window. The candle burned in the window and the brothers stared at the flame, knowing that this would be goodbye.

EXT. CAMPSITE - NIGHT - BACK TO PRESENT.

LIAM: Owen, stop.

OWEN: But one brother was not enough for the Vilomah.

Liam rocks back and forth with his head in his hands, remembering what he doesn't want to remember. Facing the proof as he pulls his translucent fingertips from his hair.

LIAM: Owen—please!

OWEN: And instead of being confined to the cabin with the Vilomah, the older brother was made to follow his younger brother home.

LIAM: Owen!

OWEN: The older brother followed his younger brother day after day. The days turned into weeks. Into months. Into years. Reminding the younger brother how he had disobeyed their mother. Of why her mascara would forever run down her cheeks.

LIAM (covering his ears): Owen, no…

Behind Liam, the SAME SET OF EYES FROM THE ATTIC glow.

OWEN: Reminding him that their mother—already a widow—had now become what she'd warned her sons about. Had now become what she feared the most.

Owen stands up. Props the candle with the nub of a wick atop the milk crate. Reaches into his front pocket and pulls out a match. Strikes it on the leg of his jeans.

OWEN: Better to haunt than be haunted. You taught me that.

The flame ignites but a WHOOSH of wind extinguishes it. For a moment, opaque color returns to Liam's face.

OWEN (to Liam): And you taught me this...

Owen tosses the blackened stick into the fire. And reaches into his watch pocket.