LANDER’S GRAVE.

May 28

Written By Corinne Sullivan

LANDER’S GRAVE

Written By

Corinne Devin Sullivan

October 1, 2024

Draft #1

Email: article27music@gmail.com

Address: PO Box 27, Oregon City, OR 97045

Instagram: eye.sullivan

EXT. WINDING ROAD AMONGST THE TREES – EARLY MORNING.

An overcast December sky might snow soon. White, orange, yellow and red signs on a wooden barricade block a paved road in a heavily wooded area. Signs read KEEP OUT. ARMED GUARD. NO TRESPASSING. GUARD DOG ON THESE PREMISES. PRIVATE PROPERTY. SATTIYA, a fifty-year-old decorated fire captain, on leave in Oregon, walks inside this prohibited area. NOISE in the tree tops. Sattiya TURNS, sees something. Guesswork says it is gone now. A firefighter’s badge embroidered into a long wool coat, plus a beret with matching scarf that each bear captain’s insignia, tells how this person cannot stay long away from her career.

The setting is frightening but SATTIYA will do what she came for and she WALKS uphill a few turns. SATTIYA stops. We see a small path is ahead, over there. It leads into overgrown brush. SATTIYA pushes through long branches and finds a tiny wooden building. A rusted sign bears, “WATER PUMP INSIDE.” She kicks off a lock. The old door falls off its rusted hinges. Still, its lock remains secure. SATTIYA must open the door from the hinge side. SATTIYA can’t look but of course she does. Terrified, SATTIYA picks up a foreign coin. It’s perched on its edge as if it had been waiting for her there in the pump room for years.

INT. “HILLARY’S” RESTAURANT IN THE “SHIRE HORSE” HOTEL – EARLY MORNING

SATTIYA enters through the front door. PARKER, the owner, COUNTS receipts behind the counter. Visitors to the establishment seem strangled in wealth and appearance, covered with the countryside’s dirt. We see a prosperous look in PARKER with a long-sleeved L.L. Bean shirt, with an undershirt, matching belt, in contrast to any locals who visit, including MAYOR CARSON, a late-middle-aged woman, who sits alone. MAYOR CARSON spends more time subtly and disdainfully looking around the restaurant, which is mostly empty, rather than engaging in eating anything. Her hair and make-up are freshly done.

PARKER:

Well, look who’s back in Maple Territory.

It takes a moment before SATTIYA RECOGNIZES the place’s owner. SATTIYA starts to remove her hat, scarf, coat and gloves, PLACES THESE on a coatrack.

SATTIYA:

(smiling) Are you really you?

PARKER:

I hope so. Come over. Let’s chat awhile.

SATTIYA’s movements are burdened with her grief but still she tries to look happy as she sits at the bar.

SATTIYA:

Wow. It is you. I’m so happy to see you. I feel like I don't know anyone these days.

Finished with receipts, PARKER puts everything away under the counter.

PARKER:

Sattiya… it’s a pretty name. Irish? Oh, no. Indigenous? That’s right. Your grandma’s side. See? I remember the fine print.

Parker heads around the booth to Sattiya. It can be seen that even though he is often smiling he carefully watches her reactions.

PARKER (CONT):

I’m going to hug you now. It’s going to hurt for a while, this hug is going to be so big.

Sattiya can’t process much. When PARKER STANDS close to her SATTIYA recognizes, finally, his meaning. To cover the lag in her responding to him, like a little girl SATTIYA jumps up for a cute hug. When the hug takes too long, SATTIYA deliberately moves away almost mortified. Both ignore the message. PARKER SITS.

SATTIYA:

It’s been thirty years. Can you believe it?

PARKER:

I’m sorry, Sattiya, but you look terrible, baby. Have you been crying?

SATTIYA:

All morning. I’m… sad.

PARKER:

You sure are a trooper. I’ve always been impressed.

SATTIYA:

I don’t know when I’m going to get over things. Get back to my job-- oh, wow. I forgot about that. Hope everyone is doing fine.

PARKER:

When’s the service?

SATTIYA:

Tonight in Ashland.

There is an unusual pause. PARKER is thinking about something.

PARKER:

Don’t get heavy with me. I am not the man for shaming women. In fact, that’s the reason my wife left me last week. That’s not a joke!

PARKER strokes her cheek and studies her face. There is a secretive quality to this woman. SATTIYA appears impatient to PARKER.

PARKER:

Do you take anything?

SATTIYA:

No. And I wouldn’t. Ever. So, no offers, really please.

PARKER:

(pause) You could stay. Help this place look really normal.

SATTIYA:

I might stay a while. My cousin was the only family I had. That sounds so selfish now. But I keep returning to how Kevin never once even saw this town. I promised him so many times how I would bring him up to Maple Territory, show him our old stomping grounds.

PARKER:

Yes. You mentioned him to me the last time I saw you. Remember?

SATTIYA:

Then we never spoke for a long time. I don’t know why. He just wouldn’t respond to me.

PARKER:

Ashland, Oregon, is five hours from here.

Parker has walked back around the bar. Picks up a rag. He looks at it.

PARKER:

Hey… Cover of Time Magazine, Sattiya! That was awesome! I kept my copy for a year. Might still be somewhere around here.

SATTIYA:

Burn it. The dialogue is bad. If I wasn’t a fire fighter they would have connived, connived, connived… smeared me so bad. So, I just played the fool and made him rude, the way I talked to the Time guy and their busy, young lady-leader. It was hysterical action the entire afternoon, like watching a little canoe of sinking skunks. I’m at the helm feeling so bad about my misdemeanors! But, I guess, in the end they ran something friends said was pretty nice. So, now I’m for it. Of course.

PARKER is certain Sattiya is not safe for him.

PARKER:

Hey wait for this. Before you go, I got to get something out. And I want to put together a sandwich and some other surprises. (pauses) I never said to you something… how mad I was by your brother’s death. I mean that. I was, in a way, mildly suicidal. I mean that. He was a good person.

SATTIYA:

Yep. A good friend. My good friend.

PARKER:

Just hearing about a long fall killing someone I love has been scary for most of my adult life. We were best friends. It’s been nightmares, actually. It’s like a paranormal experience. I dream sometimes about this. Kevin was too close, I guess.

SATTIYA takes the meaning as well as PARKER’S expression fully in.

SATTIYA:

Kevin was my favorite person in the entire world. Back when I was young.

PARKER:

You seem sad, angel. Do you want me to give you something? I have a lot of things now in my stash.

SATTIYA:

That’s our mayor, isn’t it? Your mayor, I mean.

PARKER:

She is. Alaina V. Carson. Family owns the mill.

SATTIYA:

I know. Mayor Carson? Hi. Do you remember my family? We owned a farm out on Old Bear Road?

MAYOR CARSON has been giving SATTIYA sidelong looks. CARSON attempts to smile in a friendly manner.

MAYOR CARSON:

It’s a little unclear. Hard to remember details. Old age.

MAYOR CARSON and PARKER look at each other. MAYOR CARSON stands, warmly extends a hand. CARSON Gives SATTIYA a pat on her arm.

MAYOR CARSON (CONT):

I’m so, so very, very, very sorry. Your loss is deeply felt by the community, Sattiya.

SATTIYA

Thank you. I didn’t know… I didn’t know you ever met my cousin. I don’t think he ever visited Maple Territory.

MAYOR CARSON:

It’s my job to care, Sattiya. I remember very well how sudden it was when you parents passed away years ago.

SATTIYA:

I appreciate that you remember them.

MAYOR CARSON:

And your brother’s death was too terrible. His death was so tragic. He was just fifteen years old.

SATTIYA:

He was seventeen.

MAYOR CARSON:

I apologize. I just want you to know how I was surprised. It was so sad. But you handled it all so casually. I almost thought you didn’t like him.

SATTIYA takes MAYOR CARSON’S extended hand. To SATTIYA, this mayor is simply yet another victim of morality crushing in the area.

SATTIYA:

Like you said a moment ago, you don’t know. Will you be so kind as to help me talk to my old friend here.

SATTIYA leads MAYOR CARSON to PARKER who nervously watches.

SATTIYA (CONT):

Mayor, please tell Parker how I refuse to take take any drug of any kind whatsoever. I’m publicly out-spoken so please know I’m safe. Will you vouch for me?

CARSON is dumfounded.

PARKER

Well… I… stand corrected, I guess.

MAYOR CARSON:

How would I know anything? I just met you. I mean, you were just a small thing the last time you were in town.

SATTIYA

I am sorry if I came across rude. Please, let me say thank-you for your condolences. You helped make me feel like I am still someone.

MAYOR CARSON:

When I met your cousin, across the street, just last month for the first time, he went cruising by. I saw his hair and I immediately thought of you. That’ how I know he was a good one. He was so stand-off’ish. So then I was confused. I wish I could go back and ask him why.

SATTIYA:

Please don’t. Don’t wish you could go back. It’s over.

CARSON nods, departs. SATTIYA bundles up.

PARKER:

Don’t go up to Corinthians.

SATTIYA:

Oh. I was already there. Two roads blocked off. Went through anyway. Saw the pump room. Do you remember the old well, the one the rector used to handle on his own?

PARKER:

Okay. You didn’t go up there.

SATTIYA nods and mouths silently, “I did.”

PARKER:

My advice is don’t walk around Maple Territory. And stop talking that way. You always sound so big-mouthed. Say instead you “walked around on old school roads” That’s all you did. Am I right?

SATTIYA button up her coat.

PARKER (CONT):

The only entrance people use is the western side. No one ever goes to the other side. Maude put in some security gate with armed guards. And do not ask me because I am up front: I have no idea how he got signed, county paperwork for an armed guard there. For that matter, I don’t understand how they can even make that school into a sanitorium—in particular that building which began, I’m told, a hundred years ago as a consecrated church building.

SATTIYA:

Inaccurate. I’m sorry. I’m being rude. However, I checked the record when I was at home. Corinthians is still in the books as a religious facility. I guess a religion is allowed to open both a school, a hospital, and even sometimes operate their own morgue. Frankly, none of us Corinthians alumni care because I got thick-skinned long time ago. I swear that place had a nurse who was poisoning the food up there with meds the entire time. And even if that didn’t really take place, I can testify it was pure hell.

PARKER:

I’m not going to argue. But… the property is listed now as a sanitorium in this county’s books. I saw it.

SATTIYA:

What the heck is with that place?

PARKER:

The chosen leader up there, Maude, was standing right there. He was very... explicit. Crazy guy. Said it all has to do with building permits for a mansion he put in.

SATTIYA:

This is too unbelievable.

PARKER:

I watched him build it. They flew in all this crazy flooring and walls from France.

SATTIYA:

Gresham Maude. That’s what happened, then. Made Corinthians into a sanitorium. Gives him a hell of a lot of authority over affairs of any deceased. Interesting.

PARKER:

And the living can be called through his government ties. Freaking crazy here.

SATTIYA studies PARKER’s face.

PARKER:

I got to say this to you: That’s why I just keep my parents’ place here going, serving up coffee and food, and trying to keep my friends snug and safe.

SATTIYA:

Were you and Jesse friends?

PARKER:

I’ve been trying to… visit… Lander’s grave since Jesse “killed” himself. Way back in 1998.

SATTIYA:

I didn’t believe it either.

PARKER:

No one can. The evidence is so... obvious. I wasn’t going to ignore trouble in my backyard, like when I heard about your brother’s fall.

SATTIYA:

Oh. (pauses) Jesse Landers would have been a big celebrity. He developed a massive part of internet access technology.

PARKER:

I’m sure. His funeral was a whole day’s activity… for someone. Someone had a helicopter fly Lander’s body in. That was more than a little strange but whoever did it must have had a lot of cash.

SATTIYA:

Well, Corinthians does have a license to care for dead bodies. I looked it up.

PARKER:

Jesse Landers’ parents and his brothers had each one by one ended any relationship they had with Jesse. They tell me it was after the internet’s spicy and controversial content. His older brother, Terrence, even called Jesse a bad boy in public. Hurt his feelings somehow.

SATTIYA:

Jesse Landers developed an entire portion of the internet. Then, his next of kin hate him. So after the school announces they are hosting his funeral, his body goes back to our old stomping grounds and the school bus leads a funeral procession to the top of that hill when the young man he turned out to be after graduation up and commits suicide.

PARKER:

That’s correct. The evidence is too... obvious. Plus, Jesse was also a good person.

SATTIYA reaches under her collar. She pulls up to show a coin on a chain around her neck.

SATTIYA:

This is what I remember Kevin by. I hadn’t heard from him, then my parents had phone call telling us he had died. No one in my family saw his body. Years later, I asked for some information. This showed up from a jeweler lady who said I was Kevin’s next of kin. I have tried to find out what this coin could mean. Never found out anything.

PARKER walks over to the window and points something out. SATTIYA looks.

PARKER:

That hill, there. The top. The trees are gone. They took them out for Lander’s grave. Just one oak remaining. That’s where they buried him.

SATTIYA looks at PARKER with such intensity. PARKER gestures to her to say something. SATTIYA shakes her head. PARKER wipes down table tops.

PARKER (CONT):

There was a gathering of people for a funeral but no flower trucks. No music. No one else invited. His parents weren’t there.

SATTIYA:

Because they hated him.

PARKER:

Right. Just before he… got dead. A lot of strangers up there on the hill, for his funeral, dressed just like you are.

SATTIYA continues to stare at him.

PARKER (CONT):

I was watching from that window. No invite. We live right here. Wouldn’t have hurt to invite Hillary and I up to say goodbye.

SATTIYA:

Jesse Landers’ intellectual rights must be out of control…

PARKER:

He was my friend. Still miss him. Plus, your brother. Miss them both. We had fun as kids. Just don’t go up there. Maple Territory is… shrinking. Go to your cousin’s funeral. Then go back home to California. Get rest. Okay? Promise?

EXT. OAK TREE AT TOP OF ABANDONED ROAD– FOLLOWING AFTERNOON.

SATTIYA walks in a large circle around a single oak tree bearing some symbol that shows us it is Jesse Lander’s grave. SATTIYA touches the bark. Both wind and rain blow fiercely. A narrow path of bricks is deeply inlaid, encircling the tree. SATTIYA understands for the first time what must have taken place.

INT. A DECKED-OUT MANSION HIDDEN IN THE TREES – EARLY EVENING.

GRESHAM MAUDE sits at a dining room table. MAUDE ponders his next move but understands violence will take place after dinner. Food is readied elsewhere, perhaps in the kitchen by a professional chef. Outside, a winter storm is coming. MRS. MAUDE, BOY MAUDE and GIRL MAUDE are seated. They wear opulent dining clothes. An intrusive knock sends MAUDE himself to answer the front door. SATTIYA wanders inside and looks piercingly at MAUDE. MAUDE eyes the coin around her neck. MAUDE titters mischievously.

MAUDE:

Can’t believe now someone shows up inside this home. Here, wearing another coin.

SATTIYA:

Gresham Maude. You are still here, in this place. We need to sit. Talk. Will you?

MAUDE subtly looks like he has been handed him a gun to kill and, at the same time, delivered the one person alive with any evidence against him.

MAUDE:

Without hesitation! Certainly, come in. Baby cake. You must remember I was in love with you. We were these cute, little babies.

MAUDE closes the front door. MAUDE inspects SATTIYA. SATTIYA is still wearing her firefighter’s full-length coat, hat and scarf.

MAUDE (CONT):

Wow. Someone’s come back from immortality. Heard you were in town. Everyone is also so impressed. Time magazine. Not bad, not bad. Oh, oh, oh. But... This: sorry about the dear, sweet cousin you lost. He was so loved. So very loved. His sweater is still in our breakfast room. Let’s go there, shall we?

BOY MAUDE and GIRL MAUDE stand with MRS. MAUDE, one under each arm. They could be posing for a painting but are simply waiting. SATTIYA looks at MRS. MAUDE. MRS. MAUDE’s chin is set and next she stiffens her back.

MAUDE (CONT):

I’m being so cute. I’m actually very respectable. Usually, I am. Always, I am.

MAUDE leads SATTIYA across the dining room towards the breakfast room.

MAUDE (CONT):

This is my wife. Children. Boring.

MRS. MAUDE looks down. We see MRS. MAUDE’s finger wag and how SATTIYA notices this.

MAUDE (CONT):

We are going into the breakfast room, wife. I’m visiting with my old friend. From high school. You remember her! Of course. Back when Corinthians was the… bom, bom, bom… tiger castle!

INT. BREAKFAST ROOM – CONTINUOUS.

A fire burns in the breakfast room. A row of medications lines the top of the fireplace. An old-fashioned fire-burning potbelly stove is close by. Two lush chairs are set in front of it. MAUDE looks at the scene. MAUDE remembers his manners so he sits in a chair. From his seat, MAUDE pushes old magazines off the other chair then gestures for SATTIYA to take a seat. SATTIYA sits. SATTIYA’s gaze takes in a basket between them with magazines on top. MAUDE’S hand already seems to disappear into it. MAUDE gives SATTIYA a dusty, folded red sweater.

MAUDE:

Your cousin’s sweater, lovely lady. He left it, I guess. Uhm, how are you here? Can I ask?

SATTIYA:

I’ve been sleeping with your armed guard.

MAUDE:

You’ve been sleeping with… I don’t like how this is going. Sounds kind of creepy.

MAUDE stops himself before giving away any name of his actual armed guards. SATTIYA seems to be hindered.

MAUDE (CONT):

Which one?

SATTIYA:

I thought you already would have known something personal like that. Why ask questions?

MAUDE can’t help but smile. SATTIYA looks at the house.

SATTIYA

This place was built out of Corinthians’ sacred parts. When it was holy. Wasn’t it?

MAUDE:

Oh, yes. The smarty girl is taking me up in her coils. It was Corinthians. Yes. My dad did that: names it “Corinthians the school” after he rips it away from the kind and wonderful and helpless church. Consecrated holy facility. Yes. It had its morgue. And it had its—whoops!—its incinerator. All still intact. Paperwork in the bloodied hands of this… this person! This man who made me. Some defrocked minister runs off to make his very own corporate sanctified building. And everyone has to obey. His word is high: My old father’s little plan to rule his own wonderful place in this world.

Maude laughs. SATTIYA is repelled so she stands. SATTIYA walks to a bay window. The oak tree isn’t far and SATTIYA watches it blowing in the darkening sky.

SATTIYA:

So. You finally tore apart that old church? And took the rector’s home to the ground?

MAUDE:

I could have. But it would have been so expensive. No one could complain if someone in their right mind lost it just to tell a single lie. Just one lie costs too much money for any one person. So, so expensive.

SATTIYA:

You are ill, Gresham.

MAUDE:

I know it. But, actually, I’m not.

MAUDE looks down. MAUDE cocks a gun he has hidden underneath a magazine.

SATTIYA:

That’s the oak tree from our farm. The one Kevin dared you to climb. And he beat you. Unreal. You moved it. I touched it. It’s the same one from our farm, back in the Nineties.

MAUDE is hysterical because he finally has someone to show off in front of.

SATTIYA:

You had it moved to cover up the well. The bricks around the old well are still there. The thing you joked about: Told Kevin about pushing kids on your dad’s property into the rector’s well.

MAUDE:

You shouldn’t cry. Everyone liked Kevin. I am different, aren’t I? I am immortal.

SATTIYA:

Is my brother inside? Jesse Landers? That’s the joke. Isn’t it, Gresham?

MAUDE:

Look at me! I am immortal, Sattiya. You must look me in the face. Now! See me.

SATTIYA:

Now the memory is here (but it was gone for decades): how Kevin told me he was going to toss a set of coins he and Jesse Landers got from some junk store. So, the police would check the bottom of the well. They never did, did they? So innocent. Both of them.

MAUDE:

I am immortal! Sattiya, you are my puppet. See me! Look here. See me, I say!

The swinging door opens. MRS. MAUDE appears. It’s so strange for her to ever interrupt that MAUDE is quizzical about her appearance.

MRS. MAUDE:

Stop telling lies to the guest, Gresham. I see you. I really do.

Maude suddenly understands. Mrs. Maude bring up the muzzle of her gun and fires into Maude until the barrel is empty.

BOY MAUDE:

Yes! Mom is a goddam hero! Finally!

MRS. MAUDE:

Now you are cured. Yes. That’s right. It had to happen right here, in this holy place.

GIRL MAUDE:

Mommy, I want to clean him up. Like he shows me how to clean babies and liars.

MRS. MAUDE:

No! Never again. No more evil.

MRS. MAUDE hugs her children.

MRS. MAUDE:

You are my loves. We are free. Now, get your things. We are leaving everything else behind.

BOY MAUDE:

Yes! Righteous! Finally!

GIRL MAUDE:

Okay, Mommy. But, what’s next?

MRS. MAUDE:

Anything.

BOY MAUDE and GIRL MAUDE are visibly concerned about their mother. SATTIYA places her hand on MRS. MAUDE‘s shoulder.

SATTIYA:

I will call the police. Let’s clean up this place. Do it the right way.

MRS. MAUDE hugs SATTIYA then pushes SATTIYA back from her.

MRS MAUDE:

You need to go from here, go to where you live. You’re dreaming if you think it was only Gresham. There’s so many people who are... terrible. They all make money from intellectual properties of the dead. But they also steal homes and money. Even the police are tossed at times.

SATTIYA:

What will you do next?

MRS MAUDE:

You walked through the front door when Ineeded you most. But things were already in motion, for me, in my heart, I’m telling you. When you appeared, you saved me and my kids. You need to go far away. Don’t even stop. Don’t say things about... tonight.

SATTIYA:

You can trust me to let you hide tonight without my interference. But I already have a clear understanding of where this all takes me next.

MRS MAUDE:

No! (considers things and says) I will trust you. You saved my life--our lives.

SATTIYA:

I can’t hide this place from families who will beg for answers. They deserve to have those answers. Some of us have lost the most important gifts in our lives so I am not able to walk away ever again from what I have seen up here. I won’t leave any wild embers alive anywhere. One tiny fire can take everything and the people we love to their graves. I want more!

SATTIYA walks into the storm. SATTIYA‘s silhouette arrives to the oak tree. Closer, we can see SATTIYA has a handgun. SATTIYA chooses where to fire. SATTIYA shoots close to the edge of the brick walkway. A compartment opens. SATTIYA shines the flashlight. Roots and dirt are everywhere. There is very limited access space. Still, an abandoned stairway meanders downward. There, waiting for SATTIYA to one day notice it, is a long-since forgotten coin placed on the third step, just like the one around her neck.

END.

Corinne Sullivan