Draculas (51 page)

Everyone will be responsible for 15k words. Blake and Joe will be responsible for the set-up and the finale (though the finale will be based on everyone's input.)

The main idea for the story is a simple one: Night of the Living Dead in a rural hospital in Durango, Colorado, with vampires.

The idea for collaboration is equally simple. There will be four sets of protagonists. Each of the writers will take them through the vampire outbreak in the hospital. The chapters will be short, and end in cliffhangers. Then, when we're putting the book together, we'll alternate chapters. This is an ensemble piece with multiple heroes all battling the same evil in different wings of the hospital.

Here's what we have as far as a set-up, rules, and characters. Jeff and Paul can each decide first which character arc they'd like to write for.

Whether you want your characters to survive or not is up to you. The very finale will be a reverse Night of the Living Dead ending. Instead of killing the hero thinking he's infected, one of the infected will be mistaken for human and removed from the hospital by rescuers, presumably to go on and infect the world.

This is a fast-paced, visceral book done in real time with a lot of action set-pieces based on deconstructing vampire myths. More on that in a moment. Here's the set up:

Prologue, three newspaper clippings from a cheesy tabloid. Headlines:

"DRACULA'S SKULL UNEARTHED IN TRANSYLVANIA! A farmer in Romania uncovered a skull with unique properties while plowing his field near the town of BRasov. The relic, which appears to be ancient and human, has thirty two razor-sharp teeth where normal flat teeth would be."

"VAMPIRE SKULL A HOAX?" Discovered by a Romanian farmer, the humanoid skull with sharp teeth is considered by many to be fake. Fueling this speculation is the farmer's refusals to let scientists analyze the discovery, claiming it is embodies an ancient curse."

"MILLIONAIRE BUY'S DRACULAS HEAD!" Eccentric recluse Mortimer Moorecook of Durango, Colorado, has apparently purchased the so called Dracula skull from the Transylvanian farmer who unearthed it a week ago, for an undisclosed sum. It isn't known what Moorecook, who made his fortune on Wall Street during the late 80s, plans to do with the skull, though many are hoping it will be turned over to scientists for study. Moorecook was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, and couldn't be reached for comment."

Chapter 1

Moorecook gets the skull shipped to him. He's a collector of vampire memorabilia, and on hand is an historian who had studied vampire legends. When the box arrives, Moorecock cradles the head in his sickly hands--then bites himself in the neck with the fangs. He immediately goes into convulsions. The historian calls the paramedics, who take him to the secluded Miskatonic Hospital a few miles away.

Shortly after being admitted, Moorecock begins to transform into a vampire. He attacks the staff, and begins the spread the infection.

Chapter 2

New nurse, her first week on the job. She's stationed in the cancer ward, which she prefers; that way she can spend time with her mother, who is in the ward dying of cancer.

Chapter 3

A husband and wife in the maternity ward. She's in labor, expecting twins.

Chapter 4

A lumberjack, recovering from a chainsaw accident. His truck is parked outside, filled with axes, saws, and other useful tools.

Chapter 5

A good ole boy cop, who is the boyfriend of the historian. He'd been planning on asking her to marry him that day, and meets her at the hospital to do so. He's a gun nut.

Chapter 6-Chapter 30

We alternate POVs, following each group of characters as the outbreak goes from some isolated incidents to a full-blown hospital takeover.

Vampire Rules

These aren't brooding, charismatic charmers. These are feral pyschopaths who exists only to gorge themselves on blood.

After mutating, their teeth grow long and sharp. All of their teeth (not just their canines), and they extend so big they shred through their own lips and cheeks.

Claws grow. Able to see in dark. Can smell blood like sharks. Strong and fast, but no other supernatural abilities, and no trace of humanity left.

The draculas must drink blood every hour, or they die. Any blood. If one of them is cut and bleeds, the others turn on him and devour him. Lick up every drop off the floor and walls. Fight over bones to get the marrow.

Without blood, they autocannibalize themselves, sucking their own blood until they die.

It takes less than an hour to mutate.

No vampire gimmicks. Crosses, sunlight, garlic, stakes--nothing kills them but fire and beheading and blood draining. No turning into bats or mesmerizing victims.

No humanity, no higher thinking. These are rabid dogs with bigger teeth. They exist only to drink blood. Rudimentary, childlike thoughts. Problem solving skills and cooperation, but this dissipates the hungrier they become.

Blake and I have also got some set-pieces we'd like included in the story: big scenes that will be a lot of fun to write. I'll let him describe those...

Joe

May 8, 2010

I kinda like the gun-nut cop...like many gun nuts, he's something of a gunsmith and he customizes weapons...he's off-duty and was on his way to a gun show with a trunkful of all his super-cool heat. He was going to take the historian along so he could propose to the woman he loves most among the things he loves most. His guns have been keeping them apart - she hates them. But she's going to learn to LOVE them.

Paul

* * *

I'll take the lumberjack, unless Joe or Blake desperately want him.

This sounds like a hell of a lot of fun. Good work, you two. Pat each other on the back...violently.

Jeff

* * *

Mornin' Fellas - I talked with Joe, and I'll take the pregnant couple (my daughter was born just a year ago, so I'm still pretty close to the birthing experience)...Joe will have the nurse/mother dying of cancer.

I wanted to list out some big set pieces Joe and I have talked about:

(1) We imagined this scene where, initially, Moorecook goes into the ER convulsing, and then goes ape-shit and bites everything in sight, essentially killing 3 people and a seeing-eye dog. Hospital staff is freaking out, they put the dead in the refrigerated morgue drawers to isolate them while they wait for the CDC to show up...There's a beat of "whooo, disaster averted, let's call the CDC, and someone on staff at the morgue late at night, suddenly hears four metal doors begin to rattle, and then this awful screaming coming from the drawers, which begin to be kicked out.

(2) A woman undergoing a blood transfusion wakes to see a dracula slurping down the contents of her blood bag

(3) A nurse running in terror, tries to get to the hospital chapel, thinking she'll be saved. 30 draculas flood in, shattering the safe in a church/with a cross myth.

(4) As Joe mentioned, end of book, a 28-year-old we've never seen before is saved...this is Moorecook, who has glutted himself on enough blood to return to this eternally-youthful undead state which was his goal from the beginning...

(5) a blind man who's seeing eye dog has been bitten by Moorecook is trying to find his dog, who is now a dracula dog and turns on him.

(6) a character hears what sounds like gunshots out in the parking lot, looks out the window, sees a pack of draculas going through the parking lot, shredding tires.

(7) I think it'd be funny if either Paul's or Jeff's semi-redneck character always calls these things draculas instead of vampires.

A little about the mentality of the draculas: Of course, they're voracious for blood, b/c on some primal level, they know the more blood they drink, they might return to their previous state. No blood in an hour = death. Imagine they need it like we need oxygen.

In addition to the character ARCS we've all chosen, we each take one of the initial people bitten by Moorecook, so we each have a dracula POV. I'll take Moorecook, Joe wants to take a child, the dog doesn't count...Jeff & Paul let me know what person you want to take and I'll make sure Moorecock bites your guy/gal in the ER...in terms of the dracula POV, I really don't want to say too much about it. It shouldn't be too extensive, but I think we should all at least play around with writing a scene or two from a dracula POV and seeing what we come up with.

I'm going to write the opening, up to the point where everyone can begin their character's arcs...I think when you see what I've done, where I've left it off, it will make sense.

Peace!

Blake

* * *

Paul, you'll do great with the cop/gun nut.

Jeff, the lumberjack is all you. One thing I was thinking about his character is his chainsaw injury is on the back of his leg. And everyone who meets him is like, "How did you cut the back of your leg, dumb ass?" This actually happened to a buddy of mine.

Blake is going to take the pregnant couple. He's also writing the set-up scene. Here's the basic idea:

Once Moorecook is taken to the ER, he goes nuts and bites three people in the waiting room, ripping out their throats. These three are taken to the morgue, put in the meatlocker drawers. CDC is called to come look at a potential outbreak, but they're several hours away.

Then, a morgue attendant hears scratching from one of the drawers. Then two of the drawers. Then three. The scratching turns to pounding. The draculas, oblivious to pain, break and smash their own bodies bursting out of the drawers.

Blake is going to follow Moorecook as a dracula. But Joe, Paul, and Jeff will each follow one of these newly created draculas. So we all get to start our own mini-epidemic in the hospital, however we want.

In other words, we each write for a main POV character, and various secondary characters we create, including one of the draculas who wreaks havoc on our characters. Dracula POV is fine, as long as we agree on the ground rules for the creature's thought processes.

Let Blake and I know the type of dracula you want as your main villain. My dracula will be a twelve year old kid. You need to each pick a bad guy character.

Another note--Moorecook is the alpha male, and retains the most of his intelligence. He's going to destroy the phone junction boxes, and eventually also the electricity in the hopsital.

This is a newer hospital, so it is set up with cell phone jammers, like modern airplanes. No one will be able to use their cell phone.

Paul's cop will be able to use his radio in his car (which is loaded with weapons) but he'll have to get outside in order to do it, and I predict the hospital will fill up with draculas pretty quickly, and these things are HARD to kill.

The hospital is isolated. Ten miles from anything. Once the epidemic starts, it hits fast and hard--no one has time to get away. The only remaining survivors after the initial onslaught are the ones hiding in their rooms. Moorecook also directs some of the other draculas to cruise the hospital parking lot and pop tires on all the vehicles.

A note on how this will work: we all need to turn in pages as we write them. That was, we can cross into each other's stories. One thing we envisioned was the cop had arrested the lumberjack in the past, and when they meet up, they are hostile to one another. They would even begin to fight. This would freak out the cop's girlfriend (the historian) because if either of them spill even a tiny drop of blood--a cut lip, a busted knuckle--the draculas will be able to smell it from another floor and they'll swarm on them.

I've got two books to write by July 6. But I will have time in June to start cranking on this. Worst case scenario, I'll bat clean-up, and weave my story into the three that you guys do.

Blake is taking the lead on this one. When we've got a rough draft, we'll all have a chance to streamline and edit and expand.

Joe

* * *

(Virtual rubbing of hands) This is going to be FUUUUUUUUN!

Paul

* * *

Paul - what's your gun toter's name?

Blake

* * *

Joe - give a call when you gave a moment. I have a question about our mythology (and also an idea).

Blake

* * *

I didn't have the historian/forensic anthropologist get into the mythology of dracula in the opening chapter because I think it slow things down too much...there will time for her to wax eloquent about the myth and what exactly she's doing for Mortimer in a breather between terrifying scenes in the hospital.

Blake

* * *

Nicely done! Great start. I'm going to make it a tad bit more serious (An edge of black humor is good, but I don't want anyone to think this is parody or comedy), then do Shanna's section.

Can you sign in to
Dropbox.com
, make a DRACULAS folder, then send invites to me, Paul, and Jeff and explain to them how it works? Then I'll drop the file in.

Make four Word Doc templates titled BLAKE, JOE, JEFF, PAUL and put those in the folder. That way we can all work on our sections at the same time.

Joe

* * *

LOL, I just created a Draculas folder. Did you create one as well?

Did the second chapter. Third chapter is mine, in the hospice nurse's POV. She'll be the ex wife of the lumberjack.

This is gonna rock.

Joe

* * *

Great edits to my opening, btw.

Blake

* * *

Thanks. Jenny is going to go into the ER, and call Randall, her lumberjack ex-husband who is recovering from a chainsaw injury. During the call, Moorecook will escape the gurney and bite several people to death before being restrained.

Then everyone will do their character intro chapters. Then we do the morgue scene where the draculas come to life. Then we're off...

Joe

May 9, 2010

How does Clayton Theel sound?

Paul

* * *

So you'll write the Moorecook losing his shit scene from Jenny's POV in the ER? Cool. I'll write the morgue scene.