The Swetky Agency - Lycanthrope

Submission Synopsis

Lycanthrope
by Robert Rootes

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Length:

107,485

Genre:

Horror

Sci-Fi

Series:

Currently in development.

Sentence:

For years, the government has suppressed the existence of werewolves. In a secret facility, scientists delve into the Lycanthrope disease on a genetic level, where terminal patients are captive; one was smart enough to escape.

Blurb:

For Chris Walker, introverted teenager, life in rural New York is mundane until Courtney Harris moves in next door. After Courtney returns from vacationing in the Adirondack Mountains, Chris discovers that her harrowing escape from an animal attack has left something behind. Overcome with preternatural sense, Courtney understands the metamorphosis within her body will soon turn her into a werewolf.

The night of the full moon, Chris witnesses the transformation of Courtney into a werewolf, and he knows both their lives have changed forever. When Courtney disappears without a trace, Chris follows his heart and instinct to rescue her from the people holding her prisoner.

Synopsis:

Close to retirement, Bill Stevens had spent the better part of twenty years as a security guard for Bourne & Liggate Research Associates, a secluded government research facility so exclusive its a self contained campus where residents live and work without interjections from the outside world. Nestled in the foothills of Pennsylvania, the research institute house secrets that even Bill Stevens doesn’t know what kind of research goes on behind secured doors. With technological advances in security, and budget cut backs, human security staff dwindles. Stevens is the senior security officer of a crew of guards that are more ornament than active.

When the security alarms sound and the floodlights of the Institute come up in the middle of the night, Bill is directed by phone to stop the escape of a patient. He soon realizes his life isn’t worth the job. When Bill sees a naked male patient running at him, rather than attempt to stop the man, Bills decides to flee. Quickly the patient attacks Bill Stevens, killing him instantly.

The two men from the Institute chasing the patient give up when they find the broken body of Bill. Knowing it’s useless and unwise to follow the patient into the wooded area surrounding the perimeter of the Institute, they decide to wait until daylight to pick up the trail.

Trevor Coleman, a brilliant 24-year-old medical school graduate pursuing a career in genetic research, takes employment at the Hans Institute without knowing their background except that it’s a government job. Leaving his past and a failed relationship in Florida, Trevor travels to Pennsylvania where he learns the Institute is shrouded in secrecy and controversy.

Assigned as part of the administration, Trevor is privy to the real hidden agenda of the Institute. When Trevor learns the Institute is dedicated to the actual disease of Lycanthropy, he’s flabbergasted and intrigued.

Fitting into the researching the disease with cutting-edge technology with an uninterrupted private laboratory, Trevor is caught up in the exciting genetic research of the secret disease. Overseen by Dean Osborne, Chief Administrator, Trevor endures Osborne’s constant criticizing as the youngest person on the medical staff. Trevor’s employment at the Institute was given without Osborne’s consent and he reminds Trevor of the unfounded animosity.

From the first day at the Institute, Trevor has reoccurring nightmares where he tracks a beautiful girl he’s never seen before and uncontrollably kills her.

David Tunney, resident psychiatrist, growing fat and lazy on the government pay, explains to Trevor that the Lycanthrope possess extraordinary mental abilities. Some have telekinetic capabilities while others are telepathic, if only on a subconscious level. Most of the employees and resident staff have experienced dreams that are result of the Lycanthrope’s imagination or premonitions. The dreams fade as residency at the Institute progresses.

Chris Walker, average teenager, introverted and restless in the tiny town of Crooked Creek, New York, experiences reoccurring dreams of tracking and killing a beautiful girl he’s never seen in real life. Understanding that the beast he portrays in the dream isn’t human makes Chris enlightened on things to come. Mildly psychic, he’s never one to exploit his gifts.

Tormented by the local bully in high school, Brian Johnson, Chris doesn’t bring any unneeded attention to himself. Pining after Brian’s girlfriend, Jody Murray, Chris doesn’t get involved with activities outside school, opting to worship her beauty from afar.

Damien Cooper, the “New Kid,” endures Brian Johnson’s assaults in the schoolyard up to the point when Brian vandalizes Damien’s Triumph. After beating Brian Johnson, Damien’s social status raises him to dizzying heights.

Chris and Damien become best friends as their junior year of high school closes.

During the summer before their senior year, Courtney Harris moves to Crooked Creek from England. Brought to the states by her parents Philip and Gretchen, Courtney is forced to endure her father’s wishes until she’s 18 and she can return to England, return home.

Moving into the vacant house next door to Chris, he realizes the girl, beautiful and exotic, is someone he’s been waiting for his whole life. Her beauty is familiar to him but it takes Courtney to travel to the Adirondack Mountains for the July 4 holiday before Chris realizes she’s the girl from his nightmares. Now while she’s gone it’s too late to warn her that her life is possibly in danger.

A man without a name, his flight from the Institute after murdering a doctor and a security guard, give him little rest as he travels northward, hoping to return home while pursued by Stuart and Winston, professional Lycanthrope hunters.

Tracking their man by remote, obscure crimes to the slaughter of a dairy cow in the small town of Crooked Creek during Halloween, night of the full moon, he alludes them. Stuart and Winston are a bumbling pair with less social skills than the man-beast they pursue. Dodging them for months with switchback trails, in and out of nameless towns, their latest prey has given them their longest pursuit.

Living in the shadow of her father, Courtney is expected to be a courteous girl. She’s learned that her doting father will give her just about anything and she has the liberty to come and go as she pleases. When a local boy from the lake town where the Harris’ are on holiday asks Courtney to accompany him to view the celebration fireworks from his boat in the center of the lake, she accepts. Though Courtney knows the lad’s intentions aren’t quite honorable, she allows him to escort her from the party to a short cut through a wooded area that leads to a field by his house.

Walking through the woodland with the young man, Courtney feels uncomfortable; a foreboding makes her realize something is dangerously wrong. When the stench of a wild animal stings her nose, the young man is torn from Courtney’s hand and savagely killed. Running for her life, Courtney wanders into the field. As the fireworks erupt overhead, the beast rushes Courtney, knocking her off her feet, biting her, killing her. The last image Courtney sees before losing consciousness is the brilliant blossoming colors of the fireworks overhead under the beautiful full moon.

Tracking their man through Old Forge to a quiet lakeside community nestled in the Adirondack Mountains, Stuart and Winston find the Lycanthrope as it attacks and presumably kills a young couple, They tranquilize their prey and destroy him once he’s in human form.

Courtney wakes in the hospital with immediate changes she’s experiencing. Everyone is convinced that she was a victim of a rare bear attack, she knows different but keeps the secret to herself knowing no one will believe that a monster attacked her.

After the first transformation Courtney makes her first kills, a local farmer and Brian Johnson, she wakes naked and cold on the back step of her house. The world through her new eyes is black and white, colorblind, she sees new possibilities and is powerful.

Understanding the he shares a psychic link with Courtney, Chris realizes his life as well as Courtney’s could be endangered. When Courtney is abducted by Stuart and Winston, Chris is beside himself with grief unable to believe as everyone else does that she’s run away or kidnapped for other reasons than her being a werewolf. When he graduates, Chris, accompanied by Damien, set off to search the northeast coast for Courtney, holding onto the idea that she’s the one in danger, held against her will.

From the first day Stuart and Winston escort Courtney to the Institute, Trevor has her assigned to his care, keeping quiet of his previous knowledge of her infection from the dreams. Determined to free Courtney from the same fate as the other patients, Trevor bides his time before he can make an escape.

Exhausted from the hopeless searching, weary of the road, Damien gone on his own way, Chris finds himself in a quaint valley town in the Pennsylvania hills for the onset of winter. Renting a room from a widowed old woman, he learns of her husband’s employment at the Hans Institute where he was killed in an auto accident leaving work. Chris begins daily vigil on the secluded entrance of the Institute, recording activities.

Early December, Courtney touches Chris telepathically, showing him through her visions of her experience since her abduction. Feeling the Institute is the place of Courtney’s imprisonment, Chris follows one vehicle he’s seen often at the Institute, tailing it to an apartment in town. The girl hesitantly explains she doesn’t know about the activity at the Institute because as a housekeeper, she doesn’t go beyond the apartments. Autumn listens to Chris’ theory of Courtney being held at the Institute. Offering him coffee, Autumn invites Chris into her apartment to wait for her boyfriend who’s a doctor at the Institute.

There’s an instant acknowledgement between Trevor and Chris when Trevor arrives at Autumn’s apartment, understanding why they’ve been brought together. Chris is the piece Trevor needs for his plan to get Courtney from the Institute. He decides that three days after the full moon, Christmas Eve, they would get Courtney out of the Institute.

Aided by Lupus, a patient at the Institute that is a deformed little man with Lycanthropy, the only surviving member of an experimental group from the past, he’s a benign character, grossly covered with hair, with sharp teeth and deep-set eyes. Also affected by the phases of the lunar cycle, Lupus doesn’t have to be housed as a regular patient, only during the full moon.

When Trevor asks Lupus to help Courtney escape the Institute he agrees. Lupus trusts Trevor because unlike the rest of the staff that treat Lupus like an invisible fixture, Trevor took the time to make friends with the little man. Trevor knows Lupus can leave the Institute without being monitored by the many security cameras permeating the corridors.

The night of Courtney’s escape, Trevor and Lupus escort Courtney through the subbasement labyrinth of air ducts to the rear of the hospital at the Institute. With Chris waiting on the road in his van near the perimeter fence, Trevor leads his small group through the lawns of the Institute.

When the security floodlights come up, Trevor realizes he’s made a fatal mistake. Hoping to get away long enough to find someone outside to expose their secret, he coaxes Lupus and Courtney to fight through the hypersonic sound alarm affecting them that Trevor can’t hear.

When Lupus and Courtney lock hands, they know they are siblings of the night, easily bolting from danger to jump the twelve-foot fences of the Institute to freedom.

Unable to keep up with the Lycanthrope, Trevor falls behind. He thinks he heard the voice of Osborne before he’s shot in the back and dies on the Institute lawn.

Breaking from the woods surrounding the Institute, Courtney leads Lupus to the road. When Chris sees her, he immediately starts the van spooking lupus with the headlights making him break from Courtney to bound into the trees. Chris carries Courtney to the van.

When Autumn answer’s the door, she’s expecting to see Chris and Trevor. She’s tranquilized by Winston and left to an unknown fate.

Deciding to travel westward instead of home, Chris thinks they can avoid the people hunting them. Close to a month, they travel and stay in various towns, taking their time before coming to a decision to go to California.

In Kentucky, their past catches up with them.

Suffering from the onset of another full moon, Courtney is tranquilized by Stuart, minus Winston, when she answers the door to their hotel room. A stand off between Stuart and Chris ends with Stuart dead.

Chris drives deep into the hills of Kentucky while Courtney sleeps off the tranquilizer. When she wakes, she convinces Chris to find a secluded area before moonrise.

In a clearing of a snow-covered ground, Courtney transforms into the werewolf while Chris watches.

When the metamorphosis is over Chris marvels the beauty of the blond-brown wolf with a tailless body and white eyes. He remotely wonders if he really needs a silver bullet to kill the Lycanthrope as he shoots the wolf. Once dead, Chris kneels in the snow to stroke the soft warm fur of the animal that was once his love, Courtney.

In the back hills of Pennsylvania, people begin to see a wolf that takes up territory near a lakeshore. Once changed, Lupus remains in his wolf form with the knowledge of distrusting humans because of what they did to his pack, infecting wolves with the disease to see what effect Lycanthropy had on real wolves.

Bio:

Author of four published novels, PRETERNATURAL GIFTS, STRANGER BESIDE ME, SOUL TAKERS, & SOUL MATES.

Endorsements:

Clive Barker.

Film:

A unique twist on the werewolf genre.

Additional:

Currently working on the screenplay, treatment and/or screenplay available upon request.