Written by Joe Janes
10/13/09
268 of 365
CAST
Rachel, 20s
Wayne, 50s
Blanche, 50s
Dean, 30s
The Weeping Llama, 30s
Whale, ???
(Lights up on a shadowy, bare space. Rachel, wearing khaki slacks and a dark polo shirt, walks followed by the edge of a large tour group. We assume the group extends beyond from the three or four folks that we can see.)
RACHEL
This is an alley.
WAYNE
It’s very clean.
RACHEL
Chicago alleys are very well kept. It is a source of pride for our city.
BLANCHE
Is it haunted, too?
RACHEL
As recently as last month, and you can Google this, a man was walking through here with his wife taking a shortcut to get to their car after leaving “The Jersey Boys” before the curtain call to avoid the crowds. As he reached this very spot, a good twenty feet from the sidewalk, he and his wife reported hearing a wailing sound.
WAYNE
Blanche, they heard a whale. I’ll bet it was that dead whale we saw at the aquarium.
BLANCHE
We saw a dead whale today. And you didn’t want to go.
WAYNE
It’s fish. I’d rather pay to eat them than pay to see them. But seeing a dead one, especially a whale, that was cool. (He flips through the pics on his digital camera) I have a picture with me next to it.
RACHEL
That’s okay. The man and his wife didn’t hear a Beluga whale. They heard the sound of someone crying. They looked around and didn’t see anyone.
DEAN
What happened to them?
RACHEL
They left the alley, found their car, and drove to Naperville.
DEAN
That sounds terrible.
WAYNE
What made the crying sound? Did they ever find out?
RACHEL
Legend has it they heard the cries of The Weeping Llama.
(The crowd gasps.)
WAYNE
No whale ghosts, but you’ve got llama ghosts.
RACHEL
Llama is just a nickname. It was a weeping woman with a long hairy neck.
(A woman in a plain old dress, possibly from the 30s, enters the alley from the other side. She has a very hairy neck and carries a baby wrapped in a blanket.)
BLANCHE
There she is.
RACHEL
It’s said that every night at this time, she reenacts the horrible events that happened here.
DEAN
What happened here?
RACHEL
She married the man she loved.
BLANCHE
Oh, no.
RACHEL
It’s said that once they had a child, he stopped loving her. On the other side of this alley, she was walking down the street with her baby, looking for her husband. She found him strolling along with a party girl. He patted the baby on the head, but ignored her. He kept walking. Distraught, she walked into this alley and right in that spot, she killed her baby.
(We see the woman take the baby and begin to strangle it.)
DEAN
Don’t shake the baby! Don’t shake the baby!
(The woman drops the bundle to the ground. Begins to wail and walks off.)
BLANCHE
No wonder she’s a ghost.
RACHEL
But that’s not all. She left her husband and she became a party girl. She went to all the soirees, galas and jubilees. And soon, she was pregnant with a child.
WAYNE
The same child.
RACHEL
No, another child.
WAYNE
It would be so awesome if she was pregnant with the ghost of the child she killed.
BLANCHE
Or a whale.
DEAN
Or a real llama.
RACHEL
I’m sure you are all correct. However, in this case, it was just a baby.
(The llama woman reenters carrying another baby bundled much like the previous one.)
RACHEL
But the baby was cramping her new party girl lifestyle. She was no longer able to stay out as late and gentlemen callers stopped calling. So, she stabbed the baby.
(The woman pulls out a switchblade and stabs the baby.)
DEAN
Fight, baby! Fight!
(The woman drops the baby on top of the other one and wanders off, wailing.)
BLANCHE
This story is so horrible. Did she ever pay for her crimes?
RACHEL
Well, yes. But not how you think. She returned to her party girling and a very rich city councilman paid her to be a kept woman. And during that time, she became pregnant. Well, the councilman wanted to be mayor some day and wanted her to get rid of it, but she refused. She loved the man and wanted to have his child. The mayoral wannabe threw her out of her gilded cage.
WAYNE
She lived where?
RACHEL
Her apartment. Pregnant, she wandered the streets. Lost. Aimless. One night, she found her self here.
(The woman with the hairy neck wanders into the alley. She is pregnant. And she is wailing.)
DEAN
She’s wailing, again. Is it because she’s sad?
RACHEL
It’s because her water broke.
(The woman wails louder, falls to the ground and quickly gives birth. She stops wailing. She takes the baby and wraps it in a handy blanket. She cradles the baby in a very motherly fashion.)
BLANCHE
Look. It has a happy ending.
DEAN
I don’t think so.
RACHEL
She realized that she loved her baby. More than she had ever loved any of her babies.
(The woman stands.)
RACHEL (continuing)
She loved her baby so much that she knew she would never be able to stand her baby growing up and some day dying. So, she decided to kill the baby now to spare her the pain.
(The woman pulls out a gun and points it at the baby. Before she can pull the trigger, the baby pulls out a gun and shoots her. She drops the baby and falls to the ground. She wails in pain.)
DEAN
Did she die? Did the baby die?
RACHEL
Nobody knows. We only know that at this time every night, she lives through her nightmare again and she’s doomed to repeat it…for eternity. (She lets that land on her stunned tour group.) Okay, back to the bus. Let’s hustle. I get paid by the tour, not the hour.
(She leads them off. We hear a whale wailing. A whale walks out into the alley and sees all the bodies. The llama woman takes her gun and shoots the whale. He falls. Blackout.)
