James Wilkinson

*Currently seeking development opportunities for the work.
2 Acts. 140 min.

A woman, (M), is on vacation in a foreign, French-speaking country. She returns to her hotel late one night and can’t shake the feeling that someone has been in her room while she was out. She reaches out to the hotel staff for help as it becomes clear to her that someone is following her. The front desk attendant, (CLERK) and the night maid, (JOLENE), take an interest in M’s plight but with nothing more than M’s feelings to go on, there’s not much they can do. As the night goes on and M grows determined to figure out what is happening, the mystery only deepens. Who is the man, (LONE), who keeps appearing at the edges of M’s story? What is the hotel staff up to? What is the mysterious black goo that bubbles up in the hotel room? What is M guilty of? What does Elise have to do with M? Identities blur as the past begins to repeat itself and M must escape the trap in which she has found herself.

90 min. - Tucked away in a boarding house in the middle of nowhere, Nurse, a woman with no eyes, sits in a dark room caring for her live-in patient, Joe. Joe has been diagnosed with a medical condition that keeps him bed bound, doped up and out of the light. The two have been left alone together for far too long and their relationship has devolved into a toxic codependency. Joe physically lashes out at Nurse at every opportunity, while Nurse holds Joe’s condition and his dependency on her over his head. The two spend their day with Joe angling for more drugs, Nurse trying to play her Blondie records and both of them fending off the landlady that keeps knocking on their door. Then, after Nurse pushes Joe a bit too far, he vanishes (or does he?) and Nurse is left to contend with the surrounding darkness. Alone, Nurse’s ability to maintain her reality begins to crumble. Faced with the threat of madness, Nurse must fight to regain control of her own mental state.

45-60 min. Two old friends, Alt and Peric, are catching up after a long time apart. It's after dinner and they've both had a bit too much to drink. There seems to be some trouble brewing between Alt and his wife, Angelene, but he doesn't want to talk about it. In the process of their conversation, it soon comes out that each man has recently witnessed a crime that has shaken him to his core. The telling of their stories causes reality to bend around them and the evening begins to take on a surreal edge. Before the evening is through all three characters must try to make sense of the world without getting crushed by the existential weight brought on by what they've seen.

20 min. A Speaker recounts the story of their interaction with a ghost in the months following a break-up. The ghost appears in their bedroom, each morning, as a young man hanging by the neck from the rafters. The narrator struggles to make sense of what they're seeing and finding someone to confirm the sightings

Monologue. A woman, Nora, is giving formal testimony about a recent incident. At a formal dinner, she and her colleagues are attacked by a woman with a fixation on Nora. Nora recounts the event and describes an event from her childhood that may explain the woman's actions.

12-15 min. A character, Trae, visits a detective, hoping to learn who has been sending the most delicious cakes imaginable. When the delivered packages take a more sinister turn, the full extent of Trae's obsession is revealed.

15 min. Two characters, Hunt and Evelyn, tell the story of the night they stole a couple of horses to run from a masquerade ball. The two lose control of the animals and are dragged through a nearby forest. The horses seem gripped by a kind of madness that infects Hunt and Evelyn. After witnessing the bizarre actions of the animals, Hunt and Evelyn are left to sort through and make sense of what they have seen.

15 min. It's a strange world that Mags and her brother are living through. A few days earlier a corpse mysteriously appeared in their boarding house and disposal of the body has proven tricky. Meanwhile a serial killer is on the loose and they're not so sure that they can trust the birdman who lives in their house with them.

17 min. DRIVER picks up two hitchhikers late one night in the backwoods of Maine. One, PATIENT, appears to be very sick and barely clinging to life. The other, HADDER, is willing to talk, but only about how he needs to be getting to where he's going. He's desperate to get to an old friend named Elise, to repay a debt long overdue. When PATIENT takes a turn for the worse, DRIVER learns just how far HADDER will go to get to his destination, and just how infectious his obsession is.

15 min. An on-call Nurse sits by the phone late at night and receives an unusual phone call. A disturbed and rambling woman demands that a nurse be sent to take care of her. She claims her husband has hired a man to attack her, but it's hard to determine just how much truth there are to her claims. Nurse is left to make a choice. Just how involved does she want to be in what's going to happen?

13 min. Hotel maid, Jolene's, shift ended hours ago, but she's refusing to leave, much to the chagrin of Clarice, the front desk clerk. It's late at night and the two are talking. Clarice is trying to work, despite Jolene's annoying presence. Jolene claims to have seen a vampire attack in the hotel. Clarice doesn't believe her, but there might be some truth to her story.