OUTBREAK - Daily Script

1 OUTBREAKW ritten byLAWRENCE DWORET & ROBERT ROY POOLD ecember 1993 DraftFOR EDUCATIONALPURPOSES ONLYOUTBREAKFADE IN:EXT. JUNGLEHIGH-PITCHED WHINES. LOUDER AND LOUDER. MORTARS racethrough the air and EXPLODE in the distant jungle. Sol-diers -- black, white, Oriental -- curse and mutter inFrench, German, Australian and American as they KEYS POUND -- the letters leap across the screen:THE MOTABA RIVER VALLEY, BELGIAN CONGO (ZAIRE), CAMP OF FORCES LOYAL TO MOISES TSHOMBE - DAYBLACK MALE NURSE carrying a bucket of water from the Motaba River rushespast the Mercenary Army to --CAMP INFIRMARYW here he replaces the towel on the forehead of a fever-ish, delirious AUSTRALIAN MERCENARY with a cold new MERCENARYG imme somethin' for the bleedin'pain.

2 C'mon, mate, help Mercenary tries to lift himself out of his 't. He's too weak. His skin is yellow and coveredwith blisters that look like chicken (checking the soldier's temp)He's still over a hundred andsix. Why can't we bring it down?The black African army physician, DR. RASWANI, looks on,helpless. Suddenly, the Australian emits a sharp eyes roll back, and he begins convulsing. BeforeRaswani can even reach into his bag for medecine, theMercenary is and his Nurse stare with DRONE of a CHOPPER grows LOUDER as a Bell Z180 ap-pears over the edge of the forest and kicks up a storm ofdust as it lands. Raswani and the Nurse run to meet their eyes, hope.

3 (CONTINUED) :Two space-suited figures emerge from the chopper, theirfaces hidden by thick green plexiglass shields. The is emblazoned on the side of their helmets, whichalso display their ranks. The much taller man is alieutenant whom we'll know as McCLINTOCK. Through hisvisor, we can just make out his pock-marked, angularface. The shorter, pear-shaped man is a CAPTAIN. Wecan't see his features, only the reflection of horn-rimmed you brought the medicines? the hell didn't you bringthem?CUT TO:INFIRMARYThe two space-suited figures follow Dr. Raswani pastsoldier after soldier infected with the same deaths yesterday, eighteenthe day before, the disease iskilling our men faster than Captain stops at a young AMERICAN MERCENARY'S 's shaking with fever.

4 His skin is mottled and lookslike the pulp of an orange. His voice is a whisper:AMERICAN MERCENARYTake me home, Get meoutta this shithole. Please, Iwanna see my American Mercenary reaches out with his arms to theCaptain, who shrinks back, not wanting to 'll get you home, , I need a tissue pulls from his black bag a long metal syringe andplunges the biopsy needle deep into the man's liver. Heplaces the needle in an aluminum test tube and seals it.(CONTINUED) :AMERICAN MERCENARYP romise me you'll get me me, Goddamit!A long uneasy 'll get you TO:TWO SPACE-SUITED ARMY FIGURES boarding their chopper, Dr. Raswani and his Nursestanding just supplies, but doctorsand nurses.

5 And suits like yoursto protect us. This diseasespreads too plane tonight will TO:INSIDE CHOPPER ascending above the McClintock and the Captain look out the window at 's viral. There's no way tostop it. It could spread allover the can't see the Captain's face, but feel his can McClintock:McCLINTOCKIf you'll excuse my bluntness,sir, you can't go halfway on 't ever -- ever -- tell mewhat I have to CAMPSITE - DUSKDr. Raswani gives a shot to the American Mercenary, wholooks RASWANIThis will help the Male Nurse rushes NURSEThey're MERCENARYI they'd come Iknew. Help me up. Help me --CUT TO:RASWANIThE Male Nurse, and dozens of soldiers rush across theforest to the makeshift runway beside the camp.

6 In thedistance a camouflaged DC-3 is rapidly DC-3 The PILOT, no more than 21, sees the soldiers celebratingtheir arrival down on the runway. His hand is on thegreen bomb release can' is in the copilot's 's either them or puts his hand on the green release lever. can't GROUNDDr. Raswani and the soldiers stare at the plane, comingin too high for a PLANEMcClintock squeezes the green lever.(CONTINUED) :The bomb cannisters under the wing open up, releasing athick cloud of yellow cyanide GROUNDS creams of agony rip out as Raswani and the soldiersconvulse and plane shoots over the treetops, spraying the groundbelow like a crop the plane arcs and approaches RUNWAY littered with the dead, the plane releases a waxy greycloud.

7 One second. Two seconds. An eerie CLOUD EXPLODES in a huge plane releases more and more napalm, burning thejungle for CRIES of ANIMALS caught in the fire pierce the shoot up trees a hundred feet BACK to show the whole forest ablaze. A long beat,then at the very LEFT CORNER OF the FRAME, a MONKEY witha black and white coat (a Colobos monkey) emerges fromthe fire, looks back at its mate, threatened by theflames. The Colobos jumps up and down, baring its teeth,SCREAMING. The fire moves relentlessly forward. Themonkeys dart to TO:MOTABA RIVER VALLEY - NEXT MORNINGA metal syringe burned to a molten shard lies beside amortar launcher, twisted and deformed like some bizarremodern sculpture.

8 PULL BACK to reveal acre after acre,mile after mile of nothing but ashes and carcasses ofburnt-out trees. Not a single living thing OUT and ROLL UP:TREETOPSA wind rippling through treetops.(CONTINUED) :COMPUTER KEYS POUND: "THE MOTABA RIVER VALLEY, AUGUST12, 1994."SHOCK CUT TO:ABOVE RAINFORESTB rilliant streams of orange and purple, the last rays ofthe setting sun, dance across the sky and penetrate thevapor cloud above the rain forest. Unworldly by:Giant TREES CRASHING to the ground. TRACTORS ROAR,CHAINSAWS REV with a penetrating whine. Huge treesliving undisturbed for hundreds of years topple to earth,their roots ripped from the the army of construction workers clearing a pathfor the new road linking Kinshasa with Bangui.

9 Whiteforemen bellow orders in French at their black workers,including:MORAZU: a seven-foot tall Goliath with mischievous PUNCHES on his CHAIN SAW and RIPS into another cloud of wood dust envelops - ZAIREAN ARMY HELICOPTERSROAR by overhead, their machine gunners searching forguerilla - TWO COLOBOS MONKEYSa mother and her daughter, whom we'll know as plays with a fat, round jackfruit, kicking it androlling it every which way. Her mother watches theconstruction workers hums as he pulls a huge tree limb off the road andinto a thick patch of brush where he comes face to facewith Betsy. Morazu smiles. He takes a long piece ofsweetened bread from his pocket and lays it down right infront of the young eyes it (softly)Take it.

10 (CONTINUED) :A long beat. Betsy takes the bread, examines it careful-ly, finally takes a grabs her. BETSY struggles, thrashing and SCREAM-ING. Morazu pins her hands behind her back. She spinsaround and sinks her teeth into his lets go with a shriek and swears at Betsy, who disap-pears with the WITH Morazu as he returns to his work. He sucks theblood out of the small TO:EXT. MOTABA RIVA VALLEY (AUGUST 15)Morazu gets off a bus by a small muddy river and walksslowly toward his village of about fifty mud-thatchedhuts. Pain in his back makes him wince. We see him UPCLOSE: his eyes are red and his skin is pale. He' stops at the village well and takes a drink.