THE BOOK OF ELI

  by

  Gary Whitta

  WGAw 1163132

  June 21, 2007

  A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

  - Emil Cioran

  EXT. FOREST - DAWN

  Bare as all hell. The trees stripped of their bark and white like ghosts. Some torn violently from their roots and felled.

  STARK GRAY SUNLIGHT shafts between the trees, clouded by a creeping fog that obscures the true color of everything. A LIGHT SNOW flutters. The world monochrome, lifeless and cold.

  A CAT prowls across the dead earth. Barely recognizable as the domestic breed it might once have been. Its fur mangy and rank, body rib-thin from starvation. Entirely feral.

  It moves slowly, cautiously. Sniffing the air, scanning the forest, alert. Trusting nothing of its surroundings. It paces across a leaf-strewn clearing, closing stealthily on: A DEAD MAN, splayed face-down in the earth. His feet bare.

  Face frozen in a grim death mask. A GAPING GUNSHOT WOUND in his head, the dried blood caked around it matting his hair.

  As the cat moves closer, approaching warily: P.O.V. FROM ACROSS THE CLEARING

  About thirty yards away. Someone is watching. Waiting. SLOW, DEEP BREATHS, heard through a GASMASK RESPIRATOR.

  CLOSE ON A PAIR OF INDUSTRIAL GOGGLES

  The MIRRORED LENSES reflecting the forest clearing, locked onto the cat. The slow, metered breathing continues.

  THE CAT slows, but continues pacing toward the corpse. More cautious than ever. It inches forward, sniffing at the body.

  ON THE WATCHER. Crouched behind the mangled stump of a felled tree. Concealed beneath a camouflaging mesh of leaves, twigs and bracken. A “ghillie suit” of the kind used by snipers.

  THE CAT sniffs at the dead man’s hand, frozen by death in a grotesquely contorted claw. The animal still unsure. Looks around again, checking its surroundings for predators.

  THE WATCHER moves almost imperceptibly. The leaves covering him rustle ever so slightly as we hear - just barely - the familiar creaking sound of a BOW STRING BEING DRAWN TAUT.

  THE CAT hears it. Looks up, alert. Staring right at the watcher, but he is too well camouflaged to be seen. An interminable, tense BEAT - is the prey going to flee?

  Finally, the cat turns its attention back to the carcass, nibbling gingerly at the flesh of the man’s fingers.

  2.

  THE WATCHER looses the arrow. It sails across the clearing and SKEWERS THE CAT clean through. It drops to the ground.

  THE WATCHER STANDS, shaking off the ghillie suit, revealing him to us for the first time.

  He wears a weather-beaten knee-length duster. Hooded sweater with more layers beneath that. Torn pants and scuffed work boots. Everything filthy and battered from years of wear.

  Along with the goggles, his face remains obscured by a DISPOSABLE PAPER DUST MASK and a CRUDELY-FASHIONED FUR HAT

  with dangling ear flaps that may once itself have been a cat.

  Around his neck he wears a silver SAINT CHRISTOPHER PENDANT

  hanging from a frayed twine cord.

  His name is ELI.

  He shoulders the bow and walks across the clearing. Crouches beside the dead cat and pulls out the arrow. Wipes the blood from the shaft, then reaches down to collect the body.

  Suddenly the cat SCREECHES AND FLAILS WILDLY! Eli recoils, falling backward, stunned, as the cat - MORTALLY WOUNDED BUT

  FIGHTING TO THE DEATH - bites and claws desperately at him.

  Eli struggles violently with the cat, wrestling it to the ground and grabbing up a HUNK OF FALLEN BRANCH. He holds the writhing animal down and CLUBS IT until it lays still.

  He sits back, breathing harder than the dustmask will allow.

  He yanks it down, revealing the dirty, unshaven face beneath.

  Impossible to tell his age, but certainly not a young man.

  For a moment he just sits there. Then bundles up the dead cat and returns to the mangled tree stump. Folds away his ghillie suit into a nearby RUCKSACK which he hauls up onto his back.

  A canteen dangles from the backpack, a SHOTGUN strapped to its side. Eli reaches down for his final possession - an old SAMURAI SWORD in a scabbard which he slings across his back.

  He gazes up at the sky. A snowflake drifts down and lands on his cheek. He reaches up and brushes it away, leaving a BLACK

  SMEAR on his face. Not snow after all, but some kind of ASH.

  EXT. FOREST ROAD - DAY

  Eli emerges from the treeline onto the cracked and ruptured asphalt. Lined by more of those ghostly, stripped-bare trees.

  3.

  He sniffs the air, breathing it in. Checks the road in both directions. Deserted. A few yards away is the rusted, burned-out chassis of a CAR. He heads toward it.

  The car rests half on the road, half in the adjacent ditch.

  Stripped of its tires and engine. In the driver’s seat is a MUMMIFIED BODY. A BULLET HOLE piercing its forehead.

  Eli regards the body dispassionately. Tries the door handle but it’s jammed. He yanks on it harder and eventually wrenches it open. He leans in and checks the man’s feet.

  They’re bare. No shoes or socks. Eli curses under his breath.

  He leaves the car behind and heads on down the road. As he walks away, we see that the sole of one of his boots has worn loose, held in place now only by a rubber band.

  EXT. ROAD - DAY

  Eli continues down the road. He ambles along slowly, a man in no hurry. A man who has been walking a long time.

  The road has since emerged from the forest. Passing now through a wasteland of dead scrub brush and urban junk.

  The sun beats down from directly overhead. The sky has no color to it, paper-white. The unfiltered sun’s stark light leaves everything seeming bleached-out, over-exposed.

  CRANE UP as Eli walks on. On the horizon is the silhouette of a CITY. Or what was once a city. Columns of BLACK SMOKE rise from within, casting a deathly pall over the skyline. BURNED

  AND BROKEN SKYSCRAPERS jut out like tombstones.

  Eli reaches a fork in the road and stops. The road he’s on appears to wind off in the direction of the ruined city on the horizon. The other fork continues on into the wasteland.

  After a brief pause, Eli changes direction and heads off down the other fork, away from the city.

  EXT. ABANDONED TOWN - DAY

  Little more than a main street lined with storefronts. Eli walks steadily along, side-stepping rubble and debris.

  Ignoring the petrified corpses lying in the street.

  He passes by abandoned stores, every one picked clean. Empty shelves, smashed windows. Looted and burned. He doesn’t even look inside, knowing already that he will find nothing.

  Until he comes to a store that does cause him to stop. An old-fashioned sign squeaks on rusted hinges in the breeze.

  4.

  ED’S SHOES - GENTLEMEN’S AND LADIES’ FOOTWEAR

  He steps into the doorway and pushes open the door. It swings open on its one remaining hinge before splintering away from the frame and crashing to the floor in a cloud of dust.

  INT. SHOE STORE - CONTINUOUS

  Eli steps inside. Like all the others, the store has been cleaned out. Shoe racks and empty boxes strewn over the floor. The whole place reeking of dead, musty air.

  Eli looks around, just to be sure. Drags his sheathed sword idly along the empty racks as he checks them. Nothing.

  As he turns back for the door, his foot nudges against a shoe box. It’s not empty. He crouches down, flips the lid off hopefully... and pulls out a LADY’S HIGH-HEELED SHOE.

  He strokes the shoe leather with his hand. Shakes his head grimly, then tosses the shoe back into the box and leaves.

  EXT. ABANDONED HOUSE - DAY

  On the outskirts of town. In disrepair - peeling paint, broken windows, damp-stained walls - but habitable.

  Eli stands in the front yard, surrounded by brownish, overgrown weeds. Thinking it over. Turns to face the setting sun. It will be dark soon. He turns back toward the house.

  INT. ABANDONED HOUSE - DAY

  The front door is sent CRASHING OPEN with a hard kick, revealing Eli silhouetted in the fading sunlight. The shotgun unhitched from his pack and held ready. He moves inside.

  Another dead place. Flies buzzing in the still, dank air.

  Everything covered in a thick layer of dust but otherwise largely preserved. An eerie snapshot of a world long gone.

  KITCHEN

  Every cupboard empty. Eli checks each one, poking around in the dark corners with his sword, but finds nothing but dust.

  He opens the freezer, checks inside. Empty save for a small ICEBOX. The lid stuck fast with mildew and gunk. Eli digs at it with his grimy fingernails and manages to pry it open.

  Inside are the wizened, petrified remains of a HUMAN HAND.

  Floating in slimy, discolored water. The smell vile and thick enough to make Eli retch. He quickly jams the lid back on.

  5.

  BEDROOM

  A wooden bedframe stripped clean. The dresser drawers have been emptied and lie strewn across the floor. Eli moves toward a large walk-in closet and opens the door.

  No clothes inside - just the near-fossilized corpse of a MAN

  HANGING BY A NOOSE. Twisting gently back and forth.

  Unfazed, Eli crouches down and checks the man’s feet. An old pair of Converse All-Stars hang limp from the man’s skeletal ankle
s. Eli calmly sets about unlacing them.

  He checks the size; they’re a fit. He upturns each shoe and shakes the old flakes of mummified flesh from them. Discards his ruined boots and puts on the sneakers, laces them up.

  He walks around, pacing up and down, getting a feel for the new shoes. They feel good. For the first time, he smiles.

  LATER

  Eli sits in the corner, roasting the carcass of the dead cat over a small CAMPFIRE. He cleans the animal’s pelts as he watches it cook. Pokes at the meat with a pen-knife, checking it for done-ness. It appears ready to eat.

  He clasps his hands together in prayer.

  ELI

  Dear Lord, thank you for your generosity in providing us today with this bountiful feast.

  He speaks QUIETLY, his voice barely above a whisper. Even so, we catch the accent - a RASPY, OLD-WORLD MIDWEST DRAWL, like John Wayne or some other long-forgotten western icon.

  ELI

  Thank you for the many gifts that you have given me. Thank you for your protection and your guidance.

  Thank you for bringing me this far.

  I know my long journey’s end is near. I ask now only for the strength and the courage to

  complete the task that you in your infinite wisdom saw fit to bestow upon me over all men. I won’t let you down. Amen.

  He signs a cross over himself, then uses the knife to saw off a chunk of meat. Takes a bite, savoring the taste with great relish. To him, it’s grade-A filet mignon.

  6.

  ELI

  Hey. You hungry?

  It appears as though he is talking to himself... until a RAT

  emerges from his coat pocket, whiskers twitching keenly. Eli offers it some meat. The rat gnaws enthusiastically at it.

  SUNDOWN

  The last of the waning sunlight shafts through the bedroom’s broken window. Eli rummages through his backpack, pulls out a SMALL PACKAGE wrapped in cloth and tied fast with string.

  He sits back in his corner and carefully unwraps it. It’s an OLD LEATHER-BOUND BOOK. The binding cracked and pages dog-eared, thumbed through a thousand times and more.

  Eli gazes lovingly at it. Lets his fingers play across the beat-up old leather cover. A cherished thing.

  He begins to read, half-hidden in the shadows of the fading sunlight. Silently mouthing the words as he reads them.

  MANY PAGES LATER

  Eli closes the book and parcels it back up as before.

  Replaces it in his pack, then reaches in for something else.

  A CAR BATTERY. Old and streaked with acid stains. Attached to a tangled bunch of ELECTRICAL WIRING and JUMPER CABLES. Eli reaches into his pocket and produces: AN IPOD. Badly beat-up, the case pretty much held together with duct tape. But functional. Eli attaches the battery cable to the iPod and places the headphones in his ears.

  The music plays. Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor.

  Eli rests back against the wall and pushes the volume way up.

  THE MUSIC SWELLS. Eli’s fingers dance and swoop in the air, as though conducting an orchestra, as he is transported by the music to another world, a world far from this one.

  MORNING

  Sunlight shafts through the window. Eli sits slumped in the exact same position, headphones still in his ears. Asleep.

  The rat scurries up Eli’s chest and licks his face. Slowly, he wakes, realizing he fell asleep with his music still on.

  Checks the battery. It’s dead, drained overnight. He frowns.

  He gets to his feet, moves to the window and checks outside.

  All seems quiet. He loads up his backpack and weapons.

  7.

  ELI

  Come on now.

  The rat scurries up his leg, onto his duster and disappears into the breast pocket. Eli turns and moves out.

  EXT. ABANDONED HOUSE - MORNING

  The gate squeaks shut behind Eli as he exits the front yard.

  He breathes in the air, turns to feel the warm morning sun on his face. Then turns away from it and walks on down the road.

  EXT. ROAD - DAY

  The landscape barren and featureless, road lined with dead trees. Eli walks along the warped and broken asphalt.

  The road is strewn with burned-out cars and debris from a world long dead. A warped metal sign by the side of the road reads: LITTER REMOVAL NEXT TWO MILES BY: “CIRCUIT CITY”.

  Up ahead is a HUNCHED FIGURE by the side of the road. Eli arrives to see that it’s a YOUNG WOMAN. Bone-thin, dressed in filthy rags. Skin plagued by an unpleasant rash.

  The SHOPPING CART she was pushing has overturned into a roadside ditch, spilling its contents. Blankets, tins of food, old clothes. She’s on her knees trying to gather it up.

  She looks up as she sees Eli approaching. Instantly cowers from him, raising her hands to protect herself. Terrified.

  YOUNG WOMAN

  Oh. Please don’t hurt me. Here, take anything you want. You want some food? Take it.

  She offers him a can of pet food with a trembling hand. Eli stands there looking at her. His expression impossible to read behind the mirrored goggles.

  ELI

  I’m not going to hurt you.

  YOUNG WOMAN

  That’s what the last guys said.

  Eli bends down and picks up a couple of the cart’s spilled contents. Steps forward and offers them to her.

  ELI

  Here.

  8.

  She blinks. Unsure. Cautiously she reaches out and takes it.

  YOUNG WOMAN

  Could you help me? The wheel came off. I can’t fix it. Maybe if I could get it out of the ditch. But I can’t.

  Eli looks at the cart. It has come to rest in the ditch just inches from a THICK BRACKEN HEDGEROW that lines the road.

  He looks again at the girl. Her faded blouse is unbuttoned, revealing a little cleavage. Her skirt torn along the leg, showing more than a little thigh. Almost deliberate.

  He sniffs the air. Watches the hedgerow warily. Just like the cat he hunted, his senses heightened and on alert.

  Behind the hedge, THREE ROADSIDE BANDITS are crouched, waiting to pounce. Each armed with a crude blunt weapon. They exchange anxious looks.

  ELI sniffs the air again - then backs away from the girl.

  ELI

  One good thing about no soap any more. You can smell the road agents a mile off.

  The girl’s face falls as Eli backs up. The three bandits EMERGE FROM THE HEDGEROW, brandishing their weapons. A couple of them wear old sunglasses and goggles similar to Eli’s.

  The BANDIT LEADER grabs the girl by a fistful of hair as he passes, yanking her painfully to her feet.

  BANDIT LEADER

  Dumb bitch. What did we tell you?

  He pushes her away, she crumples to the road in a heap.

  Eli backs away, but TWO MORE ARMED BANDITS drop from hiding in the trees behind, cutting off his escape, surrounding him.

  BANDIT LEADER

  What you got there in the pack?

  ELI

  Nothing.

  BANDIT LEADER

  Yeah, that’s what they all say. How about you take it off real slow and tip it out so’s we can take a look?

  9.

  BANDIT #2 notices the shotgun strapped to the pack.

  BANDIT #2

  He’s got a gun.

  BANDIT LEADER

  Shit, it ain’t loaded. They never are. Ain’t that right, old man?

  (beat)

  Open the fucking pack or die.

  ELI

  I can’t do that.

  The bandit leader steps forward aggressively. Now within striking distance of Eli. He grins, teeth filthy and rotten.

  BANDIT LEADER

  Want us to do it for you? We can get it off real easy after we’ve hacked your fucking arms off.

  Eli remains perfectly calm. And though he speaks with a soft, even tone, there is something formidable about his voice.

  ELI

  It’s real important you boys listen to me and understand. The man I work for, you do not want to cross him. See, I’m under his protection.

  You stand in my way, you stand in his. And he will cut you down with a righteous fury - through me. For I am his faithful instrument.

  BEAT. The bandit leader looks at Eli incredulously... and then LAUGHS. The other bandits laugh along nervously.

  BANDIT LEADER

  What the hell are you, some kinda preacher?

  ELI

  Something like that.

  BANDIT LEADER

  Well I got news for you, preacher man. Whatever kinda God you reckon yourself to be working for, he left these parts a long time ago. He ain’t here to protect your ass. Now take off the pack and set it on the ground.