A Recently Discovered Hitchcockian Screenplay
Genre: Horror/Mystery
Tone: Suspenseful and Eerily Educational
Scene 1/INTERIOR: THE RAYN BEAU 🌈 MOTEL – NIGHT
A dilapidated motel sign flickers in the rain. The camera pans to Room 3, where MERRYAN RAYN, 28, sharp-eyed and skeptical, had just stepped into the shower. Her boyfriend, CAM BLOOMIS, 32, a geologist with a knack for doomscrolling EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) bulletins, clutches a Geiger counter and a folder labeled “RADON IS BAD FOR YOU.” He creeps into the bathroom, backlit by the bedroom light, his shadow slowly looming over the shower curtain … He rips back the curtain, raises the Geiger’s probe …
Merryan covers her chest and screams—
CAM: (breathless) “Merryan, get out of the shower! The water from the private well is—”
MERRYAN: “Would you stop doing that! You’re gonna give me a heart attack.”
CAM: (still breathless) “Unless you die of lung cancer first.”
MERRYAN: “Don’t worry. I left my coffin nails up at the creepy house on the hill above this motel. You know I like to shower in the rooms down here because the water pressure is better.”
CAM: “You have to listen to me. This place—it’s not just creepy. It’s toxic.”
MERRYAN: (Rolls her eyes) “Cam, not this again. First, it was the mold. Then the asbestos. Now what? Ghosts? Hand me my threadbare robe.”
CAM: (Ignoring her, he flips open the folder. She grabs the robe and turns off the shower to follow him into the bedroom.) “Radon (Ra). Atomic number 86. Noble gas. Colorless, odorless, and radioactive. It seeps up from the uranium-rich granite beneath this property and pools in the basement. Your basement. In that horror of the house on the hill!”
He slams a map on the bed, tracing fault lines with a trembling finger.
MERRYAN: (scoffs) “Radioactive gas? Cam, this isn’t Chernobyl. It’s a budget motel in the middle of nowhere in pre-World War 2 New Mexico, just down the road from that lovely Trinity Site valley. We don’t ever have to worry about radioactivity here.”
CAM: (grabbing her shoulders) “Do you know why the last owner died of lung cancer? It wasn’t just because of his three-pack-a-day cigarette habit. Or why the guests keep ‘checking out early’? And by that I mean returning the library book of life, riding the express elevator to the sky, getting written out of the script, tuning out of this frequency, taking a dirt nap. And by that I mean—”
MERRYAN: “Yes, Cam. I know what you mean. Remember, I’m a genius.”
CAM: “It’s because with a half-life of 3.82 days, Radon decays into polonium 218 and alpha particles that shred your DNA. It’s the second-leading cause of lung cancer, Merryan! Second!”
Merryan pulls away, uneasy. The camera zooms in on the Geiger counter, its needle twitching.
MERRYAN: (softening) “Okay, fine. Show me.”
Scene 2/INTERIOR: THE CREEPY HORROR-HOUSE-ON-THE-HILL’S BASEMENT – LATER
The basement door creaks open. Dust motes swirl in the beam of Cam’s flashlight. The air feels thick, oppressive. Cam adjusts the Geiger counter, which emits a sporadic click-click-click.
CAM: (voice low) “Discovered in 1899 by Ernest Rutherford and Robert Owens, Radon is heavier than air. It sinks to the lowest point. Like this basement. You breathe it in. It’s like smoking a pack a day… if the cigarettes were invisible and free.”
Merryan eyes the rusty water heater, the dripping pipes.
MERRYAN: (mocking) “So what’s its atomic weight, Professor? 222? Xenon, 4f¹⁴ 5d¹⁰ 6s² 6p⁶? You expect me to believe a noble gas is lurking down here, plotting my death?”
CAM: (dead serious) “It doesn’t plot because it’s an element and doesn’t have a brain. And right now, it’s all around us.”
The Geiger counter’s clicks quicken. Cam freezes. The needle jumps to 10 picocuries per liter (pCi/L).
CAM: (whispering) “The EPA says anything above 4 is dangerous. This … this place is a death trap.”
Merryan reaches for a light switch. Cam grabs her wrist.
CAM: “Don’t! Sparks could ionize the gas. Accelerate decay.”
MERRYAN: (laughs nervously) “Since when are you afraid of sparks?”
CAM: “Since I read the autopsy report of the last handyman. His lungs looked like burnt toast.”
The Geiger counter screeches—20 pCi/L. Merryan stumbles back, clutching her chest.
MERRYAN: (panicking) “I can’t breathe—”
CAM: (shouting over the alarm) “We need to seal the foundation! Install a sub-slab depressurization system! Now!”
Scene 3/INTERIOR: MOTEL OFFICE – LATER
Merryan slams a dusty ledger on the desk. Cam scribbles equations on a napkin:
Rn-222 → Po-218 + α
MERRYAN: (desperate) “Even if you’re right, who’s gonna pay for a sub-slab depressurization or radon sump or a positive pressurization system in the basement? This place is barely breaking even!”
CAM: (pleading) “Merryan, radon mitigation is cheap compared to chemotherapy and the cost of a funeral. This gas—it’s not just in the basement. It’s in the well water. Radon exposure from well water comes from inhalation of radon released into the air during household activities! Every time you shower or run the washing machine or dishwasher, you’re steaming out radioactive poison!”
He holds up a vial of murky water.
CAM: “I tested it. 4,000 pCi/L. The showerhead’s basically a radon diffuser.”
Merryan sinks into a chair, terror stamped on her face. The Geiger counter, forgotten on the desk, begins to hum.
MERRYAN: (whimpering) “What do we do?”
CAM: (grabbing her hand) “We run. Tonight. Before this place kills us twenty years in the future.”
Scene 4/INTERIOR: THE CREEPY HORROR-HOUSE-ON-THE-HILL’S BASEMENT – MIDNIGHT
Merryan, flashlight in hand, descends the stairs alone. The Geiger counter clicks rhythmically. She pauses at a fissure in the floor, glowing faintly.
MERRYAN: (muttering) “Atomic number 86. Big scary killer. Show yourself!”
She kicks the crack. The Geiger counter explodes in a frenzy—50 pCi/L. The screen flashes red. A low, guttural hiss fills the room. Merryan screams as the camera pans to the corner, where the shadowy silhouette of a figure looms.
MERRYAN: (screeching) “CAM! IT’S HERE!”
CAM: (Bursts in, gas mask askew) “That’s your shadow, genius! Quick. Run!”
He drags her out as the basement door slams shut behind them.
Scene 5/EXTERIOR: MOTEL PARKING LOT – DAWN
The sun rises over the motel. Cam and Merryan speed away in a Ford V8 Model 18 coupe, the Geiger counter silent at last.
MERRYAN: (staring at her hands) “You think … it’s in me already? The radon?”
CAM: (glancing back) “We’ll call the state. Get it condemned.”
MERRYAN: “No. I-I have a buyer. A widow and her son. He’s a sweet kid. Does taxidermy. His mummy doesn’t talk much, though.”
Cam slams the accelerator to the floor and the car surges forward on the lonesome highway.
CAM: “Mummy! Don’t get me started on Howard Carter’s Egyptian excavation in 1922, the Curse of the Pharaoh, and radon contamination in King Tut’s Tomb!”
The camera lingers on the motel sign, now flickering NO VACANCY in blood red letters. Except this was filmed in black and white.
FADE TO BLACK.
TEXT ON SCREEN:
Radon: The noble gas that’s anything but noble. Get your home tested before it gets you.
THE END
Germanium, Bigfoot, and the Periodic Table of DEATH and Mystery
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