This is the story of a small southern American town where everyone wears Halloween masks all year-round. The reason they do this is because they think the town, New Jerusalem, is haunted. The masks, playing to the original intentions of their use in Halloween, are there to ward off bad spirits, to keep demons and lost souls away. And then come the murders.
This is a three-page preview. The story is a work in progress.
New Jerusalem
Page 1
Panel 1: We see a small kid, his book bag on his back, all dressed up for school. He’s tying his shoes while sitting on his bed. He has a Halloween mask on, a werewolf mask (it resembles the face of the werewolf in An American Werewolf in London). It’s 1980s America. The kid’s room is full of science fiction posters, football posters, and toys.
Caption: We forget to take our darker sides out for a walk sometimes.
Boy’s Mom: Jed! Get the fuck down here and eat!
Panel 2: Front-shot of a college girl in the middle of the road in a small Southern town. It is night and it is raining heavily. She’s wearing a skirt and a black sleeveless top. She’s looking towards the camera, at someone or something that scares her. Her face is painted in a skull pattern has washed most of it off (we just see a faded version of the face paint). She has long black hair (straight) and a scar on her neck that looks like someone stopped halfway from slitting her throat. Her gaze is not directed towards the reader, though. She’s looking a bit above the camera. (When designing the town think of True Detective and its take on the American South: a place that’s dark, dirty, and full of bad secrets. The town looks like it has a troubled soul—a damned soul. It is called New Jerusalem and it looks like it resists the name.)
Caption: Heh, sounds so innocent to say it like that, as if it were a neglected pet. A dog devoid of attention. And yet…
College Girl: Please…
Panel 3: We see Jed eating his breakfast at the table in the kitchen. The kitchen is a mess, a chaotic representation of the kind of family that lives in the house. Jed’s Mom is a big, but not exaggeratedly fat woman with a white house dress on. She’s throwing two pieces of burnt toast on Jed’s plate. She’s wearing a Cold War gas mask on.
Caption: …it is very much like an animal, don’t you agree?
Jed: I’m not that hungry, Mom.
Jed’s Mom: Well I already made it, and I’m not eating it. So eat up. Oh, and don’t let me hear any more of this ‘I can’t eat with my mask on at school’ bullshit. You know why it’s there. Just lift it up, take a bite, and you put it back in its place. Next time I hear about this I’m stapling it to your face, got it?
Panel 4: We’re back in the dark, rainy night. Now we’re looking at the silhouette of a tall dark figure that looks like it has a long trench coat on. The figure looks sickly, twisted (like a bent tree). It has long stringy hair and long fingers. It’s a bit hunched but still looks big.
Dark figure: Nice night for a walk.
Page 2
Panel 1: We’re back with Jed. The shot is from the living room where we see an old man, Jed’s Grandpa, watching TV. He’s in a white sleeveless shirt and he’s wearing a 1970s skull mask. The mask has a black cross painted on its forehead. There are tufts of white hair sticking out of his head. We see the kitchen behind him. Davey’s leaving the house.
Jed: Bye, Grandpa.
Grandpa: <grunt>.
Panel 2: This is a wide-shot of Jed closing the front door. We see the whole front yard from here. It is covered with white crosses (not exaggeratedly so, but enough). They are staked to the ground. Jed’s house (which has to stories) is surrounded by a circle of salt. (Every house follows suit: white stakes and salt surrounding the house. The other houses are close in proximity to Jed’s and to each other. The town is full of moss covered trees, swampland, and barely livable houses.)
Panel 3: Same panel but with Jed looking to his right as he walks down the front lawn towards the sidewalk. He’s seen someone he recognizes. A school friend.
Panel 4: Over the shoulder look of Jed looking at one of his school friends, Boone. Boone is also dressed for school, book bag and all, and has a 1970s cheap clown mask. It is mostly white with bright green surrounding the eyes and blue paint around the mouth area. The clown mask is not smiling. It is quite serious so as to look scary. Boone is looking straight ahead, to the side of Jed’s house (which we can’t see). There’s a big moss covered tree between Jed’s house and Boone’s house (next door). It has a presence, the tree. It looks old and halfway dead, but it isn’t dead.
Jed: Boone? Aren’t you going to school?
Panel 5: Small panel of Boone looking at Jed put pointing forward, towards what he was looking. He hasn’t changed his position. He just turned his head towards Jed.
Boone: There’s a girl, I think.
Page 3
Panel 1: Front shot of Jed as he gets closer to Boone. Jed is looking at Boone. Boone is looking towards the camera.
Jed: What are you talking about?
Boone: Girl.
Panel 2: Back shot of Jed and Boone looking towards the tree between their houses. The girl from the first page (the one that was in the rain) is hanging from the tree, each of her limbs dismembered but tied up to different pieces of rope. The pieces aren’t organized in any particular form or pattern. They are just hanging from the tree. The girl’s face (still attached to her head) still shows the outlines of her face paint. She’s naked.
Boone: Right?
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