Core Plan Exercise 1

In a village some years back a handyman finds a terrifying scarecrow in the forest. Approaching it causes him to have a vision of his time in a slaughterhouse. He doesn’t notice the green raincoat figure in the distance.

In a school-yard a sticky-fingered boy called Trevor witnesses his friend Delilah get harassed by a bully, which causes a fight between the two. Del beats the bully bloody, and destroys her heirloom bracelet while doing so. Del goes into a depressive state.

At class the local priest Father Ronan gives the class a speech about his family and time in the village. He’s leaving on Monday, three days away. Ronan’s mood sours when he learns of Del and the bully. He confiscates the bracelet. Trevor rifles through his desk after class but doesn’t find it.

That evening Trevor talks with Del in the woods. On the way there he encounters a strange boy standing in the way, who vanishes. Trevor is unaware that he just saw his own corpse. Trevor and Del talk, then encounter the raincoat figure from afar. Del gives him a peck on the cheek before parting, telling him to watch his back. Trevor resolves to help her, so he breaks into the priest’s house using a screwdriver the next day. He gets the bracelet, only to find a bag of money under a floorboard. Ronan catches him in the act, and asks Trevor to keep quiet.When Trevor turns to leave, Ronan strangles him with his belt.

Ronan makes sure Trevor is dead. There is some morbid humour in how he figures how to dispose of the body. He can’t bury it outside, nor can he cut it up and make a mess. Fortunately there’s a wooden chest in the cellar, where he drags what remain of Trevor inside. By the time someone finds the boy Ronan will be long out of the country with the money.

With the main character Trevor dead at the one-third mark, the story now cuts between Ronan and Del like a cat and mouse. Ronan covers his tracks, while Del gets suspicious after Trevor goes missing. We get a flashback of Ronan attending to the previous parish priest on his deathbed six years ago. He had an inheritance meant for his illegitimate child he had with a housekeeper. Ronan promises to deliver the money for him. It’s likely Ronan murdered him off-screen.

An English man named Martin who acts like a reporter throughout is actually a detective, looking into the missing money on behalf of the late priest’s brother. Ronan lures Martin to a farm at night, bludgeons him messily, and then dumps his body in a slurry pit. Ronan avoids notice of the villagers searching for Trevor.

Delilah does her own snooping after Trevor goes missing. She suspects something is up when she sees Ronan using the same screwdriver Trevor had the day before. An older widow called Cora is helpful to Del, being considerate of Del’s feelings and boundaries.

Monday morning Del hyperventilates at school and slips out, then heads to Ronan’s house where she finds Trevor’s body (There’s an earlier scene where she visits his house the day before legitimately). Ronan of course intercepts her and tries to silence her, and they struggle.

Delilah gouges Ronan in the neck with Trevor’s screwdriver during the struggle. He bleeds out on the floor and has a pleasant fantasy of reaching South America before fading away. A catatonic Del leaves the house covered in blood, singing to herself and clutching her found bracelet. We get a casual conversation between two villagers that gets cut off when one sees the bloodied girl walking down the street.

Elsewhere, the green raincoat figure is in the woods, about to hang up an effigy, when they hear of the commotion coming from the village. Much shouting, and screaming, then the long wail of a lost mother. The raincoat figure takes down their effigy. Cora’s work is done. She has a vision from her own handiwork. Of the village emptying of people, returning to nature, grass growing through the pavement cracks.

*

The fear I want is where the supernatural force present is not the actual threat. Instead it’s an unshaken, paranoid man who is a beloved member of the community yet who wants nothing to do with it. He has a goal and is unfettered at fulfilling it. He does not turn into a big monster, nor does it turn out he was never a priest. He’s not undermined by any humour and he’s sexless, because I do not want him to go down that route. He’s interesting to see in action, but never sympathetic.

Trevor is the Marion Crane of the story. Someone we think is the hero, only to get unceremoniously murdered partway by an outside threat. He’s a sacrifice to prove the villain is playing for keeps. There’s a confession scene after he goes missing between his concerned mother and Ronan where she admits to being too hard on Trevor because he was an unplanned child. Martin the detective likewise fulfils the doomed Arbogast role.

Del is essential because the story needs a moral centre, a survivor. She gets judged for brutalising her bully, but she is a girl willing to fight and fight dirty when backed into a corner. The story never says it out aloud, but Del is obviously on the spectrum. Del does not have any convenient Shining powers, she figures out the mystery like Columbo.

The story also never says the exact date, but it’s over a weekend in March 1984. No mobile phones, no internet. The story is low-key, punctuated by abrupt and disturbing bouts of violence.

Given more room I could explain how the supernatural elements tie-in better with the main plot. I thought about calling the story “The Fetch” because that’s the Irish equivalent for a doppelganger, a portent of doom. But since that’s too silly sounding, the name I landed on is “The Holy Dark.”