The Half-ling

SHORT SYNOPSIS AARON FITZPATRICK (age 22) is a young American reporter living in Scotland tasked with investigating an old insane asylum called St. Mary suddenly up for auction...an aging manor with more than just a peculiar history. Lodged at the Ugly Goat Inn, Aaron begins his journey by finding a decrepit journal leading to a bigger scoop than he could possibly have bargained for. What starts as mild curiosity becomes terrifying fear as he begins to realize the horrific tale he discovered might not be ancient history after all... EXTENDED SYNOPSIS Whisked down the journal's rabbit hole, we are taken to the year 1984 and a young Doctor of Psychiatry named RANDALL MYERS. Myers, at odds with his superior, one BERTRAND D. RUTHERFORD (age 63) has inadvertently stumbled upon the asylum's most well protected secret...a beautiful, young gypsy woman named VANESSA who, for as long as anyone can remember, has never uttered a single word...that is, until she suddenly speaks to Myers. Rutherford, fearing Vanessa will reveal the dark relationship between them, relinquishes her along with his entire case load of crazies to Myers before disappearing. He does so on one condition: that Myers read the journal he has left for him. Myers, excited by the possibility of creating real, lasting change at the asylum quickly acquaints himself with his disturbed patients but ignores the journal. However, when it comes to Vanessa, he is once again forced to refer to it in order to understand her better. When he does, he discovers Vanessa and Rutherford's true past...a past that takes him back to WW2 and the Poenari Castle ruins of war-torn Romania. Rapid mortar exchange between Russian and German troops force Vanessa and her Roma (gypsy) family to seek shelter inside the ruins. Caught in the crossfire, is a German soldier who wakes to find Vanessa, her body mangled -- her face disfigured, being fed upon by a shadowy figure. Throwing a dagger at the creature, he manages to scare it away only to then retrieve the knife and kill Vanessa with it...the only witness to what will be his new found transformation. Leaving her where she lay, he falsifies his credentials (becoming Bertrand D. Rutherford) and boards a Red Cross Vessel headed for Scotland. On board, his mother's Scottish heritage allows him to fit in, but he is surprised to discover Vanessa, fully restored, has somehow survived and is now headed to Scotland with him. Desperate, fearful she will expose him, he schemes to marry her protector then kill them both aboard ship. Upon landing in Scotland, he takes up his murdered wife's old residence (St. Mary) and converts it into an asylum. Thinking he is now finally free to do as he pleases, his world comes crashing down when Vanessa is suddenly dumped on his doorstep alive once again. Perplexed by this seemingly endless contradiction, he locks Vanessa away only to then begin his cruel experiments. Horrified by the journal's contents, Aaron quickly determines this is a story best kept under wraps until he can corroborate the facts. To do this, he enlists the aid of SARAH BREWER, the tavern owner's daughter, to be his guide. Finding old Randall Myers, he is quickly warned not to read the journal. That, in fact, it had been deliberately left for him to find. Thinking the old man delusional, they leave him to his own devices. With a budding romance now started between the two, Sarah warns that Scotland has its own history and that Aaron would be wise not to disregard, too easily, the old man's warning. After all, Poenari Castle was once one of Dracula's many castles. It is at this time Aaron and Sarah plot to write their own book about St. Mary and its truly terrible past. Little do they know the creature that has historically haunted Myers and the journal is now after them. Fade to past again and young Myers, too, is horrified at discovering Rutherford's unending cruelty toward Vanessa...that she cannot die was too tantalizing a fact for a psychopath like Rutherford to ignore. Myers, his heart breaking for Vanessa, now seeks to free her. What he does not realize, though, is that she should never be free and is, in fact, more dangerous than he could ever imagine. Believing he now knows what's best for Vanessa, Myers throws caution to the wind only to be quickly outmaneuvered. Despite his best intentions, he is now the prisoner and she is free. Escaping down the hallway and to the first floor, she opens the doors to freedom and calls to the only person who can help her...the very creature who made her who she is. Dracula, complicit in the many years Vanessa suffered at the hands of Rutherford, approaches and gives her a choice. Change her from the half-ling she is into a full vampire, or, end her suffering altogether. Vanessa, though, chooses to stay the way she is and granting permission for Dracula to enter, he quickly dispatches everyone inside except for Myers. Myers, he has decided, will watch over Vanessa all the rest of his days. Fade to present and Aaron, now knowing the true story of St. Mary and its doomed occupants, contemplates what he and Sarah will do next. What he suspected and now knows true is that the same Vanessa bidding on St. Mary is the same Vanessa he's been reading about all along. What he does not realize, though, is that not only does she seek to acquire St. Mary, but him, as well. After all, who better to replace an aging Myers with, than a younger, fresher man to do with as she pleases. Now, there is only one person in all the world who can save him. Sarah. But, can she find him in time?