A young widower makes a deal with the devil, who claims not to want his soul but, rather, bits and pieces of him in exchange for time in the past with his late wife.
Type:
Short
Status:
For sale
Page Count:
26pp
Genre:
Drama, Horror
Budget:
Shoestring
Age Rating:
13+
Based On:
My audio script.
Synopsis/Details
Cunningham, a young widower, is mourning his wife on what would have been their wedding anniversary, when Mr. Scratch (the devil) appears in his home. Scratch is able to create a doorway to the past and Cunningham's wife. Cunningham insists that he will not bargain with his soul. Scratch says he doesn't want another soul. He has too many already. What he wants are body parts. Evidently, some of Hell's residents have lost fingers, toes, eyes, kidneys and more, and are causing unrest down below. Scratch offers Cunningham time with his late wife in exchange for harvested body parts. After much harvesting (which quells the trouble down below), Cunningham - a mere shell of himself - resides in a hospital. Among other parts, he is missing both hands, one entire leg, an ear, and an eye - not to mention internal organs. There is just enough left of him to keep him alive. Scratch appears and offers him one more deal for some time in the past, where can be a whole man. However, the only thing Cunningham has to bargain with is his soul. Scratch figures Cunningham will agree to stop his miserable life and the great pain he is in, but he refuses. He knows he will die soon and, without his soul, he cannot ascend to paradise and be with his wife. Scratch grows angry and decides to devote all of the energy he has previously used to keep bad things happening to keeping Cunningham alive. He will live, just as he is, forever. . . or until he decides to make one last contract with Mr. Scratch.

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The Writer: Mike Murphy

Mike, a four-time Parsec Awards finalist, has had over 150 audio plays produced in the U.S. and overseas. He’s won a dozen Moondance International Film Festival Awards (winner, finalist, and semi-finalist) in their TV pilot, audio play, short screenplay, and short story categories. A more complete list of awards is presented below by year. In 2025, his TV pilot script Milly Foster, Macabre Investigator was a quarter-finalist in the Filmmatic Horror Screenplay Awards (Season 9), Solutions, Inc. (another TV pilot script) was a quarter-finalist in the Creative Screenwriting Pilot Screenplay Competition, short screenplay The Price of Friendship was a semi-finalist in the Filmmatic Short… Go to bio
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