The Man in the Floor

A man in a business suit kneels on the floor of a secluded cabin with a gun to the back of his head. He is sweating profusely, and pleading for his life. On the other side of that gun, is LESTER BARNES. A 30-year old psychopath. As the man begs, another voice permeates throughout the room. It comes from beneath the floorboards, out of the walls, and it tells Lester to kill. Lester wants to stop killing, but the voice beneath the floorboards is very convincing. Two venomous eyes watch through a crack between the wall and floor as Lester shoots the businessman and buries him in the tree line in the backyard. After cleaning himself up, he decides to leave his cabin in the woods and head to the diner in the small town below, where he and his only friend, DANA works. Lester is not there long before KYLE, Dana’s estranged boyfriend enters. Lester hates Kyle, and has been told many times to kill him by the man in the floor, but he quietly restrains himself for Dana. Lester goes home, and is greeted by a POLICE OFFICER, who questions him about the businessman, telling Lester that the businessman was in the diner last night and he is wanted by the local authorities. He is left shaken after the officer leaves, and the man in the floor watches and tempts Lester to commit suicide. Lester doesn't have it in him. The voice mocks him as he walks to his bed and eventually falls asleep, having feverish dreams about the day the man in the floor escapes from his basement cell. The next day, Lester goes to the diner to work, and Dana is there. Kyle shows up again and after a tense standoff between him and Lester, Kyle leaves and Lester takes Dana home. On the way, Dana learns that Lester has a brother, who died a long time ago. Lester gets home and is immediately attacked by Kyle, but eventually gets the best of him and kills him with a shovel. He puts Kyle in the trunk of his own car, and disposes of it. Walking home, he is met again by the suspicious police officer, who rides him home. And after finding a mass grave in the back yard, the officer is killed by Lester, but not before he is able to make a call to dispatch of his whereabouts. Dana shows up out of nowhere and convinces Lester to leave the town with her. She leaves to pack, and later Lester is accosted by a second officer who has shown up at the request of dispatch. Lester also kills him, but not before Dana arrives and sees the whole thing. Lester captures her and brings her back to the cabin when the police arrive. Angered that it has come to this, he goes down stairs to finish his brother. He clicks on the light and Lester’s brother, the enigmatic man in the floor bursts at him from the shadows. After a brief struggle, Lester shoots his brother multiple times. Dana enters the basement, Lester says that he is sorry he shot his brother and sorry for putting her through this, before killing himself. Dana shuts her eyes as Lester drops. She looks at Lester’s body, then to the corner, where a bullet-riddled skeleton lies in the corner. After an interrogation by the police, Dana gets on a bus and leaves the town, the sun shining in her face, the clouded darkness of the mountain town behind her.