Theme
Trusting strangers with information about your life can lead to dangerous, scary happenings
Premise
Erin, a newly 21 year old girl, drunkenly meets a boy, Nathaniel, at a bar and gives him too much information about her life. The friendship fades and Erin begins to find Nathaniel eerie.
Program
How to act in a bar. How to be weary of people you just meet. Trusting strangers at a bar.
Treatment
It was Erin’s 21st birthday and she was going out with her girlfriends to a country club called Rawhide. She is the last of her group of friends to turn 21. A couple hours into the night Erin is feeling pretty buzzed and warm. She is line dancing to a song and catches eyes with a blonde haired, buzz cut, blue eyed boy. They giggle and flirt with their eyes as if they were dancing together, but not together. Erin’s best friend, Roxy, urges Erin to go talk to him. But Erin will not make the first move. After countless more strong drinks, flirtatious glances and smiles, the mystery man finally introduces himself as Nathaniel. Erin slow dances with him and he starts asking her questions about herself. He starts off asking the basic questions, where she is from, what she does, ect. But as he goes on, the questions become more absurd. He asks her exactly where she works and when she’ll be working next. Erin just drunkenly laughs it off. The night ends and Nathaniel and Erin exchange numbers.
The next morning Erin remembers little from the night before. She calls Roxy to ask her what happened. Roxy recalls Nathaniel and says they exchanged phone numbers and they were texting each other on the whole ride home. Erin goes through her text messages from the night before to see that Nathaniel had asked her some very detailed questions about her family, friends, work and school. Erin brushes it off and they only talk a few times during the week. Erin has decided she is not really that interested in him.
A few weeks later, Erin and her friends go out to the same country club again. By this time she had told Nathaniel she was not interested in being his friend at all. While dancing at the club with her friends, she sees Nathaniel. Erin turns away and tells her friends that he is there. Roxy watches Nathaniel as he stares at Erin from across the dance floor. His eyes follow Erin, and Roxy’s eyes follow Nathaniels. Roxy tells Erin and Erin gets an eerie feeling, but continues to avoid Nathaniel and have a good time.
After a few more drinks Erin is dancing with her girls during the half hour hip hop. She notices Nathaniel staring again and turns the opposite way and continues to dance. When she glances back at him, she realizes he is coming near her. She continues to ignore him until she gets shoulder checked from behind. She notices it’s Nathaniel and continues to ignore him and chats about how creepy it is with her friends. Then a few minutes later he walks by her again, but this time he sticks his nose in her hair and takes a big whiff. She thinks about telling her security guard friend that she wants him kicked out. But she decides against it because it’s a public club and she feels it would be kind of rude. Erin and he friends leave that night talking about the next time they want to go. They decide on the next weekend.
That week Erin receives text messages from Nathaniel asking her why she is ignoring him and what he did to deserve this treatment. Erin continues to ignore and delete the text messages. As Erin leaves for work that week he texts her asking her where she is going. Erin ignores his text and gets creeped out. She is starting to wonder if he is following her. She calls Roxy and jokingly tells her that if something happens and she ends up disappearing or in a ditch, that they will know exactly who it is. After she gets off the phone with Roxy, she receives another text from Nathaniel. This time it is asking her why she thinks he would ever do anything like that to her. Erin tells Roxy, and Roxy asks her to please call the police. Erin decides against calling the police. Instead she just let’s the situation slide. She believe that if she keeps ignoring him, he will go away.
Later that evening while Erin is at her work, a retail store in a mall, she is putting away some clothes and recognizes a tall, buzz cut, blonde haired boy. She starts to get very nervous, but the guy turns around and it is not Nathaniel. Erin is relieved. Two hours into her work shift she goes behind the store to take a little break. It is dark in the little alley way, and there is a guy about 100 feet away from her smoking a cigarette against a dumpster. He is wearing a uniform and obviously works at one of the other retail stores. Erin is busy looking at the brightness of the phone and when she looks up again the guy is gone. Someone comes out of a door near her and it startles her. Erin is very on edge. A man comes around the corner and grabs her wrist and puts his hand over her mouth. It’s Nathaniel. Erin tries to scream, but the sound isn’t resonating like it should. She struggles to get out of his grip. Nathaniel tells her to calm down and that he won’t do anything to hurt her. All he wants is a little kiss. He takes his hand off her mouth and forces her to kiss him. Just then, the guy who was smoking a cigarette comes running up and tears Nathaniel off of Erin and throws him to the floor. Erin immediately starts crying as the random stranger yells as Nathaniel and threatens to beat him to a bloody pulp if he doesn’t disappear. Nathaniel runs off. The stranger asks Erin if she’s ok as he’s dialing 911. Erin is crying, but she says she is alright.
The police come and get a profile on Nathaniel. They find him a few blocks away and arrest him.
Behavioral Composite
1. ERIN is talking with ROXY as they are leaning up against a high table sipping on their strong alcoholic drinks. ERIN is looking at ROXY but glances over to catch eyes with the cute blonde boy she had been flirting with on the dance floor just moments before. ROXY tells ERIN to just go introduce herself, but ERIN refuses and says if he’s interested he will come talk to her. As the girls are having this conversation, the myster boy starts to walk towards ERIN and ROXY. ERIN sees this and glances away to act as if she didn’t see him. Suddenly he is right next to her.
ERIN smiles as he turns to ERIN and introduces himself, “Hi, I’m Nathaniel. What’s your pretty little name?”
ERIN tries to hide it, but she shows a micro expression of disgust. She hates the name NATHANIEL. But then smiles and giggles as she tells him her name, “I’m Erin” she says as she takes another sip of her drink.
“Well, I think Gorgeous is a better name for your pretty little face.” ERIN giggles and looks away. She is blushing now. “What are you drinking? Let me buy you another drink.”
2. ERIN is dancing with her group of friends to a hip hop song. Her eyes scan the dance floor and she sees NATHANIEL staring her down. She avoids eye contact and does a little twist to turn the opposing way and continues to dance. She glances at ROXY to let her know NATHANIEL was staring again. ROXY gives her a look of disgust and turns to see if NATHANIEL is still there. NATHANIEL has disappeared. Suddenly ERIN feels a man rub up behind her, notices a head in her hair and hears someone taking a long breathe in. Once Erin realizes that it was NATHANIEL who had just walked by and sniffed her hair, she freaks out and pulls ROXY to the bathroom to talk about it.