THE INEXORABLE RISE OF THE NIGHT LIZARD

I talked about 'deleted scenes' a while ago, and here's my latest one. It's the original start to something I've almost finished working on, a sort-of superhero story about a vigilante who goes around beating up drunks and lowlifes in a small American town:

The man, inebriated to the point of violence, roughly dragged an attractive young lady into an alleyway. She tried to scream and cry for help but he kept slapping her into silence. “Shut up,” he snarled. “You owe me this.”

“Please…” She was barely out of her teens, dressed for summer despite the cold, brunette and petite. “Please let me go; I promise I won’t tell anyone!”

The man – himself somewhere in his thirties and with a face that was no stranger to violence – shoved her to the dirty ground and started to undo his belt buckle. “Make one more sound and I’ll kill you.”

Despite slurring half the sentence, the threat had the desired effect on the girl, who scooted back against the wall and tried not to allow the sounds of her crying to spill out into actual words. As the man leered closer she choked out: “No…”

The man’s eyes flared with rage and he grabbed a handful of her hair. “What did I just say?”

“Leave her alone.” The voice that came from the nearby shadows wasn’t deep or menacing, yet had enough force behind it to cause the man to let go of the girl.

“Who’s there?” He squinted into the darkness. “I’ll give you five seconds to f---”

The words died on his lips as someone – or something – stepped from the shadows. It was of average height and build, but covered entirely in black: black boots, black jeans, black long-sleeved top, black gloves…but the thing that made the drunk question if it was human or not was the weird head. Again, it was black but had gaps in it, a bit like a skull, but its shape was more snout-like, more…reptilian.

Remembering he was filled with alcohol (so impervious to everything) the man pushed the girl against the wall and turned to face the stranger. “What the fuck are you supposed to be?”

“I might go easy on you,” it said, “if you let the girl go.”

“Fuck off, weirdo.” The drunk laughed to himself and returned his attention to the girl.

She uttered a shriek when the drunk cursed loudly and stumbled backwards. The man…creature…whatever he or it was…lunged for the drunk and proceeded to pummel him with its fists whilst shouting. She flinched with every hit, but couldn’t look away.

Eventually, the stranger stood up and staggered away from the drunk. He turned to the girl and said, “Have you got a phone?”

“Yes…”

“Call the police. I’ll watch over you until they arrive. Don’t worry -- you’re safe now.”

She scrambled to her feet and took a step closer to him. She could see that his ‘face’ was actually some sort of mask/helmet, under which he wore a balaclava. “Who are you?”

The stranger started to walk back into the shadows. “They call me…The Night Lizard!”

This is a little too goofy, plus the girl then describes all this in a police interview, so I've started the story with that instead. A little oddly, for a story about a costumed nutcase, he doesn't appear that often in it. With The Inexorable Rise of The Night Lizard I want to examine what it might be like if some normal guy dressed up like a superhero and existed in a 'real world' situation...whoa hang on a minute!

Yes, I know the obvious reference point is KICK-ASS (which I really enjoyed) not to mention similar films such as Defendor and the one starring the guy from The Rocker (I think it's called The Crimson Bolt), but this is that old chestnut of having come up with the idea ages ago, plus it's only a surface similarity...KICK-ASS was still comic booky (in that the hero gets a 'superpower' of dulled pain response from all his beatings, and the other characters act and fell like comic book characters - not making any kind of point, just saying). The Night Lizard is operating in a sleepy little town. What's the point of his existence? If a real superhero (or costumed vigilante) existed, there'd be no point in him hanging around some place where drunkenness is the only real 'crime'...yet The Night Lizard has to protect such a town. Why? Well hopefully the actual story will get picked up somewhere and you'll be able to find out that our plucky hero is both mentally disturbed (not in an obvious way) and headed down a decidedly non-comic booky path ;) oooooo!