The concept

Queen of the Sky: A Demon Ballet is a timely horror story that mashes up American Imperialism in the 1940’s with ancient demon lore of the South Pacific. A meaningful love story between a female pilot and her navigator quite literally spirals out of control into a battle with a nuclear-fallout mutant from another dimension. Whether our monsters are imagined, the struggle with addiction, paralyzing fear, and powerlessness are always real.   

The story

“Queen of the Sky” begins with the developing life and love of young female pilot Aelia Erenhardt and her childhood friend, Fred Newman. Just as their love begins to bloom, they face a cataclysmic challenge to survival in the crossroads of brazen nuclear testing as they fly over the U.S. Marshall Islands. Crash landing on a toxic island, they encounter a hive-mind creature that was created by the suppressed hate of indigenous people released by the darker side of science. “A Demon Ballet” composed of a pack of mutated humanoids that conglomerate into one body under one sinister mind now seeks to capture the heroine, resulting in a high-stakes, epic battle. Or is it a delusion?

Leading up to the climax, we time travel to discover insights into the life of Young Aelia, raised as an army brat by her father (Admiral Blandy). She develops into a courageous woman, despite being surrounded by male-dominated institutions. She finds motivation from her competitive past, addictive self-medication, and steady yet estranged friendship with Fred. Her tenacity to break the social molds for women, finally reconnects her with Fred later in life when she convinces him to navigate her attempt to be the first woman to circumnavigation the globe. The subsequent crash landing in a nuclear storm and encounter with a demon creature unleashed unto the Earth, forces her to dig deep into her own psyche to find inner strength and ability to fight back against all oppressive influences (real or imagined). Aelia must ultimately choose between complete submission or complete transformation in order to survive the gruesome realities on the island and save her love.

This story is about the nature of humanity, how our heart and goals can get perverted by politics, society, religion, medicine, the media: so many outside influences that become monsters that stand in our way. These monsters can often appear to us as larger than life and insurmountable, but in our modern era our perception of reality is often the biggest obstacle. Coming to know yourself and know your own core of love is the only way to discover your true inner power, which is never taught or given, but must be revealed and claimed for yourself in order to face the world’s challenges. We must be able and willing to become the monster to stand up to the monsters that block our way. We must also be equally able and willing to let the monster go and return to the core of who we are and the essence of life. It is only from a place of love that we can fight the demon and make the world a better place, transform our history and our future into a safer place for our children, and our children’s children. There is a new place, a future that only we can dream up and create, that we must take an active role in building. This is how can we maintain our humanity and discern what is real and what is important as we grow from a child into an adult. Otherwise, we are doomed to repeat our mistakes, make monsters out of peaceful people, and destroy all the beauty in the world. We must fight the demon for love to prevail.

The characters

AELIA – 39, Aelia Erenhardt, Pilot (modeled after Amelia Earhart)

FRED – 44, Fred Newman, Co-pilot and Navigator (modeled after Fred Noonan)

ADMIRAL BLANDY – 56, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Special Weapons, Head of Operation Crossroads (modeled after Vice Admiral William H. P. Blandy AND Navy Commodore Ben H. Wyatt, United States military governor of the Marshall Islands, sent to exile the natives from Bikini Atoll) 

KING JUDA – 65, leader of the Bikini Atoll tribe, accepts their fate and evacuates, but leaves behind prisoners in a secret bunker, they were holding them to cannibalize later (modeled after King Juda of Bikini Atoll)

DR. WARREN – 50, Army Colonel in charge of radiation safety for Operation Crossroads, U.S. Military Scientist (modeled after Dr. Stafford Warren)

DR. SLOTIN – 35, U.S. Military Nuclear Scientist developing and assembling bombs for Manhattan Project and Operation Crossroads in Los Alamos, hears demon core whisper, dies in experiment accident (modeled after Dr. Louis Slotin)

DR. GRAVES – 34, U.S. Military Nuclear Scientist developing and assembling bombs for Manhattan Project and Operation Crossroads in Los Alamos, hears demon whispers and swaps core with the Bravo core (modeled after Dr. Alvin Cushman Graves)

DWIGHT YOUNG – 54, U.S. Military Nuclear Scientist developing and assembling bombs for Manhattan Project and Operation Crossroads in Los Alamos, level headed and safety conscious (modeled after Dwight Young)

MICHAEL – 32, a U.S. Navy soldier and animal specialist, is also transformed into ALPHA

ROGER – 30, A U.S. Navy soldier and animal specialist, Science Specialist 

PRISONERS/CREATURES – 5-10 Bikini Atoll Prisoners turn creature: PHOTOGRAPHER, SCIENTIST, RUTH, CAMERA-MAN, REPORTER, BIKINIAN