Transcript - Season 2,  Chapter 12

DIVE BAR, INT, DAY

 

A jukebox begins to play gentle country music. The hubbub of a bar.

 

And then we hear the NESHITE TV reporter again. They sound legitimately shaken.

 

NESHITE TV REPORTER:

(Urgently, as if reading from a report)

-and if you’re just joining us, we’re following up on last night’s reports of a deadly tragedy upon the Besserail Correctional Facility on the southern coast, where a mass hallowing appears to have gone wrong, or, more likely, to have come under some kind of attack.

 

Normally these facilities are of course well protected against any kind of hostile transformation. 

 

We now understand that it was upon this occasion the walls, the floor, the reinforced concrete of the sacrificial chamber itself which erupted.

 

Hostilities have been continuing into this afternoon, but by the grace of Channel 12, we’ve just learnt that a press helicopter has got close enough to capture footage from the prison itself. 

 

We hear the faint sound of gunfire and a helicopter.

 

NESHITE TV REPORTER:

We’re getting this now, live, for the first time.

 

You can see the prison roof and walls themselves have erupted into a…a vast tree-like structure, presumably a saint of some kind, although not from a faith that our researchers recognise.

 

We believe that saint was Esther Grammen, an inmate at the facility who was scheduled to be hallowed last night.

 

Those are…human bodies visible, impaled upon the branches, presumably prison personnel. We apologise for showing those, hopefully they can be blurred-

 

And hopefully the pilot can move in for a closer look, and they’re…

 

…they’re…

 

(With the shock of realisation)

 

…flowering with white crocus.

 

From below, we begin to hear muffled chanting. It’s hard to hear, but the words might just be - ‘Tree of Spite. Tree of Spite. Tree of Spite.’

 

The sound cuts out quickly.

 

NESHITE TV REPORTER:

I must stress of course that we don’t know yet whether agents of the Peninsula were involved, but-

 

DENNIS is sitting alone at the bar, cradling a drink. He’s nervously waiting for someone.

 

DENNIS:

(To the BARTENDER)

Hey, um. You mind changing the channel?

 

Getting on my nerves a bit.

 

The BARTENDER turns the TV off.

 

BARTENDER:

Fucking Pennies.

 

DENNIS:

(A little guiltily, thinking of HAYWARD)

They’re not all so bad.

(Struggling to justify himself a little)

I’m just saying, y’know, maybe cooler heads can prevail this time around.

 

BARTENDER:

C’mon, Dennis. You saw that. They haven’t changed.

 

DENNIS takes a sip of his drink.

 

DENNIS:

(Half to himself)

Well, who amongst us should be denied a second chance?

 

And at this moment, the door swings open.

 

CORVIN has arrived.

 

DENNIS:

(Relieved)

Hey! Hey, Corvin! 

 

Over here, pal!

 

CORVIN approaches, patting DENNIS on the back.

 

CORVIN:

(A little coldly)

Come grab a pew with me, Dennis, would you? 

(Pointing to the back of the bar)

In the back.

 

DENNIS:

Sure, sure. 

(To the BARTENDER)

Hey, another glass of raki for my friend? Thanks.

 

A clunk as DENNIS sets the drinks down and joins CORVIN in the booth.

 

The jukebox starts up again.

 

DENNIS:

(In a quieter voice, putting the drink down)

Here you go. 

 

Thanks again for meeting with me - it’s noted, and it’s appreciated.

(Working up his charm)

So look - you’ve probably seen already that things got a little out of hand with our little experiment.

 

We…we didn’t realise it would be quite that dramatic. Honest, we did not.

 

If we knew the results would be so…so explosive, we’d have taken a different path. 

 

And when we left Esther, we weren’t even thinking that she’d play ball, we didn’t think any of this would come to anything!

 

Which is why I, uh, I just wanted to drive out here and reassure you, Corvin. To take a bit of time to settle things. 

 

Because I’m sure you’re thinking, at this point,

(Doing a little voice)

‘Oh, gods, what have I gotten myself into?’

(A little nervous laugh)

So here’s the lay of the land. We’re getting out of town later today. Heading east. 

 

Nobody’s going to hear from us. And naturally, nobody’s going to hear that you helped us, either.

 

I’ve also got you a little gift - a bit of extra cash - to say thank you for helping us. A decent little sum.

(Lying)

I don’t have it with me, but I’m gonna wire it to you just as soon as we get to the other side-

 

DENNIS trails off. He realises something is wrong.

 

DENNIS:

What’s the matter?

 

CORVIN:

You’re too late, Dennis.

 

CORVIN:

They already came to the repair shop. First thing this morning.

 

DENNIS:

(Trying to regain his confidence and play it cool)
Heh. 

 

The bronze, they’ve really stepped up their pace.

(Quietly emotionally blackmailing CORVIN, but also still quaking a little)

When I used to cover for you back in the day, Corvin - I remember they were never as fast as all that.

 

It’d take ‘em a week to even bother sending out a squad car.

 

CORVIN:

(Growing angry)

Well, they’re thinking it might be an act of war, Dennis. 

 

So they’re not waiting about to see what happens next.

 

They knew I called Esther a lot. A lot more than her fucking parents ever did.

 

They also knew that a week after my last call, a couple of unexpected visitors came to see her, claiming to be her cousin and niece.

 

Her family said those people don’t exist.

 

DENNIS:

(Showing a bit of bravado)

Pretty thin.

 

Nothing to connect you with it.

 

CORVIN:

They didn’t seem to think so.

 

They had sketches of you and your girl.

 

They told me they had proof that you were agents of a foreign power - which for all I know at this point, might well be true.

 

They told me that in their eyes, I was a spy for the Pennies, and I’d be held to account for all those deaths.

 

And then they told me it’d take a miracle to save me if I didn’t start cooperating.

 

Well, I was all out of miracles, Dennis.

 

DENNIS:

(With quiet dread)

What did you tell them?

 

CORVIN does not respond.

 

DENNIS:

(Still quiet but with growing anger)

What did you tell them, Corvin?

 

CORVIN:

(With a little shame)

I didn’t tell them where you were. Only your name. 

 

I said we’d only spoken over the phone. I hadn’t seen you face to face since we were in together.

 

But, look - they tracked me down quickly enough. 

 

Don’t kid themselves that it’ll take them any longer to find you.

 

DENNIS:

(Weakly)

Corvin, I promised my daughter we could trust you with this.

 

I made a promise to her-

 

CORVIN:

(Snapping)

I’m giving you notice. Isn’t that enough?

 

People died, Dennis. You made me an accomplice to that.

 

DENNIS:

(Throwing up his hands)

“People”? They were the cops - the screws! 

 

You think any harm would have come to them if they hadn’t been standing in a circle around your friend - around Esther - their hands wrapped about her throat?

 

“Fuck the Bronze.” You always said that to me.

 

CORVIN:

(Scoffing)

That’s just something people say, Dennis. 

 

DENNIS:

(Genuinely hurt)

No, it’s not just something that people say-

 

CORVIN:

Seriously, now. Can you really not see that you’ve gone too far?

 

What’s this kid of yours put into your head? 

 

DENNIS doesn’t answer.

 

CORVIN:

Make things easier for all of us.

 

Turn yourself in, turn your kid in. Tell them you were tricked into this. You didn’t understand the consequences, you were taken advantage of.

 

Spin them some kind of tale, while you still have that option open to you.

 

Because they’ll be coming your way soon, and you know they won’t be gentle.

 

DENNIS:

(Beginning to panic)

I need to get home. 

 

I need to warn them-

 

He gets to his feet.

 

CORVIN:

Woah, woah, woah. Don’t go back to them, Dennis.

 

Wait here with me and talk it out. 

 

DENNIS shakes him off.

 

DENNIS:

(Sourly)

Thanks for your solidarity, Corvin. 

 

He turns and goes.

 

CORVIN:

(CORVIN calls after him)

Dennis! Think about it! 

(Warning him)

Dennis, you’re smarter than this!

 

We hear the dive bar door bang as DENNIS leaves.

 

CAR PARK, EXT, DAY

 

DENNIS staggers out onto the roadside.

 

Cars roar past him as he mutters to himself.

 

DENNIS:

You said this was going to happen. You fucking said it, but you went along with it all the same, didn’t you? 

 

You let her do it. 

 

You let her do it, and now this is where you’re at.

 

You fucking….you…’you’re smarter than this.’

(To himself)

So what are you going to do about it, asshole?

 

Hm? 

(A thought slowly occurring to him)

What are you going to do about it?

 

COUNTRYSIDE, EXT, DAY

 

We hear jeeps roaring past us.

 

GAGE narrates.

 

GAGE:

The dead man sings.

 

The words come reluctantly at first, then in a great torrent, his worm-crawling tongue quivering under the accumulated weight of a hundred, a thousand words.

 

He sings of his childhood by the water, the old rituals and verses as he was taught them over the long years.

 

He sings of growing up. Hard lessons learnt.

 

The dead man sings of his home; an ancient place amongst the rocks upriver, hidden from the roadside and undiscovered during the long purges.

 

He tells us how he’d venture out from there, through the trees, with handwritten verses in old notebooks, delivering them to the scattered faithful.

 

He sings of terrible shame, and dreadful revelations, and the government men who caught him up in their arms one day and led him south.

 

He sings of a cage, a padded room, where they hurt him, experimented upon him…and then threw him away.

 

I listen to the dead man - conveying only the practical essentials to my sister - and…

 

…I can’t help thinking how terrible it must be to live, and die, and still go on singing hosannas to the same damned god.

​

 

 

HILLS, INT, DAY

 

-and as a crow is startled into the flight, the roar of the jeep becomes faint, as if we’re hearing it from a great distance.

 

We can hear the winds whistling all around us.

 

CARPENTER narrates.

 

CARPENTER:

(Narrating)

The procession of jeeps heads north.

 

When they come to our abandoned coach, its tyres given out, slumped in the ditch by the roadside, they do not - as we initially feared - attempt to follow us into the hills.

 

Instead, they keep driving.

 

The two young feral things ride behind on horseback, their faces bowed beneath hoods and yellowing animal skulls, rifles slung across their backs.

 

One of the cars has the emptied-out carapace of a crab-angel, weeks-old, strapped to its bonnet.

 

The soldiers look…purposeful. Like they know where they’re going.

 

And as we watch, trailing them northwards from hiding places amongst the rocks, and their direction of travel becomes ever clearer…we have to accept something.

 

Faulkner’s young disciple, if he did against all odds survive the Carving Chapter’s rituals of pain, only had one secret to reveal.

 

The location of the Trawler-man’s refuge.

 

The Paraclete’s Gulch.

 

We hear CARPENTER turn, crunching away across the road, and ahead the muffled ringing of a phone-

 

PHONE BOOTH, EXT, DAY

 

Inside the phone booth, as CARPENTER approaches, FAULKNER is on the phone - straining through the usual coded messages to convey his urgency and frustration to MASON.

 

We only hear MASON’s faint replies.

 

FAULKNER:

(Into the phone)

It’s me, Uncle.

(Hearing MASON’s response)

No, I haven’t spotted that rare bittern yet, I-

 

Listen. Please just stop talking and listen to me. There’s a pair of thieves targeting properties in town. They’ve done a lot of damage already.

 

I’ve seen that first hand - they came for my place in the night. We suffered for it, Uncle, I can tell you that much.

(Startled)

Oh. You’ve heard about them too?

(Hearing MASON’s response)

Well, anyway I’ve got a hunch they’ll end up in your house if you don’t do something about it fast. 

 

Uncle, I’d strongly consider getting in the car and taking the entire family someplace that’s safe. 

(Hearing MASON’s response - it’s not a helpful one)

You-

 

They have accomplices, Uncle. And they’re armed. I really don’t know if you’d be able to handle them yourself if they broke in.

(Giving up in frustration)

Mason, just drop it. Just drop it. Nobody’s listening.

 

Nobody’s listening, and they’re coming to kill you. Doesn’t that matter to you? They’re coming for the Gulch!

 

I don’t care about the proper protocol! For once in your life, just listen to me! Stop playing games and listen!

(As MASON hangs up)

I-

 

Mason? Mason?

 

FAULKNER slams down the phone. He smacks the side of the glass in frustration and exits the booth.

 

He takes an angry breath - and spits.

 

CARPENTER:

What did he say?

 

FAULKNER:

That I should find a place to hide out and wait for things to blow over. 

 

Then he said…they’ve expected this might be coming, but there’s nothing to worry about.

 

They’re going to hunker down.

(Annoyed)

Stupid.

 

CARPENTER:

(Trying to reassure him)

Mason’s not one for a courageous last stand. 

 

He’ll have something else up his sleeve.

 

FAULKNER:

(Indignant)

To run and hide and leave the rest of them behind to die and cover his escape. I can imagine.

 

You…you were always right about him, Carpenter. He doesn’t care about the faith. He doesn’t care about the faithful. 

 

Our lives, our people’s lives, mean nothing to him.

 

And the Katabasians, like Mason…they sit at the top and they use you however they can. 

 

CARPENTER:

(Gently, and mocking)

Someone told me we were due a prophet of the river to change all of that.

 

FAULKNER stares bleakly out over the hills.

 

FAULKNER:

How many pilgrimages did you undertake for the Parish, Carpenter?

 

Tens? Dozens?

 

CARPENTER:

Too many, probably.

 

FAULKNER:

This was my second.

 

Sister Thurrocks, she’s the only survivor. 

(Remembering)

Brother Tapper, too, if they haven’t slit his throat yet.

(Almost with disbelief)

I didn’t even fuck up.

 

I know you’re looking at me like I must have fucked up, because that’s all you’ve known me as. This…this failure to deliver. But I swear, I didn’t.

 

I took good care of them, I watched out for them, because I knew Mason was sending us into danger and he didn’t care what happened to any of them, and I tried to consider how you’d work to try and keep them safe, if you’d been in my place…

 

…and they still died.

 

How much meat can you keep feeding in before the grinder breaks?

 

I don’t know, I…

 

CARPENTER:

She’s not the only survivor, Faulkner.

 

She means him.

 

They sit in silence.

 

FAULKNER:

Can I tell you something? In…in confidence?

 

CARPENTER:

Yeah, you can.

 

FAULKNER:

(Upset and quiet)

I don’t pray like I used to any more. I’ve started to notice that. 

 

It doesn’t…always come naturally.

 

When things go right, I tell myself the Trawler-man must be watching out for me.

 

But when things go wrong…I don’t think about him at all.

 

Instead, I think about how I might be able to spin the story later on so people still believe in me.

 

And I start to worry that this is something that’s taking me over.

(Half-joking)

Like maybe your disillusionment, it was catching.

 

And maybe some day along the line, when I’ve given everything to him, I’ll come to the same conclusions you did.

 

That there’s no plan for me, or anyone.

 

That it’s only about who can tell the best story.

 

And if that’s true…there’s no way out of this for me, is there? There’s no way forward. There’s nothing I can invent to make this better.

 

This is the story of the liar who lost the oldest refuge of the faith. The failure who kept on failing.

 

He puts his head in his hands.

 

FAULKNER:

(Weakly)

This is all my fault. It’s all my fault - I set it all in motion.

 

CARPENTER thinks for a moment. 

 

CARPENTER:

There was a truck in a ditch a little way back down the hill. 

 

Want to see if you can get the engine started?

(Reasoning with him)

It’s been raining up and down the Peninsula for weeks. 

 

It’ll be a wet and muddy drive for them upriver, and we know the hills a hell of a lot better than they do.

 

We can circle around on the highway. Stick to the concrete roads most of the way. Try and outpace them.

 

If we get lucky - a favourable tide - we might be able to beat them to the Paraclete’s Gulch.

 

And if we can, then maybe you and I, together…we can persuade Mason to change his mind. 

 

Maybe we can get those people out of the Gulch before it’s too late.

(Prompting him)

Faulkner?

 

TRUCK, EXT, DAY

 

A few gasps and grunts as CARPENTER and FAULKNER approach the truck, carrying THURROCKS between them-

 

FAULKNER:

Easy, now, lay her down, lay her down. You doing OK, Sister Thurrocks?

 

SISTER THURROCKS:

(Weakly, barely conscious)

I’m OK, Katabasian- I’m doing all right.

 

FAULKNER:

Glad to hear it. Let’s get that door open-

 

He approaches the truck door and begins jimmying it.

 

CARPENTER:

(To THURROCKS, conversationally)

Bet you never knew your Katabasian could do this, eh?

 

FAULKNER gets the door open and clambers inside.

 

FAULKNER:

(To CARPENTER, straining as he works)

You realise you don’t need to come with me.

 

CARPENTER:

(A little hurt)

It was my idea. 

 

FAULKNER:

But we’re not your people any more.

(Almost testing her)

Are we?

 

CARPENTER:

You’ll always be my people, Faulkner. But no. He isn’t my god any more, I don’t think.

 

I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re getting at.

 

FAULKNER:

(Working away)

How’ve you taken to that?

 

CARPENTER hesitates - and then speaks honestly.

 

FAULKNER, in the background, attempts to hot-wire the car.

 

CARPENTER:

You know, I…think back to the moments when I knew our god was speaking to me, when I felt confident that I had some kind of belief. I try and…summon up the memory of everything I felt back then.

 

-and there’s nothing there any more. Not even resentment for the wasted years, for the guilty moments.

 

I know that should feel like a relief, but it’s just the opposite.

 

It’s an absence that grieves you-

(As FAULKNER gets the engine started)

-good job.

 

Recently, I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s another god out there for me, if there’s a different faith that would mean something to me…

 

…but I’m starting to wonder if anything will ever mean anything to me again. 

 

No, it’s worse than that. 

 

I keep wondering if I haven’t strayed past the final passage of my life and fallen off the final page.

 

FAULKNER:

(Sympathetically)

I understand. 

 

I think I do, anyway.

(Prattling on)

I know it’s not the same, but back in the seminary before our first pilgrimage, there was this disciple, Joe Quaid, and we were in the same induction programme, but then things didn’t work out with him, and after that I had to sit alone in our lessons, and it was just-

 

He stops. CARPENTER is staring at him in disbelief.

 

FAULKNER:

(Defensively)

It’s not the same. I know it’s not the same, it was a stupid comparison-

 

CARPENTER:

(Mocking him)

No. No. I want to hear more about Joe Quaid. 

 

I think it’d really help me, to hear more about Joe Quaid.

 

Why didn’t things work out with Joe Quaid?

 

FAULKNER:

Stop talking.

 

CARPENTER:

Did you tell him you were the chosen prophet of the river? Because I think that’s what they call ‘coming on a bit strong’-

 

FAULKNER opens the back seat of the car.

 

FAULKNER:

(Brusquely changing the topic)

Come on, let’s get her in the back seat.

 

CARPENTER:

We’ll return to this, I can assure you. I consider it a bond of trust, that you’re opening up to me about your relationship history-

 

FAULKNER:

Shut up.

 

CARPENTER and FAULKNER take up the two front seats.

 

FAULKNER: 

Seat belt on, Sister Thurrocks. We’re going to need to move fast.

 

FAULKNER begins to drive.

 

A moment of silence.

 

FAULKNER:

You saw what happened to Paige, didn’t you? After the Crossing?

 

CARPENTER:

Yeah, I saw.

(Softly, heartfelt)

I’m glad she’s back with her own people.

 

I couldn’t stand the thought of that shit Hayward having his claws on her.

 

The car roars onwards.

 

Ironic scene transition time!