The Very Best of Tad Williams (42 page)

Coming up from silence, slowly, is T. Rex’s “Bang a Gong.” As ERIC hears it, he shudders and turns to locate the sound of the noise, and as he turns the MUSIC and LIGHT and MOVEMENT all EXPLODE simultaneously. “Bang a Gong” is playing earsplittingly loud, and the room is suddenly the LIVING ROOM, CIRCA 1976. But this time, the ADULT ERIC is right in the middle, a witness to everything, including the younger version of himself.

ADULT ERIC stands in the middle of the floor, blinking, astonished, as YOUNG TOPHER collapses to the floor and YOUNG ERIC, YOUNG BRENT, and YOUNG JANICE stand staring.

YOUNG ERIC

Oh, man, why did you take that shit?

As he bends over TOPHER, who is shaking violently, JANICE grabs at YOUNG ERIC’s arm.

YOUNG JANICE

We have to call an ambulance.

YOUNG BRENT

No fucking way. The cops will be all over this place!

YOUNG JANICE

He might be dying!

YOUNG ERIC

Topher? Can you hear me, man? You’re just tripping.

YOUNG JANICE

We have to get him to a doctor!

YOUNG ERIC

Topher?

TOPHER looks up, ragged and pale, but suddenly smiling.

TOPHER

Tripping? You wish, man. I’m...I’m becoming.

YOUNG ERIC

Let me help you...

He reaches down to pull TOPHER to his feet, but TOPHER simply shrugs and is three feet to one side. He has MOVED INSTANTANOUSLY, like a jump-cut. YOUNG ERIC is holding empty air. He is stunned, and looks up at the others. YOUNG JANICE is blankly terrified. YOUNG BRENT suddenly turns away, scuttling toward the stereo.

YOUNG BRENT

I definitely gotta put something else on...

He takes off T. Rex with a jagged scratch and begins scrambling among the albums scattered all over the floor.

ADULT ERIC has been watching this. Now he takes a step forward toward his younger self, reaching out as if to take himself in his own arms, but ADULT ERIC’s hand passes right through YOUNG ERIC, who is still staring after TOPHER.

YOUNG ERIC

What...what’s going on?

YOUNG TOPHER

Don’t touch me, Erky. You can’t stop it.

YOUNG JANICE

Topher, you’re scaring me...

She cautiously reaches toward him, as though he might be hot to the touch, but TOPHER is suddenly GONE again, having moved instantaneously to the base of the stairway leading upstairs.

ADULT ERIC

(shouts)

Just get out of the house!

(no one can hear him; his face crumples in misery)

Get Kimmy...

YOUNG BRENT

Topher, man, I couldn’t find the Sabbath, but check this out! You love this! You love this, man!

The choppy opening licks of Jimi Hendrix’s “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” come out of the speakers.

YOUNG BRENT
(cont.)

Just sit down and listen to Jimi, man.

YOUNG TOPHER

(a big grin)

Listen to him? I’m talking to him, bro! I’m talking to all the dead people...

TOPHER turns and makes his way up the stairs into the darkness.

YOUNG ERIC

It’s the acid. I didn’t see it. It’s the acid. It’s the acid...

YOUNG JANICE

What are we going to do? We have to call an ambulance, the police, something...

(sudden realization)

Where’s Kimmy?

ADULT ERIC turns to YOUNG JANICE, who cannot see or hear him. Tears are in his eyes.

ADULT ERIC

I’m sorry, Jan-Jan. Oh, God, I’m so sorry. It was all my fault.

YOUNG ERIC looks up at the mention of KIMMY. A look of guilt flashes across his face.

YOUNG ERIC

Kimmy’s fine. She’s fine. I think...she went out walking. Yeah, she’s out in front.

YOUNG JANICE

I can’t stand this! I feel like things are crawling all over me. Eric, what are we going to do about Topher?

ADULT ERIC

I’m so, so sorry...

YOUNG ERIC

It’s okay. We’re all tripping—we’re just high, having a bit of a freak-out. Stay with me. Stay with me. It’ll be okay.

YOUNG JANICE

(wanting to believe)

You think so? Will you put your arms around me? I’m really scared.

YOUNG ERIC wraps his arms around her and they stand swaying in the middle of the living room. ADULT ERIC slowly reaches his hand out to the two of them, then lets it drop, as we

SLOW DISSOLVE TO:

INT.—PIERSON HOUSE, NOW—NIGHT, SAME TIME

ADULT JANICE stands in a darkened, deserted hallway of the present-day house, moonlight coming in through the windows. A few objects remain after the house was emptied and some windblown leaves lie on the floors. After a moment, she hears a sniffling sound—someone CRYING. Frightened, she makes her way slowly down the hallway, listening, until she stops in front of one of the doors. She opens that door, but instead of a room, there’s ANOTHER HALLWAY—incredibly long, equally dark, with a huddled shape sitting at the far end. The crying is louder.

JANICE

K-Kimmy?

KIMMY

You never came back for me.

JANICE is suddenly near tears. Music rises quietly—ELO’s “Telephone.”

JANICE

I...I didn’t know...

KIMMY

You followed Eric like you were his dog. He was so much more important to you than me—your best friend...!

JANICE moves toward her but the hallway does not seem to get any shorter. KIMMY is still far away, her back to JANICE, face hidden.

JANICE

I didn’t know any better. He was my boyfriend... Oh, Kimmy, that was twenty-five years ago!

KIMMY

(a cracked laugh)

Not for me. For me it’s still happening. For me, it’s always happening...

JANICE

I’m so sorry!

The distance suddenly telescopes—JANICE is right on top of KIMMY. She reaches out to touch her.

JANICE

Kimmy? Can I do anything...anything to make it better?

KIMMY turns, except it isn’t KIMMY, it’s YOUNG JANICE, but still with KIMMY’s voice. YOUNG JANICE lifts BLOODY HANDS.

YOUNG JANICE/KIMMY

You betrayed me...!

ADULT JANICE screams; it echoes down the long corridor, twisting, growing fainter as we follow it around many twists and turns, until it fades back into the music of Hendrix, still playing somewhere. ADULT BRENT is standing in a corridor of his own, an Escher-like impossibility of stairs and weird angles. He turns, bewildered. A little SMOKE drifts along the passageway.

BRENT is frightened and clearly lost. He takes a step, then another. A shadow falls on the wall across from him, and he turns with eyes wide. A dark figure steps from an open door—it’s the ADULT ERIC.

ERIC

Brent? That you?

BRENT

Oh my God. Oh my God. I’ve been in here for hours—where did you go? Where’s Janice?

ERIC

I don’t know. Everything’s...strange.

BRENT

We have to get out of here. We should never have come. He’s going to...

ERIC

There must be some kind of sense to it, like Janice said. A reason. We were his friends...!

BRENT

No! He’s crazy. It wasn’t anybody’s fault—things just went wrong.

ERIC

Really? I thought you said it was all your fault.

BRENT

Let’s just get out of here.

ERIC

No, you distinctly said it was your fault. In fact, you were going to say that you betrayed him, weren’t you?

BRENT

What...what are you talking about?

ERIC

Come on...Brent. You know what betrayal is, don’t you?

ERIC steps closer, resting his hands on BRENT’s shoulders. BRENT is struggling, but he can’t get away.

ERIC

“You don’t know who your friends really are until you trip with them...” Remember that? Remember?

BRENT

(struggling)

Let go of me!

ERIC’s face is beginning to change—to harden and grow brittle. BRENT struggles harder, but it’s like being held by a statue. ERIC’s face grows completely rigid, like TOPHER’S SHELL. Then it cracks, and falls away, to reveal the young TOPHER beneath.

TOPHER

(big grin)

It’s all about the Court of the Crimson King, Brent. And hell has a special place saved for traitors...

BRENT’s clothes start to smolder where TOPHER is holding them. BRENT shrieks and flails and at last breaks away, falling backward.

TOPHER

Wait! There’s still the big finale...

TOPHER reaches up and PEELS AWAY his face, revealing YOUNG BRENT’S FACE underneath. ADULT BRENT doesn’t stay to watch—he drags himself to his feet, running down the distorted corridor, shrieking and crying, as we

CUT TO:

INT.—LIVING ROOM—THEN AND NOW

ADULT ERIC is miserably watching his YOUNG ERIC self combing through the carpet of the living room floor while YOUNG JANICE watches him, worried. No music is playing.

YOUNG JANICE

Eric? Eric, what are you doing?

YOUNG ERIC

He’s faking. He has to be faking. He couldn’t have taken all of those pills...

YOUNG BRENT looks up from his records.

YOUNG BRENT

Hey, where’s Kimmy?

ADULT ERIC

(a hopeless whisper)

Just tell them...

YOUNG ERIC

(hurriedly)

Outside! She went for a walk!

BRENT rises and heads for the front door. He pauses in the open doorway.

YOUNG BRENT

The moon! It’s fucking huge—like a big eye!

As he goes out, YOUNG ERIC is still on his hands and knees, running his fingers through the carpet, searching.

YOUNG ERIC

It’s all bullshit. It has to be! We’re just too high.

YOUNG JANICE

What are you talking about?

YOUNG ERIC

(looks up, desperate-eyed)

It’s not real. We’re all just tripping. Topher’s trying to freak us out. He just pretended to catch those pills, but they’re here somewhere. I’ll find them. That’ll prove it.

He goes back to his relentless combing of the carpet, crawling with his face practically down against the fibers. YOUNG BRENT comes back in and walks past them, then heads up the stairs. ADULT ERIC looks after him, then closes his eyes.

YOUNG JANICE doesn’t know what to do. She looks up at the stairway, then toward the front door. She watches YOUNG ERIC for a moment, then sits back, hugging herself and looking very frightened. ADULT ERIC moves toward her, and although she can’t see him, he kneels in front of her.

ERIC

You were right. Oh, God, I was a fucking idiot, a terrified kid, trying to talk myself into thinking everything made sense.

(a beat)

And now I’m just a ghost and you can’t hear me...

For a moment YOUNG JANICE almost does seems to hear him: she tilts her head, as though searching for a tiny sound. Abruptly, the stereo comes on full-blast—“Iron Man,” by Black Sabbath—and she jerks her head back around to stare at it. There’s no one nearby: it has turned on by itself.

We begin to experience the first scene over again, but this time from ADULT ERIC’s viewpoint.

YOUNG JANICE

Eric! Eric, talk to me
!

YOUNG ERIC looks up blearily from the carpet.

YOUNG JANICE

Eric, I want to get out of here right now...!

YOUNG BRENT, staggers down the stairs, clutching his hands against his stomach, panicky but trying to stay calm.

YOUNG BRENT

Shit, it’s bad—Topher’s freaking out for real up there.

YOUNG JANICE

Where’s Kimmy, Brent? What’s going on?

YOUNG BRENT

I don’t know! I can’t find her. I think...I think something bad happened! I...

As if finally realizing something, BRENT lifts his hands away from his body and stares at them. They are covered in blood, smeared to the elbows. His eyes bug out.

YOUNG JANICE

Oh my God!

ADULT ERIC stares at BRENT, then looks up at the ceiling. He SEES something no one else can see, and cowers back in horror, gasping in panic, covering his face.