Whispers On Set

Chapter 1

"Babe... your phone is ringing."
"Mm," I said. I rubbed my eyes and fumbled for my phone. I looked at the name on it. What time was it? Four, five in the morning? I wasn't quite sure. I was getting a call from Rosco Ramirez. I answered it. "Hello?"
"Mikey! Buddy!" said Rosco. He was excited, but I wasn't sure why. Rosco and I went to college together. I joined a film club that he had started. Rosco was in it for the girls. I was too, at first, but eventually found out I rather liked editing videos. Taking raw footage and piecing it together appealed to me more than an awkward flirting period that would either lead to disappointment, or a one night stand followed by more disappointment.
I sat up in my bed. "It's been years, man," I said. "What's up?"
"Man, I'm so glad you answered!" said Rosco. "Listen. You were a big fan of that little film club we had back in college, right?"
"I guess."
"I know you liked it, come on," said Rosco. "You were an amazing editor!"
I didn't smile at the compliment. I was too groggy. "I guess," I repeated.
"Don't be humble, man," said Rosco. "You could've gotten a job doing editing and killed it out in Hollywood. Seriously, I think you were selling yourself short. You were a wizard, dude."
"What do you want?" I asked. "You doing a project or something?"
"Yes!" Rosco exclaimed. "Well, not yet. But I want to start something, and I need your help. Listen, I found out about something that could be huge. Really, really big. Like, we could get it professionally produced big."
"Oh yeah?" I asked. "What is it?"
"I'd rather tell you in person," said Rosco. "Besides, it's been years, bro. We should catch up anyway. You free this week? The sooner the better. I don't want to be waiting around on this."
"It's like, four in the morning, man," I said. "Listen. Do you want to grab lunch somewhere at noon-ish?"
"Yes! Absolutely," said Rosco. "There's a pizza place I'm a fan of near me. You're still in Austin, right?"
"Yeah," I said.
"Cool, just making sure," said Rosco. "I'll text you the address. Looking forward to it, man!"
"Yeah. Sure," I said. "I'll let you know when I'm on my way."
"Sweet!" said Rosco. "See you soon, Mike!"
"See ya," I said. I hung up and let out a sigh.
"What was that all about?" My girlfriend Janice looked at me. She was listening to my half of the conversation.
"An old college buddy," I said. "He wants to meet up."
"Sounded like a job," said Janice. "Do you know what he wants you to do?"
"Probably edit something," I said. "Something about a documentary. I'll see him later today. I'll let you know what it's all about."
"I just don't want you to get distracted, babe," said Janice. She groped around under the sheets and took hold of my hand. "You've been looking for a job for three weeks now."
"I know," I said. "Maybe he'll pay me. Hopefully."
"But how steady of a job can that be?" asked Janice. "You need a real job eventually."
I had been surviving off of a few gigs here and there, but it was true. I needed something that was a little more consistent and paid a little better. For the past few years, I worked for a small production studio as an editor, but they ran into some financial troubles and had to let me go. My savings were drying up and rent wasn't getting any cheaper. Janice worked as a waitress at a steakhouse, and made enough money for herself, but I didn't want to live off of her money for any serious length of time. I needed to find something, fast. I hadn't talked with Rosco in a long time, but maybe he was better off than I was. If he was still doing film, he could probably get me in somewhere else as an editor. He knew people.
I flopped back down on my bed and put my arms around Janice. "I love you," I said.
She closed her eyes and smiled. "Love you too," she said into her pillow. She squeezed my hand. "I'm going back to sleep."
I went back to sleep, too. Or tried to, at least. I couldn't help but think about Rosco. He was always pushing the limits of things. He was a firm believer in the strategy that it was better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. He would come up with a crazy idea to film, and had a penchant for completely disregarding anyone and everything to make what he wanted to make. If there was a cute girl he wanted as a lead, he would do everything in his power to get her in a short film. And he was damn good at it. He was a liberal arts major, and I majored in business, but he was a better businessman than I could've hoped to be. I didn't really believe in him to have any sort of stable lifestyle. He had a new girlfriend wrapped around his finger every other month, and he never slowed down for anyone or anything. Rosco was always flying off in some new direction. Good for him, but I needed something a little less fast paced.
But, that was years ago now. Maybe he's changed his tune after all this time. Over the phone, it didn't sound like it. Whatever he was going to try and drag me into would take an awful lot of convincing for me to hop in. Or at least an awful lot of money. Rosco was never someone who was good with money, but maybe I could use that in my favor.
I tossed and turned, but eventually fell asleep again. After I woke up again, I saw a text on my phone from Rosco — the pizza place address. I took a shower, threw on a shirt, and got in my car to drive over.
I parked in a lot nearby and headed in. The pizza place was local — Don Fraser's Pizza. I hadn't heard of it. There were only two tables inside. Rosco was sitting at one of them. I could recognize him instantly, even though he was a bit older. He was wearing a tight white polo, black pants, and had a jean jacket draped over the chair behind him. Of course, the standout was one of his many gaudy ascots. Ever since he fancied himself a director, he started wearing one everywhere he went. They didn't look bad, just tacky. He had grown his dark hair out a little, too. In college, it poofed up, but he had let it grow down to his neck.
"Mike!" said Rosco. "You're looking good, man! Good to see you!"
Rosco came in for a hug. I gave him an awkward one-armed side hug back. "Good to see you too, man," I said.
"The pizza's fantastic here," said Rosco. "I got a pepperoni and sausage to share, if that's cool with you."
"That's fine," I said. We sat down. "So, what's this project you were talking about?"
"Straight to business," said Rosco. He turned around his laptop and showed me an image on some sketchy website. "Take a look at this."
"What... is that?" I asked.
"Look closer," said Rosco. "That's some guy's arm."
I took a closer look at the picture. Sure enough, it was a picture of a human arm, but there was no hand at the end of it — it was just a bloody stump. "This is the thing?" I asked. "Some guy lost his hand?"
"Not just some guy," said Rosco. He flipped the laptop back towards himself. "This happened up in a small town in Wisconsin. According to him, this guy blew his hand off himself on accident."
"And you want to make a documentary about that?" I asked. "Am I missing something here?"
"Yes!" said Rosco. "My girlfriend, she's always looking at websites like this. Weird, occult stuff, right? I'm not into it, but she shows me stuff she finds. Apparently, this guy claims that he developed superpowers."
"Superpowers?" I asked. "Rosco, you know you can't believe everything you see on the Internet, right?"
"Yeah, I know," said Rosco. "But for some reason, I just... I wanted it to be true. It would be so cool if it was, right? A guy gets superpowers and blows his own hand off? That's a story, right there. We can work with that. So I looked into it more. And Mike, this stuff goes deep. Really deep, man. I think this picture wasn't ever supposed to get out on the web."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"My girlfriend — Cammy — she's kind of a computer nerd," said Rosco. "She likes programming and stuff. Again, I don't really get it, but she traced the image's location to this little town in Wisconsin. Eastby. And dude, it's like the town doesn't exist. There's hardly any information on it from six months ago to now."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"It's like the whole town disappeared," said Rosco. "Like there's a giant copper cage around it. Nobody can call anybody in there, and nobody has seen anything or heard from anyone inside the town without a massive time lag."
"Time lag?"
"Like, if I sent a text message to someone there, it would take a few hours for them to respond," said Rosco. "Like... their texts are being screened, or something."
"So the whole town is being hidden?" I asked.
"NUMBER 57!" said the pizza guy behind the counter.
"Yeah," said Rosco. He got up to pay for his pizza. I saw him take out his wallet. It was absolutely loaded up with cash. He threw a $100 bill on the counter and grabbed his pizza.
The cashier looked at Rosco. "I'll get your change," he said.
"You're all set," said Rosco. "Thanks."
The cashier looked bewildered, but grateful. "Thank you so much!" he said. I knew food was getting expensive, but it couldn't have been more than twenty or thirty bucks. Rosco must have come into some money recently. He brought the pizza over and opened it up. It did look like some damn good pizza.
"Back on topic," said Rosco. "I think this guy might actually have been telling the truth."
"You think there's really a small town in the middle of nowhere and some guy just happened to get superpowers in it?" I asked. "It's a town in the middle of nowhere, man. There's probably a time lag because phone service and internet is terrible out there."
"That's the thing, though," said Rosco. "It's not. A few years ago, there were some news articles about people complaining because they started getting 5G towers there. As long as they didn't remove all of them, their cell phones and texts should be fine. But, they aren't."
"Lockdown town," I said. "If you wanted to make a documentary, maybe you should've led with that. It's a lot more believable than 'guy develops superpowers...'"
"But that's not the full story," said Rosco. "If it was really that simple, someone would've reported on something going on there. But it's been radio silence. Not even the neighboring towns want to talk about it. There's only one big news article about it, and it's from seven months ago. There was some contamination in the water, and the town made a statement that nobody should drink the water, and nobody should go in or out."
"For contaminated water?" I asked. "They didn't let people... leave?"
"It's weird, right?" said Rosco. He took a bite of pizza. "Mm. Mike, you gotta try this."
I took a bite myself. It was some good pizza. The crust was nice and crispy, the cheese wasn't greasy. The sausage had just a touch of heat to it. It was decadent. "That's good stuff, man," I said. "So what do you want to do about this situation?"
"I want to drive up there and see what's going on," said Rosco. "I've got some film stuff in my van. We're going to do some investigative independent journalism. See what's really going on up there. I want you to be my sound guy, lights guy, and editor. I'll direct and produce. My girlfriend will take care of the camera stuff."
"Like back in film club," I said.
"Only this time, the pretty girl will be behind the camera, not in front of it," said Rosco with a chuckle. "Seriously, dude, she's a smokeshow."
"I don't know," I said. "It sounds like a lot. And what's your backup plan if it's just something mundane?"
"If it's something mundane, I'll pay you the same," said Rosco. "And I will pay you well either way."
"How well?"
Rosco leaned in. He glanced over to make sure the pizza guy wasn't watching. "I was in Vegas a few weeks ago, right? Strictly business, I promise. But, when in Rome, right? So I threw a bit of cash towards blackjack. And Mike, I was up. WAY up, right? Like, I could've walked out on the guy that wanted to hire me and I'd have made more money."
"What were you doing out there originally?" I asked.
"Look, I like making movies," said Rosco. "Movies need funding. Find a couple of drunk old bastards with a little too much cash, show 'em a cute girl or two, tell them she's going to be the lead, and watch the money roll in."
"Uh, Rosco," I asked. "Are you making porn?"
"What? No, of course not," said Rosco. He waved his hand in dismissal. "They're called art house films. There's a story. Cinematography. No sex. Nudity, sure, every once in a while, if it fits what I'm going for. I'm not that sleazy, man."
"Sure," I said. I hadn't really thought about it before. I didn't want to drive all the way up to Wisconsin and drive all the way back just to tell my girlfriend I helped a college buddy make pornography. I wouldn't put it above Rosco, but this project at least seemed like it would have nothing to do with that.
"Anyway. I'm up, right? So I kind of give up on getting anybody to fund this new project. I'm half-assing it. Really, I'm just happy that I'm up so much. I waste a bit of time, a bit of cash. Meet Cammy. Tell her to fly back with me. So in the airport — Vegas is weird, right? Slot machines everywhere. Even in the airports. I sit down at a machine because I'm early. And what do you know — first time I push that button? Jackpot. Jackpot, Mike!"
"How much did you win?"
"I'm not a millionaire or anything," said Rosco. "But if you do this project for me, I promise I'll treat you right. I know, it's a couple of weeks. But I don't want you to just do a favor for a college buddy, right? I want you to be fairly compensated for your work. I'm a decent guy. I'll pay you way above market rate."
"How much are you talking?" I asked.
"It's probably going to be about three weeks," said Rosco. "We're going to have to keep this budget fairly tight. I'll give you cash when we arrive, if you agree to do it."
"How much," I repeated.
Rosco looked around, then leaned back in his chair. "Twenty thousand dollars," he said. "Twenty grand. For just a couple weeks of work! Surely you can agree, that's pretty damn generous."
My eyes widened. That wasn't a small number. And to get it all in cash? Up front? Rosco really had hit it big. But, because he threw out such a big number, maybe there was some room to haggle. "That's not a small number," I said. "How about thirty?"
"It's twenty grand, dude," said Rosco. "I know your scholarships didn't cover your loans. You could pay off your student loans with that kind of money."
"How about thirty?" I asked again. "My loans were about twenty seven grand, plus three grand for the weeks I'm actually working."
"Twenty seven grand, then," said Rosco.
"Thirty."
"I can get someone else."
"Thirty."
Rosco rolled his eyes. "Fine," he said. "Thirty thousand U.S. dollars for the greedy right hand man."
I smiled and extended my hand. "I'm gonna hold you to that," I said.
"I don't like lying," said Rosco. "I'm a truth seeker. It's why I'm doing this whole thing in the first place." He shook my hand firmly. "We'll leave in two days."
"Sounds like a plan," I said. "I guess I'll see you in two days, then."
"Looking forward to it," said Rosco. "Oh, and obviously, the pizza's on me."
I stood up. "Thanks," I said. "See you soon." I walked out and back to my car. Before turning it on, I wondered about just what exactly I had gotten myself into.