Whispers On Set

Chapter 4

"Can you explain a little bit more, please?" Rosco asked.
"Of course," said Bill. He took off his prosthetic hand — or rather, forearm. "They fixed me up pretty good after my little accident."
"Who's they?" asked Rosco.
Bill gave him a deadpan look. "Doctors," he said. "They treated me very well. I think they felt bad for me."
"Why?"
"Why did they feel bad? Because I lost my hand, probably."
"Could you describe what exactly happened in detail?" asked Rosco. "From the beginning, please."
"Of course," said Bill. "You know about how the water's contaminated here, right?"
"I've heard of it."
"Okay, great," said Bill. "So after that incident, I felt like I had gained something. Some instinct that I didn't have before. Like a new sense."
"A new sense?"
"Sure. You know how sight is intuitive, right?" said Bill. "You don't even think about it. You just do it. Same with hearing. And moving your muscles, and things like that. It's all instinct."
"Can you describe this new power?"
"Yeah, of course," said Bill. "Essentially, I felt like I had the ability to create... I guess you could call it a barrier, or a force field. Something like that."
"A force field?" Rosco gave me a look. I could see the sparkle in his eyes. He was all in on this. There was vindication in his grin. He tried to look serious again, and then turned back to Bill. "Can you talk a little more about that?"
"Yeah," said Bill. "It's like something from inside my body was telling me I could do this. That I really had this new power. So of course, I go to try it. But I think I did it too much."
"Go on."
"I went into the bathroom, and..." Bill trailed off. He looked ashamed for some reason. "Well, like I said. This power, it felt like it came from inside me, right? So I tried to get it OUTSIDE me. Or activate it. I couldn't tell you how I triggered it. Think of it like flexing a muscle in your wrist. Maybe I had a new muscle. I don't know the science behind it. But I, uh, activated my power."
"What happened then?"
"I activated it. And like I said, it's a barrier. Or a force field. Like something in the comics. It was strong. Too strong for me... I couldn't control it. A force field that pushes everything out from inside, to the outside... and it came from inside my palm." Bill lifted up his stump. "So, no more hand."
"Cut," said Rosco. I turned off my recorder. "Mike, check the audio, make sure we got all that."
"I've gotta use the bathroom real quick," said Cammy. She looked like she was about to vomit.
"Take your time," said Rosco to a Cammy that was halfway down the hall. "Bill, you're doing great so far. Keep it up. Remember, don't just respond to my questions. Give a long answer for each question. You've seen documentaries before, right? Just give answers like that."
"Okay," said Bill. "I think I can do that."
"Great," said Rosco. "This is gonna be fantastic." He craned his neck. "Feeling better, babe?"
Cammy stumbled out of the bathroom and wiped her mouth. "Yeah," she said. "It's just... It's a lot."
I spoke up. "If you're sick, I can —"
Cammy put her hand up. "I'm fine," she said. "Let's just keep going."
Rosco started again. "Okay. Quiet on set...! Roll sound?"
"Sound speeding."
"Roll camera?"
"Camera speeding."
"Mark it."
This is 'Secrets of Eastby,' scene one, take two."
"Okay, Bill. So tell us a little more about these superpowers."
"I don't really know if there's much more to say about them," he said.
"Can you give us a demonstration?"
Bill scoffed. "I'm not going to blow off my other hand, you know."
"You said it was too strong before," said Rosco. "Maybe you could... I don't know. Try to not have it be as strong this time?"
"What does that even mean?" asked Bill. "Like I said, it's like a sense. Can you control how much your eyes see? You can squint, sure, but that's just covering up your eyes. They still see the same amount, it's just that some of the information is darkness. Even when your eyes are closed, they still work. I think my power is the same."
"But you don't know for sure."
"I'm not risking my body for a demonstration," said Bill. "You've seen my arm. That's all the proof I'm willing to offer you."
"You mentioned that this happened after there was contamination in the water," said Rosco. "Tell me more about that."
"Oh, sure," said Bill. "Sometime in Autumn last year, there was a big explosion by one of the nuclear power plants near here. The government told us that everything was safe. Actually, they're still running the plant. We wouldn't have any power if they weren't..."
"The plant exploded?"
"That's what I heard," said Bill. "And the water took on some radiation, or something. But I don't understand how the plant is still active if that's the case. I think someone should do something about it."
"The water is still contaminated?" asked Rosco.
"Yes," said Bill. "But... I don't think it's radiation. I think the government — FBI, maybe. Department of Homeland Security. I think they did something to this town, and they want to keep it under wraps."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, like I said, I have this power," said Bill. "But I'm not the only one, you know. There are lots of people in Eastby that have... abilities. Most of them are curses, you know. I lost my hand. My power was a curse."
"You think something in the water is giving people superpowers?"
"Maybe," said Bill. "I don't know. I don't drink the water here, though. And none of you should, either. You could just die if you're not careful. You wouldn't be the first."
"You said something about a government cover-up," said Rosco. "Could you go into more detail?"
"I mean, you've seen this town," said Bill. "It's not normal. There are men in suits every other block. If you look for them, you can see white tents being set up or taken down all over town. Big black SUVs are everywhere. I think we're a big experiment, and they aren't letting us out."
"You think that this was intentional?" asked Rosco.
"I wouldn't say this was intentional, no," said Bill. "I think they were working on something out here, and something went wrong. And Eastby just got caught up in everything."
Rosco was processing a lot of information in his head. I could tell, too. All of this was a lot to take in, if any of it was true. I was still skeptical. I hadn't seen any of the white tents around that Bill had mentioned. Then again, we came late at night after dark and drove straight here. There was more to see in Eastby. Bill seemed like an honest guy, but he could be crazy, too. So far, nothing convinced me. Bill could have just been schizophrenic. The only wrinkle in all of this is the spotty cell service. Not being able to even so much as send an e-mail from anywhere in town was strange. "Okay, Bill, let's switch gears," said Rosco. "Tell me about your childhood."
Bill looked confused for a moment. "All right," he said. "I was born and raised here. Went to school right up the road. Went downstate to learn my father's trade, masonry. Been a mason ever since."
"Do you enjoy your work?"
"Can't do it anymore," said Bill. He pointed to his hand. "But, I'm pretty well taken care of now. We all are. We can't exactly have anything we want around here, but I've never been in dire need of anything."
"Who takes care of you?"
"The government," said Bill. "They want to keep us happy here. We're prisoners, you know."
Bill kept going back to this big government conspiracy. I was starting to think that maybe this whole thing was a red herring after all. "Bill, we came to you because we found data from a picture of your arm after it had been... exploded," said Rosco. "We've noticed that there's some sort of data lockdown around Eastby. How exactly did this picture get uploaded to the Internet?"
"I couldn't tell you," said Bill. "I took a picture of my arm, sure. Wanted to be able to show it to people later. Have some sort of record of it. But I didn't post it online. Figured there wouldn't be any point to that."
"Do you know who would've done something like that?" asked Rosco.
"I don't have a clue," said Bill. "Can I see the picture you're talking about?"
Rosco pulled out his phone and found the picture of Bill's bloody stump. Bill looked at it. "That's the picture," he said. "That's my bathroom."
"But you don't know who posted it," said Rosco.
"Can't say," said Bill. "Could've been some government agent tampering with my phone. Maybe some other stuff from other people got leaked out, too. No system is perfect."
"Cut," said Rosco. "Let's wrap up here."
"Did I do something wrong?" asked Bill.
"No, no," said Rosco. "You did great. But I just want to go over some things with my team, if that's okay. Hey, speaking of, do you know anyone else who got these... powers?"
"I know a few folks," said Bill.
"Could I get a list of their addresses, please?" asked Rosco. "You'd be doing me a huge favor. Bill, if what you're saying is true, we've hit the jackpot. You've hit the jackpot."
"I haven't hit anything unless you can get my hand back," said Bill. "I'm content here. Please... don't take what little bit of my hometown I have left away."
"That's not our goal," said Rosco. "We just want people to know. Know your story."
Bill smiled. "I'll see what I can do," he said.
Cammy and I packed up. We loaded up the back of Rosco's van with equipment. Cammy turned to me. "Do you think he's just crazy?" she asked.
"I think so," I said. "We can't trust everything he said blindly. Especially without any proof."
"You think that there are other people like him?" asked Cammy. "Because I do."
"I guess we'll have to wait and see," I said. "Maybe don't eat before we interview anyone else. Just in case."
Cammy rolled her eyes. "The way he described it made me uncomfortable, okay? Let's just move on."
We finished loading up the van in silence before meeting Rosco inside. "Thanks again for everything, Bill," said Rosco. "You've been a huge help to us. Really."
"Happy to be of help," said Bill. "You folks going to be in town for a while."
"We are," said Rosco. "A couple of weeks."
"I wasn't asking," said Bill. "Stay safe, kids." Bill closed his door and retreated back into his house. Rosco unfolded a piece of paper from his pocket. There were several names and addresses on it.
"Is that...?" I asked.
"This is our golden ticket," said Rosco. "If this list is correct, we've got a lot of work to do."
"We should get back to the motel, then," I said. "I want to review this footage."
"Sure," said Rosco. We got in the van and drove back to the motel. I got to my room, and Rosco and Cammy went to theirs. I'm sure they would have lots to talk about with each other. Among other things. I, on the other hand, wanted to work. I set up my laptop on the crappy motel table and opened my editing software. I had taken the hard drives and SD cards that Cammy had with her, so I would be able to pair it with the audio I had recorded. I organized my folders — not that there were many, since we only had two takes and one short interview to go over. The real trick would be getting B-roll to fill the spaces in between. I'm sure Rosco wanted to go back to Bill and interview him again at some point. With only one camera angle, there wouldn't be anything interesting to cut to. I was already bored looking at the relatively flat angle. It was staged well, sure, but this wouldn't play well anywhere on its own. It needed some pizazz. We had lots of time for that later, though. I did a little light color grading on the one shot we had and did a rough cut of it, trying to trim out any dead spaces or slow points. There wasn't much to do here, but I wanted to at least have something decent to show to Rosco tonight. The only thing left to do was mix the audio.
I found it easier to just master the audio in a different program, and then sync it up to the video portion later. It probably wasn't efficient, but using the camera audio was good enough for a rough cut. I took a moment to listen to the entire thing with my eyes closed. I tried to notice everything — all the little sounds. The fridge. The air conditioner. I noticed when cars passed by — having to re-record some of this was going to be a major pain. But if we wanted to look professional, and more importantly SOUND professional, it had to be done.
In between some of the lulls in dialogue, though, I heard voices. I wasn't paying attention on set, mostly because Bill's story had distracted me. But there were definitely voices here that weren't from any of the four of us in the room. They came from outside.
The voices were muffled. A shotgun mic isn't going to pick up high quality audio from anywhere. I tried to pick out the voices. I only found three sentences at various parts of the interview, but they were more chilling than anything Bill had said.
"We have visual."
"Filming... something."
"Yes, sir. I won't let them."
I could feel my heart beating faster in my chest. We had to go. This wasn't worth it, was it? Someone was watching us. Someone probably had a gun trained on us the entire time. Was someone watching me right now? I took a peek out the window of the motel. Everything looked normal. But was it? I didn't know anymore.
I thought about taking this information to Rosco. But... what would that accomplish? There was no talking him out of this. I was stuck here. Rosco was going to make his documentary, one way or another. I may have been rattled, but he didn't have to be. Besides, maybe it was nothing. Maybe I was the crazy one. I took a few deep breaths and tried to calm myself down.
I missed Janice. I didn't wish she was here, but I wished I was with her. I couldn't call her, or text her. She must be worried about me. I was worried about her, but there wasn't anything in my power that I could do for her. I had to focus. I had the headphones. If they try to take shots at us, I've got to be the one to tackle Rosco to the ground. Save his life.
I didn't have to tell Rosco anything now, but I figured I should tell him at some point. For now, I chose to let him revel in his little victory.
I didn't bother showing him the rough cut. I tried to knock on his door, but I just heard moaning. I'd show him the cut in the morning.
After turning all the lights off and going to bed, I realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I wasn't hungry. I tried my best to go to sleep, but I couldn't. I tossed and turned all night until eventually, the sun came up again. I took a quick shower and got my little continental breakfast, though this meal was a lot bigger than yesterday's. I anxiously waited for Rosco to show up. I pondered again if I should tell him what I heard. Maybe later.
For now, we had a documentary to work on.