Ghostwritten (2021) Movie Script
[tape running]
[tape clicks]
[low-pitched buzz]
[tense music]
[tape running]
[tape stops]
[tape rewinds]
[tape plays]
Well, you know what they say about
something that's too good to be true.
[tape rewinding]
I couldn't move.
I couldn't scream.
I don't believe in this stuff,
but I've been told it...
[man 1] Technically speaking, there
are three kinds of paranormal event.
I see how it can be a choice.
You know, to follow something,
to believe it, or reject it.
[static]
[narrator]
What's a story worth?
[music swells]
[music stops]
[instrumental music]
[tape playing]
[narrator]
One story.
[narrator]
Stories make sense of existence.
[typewriter dings, clacking]
[narrator]
So how valuable can a story be...
[keys clacking]
as an alternative?
- [woman 1 chuckles]
- [narrator] What about just one story?
[narrator] Or should we be
asking what that story can bring?
Esteem.
- Power.
- [door closes]
Respect.
How about one warm autumn day...
a hungry young writer
of modest success
was invited to leave
the distractions
and seductions of the city.
[woman 2 groans]
[narrator]
He was alone...
[woman 2 groans softly]
and he wasn't alone.
If he was looking
for a new voice...
he was assuredly successful.
- [woman 3 screams]
- [typewriter bangs, dings]
[music continues]
[narrator]
The song was different with Guy.
It wasn't one of betrayal. It was of
being all wrung out with nothing left.
A mouse in a web... drained.
Then it was as though
something else had taken over.
Something foreign but...
- familiar.
- [Mark] A sad young writer's in front of me.
He needs a pep talk.
Yeah, Marty,
take all the time you need.
- You know me.
- [woman 4] What's this regarding?
[Mark]
Ah, I'm sure it's tripled in value,
but I've been too busy
making you rich.
[phone ringing]
Yeah. I'll just have
to crash with you
next time I'm on the island.
Okay.
- [soft chuckle]
- Good.
[chuckles] Martin Cline.
- Martin Cline.
- [Mary] Remember you should
just buy a, a typewriter
when you're out there...
- [Guy scoffs]
- and that would round out your image. Right? The...
- [Guy] Right.
- [Mary] The only white man thing they seem to be
- saying these days...
- [Guy] Right. Maybe you should take your meds
so you could round out
your image here.
And also, pick up the phone
when they give it to you
'cause it's gonna be me.
You don't believe it,
but it is gonna be me,
and I'm not gonna be an Indian
- trying to steal your social.
- [Mary] That fucker tried to kill me.
- [Guy] No. No.
- [Mary] He hates me.
[Guy]
He tried to help you,
- and you hurt him.
- Who you gonna believe?
[Guy]
Him.
Okay. Okay.
- Okay.
- Can you just sleep here?
[siren wailing in distance]
[Guy]
Uh...
I can't because we did that
already, and I got ejected
because of the fucking
regulations, right?
[Guy]
And I can't be waiting tables
and then taking the advance
away, which we spent.
I wake up terrified every night,
and you're just gonna leave me here?
- [patient grunting]
- It's not an option, Mom.
Shut the fuck up, Jimmy!
[soft tense music]
Come, come here.
Come here. Come here.
What?
[Maurice]
How you doing there, Miss Laury?
[background chatter]
- I'm sorry.
- [Mary] What?
- Okay. Okay. Can we talk?
- [Maurice] Sure.
- [Guy] Thank you.
- Oh, right.
- We're just having a conversation, Mom.
- You don't need to walk away.
- You can do it here. What...
- We're gonna have one simple...
- you wanna handle me?
- Hey. Hey.
- Is that right?
- [Maurice] Miss Laury.
- Oh...
- Mom, we tried reasonable.
[mockingly] "Mommy, Mommy!
Remember when I was a baby, too?"
- Oh, no.
- [nurse 1] Oh, shit.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mary]
do not, do not, do not...
[Guy]
It's just, um,
like a room and board for free
for two months,
and no strings,
and, and just me...
finishing this book.
[clears throat]
- That's great.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
This is, like, um,
the last chance... [chuckles] ...for me.
- Yeah. When do you leave?
- [Mary] I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
- Uh, right now.
- [Mary] I'm fine. Oh.
Well, um, Accounting wanted
to see you before you leave.
- Something about invoices?
- Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. For sure.
[train whooshing]
[narrator]
Free at last.
[soft guitar music]
Another year or two like this,
he might have started
rethinking his goals.
- [podcaster] There's more than the webbed trap of fear...
- [pilot speaks muffled]
of repetition.
There's more than...
[narrator]
Homeless is a ridiculous word
for someone with a MacBook.
[podcaster]
There's more than your ambition,
- your dreams, desires.
- [pilot] Guy Laury?
[podcaster]
There's more to you
than your prerecorded story.
- [pilot] Guy Laury?
- Yeah.
Looks like
you're the next one up.
I'm sorry. I, uh...
- To the island, you're the next one up.
- Oh.
[keyboard clacking]
[Guy]
Right. Great.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] Homeless is a ridiculous
word for someone with a MacBook.
But right before I met him, Guy's
last couch in the city had decidedly...
- [Guy] Um...
- worn out its welcome.
it's just you and me?
[pilot]
This fun little guy, right?
You comin'?
[narrator]
Eight years since his breakout success.
A thinly-veiled autobiographical
account of his odd childhood.
[airplane droning]
By this point,
the money had run its course,
and he was nearing rock bottom.
"Rock bottom"... he thought.
[dramatic music continues]
[narrator]
And all he needed now...
was to birth
what he'd always known was deep inside him.
[Julie] Oddly enough, Homeric
poetry had a word for this... thing
in our body that pulls us
towards the heavens.
It was their word for ghost.
The gods
were less torn than man,
pulled between knowledge
and the visceral denial of it.
For example, Melpomene,
the muse of tragic poetry,
was also mother of the sirens
whose songs would lure sailors
to their deaths
on the jagged rocks.
[indistinct radio chatter]
You know any trails?
- [driver] What?
- [Guy] Hiking, running.
- [driver] Little cold out.
- [Guy] Oh, I got gear.
[driver] An owl ripped the scalp right off
a tourist last year. Nature hike, they said.
[Julie] The immortals couldn't relate
to these kinds of stakes in any reality.
There'd never be a place
where they could fear pain
or labor or murderous incest.
[Mark]
Martin Cline. Martin Cline.
- [driver] He lives here.
- [Guy] Martin Cline?
- [driver] Yeah. Not far from you.
- [Guy] Fucking Martin Cline.
[Julie] Now that being said,
the petty gods of antiquity,
while vain, deceitful
and cruel toward man,
would celebrate his existence,
for they were cursed to an eternal leisure
whose only solace
was in imagining
what it must be like to fear a
mugging, or a car crash, or death.
[car door opens]
[Guy]
You mind holding up for a second?
I wanna make sure that the key
is where they said it was.
- [driver] Sure.
- [Guy] Great. Thank you.
[dramatic music]
Hey!
Really?
[door opens]
[sinister music]
[switch clicks]
Great.
- Great.
- [dings]
Great.
- [switcher clicks]
- [door hinge creaking]
Oh.
- Why?
- [door creaks, slams]
[intense music]
[suspenseful music]
[heavy breathing]
[ticking]
[eerie music]
Okay.
Mm-mm.
[softly] Okay, here we go.
[raps on table]
[wind blowing]
[floorboard creaks]
[crockery clatters]
[kettle whistling]
[stove knob turns off]
[Guy sighs]
[soft suspenseful music]
[narrator]
Free at last...
and all he needed now...
or never...
was divine imagination.
Just beyond reach for...
How long had it been?
[podcaster]
Big news is that there is more.
There's more than the lens
through which you see the world.
There's more
than your perspective.
There's more than your ambition,
your dreams, desires.
There's more to you
than everything you've ever
thought, said, or done.
There's more to you
than your personal story.
[suspenseful music]
[man 1 on TV] Well, I mean, that
is a lot less terrifying than the logic,
which is that
it's all just chaos,
and there's no meaning
at all, right?
And technically speaking,
there is these demonic,
which is a nonhuman,
haunting immortal.
There is the human intelligent,
which is a dead person...
[sinister music]
[cell phone ringing]
[automated voice]
You have four new messages.
- First message.
- [Maurice] Hi, Guy.
Um, it's Maurice at Hudson Care.
- No.
Listen, I can get you
a number for a public ward.
It's really not as bad as you think.
- No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Now once you figure out that stuff...
- No.
with our accounting office and those, uh...
- Fuck.
- unpaid invoices.
- Fuck!
Listen, I'm sorry for your
situation, but we're not a shelter.
- All right.
- [low battery alert]
[low battery alert]
[soft music playing]
[narrator]
Where do you go just now?
[easy listening music]
[background chatter]
[narrator]
Eight years since Lost Child...
[pool balls crashing]
nothing left.
Hey.
Hi.
Hi.
- Uh, what, wait.
- I brought you here.
- Um...
- On the puddle jumper.
- Yeah.
- You were a little bitch about it.
- [chuckles] Yeah.
- Yeah.
[both laugh]
- Uh...
- Can I get you something?
Yeah. Whiskey?
Doesn't matter. I'm easy.
Uh-huh.
[pilot raps table]
We'll see about that.
[laughter]
Lucy, could we have
some more quarters, please?
[Lucy]
Yeah, you got it.
[closes drawer]
Here.
[Guy]
Lucy.
- What's your last name?
- It's kind of surreal, right?
The island.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's one way to put it.
[Lucy chuckles]
- [Lucy] So what brings you?
- I thought you brought me here.
- Wow.
- [Guy] Um...
- [chuckles]
- Um... just, uh, residency.
[Lucy]
What, are you a surgeon?
- Writer.
- You don't say.
I never would have guessed it.
Not in a million years.
- [chuckles]
- Is it the glasses?
[Lucy] Demeanor. White
guy and a typewriter, right?
So are you looking for a story?
Well...
drink up, Guy.
Drink up.
[eerie music]
Um, I'm gonna...
I'm gonna take a rain check.
- What's the damage?
- [Lucy] I don't want your money, baby.
[Guy]
Really?
Well, thank you.
Um...
I'll, um, see you later.
[Lucy as narrator]
"Get back to the house...
"...write a masterpiece,"
he thought.
[podcaster]
pod content to you every day.
You can learn more about
the all-terrain cross trainer
by clicking on the link
at the bottom right of your smartphone.
To upgrade to nonstop
premium pod content,
click "improve"
on the top left of your screen.
[low groan]
[low groan]
[muffled distant chatter]
[eerie music]
[Guy]
Someone here?
[Lucy as narrator]
I need you.
There was a time
when he needed to write.
Where'd that time go?
- [phone beeps]
- [automated voice] First message.
[Susan]
Hi, Guy. It's Susan at Brooks Publishing.
I hope that
you're enjoying the house.
Please give me a call
when you can.
I'd like to see
what progress you've made
and where we're at.
Talk soon.
[Lucy as narrator]
He'd come in search of direction.
If he was looking
for a new voice...
- he was assuredly successful.
- [eerie scream]
[podcaster] ...obsolete, discarded
based on your gender and race alone.
My goodness,
how novel that must be for you.
[orchestral music playing]
Hmm.
[low groan]
[eerie music]
[low groan]
[orchestral music playing]
[rattling]
What...
[operatic song playing]
[light flickers on]
[radio turns on]
[woman 5 speaking on radio]
[woman 5 stops speaking]
- [floorboard creaks, breaks]
- [grunts]
[grunts] Shit!
[chatter on radio continues]
[operatic song
continues playing]
[groans]
Ah, Jesus.
[suspenseful music]
[grunting]
[straining]
[exhales]
[breathing heavily]
[suspenseful music continues]
Hello.
[operatic song
continues playing]
[low groan]
[radio tuning]
- [woman 5 on radio] Credit points...
- [man 2 on radio] ...tricks...
They usually wanna be mistaken for
the death, but they were never really...
[woman on radio]
Eight years since his breakout success.
- [radio static]
- [man 2 speaking indistinctly]
[woman on radio]
Free at last, and all he needed now, now...
- [radio static]
- [man 2 speaking indistinctly]
birth what
he'd always known...
- [radio static]
- [man 2 speaking indistinctly]
inside him. Eight years
since his breakout success.
Are you speaking
of divine imagination
that had eluded him
just beyond reach?
[echoes]
Just beyond reach. Just beyond reach.
How long has it been...
[turns off radio]
[thud]
[wind blowing]
[heavy thud]
[heavy thud]
[woman 6 speaking in distance]
Hello?
- [thud]
- [woman 7] I need you.
[heavy thud]
[woman 7]
I need you.
[gasps]
[birds calling]
[Lucy as narrator]
I need you.
[motor revving]
He really didn't get that
very often. Even from Mary.
[birds squawking]
[tape stops]
[Julie]
Morning.
Jules, I'm trying
to log a guest,
and it's coming up
as a new book.
- "Laury."
- [Julie] Laury.
He's upstairs.
- [Julie] Guy Laury is?
- [librarian] Yeah.
That's his name. The cardholder.
Why?
You know, he was asking
about the ghost tours,
but he did not have
the kid with him.
[keyboard clacking]
- [Julie] Hi, Laury.
- Yes?
[Julie]
Hi.
- [Guy] Uh, hi.
- I'm, uh, Julie Coffin.
- I'm an administrator of the library.
- Oh, okay. Uh, nice to meet you.
[Julie]
I just wanted to welcome you.
I haven't had a chance
to read Lost Child
because all of our copies
are, um, in pretty high demand.
Oh. Thank you for saying that.
[soft music]
I hear that you're researching
something pretty specific today.
Oh, uh, more, more,
more just curious,
um, about a ghost folklore.
Um, I understand
it's popular, and, um,
I, I just... I was wondering why.
- [chuckles]
- Um, well,
I'm sure that Sue told you
that most of the literature
we have on that subject is...
in the Young Adult section.
Right. Yeah.
Hey, but I would be, um,
happy to provide some insight
if you would like a tour.
- I don't wanna take you away from anything.
- Uh, no, no, not at all. Um...
it's a very slow day.
[loudly] It's a very slow day.
- I can say it loud. There's no one here.
- [both laugh]
[woman 8] The vanquished demon
turned into serpents and swam to sea.
[Julie] A widow's walk. You
see these railings up here?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Um, a widow's walk was a deck above every household,
where, uh, captains
and sailors' wives would wait
till their husbands'
expected return.
- Ah.
- They would have to set sail to the other side of the world.
And so a person wouldn't know
when to stop pacing up here.
And then
hundreds of years later,
vacationers swear that they wake
to the sound of footsteps overhead.
Pacing back and forth,
just waiting.
You know, um, I'm a liar.
Uh, I didn't wanna gush.
I, I loved your book.
Oh.
Uh...
Can I ask you, uh...
Uh, can I ask
what you're wearing?
Oh. Um, uh, I'm a trail runner.
- [Julie] Oh.
- Uh, yeah.
That's all I really care about.
[Lucy as narrator] He didn't love
getting asked about his shithead dad
and crazy mom,
but he had exploited it,
true or not.
"What a stupid thing to say,"
he thought.
Who or what could need him
for anything?
which is a dead person
that needs something from a living person.
as they're not just echoes
on repeat, you know, reliving some trauma,
more probable than,
like, a demonic hunting or a poltergeist,
uh, which were never
really human to begin with.
[Lucy as narrator]
All I really care about resonated
from somewhere deep inside
but unwanted, out of body,
foreign but familiar.
He'd made a promise, an oath, and yet his
childhood pledge to her did not in any way
mention the meditation
of long-distance running.
But saying it out loud was like the
briefest break in the most vivid dream.
Like he wasn't even
typing at his desk.
He was lying in bed,
counting down the days
to when Mary was gone, and he
was just dangling spider's prey,
fading to nothing.
A one-hit writer
who, gun to his head,
just wasn't feeling it
- right now.
- [screams]
[cell phone ringing]
- [Lucy as narrator] The phone's ringing.
- [door slams open]
[sinister music]
[eerie wail]
[Guy screams]
[door slams]
[breathing heavily]
[cell phone continues ringing]
[floorboard creaks]
[suspenseful music]
[cell phone continues ringing]
[Guy]
Mom?
[Guy muttering]
I'm at home... I'm with you, even if...
[Mary speaks inaudibly]
[Lucy as narrator] He wasn't a baby. He
knew what was real and what was made up.
He had two months until he was
contractually obliged to hand over a book.
That was definitely real.
His dream...
[cell phone ringing]
his childhood promise
to not only become a great writer
but a good man,
protecting his mom no matter what...
[Maurice]
Hi, Guy? It's Maurice at Hudson...
- [beeps]
- [automated voice] Message erased.
[Lucy as narrator]
that was real.
[faint screaming]
[suspenseful music continues]
[Lucy as narrator]
Last chance before he's sued by Brooks.
[man 3]
No!
[Lucy as narrator] Waiting tables,
pumping gas, cleaning houses.
[faint screaming]
After every opportunity...
- to find something.
- [Susan] Guy, it's Susan
at Brooks Publishing again.
I wanna see where you're at,
and we can take it from there.
This, this is the fourth time
I'm calling.
[Lucy as narrator] In a seemingly literal
attempt to outrun his problems that day,
Guy's dreams
crept over into reality
when he saw that foreign red car
and nearly got his head blown off.
- [gunshot]
- [grunts]
- [Martin] You okay?
He broke his mom's
favorite sunglasses.
- [Martin] You okay?
- Blinded with red rage, Guy
- threw Marty's gun at a tree.
- [Martin] Thought you were a duck.
- [gunshot]
- [Lucy as narrator] ...Martin Cline,
- famous writer Martin Cline.
- [screams]
By some divine providence,
it was a minor graze.
[Martin chuckles]
Of course I'm gonna shoot
the first writer
I see around here.
Yeah, I, I know Lost Child.
The softback just got to the
library a couple of months ago.
I was just talking about it
with a friend last week.
That's so funny.
Ah.
Look at that.
Fire it again,
it'd take your jaw right off.
Jesus.
- Mmm. [sniffs]
- Yeah.
Lost Child...
it's a little young.
[soft music]
You're... too kind.
[clears throat]
I said I liked it. What the hell
do you want from me?
It's your first book, isn't it?
- Yes, it is. [clears throat]
- Well that's great, man.
That's great.
First one's
almost as hard as the second.
- [glasses clink]
- [Guy] Mmm.
[Martin]
Hmm?
Uh, yeah,
um, but after this one,
I should get back to work.
[clears throat]
When I stop, I stop for the day.
But when I was your age,
I was terrified if I ever did,
it'd be for good.
- Yeah, I know that feeling.
- I'm sure you do.
Is this all right?
Uh, yeah, that's great.
Thank you.
- Great.
- [Guy clears throat]
How long you been here?
Uh, forever. [chuckles]
I came for a retreat
a million years ago, and I never left.
- [Guy] That good, huh?
- [Martin] Well, you could say that.
If I'd stayed in the city,
I never would have got sick
of drinking wine
and chasing girls.
[Guy]
That stopped when you got here?
Yeah.
[eerie music]
[Lucy as narrator]
There was that dj vu again.
Like something
was about to happen.
- I'm sorry. What?
- I didn't say anything.
- Thank you.
- [glasses clink]
Well, my advice to you
would be to get away
from paradise on the sooner side.
It can be a source
of great inspiration,
but at a sizable cost.
You get the solitude
to focus within, but...
there's not a lot else
to look at.
I mean, there's the view,
the town.
The last guy with a fresh
perspective here was Melville.
- [chuckles] Right?
- Right.
Um, right now
I gotta knock this out
or else I'm gonna be...
[inhales] stuck.
Oh.
So...
Guy...
do you mind if I ask you
a personal question?
I only ask because
you're either pretty tough
or pretty imaginative.
Lost Child...
fact or fiction?
[man 4] A gift from the gods...
[continues speaking inaudibly]
[Julie]
His mortal lover, the Goddess Aurora,
placed his undying body
in a room and sealed the door,
where he faded
to nothing but a voice
that cried to be freed
from its eternal pledge.
"Please," it said. "Please,
please, please, please."
- [Martin] I don't know this one.
- That, of course, is from island local
- Martin Cline's first novel, Book of Generations.
- No?
[indistinct chatter on radio]
- [changes channel]
- [man 1] ...three kinds of paranormal events.
There is the demonic,
which is a nonhuman...
There you go.
Right up here on the right. About 100 feet.
human intelligent,
which is a dead person...
[soft suspenseful music]
[indistinct chatter on radio]
[unfastens seat belt]
[indistinct chatter on radio]
- [Guy] Thanks for the ride.
- Don't mention it.
The wolves come out
this time of night.
- Sorry I almost took your head off.
- You too.
Hey, tell Mark I said "hi" and
"thanks" next time you talk to him.
What do you mean?
Mark Brooks.
You know, the publisher.
Your publisher, right? I...
He set me up
with this place to stay here.
- Oh.
- He said you talk every day.
Uh, I'm sorry. I thought you
knew I was here with the residency.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Well, no need to say "hi."
It's just an expression. Um...
Well, good night.
[Martin]
Good night.
[radio static]
[suspenseful music]
[car engine revving]
[Guy]
Hey, Susan. Guy.
Um, just, uh, sorry
we keep missing each other.
It's just been a crazy,
productive, uh, couple of days.
And, um, also,
um, call me any time.
[gentle music playing]
Uh, phone service
is a nightmare here,
but, um, would love to catch up.
And, um, yeah,
look forward to talkin'.
- Okay. Bye-bye.
- [Mary] Baby, is that you?
- How long are we...
- [automated voice] Next message.
[Susan]
What's happening? [stutters] Is that...
[phone beeps]
[automated voice]
Message erased.
[water running]
[sinister music]
Oh, damn.
[Lucy as narrator]
Imaginative.
I don't understand
why you can't.
[Lucy as narrator]
Lost Child...
[floorboard creaking]
a story.
- A new story and he'd be free.
- [door creaks open]
He'd be free from Guy Laury.
- [woman 10 screams]
- [planks thudding]
[turns off tap]
[sinister music]
[softly] Hello?
[indistinct chatter on radio]
[cell phone ringing]
[footsteps approaching]
[cell phone continues ringing]
[light turns on]
[floorboard upstairs creaks]
[cell phone ringing]
Hello?
[cell phone continues ringing]
[indistinct chatter on radio]
[woman 11]
Wake up.
Wake up now.
Wake up before...
[cell phone continues ringing]
[eerie music]
[faint song playing]
[distant creak]
- [door slams]
- [Guy grunts]
[dramatic music]
[chuckles nervously]
No bar.
Oh, my...
[engine revving]
- Oh!
- [thud]
[tires screech]
[indistinct podcast playing]
There's more
than your externalized demons and villains.
There's more to you
than your personal story...
[engine revving]
[tire screeches]
[Guy speaking inaudibly]
I need some air with my crazy
mom and her haunted house.
Yeah, no, we're not...
not her house.
We don't have a house.
[chuckles]
No, no.
What's the word for that again?
[faint laughter]
- [Lucy] Well?
- You're not flying tonight.
- [Lucy] Sure I am.
- [Guy sighs]
Are you ready
for that whiskey yet?
- What's going on?
- How do you mean?
You know what I mean.
It's not just you.
So, how's the writing going?
You're not sure?
Might be onto something.
[background laughter]
Maybe you should
open yourself up to it...
fully.
[upbeat music playing]
[Guy]
Mmm.
[car driving by]
[exhales]
[suspenseful music]
[gasps]
[Guy gasping]
[gasps]
[exhales heavily]
Oh. Oh. Oh.
- [background laughter]
- [exhaling heavily]
[upbeat music playing]
[laughter]
[car drives by]
So what's going on
at the Madequecham residence?
What, is it haunted or something?
- [man 5] Yes.
Yes, it is.
- [Lucy laughs]
- I didn't ask you.
Look, I wouldn't overthink it,
when every other guy
on this island has some story
about disturbances
or unfinished business.
I mean, these guys
aren't big children.
Half of them went to college,
and yet all of them would swear
that they woke up
in the middle of the night
and they saw
a see-through person
standing in their doorway
asking for something.
Something they felt
cheated out of.
But, hell, you'd give anything
to believe it, wouldn't you?
- What?
- That there's more.
[Jeff]
There she is. There's my sweetheart.
Or it's just symbolism.
Can't escape your past.
- Jeff, the cigarette.
- I got enough people pushing me around,
thank you very much.
[Lucy]
Get the fuck off me, Jeff.
Let go! Let go! Let go!
Let go! Let go! Let go! Let go!
- You're kidding me.
- [bangs]
[Lucy grunts]
[suspenseful music]
[Jeff imitates a ghost]
Who's this guy?
Is he your new boyfriend?
He looks gay.
You're a clich right now.
[Jeff]
Show you a clich.
[dramatic suspenseful music]
- Done with that?
- Huh?
[background buzzing]
Nice.
- [Guy grunts]
- [glass shatters]
- [thud]
- [retching]
[coughing]
[Lucy]
That was a funny kinda stubborn.
[grunts] Sorry.
I don't know why I did that.
[sighs, breathing heavily]
[dramatic tense music]
[wood creaking]
[thudding]
[bottle shatters]
Get out of my fucking face!
- [groans]
- [thud]
[Lucy as narrator]
Just a story.
[echoes]
Just a story. Just a story.
One warm autumn day
some time ago...
[echoes]
Just a story. Just a story.
a hungry young writer
was invited to leave
the distractions
and seductions of the city.
[echoes]
Just a story. Just a story.
[whimsical tense music]
[echoes]
Just a story.
He wasn't alone.
[echoing]
Just a story.
Over the course of their season
under the same roof, though...
[imperceptible]
they became collaborators.
[echoing]
Just a story. Just a story.
But who wants to share a name?
[echoing] Just a story.
[Martin]
Jesus, Mark. She just fell just now.
I, I don't, I don't know
if she destroyed it or...
She thought that I'd just
let her leave with everything
we made together
and she'd leave me with...
Mark, she was gonna
take it all away.
[woman 11]
It's mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!
[typewriter bangs, dings]
[Lucy as narrator]
What's a story worth...
[man 6 speaking indistinctly]
as an alternative to truth?
[Mark] His style changed dramatically
after we worked through that.
[Lucy as narrator] Would the greatest
story ever told be worth one life?
You think about it.
You think about it.
[Lucy as narrator]
But what about just one story?
You can have it, Guy.
[in voice-over]
But you gotta earn it.
[echoing]
Just a story. Just a story.
Just a story. Just a story.
[gasps, screaming]
[soft tense music]
[man 7]
Where'd he take you?
Baby, I neeeed...
[Guy]
Ow! Ow!
you!
[bird squawking]
Baby, please don't leave me!
[rising tense music]
- [Guy grunts]
- [man 7 continues shouting]
- [indistinct shouting]
- [Guy grunts]
[grunting]
[panting]
[message alert]
[message alert]
[message alert]
[dramatic tense music]
Mmm.
[tense music]
[keyboard clacks]
[light turns on]
[sinister music]
[light turns on and off]
Didn't wanna do that!
[dramatic music]
Marty?
[podcaster]
The good news is that there's more.
There's more
than your perspective.
There's more than your ambition,
your dreams, your desires.
There's more to you
than what you want.
There's more to you...
[indistinct podcast audio]
[static]
[knock on door]
- [woman 10] Oh, hey, killer, um...
- Hi. Hey.
we're actually not opening
for, like, another half hour,
- so come back later.
- Okay. Is Lucy here?
I'm not gonna be open
for another 30 minutes.
But you can jog a couple laps
around the block if you want.
I'm...
There are other bars
on this island, Guy. You know that, right?
[Susan] Well, I can't say
I've ever been woken to the first half
of a manuscript in the body of an email.
- I know.
- I don't know how it happened.
- But I've been up with it ever since,
- and I'm impressed.
- [honks]
Departure from Lost Child,
but still has your voice.
- How do you mean?
- [Susan] Honey, I'm not here to fluff you up.
It's no secret that I've been
having my doubts about you,
but I gotta say
I'm very pleasantly surprised to be wrong.
[Guy]
Listen, I'm sorry.
- [Susan] Are you still there?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Listen, I wanna get back to reading this.
- Uh, um, Susan...
- And Guy...
congratulations.
This is really something.
[dramatic music]
[imperceptible]
[Julie]
So there was rumor of...
witches worshipping
goddesses.
But that'll happen any time a Quaker spinster
declines a... [in heavy accent] a rape.
- [Guy laughs, coughs]
- Um...
- So no, thank you. Shh, shh.
- Sorry. Sorry.
You know, in the, in the 1840s,
whale oil was obsolete.
- Hmm.
- Right? So they're just stuck.
- They missed the boat...
- Yes.
- to the Industrial Age, so to speak.
- Yeah, ghost-town.
Ghost-town, boom-town.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- [Guy] Yeah.
- A newly-born culture
that dies because it can't
rethink its livelihood.
If it's literal ghosts
that you're interested in,
we actually have interviews
with, um...
you know, I, I guess that
you would call them witnesses.
No. No. [chuckles]
Don't get too excited
because it's actually
exactly the people
that you think it would be.
- It's bonkers. Um, but...
- Uh, I don't mind.
I do have something,
uh, you might like,
which is, um, the neighborhood
where you're staying.
Oh, M... Madequecham,
the residency? Yeah.
Well, I was actually talking
about the original inhabitants.
- The residency that's, say, a tax loophole.
- [Lucy] Guy.
- Oh, right.
- [echoes] Guy.
- [Julie speaking indistinctly]
- [Lucy] Guy. Guy.
That's Martin Cline,
so that's something.
- [Lucy] Martin Cline. Guy.
- I'm sorry.
Um, I missed,
I missed that part.
- [Lucy] Martin Cline.
- [gasps] Oh, shit.
I'll stop you...
I, I'm gonna be late
for my lecture
at the high school.
- [Lucy] Martin Cline.
- Um, what's... Sorry.
- Uh, I give, um, lectures at the high school.
- Uh-huh.
And I just realized I'm not
gonna be able to get a coffee.
Uh, feel free to check
anything out that you like.
- Sue will help you out.
- Okay.
[footsteps receding]
[whimsical tense music]
And technically speaking,
there are three kinds of paranormal events.
There is the demonic,
which is a nonhuman, haunting immortal.
There is the human intelligent,
which is a dead person that needs something
- from a living person.
- [Lucy as narrator] He knew what happened.
- [woman 11] I couldn't scream.
- Guess I knew it. It hadn't...
No, no... for dominance,
like a nonhuman
or demonic haunting.
All I wanted
was just acknowledgment.
And the attacks stopped.
And Barbara's toys started
to show up all over the place.
New ones too.
I would have done a whole lot
more for that nightmare to stop.
[Lucy as narrator] As far as Guy
could see, there were two options.
He was being contacted
from beyond a shallow grave...
or he'd lost his mind
without knowing it.
Which gave no explanation
for where that book came from
and if he truly found it
by accident.
- [cell phone ringing]
- He didn't have to answer the call.
- It wasn't his problem.
- I see how it can be a choice.
- You know, to follow something, to believe it...
- [Julie] Now, he is probably
screwed no matter what.
But now, he has a choice.
Our hero can cling
to the sinking raft,
knowing exactly
where it'll take him,
or he can follow
Athena's advice,
abandoning every comfort
and swimming blindly
- into the darkness.
- [Guy] I just need the contact information
for a maximum-care facility,
'cause I can't...
[Maurice] Of course, I can get
you the number for a public ward...
[Guy] No, no, no, no. Like,
if, if money were not an issue.
[Julie] And if he never looks
back, he might have a chance
of eventually making it
home again, right?
But any deal that we make
with the gods
is inevitably Faustian.
We can kid ourselves,
but no one escapes death
or taxes.
It's a path
that's always traveled alone.
There were some cases, too,
where a soul gets stuck.
You know, why do the, uh...
uh, why, why do the murdered
and the unburied
haunt us in living world?
Is it, uh,
we, we won't let them go?
Yes.
- [bell rings]
- Economics, culture.
This isn't just
the death of a person.
It could be the death
of a dream.
Retribution, it will somehow
solve the problem.
Or by skirting it altogether,
we will somehow be able
to keep this thing with us.
- [bell rings]
- My point is that the Greeks understood ghosts
and gods exist
because of our need for death.
Objectively speaking, of course.
- [Guy] Y... Oh, yeah. Of course.
- Yeah.
- I am a white man with a typewriter.
- Mmm.
- I speak objectively.
- I... No, I told you.
- It's exactly the kind of people you'd expect.
- [Guy laughs]
Gods, demons. I guess
I didn't expect to stumble
on something so biblical.
- [Julie] Well, you were pulled in head first.
- Mmm.
[chuckles]
You know,
the, um, the seclusion,
I don't know, it works for me.
I, um, just keep myself busy.
- Work more than one job.
- Mmm.
When did you move here?
I'm from here, actually.
Coffin is one of the original
names on the island.
Oh, yeah, I heard that.
Why'd you stick around?
Was it classics? Mmm.
No, um...
History? Folklore?
So, uh...
was it something you saw...
or something you heard?
[soft flute music]
[imperceptible]
Um, maybe something, uh, I did.
[silence]
[Guy]
C... I do, uh...
[exhales]
I do see things.
That's true. From the book?
Um, yeah. Um... [stutters]
Yeah, that part.
Was there something new
about this thing?
[Guy]
Mm...
[sighs] Okay.
It's something that...
Usually, they try to eat me.
Mm? And, uh, this one...
it just seemed like
it needed me for something.
Needed you for something good?
- [sinister music]
- [typewriter banging, dinging]
[wind whooshing]
[Lucy as narrator]
Martin Cline.
[dramatic music]
Martin Cline.
[thunder rumbling]
Martin Cline.
I need you, Guy.
[Lucy as narrator]
I need you to set me free.
[Lucy as narrator]
There were no missing persons.
It didn't add up.
Maybe Marty had no idea
what Guy had found.
Maybe that was someone else who
tried to hit him with their car that night.
[thunder rumbling]
[Martin]
I don't wanna leave.
[birds calling]
[Lucy as narrator] Maybe he killed
someone over a goddamn book.
Maybe...
someone needed him...
to make things right.
[engine running]
[dramatic tense music]
[trunk closes]
- [door closes]
- [music stops]
[wind whooshing]
[footsteps]
[suspenseful tone]
[Guy]
Hmm.
[typewriter whirring]
[keys clacking]
[Mary] I'm fine. I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.
- [woman 3 screams]
- [typewriter bangs, dings]
[dramatic tense music]
[breathing heavily]
[Martin]
Look at that.
Fire it again,
it'd take your jaw right off.
[banging]
[panting]
[Lucy as narrator]
It's yours.
You wrote it.
You're a good guy.
Guy...
you're a good guy.
How long have you been
interviewing people?
[Julie on tape]
Just a couple years back.
[Julie]
Thank you.
[Julie on tape]
What could a human haunting need?
[man 1]
I mean, if the dead could want for things,
they'd see a futility
in demanding,
what, revenge, a claim.
I imagine that they'd forget
about that stuff.
And you teach mythology, right?
- [Julie on tape] Yep.
- At the high school. Right, like...
So the people
in the River Styx...
they realize
that everything is...
temporary.
So...
[Susan] Well, normally, we
come back with quite a few notes,
but if we move on this
on the sooner side,
we won't make Christmas
but for sure MLK.
- [Guy] Maybe we'll shoot the next one for Christmas.
- [laughs]
Who are you and what have
you done with my deadbeat client?
Uh, one second.
Uh, Mark wants to say hi
and confirm the second advance.
It's gonna be
a really exciting year for us.
- I can feel it.
- Me too, Susan. Talk soon.
- [Mark] Susan?
- Uh, Mark, it's Guy.
- Uh, Susan connected us.
- Who's this?
It's Guy Laury.
Guy. How the hell are you?
I'm good, man. I'm good.
Um, oh, this trip
has been a blessing.
I can't thank you enough.
I got a place there.
Yeah, I know.
Uh, that's where I am right now.
Yeah, well, where are
you staying? Yeah, you know,
- the hostels in town, they're like bed and breakfast.
- I'm, I...
- I'm at your house, Mark.
- What's that?
I... Mark, the, the residency.
I, I'm at your family's estate
right now.
Susan?
- Susan!
- Uh, h... hey, Mark.
- [line disconnects]
- [cell phone ringing]
Madequecham residence.
This is Guy. May I help you?
[Julie] Get over yourself. Uh,
what kind of wine do you like?
Um, uh, nothing too sweet.
Bone dry. Need anything else?
Uh, no.
- Okay. I'll see you soon.
- Okay. Bye.
[operatic song playing on radio]
[doorbell rings]
[Guy]
That some kind of joke?
- Hey.
- Hey.
Uh...
were we just talking?
No.
Um, sorry
for popping in like this, but...
I can't tell you
how embarrassed I was
that you saw me that way
the other day.
Oh, that's okay.
- [clears throat]
- Really?
- Mm-hmm.
- Well, anyway, I brought you this.
Oh, you didn't have
to do that, man.
You making dinner?
[opens door]
Uh, yes,
someone's coming over in a bit.
Oh, that's nice.
Kitchen's upstairs.
[ominous music]
[pleasant music
playing on radio]
[Martin]
Oh, you found the best station.
Not a ton of choices.
[clears throat]
- Would you like a glass?
- Thanks.
[cell phone ringing]
- Hello?
- Guy, I'm so sorry about Mark.
- I hope he didn't offend you.
- [Mark] I'm working from home.
[Guy]
Oh, no, um, not at all. Was he,
was he not the one who, who, pushed for this?
- No, of course,
He's just been a little forgetful
since he got back from vacation.
- [Mark] I'm working from home.
- But we're dealing with it.
- [Mark] Get that guy out of my house.
- Well, I've been there, Susan.
- I understand.
- [Susan] I just don't want it to devalue the faith
we all have in this book.
I mean, there's no telling
- what the reception will be, but we've got a good feeling...
- [Guy mouths]
and we're gonna push it hard,
including Mark.
Well, that is fantastic.
Okay. Uh, call
if you have any questions,
but we'll probably
call you first.
[Guy chuckles]
Okay. Bye-bye.
[Susan]
Bye-bye.
You work with Susan
much over there?
[operatic song continues
playing on radio]
[ominous music]
What are you doing?
I was just gonna
make some crudits.
Would you like some?
Uh, sounds nice, actually.
Thank you.
[song continues playing]
[tense background music]
[scoffs]
Why didn't you ever use it?
Were you saving it
for a rainy day, or...
or was she the one
who hid it before she...
fell?
She...
She made me.
I'm gonna go down.
[mumbles]
[Lucy as narrator]
What are you waiting for?
[typewriter clacking]
[door closes]
[soft music]
[Guy]
Hey, lady-killer!
[glass shatters]
What, are you gonna
come back later?
[Lucy as narrator]
Get him.
Get him.
- Maybe you should call the cops!
- [glass shatters]
- [car starts]
- I mean, you were gonna steal it first, right?
Did you write any of it?
Or did you just watch?
- [Lucy as narrator] He'll be back.
- [Guy] Okay. See you soon then!
[singer vocalizing]
[Lucy as narrator]
In a matter of seconds,
Guy saw his life
fall into place.
Everything he'd ever wanted.
Marty just admitted
to everything
it's needed to go for years.
He was practically a hero.
It fits.
And the next time
Marty fires that gun,
it'll blow up in his face.
[wind whooshing]
Um...
[Lucy as narrator]
Don't do it.
So, um...
Martin Cline.
Was it something he said...
or something he did?
- It...
- [Lucy as narrator] Don't do it. Shut up.
- He did it.
- What?
It's something that he did.
What?
What?
[soft tense music]
- Do you know him? [stutters]
- I, I don't have any idea
- how he wrote those fucking books.
- Books?
- Books!
- The interactions that I've had with him
amount to knowing him,
I, I don't know how he...
[dramatic tense music]
Julie, I didn't write this.
- [Guy] She wrote it.
- [Julie] Who?
- [pilot] Guy Laury?
- [Guy] A woman who was killed.
- Who was killed, Guy?
- Looks like you're the next one up.
- [Guy] From the residency.
- [Julie] Residency?
Guy, I told you,
you just crashed here alone.
- [typewriter clacking]
- There's no residency.
[Lucy as narrator]
Well... that's not fair.
He wasn't... alone.
[keys clacking]
Guy, who is she?
- Tell me, who is she?
- [Lucy as narrator] Saving a dead girl,
or it's all in your head?
Were those the only two options?
I forget.
[breathing heavily]
[Lucy as narrator]
For a moment...
he was more creative
than he'd ever dreamed.
Then he remembered
the dream girl was in Marty's head too.
And just how fantastic
my new book is.
- [man 1] There is the demonic...
- [Julie] Guy?
which is a nonhuman,
haunting immortal.
- [Julie] What did you do?
- [man 1] ...demons.
[Lucy as narrator]
Okay. Demon
is such a human word.
It's really amazing
what people will do
to fit the story
they wanna hear.
[dramatic tense music]
Well, you know what they say about
something that's too good to be true.
[woman 12] Looking for dominance,
like a nonhuman or demonic haunting...
There was rumor of witches
worshipping goddesses, but...
[man 1] Technically speaking,
there are three kinds of paranormal events.
There is the demonic,
- which is...
- [man 8] More like a trickster.
demigod known
for manipulating insecurity and greed.
They usually wanna be
mistaken for the dead,
but they were never
really human to begin with.
- [man 9] ...they were never really human to begin with.
- [man 1] ...a lot of words
- for that.
- [Julie] ...Melpomene, the muse of tragic poetry...
- [man 10] Poltergeist.
- was also mother of the sirens.
[overlapping voices]
[ominous music]
[Mark]
No, okay. I'm lost.
Some invisible force
brings him to the older you
and you try to kill each other?
I'm not sure I follow this.
[Martin]
Sorry to put you through all this, Mark.
I should never have
called you that night.
[Mark] What night? What,
what are you talking about?
[Martin]
She hid it, Mark.
I thought she'd destroyed it,
but she hid it
for somebody to find.
[Mark]
Uh, sorry. Who hid what for who?
[Martin]
Don't lie to me, Mark. I know.
She made you
send him here to kill me.
- [pilot] You comin'?
- [Mark] Who?
[Martin]
She was feeding me words,
but she's, she's not gone.
She's been feeding me words
to write with every night.
And they're mine.
They're, they are mine.
But they... She stopped...
the day that he got here.
[sighs] Jesus.
[Mark]
Are you drunk right now?
I mean, it's okay if you are,
but I would really appreciate it
if you didn't try doing
something stupid out there.
There's never been a...
pilot, so...
It's okay, uh, Mark.
Um... my mi...
[chuckling]
my mind's a mess tonight.
I'm, I'm sorry I called you.
Uh...
Yeah, we'll talk soon.
It... I'm sorry.
[operatic song playing]
[suspenseful background music]
[Guy]
I think there's something...
bigger going on.
Think you killed anyone.
What?
[dramatic music]
I'm not, um...
um, an imaginative writer.
But Abandonment
is a beautiful play.
And you wrote that
before you got here.
Okay?
Okay. I am not a writer.
[Lucy as narrator]
He wanted very badly to tell Marty
what would happen
if he tried to shoot him.
With a few words, everything could
go back to the way it was before.
I'd just find
another replacement.
[Guy]
Is this real?
[Lucy as narrator]
Do it.
Tell him.
[Martin]
What?
[song continues]
[ominous music]
[screeching sounds]
[Guy]
Please don't!
[music stops]
[Lucy as narrator]
This'll be good.
I needed a change.
[dramatic suspenseful music]
[Lucy as narrator]
They always know.
I mean, how couldn't they?
But the song changes for them.
Some version of "I had to"
till the end of...
well, their time.
[man 1] It's not a ghost story,
but there is a local folklore
- about...
- [Lucy as narrator] What's a story worth?
uh, so Masha,
like a lot of gods,
was, uh, kinda good,
but also horribly cruel.
have you been
interviewing people?
[Julie on tape]
Just a couple years now.
You found anything worthwhile?
Good or bad?
[tape stops]
[rising ominous music]
[Julie] More importantly,
it underlines the duality.
Tragic poetry, stories.
- [man 11] Guy Laury?
- [Julie] Uh, great.
Weren't expecting it
until next week.
Our files might be
a little out of date, but, uh,
- this isn't Mark Brooks's house anymore?
- It's Guy Laury's house.
[Julie] That being said,
the petty gods of antiquity,
while vain, deceitful
and cruel toward man,
would gather on occasion
and celebrate his very existence.
They went with the one
I recommended.
For it was only through Him
that they could taste life,
by proxy.
There'd never be a place
where they could fear pain or labor.
[nurse 2] Very nice, Mary.
And look who it's dedicated to.
[Julie]
They were cursed to an eternal leisure,
whose only solace
was in imagining
what it must be like
to fear death.
Mr. Laury,
may I have your autograph?
[keys clacking]
[Lucy as narrator]
Free at last.
I can only imagine
they'd be more reluctant...
[keys continue clacking]
if they understood
their end of the deal.
That thing of theirs
that gets smaller till it's just...
gone.
Hope this one has the grace
to leave when we're done.
I mean, he won't, but...
I like him.
I should really be
more open with people.
[instrumental music]
[tape clicking]
[tape rewinding]
[tape stops]
[gentle guitar music]
[music ends]
[tape clicks]
[low-pitched buzz]
[tense music]
[tape running]
[tape stops]
[tape rewinds]
[tape plays]
Well, you know what they say about
something that's too good to be true.
[tape rewinding]
I couldn't move.
I couldn't scream.
I don't believe in this stuff,
but I've been told it...
[man 1] Technically speaking, there
are three kinds of paranormal event.
I see how it can be a choice.
You know, to follow something,
to believe it, or reject it.
[static]
[narrator]
What's a story worth?
[music swells]
[music stops]
[instrumental music]
[tape playing]
[narrator]
One story.
[narrator]
Stories make sense of existence.
[typewriter dings, clacking]
[narrator]
So how valuable can a story be...
[keys clacking]
as an alternative?
- [woman 1 chuckles]
- [narrator] What about just one story?
[narrator] Or should we be
asking what that story can bring?
Esteem.
- Power.
- [door closes]
Respect.
How about one warm autumn day...
a hungry young writer
of modest success
was invited to leave
the distractions
and seductions of the city.
[woman 2 groans]
[narrator]
He was alone...
[woman 2 groans softly]
and he wasn't alone.
If he was looking
for a new voice...
he was assuredly successful.
- [woman 3 screams]
- [typewriter bangs, dings]
[music continues]
[narrator]
The song was different with Guy.
It wasn't one of betrayal. It was of
being all wrung out with nothing left.
A mouse in a web... drained.
Then it was as though
something else had taken over.
Something foreign but...
- familiar.
- [Mark] A sad young writer's in front of me.
He needs a pep talk.
Yeah, Marty,
take all the time you need.
- You know me.
- [woman 4] What's this regarding?
[Mark]
Ah, I'm sure it's tripled in value,
but I've been too busy
making you rich.
[phone ringing]
Yeah. I'll just have
to crash with you
next time I'm on the island.
Okay.
- [soft chuckle]
- Good.
[chuckles] Martin Cline.
- Martin Cline.
- [Mary] Remember you should
just buy a, a typewriter
when you're out there...
- [Guy scoffs]
- and that would round out your image. Right? The...
- [Guy] Right.
- [Mary] The only white man thing they seem to be
- saying these days...
- [Guy] Right. Maybe you should take your meds
so you could round out
your image here.
And also, pick up the phone
when they give it to you
'cause it's gonna be me.
You don't believe it,
but it is gonna be me,
and I'm not gonna be an Indian
- trying to steal your social.
- [Mary] That fucker tried to kill me.
- [Guy] No. No.
- [Mary] He hates me.
[Guy]
He tried to help you,
- and you hurt him.
- Who you gonna believe?
[Guy]
Him.
Okay. Okay.
- Okay.
- Can you just sleep here?
[siren wailing in distance]
[Guy]
Uh...
I can't because we did that
already, and I got ejected
because of the fucking
regulations, right?
[Guy]
And I can't be waiting tables
and then taking the advance
away, which we spent.
I wake up terrified every night,
and you're just gonna leave me here?
- [patient grunting]
- It's not an option, Mom.
Shut the fuck up, Jimmy!
[soft tense music]
Come, come here.
Come here. Come here.
What?
[Maurice]
How you doing there, Miss Laury?
[background chatter]
- I'm sorry.
- [Mary] What?
- Okay. Okay. Can we talk?
- [Maurice] Sure.
- [Guy] Thank you.
- Oh, right.
- We're just having a conversation, Mom.
- You don't need to walk away.
- You can do it here. What...
- We're gonna have one simple...
- you wanna handle me?
- Hey. Hey.
- Is that right?
- [Maurice] Miss Laury.
- Oh...
- Mom, we tried reasonable.
[mockingly] "Mommy, Mommy!
Remember when I was a baby, too?"
- Oh, no.
- [nurse 1] Oh, shit.
[indistinct chatter]
[Mary]
do not, do not, do not...
[Guy]
It's just, um,
like a room and board for free
for two months,
and no strings,
and, and just me...
finishing this book.
[clears throat]
- That's great.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
This is, like, um,
the last chance... [chuckles] ...for me.
- Yeah. When do you leave?
- [Mary] I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine.
- Uh, right now.
- [Mary] I'm fine. Oh.
Well, um, Accounting wanted
to see you before you leave.
- Something about invoices?
- Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. For sure.
[train whooshing]
[narrator]
Free at last.
[soft guitar music]
Another year or two like this,
he might have started
rethinking his goals.
- [podcaster] There's more than the webbed trap of fear...
- [pilot speaks muffled]
of repetition.
There's more than...
[narrator]
Homeless is a ridiculous word
for someone with a MacBook.
[podcaster]
There's more than your ambition,
- your dreams, desires.
- [pilot] Guy Laury?
[podcaster]
There's more to you
than your prerecorded story.
- [pilot] Guy Laury?
- Yeah.
Looks like
you're the next one up.
I'm sorry. I, uh...
- To the island, you're the next one up.
- Oh.
[keyboard clacking]
[Guy]
Right. Great.
[dramatic music]
[narrator] Homeless is a ridiculous
word for someone with a MacBook.
But right before I met him, Guy's
last couch in the city had decidedly...
- [Guy] Um...
- worn out its welcome.
it's just you and me?
[pilot]
This fun little guy, right?
You comin'?
[narrator]
Eight years since his breakout success.
A thinly-veiled autobiographical
account of his odd childhood.
[airplane droning]
By this point,
the money had run its course,
and he was nearing rock bottom.
"Rock bottom"... he thought.
[dramatic music continues]
[narrator]
And all he needed now...
was to birth
what he'd always known was deep inside him.
[Julie] Oddly enough, Homeric
poetry had a word for this... thing
in our body that pulls us
towards the heavens.
It was their word for ghost.
The gods
were less torn than man,
pulled between knowledge
and the visceral denial of it.
For example, Melpomene,
the muse of tragic poetry,
was also mother of the sirens
whose songs would lure sailors
to their deaths
on the jagged rocks.
[indistinct radio chatter]
You know any trails?
- [driver] What?
- [Guy] Hiking, running.
- [driver] Little cold out.
- [Guy] Oh, I got gear.
[driver] An owl ripped the scalp right off
a tourist last year. Nature hike, they said.
[Julie] The immortals couldn't relate
to these kinds of stakes in any reality.
There'd never be a place
where they could fear pain
or labor or murderous incest.
[Mark]
Martin Cline. Martin Cline.
- [driver] He lives here.
- [Guy] Martin Cline?
- [driver] Yeah. Not far from you.
- [Guy] Fucking Martin Cline.
[Julie] Now that being said,
the petty gods of antiquity,
while vain, deceitful
and cruel toward man,
would celebrate his existence,
for they were cursed to an eternal leisure
whose only solace
was in imagining
what it must be like to fear a
mugging, or a car crash, or death.
[car door opens]
[Guy]
You mind holding up for a second?
I wanna make sure that the key
is where they said it was.
- [driver] Sure.
- [Guy] Great. Thank you.
[dramatic music]
Hey!
Really?
[door opens]
[sinister music]
[switch clicks]
Great.
- Great.
- [dings]
Great.
- [switcher clicks]
- [door hinge creaking]
Oh.
- Why?
- [door creaks, slams]
[intense music]
[suspenseful music]
[heavy breathing]
[ticking]
[eerie music]
Okay.
Mm-mm.
[softly] Okay, here we go.
[raps on table]
[wind blowing]
[floorboard creaks]
[crockery clatters]
[kettle whistling]
[stove knob turns off]
[Guy sighs]
[soft suspenseful music]
[narrator]
Free at last...
and all he needed now...
or never...
was divine imagination.
Just beyond reach for...
How long had it been?
[podcaster]
Big news is that there is more.
There's more than the lens
through which you see the world.
There's more
than your perspective.
There's more than your ambition,
your dreams, desires.
There's more to you
than everything you've ever
thought, said, or done.
There's more to you
than your personal story.
[suspenseful music]
[man 1 on TV] Well, I mean, that
is a lot less terrifying than the logic,
which is that
it's all just chaos,
and there's no meaning
at all, right?
And technically speaking,
there is these demonic,
which is a nonhuman,
haunting immortal.
There is the human intelligent,
which is a dead person...
[sinister music]
[cell phone ringing]
[automated voice]
You have four new messages.
- First message.
- [Maurice] Hi, Guy.
Um, it's Maurice at Hudson Care.
- No.
Listen, I can get you
a number for a public ward.
It's really not as bad as you think.
- No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Now once you figure out that stuff...
- No.
with our accounting office and those, uh...
- Fuck.
- unpaid invoices.
- Fuck!
Listen, I'm sorry for your
situation, but we're not a shelter.
- All right.
- [low battery alert]
[low battery alert]
[soft music playing]
[narrator]
Where do you go just now?
[easy listening music]
[background chatter]
[narrator]
Eight years since Lost Child...
[pool balls crashing]
nothing left.
Hey.
Hi.
Hi.
- Uh, what, wait.
- I brought you here.
- Um...
- On the puddle jumper.
- Yeah.
- You were a little bitch about it.
- [chuckles] Yeah.
- Yeah.
[both laugh]
- Uh...
- Can I get you something?
Yeah. Whiskey?
Doesn't matter. I'm easy.
Uh-huh.
[pilot raps table]
We'll see about that.
[laughter]
Lucy, could we have
some more quarters, please?
[Lucy]
Yeah, you got it.
[closes drawer]
Here.
[Guy]
Lucy.
- What's your last name?
- It's kind of surreal, right?
The island.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, that's one way to put it.
[Lucy chuckles]
- [Lucy] So what brings you?
- I thought you brought me here.
- Wow.
- [Guy] Um...
- [chuckles]
- Um... just, uh, residency.
[Lucy]
What, are you a surgeon?
- Writer.
- You don't say.
I never would have guessed it.
Not in a million years.
- [chuckles]
- Is it the glasses?
[Lucy] Demeanor. White
guy and a typewriter, right?
So are you looking for a story?
Well...
drink up, Guy.
Drink up.
[eerie music]
Um, I'm gonna...
I'm gonna take a rain check.
- What's the damage?
- [Lucy] I don't want your money, baby.
[Guy]
Really?
Well, thank you.
Um...
I'll, um, see you later.
[Lucy as narrator]
"Get back to the house...
"...write a masterpiece,"
he thought.
[podcaster]
pod content to you every day.
You can learn more about
the all-terrain cross trainer
by clicking on the link
at the bottom right of your smartphone.
To upgrade to nonstop
premium pod content,
click "improve"
on the top left of your screen.
[low groan]
[low groan]
[muffled distant chatter]
[eerie music]
[Guy]
Someone here?
[Lucy as narrator]
I need you.
There was a time
when he needed to write.
Where'd that time go?
- [phone beeps]
- [automated voice] First message.
[Susan]
Hi, Guy. It's Susan at Brooks Publishing.
I hope that
you're enjoying the house.
Please give me a call
when you can.
I'd like to see
what progress you've made
and where we're at.
Talk soon.
[Lucy as narrator]
He'd come in search of direction.
If he was looking
for a new voice...
- he was assuredly successful.
- [eerie scream]
[podcaster] ...obsolete, discarded
based on your gender and race alone.
My goodness,
how novel that must be for you.
[orchestral music playing]
Hmm.
[low groan]
[eerie music]
[low groan]
[orchestral music playing]
[rattling]
What...
[operatic song playing]
[light flickers on]
[radio turns on]
[woman 5 speaking on radio]
[woman 5 stops speaking]
- [floorboard creaks, breaks]
- [grunts]
[grunts] Shit!
[chatter on radio continues]
[operatic song
continues playing]
[groans]
Ah, Jesus.
[suspenseful music]
[grunting]
[straining]
[exhales]
[breathing heavily]
[suspenseful music continues]
Hello.
[operatic song
continues playing]
[low groan]
[radio tuning]
- [woman 5 on radio] Credit points...
- [man 2 on radio] ...tricks...
They usually wanna be mistaken for
the death, but they were never really...
[woman on radio]
Eight years since his breakout success.
- [radio static]
- [man 2 speaking indistinctly]
[woman on radio]
Free at last, and all he needed now, now...
- [radio static]
- [man 2 speaking indistinctly]
birth what
he'd always known...
- [radio static]
- [man 2 speaking indistinctly]
inside him. Eight years
since his breakout success.
Are you speaking
of divine imagination
that had eluded him
just beyond reach?
[echoes]
Just beyond reach. Just beyond reach.
How long has it been...
[turns off radio]
[thud]
[wind blowing]
[heavy thud]
[heavy thud]
[woman 6 speaking in distance]
Hello?
- [thud]
- [woman 7] I need you.
[heavy thud]
[woman 7]
I need you.
[gasps]
[birds calling]
[Lucy as narrator]
I need you.
[motor revving]
He really didn't get that
very often. Even from Mary.
[birds squawking]
[tape stops]
[Julie]
Morning.
Jules, I'm trying
to log a guest,
and it's coming up
as a new book.
- "Laury."
- [Julie] Laury.
He's upstairs.
- [Julie] Guy Laury is?
- [librarian] Yeah.
That's his name. The cardholder.
Why?
You know, he was asking
about the ghost tours,
but he did not have
the kid with him.
[keyboard clacking]
- [Julie] Hi, Laury.
- Yes?
[Julie]
Hi.
- [Guy] Uh, hi.
- I'm, uh, Julie Coffin.
- I'm an administrator of the library.
- Oh, okay. Uh, nice to meet you.
[Julie]
I just wanted to welcome you.
I haven't had a chance
to read Lost Child
because all of our copies
are, um, in pretty high demand.
Oh. Thank you for saying that.
[soft music]
I hear that you're researching
something pretty specific today.
Oh, uh, more, more,
more just curious,
um, about a ghost folklore.
Um, I understand
it's popular, and, um,
I, I just... I was wondering why.
- [chuckles]
- Um, well,
I'm sure that Sue told you
that most of the literature
we have on that subject is...
in the Young Adult section.
Right. Yeah.
Hey, but I would be, um,
happy to provide some insight
if you would like a tour.
- I don't wanna take you away from anything.
- Uh, no, no, not at all. Um...
it's a very slow day.
[loudly] It's a very slow day.
- I can say it loud. There's no one here.
- [both laugh]
[woman 8] The vanquished demon
turned into serpents and swam to sea.
[Julie] A widow's walk. You
see these railings up here?
- Yeah. Yeah.
- Um, a widow's walk was a deck above every household,
where, uh, captains
and sailors' wives would wait
till their husbands'
expected return.
- Ah.
- They would have to set sail to the other side of the world.
And so a person wouldn't know
when to stop pacing up here.
And then
hundreds of years later,
vacationers swear that they wake
to the sound of footsteps overhead.
Pacing back and forth,
just waiting.
You know, um, I'm a liar.
Uh, I didn't wanna gush.
I, I loved your book.
Oh.
Uh...
Can I ask you, uh...
Uh, can I ask
what you're wearing?
Oh. Um, uh, I'm a trail runner.
- [Julie] Oh.
- Uh, yeah.
That's all I really care about.
[Lucy as narrator] He didn't love
getting asked about his shithead dad
and crazy mom,
but he had exploited it,
true or not.
"What a stupid thing to say,"
he thought.
Who or what could need him
for anything?
which is a dead person
that needs something from a living person.
as they're not just echoes
on repeat, you know, reliving some trauma,
more probable than,
like, a demonic hunting or a poltergeist,
uh, which were never
really human to begin with.
[Lucy as narrator]
All I really care about resonated
from somewhere deep inside
but unwanted, out of body,
foreign but familiar.
He'd made a promise, an oath, and yet his
childhood pledge to her did not in any way
mention the meditation
of long-distance running.
But saying it out loud was like the
briefest break in the most vivid dream.
Like he wasn't even
typing at his desk.
He was lying in bed,
counting down the days
to when Mary was gone, and he
was just dangling spider's prey,
fading to nothing.
A one-hit writer
who, gun to his head,
just wasn't feeling it
- right now.
- [screams]
[cell phone ringing]
- [Lucy as narrator] The phone's ringing.
- [door slams open]
[sinister music]
[eerie wail]
[Guy screams]
[door slams]
[breathing heavily]
[cell phone continues ringing]
[floorboard creaks]
[suspenseful music]
[cell phone continues ringing]
[Guy]
Mom?
[Guy muttering]
I'm at home... I'm with you, even if...
[Mary speaks inaudibly]
[Lucy as narrator] He wasn't a baby. He
knew what was real and what was made up.
He had two months until he was
contractually obliged to hand over a book.
That was definitely real.
His dream...
[cell phone ringing]
his childhood promise
to not only become a great writer
but a good man,
protecting his mom no matter what...
[Maurice]
Hi, Guy? It's Maurice at Hudson...
- [beeps]
- [automated voice] Message erased.
[Lucy as narrator]
that was real.
[faint screaming]
[suspenseful music continues]
[Lucy as narrator]
Last chance before he's sued by Brooks.
[man 3]
No!
[Lucy as narrator] Waiting tables,
pumping gas, cleaning houses.
[faint screaming]
After every opportunity...
- to find something.
- [Susan] Guy, it's Susan
at Brooks Publishing again.
I wanna see where you're at,
and we can take it from there.
This, this is the fourth time
I'm calling.
[Lucy as narrator] In a seemingly literal
attempt to outrun his problems that day,
Guy's dreams
crept over into reality
when he saw that foreign red car
and nearly got his head blown off.
- [gunshot]
- [grunts]
- [Martin] You okay?
He broke his mom's
favorite sunglasses.
- [Martin] You okay?
- Blinded with red rage, Guy
- threw Marty's gun at a tree.
- [Martin] Thought you were a duck.
- [gunshot]
- [Lucy as narrator] ...Martin Cline,
- famous writer Martin Cline.
- [screams]
By some divine providence,
it was a minor graze.
[Martin chuckles]
Of course I'm gonna shoot
the first writer
I see around here.
Yeah, I, I know Lost Child.
The softback just got to the
library a couple of months ago.
I was just talking about it
with a friend last week.
That's so funny.
Ah.
Look at that.
Fire it again,
it'd take your jaw right off.
Jesus.
- Mmm. [sniffs]
- Yeah.
Lost Child...
it's a little young.
[soft music]
You're... too kind.
[clears throat]
I said I liked it. What the hell
do you want from me?
It's your first book, isn't it?
- Yes, it is. [clears throat]
- Well that's great, man.
That's great.
First one's
almost as hard as the second.
- [glasses clink]
- [Guy] Mmm.
[Martin]
Hmm?
Uh, yeah,
um, but after this one,
I should get back to work.
[clears throat]
When I stop, I stop for the day.
But when I was your age,
I was terrified if I ever did,
it'd be for good.
- Yeah, I know that feeling.
- I'm sure you do.
Is this all right?
Uh, yeah, that's great.
Thank you.
- Great.
- [Guy clears throat]
How long you been here?
Uh, forever. [chuckles]
I came for a retreat
a million years ago, and I never left.
- [Guy] That good, huh?
- [Martin] Well, you could say that.
If I'd stayed in the city,
I never would have got sick
of drinking wine
and chasing girls.
[Guy]
That stopped when you got here?
Yeah.
[eerie music]
[Lucy as narrator]
There was that dj vu again.
Like something
was about to happen.
- I'm sorry. What?
- I didn't say anything.
- Thank you.
- [glasses clink]
Well, my advice to you
would be to get away
from paradise on the sooner side.
It can be a source
of great inspiration,
but at a sizable cost.
You get the solitude
to focus within, but...
there's not a lot else
to look at.
I mean, there's the view,
the town.
The last guy with a fresh
perspective here was Melville.
- [chuckles] Right?
- Right.
Um, right now
I gotta knock this out
or else I'm gonna be...
[inhales] stuck.
Oh.
So...
Guy...
do you mind if I ask you
a personal question?
I only ask because
you're either pretty tough
or pretty imaginative.
Lost Child...
fact or fiction?
[man 4] A gift from the gods...
[continues speaking inaudibly]
[Julie]
His mortal lover, the Goddess Aurora,
placed his undying body
in a room and sealed the door,
where he faded
to nothing but a voice
that cried to be freed
from its eternal pledge.
"Please," it said. "Please,
please, please, please."
- [Martin] I don't know this one.
- That, of course, is from island local
- Martin Cline's first novel, Book of Generations.
- No?
[indistinct chatter on radio]
- [changes channel]
- [man 1] ...three kinds of paranormal events.
There is the demonic,
which is a nonhuman...
There you go.
Right up here on the right. About 100 feet.
human intelligent,
which is a dead person...
[soft suspenseful music]
[indistinct chatter on radio]
[unfastens seat belt]
[indistinct chatter on radio]
- [Guy] Thanks for the ride.
- Don't mention it.
The wolves come out
this time of night.
- Sorry I almost took your head off.
- You too.
Hey, tell Mark I said "hi" and
"thanks" next time you talk to him.
What do you mean?
Mark Brooks.
You know, the publisher.
Your publisher, right? I...
He set me up
with this place to stay here.
- Oh.
- He said you talk every day.
Uh, I'm sorry. I thought you
knew I was here with the residency.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay.
Well, no need to say "hi."
It's just an expression. Um...
Well, good night.
[Martin]
Good night.
[radio static]
[suspenseful music]
[car engine revving]
[Guy]
Hey, Susan. Guy.
Um, just, uh, sorry
we keep missing each other.
It's just been a crazy,
productive, uh, couple of days.
And, um, also,
um, call me any time.
[gentle music playing]
Uh, phone service
is a nightmare here,
but, um, would love to catch up.
And, um, yeah,
look forward to talkin'.
- Okay. Bye-bye.
- [Mary] Baby, is that you?
- How long are we...
- [automated voice] Next message.
[Susan]
What's happening? [stutters] Is that...
[phone beeps]
[automated voice]
Message erased.
[water running]
[sinister music]
Oh, damn.
[Lucy as narrator]
Imaginative.
I don't understand
why you can't.
[Lucy as narrator]
Lost Child...
[floorboard creaking]
a story.
- A new story and he'd be free.
- [door creaks open]
He'd be free from Guy Laury.
- [woman 10 screams]
- [planks thudding]
[turns off tap]
[sinister music]
[softly] Hello?
[indistinct chatter on radio]
[cell phone ringing]
[footsteps approaching]
[cell phone continues ringing]
[light turns on]
[floorboard upstairs creaks]
[cell phone ringing]
Hello?
[cell phone continues ringing]
[indistinct chatter on radio]
[woman 11]
Wake up.
Wake up now.
Wake up before...
[cell phone continues ringing]
[eerie music]
[faint song playing]
[distant creak]
- [door slams]
- [Guy grunts]
[dramatic music]
[chuckles nervously]
No bar.
Oh, my...
[engine revving]
- Oh!
- [thud]
[tires screech]
[indistinct podcast playing]
There's more
than your externalized demons and villains.
There's more to you
than your personal story...
[engine revving]
[tire screeches]
[Guy speaking inaudibly]
I need some air with my crazy
mom and her haunted house.
Yeah, no, we're not...
not her house.
We don't have a house.
[chuckles]
No, no.
What's the word for that again?
[faint laughter]
- [Lucy] Well?
- You're not flying tonight.
- [Lucy] Sure I am.
- [Guy sighs]
Are you ready
for that whiskey yet?
- What's going on?
- How do you mean?
You know what I mean.
It's not just you.
So, how's the writing going?
You're not sure?
Might be onto something.
[background laughter]
Maybe you should
open yourself up to it...
fully.
[upbeat music playing]
[Guy]
Mmm.
[car driving by]
[exhales]
[suspenseful music]
[gasps]
[Guy gasping]
[gasps]
[exhales heavily]
Oh. Oh. Oh.
- [background laughter]
- [exhaling heavily]
[upbeat music playing]
[laughter]
[car drives by]
So what's going on
at the Madequecham residence?
What, is it haunted or something?
- [man 5] Yes.
Yes, it is.
- [Lucy laughs]
- I didn't ask you.
Look, I wouldn't overthink it,
when every other guy
on this island has some story
about disturbances
or unfinished business.
I mean, these guys
aren't big children.
Half of them went to college,
and yet all of them would swear
that they woke up
in the middle of the night
and they saw
a see-through person
standing in their doorway
asking for something.
Something they felt
cheated out of.
But, hell, you'd give anything
to believe it, wouldn't you?
- What?
- That there's more.
[Jeff]
There she is. There's my sweetheart.
Or it's just symbolism.
Can't escape your past.
- Jeff, the cigarette.
- I got enough people pushing me around,
thank you very much.
[Lucy]
Get the fuck off me, Jeff.
Let go! Let go! Let go!
Let go! Let go! Let go! Let go!
- You're kidding me.
- [bangs]
[Lucy grunts]
[suspenseful music]
[Jeff imitates a ghost]
Who's this guy?
Is he your new boyfriend?
He looks gay.
You're a clich right now.
[Jeff]
Show you a clich.
[dramatic suspenseful music]
- Done with that?
- Huh?
[background buzzing]
Nice.
- [Guy grunts]
- [glass shatters]
- [thud]
- [retching]
[coughing]
[Lucy]
That was a funny kinda stubborn.
[grunts] Sorry.
I don't know why I did that.
[sighs, breathing heavily]
[dramatic tense music]
[wood creaking]
[thudding]
[bottle shatters]
Get out of my fucking face!
- [groans]
- [thud]
[Lucy as narrator]
Just a story.
[echoes]
Just a story. Just a story.
One warm autumn day
some time ago...
[echoes]
Just a story. Just a story.
a hungry young writer
was invited to leave
the distractions
and seductions of the city.
[echoes]
Just a story. Just a story.
[whimsical tense music]
[echoes]
Just a story.
He wasn't alone.
[echoing]
Just a story.
Over the course of their season
under the same roof, though...
[imperceptible]
they became collaborators.
[echoing]
Just a story. Just a story.
But who wants to share a name?
[echoing] Just a story.
[Martin]
Jesus, Mark. She just fell just now.
I, I don't, I don't know
if she destroyed it or...
She thought that I'd just
let her leave with everything
we made together
and she'd leave me with...
Mark, she was gonna
take it all away.
[woman 11]
It's mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine!
[typewriter bangs, dings]
[Lucy as narrator]
What's a story worth...
[man 6 speaking indistinctly]
as an alternative to truth?
[Mark] His style changed dramatically
after we worked through that.
[Lucy as narrator] Would the greatest
story ever told be worth one life?
You think about it.
You think about it.
[Lucy as narrator]
But what about just one story?
You can have it, Guy.
[in voice-over]
But you gotta earn it.
[echoing]
Just a story. Just a story.
Just a story. Just a story.
[gasps, screaming]
[soft tense music]
[man 7]
Where'd he take you?
Baby, I neeeed...
[Guy]
Ow! Ow!
you!
[bird squawking]
Baby, please don't leave me!
[rising tense music]
- [Guy grunts]
- [man 7 continues shouting]
- [indistinct shouting]
- [Guy grunts]
[grunting]
[panting]
[message alert]
[message alert]
[message alert]
[dramatic tense music]
Mmm.
[tense music]
[keyboard clacks]
[light turns on]
[sinister music]
[light turns on and off]
Didn't wanna do that!
[dramatic music]
Marty?
[podcaster]
The good news is that there's more.
There's more
than your perspective.
There's more than your ambition,
your dreams, your desires.
There's more to you
than what you want.
There's more to you...
[indistinct podcast audio]
[static]
[knock on door]
- [woman 10] Oh, hey, killer, um...
- Hi. Hey.
we're actually not opening
for, like, another half hour,
- so come back later.
- Okay. Is Lucy here?
I'm not gonna be open
for another 30 minutes.
But you can jog a couple laps
around the block if you want.
I'm...
There are other bars
on this island, Guy. You know that, right?
[Susan] Well, I can't say
I've ever been woken to the first half
of a manuscript in the body of an email.
- I know.
- I don't know how it happened.
- But I've been up with it ever since,
- and I'm impressed.
- [honks]
Departure from Lost Child,
but still has your voice.
- How do you mean?
- [Susan] Honey, I'm not here to fluff you up.
It's no secret that I've been
having my doubts about you,
but I gotta say
I'm very pleasantly surprised to be wrong.
[Guy]
Listen, I'm sorry.
- [Susan] Are you still there?
- Yes.
- Yes.
- Listen, I wanna get back to reading this.
- Uh, um, Susan...
- And Guy...
congratulations.
This is really something.
[dramatic music]
[imperceptible]
[Julie]
So there was rumor of...
witches worshipping
goddesses.
But that'll happen any time a Quaker spinster
declines a... [in heavy accent] a rape.
- [Guy laughs, coughs]
- Um...
- So no, thank you. Shh, shh.
- Sorry. Sorry.
You know, in the, in the 1840s,
whale oil was obsolete.
- Hmm.
- Right? So they're just stuck.
- They missed the boat...
- Yes.
- to the Industrial Age, so to speak.
- Yeah, ghost-town.
Ghost-town, boom-town.
- Right.
- Yeah.
- [Guy] Yeah.
- A newly-born culture
that dies because it can't
rethink its livelihood.
If it's literal ghosts
that you're interested in,
we actually have interviews
with, um...
you know, I, I guess that
you would call them witnesses.
No. No. [chuckles]
Don't get too excited
because it's actually
exactly the people
that you think it would be.
- It's bonkers. Um, but...
- Uh, I don't mind.
I do have something,
uh, you might like,
which is, um, the neighborhood
where you're staying.
Oh, M... Madequecham,
the residency? Yeah.
Well, I was actually talking
about the original inhabitants.
- The residency that's, say, a tax loophole.
- [Lucy] Guy.
- Oh, right.
- [echoes] Guy.
- [Julie speaking indistinctly]
- [Lucy] Guy. Guy.
That's Martin Cline,
so that's something.
- [Lucy] Martin Cline. Guy.
- I'm sorry.
Um, I missed,
I missed that part.
- [Lucy] Martin Cline.
- [gasps] Oh, shit.
I'll stop you...
I, I'm gonna be late
for my lecture
at the high school.
- [Lucy] Martin Cline.
- Um, what's... Sorry.
- Uh, I give, um, lectures at the high school.
- Uh-huh.
And I just realized I'm not
gonna be able to get a coffee.
Uh, feel free to check
anything out that you like.
- Sue will help you out.
- Okay.
[footsteps receding]
[whimsical tense music]
And technically speaking,
there are three kinds of paranormal events.
There is the demonic,
which is a nonhuman, haunting immortal.
There is the human intelligent,
which is a dead person that needs something
- from a living person.
- [Lucy as narrator] He knew what happened.
- [woman 11] I couldn't scream.
- Guess I knew it. It hadn't...
No, no... for dominance,
like a nonhuman
or demonic haunting.
All I wanted
was just acknowledgment.
And the attacks stopped.
And Barbara's toys started
to show up all over the place.
New ones too.
I would have done a whole lot
more for that nightmare to stop.
[Lucy as narrator] As far as Guy
could see, there were two options.
He was being contacted
from beyond a shallow grave...
or he'd lost his mind
without knowing it.
Which gave no explanation
for where that book came from
and if he truly found it
by accident.
- [cell phone ringing]
- He didn't have to answer the call.
- It wasn't his problem.
- I see how it can be a choice.
- You know, to follow something, to believe it...
- [Julie] Now, he is probably
screwed no matter what.
But now, he has a choice.
Our hero can cling
to the sinking raft,
knowing exactly
where it'll take him,
or he can follow
Athena's advice,
abandoning every comfort
and swimming blindly
- into the darkness.
- [Guy] I just need the contact information
for a maximum-care facility,
'cause I can't...
[Maurice] Of course, I can get
you the number for a public ward...
[Guy] No, no, no, no. Like,
if, if money were not an issue.
[Julie] And if he never looks
back, he might have a chance
of eventually making it
home again, right?
But any deal that we make
with the gods
is inevitably Faustian.
We can kid ourselves,
but no one escapes death
or taxes.
It's a path
that's always traveled alone.
There were some cases, too,
where a soul gets stuck.
You know, why do the, uh...
uh, why, why do the murdered
and the unburied
haunt us in living world?
Is it, uh,
we, we won't let them go?
Yes.
- [bell rings]
- Economics, culture.
This isn't just
the death of a person.
It could be the death
of a dream.
Retribution, it will somehow
solve the problem.
Or by skirting it altogether,
we will somehow be able
to keep this thing with us.
- [bell rings]
- My point is that the Greeks understood ghosts
and gods exist
because of our need for death.
Objectively speaking, of course.
- [Guy] Y... Oh, yeah. Of course.
- Yeah.
- I am a white man with a typewriter.
- Mmm.
- I speak objectively.
- I... No, I told you.
- It's exactly the kind of people you'd expect.
- [Guy laughs]
Gods, demons. I guess
I didn't expect to stumble
on something so biblical.
- [Julie] Well, you were pulled in head first.
- Mmm.
[chuckles]
You know,
the, um, the seclusion,
I don't know, it works for me.
I, um, just keep myself busy.
- Work more than one job.
- Mmm.
When did you move here?
I'm from here, actually.
Coffin is one of the original
names on the island.
Oh, yeah, I heard that.
Why'd you stick around?
Was it classics? Mmm.
No, um...
History? Folklore?
So, uh...
was it something you saw...
or something you heard?
[soft flute music]
[imperceptible]
Um, maybe something, uh, I did.
[silence]
[Guy]
C... I do, uh...
[exhales]
I do see things.
That's true. From the book?
Um, yeah. Um... [stutters]
Yeah, that part.
Was there something new
about this thing?
[Guy]
Mm...
[sighs] Okay.
It's something that...
Usually, they try to eat me.
Mm? And, uh, this one...
it just seemed like
it needed me for something.
Needed you for something good?
- [sinister music]
- [typewriter banging, dinging]
[wind whooshing]
[Lucy as narrator]
Martin Cline.
[dramatic music]
Martin Cline.
[thunder rumbling]
Martin Cline.
I need you, Guy.
[Lucy as narrator]
I need you to set me free.
[Lucy as narrator]
There were no missing persons.
It didn't add up.
Maybe Marty had no idea
what Guy had found.
Maybe that was someone else who
tried to hit him with their car that night.
[thunder rumbling]
[Martin]
I don't wanna leave.
[birds calling]
[Lucy as narrator] Maybe he killed
someone over a goddamn book.
Maybe...
someone needed him...
to make things right.
[engine running]
[dramatic tense music]
[trunk closes]
- [door closes]
- [music stops]
[wind whooshing]
[footsteps]
[suspenseful tone]
[Guy]
Hmm.
[typewriter whirring]
[keys clacking]
[Mary] I'm fine. I'm fine.
I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine.
- [woman 3 screams]
- [typewriter bangs, dings]
[dramatic tense music]
[breathing heavily]
[Martin]
Look at that.
Fire it again,
it'd take your jaw right off.
[banging]
[panting]
[Lucy as narrator]
It's yours.
You wrote it.
You're a good guy.
Guy...
you're a good guy.
How long have you been
interviewing people?
[Julie on tape]
Just a couple years back.
[Julie]
Thank you.
[Julie on tape]
What could a human haunting need?
[man 1]
I mean, if the dead could want for things,
they'd see a futility
in demanding,
what, revenge, a claim.
I imagine that they'd forget
about that stuff.
And you teach mythology, right?
- [Julie on tape] Yep.
- At the high school. Right, like...
So the people
in the River Styx...
they realize
that everything is...
temporary.
So...
[Susan] Well, normally, we
come back with quite a few notes,
but if we move on this
on the sooner side,
we won't make Christmas
but for sure MLK.
- [Guy] Maybe we'll shoot the next one for Christmas.
- [laughs]
Who are you and what have
you done with my deadbeat client?
Uh, one second.
Uh, Mark wants to say hi
and confirm the second advance.
It's gonna be
a really exciting year for us.
- I can feel it.
- Me too, Susan. Talk soon.
- [Mark] Susan?
- Uh, Mark, it's Guy.
- Uh, Susan connected us.
- Who's this?
It's Guy Laury.
Guy. How the hell are you?
I'm good, man. I'm good.
Um, oh, this trip
has been a blessing.
I can't thank you enough.
I got a place there.
Yeah, I know.
Uh, that's where I am right now.
Yeah, well, where are
you staying? Yeah, you know,
- the hostels in town, they're like bed and breakfast.
- I'm, I...
- I'm at your house, Mark.
- What's that?
I... Mark, the, the residency.
I, I'm at your family's estate
right now.
Susan?
- Susan!
- Uh, h... hey, Mark.
- [line disconnects]
- [cell phone ringing]
Madequecham residence.
This is Guy. May I help you?
[Julie] Get over yourself. Uh,
what kind of wine do you like?
Um, uh, nothing too sweet.
Bone dry. Need anything else?
Uh, no.
- Okay. I'll see you soon.
- Okay. Bye.
[operatic song playing on radio]
[doorbell rings]
[Guy]
That some kind of joke?
- Hey.
- Hey.
Uh...
were we just talking?
No.
Um, sorry
for popping in like this, but...
I can't tell you
how embarrassed I was
that you saw me that way
the other day.
Oh, that's okay.
- [clears throat]
- Really?
- Mm-hmm.
- Well, anyway, I brought you this.
Oh, you didn't have
to do that, man.
You making dinner?
[opens door]
Uh, yes,
someone's coming over in a bit.
Oh, that's nice.
Kitchen's upstairs.
[ominous music]
[pleasant music
playing on radio]
[Martin]
Oh, you found the best station.
Not a ton of choices.
[clears throat]
- Would you like a glass?
- Thanks.
[cell phone ringing]
- Hello?
- Guy, I'm so sorry about Mark.
- I hope he didn't offend you.
- [Mark] I'm working from home.
[Guy]
Oh, no, um, not at all. Was he,
was he not the one who, who, pushed for this?
- No, of course,
He's just been a little forgetful
since he got back from vacation.
- [Mark] I'm working from home.
- But we're dealing with it.
- [Mark] Get that guy out of my house.
- Well, I've been there, Susan.
- I understand.
- [Susan] I just don't want it to devalue the faith
we all have in this book.
I mean, there's no telling
- what the reception will be, but we've got a good feeling...
- [Guy mouths]
and we're gonna push it hard,
including Mark.
Well, that is fantastic.
Okay. Uh, call
if you have any questions,
but we'll probably
call you first.
[Guy chuckles]
Okay. Bye-bye.
[Susan]
Bye-bye.
You work with Susan
much over there?
[operatic song continues
playing on radio]
[ominous music]
What are you doing?
I was just gonna
make some crudits.
Would you like some?
Uh, sounds nice, actually.
Thank you.
[song continues playing]
[tense background music]
[scoffs]
Why didn't you ever use it?
Were you saving it
for a rainy day, or...
or was she the one
who hid it before she...
fell?
She...
She made me.
I'm gonna go down.
[mumbles]
[Lucy as narrator]
What are you waiting for?
[typewriter clacking]
[door closes]
[soft music]
[Guy]
Hey, lady-killer!
[glass shatters]
What, are you gonna
come back later?
[Lucy as narrator]
Get him.
Get him.
- Maybe you should call the cops!
- [glass shatters]
- [car starts]
- I mean, you were gonna steal it first, right?
Did you write any of it?
Or did you just watch?
- [Lucy as narrator] He'll be back.
- [Guy] Okay. See you soon then!
[singer vocalizing]
[Lucy as narrator]
In a matter of seconds,
Guy saw his life
fall into place.
Everything he'd ever wanted.
Marty just admitted
to everything
it's needed to go for years.
He was practically a hero.
It fits.
And the next time
Marty fires that gun,
it'll blow up in his face.
[wind whooshing]
Um...
[Lucy as narrator]
Don't do it.
So, um...
Martin Cline.
Was it something he said...
or something he did?
- It...
- [Lucy as narrator] Don't do it. Shut up.
- He did it.
- What?
It's something that he did.
What?
What?
[soft tense music]
- Do you know him? [stutters]
- I, I don't have any idea
- how he wrote those fucking books.
- Books?
- Books!
- The interactions that I've had with him
amount to knowing him,
I, I don't know how he...
[dramatic tense music]
Julie, I didn't write this.
- [Guy] She wrote it.
- [Julie] Who?
- [pilot] Guy Laury?
- [Guy] A woman who was killed.
- Who was killed, Guy?
- Looks like you're the next one up.
- [Guy] From the residency.
- [Julie] Residency?
Guy, I told you,
you just crashed here alone.
- [typewriter clacking]
- There's no residency.
[Lucy as narrator]
Well... that's not fair.
He wasn't... alone.
[keys clacking]
Guy, who is she?
- Tell me, who is she?
- [Lucy as narrator] Saving a dead girl,
or it's all in your head?
Were those the only two options?
I forget.
[breathing heavily]
[Lucy as narrator]
For a moment...
he was more creative
than he'd ever dreamed.
Then he remembered
the dream girl was in Marty's head too.
And just how fantastic
my new book is.
- [man 1] There is the demonic...
- [Julie] Guy?
which is a nonhuman,
haunting immortal.
- [Julie] What did you do?
- [man 1] ...demons.
[Lucy as narrator]
Okay. Demon
is such a human word.
It's really amazing
what people will do
to fit the story
they wanna hear.
[dramatic tense music]
Well, you know what they say about
something that's too good to be true.
[woman 12] Looking for dominance,
like a nonhuman or demonic haunting...
There was rumor of witches
worshipping goddesses, but...
[man 1] Technically speaking,
there are three kinds of paranormal events.
There is the demonic,
- which is...
- [man 8] More like a trickster.
demigod known
for manipulating insecurity and greed.
They usually wanna be
mistaken for the dead,
but they were never
really human to begin with.
- [man 9] ...they were never really human to begin with.
- [man 1] ...a lot of words
- for that.
- [Julie] ...Melpomene, the muse of tragic poetry...
- [man 10] Poltergeist.
- was also mother of the sirens.
[overlapping voices]
[ominous music]
[Mark]
No, okay. I'm lost.
Some invisible force
brings him to the older you
and you try to kill each other?
I'm not sure I follow this.
[Martin]
Sorry to put you through all this, Mark.
I should never have
called you that night.
[Mark] What night? What,
what are you talking about?
[Martin]
She hid it, Mark.
I thought she'd destroyed it,
but she hid it
for somebody to find.
[Mark]
Uh, sorry. Who hid what for who?
[Martin]
Don't lie to me, Mark. I know.
She made you
send him here to kill me.
- [pilot] You comin'?
- [Mark] Who?
[Martin]
She was feeding me words,
but she's, she's not gone.
She's been feeding me words
to write with every night.
And they're mine.
They're, they are mine.
But they... She stopped...
the day that he got here.
[sighs] Jesus.
[Mark]
Are you drunk right now?
I mean, it's okay if you are,
but I would really appreciate it
if you didn't try doing
something stupid out there.
There's never been a...
pilot, so...
It's okay, uh, Mark.
Um... my mi...
[chuckling]
my mind's a mess tonight.
I'm, I'm sorry I called you.
Uh...
Yeah, we'll talk soon.
It... I'm sorry.
[operatic song playing]
[suspenseful background music]
[Guy]
I think there's something...
bigger going on.
Think you killed anyone.
What?
[dramatic music]
I'm not, um...
um, an imaginative writer.
But Abandonment
is a beautiful play.
And you wrote that
before you got here.
Okay?
Okay. I am not a writer.
[Lucy as narrator]
He wanted very badly to tell Marty
what would happen
if he tried to shoot him.
With a few words, everything could
go back to the way it was before.
I'd just find
another replacement.
[Guy]
Is this real?
[Lucy as narrator]
Do it.
Tell him.
[Martin]
What?
[song continues]
[ominous music]
[screeching sounds]
[Guy]
Please don't!
[music stops]
[Lucy as narrator]
This'll be good.
I needed a change.
[dramatic suspenseful music]
[Lucy as narrator]
They always know.
I mean, how couldn't they?
But the song changes for them.
Some version of "I had to"
till the end of...
well, their time.
[man 1] It's not a ghost story,
but there is a local folklore
- about...
- [Lucy as narrator] What's a story worth?
uh, so Masha,
like a lot of gods,
was, uh, kinda good,
but also horribly cruel.
have you been
interviewing people?
[Julie on tape]
Just a couple years now.
You found anything worthwhile?
Good or bad?
[tape stops]
[rising ominous music]
[Julie] More importantly,
it underlines the duality.
Tragic poetry, stories.
- [man 11] Guy Laury?
- [Julie] Uh, great.
Weren't expecting it
until next week.
Our files might be
a little out of date, but, uh,
- this isn't Mark Brooks's house anymore?
- It's Guy Laury's house.
[Julie] That being said,
the petty gods of antiquity,
while vain, deceitful
and cruel toward man,
would gather on occasion
and celebrate his very existence.
They went with the one
I recommended.
For it was only through Him
that they could taste life,
by proxy.
There'd never be a place
where they could fear pain or labor.
[nurse 2] Very nice, Mary.
And look who it's dedicated to.
[Julie]
They were cursed to an eternal leisure,
whose only solace
was in imagining
what it must be like
to fear death.
Mr. Laury,
may I have your autograph?
[keys clacking]
[Lucy as narrator]
Free at last.
I can only imagine
they'd be more reluctant...
[keys continue clacking]
if they understood
their end of the deal.
That thing of theirs
that gets smaller till it's just...
gone.
Hope this one has the grace
to leave when we're done.
I mean, he won't, but...
I like him.
I should really be
more open with people.
[instrumental music]
[tape clicking]
[tape rewinding]
[tape stops]
[gentle guitar music]
[music ends]