[Part 1] - [Part 2] - [Part 3] – [Part 4] – [Part 5] - [Final]
Over the next few weeks, most of the remaining shoots went off without a hitch. Dawn, or whatever passed as Dawn, was an immaculate professional – knocking out most scenes in one or two takes. It was sort of unnerving to watch, seeing her move in and out of character at the drop of a hat. Almost like she could make herself into different people. It wasn’t just acting, it was… different. Stronger, even.
Seb came back to work after a while, but he was a completely different person. Not only because he wasn’t allowed to do any heavy lifting, but because of the incident with Ariel and the white shirts. It had drained him, in a way. Knocked him off his pedestal. There were no quick quips or clever initiatives; he was broken and afraid. We both just kept our heads down and wished for it all to be over.
We had moved on to in-house sets, leaving about a third of the support staff without a clear assignment. Not me and Seb though. No matter where we filmed, there was always need for proper lighting. Still, we could see groups of bored staffers hanging out near the mess hall during our breaks.
There was a small celebration when we hit the final milestone. I wasn’t on-set for it, but we all got a small bottle of champagne. Seb just chugged his. We noticed a few more smiles as people skittered from station to station. There was still a bit more filming to do, but this was the final scene with any sort of dialog. The final days would be mostly foley, environment shots and reshoots. But from what we’d seen, there wouldn’t be many of those. A handful, maybe.
We had a small party. Most of us were just happy to be done with it – the optimism from those early days were gone. By now, we’d all figured out that there was more to this film than we’d first thought. Some talked about it being turned into more of an art film, while others were concerned about the effort spent on voiceovers. I remember overhearing a conversation between two of the camera operators.
“Every time we bring up an issue, it’s just… they say we’ll fix it in post. But no one is taking notes. No one. And some things you can’t fix in post.”
There were a lot of rumors floating around. Some of the people in the costume department had overheard a discussion about the film’s distribution. When we first started, we had been told there’d be early screenings in cinemas across 12 states, but according to more recent rumors that plan had always been speculative. There was no set plan in place.
Furthermore, there’d been a few visits from investors. As it turns out, the people who’d invested money into the movie weren’t from the entertainment industry. There was a small electronics company who’d invested a significant amount, and a publishing company. There was also a pharmaceutical rep with a sort of axe insignia who seemed to be the largest contributor – but they’d only been on-set for a single day. Either way, it was becoming increasingly clear that most of the people working with director Hampton didn’t seem all that interested in the movie itself.
Which begged to question; if these people weren’t interested in the movie, then what were they really investing in?
While I had to take over most of Seb’s responsibilities on-set, there wasn’t much left to do. It was mostly maintenance and staying on-call for possible re-shoots. It gave me a lot of time on my own, talking to the other crew members and staying updated on the schedule.
Turns out, there’d been talks of people pre-screening a couple of scenes. The director had been showing a few scenes of the movie to some of the part-timers. It was a strange rumor; a lot of people were talking about the screening itself, but no one had anything to say about what they’d seen.
The only evidence for people having been invited to it in the first place was the staff pins. Every staff member who’d attended a pre-screening were given a pin as a sort of show of trust. It became the mark of an inner circle of trustees, and people were eager to get one. It wasn’t a big deal in and of itself; it was just a little blue pin in the shape of a sunflower.
I wasn’t too eager to see it – I just wanted to go home at that point. We were only a couple of weeks from packing up and officially calling it a day. I was looking forward to throwing my hands up and just being done with it.
I wasn’t that curious about the pre-screening at first, but there were questions starting to build up. Mostly because of a woman named Sammy.
Sammy worked with the set designers. She was one of the most outgoing people in the crew, introducing herself to people with a handshake and a hug. Very much a child of the flower power era, she was the kind of person who just exuded positivity. There was no way not to like her, really.
She was one of the first people invited to the pre-screening. I wasn’t surprised, she’d made a lot of friends. But it was what happened afterwards that made me raise an eyebrow.
She started to zone out a lot. I’d see her eyes completely glaze over instead of light up when she recognized a friendly face. Most of the time she’d be looking down, as if deep in thought. She would also write a lot. I’d never seen her write anything, but all of a sudden she was carrying around a notebook at all hours of the day.
And once I’d noticed it, I couldn’t stop noticing it. A lot of the folks with pins had notebooks. It was strange though – no one had said anything about it. I tried asking Sammy about it, but she was very deflecting. The Sammy I knew could be set off to talk about anything for any length of time, so to have her shut down a conversation, for any reason, was very out-of-character.
“Just inventory,” she said. “Making sure we got it all covered.”
Yeah, no. I wasn’t buying it.
Still, we got ever closer to the final day on set. One afternoon, Seb came to see me. It was just after dinner time, and I’d horked down a couple of hot dogs. He walked up to me, flashing his very own sunflower pin.
“I’ve been invited to a screening tonight,” he said. “You, uh… you think I should go?”
“You want to?”
“I dunno,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t like it.”
“So just… don’t go.”
“You think they’ll let us?”
After what we’d seen, I wasn’t so sure. There was no telling what was really going on behind the curtain.
“I mean… what are they gonna do?” I asked.
“Do you want to find out?”
Looking at Sammy’s lonely corner in the mess hall and her glassy-eyed stare, I didn’t know what to think. There was a part of me that just wanted answers. I think I realized, even then, that I couldn’t step away from all of this without answers. The things I’d seen during the filming of “The End of Eternity” would haunt me for the rest of my life – so any sort of idea of what it all meant might give me some peace of mind.
“I’ll go,” I said. “Then I’ll tell you about it.”
“You sure?” Seb asked.
“A man’s gotta have a plan.”
Seb handed over his pin. About an hour later, I was standing outside a meeting room at the far side of the main building, along with eight other anxious crew members. There were mixed feelings. Some seemed excited, others worried. I was somewhere in the middle.
It was so strange, in a way. Even now, no one knew for sure what parts of the script would make it into the final cut. There were a couple of scenes I was fairly sure were being cut, but then again, Roy Hampton was erratic at best and nonsensical at worst. There was no way for any of us to know for sure.
But yeah, I think all of us had long since realized that this would be no ordinary horror movie.
One of Hampton’s assistants checked our pins and lead us into a small room. There were black chairs placed in four rows of six. There were no lights. I got myself a seat in the second-to last row; far back enough to get a good overview, but not far enough to bring attention to myself. Others were already whispering with anticipation. Were they showing us a single clip? Several? Raw footage?
Before we got a chance to ask anything, I heard the familiar click of a projector rolling to life. I hadn’t noticed them rolling it in. Then again, it was a little too dark to see anything but the silver screen. All our eyes focused on that little shining square at the far end of the room. The bright light, and the clicking.
So… there isn’t much to say about the footage shown. Honestly, I can’t remember much of it. There were quick cuts, some kind of voiceover, strange music… but I have no visual memory of what was shown on screen. I just remember sitting there, mesmerized, until someone in the back row tapped me on the shoulder.
“I love this part,” they whispered.
“You seen this?” I asked.
“No. But I helped with the story.”
I was about to turn around, but they put a dry finger on my cheek, keeping my head looking forward.
“You don’t wanna miss this,” they said.
“You a co-writer?”
“We all are,” they whispered. “We put words to thoughts that were always there.”
“Sounds like something a writer would say.”
“How appropriate.”
I think I missed something vital. Looking around the room, I could see others weeping and burrowing their face in their hands. But the screen was empty. There was just nothing left but the projector clicking over and over. Did I miss it?
Turning around, I saw no one in the back row. Perhaps the one I’d spoken to had already left. Then again, that finger on my cheek felt familiar in a way I didn’t want to think about. Perhaps it’d been the same person who’d saved me from the white shirts.
If so, I’m using the term “person” very loosely.
I stepped out of there with no clue what the big deal was. I barely remember what I’d watched, and there was this uncomfortable ringing in my ears that just wouldn’t go away. I still had the pin. And, to my surprise, I was holding a notebook.
I didn’t remember picking that up.
Looking at the others, they seemed just as dazed as I was. Most of them awkwardly mumbled and tried to laugh it off, while others seemed genuinely disturbed. One of them kept repeating “what was it about?” over and over, like a mantra. I didn’t have a good answer. No one did.
If I really stopped to think, I’d get flashes of images. I’d see a woman in blue, and I’d hear this monotone droning noise – slowly translating itself into a voice. It spoke, but I couldn’t understand the language. But somehow, I could understand what they meant. It was fleeting, like the flavor of a childhood treat.
Returning to the mess hall, Seb couldn’t begin to understand what I was talking about. The more I tried to explain it, the stranger it seemed to me. He asked me question after question, but I didn’t know what to say. It was uncomfortable. As in, physically uncomfortable. It made me so anxious that I felt nauseous.
Rushing off to the bathroom, I tried to calm myself. I stood there, looking into the mirror, making a mental list of what I’d seen. I tried to focus on a single scene, so I could write it down and show it to Seb. I clutched my notebook and pen and whispered aloud to myself.
“There were branches in the foreground,” I muttered. “Zooming past a field of flowers. A woman in blue. An overhead voice speaking in the background, saying…”
And there, it just stopped for me.
“Saying…”
I looked down on my notebook, looking to jolt my thoughts back into action. I’d tried writing it all down, but all that’d come out were these nonsense words – similar to what I’d read in the script previously. They didn’t mean anything.
And yet, they resonated with me, in a way. It’s hard to explain.
“It’s terrifying, at first.”
The voice came from a stall behind me. A tattered old voice, as dry as bone. It was drawn out, spoken as if they’d just woken up. I didn’t say anything.
“That every word we say, and every thought we think, has already been said and thought. That it’s all out there, in nature. We’re plucking them from trees long since grown.”
One of the stall doors slowly opened.
“What other words are out there? Can we find the thoughts of a fluttering hummingbird? Of the slithering snake and the bubbling brook?”
Blackened fingers wrapped around the door frame, crackling like burning tinder.
“What were the first thoughts of a conscious God? And when we find them, will we recognize them?”
The outlines of a burned, toothless face, twisted beyond recognition. Empty eye sockets. Facial muscles long since decrepit.
“What happens when the words come to an end? When there is nothing more to say?”
The door flung open, and I flinched.
Catching a glimpse of my notebook, I noticed a single word repeated over and over.
EO.
Of course, I was alone in there. There was no one in the stall. Just as there’d been no one sitting behind me at the screening. But that didn’t mean what I’d seen and heard wasn’t real.
Later that night, I noticed a group of people outside the mess hall. Mostly staffers, but they were all people who had been shown the screening. I could see their pins. They’d brought their notebooks and had begun comparing notes. Some of them were ripping out pages, handing them back and forth between one another. Even Sammy was there. It looked like a spirited debate.
Seb had kept his eyes on them for a while. When I joined him, he couldn’t help but to look down at my notebook.
“They’re trying to make sense of it,” he said. “Comparing it to the script.”
“Are they making any progress?” I asked.
“Not sure,” he said, pointing at one of the director’s assistants. “He’s collecting some of it.”
“Collecting what?”
“No idea.”
There was a part of me that wanted to go out there. I wanted to be part of it, to figure it all out. To understand. To put my thoughts into words, and organize what I could. But looking at Seb, and down at my nonsensical notes, I couldn’t bring myself to go further than a couple of steps.
“What were the first thoughts of a conscious God?” I mumbled to myself, repeating what I’d heard.
“First line of the script.”
I looked at Seb, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s in Hampton’s cut of the script,” he continued. “First line of the movie.”
“Did he write it?”
“I think it’s from the original author.”
Our discussion was cut short as a fight broke out. I was about to run outside, but Seb held me back. Instead, we stopped to watch.
It was just two punches, then one of the assistants hit the ground. Still holding his notebook, he nodded, writing something down.
“It helps!” he laughed. “I-I… I see it! I get it!”
One of the make-up artists punched three staples into the shoulder of a man next to her. There was another fist fight, and someone began kicking a man on the ground. Someone used a camera lens as a bludgeon, smashing it over their own head.
“Yes! I remember!” someone cried.
“Of course!”
“It’s brilliant!”
Hampton’s assistant was circling the mayhem, picking up bits and pieces of bloodied notes as it escalated. I could see people from nearby trailers beelining towards the crowd, throwing themselves into chaos. Even inside the mess hall, people were pushing past me to get out there. All with the same sunflower pin; eager to make sense of their experience. To put it into words.
Even Sammy got into it. This kind-hearted, soft-spoken young woman. Now she was on the muddy ground with a nail file, stabbing it into the leg of a middle-aged camera operator.
Someone grabbed my arm.
It was a man with short blonde hair and oversized glasses. He must’ve spotted my notebook. He tried to pull me along, smiling at me. I resisted.
“Come on,” he said. “We almost got it.”
I pulled my hand away, and his smile dissipated. Seb stepped up next to me.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Seb said. “Does that look normal to you?”
He pointed out the door with his wounded hand. Equal parts relieved laughter and pain reverberated through the outer yard. I could see pin-less bystanders lining up around them, looking at them from afar.
“But… we almost got it,” the man added. “And it’s… it’s genius.”
He grabbed my arm again – this time with force. I tried pulling back, but he held on tight. Before I had the time to protest, Seb socked the guy across the nose; snapping the cartilage.
The man reeled back in the doorway, clutching his bleeding nose. He looked up at us with this big, unnerving smile. Seemingly without thought, he wrote something down in his notebook. He didn’t even look down.
“Do it again,” he smiled. “Hit me.”
I stepped back, and Seb followed suit.
“It makes so much more sense when… when you do. You have no idea.”
He hurried towards us, but we backed away. Leaving through the warehouse, we slammed a door shut in his face, locking it from the other side. I could still hear him through the door.
“Do… do it again. Hit me. You gotta-“
Stepping away from the door, we could hear him starting to bash something against it. Seb turned to me, putting a hand on my shoulder.
“You got your head screwed on?” he asked.
“Yeah, I-I… I think I’m good,” I said. “I missed some of it.”
“You… what? How?”
“There was someone in the back row, they-“
Before I finished the sentence, something moved outside. We could see it through the windows. At first I thought it was someone holding a spotlight, but as my mind processed it, I realized they were on fire.
A man burning – cheerfully sprinting as far as his legs would take him. Even from afar, and through the window, I could see all his teeth through a ghoulish grin.
There was a gunshot, and a cheer. Laughter.
Someone in the other room was screaming, begging to be let go. Then a scream cut short.
Another gunshot. More cheers. Laughing, singing. Someone was putting on music.
Seb and I looked at one another, but said nothing. Every second, there was a new horrifying sound coming from outside.
I barely noticed him snatching my notebook out of my hands. Looking at the nonsensical words I’d written, he dropped it on the floor and grabbed my collar.
“Don’t lie to me,” he said, shaking his head. “If you’re part of this, you gotta tell me. You owe me!”
I just stood there with my mouth open, trying to put something into words. I couldn’t do it. There were too many thoughts – too many threads to pull. But for all parts of me that wanted answers, there were twice as many telling me to run. This was spiraling out of control.
Seb just sighed, looking at the back exit.
“My car’s just around the corner,” he said. “Let’s go.”
I took point. Leaving through the back exit, the first thing I saw was the smoldering corpse of a burning man – still smiling. Running, we rounded the corner between two trailers.
It was fast, but I can’t forget what I saw that night. One of the trailer doors were open. There was a woman stabbing into a twitching corpse.
“He wants this,” she repeated. “I’m blameless. It’s his wish.”
Someone leapt off the roof of the mess hall. Others happily attacked one another with various weapons and tools. I saw one man getting whipped with sound cables. Those who couldn’t reach their notebooks just yelled out the words that came to mind, and it was all just… nonsense. But it was the kind of nonsense that reverberated in my head, looking for meaning.
And I’m sure that if I listened too closely, I’d find it.
As we got to Seb’s car, I could see the light from a bonfire at the front of the set. There was this awful, acrid smell in the air. I could taste the smoke on my tongue, and there was a residue that stuck to the inside of my nose. It was awful. Sickening.
The moment I opened the passenger side door, I looked across at Seb. Behind him there was a black silhouette. Something hiding in the dark, looking my way. And with a whisper that traveled straight into my ear, it said;
“Duck.”
The moment I did, a fire axe cleaved the air just inches above my scalp. I could hear the weight of the steel axe head. He was an older man from the logistics department. He kept track of the warehouse inventory. Now he was shirtless, wielding a fire axe.
“I’ll help you!” he exclaimed. “Stand still, I’ll help-“
Diving into the car, he came at me again. I kicked the passenger door open, breaking a handful of unseen mechanisms. It slammed into his stomach, sending him reeling back. As Seb put the car into gear, the wild eyes of the old man met mine.
“T-Thank you,” he smiled. “Thank you s-so much!”
Before he got another chance to attack, we were on our way. My breaths were so short they were barely perceptible. The ’68 Frogeye Sprite spun around, tires screeching, as we gunned for the exit. The gate would be closed, but we didn’t have much choice.
The bonfire was enormous. Even from the back and the side of the building, we could see the top of the fire. As we turned the corner, I could barely bring myself to look at it. I could see bodies in the fire. Skeleton hands reaching upwards. People throwing themselves into a pile. Chanting, laughter, singing. And there, in the midst of it all, I could see director Roy Hampton.
He was collecting notes from the various notebooks – seemingly ignored by the mad revelers. He gave us a curious look as we sped past, clutching his many notes to his chest like a mother cradling her child.
The car lurched forward as we broke through the gate. Metal and plastic rattled and scattered to the wind. Tires screeched, and we were on our way.
Even from afar, I could still make out Roy Hampton’s silhouette by the fire.
And right next to him, a burned-out mockery of a person.
Taking to the road, Seb didn’t stop for anything. He broke every speed limit going through downtown Chatter Blinds. He took a different route through the outskirts of the town, letting the suspension suffer the many potholes that’d built up over the years. He wasn’t taking any chances, and we were getting out – no matter what.
By the time we hit the freeway, it almost felt like that first day. Leaving whatever had been behind us, and heading for greater things. Him, to a life as a family man. And me, well, I had plenty of time to figure something out.
But while that was our final day on-set, it was far from our final day with “The End of Eternity”.
And it wouldn’t be the last time I saw director Roy Hampton.