What are you guys waiting for? Come on.
Come on!
Oh, come on! It's fine.
I think.
Yeah. It's definitely up to code.
Oh, God!
Oh, my God.
Okay, okay.
You okay? Yeah?
Looks like a nor'wester coming in.
Think we should head down?
Yeah.
I wouldn't wanna get caught...
Where are you going?
What'd you hear?
I don't know.
There it is again.
I don't hear anything, man.
What is that?
Paul?
Paul!
Paul! Paul!
You okay down there, buddy?
Oh, shit.
Okay.
Paul!
Don't worry. I'm gonna go down there,
and I'm gonna get him, okay?
Paul!
I'm gonna get him, all right? He's gonna be okay.
Okay, good!
All right, be ready to pull him up.
Paul.
What are you doing, man? Why didn't you answer me?
Paul.
What the fuck is this?
What...
What the fuck are you?
You all right?
Can you stand up?
If you touch me, you'll die.
What?
If you touch me, you'll die.
What do you mean, if I touch you?
Come on.
Come on, man. Come on.
Paul?
What is it, man?
Stop, stop, stop. Hey.
Hey, come on.
What's going on, buddy?
Greg?
- What's going on? - Hold on a minute!
Hey.
Paul, stop fucking around.
Come on, let's go.
Get up. Get up.
Come on. Come on,
I'm gonna get you outta here. I'm getting you out.
Come on. Stand up.
I got him!
- Just give me a minute. - Okay.
There's a house!
Hello!
Hello? Hello?
Nobody's here!
Open the door!
Okay, okay. I got him.
I got him.
- Easy. - I got him.
- Are you in any pain? - I'm fine. No.
I'll be right back.
Okay.
Let's get his clothes off him
and check him for insect bites.
Come on, Paul, can't you say something?
Come on.
What's wrong with him?
I don't know.
There's nothing, um...
I think he's in shock.
Come on, Paul, give us a sign, huh?
Just make sure and yelp for me
if I hit any tender spots, all right? Hmm?
How's he been lately?
Fine. He's been fine!
- Okay, okay. Calm down. - He's been fine.
Here.
Some kind of gas pocket, maybe?
I was breathing the same air he was.
No sign of a head injury at all?
No.
We need a scan to be sure but...
What?
If it's not his head, it's in his head.
We need to get him to a hospital.
- How? - I don't know.
There's gotta be somebody. We can carry him.
We hiked in here, Ruthie.
Listen to me. We hiked in here, okay?
We are 5 miles from the nearest road,
and I can't carry him anymore.
Not in this weather.
Hey.
He's not physically injured.
Hey, he's not.
Let's keep an eye on him.
And if he doesn't improve overnight,
then I will hike out
and I will find transport to Jakar myself, okay?
I'm sure he'll be fine in the morning.
Ruthie,
you gotta eat something.
Come on.
We'll be right back, okay?
Hello, can you help us?
Can you hear me? We need help!
Go away! Go away!
Ruthie, open up! It's us!
Greg?
Ruthie, open the goddamn door!
Ruthie, open!
We can't get through the pass.
Not in this storm.
Did you see someone out there?
- No. Just you. - What?
What were you doing out there?
There... There... There was someone out there.
He chased me.
- I wanna get outta here. - Come on, calm down.
Do not tell me to calm down! We need to leave!
Paul?
Where are you?
Where is he?
He's gotta be here somewhere.
Hey, Paul.
His jacket's gone.
For fuck's sake, Paul, what are you doing?
What are you doing?
I am sick
of your "I'm so special" bullshit, you know that?
That's not helping.
What's going on, sweetheart?
- You can tell me. - Oh, don't encourage him!
Just back off, Greg.
- Calm down. - No, don't tell me to back off!
Do you want him to get better or not?
No, I don't really give a shit. This is his fucking fault.
It's not helping, what you're doing. Just stop it.
I've been dealing with this selfish bullshit
for 20 years!
He has us lost on a mountain because he's having a bad day?
Would you fucking say something?
I told you...
What?
Where were you?
Just this, please.
Yeah, you don't want that one.
Well, it says that one has more sprays
than the other ones.
Yes, that's right.
But it uses a formula
where you have to shake it before you use it.
Oh.
Not something you're gonna want in an emergency.
I'll show you what you need.
It's actually cheaper, anyway.
St. Louis. Todd 3-for-31
to open this year.
He really got into that ball.
It's 2-0.
Former Home Run Derby champ Todd Frazier
trying to knock another one
outta the park and up into the stands.
So it's three balls, no strikes.
Hi. Don't go anywhere.
- This. - Oh.
You might wanna check it, see if it's expired.
Oh, of course.
And this is for you.
- I'll be right back. - Thank you.
Well, I don't need any change. It's fine.
♪ Happy birthday to you
♪ Happy birthday, dear customer
♪ Happy birthday to you ♪
- Hip, hip. - Hooray.
Hello, Amanda.
Your mom know you're here?
How's she doing?
I came here to find out how you're doing.
I mean, it's been almost a year.
I was concerned about you.
Thank you.
Maybe you think that's silly.
No.
Ever since my father died,
and so soon after when Allison and Henry...
It's okay. It's fine.
I mean...
It was more than any of us could bear.
Yeah.
Any of us. I myself felt like
I was gonna burst into a million pieces.
But I... I came to tell you
that I found something so wonderful
and so freeing.
And it's helped me to realize that nothing can hurt you,
because nothing is real.
Amanda,
a lot of things are real.
Are they?
Yeah.
How could you know?
I've learned it the hard way.
What's real starts here,
and it ends up out here.
What we think about with focus
and intention and repetition, we manifest.
It's the power of positive thinking,
the power of negative thinking. Right?
Right.
But what if there's a secret truth?
What if our thoughts
actually begin somewhere else?
And they travel through us
like a signal traveling down a wire.
Thoughts that are old and hidden and singular.
I have no idea what you're talking about.
Yes, you do. Of course you do.
Duty calls.
Okay.
Can I tell her that I saw you?
Yeah, of course.
Bye.
Thanks for checking on me.
Where were you?
Amanda, want any eggs?
We don't have any eggs.
Amanda?
Mandy, you up?
Amanda.
Hey.
It's okay. Come on. Come on.
You already called the police?
Uh-huh. A few minutes, they said.
I'll be outside.
- Who are you? - I'm James Lasombra.
Neighbor. Family friend.
Didn't you used to be a cop?
- Yes, I did. St. Louis. - Undercover, right?
Yeah. I remember hearing about you.
She came to see you yesterday?
Amanda. Yes.
She say anything
to make you think she was going somewhere?
No, not at all.
How about her father? Where's he?
He died two years ago. Heart attack.
Ma'am.
They were close?
She deal with any depression after that?
- Any more than the usual? - Just the usual.
- Nothing too... No. - No?
How are things for your daughter at school?
Any trouble?
Not at all.
She had, I mean, a panic attack the other day,
but it was nothing serious.
She had a panic attack?
I got a call from the school.
- She'd been crying in class. - Crying?
It was... It was nothing.
She had a bad day, that's all.
She has a lot of schoolwork, you know?
Which is a lot of pressure.
Anything like that happen before?
Um...
Would you say you two were close?
Yeah, Amanda and I are great. We're perfect.
Okay.
Listen, Mrs. Quail,
your daughter's 18 years old.
- She's a legal adult. - She's in high school.
You say her suitcase is missing,
and she appears to have deliberately packed. She is free to...
That's not what happened.
I know my daughter.
Christ, don't you think I'd rather
that was the case than what I'm afraid of?
I understand your concern.
We'll see what we can find.
In the meantime, if you hear anything, let me know.
Do you have any pets?
No, why?
No reason.
Have a good day, Mrs. Quail. We'll be in touch.
Talk to you outside?
Their theory is Amanda is distressed
and she's acting out to hurt you.
They're not gonna do anything, are they?
No. Probably not.
Why did they ask about pets?
I'm assuming they figure
the blood on the mirror is not human.
God, what am I supposed to do?
"He is here, he is there. He is every-fucking-where."
Who's "he"?
- Probably Peter. - Yeah?
Yeah, I don't know.
Why don't you make me a list of Amanda's friends?
Thank you.
Excuse me, Davara. Davara Walsh?
Hi, I'm James Lasombra. I'm a friend of Amanda's.
- Yeah. I know who you are. - You know who I am.
Uh, well, do you know where Amanda is?
- No. - No?
You know why she might run off?
Can I have one?
You know smoking's bad for you?
All right. Get in the car.
Okay.
So Amanda's mom told me
she was crying in class the other day.
She wasn't crying.
She was screaming.
All right, um...
The police, they, um...
They came to gym class today.
They asked us about Amanda.
What'd you tell them?
What didn't you tell them?
You tell them about the Empty Man?
That's just some stupid kid's thing.
What is it?
I don't know.
Some story started going around
that if you went to a bridge after dark
and you found an empty bottle,
and if you blew into it, and you thought about him,
something would happen.
What happens?
You try it?
When?
Two nights ago,
a few of us were down on the old Chain of Rocks Bridge.
You know where that is?
Yeah. Yeah, I know.
When I was little, I had this theory
that I could prevent anything bad from happening
by thinking about it beforehand.
What do you mean?
It's like every time I got into a car,
I'd think about all the different ways
we could get into a car accident.
Mm-hmm.
Because what are the odds of getting hit by a bus
when you just thought about getting hit by a bus?
Kids are fucking stupid.
Yeah.
He said, proving his own point.
Dude, what the fuck?
Come on, let's bounce.
You missed some.
Who was there?
Lisa, Duncan, Meyer, Brandon, and Amanda.
And Julianne was there too.
Bitch.
So, do you still wanna go?
I don't know.
Not like before,
but sometimes I still feel like I could just disappear
and no one would even notice.
I get that.
Have you ever thought about suicide?
Plenty of times.
I even tried it once.
Psych.
It's where I fell through some French doors
rollerblading in my house.
If I ever slit my wrist, it'll be long and vertical.
Hey, wait.
We gotta try it.
Please don't be dumb.
Try what?
Calling the Empty Man.
Who's the Empty Man?
Well, supposedly
if you're on a bridge and you find a bottle,
you blow into it
and you think about the Empty Man.
Then after a little while,
you're supposed to hear him coming for you.
Tell him the rest.
Well, so on the first night, you hear him.
Then you can't stop thinking about him.
And then on the second night,
you see him.
Following you.
And on the third night?
Well, on the third night, he finds you.
Oh, come on, Mandy. How old are you?
Yeah, please, let's go home. I've got swim at 6:00.
Nah, Amanda, let's do it.
Brandon wants to find out what happens.
Don't you, Brandon?
Not particularly. No.
Your turn, scrub.
Nailed it.
This is bullshit.
If it's bullshit, why won't you do it?
You don't want everyone thinking you don't blow,
right, Davara?
Fuck all you guys.
The Empty Man.
The Empty Man. The Empty Man.
- What? - Shh!
Hey, who's out there?
Whoever's out there, stop fucking around.
Yeah, that's really gonna handle it. Thanks, Meyer.
Shut up.
It's just an asshole. Some drunk or a bum or something.
Let's go, please. Please.
It's probably just some dorks
messing with us, right?
Was that the last time you saw Amanda?
I saw her at the mall
the next day talking to Brandon.
But I didn't talk to her.
You okay?
No, I have to go.
Well, wait a second. Hey.
Could you give me an address for Brandon?
- Here. - Thank you.
- Hi. - Yes?
Does Brandon Maibaum live here?
Have you seen him?
He's not home?
No. He's not here.
Okay, uh, my name is James Lasombra.
I'm a friend of Nora Quail's, who's...
Hello? Lisa?
Mrs. Schwartz?
Anybody home?
Why didn't you run, you fool?
You were nearly killed.
Quiet. The god is coming.
What's he talking about?
He said the god is coming.
Hello?
Which god?
His god. Aten.
- Aten? - Look!
Lisa?
Hello?
Hey, Nora, it's me.
Listen, how well do you know Amanda's friends?
Do any of them seem kinda off to you?
Off how?
Into weird stuff.
What kind of weird stuff?
I don't know. I'm just grasping, Nora.
I mean, I don't wanna worry you,
but I tried to find, uh,
all of Amanda's friends who were last seen with her,
and I just can't seem to locate them.
None of them?
Aside from Davara Walsh, no.
You ever heard of the Pontifex Institute?
She ever mention that before?
- No. No. What is that? - I don't know.
It might not have anything to do with anything.
Listen, I got a few more stops to make.
So, why don't we talk about this later tonight?
Everything's gonna be fine, Nora.
All right, bye.
Leave me alone!
What is your problem?
Why would she do that?
She knew Amanda Quail.
Is that why you were talking to her?
Yeah, that's right. They're friends.
I was hoping maybe she'd seen her.
And had she?
Not since yesterday at school. No.
How well did you know the Walsh girl?
Hardly at all.
What do you mean "did"?
Davara Walsh died tonight.
Her body was found in a spa earlier this evening.
Stabbed multiple times. We don't know how many. A lot.
Oh, crap.
She was stabbed in the face.
You have a suspect?
By all appearances, it was a suicide.
People don't...
People just don't do that to themselves.
My point exactly.
You know this town. One, two murders a year.
Three if we're frisky. Now this?
It poisons the atmosphere.
Sure as sewage would the water supply.
It's communicable.
It changes people.
Three weeks ago, in a house in Maryville,
a mother fed her newborn infant
to a pack of stray dogs.
She said the baby had been whispering to her.
In the kitchen,
she wrote "The Empty Man" on the linoleum floor.
We found the same thing tonight
near the body of the Walsh girl.
I've come to the conclusion
that there is no solving crimes like these.
Sure, we can put that mother in prison.
We can even put her in the gas chamber.
But that's not solving it.
It's inexplicable.
It's too big. It's...
We can't indict the cosmos.
You tell them about the Empty Man?
That's just some stupid kid's thing.
What is it?
It started a while ago. I don't know.
Some story started going around
that if you went to a bridge after dark
and you found an empty bottle,
and if you blew into it, and you thought about him,
something would happen.
What happens?
On the first night, you'd hear him.
And then the second night, you'd see him.
On the third night...
you'd feel him.
- Hello. - Are you all right?
Yeah, fine.
You don't sound fine.
It's just a bloody nose.
Oh, okay.
Um... I'm outside.
Hi.
I'm guessing you forgot to eat.
No, I didn't forget. It just never occurred to me.
Come inside.
- Plates? - Next one on your right.
I just got you some, um,
egg rolls and Szechuan beef,
a little egg drop soup.
There's a big vigil in Slattery Park.
You know, everyone's there.
I made some flyers,
I was gonna put up around town...
Hey.
- I'm sorry. - It's okay.
- I'm sorry. - No, no, no.
- None of this is your problem. - Don't be sorry.
Don't be sorry. You have nothing...
You have nothing to apologize for. Okay?
All right?
Yes. Yes, I do.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry it's been so long.
And I'm sorry about why.
Do you think she's okay?
Come here.
It's okay.
Everything's okay.
May I stay?
God.
Boundaries.
You want a drink?
Mm-hmm.
Where were you?
On the first night,
you hear him.
Hey, sleepyhead.
Hello?
...self-inflicted.
Any reason the group of friends
might have committed suicide remain unclear at this hour.
Another member of the group,
Amanda Quail, is still missing.
Welcome.
Go ahead and have a seat. You're just in time.
Well, that's good news.
Can I ask you a question?
How long you guys been in business here?
We were established in 2013.
But what we can offer you is as old as time.
Okay.
Hi.
What is this?
That is your first step on a journey
to discovering your deepest self.
Oh, yeah. No, I get all that.
I grew up in San Francisco.
What is this?
Welcome, everyone.
Please just have a seat. I'll be with you in a moment.
Hey. Hey. So I'm looking for someone.
Just make yourself comfortable.
I'm sure you'll find the answers you're looking for.
Follow me.
Sound check. One, two, three.
Check. One, two, three.
Each one of you here today
is looking for something.
Why else would you be here?
We go looking for things we have lost.
Yes? Well, I'm here to tell you,
there is nothing you have lost.
More than that, there is no such thing as loss.
From our earliest days,
meeting in garages,
living rooms, church basements,
to this very moment,
our message has always remained
"you are complete in yourself."
There is no struggle.
Struggling has failed.
Struggling is what wakes you up every day,
wondering how much more you can acquire,
how much more you can use,
how much more space can you take up in the world.
When the question we really need to ask ourselves is,
how much less can you use?
How much less space can you occupy?
There is no struggle
because there are no distinctions.
To say that you are wrong,
or I am right, is to divide us.
Therefore we deny there is such a thing
as right or wrong.
These are exclusionary constructs
designed to foster the illusion of separateness.
There is no such thing as disunity.
There is only the great, binding
nothingness of things.
At one time we were one.
We will all be one again.
This message comes to you directly from
the Empty Man.
He beckons you
to discover the true face of the world.
Can I ask you to sign these?
Thank you.
Thank you for coming.
For a second there,
I thought you were about to say "namaste."
I can if you like.
No, no, no. Please, please, please.
- I grew up in San Francisco. - Ah.
But towards the end you did say...
"The Empty Man."
That's right.
That's an interesting phrase.
You could say he called out to you.
- Or not. - Hmm.
What does it mean?
The Empty Man is
a meditation.
A focal point for the targeted manifestation
of hidden energies.
Right. And already you're starting to lose me.
Just as man feeds and is fed
by the biosphere and the atmosphere,
so it is our thoughts feed and are fed by the noosphere.
The noosphere?
The sum of all conscious thought,
transmission from which can be stimulated
through the application of certain vectors,
very much like a virus.
You can't see it.
Well, what is it?
The veil between form and flesh,
and the means by which it can be pierced
and the two allowed to commingle.
We're each of us blind in our way.
Distractions rob us of focus.
Technology robs us of memory.
Repetition robs us of comprehension.
You know the child's game,
if you say your name enough times,
it becomes gibberish?
That holds true for whole concepts,
even entire bodies of thought.
For example, take Nietzsche's old line,
"If you stare into an abyss, it also stares into you."
Right? Well...
That has been rendered meaningless
through repetition.
It's a refrigerator magnet.
It's cliche. It's harmless.
But when was the last time you really thought about that?
What is an abyss?
And if you stare into it, why?
What about it calls to you?
And if it stares into you,
it stands to reason something in you
must also be calling to it.
And that, my friend, is anything but harmless,
if you really reflect on it.
So the question becomes,
if profound meaning can be robbed of something
by so simple a task as repetition,
which is more fundamental? Which is more true?
Your name
or the gibberish?
That is the Empty Man.
I'm so glad you came back.
Hope you stay longer this time.
I've never been here before.
- And here. - Hmm.
There must be something about you.
Sir, just one more signature.
Hey, man.
You, uh...
You seen this girl here? She hang out here?
No?
Liar.
- Thank you so much. - Give us a minute.
Hmm. Thank you for coming. Thank you.
Here.
Nothing exists.
Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it.
Even if something can be known about it,
knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.
Even if it can be communicated,
it cannot be understood.
Nothing exists.
Even if something exists, nothing can be known about it.
Even if something can be known about it,
knowledge about it can't be communicated to others.
Even if it can be communicated,
it cannot be understood.
...from his thoughts.
From his thoughts come the dreams.
From the dreams comes the power.
From the power comes the bridge.
From the bridge comes the man.
From the man comes his thoughts.
From his thoughts come the dreams.
From the dreams comes the power.
From the power comes the bridge.
From the bridge comes the...
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Is there someone here now?
If you're here now, show yourself.
Make yourself known to us.
We hear you.
We're listening.
Welcome.
Show yourself.
Would you come with us, sir?
Huh.
How you doing?
Exit's that way.
You'll never get anywhere like that, man.
Not with these cats.
Cats?
Man, these cats,
they're on another plane, man. You know?
Like, far out on the outer rim.
Aren't you a little young for the Neal Cassady routine?
Who's that, man?
You got a smoke?
She's been here.
But she's not here now.
Got big plans for her. They're moving her up.
Where is she?
Elsewhere.
Downstate.
Pontifex camp, where they go to get PR'd.
What is that?
Pre-Released.
It's the First Threshold to achieving Singularity.
Christ, this jargon.
They have bullshit names for everything, man.
Comes to them in dreams, they say.
His whispers.
Whose whispers?
I don't know.
But they do.
These aren't just flakes and outcasts.
They don't have 5-year plans, they have 500-year plans.
You have no idea how dangerous these people are, man.
Where's the camp?
In the forest. Off Route 32.
Near the Meramec River Bridge.
Yeah, okay.
That's funny.
You guys are funny.
The Pontifex Society.
We transmit. You receive.
Testing.
From his thoughts comes the dream.
From the dream comes the power.
From the power comes the bridge.
From the bridge comes the man.
We should turn it off.
Did you see that?
What?
Come give me a hand with this.
What the hell is he doing?
Fuck.
Nasty.
This is only getting worse.
Yeah, no.
Come on.
Come on!
What the fuck was that?
Will you be able to identify any of them?
No. Way too dark, man.
Uh-huh.
And they attacked you after you took these files?
Yeah, but that had...
There was two cabins.
I took the files from the first cabin.
But they wouldn't know that. They couldn't see it.
Were these cabins locked?
No, they were not locked.
Was the road into the camp blocked?
What are you trying to say?
You're saying that I was trespassing?
I am trying to determine
if you have irretrievably fucked this investigation.
You can check out the Pontifex Institute.
Major Cases is already on it.
This is bad news. This is weird occult shit.
And you are not a cop anymore.
Come on, Lasombra.
Just write a statement.
Everything that happened.
I'll be right back.
Nora!
Hi.
- Are you alone? - Yes.
- Has anyone come by? - No.
- Contacted by anybody? - Like who?
What are you doing? James?
Do you have a place you can go for a few days?
What?
I don't want to scare you...
Well, you are. You are scaring me.
James.
Maybe I want to scare you a little bit.
Do you remember the Pontifex Institute?
I told you about them.
- Yes. - I checked them out.
On the surface, it looks like some sort of
self-empowerment "oneness" hippy bullshit.
But they're dangerous.
Are you saying that Amanda has joined a...
- A cult? - Maybe.
They're not connected to any sort of
fucking church I've ever heard of.
Oh, my God.
And whoever they are, they seem to believe
that they can channel some sort of entity.
The Empty Man.Yeah.
Do you have place you can go?
I... I have to work. I mean, what am I...
Hey, hey, hey.
I think they killed those kids, Nora.
And they know where you live.
Get it.
Hello?
Give it to me.
We need to go right now.
Get in your car, follow me.Okay.
I don't think we've been followed.
If you see anything suspicious,
you'll let me know?
Anything at all?
Okay.
She's dead, isn't she?
No, no.
No, she's not dead.
I think the fact that she wasn't under that bridge
means she's not. Okay?
Hey.
Does she know?
About what?
About us?
You mean the thing we never talk about?
No, no, I don't think so.
Why?
You never told her?
Why would I?
Do you think maybe
we've punished ourselves long enough?
Where were you?
On the second night...
On the second night,
you see him.
Where were you?
All available doctors
to Med Wing 3.
All available doctors to Med Wing 3.
EKG stat to ER. EKG stat to ER.
All right, I'll see you next week.
You got it.
How you doing, Neal Cassady?
Come here.
Get in the car. Get in the fucking car!
Give me your hands.
I didn't know what they were gonna do, man.
- They just told me to tell you about it. That's all. - That's bullshit!
Who's that guy in the hospital?
I saw you, freak show. You and your buddies.
Jesus, this shit really stings, man.
I don't give a shit. Who was he?
It's hard to explain.
Why don't you give it a go, man?
I'm your only friend right now.
He's like an antenna.
Tuned to frequencies we only get through him.
He transmits, we receive.
Fuck.
Get the fuck out of the car.
Get on your knees. On your knees!
All right. Fuck.
You say something that makes sense,
or I swear to fucking God...
Thought is communicable.
That is what they say, okay?
- What? - Transmittable.
The noosphere is the sum of all consciousness.
Not just human. Other minds are there, too.
- Ancient, and angry. - You guys are all
- fucking morons! - You get glimpses
in dreams and fevers, right?
Deja vu?
Every nightmare you've ever had
was just a fucking documentary.
But once in a while, there's a man.
Sometimes, only one in 1,000 years.
- The prophet of the other. - The other? What other?
The between one.
He needs an empty man to be a bridge
to the rest of the world.
He comes to erase all boundaries.
The only reality is there is no reality.
Except for him.
His endless, black chaos.
Ah, things are gonna slide, man.
It's gonna be a bloodbath.
You're coming down with him already, aren't you?
You don't even know it.
You've got the itch in the brain.
I'm so sick of your fucking shit, man.
I grew up in San Francisco.
I just wanna know one thing. Where's Amanda Quail?
She's on the bridge.
Bridge? What bridge?
There is no bridge.
Haven't you been fucking listening?
What is this?
How do you have this?
How do you have any of this?
You're fucking with me.
Where were you?
Coming down with it...
He transmits, we receive.
On the third night...
You've got an itch
in the brain.
He finds you.
On the third night, he finds you.
You feel...
In the brain.
You feel him.
He transmits, we receive.
Can I help you?
Yes.
My name is James Lasombra. I'm a private detective.
Been hired to find someone,
and I have reason to believe
they are a patient in your hospital.
So, maybe you could just tell me about that guy,
in that room, right there?
I can't divulge patient information, sir.
Of course, you can't do that.
Maybe you could just tell me how long he's been here.
I could cross him off my list.
He's been here for some time.
Since before I started here.
How long ago was that?
Almost a year.
Is he stable?
Well, he's not on life support,
if that's what you mean.
Oh, but he's unresponsive?
He fluctuates between a three and a nine
on the Glasgow Coma Scale.
Usually, he's a three.
What does that mean?
Unresponsive to stimuli, non-vocal, eyes closed.
Uh-huh. Is it common
for someone who's stable to be in the ICU for that long?
No.
It's not common.
What makes him so special?
He was admitted to Bellevue 23 years ago.
Five years later,
he was transferred to Stockham Health.
Then a private clinic in Cedar Rapids,
until two years ago.
Then who brought him here?
I don't know.
Maybe they were treating him experimentally
and he took a turn.
- Took a turn? - Took a turn for the worse.
Maybe he took a turn for the better.
Either way, they sent him on to us.
I suppose it won't hurt to tell you.
As far as I know, he doesn't have a name.
- He's a John Doe? - Mm.
And who pays John Doe's bills?
I'm sure I don't know.
But he certainly gets a lot of visitors.
They come and go all the time.
There's one in there with him right now.
So, what do you think?
Is he the man you've been looking for?
I don't know.
May I?
Go right ahead.
Hello, Amanda.
Been looking for you.
Well, you found me.
Who is he?
You know who he is.
No, I don't.
What's his name?
I have no idea.
You can call him whatever you'd like.
I like to think of him as a carrier.
Because he's like a disease, in a way.
But he's also like a carrier signal, you know?
Modulated by an input signal.
He transmits, we receive.
And his message is contagious.
I need to call your mom.
- Hello? - Nora, it's me.
I found Amanda.
I'm sorry, who is this?
It's me, James.
Who are you calling for?
Nora? Yes?
It's me.
Nora, it's me. I'm so sorry.
It's James. My name... I think you have the wrong number.
I'm James.
What the fuck is going on?
He's weakening now.
There's only so long a human body can withstand
this kind of power.
We need to find a replacement.
And soon.
Replacement?
Well, there were 500 years
between the last carrier and this one.
We didn't have that kind of time.
So we decided to try something a little bit radical.
An experiment.
What kind of experiment?
We decided to make one.
It's getting hard to tell what's real
and what's in your head anymore, isn't it?
Listen to your thoughts. You can hear him, can't you?
Squirming his way in,
crowding you out.
Did you know that the brain can itch?
Imagine an overwhelming itch
deep in the base of your skull.
That's him.
You're fucking crazy.
It's not real. It's not fucking real.
Of course it's not, so why fight it?
You must detach from a false reality
in order to attach to a new one.
A stronger one.
You're fucking crazy.
I bet you thought I didn't know about
your little indiscretion with my mother.
No!
Well, I not only knew about it,
I made it happen.
I wrote it into your script when we created you.
What are you talking about?
What high school did you go to?
Crossroads.
What hospital were you born in?
Emancipated Heart.
- And what day were you born? - November 7th.
No, it was three days ago, remember?
You spent it alone in a Mexican restaurant
and the waiters all sang you Happy Birthday.
We made you as a group.
We wrote up a complete biography for you,
and focused on it intently for several sessions
to conjure you into being.
You are our Tulpa.
Our Empty Man.
Thought plus concentration plus time equals flesh.
Your flesh.
We tried once before but failed.
The signal can only penetrate
through the cracks of sorrow, grief, and guilt.
Fear. That's what we were missing.
Shut up.
So we built you that way.
Shut up!
What's the worst thing that's ever happened to you?
Go on. You can say it.
Fuck you!
It was the death of Allison and Henry, wasn't it?
The death of your wife and son.
And where were you
when they needed you the most?
Nothing you do is in your control.
You cannot make your own choices.
You're not your own man. You're our man.
But isn't that a relief, really?
Isn't that what you want most anyway?
So just let go.
Wouldn't it be easier to just let go?
From the bridge comes the man.
From the man comes his thoughts.
From his thoughts come the dreams.
From the dreams comes the power.
...thoughts come the dreams.
From the dreams comes the power.
From the power comes the bridge.
From the bridge comes the man.
From the man come his thoughts.
From his thoughts come the dreams.
From the dreams
comes the power.
Is there someone here?
If you're here now, show yourself.
Make yourself known to us.
We hear you.
We're listening.
Show yourself.
We're listening.
Show yourself.
You transmit. We receive.