Hey. Dad, Dad.
Hey, what's up?
Sheppard's falling behind again. He's exhausted, showed up late,
putting the rest of the guys in danger.
- Well, his brother's sick. - He's a good kid, but one man
doesn't take precedent over the team.
Let me talk to him.
I'm gonna have to let him go.
Dad, you just said so yourself, he's a good kid.
Come on, just let me talk to him.
Go get your tools. I'll meet you in the truck.
Ah! Dad!
- Eric? - Please! Please! Help me! Dad!
Eric! Eric!
- Dad! Dad! - What the fuck?
I got you, I got you.
Dad! Please. Dad. Dad.
Dad!
Please, please, help me, Dad.
- Dad! - Eric!
Eric.
Eric!
Dad!
Hello, Arianne.
It's Darren Atkins again.
The team and I are all set for the trip,
our gear is ready,
and we packed as light as possible,
so we're only bringing essential equipment.
Okay. I'm excited to get going,
and looking forward to meeting you in person.
Thank you.
Are we close?
- All right, excuse me. What? - Come on, man,
- let the woman drive. - I'm letting her drive.
We exited the freeway four hours ago.
Okay, none of these roads are on the maps.
We don't have any signal. I just...
Want to continually attack her professionalism.
Well?
Is there anything I could do
to maybe facilitate your driving?
You could shut up, amigo.
Okay. Hey, look, this isn't meant to be a criticism,
but how do you know where we're going?
I was raised by wolves.
Sarcasm is gonna get us there quicker.
You know, I'm curious, Arianne,
how many of the expeditions you've aided
have had a scientific objective?
With all due respect, sir,
I don't discuss my clients with other clients.
I hope you'll consider that an asset.
Yes, of course.
Although I hope that this will be an expedition
we will all want to talk about for years to come.
I'm just here to get you to where you need to go.
Fair enough.
This looks promising.
Maybe we can get a postcard.
I'm getting hungry. Anyone else getting hungry?
Wait here, I won't be long.
Copy.
You okay?
All right.
Excuse me, sir.
I'd like to buy some water for the five of us
and some coolant for the car, if you have it?
Also, I'm looking for directions.
We've been tracking the river for a couple of hours
past Peaks Mill, South Pike.
But I can't seem to find where I need to go.
Where'd that be?
Shookum Hills.
I ain't never heard of it.
Old mountain town,
used to be around here
until it burned down to the ground,
back in the '70s.
I'm working off an atlas from 1972 out there,
and on any map after that it seems like the town
was literally wiped off the face of the earth.
Any help you could offer will be much appreciated.
You go back the way you came.
You'll reach the freeway.
Stay on that till you get back to your city.
You'll be fine.
Great.
Thanks.
Dale. We've got a problem.
So?
We're close.
- Let's go. - All right.
Well it's about time.
Did they have any food in there?
We should go back.
What's that, Shawn?
It's not here.
Let's go back.
The fact it's not here is the reason we are.
We shouldn't be here.
Right.
Right, we should go back. We should throw two years
- of research... - Hang on.
What are you doing?
- Hey! - Jesus! What the fuck!
We're not alone.
- Friendly escort? - Not likely.
Hold on.
Hey, slow down.
- Come on, slow down! - Hang on.
No, I'm serious, slow the fuck down!
Can you lose them?
- I'm being serious. - Relax.
- We're going too fast. - Slow down!
She's got this.
Nice driving, Arianne.
Are you trying to get us killed?
Doing what I'm paid to do.
You paying her to get us killed?
It's fine, she knows what she's doing, all right?
There you go.
What was that?
That was an escort.
They wanted to push us past one very specific point in the road.
All right, so what are you saying?
That spot where he slowed down,
that's where we need to go.
It should be close.
Look for openings and sidetracks.
Guys, look.
Up there to the right.
This is it.
Stop. Don't touch it.
It's electrified.
All right.
Darren.
Why put up an electric fence in the middle of nowhere?
They want to keep us out.
This doesn't feel right.
We need to find our way around this gate.
Those branches are too thin to climb.
Or your ass is too big.
Really, man? Six percent body fat.
Yeah, right. How do you know that?
Hey, Arianne?
Let's go.
This is a good spot, guys.
So, what do we have to worry about out here?
Is this shit like quicksand or what?
A sinkhole...
is formed when an underground cavity collapses.
They've been known
to swallow livestock,
people, cars, even houses.
Many were formed by coal seams that catch fire
and collapse as the coal smolders.
- So that's what happened here? - No, we don't know yet.
There are hundreds of coal seam fires
throughout the world.
Some were ignited through natural processes.
Others were brought on by men in mining accidents.
And then there's Shookum Hills.
We know there was a fire, but not what caused it,
We know there was a town here, not why it vanished.
- And we know there were miners. - If they were miners.
And I'm out.
- Really? - What do you mean if?
Here we go.
Well, the prevailing theory
is that this was never actually a coal mine,
but America's response to the Well to Hell.
The Kola Borehole in Siberia.
The Russians decided to drill
the deepest borehole in the world
- and they did, supposedly. - Okay.
They dug 8 miles straight down
until the drill broke.
Then they lowered a heat resistant microphone
into the well where they recorded this sound.
What the hell was that?
Some say it's the screams of the damned.
Echoes, distorted echoes
of slight underground grinding of tectonic plates,
happens everywhere lithosphere is disrupted by mining.
A natural reaction to a natural invasive procedure.
So the theory is the American government
decided to drill their own well here at Shookum Hills.
And now everyone is gone.
The whole place is gone.
Right, so, what you really need to worry about
is not whether this shit is like quicksand,
but rather that key members of this expedition
continue to discard fundamental scientific principles
and throw all reason out the window.
I am not discarding science.
- Oh, no? - I am just trying
to embrace the notion
that folklore, myth, religion
all stem from a merger between science
and, you know, actual human experience.
That idea might have grown from a combination
of myth and fact.
- Yeah. - Just like intelligent design
is not a concept that disregards the big bang.
It just keeps us open to the possibility
that God created it.
Except he didn't, Shawn. A rapid disruption
of the primordial singularity did 15 billion years ago.
- So you say. - So science says.
Christ, what is this? Sophomore philosophy class?
Christ. Also, real guy, myth, both?
- Mom and Dad are fighting again. - They need counseling.
I'm not having this conversation.
You seem to know what happened, tell us.
It's obvious, an environmental disaster.
And we're not here to find hell.
We're here to find holes and smoke.
Hmm. So basically hell, then.
Thank you, guys, very much for clearing that up.
I'm sorry I asked.
How long?
I don't know.
Did someone cut the wire?
Not cut.
It's torn.
What? Like a fucking animal chew on it or something?
I don't think so.
It's been pulled.
Stripped from inside.
At least the grating held.
What's the voltage?
Apparently not enough.
Cain, they're trying to get out. Check your zone.
Yes, ma'am, I'm on it.
Closing in on to 16 and 18,
I'll check in when I'm done. Over.
I hear you, devil.
That's my knife.
Okay.
Just don't like anyone else
- touching it. - I get it.
I feel the same way about my PlayStation.
No, you don't.
- Have a good night. - Good night.
Hey, hey.
Hey.
So, Darren.
Yeah?
Where did you find her?
A colleague of mine,
he did a dig with her in Tanzania.
Worst personality ever, he said.
Arrogant, self-absorbed.
But she got him where he needed to go.
She worked in Africa, huh?
Yeah, all over the world, apparently.
She likes to travel.
Yep.
Or she doesn't wanna go home.
Hmm.
Did you tell him?
I didn't need to.
Any sign of those kids?
Couldn't find them.
But I scared them good.
We're fine.
I want them gone, no matter what it takes.
Are we clear?
Can you fix this?
I can patch it up.
But I don't know if it'd hold.
Arianne. Hello?
I just wanted to thank you.
For what?
Well, for getting us this far.
Pay me first, thank me later.
You know, I was thinking.
We could use your help in the mine,
if you care to join.
I'm not a scientist.
My responsibility is to get you there as agreed.
Then I'm done.
Okay, but what's next for you after this?
I've got another gig.
What, more exciting than being part
of a groundbreaking scientific discovery?
I don't discuss my clients with...
Right, yes, with other clients, right.
Where did you scoop up
that group of super hombres out there?
What's that?
That group of men you have.
Terry's an old acquaintance.
He's not much of a talker.
But he knows his tech and can power up
pretty much anything with a stick and a piece of string.
Shawn is...
We share the same fascination for this place, really.
And as annoying as he is, he's an expert geologist.
He has my respect.
Jaime's pretty new. He joined us about a month ago.
Security services.
Why do you need private security
for a scientific expedition?
Well, to keep us safe.
Safe from what?
Um...
I like to be prepared.
What are you expecting to find here?
Anthracite.
Ultra high-grade.
It burns like nothing else.
If... If we can sample it,
find out exactly how it smolders and spreads,
we might have a key to understanding what causes
these environmental disasters and prevent future ones.
And that's it? Nothing more?
A thousand people lived in Shookum Hills, Arianne.
A thousand, all gone.
Even with a great fire
people don't just disappear like that.
Towns don't.
Something else happened here.
Something more.
And I'm here to discover what that is,
document it
and bring it home.
So the truth, I guess, is...
what I'm hoping to find.
I'm sorry. It's just my vitamins.
So, what... What do you think we'll find here?
Only what you take with you.
Nietzsche, right?
Yoda.
Right.
Well, have a good night.
Good night.
Darren. This is what, like the fifth one of these?
Yeah, it's probably a warning system for gas leaks.
Looks pretty new.
Look at this.
Studio foam.
- What? - Soundproofing.
What is that doing here?
Terry.
Yeah, I see it.
I smell sulfur. Be careful.
Yeah, I'll take out the CO2 readers.
Check the BTUs.
Someone's coming. Get down.
Guys, that's the car from yesterday.
Let's keep moving.
They know we're here.
- Hey, Terry? - Yeah.
You can literally feel heat from the fires.
Guys!
Come look at this!
We found it.
These buildings are way older than I expected.
It makes sense.
This has been a mining town since the early 1900s.
- I'm gonna document this. - Yeah.
This looks like some kind of shop.
Oh, look at this.
What's the air stat?
Slightly elevated, but that's to be expected.
Nothing out of the green.
But as the mines burn,
they occasionally release methane and carbon monoxide.
And this air monitor detects them before we do.
Yeah, we should probably get out of here.
It's our canary in the coal mine as it were.
Now, as you can see,
entire shops and houses were abandoned outright.
We've yet to determine if the inhabitants left
because of the gases, the sinkholes or something else.
So can I thank you now?
You surely can.
Shoot away, mate.
- I wonder how far down this goes? - Well, let's find out.
Yeah, it's electrified.
Well, can we power it off or something?
I don't know about powering off, maybe bypass it.
Like that?
Yeah, something like that. Get the scanner.
You can't get any closer.
He's fine.
We should secure you both with a line.
This grate's unstable. It's not safe.
I can't authorize this.
You're right. You can't.
Go on.
- Get the scanner. - Yep. One second.
Hey, Shawn. Can you give me a hand with this?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Terry.
- Yeah? - What is that?
Records image, sound, measures air composition,
then distills and separates each individual component
for subsequent analysis.
It checks for anthracite.
Got it.
All right, here we go.
Lower it, Shawn.
Okay, what do you got?
Nothing yet.
All right.
Lower it.
I hit the bottom.
Nothing?
No.
All right, here we go.
Hey, Shawn.
C15-H11-0.
The composition is extremely pure.
I've never seen anything like that.
That's it, man.
We've got it.
I've found it.
Shawn, bring up the scanner.
Hey, hold on, one second. Wait, wait, wait.
There is something down there.
What the hell is that?
Aah! Fuck!
- What happened? - Goddamn it!
- What? - It blew my ear drum out, man.
Turn it up. Listen to this.
Turn it up.
Listen.
Right there.
What is that?
- You hear it? - Sort of.
Terry!
- Terry! - Terry!
Help!
Help me!
- Can you hear us? - We have to get him.
Terry!
Oh, no! Oh, no!
No! Help me!
Help me!
- What just happened? - Jaime, get over here.
- Jaime! - We shouldn't have been here.
We shouldn't be here.
Shawn, I need the gas detector.
Shawn! The detector.
Darren!
We're going in after him, okay?
Just keep close and follow my lead.
I got it.
Let's go.
Terry.
Terry!
Terry.
Terry!
Darren.
Hey!
I'll talk to him.
We need your help. You need to call for help.
- What have you done? - Our friends are down there.
What have you done?
Someone fell down the hole.
- How long has this been open? - Our friends...
How long has this been open!
Sir. It's fine. It's fine.
Jaime, did you hear that?
Jaime.
Gas levels are through the roof.
We have to get out of here.
I'm not leaving him down here.
If we don't save ourselves, everyone dies.
We have to go.
- Someone fell down the hole. - You've got a rope.
- I'll cut it. - No. No.
- No. - Back the fuck up.
It's fine, sir.
You can't do that.
There's people down there.
Arianne, quick!
Jaime.
What's going on?
- Fuck. - Let's go.
Oh, fuck.
- Is he dead? - No, no.
- Did I kill him? - No, he's fine.
He's fine, Shawn.
He's fine.
What happened? Who is this?
He tried to cut the rope.
Hey, hey.
- Call an ambulance. - How? Our cells are no good here
and our satellite phone was on Terry.
Where is he?
Where's Terry? What happened to him?
- We couldn't find him. - Fuck! Fuck this!
- We couldn't find him. - What do you mean?
He didn't run away.
No, of course not.
So? What happened to him?
We don't know what's down there.
Gas levels were sky-high.
We might be dealing with something...
Something else.
- What was that thing? - What thing?
- You saw. We all saw. - I don't know
- what you're talking about. - What do you mean?
- We need to leave now! - Just leave him here?
The man came with a knife and a shotgun.
I'm not waiting to see what he pulls next.
Okay, we'll call for help
as soon as we reach a spot where we can.
Now let's go. Please.
Guys, he's right. Let's go.
Come on, let's go.
I should have never allowed you to convince me to come here.
You've been as obsessed with this place as I have.
- But given your track record. - Fuck off, Shawn.
Darren's received five warnings for scientific misconduct
from three universities, two kicked him out.
- What? - Who do old thinkers expel
- from their midst? - Psychopaths.
- Visionaries. - Who is funding this again?
It isn't Cambridge Earth Science Department.
Oh, shit.
Fuck!
Fuck! Fuck!
Fuck!
This thing's not going anywhere.
It'll be dark soon.
We better reach the fence. Let's go.
Fuck.
Oh, shit. Fuck.
This is Dale. Come in.
Gotcha, what's up?
We have a breach.
Repeat. We have a breach.
What the fuck is going on?
We triggered an alarm.
Through that, then west. We should be back on track.
- Okay. There it is again. - What? What is it?
- Listen. - What is that?
There.
Turn off the flashlights. Give me the night vision.
What is that?
Don't know. Same thing I heard in the tunnel.
Where is it coming from?
Follow the light on my bag.
- Jaime. Stay close. - What?
I hear something, over there.
Yeah, I hear it too.
Look out!
What the fuck was that?
Shawn!
Go. Go, move. Go!
Shit!
Everybody run.
Run!
Go, go, go!
Hey! Guys, a truck! Let's go, now!
Hey!
Help us!
Hey, over here!
Get in the truck.
Now, quick!
Go, go, go!
Out of my way.
Move.
Wait here and keep quiet.
Where's Dale?
- I'm getting nothing. - Get him on the radio.
Keep trying.
I knew it.
I knew you son of a bitches were gonna cause trouble.
Who are you?
What are you doing here?
My name is Darren Atkins,
Professor of Geology
at the Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge.
We're here on purely academic purposes
to perform a series of geological survey tests.
How did you find us?
Your guys basically led us straight here.
We had a general sense of the area.
You had a general sense of the area?
Yes.
What does that mean? A general sense of the area.
What did you just say?
How did you find us?
My father used to track down people for money,
and I knew I had to look
for where someone made an effort to hide a trail.
Where's your father now?
He lost his way.
Well, we've all lost something, haven't we?
Schuttmann. I can't reach Dale or Cain.
It could be out of range.
You're Paul Schuttmann?
Co-founder of Shookum Hills mining company?
I used to be.
Now I do what you might call security and protection work.
What is it you protect?
You.
What happened here? What is this place?
A fucking hellhole. That's what it is.
Everybody here has their own beliefs about what this is.
What's yours?
Maybe it's purgatory.
The place where we go to confront our sins,
where we're tested on our flaws.
And you either come clean or get destroyed.
My sin was greed.
What's yours?
Shelby, you there?
I'm here.
I got a couple of them, scattered the rest.
There's a lot of them. We've got a breach somewhere.
I don't know.
Find the breach. I'll see what I can do here
and get back to you.
You opened a sinkhole?
- I suppose we... - Which one!
I'll show you.
Look, we lost a man down there.
Another one in the field.
Go with them. Find it.
- Seal it before it's too late. - Let's go.
Move, asshole.
Professor.
- What are those? - Keep up.
Why is this area unprotected?
It's not.
We protect it. We protect everybody.
Before y'all showed up, we were doing a fine...
Nobody move.
They sounded us.
Hide.
Ellroy, do you see anything out there?
Shelby, you copy?
Keep it down. What's up?
Stay in the safe house.
Whatever you do, don't come out.
It's kind of too late for that, Kip.
We made it to Safe House 4, barely.
They're everywhere.
How many?
It's hard to say. Never seen anything like it.
Fuck.
You've gotta get back inside, Shel.
There's a house on the hill. Do you think we can make it?
We don't know how many are out there. We need to stay put.
- What the fuck are you doing? - I can't run fast enough,
but I can slow them down.
- What? - Find the breach and close it.
So give me this.
And the lighter.
Tell Dolores I didn't mess up my good coat. All right?
Now, y'all get the fuck out of here.
Go on, get.
Here I am, come get me!
Hey, you bastards!
Shit.
In there!
This is not good.
This isn't good.
There's one outside.
You have a rifle.
If anything comes in here, you use it.
They are attracted to noise.
I don't see it anymore.
- Shelby, your status? - Shit. Shit.
What is it doing?
Calling the others.
Listen carefully now.
No matter what you do, don't let them grab you.
Because if they grab you, they paralyze you
and they take you down there.
God only knows what they do to you when they've got you.
Go.
Okay.
Fuck!
Back up!
- I'm okay! - There's an exit!
- Let's go! - Come on! Go!
Keep moving.
There's a way through.
Hurry up, they're coming.
- This way. - Wait.
Take these.
I'm gonna create a diversion.
- I'll join you again later. - But we need you.
Have a little faith.
What?
Go.
Come and get me, you assholes!
- It's a dead end. - In here.
- Come on. - Yeah, right. Go.
Let's put up that grating. It'll slow them down.
We gotta get it from outside.
Go. Go, hurry up.
Oh, shit. The grenade! Give me the grenade!
- Jaime! - Get down!
Darren.
Wait. Wait.
We've lost them.
Get up. We have to keep going.
They're all gone.
We don't know that.
What if it doesn't kill them?
Just takes them away,
keeps them alive somewhere down there?
What if...?
Darren.
I should have never brought you.
I'm the one who brought us here.
You know, Shawn was right.
We weren't financed by the university.
I was backed by a private mining company
who wanted this coal.
They offered me recognition
and a great deal of money.
That's why we're all here.
That's why they're all gone.
It's my fault.
I guess you were right.
About what we'd find here.
Truth.
My last tour with a repeat team was a climb in the Himalayas.
One of them, experienced climber,
fell off a cliff.
It was just the two of us that day.
I had him, but I couldn't get him up.
We waited for hours, but no one came.
We would have both frozen to death.
So in the end,
I cut the rope.
That's what you do in situations like that.
But I won't leave you behind. You have to come with me.
What's the fucking point?
I'm gonna get help.
Take this.
You'll be fine.
Stay here.
I will come back for you.
You're alive, thank God.
I tried to find you.
The grenade.
Can you grab it? I can't move.
What is that?
An alternative species.
Shawn.
It's real.
They breed and colonize.
Like ants and bees.
If only the world could see.
If only... No.
Shawn.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hollowed be thy...
Our Father...
The grenade.
Who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come...
We gotta get out of here. Put this on.
They're coming.
Climb. Climb.
Hurry! Darren. Hurry!
- No! No! Aah! - Aah! No!
No! No!
Here, take my knife.
Kill it.
It's what you do, right?
In situations like this.
Wait. Don't!
Help me. Get me out of here.
Help me. Help me.
I'm sorry. I can't.
Please. They're coming.
Please!
I can't. No man is more important...
Get her out of here.
Come on. I got you.
Hurry.
I got you. Come on.
Take my hand. I got you. Here we go.
Go!
Hey. Are you all right?
- Here. - Yeah.
What happened to your group?
I'm the only one left.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
Let's get you out of here.
They took my son.
And I've been fighting them ever since.
All we've managed to do so far is contain them.
You can imagine what would happen
if they made it over that fence.
Like you can contain them.
People need to know about this.
People wouldn't even believe this.
People aren't ready to know about this.
We've tried to protect him.
We've been working really hard to keep it a secret.
But you have to tell someone.
You've been searching for the truth.
What do you do when you find the truth?
Do you go and you tell the people?
Or do you stay here and fight this thing with us?
- Me? - You're a survivor.
What do you survive for?
You can't possibly...
rationally believe you can win this?
I believe we can.
I have to go back.
Arianne.
Good luck.
We're gonna need this.
Yeah.