Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16
EXT. CARPENTER’S BODYWORKS (MITCHELL) — AFTERNOON
Rod appears on an empty square of concrete set at the heart of Carpenter Body Works, an abandoned bus factory situated in the wedge between Highway 37 and the City Cemetery. Dirk’s car bounces down an unkempt gravel road in the distance, which runs between two old buildings and several piles of white-rock.
ROD
Have a look. This is all that money buys.
A palace lies in ruins; a factory
is soon reduced to such a state that all
it can produce is rubble. The story stays
the same despite the age it occupies,
or the materials that people use
to make their shrine.
Rod nostalgically kicks a crushed can of beer. Of course, due to his ghastly state, it does not go anywhere. Smiling at his own failure, Rod turns back to you, his audience, to elaborate.
ROD (CONT’D)
This once proud place of commerce
used to be one of the finest schoolbus
builders in the states, but now the city
uses what remains to save the floats
for the parade…
The spirit of Ralph H. Carpenter, the factory’s namesake, rises from the rubble.
RALPH H. CARPENTER
Which ain’t too diff’rent from
tha kid-hacks that we used to build, back when
we were still working everything in wood,
me ‘n my boys. ‘Course no one thought that we’d
become what we became, carry’n the kids
all ‘cross America, trusted
with the future of the whole wide world.
And when we started working steel into
the frames of all our hacks, it seemed like things
w’ld last forever. But then we had the fires.
The first was bad ‘nough, but we got through.
The second blaze was hellish though, and I thought
that we were done. People runnin’ this’nway
and that’away, tryin’ to tame the flames…
until there wasn’t a thing unburnt to save.
I thought that we were done for, finished, but then
people came from everywhere to help us
build it up again. I swear I saw
everyone from town come out to help,
and it was something special. It wasn’t long before
Carpenter’s was up ‘n running again.
That’s what a town was like before the strikes.
But after…
Ralph H. Carpenter spits on the concrete. Rod watches him grind the ectoplasmic spot of slime into nothingness with a transparent bootheel.
ROD
Some things just fade. It wasn’t your fault,
or anybody else’s. Time runs like that.
RALPH H. CARPENTER (looking off in the distance down a gravel road, where Dirk’s car emerges from behind a half-fallen building)
But still, it does an old man’s heart some good
to see new faces coming back to help…
INT — DIRK’S CAR
Dirk, Shelly, Leo, and Flori rattle down the road. Dirk’s car bounces like a horse about to buck as it hits one pothole after the other.
FLORI (IN PHONE)
Did they build this road with hand grenades?
SHELLY
No one’s been back to fix it up in years…
LEO
And it’s still better than most of the roads
you’ll find in town.
Dirk drives his car off the broken road and onto the relatively smooth patch of concrete, where Rod and Ralph H. Carpenter vanish. Dirk parks the car, and everyone gets out. Shelly and Leo stand and stretch. Dirk picks his phone out of the cupholder, lifting it to show Flori around.
FLORI (IN PHONE) (deadpanning)
That doesn’t look like a treehouse.
LEO
That’s because
it’s not.
SHELLY (smiling at Flori as if, for a moment, she was alive and real)
It’s inside.
Shelly and Leo start across the concrete towards a large, grey-walled factory building with a rounded black roof. The roof is gone in some places, exposing the complex knit of metal beams that have kept Carpenter Bodyworks standing after so many empty years. Dirk, with Flori in hand, follows after Shelly and Leo.
DIRK (hollering ahead)
Do you think our stuff’s still there?
LEO
I can’t remember if we ever cleaned
it out, or anything.
SHELLY
Well, someone did,
probably.
FLORI (IN PHONE) (pressing herself against the edge of Dirk’s phone)
I don’t see a single tree.
Dirk meets Shelly and Leo at a door that looks padlocked.
FLORI (IN PHONE, CONT’D)
And how will we get in?
LEO
You’re telling me
that Dirk hasn’t told you what the password is?
DIRK (faking surprise)
I guess that I forgot.
SHELLY
There’s no password.
Shelly pushes the door, revealing that the lock is broken. The door fans up a swirl of dust and swings open quickly. Shelly and Leo, shadowed by Dirk, enter the expansive room.
They all stand together at the entrance of a large factory floor. Pillars rise in ordered rows around the room, connecting the once-polished concrete floor to the rounded ceiling. Signs and posters from more productive times are still stuck to many of the pillars’ cracked facade. The concrete floor is splitting up in places, and the machines that once filled the space have been removed. The spots they used to occupy are lighter and less disturbed, as if their mechanical spirits still linger. You can imagine how a place like this smells: fertile and ripe, so very unlike its old sterile and soapy self. A grey-yellow light drips from a few windows in the roof, but one spot above them is absolutely dark. There, hidden in shadow to their left, is a metal square spec of a room seemingly stuck to the ceiling by a steel web. A rusted old ladder, which looks more like a rotten vine than a solid line of steps after so many years, descends from the room to the floor.
Dirk rotates Flori so that she can see the room and ladder.
DIRK (pointing first at the ladder, then at the room hanging up above)
And this is the treehouse.
FLORI (IN PHONE) (apprehensively, perhaps too much so given her current state)
You want to climb
all the way up there…?
SHELLY
Maybe we should
go home. It doesn’t look near as safe as when
we used to climb it.
For a moment, it seems that everyone is resigned to some other unspeakable course of action. They stand staring at the ladder as the dust settles around them. Dirk flinches, but he holds his tongue. And then Leo steps forward.
LEO (to Shelly)
Hold my stuff. I don’t want
my phone to break if I fall down.
FLORI (IN PHONE)
Shouldn’t you
be worried more about breaking your bones?
Leo hands Shelly his phone, wallet, and keys. Shelly takes them and puts them in her purse, and Leo walks to the ladder.
LEO (lightheartedly)
Someone call the cops if the roof caves.
DIRK (enjoying the sarcasm)
Can do.
Leo starts up the rusted ladder, taking one rung at a time. His hands turn ashy brown from the rust before he half-vanishes into shadow. When he makes it up to the little room, he disappears altogether into some hidden trap door. You can hear him rolling around in the room for a moment, and everyone on the floor of the factory holds their breath. If Leo is going to be attacked by homeless people, or ravaged by raccoons — or if he is going to bring the building down — now is the moment.
LEO
Hey guys! There’s no ghosts up here.
Shelly, quickly forgetting how sketchy the ladder looks, starts to climb up towards the static-saturated room. Dirk follows after.
DIRK (turning to Flori)
Sorry, but I have to…
Flori shakes her head “OK,” and Dirk puts her in his pocket. He starts to climb. His hands, like Leo’s, are turned brown by the rust. But the rungs are still strong, and they hold his weight just fine. He is at the trap door before too long. It’s open, and a speckled blue light drifts down. Dirk climbs into the room like a fish swimming up into an aquarium.
SHELLY
Dirk, it’s just
exactly like we left it.
LEO (to Shelly)
And you thought
they’d clean it up.
Dirk climbs all the way up into the room, which is lit by thick old windows on one wall. The opposite wall is open, looking down into another room.
Dirk pulls Flori out of his pocket and shows her around. There is a TV and a couple of old bean bags in one corner, a fridge in the other beside a window, and a little table against the wall opposite the TV.
FLORI (IN PHONE)
So yeah…this is kind of cool.
I’m jealous, I admit it.
SHELLY
Look at this…
Shelly has walked over to the open wall. She leans over a rail and points to the other room. Leo, Flori, and Dirk surround her and look down into the room, where all the floats for the upcoming Persimmon Festival Parade are arrayed in ordered lines. One of the floats, the one Flori points too, is arranged like a subtly too expensive stage. Its sleek lines, chrome accents, and various screens scream tech-bro more than hometown parade. The words “Hereafter Hub” are printed on one side. “Mayor Jason Justoaff” are printed on the other.
LEO
That’s the mayor’s float…?
DIRK
Aunt Garth did say that he
was something else.
FLORI (IN PHONE) (mostly for Dirk)
It looks like something that
that douchebag prof who taught us systems stuffs
would make for a parade.
DIRK (laughing)
It really does…
SHELLY (trying to join the joke)
It’s just so…much.
It gets quiet. Something far away in the factory scurries around scrap metal, raising a racket, but only Flori jumps.
Dirk walks away to break the spell. He heads over the TV and stands in front of it. Leo walks up behind him.
DIRK
You think we still have power?
SHELLY (walking up)
There’s only one
way to tell.
Leo flips on the TV. It sparks to life and fills the room with a surprising static syrup.
DIRK
OK…
SHELLY
So this will work?
FLORI (IN PHONE)
Yeah, this will work.
DIRK
I’m going back to Bloom
to get supplies.
LEO
You guys do that. I’ll go
find the NES and Ghosts n’ Goblins.
Shelly, Dirk, and Flori turn to question Leo.
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