The Signal

Lewis Denton:
Why can't you just keep your f***ing mouth shut and watch T.V.?

Clark:
Anna, I need a couple of things that Ken borrowed, namely my hatchet... and some garbage bags.

Ken:
I'm going to turn our program on.

Anna:
Sounds glorious. How many more balloons do you think we need?

Ken:
At least seven.

Anna:
That's how many I was thinking.

Ken:
Well, that's why you married me!

Ben:
Clark, I don't know who or what started it, but we all sure as sh*t signed up for it. We made ourselves vulnerable. When Mya left last night, I turned the TV back on and there it was. It was replacing my thoughts. But then the sun came up. I see it. It's a lie. The signal; it's a trick. Change the way you look at things, the things you look at will change.

Lewis Denton:
Hey! Put the f***ing bat down.

Jerry:
What?

Lewis Denton:
You almost clocked Mya in the head.

[Jerry laughs and continues to swing the bat]

Lewis Denton:
Put the f***ing bat down now.

Jerry:
Dude, it's not hurting anybody.

Rod:
Just put the bat down.

Jerry:
No, man. I can't watch the game, I'm going to swing the bat, alright?

Lewis Denton:
[grabbing the bat] I told you to put it down. Sit.

Jerry:
What's the matter with you?

Lewis Denton:
You could hurt somebody.

Jerry:
Why are you looking at me like that? Stop it.

Lewis Denton:
You almost f***ing killed my wife. Sit down.

Jerry:
Dude, what is wrong with you?

Lewis Denton:
You almost f***ed my wife!

Lewis Denton:
The TV must've gotten into his head and told him to kill you.

Anna:
Yeah, that's what happened to Ken. He was watching TV and it made him go bad.

[two people run from a man chasing them with a chainsaw in the background]

Clark:
This is without a doubt the most f***ed up day in the history of mankind. We should go back inside.

Anna:
[cheerful] Who wants cocktails?

[doorbell rings]

Clark:
God in heaven!

Lewis Denton:
[grabbing a shovel] Just open the door and I'll take them down.

Clark:
No. That's not the way to play this.

Lewis Denton:
We can't be sure. We have to exterminate with extreme prejudice.

Clark:
It might be somebody who could help us. We don't know.

[doorbell rings again]

Lewis Denton:
We can't risk it. I'm killing whoever walks through that door.

Clark:
[looking through the peephole] It's Jim. It's Jim Parsons.

Lewis Denton:
Trust no one!

Clark:
You were the one watching the TV!

Lewis Denton:
I told you I wasn't watching the TV! Listen, if I had it, I would've killed you by now, right?

Clark:
I guess.

Lewis Denton:
I'm fine, and you're fine, and she's fine. This we know. But he may not be, and probably isn't.

Rod:
Did you kill anybody last night?

[Mya shakes her head]

Rod:
How am I supposed to know? Tell me. Wait, where did you go? Where were you?

Mya Denton:
[slowly] I hid in the apartment across the hall.

[Rod unties Mya]

Rod:
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I couldn't trust anybody. I went looking for you. I couldn't find sh*t. Everybody's either dead, dying, or completely flipped. Mad. Crazy.

Mya Denton:
Why did Lewis hurt Jerry?

Rod:
Hurt? Jerry's dead, lady. Lewis got it. F***ing snapped. I couldn't get any sense into him. I got his bat, knocked him out, I taped him up so that he couldn't hurt anybody else. I had no choice. Then I saw the hallway. I've never seen anything like that. One out of two people just started killing each other. They just decided to kill people! I mean, what do I do? I've never killed anybody before. What do I do? I'm not going to f*** around. What do I do?

Rod:
Do you have the crazy?

Lewis Denton:
You don't know what you're saying.

Ben:
No, you don't know what you're saying. That TV got in your brain and has distorted your perception.

Lewis Denton:
I'm not crazy like those others.

Ben:
No man, you're much worse off, because you don't even realize what's happening to you. You don't even know. Your wife left you, alone, tied to a chair, helpless so the world can take your life and the savages can feast on your bloody remains.

Ben:
Listen to me. The car, the one that's wrecked, the one's that outside. The girl inside of it... where did she go?

Clark:
I told you already!

Ben:
Not me, that wasn't me. We've got to find her.

Clark:
I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he knows.

[Clark points towards a decapitated head on the floor]

Clark:
He was with her!

Ben:
Man, he's not gonna be able to talk to us!

[first lines]

Ben:
What was that? That was strange.

Mya Denton:
[in bed] Come back.

Ben:
The TV turned itself on.

Mya Denton:
[reaching out] Come back.

Ben:
Okay.

Ben:
Just sit down and relax.

Mya Denton:
[getting dressed] I can't relax, Ben. I've never done this before. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this.

Ben:
First, you just breathe, and then realize that it's okay.

Mya Denton:
It's okay, what we're doing?

Ben:
Do you love your husband?

Mya Denton:
[after a long pause] It doesn't matter.

Ben:
You can just drop your stuff right now, and stay here tonight, and never go back there again.

Mya Denton:
Ben...

Ben:
Or we could... go up to the rooftop and build an exotic flower garden. Or we could take one of my cameras, and dress up like homeless people, and infiltrate their community and take pictures of their lives. Or we could take my TV and throw it off the balcony and replace it with coloring books. Or we could leave Terminus tomorrow. New Years f***ing Eve. We could.

Mya Denton:
Leave?

Ben:
Go down to the station, we'll walk up to Terminal 13, and we'll get on a train and we'll get into our own private compartment, rip each other's clothes off, and f*** our way to freedom. We'll go to the country and start a life. A real life. Mya and Ben. New Years Eve. Terminal 13. Mya and Ben. And you don't look back.

Mya Denton:
That's beautiful.

Ben:
It's possible.

Mya Denton:
[after kissing Lewis] I feel gross.

Rod:
I pull the fire alarm. I don't know why. Maybe somebody will come. Maybe they won't. Maybe they're screwed up too. So I fight my way to the roof; gotta see the big picture. One's gotta know, I have to know, right? And I see it in the streets, all of Terminus. It's happening everywhere. People going crazy in their head all over. At first, it's just murder. The crazy you know kill anybody, everybody, each other, indiscriminate. It looks like chaos. But then I realize they're thinking. Then I get really scared because it's rational. They know what they're doing. I mean, they think it makes sense, but it doesn't make any sense. It's different for everybody. Let me tell you, they are going to f***ing murder the world. And I'm thinking they all gotta die. I mean, but I can't kill them all. I'm thinking that there's too many. Maybe I'll run, but run where? Thinking... then I get hit in the head.

[turns head to show wound]

Rod:
Is this bad?

Mya Denton:
You'll be fine.

Rod:
F***er has a hammer. I have a hammer going through my head! So I smash his face... and I realize he's not crazy. He thinks I'm crazy. I'm not crazy. He's hurt really bad, so I finish him. I taped up twelve people last night. All of them had been killed by morning... all but Lewis. What do I do?

Rod:
I don't have the crazy.

Anna:
Are you mad at me for killing your friend?

Clark:
What?

Anna:
I know he's your friend and all.

Clark:
We weren't that close.

Anna:
What if my party guests show up?

Clark:
Anna, I don't know if you know this, but there is some seriously insane sh*t going on out there right now. People are losing their minds.

[Clark goes to turn off the TV]

Clark:
There's a bad sector in the electromagnetic spectrum which is causing a rift in logical thinking. Rational behavior has given way to primal... primordial action.

[Anna sees someone on fire outside]

Clark:
We've reached a critical juncture in the consistency of everyday living. Societal norms are being completely abandoned. Anarchy has replaced etiquette. Chaos is the ruling class of this civilization, so I think coming to a goddamn New Years Eve party is the last thing on people's minds!

[doorbell rings]

Lewis Denton:
Thank god you're alive. Wait, do you have it? Are you crazy?

[Mya shakes her head]

Lewis Denton:
Look, I know you left me in the chair because you thought I lost it, but I didn't. I saw your car outside and I thought the worst happened. I thought that one of those people had gotten you and taken you away from me. They can't get to you. No one can get to you.

Lewis Denton:
What do you have here?

Clark:
[nervously] Ken... napping.

Lewis Denton:
He looks dead.

Anna:
He is.

Lewis Denton:
I see.

Clark:
It was self defense.

Anna:
You chopped his head off!

Lewis Denton:
He had it coming... probably. These are wild times. Everybody's been driven to desperate measures. I guess this happens to everybody.

Anna:
Clark killed somebody too.

Clark:
I did not... I did.

[doorbell rings]

Anna:
[cheerful] Party guests!

Clark:
[holding bloody shovel] Act natural.

Clark:
This is getting to be ridiculous!

Jim Parsons:
When that ball drops, I'm gonna grab a slut and I'm just gonna pee in her butt!

Jim Parsons:
Are Ken and Anna around?

Clark:
Anna's, uh, getting ready. And Ken is just lying down for... a second.

Lewis Denton:
He's dead tired.

[Clark nervously laughs]

Jim Parsons:
I went to a party last year. Everybody started kissing each other, you know, at midnight. The tradition. How'd that start? Everyone starts kissing each other, and I had no one else to kiss, so I just as a joke kissed the dog. But then I realized when I got home that I made out with a dog for my New Years. It's wrong.

Ben:
[to Lewis, about Mya] I know where she is, and I'm going to find her, and free her from the burden of being the used-up adulterous whore that she is. I'm going to get to her. I'm going to get to her before you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Lewis Denton:
[while kicking Jim] Where's my wife? Where's Mya? She's fine! She didn't leave me. She loves me and only me! And everything is going to be safe and quiet!

Mya Denton:
I'm trying to have an intimate moment with my husband before the end of the world.

Lewis Denton:
But I'm your husband.

Mya Denton:
You're not my husband. You're a homicidal maniac.

Lewis Denton:
[about the signal] I was misunderstanding it before, but I get it now. It's telling me what I should do, what I should want. I want my wife, and I want my home, and I want all you people to stop bothering us.

Ben:
[to Clark] Finish jump-starting your head!

Rod:
The f*** you want?

Clark:
Can you hear me?

Rod:
Got a smoke?

Clark:
I don't smoke.

Ben:
Ask him about the girl.

Rod:
You want to know about the girl, give me a c-c-cigarette.

Clark:
He wants a cigarette.

Ben:
What? You're kidding me? You got to be f***ing kidding me.

Ben:
[to Clark] You're aware you're having a conversation with a decapitated head, right?

Ben:
Listen to me. Do you hear that? Listen. It's past the noise in your head. That is the natural world. That has been here a long time before us. It's going to be here a long time after we're gone. That is real. And that is what we focus on.

Clark:
Past the noise...

Ben:
Yeah.

Clark:
[laughing] This calls for a radical reassessment of all the facts.

Lewis Denton:
[knocking on door] Clark? Lewis Dention again. Listen, I think I found your sledehammer out here so I'm going to borrow it, if that's okay? And I'm going to knock this door to f***ing pieces.

Lewis Denton:
[to Ben, about Mya] Your f***ing lies have poisoned her brain! She doesn't even know who she is anymore. It's amazing. But even now, even with that far away stare, she looks just like she did in our wedding video.

[last lines]

Ben:
Mya...

Lewis Denton:
What do you have here?

Clark:
[whimper] it's Ken... napping.

Lewis Denton:
He looks dead.

Anna:
He is.

Lewis Denton:
I see. Who did this?

Anna:
I did. I didn't want to!

Lewis Denton:
You killed him?

Anna:
Well, Clark killed somebody too!

Clark:
I did no- I did... but it was self-defense! [cut to Clark's apartment with the three looking down at Rod's dead body]

Anna:
You chopped his head off!

Lewis Denton:
He had it coming... probably. These are wild times.

Anna:
[doorbell rings] Party guests!

Clark:
Act natural. [Anna and Lewis line up behind Clark at the door with weapons ready]

Laura:
You gotta help me! My mom is trying to kill me and so I ran over her in the car and my dad was in the house and he made the dog die because he tried to bite me and I left in the car and I didn't know where to go and I remembered that Anna and Ken lived here and I'm Laura.

Anna:
Laura!

Laura:
Anna! [Laura pushes her way into the apartment past Clark]

Clark:
[Lewis smacks Laura in the head with the pesticide can, knocking her down] What the F***? [Lewis continues to beat Laura to death]

Anna:
You killed Laura!

Lewis Denton:
She was coming at you!

Anna:
Stay away from me! You killed Laura!

Lewis Denton:
She was heading straight for you with that knife!

Anna:
She doesn't have a knife!

Clark:
That's a keychain...

Anna:
[doorbell rings] Party guests!

Clark:
Act natural. [Anna and Lewis line up behind Clark at the door with weapons ready]

Janice:
You gotta help me! My mom is trying to kill me and so I ran over her in the car and my dad was in the house and he made the dog die because he tried to bite me and I left in the car and I didn't know where to go and I remembered that Anna and Ken lived here and I'm Laura.

Anna:
Laura!

Janice:
Anna! [Laura pushes her way into the apartment past Clark]

Clark:
[Lewis smacks Laura in the head with the pesticide can, knocking her down] What the F***? [Lewis continues to beat Laura to death]

Anna:
You killed Laura!

Lewis Denton:
She was coming at you!

Anna:
Stay away from me! You killed Laura!

Lewis Denton:
She was heading straight for you with that knife!

Anna:
She doesn't have a knife!

Clark:
That's a keychain...