AUGUST 14, 2003, TIME UNKNOWN
The camera switches on, then off, then on again. It focuses on floorboards, then spins to look up at Sophia Novak’s face. She squints in the bright light and shifts it quickly away, training it instead on the adults, who are clustered together near the other side of the room. Joy Novak still has her bandaged leg stretched out on a pew.
HARDCASTLE: We can’t stay here. We need to leave as soon as it gets light out.
NOVAK: When is that going to be? Night was only supposed to last an hour. It’s been at least twice that long.
HARDCASTLE: Morning has to come eventually.
NOVAK: I wouldn’t put much faith in natural laws here, Will.
KAPOOR: So then we don’t wait. We find a way out now.
CARREAU: What does that mean? Out? How do we do that?
KAPOOR: Obviously, I don’t know. But I refuse to believe that there is no way back to—what, our world? Our reality?
CARREAU: A way out of the mist.
Novak cocks her head to the side.
NOVAK: That singing is starting again.
The others seem to hear it as well, but the camera picks up nothing but the faint sound of wind between the gaps in the walls.
CARREAU: It doesn’t sound threatening.
KAPOOR: What, that doesn’t creep you out?
CARREAU: Unsettling, yes. Threatening, perhaps not. I think we should investigate.
KAPOOR: I agree. We need to know more, and we aren’t going to learn it hiding in here.
NOVAK: It isn’t safe out there. Sophie—
KAPOOR: No, of course you’ll stay. Two of us should go see what we can find, and someone able-bodied should stay behind with you. Bar the door behind us.
CARREAU: It sounds as if you have already decided you will be one of those to go.
KAPOOR: I couldn’t stand waiting while you two went without me.
HARDCASTLE: You might have control issues, Vanya.
KAPOOR: Massive ones. So which of you wants to come?
BAKER: No way.
HARDCASTLE: I’ll go.
Kapoor nods.
KAPOOR: A quick scouting trip to start. Twenty minutes, just to get the lay of the land and see if those things are still out there. We’ll head toward the beach for now. See if there’s a way to the shore and off this damn island.
Various sounds of agreement go around the group. Neither Kapoor nor Hardcastle look thrilled to be leaving their questionable sanctuary, but for each of them, the presence of the other guarantees that they will not want to be the first to express reluctance or fear. Kapoor and Hardcastle lift aside the pew and open the door cautiously.
KAPOOR: Got your flashlight?
HARDCASTLE: Yeah. Kind of feels like lighting up a neon sign that says ‘Here’s dinner.’
KAPOOR: A scouting trip isn’t much good if we can’t see anything.
She switches on her own flashlight, takes a deep breath, and steps out. Hardcastle is only a second behind her. The others watch as they recede into the mist. After they have vanished, Baker and Carreau drag the pew back in front of the doors.
The camera continues to record sporadically, cutting out at random intervals, but for the next several segments of salvageable footage there is little activity. Eventually, Novak rises from her seat and walks tenderly, testing her leg. Carreau sits on the floor near the door, glancing at his watch from time to time.
CARREAU: That can’t be right.
NOVAK: What can’t?
She approaches him. Sophia zooms in so close on her mother that every tremor of her hands makes the view bounce dizzyingly.
CARREAU: I don’t think the night is still here because the sun has somehow changed its course. Time is behaving oddly. Look.
He unstraps his watch and hands it to her.
NOVAK: I don’t see what—
She glances up, then back at it.
NOVAK: Huh. It went back a few seconds.
CARREAU: I am reminded of saccadic masking. If you look away from a clock and then back to it, the second hand seems to tick slowly the first time. An illusion, your brain’s attempt to fill in the moment of blurred vision when your eyes were moving.
NOVAK: Time isn’t passing. But our minds are filling it in?
CARREAU: Or this place is. We are not built to process a world without time. How does that even work? How can we breathe and think and progress if the world is temporally static?
Any further discussion is interrupted by shouting. Hardcastle’s and Kapoor’s voices are raised and urgent.
HARDCASTLE: Open up!
He hammers against the door. Novak and Carreau rush to it, hauling aside the pew that blocks it. Kapoor and Hardcastle spill through the door and slam it shut behind them, prompting a frantic knot of activity as they get the pew back in place.
NOVAK: What happened? Will, where did that gun come from?
Hardcastle doesn’t look at her. He’s staring at Baker, who stands in front of the altar, looking a bit dazed. He does, indeed, have a handgun—a revolver—at his side.
Then he steps forward, and points it at Baker.