THE MOON CROWN
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EPISODE 04 TRANSCRIPT:
UNDER THE SKIN
INT. - A ROOM OF AN INN
INTERRUPTING BROADCAST
SFX:
Tuning through channels, stopping on “Duck And Cover, Bert The Turtle” which becomes more and more distorted. Brief tuning. “Au Clair De La Lune.” Brief tuning.
“It’s most certainly not a black hole - black hole! [getting faster, choppy] whoever is spreading these false reports-”
Tuning, stopping on “Singing” from Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenk.
The tuning stops as footsteps are heard. A button is clicked and a tape recorder whirrs.
SFX: CLICK, STATIC
LOU
Have you ever felt so small in the scope of existence, that you could fall right through the cracks? That you are this tiny grain, clinging to the shore, trying to crawl away from the incoming wave?
SFX: RADIO TUNING
LOU
(???)
distorted
Think on it.
Something is watching you.
SFX: RADIO TUNING, TICKING CLOCK
Folding your perception. Changing things subtly, hoping you only notice the creases when you stand still and see them forming.
Maybe there are strange broadcasts you run across, tuning through channels. Suddenly, our reality has been revised. And nobody has questioned this.
Or maybe something has shifted in the world, and yet nobody seems to be all that concerned.
It is watching you, waiting to see when you realize it has changed
Some.
Thing.
Wondering when you will, as its grin widens in anticipation.
SFX: RADIO TUNING
And then it gets-
Tired.
SFX: RADIO TUNING
LOU
Of waiting.
The messages are no longer on the walls.
Chess assured me it isn’t magic, but that doesn’t make me feel any better! He doesn’t sense anything. And Benny — Henrik — hasn’t slept in two weeks. He thought it was me, for some reason.
But the script was burning out from within the wood of my room, until it began to fade back, receding into the nothingness that it came from.
The messages are no longer on the walls.
They are on my skin.
I don’t understand how this isn’t magic. How can a person alter a room, a body, with no attachment to our world? Chess would sense something, any kind of physical tampering, or any natural alteration in the fabric of our reality.
And despite years of documenting cultures, studying and teaching, Benny — ah – Henrik has never seen anything like what’s been happening here.
And they don’t even know about the memories!
And then, there’s also that… thing?
That I’ve been doing?!
SFX: RADIO TUNING, STATIC
LOU
(???)
distorted
Watched him there, for a moment, memorizing his huddled form in the cof-
SFX: RADIO TUNING
LOU
I figured it out. How to play these tapes back. So you know, what I mean. But maybe I can’t blame you for everything?
Maybe this is just pent up anger getting a little out of hand. But…
But with all of this – I… I think you have something to do with the things that we’ve seen. With what’s happening to Henrik.
And, if that’s true, you must understand why we’d be fucked, if people thought that we had something to do with that entity! I-Is this some kind of threat?
For all I know, you’re making me remember these things. Right? So you’ve taken my peace.
What else do you want from me? I have nothing left to give you!
The things I’ve done, the ones that I’ve told you about… They’re small details, barely crimes at all, compared to endangering an entire town.
And, what we’ve found… This new beast, the possibilities it opens up.
It could spread.
I - I can feel another silver line prickling up my arm as I record this. Have I met you? I can’t imagine a person doing this to someone they’ve never met.
What if…
I forget again…?
I guess… This recording is more for me than anyone else.
SFX: RADIO TUNING
LOU
Okay…
Right, ah… I’m recording this for posterity, in case you forget.
You know how after what happened at the temple, I had a hard time staying at home?
Right now, I do remember how it was, being around dad after all that. I… I made up excuses, anything to get away. I spent a lot more time at the saloon than I’d like to admit.
It was there, while day drinking, as per usual at the time, that it clicked. This hint that things were going wrong outside of my own worries.
There were these people in white, clergy, I guess. I watched them haul a sixth casket into the temple.
I thought Chess was going to check on me when he came over… but he was annoyed.
Which was weird since he’s not exactly quick to anger.
So I asked what was wrong, and he told me that I could fall into the underworld for all he cared. Henrik had told him I was leaving flowers for him at his hotel. Which… I guess… wasn't a good enough apology?
Alright. It’s a shitty way to say sorry for what I did.
Chess told me that if I’d just give Henrik a chance, he could tell me so much about God’s peak. My best guess at the time was that he was a historian?
But, he was training to be a professor… Before, well… you know…?
I still have no idea how old he is. Chess might be the only person who knows how long
Henrik’s been around.
Well, we were in the middle of a surge of infected. And of course, the town came looking for the only vampire who’d stuck around for the fallout. Because beasts — ah, entities… uh… Infection survivors? Don’t get reinfected.
By anything.
So, the casket, yeah? It apparently held a priestess, one just back from a pilgrimage. She’d been ripped into pieces. And the sheriff was on the case. Which meant it would probably never get solved.
He didn’t believe Arnel had been attacked, and honestly he probably didn’t even care that a priestess had been murdered.
I… I know… I know.
That doesn’t sound like a vampire attack, does it?
Because it wasn’t. I know that now.
Chess had warned me before the new lockdown measures that it wasn’t vampires. Plus no one around there would touch the priestesses. But I - I was skeptical.
Anyway, I figured, why not go ask our favorite professor about-
LOU
FUCK!
…
How far up my arm are you going to mark?
SFX: STATIC
INTERRUPTING BROADCAST
SFX:
Tuning through channels, stopping on “Duck And Cover, Bert The Turtle” which becomes more and more distorted. Brief tuning. “Au Clair De La Lune.” Brief tuning.
SFX: STATIC, RUMMAGING THROUGH DRAWERS, PAPERS, FOOTSTEPS, RUSTLING PAPERS GROWING LOUDER, CLICK, STATIC
LOU
Alright, pen pal. I can’t figure out these markings you’re leaving on me, but I DO still have the letters.
And I’ve had absolutely no luck with remembering the ideograms you’re randomly dropping in. But the alphasyllabary is much easier for me to pin down! So you should try that exclusively when writing on my skin, you prick.
Heh.
Never thought I’d say “alphasyllabary” outside of work.
Okay. This letter, I’ve made some headway on.
“In the light of the moon”
SFX: "AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE" PLAYS IN REVERSE
“Pierrette”?
SFX: MUSIC STOPS
Wait! This is — Can you even actually translate a name? I’m not a Linguist… So… But am I getting that right?
Ahhh… And further down—
SFX: "AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE" PLAYS IN REVERSE
"Open your door… to me… For Gods’ sake?"
SFX: MUSIC STOPS
Are you quoting the fucking winds? Are you kidding me?
Asshole.
This one looks easier… I’ve got “had"… "A little”… Lamb? Isn’t that some kind of ancient - Ugh. Give me a Gods’ damned break.
Not. Another one.
Here you go, friend.
Fuck.
You.
SFX: LOU BREATHING SHAKILY, SOMETHING HISSING
OH GODS-
SFX: TUNING, TICKING CLOCK, TUNING
LOU
Well. That didn’t work. So…
Alright, little recorder. Since I’m allowed to be alone again, let’s talk more about why I’m leaving everything behind?
We did, in fact, go to see Henrik. His room at the hotel was more cramped than the saloon across the street, and the look on his face was like a dying candle. Something fading slowly, his humanity flickering in the dead void of his pale cheeks.
He was being real shitty. Asking how I was still alive after all my - I don’t usually do this kind of thing.
Chess, always our mediator, muttered something about being nice. And Henrik told him, he hadn’t said it was a bad thing. That I was still alive.
But… He wanted to know. If I’d found somewhere else to stay.
You know, even with how weird everything was getting… I didn’t want to up and leave dad.
And then Henrik… Asked if I knew what a Tambal was.
I wasn’t ready to talk about how Arnel might be a Doppelganger. I’d searched for documents on it in our local history, only to find a version of what we called a Tambal. And the last sighting in our area must have been over a century before.
I am sure you’ve seen them, or heard of them, in Anapogee…
Anapogee…?
Anne-apogee…
Ever go on a hike, lose a friend in the wilds of a place? And then they reappear, just as you’d expect, and you think, “Oh, thank the Gods!”
And you laugh together over how scary the forest can be. How easy it is to wander off of a trail. You return home, holding onto them tighter than you had before you left.
But then one day they forget to keep up their façade.
You might find them sitting in silence within a room. Upright. Staring at an empty wall.
But sometimes I would leave for work in the mornings, digging for more information on the Tambal in our area, only to come back in the evenings to find my dad sat in the same place.
Unmoving.
This became more and more frequent in the days after he’d found us at the temple. I’d check to see if he was okay, if it was something about Arnel. If he was as scared as I felt.
But then he would turn his head… Shifting in the slightest jerks, until we were entirely face to face. His smile would form then, as if he’d only recalled how to do it.
But he’d overcompensate. Miss the details. Let his eyes go too wide, unb-
Unblinking.
Let the center of his grin go too sharp. The corners of his mouth coming up too high on his face, slicing through the hollows of his cheeks.
Looking beaklike.
[exhaling]
So. As you might imagine… I couldn’t talk to dad. Makes sense, right? I guess. He’s a Tambal, you know?
My dad is lost. Somewhere in the woods… Back on the Peninsula.
And…
And honestly? The man I’d lived with had taken on the role just fine. But when we started poking around, he just… Changed.
And there’s something to that, too.
A different kind of loss.
Not knowing which face you’ll find when you come home.
And then knowing you can’t go home, because even if you think the person you love is there, even if you want to believe… Things can’t really be like they were before their composure vanished. “Poof”.
It’s like… It’s like there is always something to watch out for. Always a chance for something to shift. I feel like it’s the same with me, lately, you know? I just…
I don’t understand why I’ve done the things I have.
I don’t know which part of me I’ll wake up to, sometimes.
What part of me others will see.
SFX: TUNING, TICKING CLOCK, TUNING
LOU
So, I told Henrik that I’d read of the Tambal through work. And, even with as shitty as I’d been, he asked me to promise I’d see if a coworker at the academy might have an empty room.
He said, “Be careful, okay?”
Said that I should read more about what could be hiding in our town. Because something strange was happening in that place.
Learn what you need to. Keep your wits about you.
And. Ha. Ah… He smiled. Shaking his head. Like this was just another thing to tack onto the strange shit we’d been experiencing.
I’d never had a vampire smile at you before, and it’s - awkward. I think it was then, that I genuinely started to feel bad for the first time. I mean really regretful, about the flowers.
About poisoning him.
The… Whole smiling thing? It was kinda disarming. I told him, “Alright, Professor Benny! I’ll figure it out.”
He actually laughed? Telling me he much preferred Henrik. His students called him Henrik. But there he was Benny, taken from Preben.
Henrik Preben.
So, I insisted I call him Henrik. A sort lame peace offering between us, much better than giving him a bottle of ipecac.
SFX: MYSTERIOUS MUSIC PLAYS
But, uh. I think he liked that. A piece of himself, returned from some place he’d lost it.
It’s funny, how memory works… How you forget things, and every time you try to recall it, it changes, bit by bit.
Benny… I’ve been calling him Benny, in these recordings.
From his reaction the other day, I guess that might’ve hurt. I hope he never finds these tapes, or hears my broadcasts, somehow? Especially that second tape? I don’t really want him to hear what I was thinking the first time we met. I don’t know how I could say some of the things I-
Anyway…
He caved and said I could call him Henrik. But only because Chess said he trusts me.
Chess knew, obviously, but he didn’t go around telling people. Henrik asked if I’d ever thought about why Chess started going by Chess over the last year.
It was something Henrik had taught him.
I’d never heard this at the academy, but I do know it. Vaguely. People connected by magic — our so-called entities? They all have their reasons for wanting to know a person’s name.
So it’s a bad idea for any name to be given away for the sake of pleasantries.
…
Oh, shit!
How do I remove that from this tape? Fuck!
CHESS
muffled
Lou? Are you alright in there?
LOU
I’m fine! It’s fine!
HENRIK
muffled
Is she okay?
CHESS
muffled
I don’t know…
Lou, we’re worried about you. Sometimes it sounds like you’re talking to yourself… And with everything happening to us, I—
LOU
I said I’m fine!
CHESS
muffled
Alright…
SFX: A CLICK, CUTTING OFF THE STATIC. THE ROOM HAS A LOW HUM. “AU CLAIR DE LA LUNE” PLAYS.
LOU
What was I just doing?
What is that song? I’ve heard it so much recently. I think? Maybe the innkeeper’s radio? I was using my… recorder? Ugh. I messed up the tape somehow! Fuck. But I was recording this… For…
For myself — yeah I remember saying that, but… Why?
A diary?
What was I talking about? Oh… We were in a hotel, I think? Benny— N… No…
He said it was-
SFX: TUNING AS MUSIC CUTS OFF, A LAUGH, PLAYING FROM ONE SIDE THEN THE OTHER, MUSIC WITH A TICKING CLOCK PLAYS.
LOU
(???)
distorted
Hello, again!
Friend.
I was wondering when you’d show yourself. Did you think I’d forgotten about you? I could never! Do you remember me?
We haven’t spoken in some time, so I thought I’d say hello. Let you know I’m here to talk, if you ever need another set of ears. Which you do. From what I’ve heard.
Ah, I apologize! I interrupted your conversation! Well. I can’t stay for long, anyway. But I will be here. Forever. Thanks to you.
But still, just out of your reach.
Where was I?
SFX:
Radio tuning.
Radiological Defense (1961) plays with a person saying, “The radiological defense operations room. A nerve center for survival.”
Radio tuning.
LOU
There we go. Looks like I fixed it. Hey, I’m getting the hang of this thing.
Sooo… we were at a hotel, and… Right, ah…
Henrik had mentioned a necromancer. I didn’t want it to come to that, but I wanted to know where to find one. In case…
He told me that, yeah, he had. Mentioned one. But he said that I shouldn’t dabble in dark magic. He kept looking at the stairs. I probably should have known, earlier? But Chess hasn’t told me.
Henrik explained that asking where I could find a necromancer was the wrong question.
I should be asking when.
Chess needed to finish his training first. Which is why he couldn’t be a vampire. Or any kind of undead. So, what I said at the temple… Um…
Henrik, um…
He just stared at the fire beside us. As if he pitied it for trying to keep him warm. And he explained some things I didn’t know. Professor’s habit, maybe?
Uh – when all of humanity still held magic, vampires really did look like beasts. Henrik couldn’t tell us what his kind looked like, exactly, in the time before all of the experiments done on creatures or-
On - on… People.
It wasn’t until he tried to settle into a village across the river – that he was turned. He wouldn’t talk about it? Still doesn’t. But I guess he must have been part of an experiment, too? So, I. I still don’t know. If it was his choice.
…Shit.
But he read about other victims of ours.
Um. I knew most of them from my work, but not all.
There were… Filipino, creatures. Adjacent to vampires, that could pass as regular folk when the sun was out. Nightfall brought out their fangs. And in the moonlight their bodies split at the waist. Legs abandoned.
Dad - my actual dad. Never told me about these manananggal creatures? Despite being a culture bearer back home.
Not a fan of beasts, I guess.
He also never told me about the Tambal living in the forests near our home. These creatures that prowled funerals and wakes. Fashioned - beings - sort of like doppelgangers - from clay and magic.
At night, they could carry two bodies at a time. Maybe more, all on their own? But so many of these are helpless during the day, in their own ways.
But so is Henrik. Except — he can’t be in the sunlight for very long, before he disintegrates entirely.
He was talking about things that I could understand. But something wasn’t right about how
Entities were acting. We had laws that everyone followed, regardless of where they came from. Even the Stalkers had an agreement with the sheriff.
But. I knew there had to be a nest. And I - I wanted to know what made it. Needed to know if he thought my brother was in there.
Henrik told me he’d scout the area he suspected that night, and tell me before he went to rest at dawn.
But if Arnel was in there, I wanted to make sure he got out safely.
And even, I thought that if he was… That if he was dead, and something was living in the house, with the man that isn’t my father-
I wanted to know. For certain.
SFX: TUNING, TICKING CLOCK, MUSIC WITH A TICKING CLOCK PLAYS
LOU
I, um. I need to sleep. But, uh…
Thanks for listening.
I just needed someone to talk to, someone that wasn’t there, you know? Just…
Wh-Who are you?
I don’t remember you telling me your name…
SFX: TUNING. ECHOEY DIALOG PLAYING IN REVERSE.
LOU
Wait - when did you get here? Why are you here? I didn’t let anyone in just now. I - I know I didn’t… I’d… Like you to leave?
Get out! Does Henrik know you’re here?!
SFX: ECHOEY DIALOG CUTS OUT. KNOCKING.
HENRIK
Sorry, Chess asked me to sit outside and… I—
Did you need something? Are you… Who are you talking to…?
LOU
Where did she go? Henrik, did you see her leave? When you opened the door just now? I didn’t see her leave! She was there, and then she wasn’t. W-Why was she here?
HENRIK
Chess!
CHESS
Coming!
LOU
She just sat there. She listened to me that whole time, and didn’t say anything. And I - I don’t even know… wh… No.
Pierrette.
Her name is Pierrette.
Why does that sound so familiar? How do I know that, Henrik? I’ve never met her. Have you met her?
SFX: STATIC CUTS OFF. “THUMB” BY MONOPHONA PLAYS.
HENRIK
You have been alone in this room for days…
I think you should talk to-
CHESS
Hey! Hey, hey, it’s ok.
LOU
She was just here, Chess. She was just here.
SFX: “THUMB” IS DISTORTED
I don’t understand what’s happening right now!
CHESS
It’s going to be okay.
SFX: RADIO TUNING, "THUMB" CONTINUES MONOPHONA PLAYING, CREDITS ROLL,