American Elsewhere - By Robert Jackson Bennett Page 0,147

that you are on tape.

ERIC BINTLY: I didn’t just see staff, you know. There were some things I… I didn’t tell you.

[SILENCE]

ERIC BINTLY: So that makes me wonder—what did Laura see?

MICHAEL DERN: Are you serious?

[SILENCE]

MICHAEL DERN: You saw this, and you didn’t tell us?

[SILENCE]

MICHAEL DERN: It’s really… it is so irresponsible that you were… that you withheld things from us, Eric. You were in danger, you should have told us everything.

ERIC BINTLY: I know. But I didn’t want it to be real.

MICHAEL DERN: Want what to be real?

ERIC BINTLY: Well, it’s like you said. I saw the lab crew, and I saw them in different places… but in different sets of clothing, at different ages. I didn’t tell you that. Like, I saw you and Dick walking around, examining the facility, but you had hair, Mike, and I swear Dick had like half the wrinkles he has now. I saw Laura, and she looked about five years older, but she was filthy, dressed in a tank top and cargo shorts, and she was carrying around a fucking gun, for whatever reason. And I saw myself. When I didn’t need glasses. Just doing whatever. Paperwork. Smoking. And once I saw…

MICHAEL DERN: Saw what?

[SILENCE]

MICHAEL DERN: Saw what, Eric?

ERIC BINTLY: I saw you. And Dick. And a lot of the other staff. Screaming. The walls were shaking. And the floor and ceiling were cracking. Lights going out. And someone said… “There’s something up there.”

[SILENCE]

MICHAEL DERN: What did he… do you mean?

ERIC BINTLY: I don’t know. But… I thought he meant that there was something on top of the building. The mesa, I mean. I don’t know.

[SILENCE]

MICHAEL DERN: Jesus Christ. Why didn’t you say any of this?

ERIC BINTLY: Because I wanted to come back. Because I wanted to keep working. But now I know I shouldn’t have. When I saw what Laura was doing… well, why tell you this. I’m sure you have it on film.

MICHAEL DERN: Have what?

ERIC BINTLY: What she was doing with the lens.

MICHAEL DERN: We don’t… [PAPER RUSTLING] I don’t, uh, think we have any recorded examples of any… uh, misbehavior with the lens.

ERIC BINTLY: You don’t? At all?

MICHAEL DERN: No.

ERIC BINTLY: Well… I swear, she would just do it for an hour or something…

MICHAEL DERN: Do what?

ERIC BINTLY: Just… stare into them. She would just stare into the lens plates. With her nose about an inch away. Like she was transfixed. I caught her several times. That was when I really knew something was wrong.

MICHAEL DERN: I don’t have any… God. I don’t have that at all.

ERIC BINTLY: Then I guess she was screwing with the records.

MICHAEL DERN: She couldn’t.

ERIC BINTLY: Well, she did, or someone did. I think I found her like that at least three times. And each time I caught her, there was something wrong with her eyes. It was like there was something else in there.

MICHAEL DERN: What do you mean?

ERIC BINTLY: I wasn’t sure until I stopped her, on the day she left. The day she just jumped in her car and started driving east. Before that, I stopped her in the hall and asked what was wrong, because she looked troubled, and she stopped and looked at me and… it was like… it’s impossible to describe. It’s like there was someone else in there. In her head. Someone who wasn’t Laura at all.

MICHAEL DERN: I’m going to just say, once more, with feeling, that you are on tape.

ERIC BINTLY: I know.

MICHAEL DERN: A tape that will be heard by important people.

ERIC BINTLY: I know. And I also know what I saw. I’m telling you, she didn’t know me, Mike. Total lack of recognition. She wasn’t sure who or maybe even what I was. And there was this shivering, or wriggling, all in her corneas, as if behind her eyes there was nothing but worms…

[SILENCE]

ERIC BINTLY: I let her go. I was so unnerved, I let her go. I shouldn’t have done that.

[SILENCE]

MICHAEL DERN: No. You shouldn’t have.

ERIC BINTLY: The lens does something, Mike. I’m sure of it. It pushes at the boundaries of things. I remember Dick once said the way it transports is like a kid throwing a ball up through one skylight so it comes down through another skylight a couple of walls away. And that just stuck in my head.

MICHAEL DERN: Why?

ERIC BINTLY: It was actually something you said before, about another metaphor of Dick’s. The ant on the string in the room.

MICHAEL DERN: Oh. I think… yeah, the thing