"Life is a story." "People think dreams are stories." "They seem like stories, but they're not." "Misguided, no shape, no form." "No reason." "Like rummaging through unmarked boxes in a long-forgotten storage shed." "You'll think it was a story, but try telling a friend of yours what happened in your dream the next day." "Only then will you finally realize, "wait a minute, that wasn't a story at all."" "Not all my dreams were like this." "Some of them really were stories." "Some of them were like this." "Mom takes me to an amusement park." "It's deserted... dusty... lifeless." "Even the barkers pitching unwinnable games for kewpie doll prizes do so with all the joie de vivre of a cancer patient." "But I'm ecstatic." "No crowds means no lines." "And there it is, the snowcapped summit in the topography of juvenile taste..." "The wonderful haunted house ride." "Its façade promised more than papier mâché monsters wrapped in derelict-resistant chicken wire." "Mom, we gotta go." "We gotta go on the haunted house ride." "Are you sure?" "It says right on the marquee, it's the scariest one in the world." "Of course, I'm sure." "We have to, have to, have to." "Are you sure you wanna go?" "The sign ain't lying'." "I'm ready." "Are you sure you're ready?" "And the car lurched forward clumsily and crashed through the doors, which snapped back." "And into the darkness." "Into the darkness." "Whisking along through the darkness," "and, crash, out the other side." "No pneumatic hiss pop ups, no shrill startle bells, nothing, not even the faintest attempt." "A con game." "What a rip-off." "We should get our money back." "Mom, we got ripped off by the idiots who live here." "You're not gonna do anything about this?" "Mom?" "We should get our money back." "She turned to me very slowly and said," ""What makes you think the ride's over?" "What makes you think it's ever gonna end?"" "That was the first of these experiences I had." "I'm still reluctant to call them dreams." "I had that one when I was four." "Let me show you the one I had last night." "I can't sleep." "It's this house." "I hate this house." "It won't let me sleep." "Oh, my god, I am asleep, and dreaming about being right here in my bedroom, trying to fall asleep." "I had to open my eyes, but I couldn't." "I could only open the little dream eyes inside my head, because I felt the fear." "I felt the dread, pending, closing, all around me." "Only one kind of dream tries to hide itself." "The door is open." "He's already here." "You can't run in a nightmare, not with atrophied muscles over tungsten bones, not through the gelatinous atmosphere, not from him." "I watched my hand draw a row of faces on my whiteboard, and despite the childish artwork," "I could instantly recognize each," "Family, friends..." "I left the room, then blackness." "The next time my senses returned to me," "I was not before my whiteboard," "I was in a basement, standing before a mirror, surrounded by the mise-en-scène of nightmares." "I was in his world now, not my own." "And I can't wake up." "I can't wake up." "Oh, my god, I am awake." "Awake in the very location where my nightmare ended." "This was real." "How much nightmare would prove to be real?" "Did I sleepwalk here?" "How could I have pulled so sadistic a trick on myself?" "Especially as I didn't know where "here" was." "I know this place." "This is my home." "I was just in a room that doesn't exist in my own house." "First, relief, then a sobering realization." "As I had fallen asleep where my dream began and woke up where it ended, I could never know for sure what was a dream and what wasn't." "Here I am now, in a much warmer place, in a much brighter place, enjoying a picnic with my brother and his girlfriend." "You're gonna have to get used to the way I speak out loud, my inner voice is considerably more sophisticated." "John, this chicken was good, but we didn't bring any ice cream." "I'm sorry I didn't bring any ice cream on a picnic, Dennis, but, uh, well, we have cupcakes." "No, I don't want cupcakes." "All I want is ice cream." "We have ice cream at home." "Well, I like the kind at the store." "We have that kind at home." "Well, it's better at the store." "It's exactly the same." "You just wanna see that girl." "What is her name?" "Susan, I think." "Yeah, she's cute." "I think someone has a crush." "No way, all I want is ice cream." "I don't know any girl." "What girl?" " Hey, guys." " Hi." "It's nice to see you." "Of course, it's nice to see me." "I'm outlandishly hot." "Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough?" "You know my flavor." "Of course I do, you're my favorite customer." "I got ya." " You ready for this?" " Uh-huh." "You ready, Dennis?" "Surprise, Dennis." "M-m-mirror." "I think it'd look good on the wall there, between the windows." "Yeah." "W-where am I supposed to put my Habitrails?" "Where did you put all of my stuff?" "Where's all of it going?" "It's mostly still in here, Dennis." "No, no, that smelly old box is where my robots used to be, and that scary statue is where I kept my comics." "Well, I had to put one or two things down in the storage room, Dennis." "You wanna move my Habitrail into the storage room?" " Well, Dennis..." " Anyway, I d-don't like this mirror." "And I don't want it in this room." "Dennis, look at the shape of this frame, compared to the shape of the window." "It's the same kind of wood stained with the same kind of stain." "It matches the character of the house perfectly." "It even matches the motif of the furniture that you and I chose ourselves." "Use all the big words you want, you kn-know I won't be able to argue with all of your big words." " I've seen this mirror before." " Well, I doubt that." " No, I have seen it." " It's unlikely, Dennis." "It wasn't just locked up in a vault." "If you surprised us all and proved yourself a safecracker, you still wouldn't have found it." " I know that." " Well, there's a vault within a vault." "Did you know that?" "A prohibition vault." "A place where back in the day of Prohibition, when booze was illegal, people used to hide their booze." "I don't think anyone has been in that room, since the original owners, because what I found in that room is worth enough to pay this mortgage for a year." "Well, I've been down in there and I saw the stuff." "I saw the mirror and I hated it even then." "Really?" "Really, Dennis, Dennis when was this?" " I hated it when I saw it." " When was this?" "Last night." "The mirror wasn't even in the house last night it was in town getting restored for you." "No, it's not for me." "You just want to get rid of my hamsters." "Dennis, your hamsters really smell bad." "Now, the mirror really looks good." "Put the mirror in your room." "It's just one week, that's all I'm asking." "Just... just see if the mirror grows on you." "N-no, it's n-not going to grow on me." "Because I don't like anything you put in here." "This isn't my room anymore, it's your room." "But this is the worst thing, because the chair, I just don't like it." "But the mirror I hate." "And I'm gonna break the mirror right now." " Hey, hey." " John!" "Dennis, calm down." "I'm sorry, Dennis." "I'm sorry." "All right, Dennis, just look, you know, a couple of days." "Just a couple of days is not too much to ask, all right?" "And you can keep your hamsters." "A couple of days, you're going to love the mirror." "You're going to love that mirror." "You can't tell me what I like or don't like." "With the r-right w-wood." "W-with the right stain." "W-with the right m-motif." "Using all these big words, thinking he knows everything." "Knowing big words doesn't make him right." "Knowing big words doesn't even make him smart." "Just makes him know big words." "No matter how many long, 50-cent words he uses, he can't tell me to like you." "I like you." "I like you a lot." "We both know where the stress is coming from." "Just put him in a hospital." "That's why I want to redecorate his bedroom, so we can sell the place so I can put him in a hospital." "We could sell this place tomorrow, unfurnished." "This is a summer town." "People that buy here want a summer retreat." "They want it finished." "Furnished." "Yes, and I would agree with you if we had unlimited time, but you're a time bomb, sweetie." "We could put Dennis in..." "I'm not putting Dennis in a state hospital." "This train hit my dog right in the ass." "R-rectum, said the teacher, r-rectum." "So, I said, "Rectum?" "It fucking killed him."" "Thank you, thank you." "You're too kind." "I tell nice, simple jokes." "I use no big words." "Aw, thank you." "Hey, stop throwing your panties on the stage." "It's really disruptive." "Destruct... d-disturbs my c-concentra..." "See?" "N-no big words." "Thank you." "You tell jokes everyone can understand." "J-John's jokes only make sense to John." "You don't get his jokes, but everyone else does." "W-why?" "'Cause they're about you." "In his mind everything that makes him sad or angry... is your fault." "How did you get past my gate?" "Oh, pleases excuse my breach." "My name is Mildy Torres." "I work with Social Services." "And..." "And we got a tip on our hotline that you've been losing your temper around Dennis." "But when we saw Dennis yesterday, he seemed fine." "No marks, no bruises." "Who said I was losing my temper?" "Aren't you gonna invite me in?" "Yeah." "Please." "We just wanna make sure that you're the right person to take care of Dennis because, frankly, it's a responsibility some people shouldn't be trusted with." " I can handle it." " Are you sure?" "Because taking care of a mentally challenged person can be a real handful sometimes." "Wouldn't it be a load off if the state could take care of Dennis?" "There's an opening in Green Valley." "That would be fantastic." "No, it wouldn't be." "Please excuse us, Lydia." "Thank you." "I don't want Dennis in Green Valley." "Don't you want a break?" "I mean, it all adds up." "Taking care of a mentally challenged person, it just wears on you and wears on you." "It changes your personality." "Do you know where it would show up first?" " Where?" " Well, why don't you take a guess?" " I could give you some..." " I asked you where, Mildy." "Your patience." "You would become very impatient." "Do you know where it would show up second?" "I don't have time for these games." "Your temper." "Your temper would go next." "And a short-tempered man is not fit to be custodian of a mentally-challenged one." "Is this some sort of experiment?" "You want a reaction." "You keep asking me if I have a temper, you're gonna find one." "Well, you're not dumb, I'll give you that." "Your lab is contaminating your experiment." "You're completely prejudiced." "I am angry." "How can the state split up my family?" " I'm not a criminal." " You don't have to be one." "Social Services can remove a child from a suspect parent on the strength of one anonymous phone call." "Look." "Okay, so let me get this straight." "I can make a phone call about anyone at random without giving my name and a person like you will show up at their door" " and remove their children?" " That's right." " And that's legal?" " Well, a lot of people thought it was a necessary law that was a long time in coming." "We call those people idiots, Mildy." "Temper, temper." "You know, uh, this has been amazing, Mildy." "We must do this again sometime." "Oh, we will, we will." "Dr. Preston, John Peterson." "I need to come and see you." "No, not next week." "Now, man." "Right now." "This bitch, Mildy Torres from Social Services shows up at my front door, finagles her way in and tells me I'm under investigation, that I might lose Dennis." "Why are you under investigation?" "She said someone complained that I've been losing my temper... violently." "Now she doesn't think Dennis is safe with me." " You're very tense, John." " But that's normal, right?" "The situation I'm in justifies my tension." "No, it legitimizes it." "It does not justify it." "The last time we spoke, all you could talk about was moving away from Dennis, finding a care facility for him." "Yeah, and I still want that." "Then why didn't you give Dennis the choice of going to Social Services?" "Because she would've sent him to Green Valley." "Have you seen the fucking place?" " I volunteer there twice a week." " Okay, well, it's fine." "It's just not right for Dennis." "You want a private hospital." "How badly?" "How soon?" "Oh, Christ, Doc." "I don't even have a life anymore." "All I do, I..." "I..." "I care for Dennis 24/7." "If he's not in the car I don't even know what station to put it on." "I just scan and I scan." "I don't even know my own taste in music." "You have got to get out of there." "Losing your identity..." "That's a pretty, pretty serious sign, John." "He's my responsibility." "I can't dump him in someone else's lap." "I owe him." "No else can pay my debt." "Debt?" "What do you owe him?" "And Susan is handing me ice cream... and she's dropped a little and is slipping in it." "Looks like she's gonna crack her skull." "Oh, but luckily there's a pillow on the floor." "Or a pillow case full of broken glass." "But I rush in and I catch her and throw her on the glass." "Stop." "This is ruining the drawing." " John." " No." "I don't even like that tone." "We're not gonna fight, are we?" "No, you're not gonna itemize the way in which I disappoint you." " Not today." " Yes, I am." "W-what do I think John and Lydia are doing?" "They're discussing big ideas." "W-with big 50-cent words in them." "You can see how overwrought I am." "I don't have time today to fucking breathe." "And yet you do nothing about your overwhelming lifestyle." "If it were as difficult as you claim, then you would've done something about it by now." "But you haven't, so it seems to me that you like the situation you're in." "Makes you seem selfless, gives you room to operate." " Operate?" " Well, no one would ever question or even suspect a tireless martyr." "Suspect me of what?" "You're never gonna marry me, John, are you?" "You've got the perfect excuse to stay single and not look like a cad." "You've got Dennis." "They're right on the edge of having another huge argument as always." "W-why do they even stay together?" "They both must like to argue, but neither one of them will ever admit it." "W-what's tonight's argument about?" "Lydia's trying to convince John that you're the reason there's so much tension." "He's resisting, but her will is stronger." "It's just a matter of time until she has him convinced that his life would be a whole lot easier without a big dribbling mongoloid in it." "Look, we're not gonna do this again, are we?" "Do what?" "Break up, wait a month, realize there's nobody better out there and get back together again?" "Uh, come on." "It was not even that big of a fight." "That was just a discussion." "I never could tell the difference between fights and discussions." "I was always surprised as to which was which." "Well, you could ask me which it is as we're going." "Huh?" "So, uh, which is this?" "What we're doing right now?" "Yeah." "This is foreplay." "Do you think I'm retarded?" "Uh, just a second, Dennis." "It's okay." "I'll see you later." "Okay." "Shit." "Okay, now what's going on?" "D-do you think I'm a big dribbling mongoloid?" "Where... where do you get these ideas, Dennis?" "I don't think you're that big." "Dribble you do, and mongoloid you are, but big?" "Well, that's just wishful thinking, buddy." "No, I'm not a mongoloid." " I was just kidding." " Well, you should stop." "I'm not retarded." "I'm just slow." "I don't even think you're that slow, buddy." "No, I'm smarter than people think I am." "I'm getting smarter and smarter all the time." "I know you are." "I'm not afraid to look at myself in the mirror anymore." "Oh wow." "Bad dreams, buddy?" "Yeah, yeah." "I borrowed one of your ties." "You don't really use 'em anyway." "Okay." "Y-you can have it." "I gotta talk to you." "I need to know." "A dream is a story I tell myself, right?" "What do you mean exactly?" "I tell myself a story." "One part of my brain tells another part of my brain a story." "Yeah." "Yeah, it's a good way of saying it, I guess." "Well, if it's a story I tell me, how can I trick myself?" "Well, wait." "What do you mean?" "You can't tell yourself a joke and not see the punch line coming." "What, you... you..." "you think someone else is telling you these stories?" "I think that... that it has to be." "Someone like..." "Me?" "I scared you." "I was not scared." "You're scared of some of your own hamsters." "We gotta do something about it." "We gotta fix the scare." "How can you make me not scared anymore?" "We have to stop the nightmares." "How can we stop the nightmares?" "We have to fix our brain." "We have to get better and become smart." "There's a way to do it, but nobody tells you how." "W-why don't they just tell me how to get better?" "Because it's a test." "They make up rules that are lies to see if you'll be dumb enough to believe them." "So what do I do?" "Follow only the real rules." "How do I do that?" "You gotta go kill a kitty cat." "Why?" "It's what you're supposed to do." "They say it's bad to kill kitty cats." "But you like eating meat, right?" "So farmers can kill animals, right?" "See?" "That's the clue they gave you." "They serve you meat." "They're testing your... gullibility when they say it's bad to kill animals." "If you kill a cat you can prove that you know which rules are fake." "And they'll all know you're becoming smarter." "You really think so?" "We have to be brave." "We have to kill our neighbor's cat." "The tabby." "But that kitty likes me." "That'll make it easier to catch." "Psst, psst, psst, psst..." "I did very good work today." "I did many kitties and many doggies." "This... this taxidermy cassette, it's very important." "Why?" "It's gonna teach you what to do with the kitties and doggies you bring back." "Grab a doggy from the cooler." "You're holding a new paint brush, Dennis." "Hey, buddy, I didn't even know you knew how to do anything involving wood work." "I'm getting better and better at it." "Can I see?" " Oh, not yet." " Why not?" "Well, you get your private office." "Why can't this be my private office?" "W-why can't this be where my work stays just for me?" "Oh no, brother." "I gotta see this." "I'll show you all of it in a few days." ""Taxidermy."" ""Forensic..." Why do you have these tapes?" "Why do you wanna know about butchery and leather care and taxidermy, especially forensics?" "What is that smell?" "No, Dennis, I'm definitely coming in there." "No, no." "Those aren't my cassettes." "They got in my bag by mistake." "You know, Dennis, I might believe that if there was one cassette on one topic..." "Maybe two, but not four." "These didn't fall into someone's bag." "Someone went shopping for these and placed them in a bag." "Yes, but that someone wasn't me." "So you picked up someone else's bag?" "Yeah." "I got their books on tape and they got mine." "Well, thank God, because this is, uh, that's, that..." "Excuse me, buddy." " Hey babe, come on in." " Nuh-uh, you come out." "Come on, let's get something to eat." "Uh, okay." "Hang on a second." "Hey, uh, Dennis." "You gonna be okay for a couple hours?" "I'm gonna go out with Lydia." "Yeah, I'll be fine." "You know, just before you picked me up" "I had a nasty scare." "What happened?" "I heard a hammer pounding down in the basement." "So I went down to investigate." "It couldn't be Dennis." "Dennis doesn't know anything about carpentry." "But it is Dennis, suddenly looking a lot like a professional carpenter." "But the fact that he's doing something skillfully is exciting, but it's also kinda scary." "What's he building?" " I don't know." " You don't know?" "It doesn't really matter." "Even if it's an atrocity it want be an eyesore because it's down in the basement." "Well, aren't you the slightest bit curious?" "I mean, when's he gonna show you?" "He said he would show me in a couple of days." "You know... you should've seen him with his tool belt and his protective goggles." "What if he could become a carpenter?" "Get a job." "Look at you." "You're so proud of him." "You'd make a great dad." "Well, I wanna be a dad." "I wanna be your husband." "And I wanna know what you call those turbine engine-driven ceramic and titanium vehicles you see maybe once or twice in a lifetime." "I never remember what they're called." "But what do you call that?" "I can't believe I fell for that." "They're very fast." " What is this?" " I have no idea." "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "Those look a lot like the earrings that you saw in Aspen that you fell in love with that I couldn't afford." "Now this is wrapping up much too neatly to be a coincidence." "No." "Okay, what's wrong?" "Are they not the right earrings?" "Why did you set me up like that?" "Set you up like what?" "We were talking about marriage, children." "Earrings?" "...But with spiders the challenge is of a different nature." "Spiders are not social animals." "They have no families." "If the spider's gene is to last into the next generation, he must approach the female by stealth, careful not to be seen by her." "Because spiders are cannibals, and females are much larger than males." "I would give you a ring today if you would live with Dennis." "When I said I wanted a baby," "I meant the small kind, the cute kind." "Not the 30-year-old masturbating kind." "...the procreative act complete, the male spider must now escape her web before she catches and eats him." "To her the male is not a husband, not a mate, not even another spider." "To the female, the male is merely food." "Australia is home to the world's most venomous spiders." "Notable amongst them is the funnel-web." "Unique not only for its deadly poison, but for its inexplicably aggressive behavior." "It will, unprovoked, charge anyone it sees." "Which raises the question, why?" "If it doesn't have a soul, it will bite you without a second thought because it doesn't have a first." "If it does have a soul, it will bite you because it doesn't like you... you fucking retard." "It would need a soul to appreciate your disgust with its soullessness." "Look at those eyes, those lifeless black spheres." "Could they be looking back?" "No." "No, not these eyes." "Those eyes." "I'll let you wake up if you do a job for me." "Say yes, and your dreams will be pleasant for a long time." "Say no... and I'll knock off the training wheels." "If you think this was bad, wait." "You have to do this." "You have to go get a boy, get a little boy if you want to get better." "I have to kill a little boy?" "Or a little girl." "It doesn't matter." "It has to be a child." "Why?" "'Cause that's what we'll need to do to prove that we're not stupid." "It's the next step in the test." "Once you realize killing animals isn't bad, it soon gets clear that all killing isn't bad." "To learn killing animals is okay, they gave you meat as a clue." "You don't know how many times your meat at dinner time was someone you knew." "I ate kids at dinner?" "Many times." "Everybody kills little boys and girls, and they're all disappointed in you because you haven't done it." "It's only a few hours until dawn." "Go out and kill a kid." "Why'd I do that?" "Why?" "It's not helping me." "I..." "I don't feel smarter." "Nobody says I'm acting smarter." "You did good work, very good work." "All we did was kill three kids." "I'm just as dumb as I ever was." "We did very well." "And I have to tell you a secret now." "This isn't helping me." "I gotta tell you a secret." "Lean in close." "This isn't helping me." "When you're sleeping at night," "I'm the one who whispers in your ear." "Sorry about the stories I tell, but it's just a little darker over here." "Thank you." " Thank you for meeting me, Dr. Preston." " Of course." "Have a seat." "You need more sessions with me, right?" "Desperately." "And you can't afford them, right?" "Not really, no." "What if I give you my lunchtime every day for a month?" "We wouldn't be in session." "We'd be having lunch together as friends so I wouldn't have to charge you." "That would be great." "I do expect a fee, just not a cash fee." "What do you want?" "You can't skirt issues by claiming they're not what you want to talk about." "If I want to talk about the house and the car you can't afford, you must play along." "Fair enough?" "So it's half therapy, half browbeating?" "More like 90 percent therapy you think you need and ten percent therapy I think you need." "That's fine." "Well, we'll start with what you think your problems are." "Who are you?" "I'm not just one." "I've been called legion." "I am many." "Well, where are you?" "I'm right here." "The dark place, where is the dark place?" "I'm not sure." "I couldn't show you on a map." "I do know this though, no one here ever wanted to come, but you, oh Dennis, you would love it here." "If you came here, you'd be happy for the rest of your life." "If I went there," "I'd be happy for the rest of mine." "So what do we do?" "Just keep doing what you're doing." "It'll make you smarter." "It'll make me able to go where you are." "It's a good deal all the way around." "Just keep doing what you're doing." "What do you look like?" "You wanna see me?" "Take this mirror and point it at the closet mirror." "Take a step back." "Look down the hallway into infinity." "Is... is that you?" "I didn't choose to look this way." "Why should I help you anymore?" "You hurt me." "Who's really hurting you?" "Me?" "Or Susan?" "Susan likes me." "She wouldn't fuck you with someone else's pussy." "W-why?" "She wouldn't fuck a retard." "How revolting." "But a serial killer... ah, how exciting." "How intriguing." "How mysterious." "You know what makes you so unattractive in Susan's eyes?" "No." "She thinks you couldn't hurt a fly." "She thinks you're insignificant." "If you killed her, she'd die screaming, she'd die in agony, but she'd die wet between the legs." "Am I really your enemy?" "Tsk, tsk, Dennis," "I'm your only friend." "I'm hungry, Dennis." "Let's go get some ice cream." "Hello?" "Oh my God, Dennis." "Thank God it's you." "Hi." "What's up with the hand in the coat?" "You hiding a concealed weapon or something?" " Uh, no." " No?" "It's a... a new notebook I got here." "I'm gonna write down notes in it and keep them." "Can you read?" "Well, uh, no, but what I've kinda been doing is asking other people to write down notes and then when I get home" "I ask John to read them to me." "That's the coolest thing that I've ever heard." "I w-w-was hoping you'd write me a note." "I would love to, Dennis." "Take a letter, Susan." "Okay." "To... whomever it may concern..." "I, Susan Hill, being of sound mind and hot body am prepared to make the following confessions." "I think Dennis Peterson is super keen and I would like to have his babies." "I can't think of a way to get him to ask me out or tell him that my idea of a perfect date would include bumper cars and ice cream here in my own store." "This is a joke, isn't it?" "Why?" "I would just feel more comfortable if you were kidding." "I mean, you're not really asking me out, are you?" "Would it be so wrong if I did?" "Well, Dennis, I'm spoken for." "No, you broke up with that guy two weeks ago." "Yeah, I'm not..." "I'm not ready to move on, Dennis." "You can't just turn love off like a switch." "You were only dating him for a month!" "Dennis, it... it wouldn't work out between us." "Are you lying, John?" "No." "Are you sure?" "When you continue lying to someone whom you know knows you're lying, that's when it can be called compulsive." "How do you know?" "Friendly word of advice, John." "Steer clear of poker." "It wouldn't be your game." "Quite a tell, huh?" " Oh." "Sorry." " Excuse me." "I'm so sorry." " Lydia." " Hi, John." "Are you spying on me?" "No." "No, I, uh, I just needed a ride." "Well, I'm going home." "That's okay." "You want company?" "Yeah." " Yeah, sure." " Okay." "Thanks." "What was our first date like?" "Feeling nostalgic?" "Sentimental?" "You wanna do it again, see if we can recapture something, is that it?" "What're we doing down here?" "Dennis spends a lot of his spare time down here these days." "Oh right, carpentry." "The carpentry." "Hey, Dennis." "Come here, buddy." "I got a surprise for you." "What surprise?" "You know I love surprises." "Well, come on out." "Come on out and I'll tell you all about it." "Tonight, you're in charge." "Whatever you wanna do we'll do." "All three of us." "Let's go to the car, chop, chop." "Dennis." "♪ The girls are over here, the girls are over there ♪" "♪ Love is in the air ♪" "♪ Yeah, the girl's are fair walking in the field ♪" "♪ Flower in the air ♪" "♪ Looking for a fling with a millionaire ♪" "How do they make the things move?" "Like, the octopus, how do they make all those eight big tentacles of the octopus move like that?" "Well, it's animatronics, Dennis." "Very simple ones." "See the wires attached to the tentacles?" "Well, they go up past the curtain where we can't see them." "Into a big plastic tube with a bunch of disks on it." "It's not too unlike a giant shish kabob skewer, put through old vinyl records." "But it doesn't actually go through the center, it's a little off center, so when it rotates, the disc goes up and down and subsequently the arms attached to that disc go up and down as well," "moving cables, which move the tentacles." "I didn't understand any of that." "Hi, what'll it be?" "Large pepperoni pizza and a pitcher of diet." "And a strawberry milkshake." "Okay, I'll be back in a flash." "I'm gonna go to the bathroom." "♪ When I look in her eyes I see the sunrise ♪" "He is really well-behaved this evening." "You didn't talk me into that one." "I just did it and I don't know why." "I knew you'd come around eventually." "Wh-what happened?" "You've developed immunities, so you're upping your dosage." "Why?" "You're addicted." "Stop killing and sobriety's icy hand will have you." "Hell, you can't even decrease your kills, but any increase and you overdose." "So, what do I do?" "You graduate to stronger shit." "You have to kill those close to you now." "Friends, family, you have to kill more people like Susan." "I think you're tricking me." "I think you had this planned all along." "You say everyone else is tricking me, but it's you." "I know that now, so you can't trick me anymore." "You're still gonna have to do everything I say, because I control your dreams." "I can handle the nightmares." "You haven't yet had a nightmare." "I won't do it." "You're getting real close." "I can smell your soul getting ripe." "I won't do it." "Oh, you'll do it, retard, or I'll find another retard, and he'll do it to you." "Oh, wow." "Hi, Susan." "You got me really good." "Car?" "Hit me right here, first, and then up here," "You can't even really see a bruise, can you?" "My skin held up pretty well." "Even after the bus sent me through the windshield." "You'd think I'd be cut, but I'm not." "My skin... is good." "There's not a mark anywhere on it." "And most of my bones aren't broken either." "You know that saying, "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link"?" "Well, you can see that my skin isn't the weakest link." "My bones aren't either." "What is?" "Absolutely everything else." "You can see now, Dennis, that my skin, is the only thing that's holding me together." "Hey, you nod off there, buddy?" "Well, I guess you've had enough fun for one night." "Come on, we'll take you home." "You can't hurt me if I don't fall asleep." "You know what happens if you stay awake too long?" "I don't care." "You reach a state of semi-consciousness, unable to discern asleep from awake." "You know what happens if you stay in the dark place long enough?" "You get really ugly." "You ain't seen nothing yet." "How can you stay awake all night?" "You won't last an hour." "Nighty night." "This just in... sleep." "Let yourself sleep." "Sleep." "Sleep." " You still up?" " Nope, I just woke up." "Glad to hear you got some sleep." "Whew!" "You are ripe." "You need a bath." "Let's go run one." "I'm not." "I get to call the shots today and I say no bath." "Yes, that was yesterday." "Run a bath." "Today." "Chop, chop." "Wake up, honey." "We overslept." "What are you talking about?" "You went to go check on Dennis five minutes ago." "No, I didn't." "You didn't?" "No." "You didn't tell him to take a bath?" "No." "That's weird, I must have dreamt it." " I got the "morning afters."" " Yeah." "Morning after crack and gasoline." "What the hell did we drink last night?" "We didn't." "We didn't drink anything last night." "Let's get some coffee at the ice cream place." "Hey, Susan, do you still..." "That's not Susan, honey." "Sorry, ma'am, I'm just so used to seeing Susan here." "You look so much like her." "People have made that mistake tons of times before." "You'll be seeing me here from now on." "Where is Susan?" " I'm sorry, you haven't heard?" " No." "She had an accident." "What kind of accident?" "A traffic accident, kind of." "She got hit by a car." " Oh, my god." " Well, how is she doing?" "She's dead." " Oh, honey, here she comes." " Good." "Ma'am." " Miss." " Ma'am." "Excuse me, ma'am." " Wow." " Sir?" "Sir?" "Could you send..." "Thank you." "What would you like?" " Uh, I want a drink." "You?" " Definitely." "Vodka, soda, splash of pineapple, please." "And I will have a Jack, neat." "And what happened to the usual waitress?" "What's her name, Jenny?" "I'm filling in for her." "She's sick or something." "Hostess, valet, waitress..." "It's beginning to seem like an epidemic." "No kidding." "Totally forgot my appointment with Dr. Preston." "At least I'll see one familiar face today." "Excuse me, Dr. Preston?" " I am, uh, I'm sorry." " Thanks fucking Christ for that." "I'm in the mood to vent, and you caught me at a hell of a time." "Go ahead, ask me the question." "Ask me what everyone fucking asks me, every fucking minute of every fucking day." ""Why do you look like that?" "What's wrong with you?"" "You wanna know what's wrong with me?" "Nothing." "I'm just dandy." "Until of course some asshole like you comes along, and ruins my damn good time." "Terribly sorry, sir." "I need a break." " After we get Mildy." " Who?" "You'll remember when we see her." "But I don't know." "She's a bitter social reject who can never feel good about herself, so to even the playing field she makes everyone feel bad." "No!" "What if I say, "No, I won't kill Mildy"?" "I won't kill anyone again." "She's coming for you now." "She's coming with the police." "Good." "Go too long without killing and the nightmares start, Dennis." "I can fix that." "If I kill me, I kill us." "How do you like the dark place, Dennis?" "Y-you said I'd be happy for the rest of my life." "You're not alive anymore, Dennis." "I am." "So we're all clear, right?" "John Peterson?" "Mildy Torres, Social Services, with a court order relieving you of your custodial responsibilities to Dennis Peterson." "Looks like nobody's home." "Yeah, we don't have a search warrant, so..." "So stick to what's in plain sight." "All right." "You smell that?" "Retard stink." "No, it smells good." "Wait a minute, we're alone here, right?" "Yeah, turkeys, chicken, roast beef, it all takes a day." "All right, so I'm going up here, you're gonna take the kitchen?" "Just save me a piece, all right, Don?" " Yeah, right." " I'm serious." "Did you hear that?" "You better fucking save me a piece." "I don't recognize a soul." "It's worse than that." "We haven't recognized anyone all day." "Where is everyone?" "I don't know." "Must be the flu or something." "Well, why would it only target our friends?" "Okay, so what's your guess?" "Well, Dennis is holed up in the basement with instructions for butchers and taxidermists." "It smells like Satan's ass down there." "People are missing, one's dead for sure..." "Not everyone we know is missing, okay?" "Ha!" "There's Pete." "Pete from the bookstore." "Hey, Pete!" "Pete!" "Uh, hi, John, Lydia, what's going on?" "You're a little bit excited and it's creeping me out, man." "It's just really good to see you." "Yeah, super to see you guys." "No, no." "You don't understand, man." "You're the first familiar face we've seen all day." "It's just really "Twilight Zone" -ish." "Okay." "Uh, oh, John, I've got Dennis's books on tape here." "Yeah, this is definitely Dennis's." "I've got Chuck's marked down there with a different color." "Have Chuck's and Dennis' books been getting messed up?" "Yeah." "Thank God." "Yes, thank God." "Parting of the Red Sea was okay, but I was not a believer until I witnessed the bookstore fuck up." "Have you seen any of Chuck's cassettes?" "Yeah?" "Because I was a bit worried they may be Dennis's." "Okay, yeah I got that." "He's been spending a lot of time in the basement." "There's weird smells coming out of there." "And stinking in the basement is okay if you're reading the right books." "Exactly." "Well, there you have it." "What?" "Well, Dennis didn't even buy the books, Chuck did." "Your point?" "Your theory about Dennis no longer has a leg to stand on." "Well then, why do you lie about him so much?" "What are you hiding?" "What?" "Why are you lying?" "I'm not lying." "We both know you're lying." "You really wanna know?" "Dennis was a prodigy." "His IQ is not traditionally measurable." "Taught himself arithmetic through long division at age five, library books." "He was a hero in the papers and still a hero to Dr. Preston." "He keeps a display case of newspaper clippings, essays, novellas, theories, all about or by Dennis." "What happened?" "I don't remember all of it." "I was eight when he was six and we got into a fight, and I punched him, good punch, knockout punch right to the jaw." "And he went tumbling down the stairs." "He was only unconscious for about an hour, but, uh, when he came to, he couldn't read." "He couldn't even tie his own shoelaces." "Christ, I don't know." "I don't even know what the fight was about." "You did this to him." "He was a genius?" "Christ, I'd love to get away with you." "Start a family, have a normal life, but I really do owe every cent that I make, every moment of my life to Dennis." "We're gonna have to talk to Dennis." "About what?" "He'll need to know how things are going to change." "What's going to change?" "For one, that house is going to be a little more cramped with me living in it." "You could live with Dennis?" "Well, it's not a dream come true, but it is a family." "And that's more than I ever had." "Wait, wait, I'm sorry, where are you going?" "I'm gonna go get Dennis." "Get the birthday table at Monsoon's." "He's gonna have a lot to digest." "A lot of complicated grown-up issues and pizza to digest." "So, how about them Dodgers?" "I'm sorry, Pete." "I'm sorry to everyone, I seem to have made a bit of a spectacle." "No, no, dude." "None of us even noticed." "Let me just put Dennis' books there on the edge of your table." " You look a bit glazy, man." " Yeah, I feel a bit weird." "You take anything, man?" "Just prescription stuff." "Well, let's not jump to conclusions and blame the drugs." "Anybody would freak when they found out what Dennis has been reading about." "Well, I haven't yet found out what Dennis has been reading about." "I know what Chuck's been reading." "Oh yeah, now, that's creepy." "Why?" "What has Dennis been reading?" "Well, books on forensics and taxidermy." "That's... that's Chuck." "No, that's Dennis." "It's an acquired taste." "Don't worry about that smell in your basement, it's dead animals." "Taxi!" "Pete, you gotta call the cops." "I don't want to." "Send them to my house." "There's a crime in progress." "Dennis!" "Denn..." "Here's the knife, alakazam, gone." "Boo." "Gesundheit." "Dennis?" "Good evening." "Lydia?" "Say hello to John." "Hello, John." "Lydia, you seem a little sad." "Is something wrong?" "Yes, I feel all empty inside." "I'm a shell of my former self." "Why are you feeling that way?" "I've demanded so much of my brother's time that he no longer has a life." "I can't care for myself, so duty binds him to me." "And you feel guilty because of that?" "I took all the time he could have focused on his own needs and demanded he focus on my needs." "I took his life away." "Oh, it can't be that bad." "What could be worse?" "You could remove any hope of his having a normal life." "How?" "Well, you could push him down the stairs and damage his brain." "Render him mentally incompetent." "What kind of a monster would do that to his own family?" "A spider." "What do spiders do?" "They kill all their family members." "That's not as bad as what I did." "And what you did isn't as bad as damaging someone's brain." "Oh?" "Why not?" "When you damage someone's brain you darken their whole world." "Dennis." "Dennis, what are you doing?" "Nothing remains familiar." "Family loses familiarity." "Dennis, get me out of the chair." "Imagine that." "Imagine what?" "How it must feel to wander about a town once familiar only to meet fifth generation copies of people you once knew." "How could someone in that position cope?" "He'd have to think like a spider." "Dennis, Dennis, Dennis, everything is gonna be fine." "A spider's so cold and deceptive." "Oh, Christ." "Dennis." "Dennis." "Dennis!" "Dennis!" "Let me out of the chair!" "Dennis, God damn it!" "Let me out of the chair!" "Right now!" "Everyone is." "Dennis, listen to me!" "God damn it, Dennis, let me out of the chair!" "Let me tell you a story about a worse deception still." "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep." "If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." "And I pray the Lord forgive me, but he cannot stay." "He takes attention I need from my Mommy away." "He reminds me all the time that I'm not him." "Forgive me, oh Lord, but I'm about to sin." "These injuries could not have happened in the fall." "Ah-ha!" "The jealous older brother." "He's the victim of an attack." "I'll revive him, he'll talk." "Talk to me, boy." "Beautiful, beautiful boy." "God dammit, Dennis!" "Get me out of this chair." "Foiled!" "No, not foiled, just a setback." "We'll bring you back." "And your brother will get his comeuppance." "Everyone is deceiving everyone." "We're not social animals, it's a rogue world." "A spider world." "♪ The itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout ♪" "♪ Down came the rain, and washed the spider out. ♪" "Dennis!" "Let me out of the chair!" "Dennis!" "Dennis!" "The doctors tell me if I received orders to kill from the person who made up my dreams and the person I saw in the mirror, then I ordered myself to kill." "I am simply insane." "None of this is real, but that isn't true." "I'm not in this hospital." "This isn't me." "I'm in this hospital, this is me." "All I do now is hope, hope that the cheap electric car will come crashing through the doors." "I'll be safely back at the carnival." "And the scariest haunted house in the world will finally come to an end." "♪ La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la ♪" "♪ La, la, la, la, la, la ♪"