From the Land of Fear

by Harlan Ellison

  QARLO: Get out!

  LOREN: Sure, sure…(interested) Hey, how come you’re sleepin’ on the floor? And all the stuff piled outta the way?

  QARLO: Clear the perimeter. No Enemy gets past. Troopers can jump.

  LOREN: Hey, that’s cool. You sleep on the floor in the future?

  QARLO: Sleeptime is anywhere. When a trooper hasta jump…he jumps!

  LOREN: That figures. Geez, you must have a great time, just soldier’n all the time. But don’t worry, Qarlo, there ain’t—aren’t—isn’t any Enemy here. You’re in the past now, remember?

  He smiles, grabs a comic book from a stack, and leaves, shutting the door behind him. Qarlo sinks back down, with the bookend in his hand, as camera comes in for closeup.

  QARLO: No. No Enemy here. Another time…a past time. No Enemy.

  His face seems to relax. He shoves the bookend away, and lies down. His eyes close as we

  SHARP CUT TO:

  87 EXA. STREET—NIGHT

  (Same set as was used for Qarlo’s appearance) The street is very nearly deserted. One pedestrian walks through. When he is gone, the Enemy is seen stalking in a darkened alley (or areaway). He starts to enter the street as a policeman saunters by. He quickly draws back until the cop is gone. Now, he enters. We hear the beep beep from the electrical impulse machine on his arm. He listens to it carefully, obviously sensing the direction it is leading him. Meanwhile:

  HELMET VOICE (o.s.) Find your enemy! Find your enemy!

  Grimly, he drifts off into the shadows and disappears.

  FADE OUT:

  88 INT. KAGAN LIVING ROOM—CLOSEUP KAGAN—DAY

  using a tape recorder, speaking into a microphone. He is reading from notes. A phone sits near at hand on the desk. Through an archway we can see Loren and Qarlo throwing darts at a dartboard, and we can catch o.s. remarks, ad lib from the boy (e.g.: “Hey, you got a good eye, Qarlo! Bulls-eye! That’s your ninth one in a row! Gee, it’s great havin’ you here.” etc.) Kagan looks up from time to time, and smiles.

  KAGAN: I have asked the subject about his world, our future. His knowledge is incredibly limited. He knows war and soldiering, but little else. Comparison: if an Australian bushman were thrown into the future, his image of the world today would be one of barbarism. The situation is comparable with the subject Qarlo. (beat) The words love and hate still seem to have no meaning for him. However, subject provided a clue to his conception of honesty by laughing when a man on television returned some food dropped by another actor. Subject’s remark was: “Drumdum. He gave away free food.”

  PHONE RINGS. Kagan picks it up.

  KAGAN: Hello? (beat) Paul! How are you? I was just preparing the weekly for you. (beat) They what?

  89 INTERCUT—PAUL TANNER

  He sits behind a desk, receiver in hand.

  TANNER: They’ve made a dispensation in Qarlo’s case, Tom. Two weeks are up. They feel he’s made as much progress as can be expected…(beat) I know that’s for you to decide…but the papers have gotten wind of the experiment, and there’s a chance there’ll be repercussions—and they’ve been talking about Civic Obligations and Danger to the Community…(beat) I know, I know! But they won’t listen to that. All they know is he’s a psychopathic killer by our standards, and he’s on the loose.

  90 SAME AS 88

  KAGAN: So what have they decided?

  TANNER’S VOICE (filter): He’ll be remanded to my custody, and be put under protective surveillance in a maximum security pri—

  KAGAN (cuts him off, furiously):—prison! A bloody prison? The man hasn’t done anything, Paul! He’s merely bewildered, lost, out of joint with his Times. That’s no crime, no sin…he didn’t ask to be warped into the past.

  TANNER’S VOICE (filter): I’m sorry, Tom. That’s the way it is.

  KAGAN (defeated): When?

  TANNER’S VOICE (filtered): As soon as possible. Tonight; at the latest tomorrow. Can you get him ready?

  KAGAN: Physically…or emotionally?

  TANNER’S VOICE (filter): Tom, don’t take it out on me, for crine out loud, I’m only—

  KAGAN (bitterly): I know: you’re only doing your job! That’s rapidly becoming the slimiest alibi of our times.

  He slams the receiver down on the deskset, buries his head in his hands for a moment, then rises.

  91 TRUCKING SHOT—WITH KAGAN

  as he walks across living room to edge of archway, watching Qarlo and Loren shooting darts. Qarlo is expert with them, but he does the act with little comprehension of competition. He might as easily be emptying garbage or tying shoelaces.

  LOREN: Gee, you’re good, Qarlo!

  QARLO: Drumdum, throwing these.

  LOREN: I thought you were having a good time. You’re winning.

  QARLO: Don’t grasp “winning.” War?

  LOREN: No, not winning a war. It’s like we were having a little war, you and me, and the one who throws the best, he wins the war.

  QARLO. Drumdum.

  LOREN: Yeah, maybe. I don’t know. (beat) Gee, it’s great havin’ you here with us. It gets lonely out here sometimes, y’know, cause all the kids live nearer into town…

  Kagan smiles softly, turns and walks away. They have not seen him there. He walks back to tape recorder.

  92 INT. KAGAN LIVING ROOM—ON KAGAN

  Abby comes into the room. He turns to her. Camera into two shot.

  KAGAN: They’ve decided to put him away. Tonight or tomorrow.

  ABBY (mixed emotions): I can’t say I’m sorry, Tom. It’s been terrifying.

  KAGAN: Abby, cut it out. You’re dramatizing again.

  ABBY: You see what you want to see, only what you want to see. And not that Toni has been spending more and more time with him…that Loren is beginning to idolize him…that…

  KAGAN: Isn’t that what we wanted, for him to fit in, to adjust, to learn what caring means?

  Abby is getting worked up now. There is a note of hysteria in her voice.

  ABBY: But he doesn’t care! He’s just as he was when he came here. He’s playing with us, Tom. Letting us think he understands, that he wants to make the best of it.

  KAGAN: I think you’re seeing shadows.

  ABBY: From the future, Tom. Shadows from the future. That man is a killer…he was trained from birth for only one thing! To kill! Do you think two weeks with us is going to erase all that?

  KAGAN: I hoped it would…

  ABBY: I’m afraid, Tom. Afraid of him…and afraid of the future he comes from.

  Kagan turns to the window. His voice is filled with sadness as, back turned, he speaks to her—and himself.

  KAGAN (distantly): Dr. Jung (pronounced: Yoong) once said: “The only thing we have to fear on this planet—is man.”

  CAMERA HOLDS on Kagan’s back, and Abby staring at him with helplessness, and the sounds of Qarlo and Loren playing darts as we

  SLOW DISSOLVE TO:

  93 EXT. CITY STREET OR ALLEY—THE ENEMY—NIGHT

  Extreme closeup on the electrical impulse machine. It beep beep beeps for a moment then begins to crackle as though being jammed by interference. In the distance we hear the sound of an airplane approaching—the roar of the motor gets louder and louders. Camera pulls away and rises rapidly to high spot of enemy standing in shadows of an alley. He spins around as though looking for source of airplane sound. Suddenly he stops and looks up.

  94 EXT. SKY—STOCK—POV—NIGHT

  A large plane, its night lights blinking, is flying low as though approaching an airfield.

  95 EXT. ALLEY—CLOSE SHOT THE ENEMY

  He spots the plane, raises his rifle in its direction and fires beam.

  96 EXT. SKY—STOCK—NIGHT

  Beam hits the aircraft and it sizzles out of the sky—gone—

  97 BACK TO ENEMY

  looking in the direction of the kill. He is satisfied as the beep beep on his impulse machine resumes. The voice from his helmet produces an evil smile on his strange face.

  HELMET VOICE
(o.s.): Find your enemy! Find your enemy; Kill…Kill…Kill….

  He stalks out of darkened alley toward lighted street in search of his prey.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  98 INT. KAGAN LIVING ROOM—NIGHT

  Kagan and Qarlo sit talking.

  KAGAN: They’ve decided you can’t stay here.

  QARLO: Who? Who has decided?

  KAGAN: Some men who make decisions for the rest of us, because we let them.

  QARLO: C.O.?

  KAGAN: In a way, yes. They’ve decided you might hurt someone…that you have to be…sent to a place.

  Qarlo’s face suddenly goes cold and hard. This he understands.

  QARLO: Pee-owe-dubbel-yoo. I peeped that’d happen. I knew you troops would jump.

  KAGAN (hastily): Not a prisoner of war camp, Qarlo. Nothing like that. It’s a—a—

  QARLO (intensely): Liar!

  KAGAN: It wasn’t my idea…I tried to keep them from doing it…but these men, they—

  QARLO: Qarlo Clobregnny. Private. Six five one oh two two nine.

  KAGAN: Listen—

  QARLO (bitterly): Where I come from, it’s true, it’s right. No two ways. Us and them. The Enemy. We know who they are, they know us. No two-ways troopers who jump sometimes one way, sometimes the other.

  KAGAN: It’s better here, Qarlo, if you could only understand…if you could only grasp…

  QARLO: Grasp? Your words, your drumdum empty words, love, hate, dog, mother…?

  KAGAN: Yes, yes!

  QARLO: No! I want my time, my world.

  KAGAN: It’s better here, now, Qarlo. We don’t have the War…

  QARLO (sneers): Better? In my world we don’t grasp these love, hate, all of them. We never know, so we don’t want. Here, you peep love…then take it away.

  KAGAN (dawning realization): Qarlo…do you…feel sorry to be going away from us—?

  QARLO: I don’t grasp your “sorry.” In this time, like my time, there’s Enemy, and not-Enemy. You aren’t Enemy…

  KAGAN: But you’re not sure I’m a friend, is that it?

  QARLO: Don’t grasp “friend.”

  KAGAN: Not-Enemy.

  QARLO: Yes. You aren’t Not-Enemy. So I can stay here. But the others…the ones who put hands on me…

  KAGAN: Qarlo, you can’t let your other life ruin it for you here. You’ve got to live here…if they have to touch you…

  QARLO: (hard): They won’t. (beat) And you…two-way jumper. One way or the other.

  Qarlo turns, starts to stalk away. Macbeth, the cat, lies there. Camera shoots past Qarlo to cat as he pauses, and with a gentle, pathetic tone, he speaks a question, expecting no answer.

  QARLO: C.O.…?

  No answer. He leaves the room. Camera moves in on the eyes of the silent cat as we

  DISSOLVE TO:

  99 INT. TANNER’S OFFICE—CLOSEUP TANNER’S BACK—DAY

  He is sitting behind his desk, in a swivel chair, facing a large window looking out over the city. Suddenly he spins around, smashing palms flat on desk.

  TANNER: Now listen, Kagan, don’t chew on my ear. I haven’t any control over what they’re doing.

  CAMERA PULLS BACK to show Kagan leaning over the desk, arms wide and tensed on the desktop. He is furious.

  KAGAN: But you didn’t fight them…

  TANNER: Fight them? Say, what’s the matter with you, boy. I work for the government, for the Bureau; I’m not some free-lance hot-rock they call in like The Lone Ranger.

  KAGAN (contemptuously): Company man.

  TANNER: Oh, ha ha. Fancy phrases for all occasions. Instant mirth, merely add Kagan. (beat) I did fight them, if you’d like to know. I batted my head against the wall for almost two weeks while you sat out there playing ABC’s with King Kong.

  KAGAN: Paul…you’ve got to…

  TANNER: Got, got, got. I don’t got to do anything, but come pick up that big ugly piece of furniture, and take him where my bosses tell me to take him.

  KAGAN: I need more time. He’s coming around. He’s adapting to the family unit.

  TANNER: Adapting how? Has he offered to wash the dishes or make the beds? What have you got out there, Kagan, the perfect scullery maid?

  KAGAN: I’ve learned a million things about his world, Paul. You can’t cut off a source of information like that. It’ll never happen again.

  TANNER: You can always talk to him in a cell.

  KAGAN: Don’t be ridiculous. Put him away, and he’ll revert. He’ll get surly, silent, we’ll be worse than when we started.

  TANNER (wearily): Oh, Kagan Kagan Kagan, what’m I gonna do with you? How do I make it clear that my hands are tied?

  KAGAN: Listen…if you gave them some new things about the future I’ve learned, would that quiet them?

  TANNER: I don’t think so.

  KAGAN: Perhaps another week…?

  TANNER: I—I don’t think so.

  Kagan pulls a spool of tape out of his pocket. He hands it to Tanner.

  KAGAN: Here, play this…

  Tanner opens a desk drawer, and a tape recorder lifts up. He drops on the spool, starts it playing. It is Kagan’s voice.

  (NOTE: this speech may be cut to any length sufficient.)

  KAGAN’S VOICE: Subject’s world of the future. Divided into two warring camps, with children raised from birth on special war-islands devoted to nothing but training. When they reach early teens, they are sent into battle so brain-washed that the C.O.—the Commanding Officer—and his orders are the closest thing to God they know. (beat) There is no marriage, no family unit, no entertainment as we know it. The society is rigidly structured into classes, among which are The Factory Workers at the lowest level and what the subject calls The Purple, or Ruling Body, at the top. Qarlo has never seen one of The Purple. He talks about them as though they were mystic, almost holy, creatures. Apparently, so ingrained is the concept of “security,” of keeping the Enemy from learning anything about battle plans or—in fact, anything at all about the state of war on Qarlo’s side, that no one speaks to anyone else for fear of being tagged a spy. This has brought about a culture in which every man is literally and totally alone. (beat) Further than these facts, Qarlo is unable to go. Asked about other areas of the culture, he shakes his head or makes comments that indicate he has never been in contact with any area of his world outside training, battle and allied subjects. He has social “tunnel vision,” trained to do a job and not consider the rest of the world in which he lives. He is, in every sense of the word, crippled.

  Tanner slaps the recorder off. He rubs his eyes as though he hasn’t slept in weeks.

  TANNER: Okay. I’ll try again. They’re starting to wonder whose team I’m on, and when they start wondering that, the old bread line ain’t far off.

  KAGAN: Thanks, Paul.

  TANNER. Don’t thank me. If I’m out dancing for dimes on the Avenue, just toss me a few coins and pat my monkey on the head. (beat) Now get outta here so I can go lose my job.

  Kagan smiles, Tanner looks bemused, shakes his head.

  DISSOLVE TO:

  100 EXT. KAGAN HOUSE—ESTABLISHING HIGH SHOT—STOCK—NIGHT

  A VERY HIGH SHOT looking down on the house. A dark, moonless night. Lightning splits up the sky every few seconds. Thunder rolls in the distance. A night for witches to think twice before mounting brooms. Camera comes down slowly as we

  DISSOLVE THRU TO:

  101 INT. KAGAN DINING ROOM—NIGHT

  In the f.g. is the empty end of the dining table. At the far end, the head, sits Kagan himself, Toni to his right, Abby to his left, Loren next to Toni, nearest to us. Qarlo sits across from Loren.

  Macbeth, the cat, lies on the chair at the empty end of the table. It seems to be sleeping.

  KAGAN (to Qarlo): And so, that’s how an automobile works, Qarlo. We call it internal combustion.

  QARLO. Very not-work-well…uh, unproductive. Light beams drive tanks, scout cars much more smoothlier, no “gas” and no noise.

  LOREN
: Honest? You got cars that run on just light, like sunlight? Honest?

  TONI: Do you have a car, Qarlo?

  QARLO: For what? Troopers foot it.

  TONI: Well, what do you take your girl out for a ride in?

  QARLO: I don’t grasp.

  ABBY: Don’t you have women in your time; ones that you can be with?

  QARLO: I don’t grasp. Troopers get service.

  ABBY (eyes widen): You mean, you—?

  KAGAN (cuts in ruefully): Uh, I think that’s enough of that topic. But suffice it to say, I think this age has some distinct advantages over Qarlo’s time.

  102 ON QARLO—CAT OBVIOUS ON CHAIR NEXT TO HIM

  Toni and Qarlo reach for a basket of rolls at the same moment. Qarlo makes a sharp move to grab it, Toni senses it, but at that instant Qarlo draws back, lets her take it. Nothing is said about the interplay.

  LOREN: Whaddaya think, Qarlo, wanna stay here with us for always?

  KAGAN (quickly): That may not be possible, Loren.

  LOREN: Why not?

  KAGAN: Well, there are others who—

  QARLO (interrupts): I want to jump back. I want to find my war zone.

  LOREN: What do you wanna go back for? I thought you liked it here, I thought we were friends?!

  QARLO: Not-Enemy. You’re Not-Enemy. But my way is best, my time is best for me…I want to go back…at sleeptime I think what Kagan calls “private” about it. I hurt for it.

  LOREN: But why? Why do you wanna go to that place where everybody kills everybody?

  QARLO (can’t explain): My time is the best! For me! I need to jump. Find my unit, my C.O. Don’t you know there’s a war on, boy?

  LOREN (disillusioned): I think you were lyin’ to me…you aren’t my friend…

  Qarlo’s jaw muscles jump. There is silence. No one knows what to say. There is concern on Kagan’s face.

  KAGAN (softly): He’s a child. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t understand.

  LOREN: I do too! He was just pretendin’ to like it here…

  QARLO: He grasps more than you, Kagan. He knows. He knows what I am.

  KAGAN: It isn’t true, Qarlo. You’ve seen it for yourself, in just the short time you’ve been here, you’ve changed tremendously…

  QARLO (firmly): I am what I am. He knows, and I know. Why do you dream, Kagan? I know how to do one thing, be a trooper. I’ll do it again…you know that’s true.