Original subtitles

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]

[CRICKETS CHIRPING]

[FATHER SIGHS]

[EXCLAIMING IN ANNOYANCE]

[UTENSILS CLATTERING]

Honey, it's family hour, there must be something on.

DAUGHTER: Oh, wow, Candied Critters!

[FATHER EXCLAIMS]

Oh, great. It's Monsters, our favorite show!

[MONSTROUS LAUGH]

Shh, it's starting.

[MONSTROUS LAUGH]

[FATHER CHUCKLES]

DR. HUBBARD: Lewis.

Lewis, can you hear me?

Okay, relax. Just rest.

Do you know where you are?

What happened?

We've been worried about you.

You had a very serious concussion.

You've been unconscious for almost 72 hours.

Do you remember the accident?

What accident?

Lewis, when I told you to come to the hospital,

I didn't mean you should put yourself in it.

You drove across town like a mad man.

You must have hit some black ice on the expressway,

and you've always been reckless.

[TIRES SCREECHING]

Was anybody else hurt?

No. Thank God.

And you were a very lucky young man.

The pressure on your right frontal lobe brain is...

Well, it could have been very serious.

As it is, you'll have the granddaddy

of all headaches for a couple of weeks

and maybe some double vision.

Oh, my God. My mom.

When you called on the phone,

you told me that you had to operate.

Did you get all the cancer?

Lewis, I've known your family for years.

I treated your father during his cancer ordeal.

Just answer me.

Is she gonna be all right?

When I spoke to you before the operation,

I had hoped that surgery

would eradicate all of the cancer,

but the metastasis has been too swift.

We'll proceed with the radiation therapy.

There are new drugs to control the pain of the...

of the coming weeks.

We can always hope for a remission.

And new procedures are being developed all the time.

Where is she now?

She's down the hall. Room 2119.

[GROANS]

Lewis,

you have to rest.

There's nothing you can do for your mother now.

You can see her tomorrow. Rest, Lewis. Rest.

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING]

[HEART MONITOR BEEPING]

Mom? Mom, it's me.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]

[SLURPING]

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

[SLURPING]

[GASPS] Oh, oh. Jesus!

Sorry, I didn't know anyone was in here.

That's all right, young fella. We're roomies.

I guess I was downstairs for my radiation treatment

when you woke up yesterday.

Oh, man.

I had the worst dream.

That's what old nurse Havis Smith said.

When they brought you back a couple of hours ago,

said you were screaming and carrying on something fierce

when you got in your mommy's room.

My second wife, Dolly June, was a sleepwalker.

We used to have to tie her to the bed with a clothesline.

What did you say? About my mother's room?

Just that Nurse Havis Smith say when you got to your mommy's room,

you passed out or something.

[SOFTLY] Oh, God.

Oh, God.

I didn't dream it. I knew I saw it.

Hellfire boy, you lucky you just got a bump on the head,

what makes you a mite crazy.

Most of us on this floor are in for the Big C.

You mean...

Cancer, boy. Cancer. Look at me, boy.

Three months here and they took out

about everything I had two of,

and some things I only had one of.

So now they just zap me with radiation,

fill me up full of drugs that make me puke.

[SCOFFS]

So since I can't sleep most nights anyhow,

I prescribe me my own medicine.

My fourth wife, Esther Mae, sneaks it in.

Care for a little late night pick-me-up?

No, thanks.

What is your name?

Withers. Jack Withers.

You call me Jack.

All right, Jack.

You said this was a cancer ward?

[LAUGHING]

[COUGHING]

It's supposed to be a cancer ward,

but that's what it amounts to.

It seems that...

the regular patients get upset with us terminal cases.

Makes it easier for the damn night critters to find us too.

What did you say? Hmm?

I didn't say nothing.

Hey, you just said something about night critters.

Oh, just, uh, things I'm seeing while in my DTs, boy.

Nothing real.

Yes, it is.

You got a glimpse of something that shouldn't be here.

You got a glimpse of something that doesn't exist.

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

Wait.

Let's just say that I did see something.

Is that all right?

Can we assume, for argument's sake,

that I actually saw something

instead of saying that I hallucinated that I saw something?

All right. Let's work on that assumption.

Now, look, you've described the thing to me several times.

What is it?

Is it a ghost, is it an extraterrestrial?

Is it an alien MD interested in our medical facility?

I don't know what it is.

It's some thing that plants these slugs in people.

[STAMMERING] It maybe from a different dimension.

I don't know. Maybe coexists with us.

It's just that we can't see it.

Maybe we need certain types of concussions

that produce certain types of pressures on certain parts of our brain.

All right, assuming all of that,

you said that it was attacking your mother.

No! I mean, yes...

[SIGHS]

What I'm saying is that somehow

it was using Mom.

You said it was planting the slug in her.

Why is... I don't know!

Maybe it has something to do with the cancer.

Maybe what we think are tumors are like eggs to these things

that incubate in us.

Or maybe, maybe they plant these slugs in us

and it'll let them multiply.

I mean, isn't that what cancer does, Doctor?

Maybe... I don't know.

Maybe they multiply and then they harvest them for food later, like...

Vampires. Oh.

Oh, my God.

That's what they are.

Cancer vampires.

Doctor, that makes sense.

I mean, think about this.

This cancer scourge is like an invasion and it's a recent one.

You tell me the name of somebody that died of cancer over a century ago.

[CHUCKLES] I'm sure there were many, many people.

But I can't give you a name.

Exactly.

You see, we expect people to die from cancer nowadays.

I mean, everybody knows somebody

and usually it's somebody in our own family that's died of cancer.

Take a look at my family.

First my father. Now my mom.

These things are all around us.

They're just feeding on us. The only thing is we can't see them.

All right.

But we don't need vampires

to explain this recent so called cancer scourge.

I mean, in this day and age,

we're surrounded by carcinogens.

Oh, carcinogens.

Yeah, they're in everything we drink, sleep, wear, blah, blah, blah.

You medical experts, you want us to believe in carcinogens,

and you don't even know where tumors come from.

And you do? Yes!

Cancer...

vampires.

All right, look, I have listened to your theory

and now I would like it if you would listen to mine.

You're very concerned about your mother.

You've also had a very serious subdural hematoma,

which is causing low grade hallucinations.

And the form the hallucinations take

is dictated by the concern you feel for your mother.

Let's face it.

When you were a kid and your father died of cancer,

it changed you,

as it would anybody.

Now, I can see how you'd like a thing,

a solid something,

an adversary you could fight,

instead of an intangible enemy like...

cells gone wrong.

But it's an hallucination.

You've got to understand that.

It's a visual malfunction.

And the sooner you accept it,

the sooner you can give it up and start to get well.

So you can help your mother get well.

All right. I want you to shape up

and stop this silly nonsense about cancer vampires.

[DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING]

DR. HUBBARD: This Mr. Withers is in his next to last session.

We're very pleased. He's responding beautifully to the treatment.

LEWIS: How much radiation does Jack need to beat the cancer?

DR. HUBBARD: Well, we figure 7,000 rads should do it.

It's enough to sterilize the tumor.

LEWIS: How much is a rad?

DR. HUBBARD: Well, how can I explain it to you?

When you go get a chest X-ray,

you're getting five one thousandths of a single rad.

Oh, my God.

He's getting 7,000 rads? Yeah.

That's like 35 million chest X-rays.

Well, I know it must seem like a lot to you, but we know what we're doing.

And we parcel it out, it's a little now and a little then.

Not that there aren't side effects, though.

But the principle of radiation therapy is absolutely proven.

The benefits are documented.

Are we ready?

All set.

[ELECTRICAL BUZZING]

I thought you said the radiation was supposed to be invisible.

It is.

You're not seeing something, are you?

[ELECTRICAL BUZZING]

It's like moths to a flame...

What was that, Lewis?

Nothing. Nothing.

[ELECTRICAL BUZZING STOPS]

Wait, wait a second! There wasn't enough time.

You didn't give him enough radiation.

Twenty-eight point six seconds.

That's precisely enough time for this treatment.

What's the source of your radiation?

Radio isotopes of Cobalt-60.

Do you mind if I took a look at them?

[CHUCKLES]

All right.

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING]

LEWIS: My mom's gonna be receiving those treatments?

DR. HUBBARD: Well, depending on post-surgical recovery

and the results of other biopsies, yes.

These are shielded lead storage units.

The actual isotopes are timed.

But very dangerous.

Now, one pellet could power the Cobalt-60 machine for hours.

Each unshielded delivers

thousands of rads all at one time.

And how do you load the isotopes in the machine?

Very carefully.

Remote mechanical handlers, lead aprons, lead shielder.

It's quite complicated.

Have you seen enough?

Yeah.

Yeah, I've seen enough.

[SLURPING]

Jack?

Jack?

[GASPS]

[WOMAN SPEAKING OVER PA]

[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYING]

Oh, God.

Oh, there's got to be a better way.

[PANTING]

Okay, okay, okay.

LEWIS: I remember once when I was a kid.

It must have been right after Dad died.

I woke up on a stormy night just like tonight.

And you were sitting on the edge of my bed.

Like you were trying to protect me from the storm.

I pretended that I was asleep.

I wanted to tell you that

nobody can protect anybody.

The best anyone can do is to run.

Run from the people that...

we love the most.

Run so that it didn't...

hurt so much when you couldn't protect them.

Mom,

I think I'm through running for a while.

Time to see if this is gonna do any good.

[UNZIPPING]

[EXHALES]

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

Hey!

Go ahead.

[SCREECHING]

Mom.

I'd like to stay.

I'd like to see your face when...

[PANTING]

Dr. Hubbard tells you that...

all those tumors are gone.

I really would.

I don't know how much time I have.

Love you, Mom.

[THEME MUSIC PLAYING]