There's four feet of snow in the streets, but that's only the beginning. The stores have been all but buried under MONSTER DRIFTS. Downed power lines disappear into the snow like torn strands of cobweb.
TV REPORTER
The so-called Storm of the Century is history in New England now folks from New Bedford to New Hope are digging out from beneath snowfall amounts that have added not just new entries but new pages to the record books.
The REPORTER begins to ski slowly down Main Street, past the drugstore, the hardware store, the Handy Bob Restaurant, the Tie-Up Lounge, the beauty parlor.
TV REPORTER
They're digging out everywhere, that is, except here, on Little Tall Island a little scrap of land off the coast of Maine and home to almost four hundred souls, according to the last census. About half the population sought shelter on the mainland when it became clear that this storm was really going to hit, and hit hard. That number includes most of the island's schoolchildren in grades K through high school. But nearly all the rest . . . two hundred men and women and young children . . . are gone. The exceptions are even more ominous and distressing.
208 EXTERIOR: THE REMAINS OF THE TOWN DOCK DAY.
Teams of grim-faced EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIANS are carrying four stretchers down to the POLICE BOAT that has tied up to the stump of the dock. Each stretcher bears a zipped body bag.
TV REPORTER (voice-over) Four corpses have been found so far on Little Tall Island.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 229
Two of them may have been suicides, police sources say, but the other two are almost certainly murder victims, bludgeoned to death by what was probably the same blunt object.
209 EXTERIOR: RESUME MAIN STREET, WITH REPORTER.
Oh-oh. He's still wearing the purple ski suit, still clean-cut and as chipper as a chickadee, but the purple gloves have been replaced by bright yellow ones. If we didn't recognize LINOGE before and hopefully we didn't we do now.
181
TV REPORTER
(LINOGE)
Identities of the dead have been withheld pending notification of next of kin, but all are said to be longtime island residents. And baffled police are asking themselves one question, over and over: Where are the other residents of Little Tall Island? Where is Robert Beals, the town manager? Where is Michael Anderson, who owned the island market and served as Little Tail's constable? Where is fourteen-year-old Davey Hopewell, who was at home, recovering from a bout of mononucleosis, when the big one hit? Where are the shopkeepers, the fishermen, the town selectmen? No one knows. There has only been one case like this before, in all of American history.
210 INTERIOR: MOLLY ANDERSON, SLEEPING, CLOSE-UP NIGHT. Her eyes move rapidly back and forth beneath her closed lids.
211 INSERT: A DRAWING OF AN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY VILLAGE.
WOMAN TV REPORTER (voice-over)
This is how the village of Roanoke, Virginia, looked in 1587, before everyone disappeared every man, woman, and child. Their fate has never been discovered. A single possible clue was discovered, a word found carved on a tree
212 INSERT: A WOODCUT OF AN ELM TREE. Carved into the bark is the word "CROATON."
WOMAN TV REPORTER (voice-over) this word. "Croaton." The name of a place? A misspelling?
230 STEPHEN KING
A word written in a language lost over the centuries? No one knows that, either.
213 EXTERIOR: RESUME MAIN STREET, WITH WOMAN TV REPORTER.
She is very pretty in her purple Therma-Pak ski suit; it goes well with her long blonde hair, flushed cheeks . . . and her BRIGHT YELLOW GLOVES. Yes, it's LINOGE again, now speaking in a woman's voice and looking very pretty. This isn't transvestism played for laughs, but a guy who really looks like a young woman and speaks with a woman's voice. This is deadly serious.
This reporter has picked up exactly where ROBBIE'S version left off, now doing a walk-and-talk (a walk-and-ski, in this case) up Main Street, toward the town hall.
WOMAN TV REPORTER
(LINOGE)
Police continue to assure reporters that a solution will be found, but even they are not able to deny one essential fact: hope is dimming for the missing residents of Little Tall Island.
She skis on toward the town hall, which is also buried in drifts.
WOMAN TV REPORTER
(LINOGE)
Evidence suggests that most or all of the islanders spent the first and worst night of the storm here, in the basement of the Little Tall Island Town Hall. After that ... no one knows. One wonders if there was anything they could have done to change their strange fate.
She skis onto what would be the town hall lawn in summer, toward the little cupola with the bell inside. THE CAMERA REMAINS STATIONARY now, watching her go.
214 INTERIOR: DAVEY HOPEWELL, CLOSE-UP.
182
Sleeping uneasily. Eyeballs moving. Dreaming while the WIND SHRIEKS OUTSIDE.
*
STORM OF THE CENTURY 231
215 EXTERIOR: IN FRONT OF THE TOWN HALL DAY.
The REPORTER in the purple ski suit reaches the cupola, and even with his back to us, we can tell that DAVEY'S version of the REPORTER is a man. He turns. He is BALDING, BESPECTACLED, wearing a MUSTACHE ... but it's LINOGE again.
TV REPORTER
(LINOGE)
One wonders if, in their insular selfishness and Yankee pride, they refused to give something . . .
some simple thing . . . that would have changed matters for them. To this reporter, that seems more than possible; it seems plausible. Do they regret it now? (pause) Are any of them alive to regret it? What really happened in Roanoke, in 1587? And what happened here, on Little Tall Island, in 1989? We may never know. But I know one thing, Davey you're too damn short to play basketball . . . and besides, you couldn't throw it in the ocean.
DAVEY'S version of the REPORTER makes a half-turn and reaches into the shadowy cupola. Here is the memorial bell, only in DAVEY'S dream, it's not a bell. What the REPORTER brings out is a BLOODSTAINED BASKETBALL, and he heaves it DIRECTLY INTO THE CAMERA. As he does this, his lips part in a grin, revealing teeth that are really FANGS.
TV REPORTER
Catch!
216 INTERIOR: RESUME DAVEY, IN THE TOWN HALL BASEMENT NIGHT.
Moaning, he turns back the other way. His hands come up briefly, as if to ward off the basketball.
DAVEY No ... no ...
217 INTERIOR: THE TV AREA OF THE BASEMENT, FEATURING MIKE NIGHT.
His head is dropped and limp, but his eyeballs are moving behind his closed lids, and like the others, he is DREAMING.
232 STEPHEN KING
PREACHER (voice)
Be sure that your sin will find you out, and that your secrets will be known. All secrets will be known . . .
218 INTERIOR: PREACHER ON SNOWY TV, CLOSE-UP.
Yes, now we see it; the TV PREACHER is LINOGE, too.
PREACHER
(continues)
. . . can you say "hallelujah"? Oh, brethern, can you say "amen"? For I ask you to behold the sting of sin and the price of vice; I ask you to behold the just end of those who bar the door to the wandering stranger who comes, asking so little.
THE CAMERA MOVES IN on the SNOWY TV. THE PREACHER melts into DARKNESS ... but a snowy DARKNESS, because the wind has blown down the town hall antenna and there's no good reception.
183
Only now a PICTURE starts to appear, anyway. The snow is real snow now, snow that's a part of the Storm of the Century, and PEOPLE are moving in it a dark snake-dance line of PEOPLE floundering their slow way down Atlantic Street Hill.