The last BONGS of the regulator clock die away to the SOUND OF THE WIND whining around outside the building. People look around nervously for any sign of LINOGE. After a moment or two, ROBBIE gets up from his little table and approaches the podium, tugging fussily at the hem of his sport coat.
ROBBIE
Ladies and gentlemen . . . like you, I'm not sure what we're waiting for, but JOHNNY HARRIMAN
Then why don't you sit down and wait like the rest of us, Robbie?
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NERVOUS LAUGHTER greets this. ROBBIE frowns at JOHNNY.
ROBBIE
I only wanted to say, Johnny, that I'm sure we'll find our way through this . . . situation ... if we stick together, as we have always stuck together on the island . . .
78 INTERIOR: THE TOWN HALL'S FRONT DOOR NIGHT.
It SMASHES OPEN with a LOUD, ECHOING BOOM. Outside, standing in the snow on the stoop, we see LINOGE'S boots and the black shaft of LINOGE'S cane.
79 INTERIOR: ROBBIE BEALS.
He stops talking and looks toward the door. His face is just pouring sweat.
80 INTERIOR: MONTAGE OF ISLANDERS.
TAVIA . . . JONAS STANHOPE . . . HATCH . . . MELINDA . . . ORV . . . REV. BOB RIGGINS . . .
LUCIEN . . . others. All looking toward the door.
81 INTERIOR: TOWN HALL CORRIDOR NIGHT.
The boots step onto the black-and-white-checked tiles. The cane keeps pace, coming down at regular intervals. We TRACK WITH THE BOOTS until they reach the door that gives upon the meeting hall. Then THE CAMERA BOOMS UP to the double doors with their glass panels. Written across them is LITTLE TALL ISLAND TOWN MEETING HALL. And, below that, LET US TRUST IN GOD
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AND EACH OTHER. We can see the ISLANDERS looking out toward the visitor, their eyes wide and AFRAID.
Hands clad in BRIGHT YELLOW GLOVES come up and grasp the two doorknobs. They open the doors toward THE CAMERA . . .
82 INTERIOR: THE TOWN MEETING HALL DOORWAY, REVERSE NIGHT.
LINOGE stands there in pea jacket and yellow gloves, his cane tucked beneath one arm. He is smiling, eyes more or less normal, his MONSTER TEETH prudently hidden. He strips off his gloves and tucks them into his jacket pockets.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 315
Slowly, and in a SILENCE so thick it's deafening, LINOGE enters the room. The only SOUND is the STEADY TICK of the regulator clock.
83 INTERIOR: THE TOWN MEETING HALL NIGHT.
LINOGE walks slowly along the aisle that runs behind the benches and in front of the crumb-strewn tables where the buffet was set up. All of the ISLANDERS, but especially those occupying the last two or three rows of benches (those closest to him, in other words) turn to look at him, their eyes distrustful and afraid.
When LINOGE nears the little grouping of cots and the SLEEPING CHILDREN, the self-appointed guardians draw together, creating a barrier between LINOGE and the KIDS.
LINOGE reaches the place where a right turn will take him down the center aisle to the stage. For a moment he stands there, SMILING BENIGNLY, obviously enjoying the FEAR AND DISTRUST
swirling in the silent room. Feeding on it, likely.
We INTERCUT this with all the ISLANDERS we have come to know. CAT is defiant: "you'll take these kids only over my dead and dismembered body," her face says. HATCH'S ROUND, HONEST
FACE is full of tension and determination; MELINDA'S, full of FEAR AND DISMAY. We see others, too: JACK CARVER . . . FERD ANDREWS . . . UPTON BELL ... all afraid, all awed by the presence of the supernatural . . . and he is supernatural; they feel it.
Last of all, we look at ROBBIE, whose face is DRENCHED WITH SWEAT and whose hand is plunged deeply into the coat pocket where he has hidden his gun.
LINOGE taps his cane first against the bench to his left and then the bench to his right, just as he tapped at the sides of MARTHA'S gate. There is a HISSING SOUND; smoke drifts up from the CHARRED SPOTS that are left by the cane's touch. Those sitting closest to the aisles on these two sides SHRINK AWAY. It's the HOPEWELL FAMILY on the right STAN, MARY, and DAVEY. LINOGE
SMILES at them, this time parting his lips enough to show the tips of his FANGS. All three HOPEWELLS see and react. MARY puts an arm around her son's shoulders and looks fearfully at LINOGE.
316 STEPHEN KING
LINOGE
Hello, Davey your day off from school would make quite an English composition, wouldn't it?
DAVEY doesn't reply. LINOGE looks at him a moment longer, still smiling.
LINOGE
Your father's a thief over the last six years or so he's stolen more than fourteen thousand dollars from that marine supply company he works for. He gambles with it. (And, confidentially:) He loses.
DAVEY turns and shoots a STARTLED, INCREDULOUS GLANCE at his father. "I don't believe it,"
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that look says, not my dad, never my dad but for just an instant he sees NAKED GUILT and TRAPPED PANIC on STAN'S face. Only an instant, but enough to deeply shake a boy's trust in his previously idolized father.
DAVEY Dad ?
STAN HOPEWELL
I don't know who you are, mister, but you lie. (pause) You lie.
It's good, but not quite good enough. No one, including his own son and wife, believes him.
LINOGE grins.
LINOGE TH Born in vice, say it twice . . . eh, Davey? At least twice.
His work with the HOPEWELLS done, a family's lifetime of trust ruined in seconds, LINOGE starts slowly down the center aisle toward the stage. Every eye that attempts to meet his falters and turns away; every cheek grows pale; every heart recalls its mistakes and deceptions. When he reaches JOHNNY HARRIMAN, LINOGE stops and smiles.
LINOGE
Well, Johnny Harriman! The fellow who burned down the planing mill across the reach there in Machias!
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JOHNNY HARRIMAN I ... you ... I never did!
LINOGE
(smiling) Of course you did! Two years ago, right after they fired you!
(switches to KIRK FREEMAN)
And Kirk helped . . . didn't you? Of course you did after all, what are friends for?
(back to JOHNNY)
Seventy men lost their jobs, but you got your payback, and that's what matters, isn't it?
Ayuh shoah, deah!
ISLANDERS are staring at JOHNNY as if they have never seen him before . . . and at KIRK.
JOHNNY shrinks under that gaze until he's about a foot high.
KIRK
(to JOHNNY) There now, you dope. Lookit the trouble you got us into!
JOHNNY Shut up!
KIRK does, but it's too late. Smiling, LINOGE walks on toward the stage. Each person he looks at cringes like an oft-kicked dog. No eye will meet his. Every ISLANDER hopes LINOGE will not stop and speak to him or her, as he did to STAN and JOHNNY HARRIMAN.
LINOGE stops one more time, when he reaches JACK CARVER. JACK is sitting flanked by the two men LINOGE also mentioned in connection with the assault on the young gay man. JACK looks up quickly at LINOGE, then looks away. ALEX HABER and LUCIEN FOURNIER are equally uncomfortable.
LINOGE
You boys really ought to go see that gay fellow you beat up. You'd get a kick out of the eye patch he wears. That paisley eye patch.
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318 STEPHEN KING
84 INTERIOR: ANGIE CARVER.
Frowning, curious. What is LINOGE saying about her husband . . . that he beat someone up?
JACK wouldn't do something like that. Would he?
85 INTERIOR: RESUME CENTER AISLE OF TOWN MEETING HALL.
Shut up.