URSULA GODSOE totters to her feet. Her once-pretty face is now battered and twisted with grief.
She sways and almost falls. MELINDA HATCHER rises and steadies her. URSULA pleads with all her heart.
URSULA
(through tears)
Please don't hurt my Sally, mister. She's all I got left, now that Peter's gone. We'll give you what you want, if we have it to give. I swear we will. Won't we?
324 STEPHEN KING
101 INTERIOR: TOWN HALL MONTAGE.
CAT WITHERS . . . SONNY . . . BELLA BISSONETTE . . . JENNA FREEMAN . . . JACK, LUCIEN, and ALEX HABER in a guilty little huddle . . . they all nod and MURMUR AGREEMENT. Yes, they will give LINOGE what he wants. They are ready to do that.
102 INTERIOR: THE FRONT ROW.
HATCH
(stands beside his wife) What is it? Tell us.
239
103 INTERIOR: RESUME STAGE AND AUDIENCE, FEATURING LINOGE.
LINOGE
I've lived a long time thousands of years but I'm not a god, nor am I one of the immortals.
LINOGE holds his cane in the middle, raises it above his head, then brings it down horizontally in front of his face. A faint shadow, thrown by CANDLELIGHT, crosses his face from the forehead down.
As it does, the strong and handsome features of a man in early middle age CHANGE . . . AGE.
LINOGE'S face becomes the lined and sagging countenance of a man who is not just old but ANCIENT. The eyes peer out of sagging sockets and from beneath puffy eyelids.
The AUDIENCE GASPS AND MURMURS. Once more, the director will intercut the faces he wants, getting reactions. We see ANDY ROBICHAUX, for instance, sitting beside his son, holding and stroking the boy's small hand.
LINOGE So you see me as I really am. Old. And sick. Dying, in fact.
LINOGE raises his cane again, and as the shadow goes back up, LINOGE'S YOUTH RETURNS. He waits as the AUDIENCE MURMURS.
LINOGE
By the standards of your mayfly existences, I have long to live yet I'll still be walking the earth when all but the freshest and newest among you . . . Davey Hopewell, perhaps, or young Don Beals
. . .
*
We INTERCUT SHOTS of DAVEY with his parents and DON sleeping on his cot.
LINOGE
(continues)
. . . have gone to your graves. But in terms of my own existence, time has grown short. You ask me what I want?
104 INTERIOR: MIKE AND MOLLY ANDERSON.
MIKE already knows, and his face is filling with HORROR and FURIOUS PROTEST. When he begins speaking, his voice rising from a WHISPER TO A SCREAM, MOLLY seizes his wrist . . .
MIKE No, no, no, no ...
105 INTERIOR: LINOGE, AT THE PODIUM.
LINOGE
(ignores MIKE)
I want someone to raise and teach; someone to whom I can pass on all I have learned and all I know; I want someone who will carry on my work when I can no longer do it myself.
106 INTERIOR: MIKE.
He rises to his feet, dragging MOLLY with him.
MIKE
No! No! Never!
240
107 INTERIOR: LINOGE.
LINOGE (ignores MIKE)
I want a child. One of the eight sleeping back there. It doesn't matter which one; all are just as likely in my eyes. Give me what I want give it freely and I'll go away.
326 STEPHEN KING
108 INTERIOR: THE STAGE AND THE AUDIENCE, ANGLE ON MIKE AND
LINOGE.
MIKE
Never! We'll never give you one of our children! Never!
He pulls away from MOLLY and lunges for the stairs leading to the stage, meaning to tackle LINOGE. In his fury, any doubts he might have had about his ability to prevail over LINOGE'S
supernatural powers have disappeared.
LINOGE
Grab him! Unless you want me to drop the children! And I will! I promise you I will!
109 INTERIOR: THE "KIDS' CORNER"
The KIDS are MOANING AND TURNING on their cots, their serenity broken by some interior fear
... or something that's happening to them FAR AWAY and HIGH ABOVE.
JACK CARVER (horror and panic) Get him! Stop him! For God's sake, stop him!
STORM OF THE CENTURY 327
110 INTERIOR: RESUME STAGE AREA.
REV. BOB RIGGINS throws his arms around MIKE'S shoulders before MIKE can do more than reach the foot of the stairs. HATCH joins him and also grabs hold before MIKE can throw off RIGGINS, who is big but a touch on the blubbery side.
HATCH Mike, no we've got to hear him out at least hear him out MIKE
(struggling) No, we don't! Let me go, Hatch! Dammit
He almost gets free, but then he's swamped by LUCIEN, SONNY, ALEX, and JOHNNY. Big boys all, they drag him back to his seat in the first row. We can see they're embarrassed to be doing it, but we can also see that they're determined.
JOHNNY
You just sit tight for a bit, Michael Anderson, and let him have his say. We'll hear him out.
LUCIEN We got to.
MIKE You're wrong. Listening to him is the worst thing we can do.
He looks to MOLLY for help and support, and what he sees there stuns him ... a KIND OF
DESPERATE UNSURETY.
MIKE (horrified) Molly? Molly?
MOLLY I don't know, Mike. I think we better listen.
241
MELINDA Surely it can't hurt to listen.
328 STEPHEN KING
SONNY
He's got us over a stump.
They turn back to LINOGE.
111 INTERIOR: THE ISLANDERS.
All of them turn back to LINOGE, waiting for the bottom line.
112 INTERIOR: RESUME LINOGE.
As he speaks, THE CAMERA MOVES SLOWLY IN TO CLOSE-UP.
LINOGE
In a matter such as this, I cannot take . . . although I can punish; I assure you I can punish. Give me one of the babies sleeping yonder to raise as my own and I'll leave you in peace. He or she will live long long after all the others sleeping there are gone and see much. Give me what I want and I'll go away. Refuse me, and the dreams you shared last night will come true. The children will fall from the sky, the rest of you will walk into the ocean, two by two, and when the storm ends, they will find this island as they found Roanoke Island. Empty . . . deserted. I'll give you half an hour.
Discuss it ... isn't that what a town meeting is for? And then . . .
He pauses. We have reached EXTREME CLOSE-UP.
LINOGE
Choose.
FADE TO BLACK. THIS ENDS ACT 4.
ActS
113 EXTERIOR: THE LITTLE TALL ISLAND TOWN HALL NIGHT.
The wind is still blowing the snow around, but the stuff falling from the sky has stopped. The Storm of the Century Mother Nature's version, anyway has ended.
114 EXTERIOR: THE SKY NIGHT.
The clouds have begun to tatter and pull apart. This time when the FULL MOON appears, it remains in view.
115 INTERIOR: THE TOWN MEETING HALL, FROM THE CORRIDOR.
We're looking in through the glass doors, and running across the bottom of our view, like a super on a newscast, is that motto: LET US TRUST IN GOD AND EACH OTHER.
We can see ROBBIE BEALS getting to his feet (his hair is still mussed from hiding under the table) and crossing slowly toward the podium.
116 OMIT.
117 INTERIOR: THE TOWN MEETING HALL NIGHT.
[The director will shot-block the following as he/she desires, but it should play almost as one big master, which is how it's mostly written.]
242
ROBBIE reaches the podium and looks out over the silent, waiting audience. Below him, on the first bench, MIKE remains seated, but thrums almost visibly, like a high-tension wire. HATCH sits on one side of him, and MOLLY on the other. MIKE is holding her hand, and she is looking at him anxiously. Sitting behind him on the next bench are LUCIEN, SONNY, ALEX, and JOHNNY self-appointed sergeants-at-arms. If MIKE tries to interfere with the decision-making process, they will restrain him.