143 EXTERIOR: MIKE, ON THE TOWN HALL STEPS NIGHT.
He cries out after his son, putting all his grief and loss into that one shouted word: 358 STEPHEN KING
MIKE Ralphie!
144 EXTERIOR: LINOGE AND RALPHIE NIGHT.
RALPHIE opens his eyes and looks around.
RALPHIE
Where am I? Where's my daddy?
260
MIKE (voice, growing faint) Ralphie . . .
LINOGE
It doesn't matter, fairy-saddle boy. Look down!
RALPHIE looks down. They are flying over the reach now. Their shadows flee across the waves, etched in moonlight. RALPHIE smiles, delighted.
RALPHIE Whoa! Neat! (pause) Is it real?
LINOGE Real as rhubarb.
RALPHIE looks back at:
145 EXTERIOR: LITTLE TALL ISLAND, FROM RALPHIE'S POINT OF VIEW NIGHT.
This is almost a negative image of our introduction to the island night instead of day, going away instead of approaching. In the moonlight, Little Tall looks almost like an illusion. Which, to RALPHIE, it will soon be.
146 EXTERIOR: RESUME LINOGE AND RALPHIE NIGHT.
RALPHIE
(very impressed) Where we going?
LINOGE tosses his scepter into the air ahead of him. It rises and STORM OF THE CENTURY 359
resumes the position it held in the visions of LINOGE and the FLYING CHILDREN. Its shadow, now thrown by the moon instead of by the sun, lies across LINOGE'S face. He bends and kisses the fairy saddle on RALPHIE'S nose.
LINOGE
Anywhere. Everywhere. All the places you ever dreamed of.
RALPHIE What about my mom and dad? When are they coming?
LINOGE
(smiling) Why don't we worry about them later?
Well, he's the grown-up . . . and besides, this is fun.
RALPHIE Okay.
LINOGE turns banks like an airplane, almost and flies away from us.
147 EXTERIOR: MIKE, ON THE TOWN HALL STEPS NIGHT.
He's weeping. JOANNA STANHOPE comes out and puts a hand on his shoulder. She speaks to him with infinite kindness.
JOANNA
Mike. Come in.
He ignores her, going down the steps and stumbling his way into the new snow. It's tough going for folks who aren't wizards, but he flounders ahead just the same, even though it's waist deep at times. He follows LINOGE'S footprints, and THE CAMERA TRACKS WITH HIM, watching as the impressions grow lighter and lighter, less and less tied to the earth where mortals must live.
261
Past the memorial bell, there is one more faint imprint. . . then nothing. Just acres of virgin snow.
MIKE collapses beside that last print, CRYING. He holds his hands up to the EMPTY SKY, the GLOWING MOON.
360 STEPHEN KING
MIKE
(low)
Bring him back. Please. I'll do anything if you bring my son back. Anything you want.
148 EXTERIOR: THE DOORS TO THE TOWN HALL NIGHT.
They are crowded with ISLANDERS who stand there, silently watching. JOHNNY and SONNY, FERD and LUCIEN, TAVIA and DELLA, HATCH and MELINDA.
MIKE (pleading voice) Bring him back!
The faces of the ISLANDERS do not change. We may see sympathy, but we will see no mercy.
Not here; not among these. What's done is done.
149 EXTERIOR: RESUME MIKE, ON THE SNOWFIELD NIGHT.
He huddles in the snow beyond the cupola holding the memorial bell. Holds his arms out to the moon and the light-drenched water one final time, but without hope.
MIKE
(whispers) Please bring him back.
THE CAMERA begins to PULL UP AND AWAY. Little by little, MIKE loses his human dimension and becomes just a black speck on a VAST WHITE SNOWFIELD. Beyond is the headland, the tumbled lighthouse, and the waves of the reach.
FADE TO BLACK.
MIKE (voice) (a final whispered plea) I love him. Have mercy.
THIS ENDS ACT 6.
Act?
150 EXTERIOR: THE REACH A SUMMER MORNING.
The sky is bright blue, and so is the reach. Fishing boats chug stolidly; pleasure boats dash, dragging wakes and whooping water-skiers. Overhead, gulls SWOOP AND CRY.
151 EXTERIOR: A SEACOAST TOWN MORNING. TITLE CARD: MACHIAS, SUMMER OF 1989.
152 EXTERIOR: A SMALL CLAPBOARD BUILDING ON MAIN STREET MORNING.
The sign out front reads SEACOAST COUNSELING SERVICES. And, below this: THERE IS A SOLUTION. WE'LL FIND IT TOGETHER.
THE CAMERA MOVES IN on a side window. A WOMAN sits there, looking out. Her eyes are red, her cheeks wet with tears. Her hair is gray, and at first we do not recognize MOLLY ANDERSON. She has aged twenty years.
153 INTERIOR: THE COUNSELOR'S OFFICE MORNING.
MOLLY sits in a bentwood rocker, looking out at summer and CRYING SOUNDLESSLY. Sitting 262
across from her is her COUNSELOR, a professional woman in a light cream-colored summer skirt and silk summer blouse. Nicely coiffed, nicely turned out, and looking at MOLLY with that kind of sympathy good psychologists show often helpful, but scary in its distance.
The silence spins out. The COUNSELOR is waiting for MOLLY to break it, but MOLLY only sits in the rocker, looking out at summer with her streaming eyes.
COUNSELOR You and Mike haven't slept together in ... how long?
361
362 STEPHEN KING
MOLLY
(looking out the window)
Five months. Give or take. I could tell you exactly, if you thought it would help. The last time was the night before the big storm came. The Storm of the Century.
COUNSELOR
When you lost your son.
MOLLY Correct. When I lost my son.
COUNSELOR
And Mike blames you for that loss.
MOLLY I think he's going to leave me.
COUNSELOR You're very afraid of that, aren't you?
MOLLY
I think he's running out of ways to stay. Do you understand what I mean by that?
COUNSELOR
Tell me again what happened to Ralphie.
MOLLY
Why? What good will it do? For God's sake, what good can it do? He's gone!
The COUNSELOR makes no response. After a bit, MOLLY sighs and gives in.
MOLLY
It was the second day. We were in the town hall where we took shelter, you know. The storm . .
. you can't believe how bad it was.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 363
COUNSELOR I was here. I went through it.
MOLLY
Yes you were here, Lisa. On the mainland. It's different on the island, (pause) Everything's different on the island, (pause) Anyway, Johnny Harriman came rushing in while we were having breakfast and said the lighthouse was going over. Everyone wanted to see, of course . . . and Mike .
. .
263
154 EXTERIOR: THE ANDERSON HOUSE SUMMER MORNING.
There's a SMALL WHITE CAR at the curb with the trunk lid up. There are two or three suitcases in it. Now the door opens and MIKE comes out, carrying two more. He closes the door, descends the porch steps, and goes down the walk. Every motion and gesture, every look back, tells us that this is a man who is leaving for good.
MOLLY (voice-over)
Mike told us it was whiteout, and to stay close to the building. Ralphie wanted to see . . . Pippa and all the kids wanted to go out and see . . . and so we took them. God help us, we took them.
MIKE stops by the WEE FOLKS DAY-CARE sign. It's still chain-hung from a low branch of the yard maple, but now it looks dusty, somehow. Forgotten. Of no importance. MIKE yanks it down, looks at it, then turns and throws it back at the porch, momentarily FURIOUS.
MOLLY (voice-over)