She changes course, heading for the parking lot instead of the kitchen door, and tries to run. She throws one terrified glance back over her shoulder at the open door of the supply shed.
112 EXTERIOR: THE PARKING LOT, WITH URSULA AND LUCIEN. They reach one of the snowmobiles. LUCIEN gets on the front.
URSULA
(shouts to be heard) Don't you dump me in a snowbank, Lucien Fournier!
LUCIEN
No, ma'am.
URSULA studies him for a moment, as if to make sure he is telling the truth, then gets on the snowmobile. LUCIEN turns the key. The headlight and the rudimentary dashboard lights come on.
He pushes the starter. The ENGINE CRANKS but does not immediately start.
URSULA What's wrong?
STORM OF THE CENTURY 185
154
LUCIEN Nothing, she's just bein' grumpy.
He yanks the choke and prepares to start again.
JOANNA (faint voice) Hey! Help! HELP!
URSULA puts her hand over LUCIEN's before he can punch the starter, and now they both hear.
They turn toward:
113 EXTERIOR: JOANNA, FROM URSULA AND LUCIEN'S POINT OF VIEW NIGHT.
She conies struggling and floundering through the drifts, reaching the parking lot, waving one hand like a drowning woman. She is snow-covered (has taken at least one tumble, I'd guess) and GASPING FOR BREATH.
114 EXTERIOR: AN ANGLE ON THE PARKING LOT NIGHT.
LUCIEN gets off the snowmobile and makes his way to JOANNA. He's just in time to catch her before she can fall again. He helps her back toward the snowmobile and URSULA joins them, very concerned.
URSULA Jo, what's wrong?
JOANNA
Billy . . . dead . . . back there!
(points) Katrina Withers killed him.
URSULA Cat?
JOANNA
She's sitting in the corner ... I think she tried to tell me she hit him with a cane . . . but there's so much blood . . . When I left, I think she was singing . . .
186 STEPHEN KING
Shocked and bewildered reactions from URSULA and LUCIEN. URSULA recovers a little more quickly.
URSULA Are you really saying Cat Withers killed Billy Soames?
(JOANNA nods violently) Are you sure? Jo, are you sure he's dead?
JOANNA
(nodding)
She covered him with a tarp, but I'm sure ... so much blood . . .
LUCIEN
We better go back and look.
JOANNA
(terror)
I'm not going back there! I'm not going anywhere near there! She's in the corner ... if you'd seen her . . . the look on her face . . .
URSULA Lucien, can I drive this thing?
155
LUCIEN
If you take it slow, sure, I guess. But
URSULA
I'll take it slow, believe me. Jo and I are going to drive downstreet and talk to Mike Anderson.
Aren't we, Jo?
JOANNA nods with pitiful eagerness and climbs on the back of LUCIEN'S snow machine. She'll agree to go anywhere before she agrees to go back to the supply shed.
URSULA (to LUCIEN)
Get a couple of guys, go out to the supply shed, and see what's what, okay? But don't broadcast it ... and play it smart.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 187
LUCIEN
What's going on here, Ursula?
She goes to the snowmobile, gets on the front, and thumbs the starter button. Now that the engine's been choked, it starts easily. She guns the throttle, then settles her gloved hands on the handgrips.
URSULA I have no clue.
She drops the snowmobile in gear and drives away in a spume of snow, with JOANNA clinging to her. LUCIEN stands and watches them go, a picture of bewilderment.
115 EXTERIOR: THE ISLAND MARKET NIGHT.
It's now little more than a drifted-in shape in the blizzard. The few lights seem feeble and forlorn.
116 EXTERIOR: THE LOADING DOCK BEHIND THE STORE NIGHT.
The snowmobile on which JACK CARVER and KIRK FREEMAN arrived is almost buried in snow. On the loading dock itself, we see a shape that is PETER GODSOE. His body has been wrapped in a blanket and then secured with rope. He looks like a corpse that's ready for burial at sea.
117 INTERIOR: LINOGE, CLOSE.
His face is wolfish, intent. The eyes are bright and interested.
THE CAMERA DRAWS SLOWLY BACK through the bars. As our view of LINOGE widens, we see he has resumed his favorite position back to the wall, heels on the edge of the cot, peering through his slightly spread knees.
118 INTERIOR: THE CONSTABLE'S OFFICE, ANGLE ON THE DESK.
Here are MIKE, HATCH, ROBBIE, HENRY BRIGHT, KIRK FREEMAN, and JACK CARVER. The latter five look at LINOGE with a mixture of distrust and fear. MIKE is looking at him with perplexity.
188 STEPHEN KING
KIRK I never seen anyone throw a fit like that in my life.
HENRY
(to MIKE) No ID of any kind?
MIKE
156
No ID, no wallet, no money, no keys. No clothing tags, either, not even on his blue jeans. He's just . . . here. And that's not all.
(to ROBBIE)
Did he tell you anything? When you went into Martha's house, Robbie, did he tell you anything he had no business knowing?
ROBBIE is immediately nervous. He does not, as they say, want to go there. But: LINOGE (voice)
You were with a whore in Boston when your mother died in Machias.
MIKE Robbie?
119 INTERIOR: MARTHA CLARENDON'S LIVING ROOM (flashback).
LINOGE PEEPS ROGUISHLY around one wing of MARTHA'S chair, his face streaked with MARTHA'S
blood.
LINOGE
She's waiting for you in hell. And she's turned cannibal. Hell is repetition, Robbie. Isn't it? Born in sin, come on in ... CATCH!
DAVEY HOPEWELL'S bloodstained basketball FLIES AT THE CAMERA.
120 INTERIOR: RESUME CONSTABLE'S OFFICE NIGHT.
ROBBIE flinches as if the basketball were flying at his head; that's how strong the memory is.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 189 MIKE
He did, didn't he?
ROBBIE
He ... said something about my mother. You don't need to know.
His eyes turn mistrustfully to LINOGE, who sits watching. LINOGE shouldn't be able to hear what they're saying their voices are low-pitched, and they're most of the way across the room but ROBBIE thinks (almost knows) that he can. He knows something else, as well. LINOGE could tell the others what he told ROBBIE: that ROBBIE was rolling around with a prostitute when his mother died.
HATCH I don't think he's human.
He looks at MIKE almost pleadingly, as if asking him to contradict this. But MIKE doesn't.
MIKE Neither do I. I don't know what he is.
JACK God help us all.
121 INTERIOR: LINOGE, CLOSE-UP.
Watching them with wide-eyed intensity while the STORM HOWLS outside.
FADE TO BLACK. THIS ENDS ACT 3.
Act 4
122 EXTERIOR: THE TOWN STORE NIGHT.
157
We are looking up Main Street toward the center of town. A headlight appears, and we hear the WASP WHINE of an approaching snowmobile. It's URSULA, with JOANNA hanging on for dear life.
123 INTERIOR: THE DOORWAY OF THE SUPPLY SHED NIGHT.
CAT (voice)
"I'm a little teapot, short and stout. . . . Here is my handle, here is my spout. . . .
LUCIEN FOURNIER stands in the doorway. Behind him are UPTON BELL, JOHNNY HARRIMAN, old GEORGE KIRBY, and SONNY BRAUTIGAN. All of the men wear similar expressions of SHOCKED
HORROR.
124 INTERIOR: CAT, IN THE CORNER OF THE SUPPLY SHED NIGHT.