WEATHER LADY
This is the storm that's caused so much misery and fifteen deaths as it crossed the Great Plains and the Midwest. It's regathered all its original punch and more in crossing the Great Lakes, and you see its track
The track appears in BRIGHT YELLOW (the same color as LINOGE'S gloves), showing a future course that will carry it straight across New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
WEATHER LADY
12
(continues)
before you in all its glory. Now look down here, because here comes trouble.
She focuses her attention on the coastal storm.
WEATHER LADY
(continues)
This is a very atypical storm, almost a winter hurricane the sort of knuckle-duster that paralyzed most of the East Coast and buried Boston back in 1976. We haven't seen one of comparable power since then . . . until now. Will it give us a break and stay out to sea, as these storms sometimes do?
Unfortunately, the Weather Network's Storm-Trak computer says no. So the states east of the Big Indian Waters are getting pounded from one direction She taps the first storm.
WEATHER LADY (continues)
the mid-Atlantic coast is going to get pounded from another direction She goes back to the coastal storm.
WEATHER LADY
(continues)
and northern New England, if none of this changes, tonight you're going to win the booby prize.
Look ... at ... this.
A second BRIGHT YELLOW STORM TRACK appears, this one hooking north from the blob of storm off New York. This track makes landfall around Cape Cod, then heads up the coast, where it intersects the first storm track. At the point of intersection, some Weather Network computer genius with too much time on his hands has added a bright red blotch, like an explosion graphic on a news broadcast.
WEATHER LADY
(continues)
If neither of these two systems veer, they are going to collide and merge over the state of Maine.
That's bad news for our friends in Yankee land, but not the worst news. The worst news is that they may temporarily cancel each other out.
MARTHA (sipping tea) Oh, dear.
13
WEATHER LADY
The result? A once-in-a-lifetime supersystem which may stall over central and coastal Maine for at least twenty-four hours and perhaps as long as forty-eight. We're talking hurricane-force winds and phenomenal amounts of snow, combining to create the sort of drifting you normally only see on the Arctic tundra. To this you can add region-wide blackouts.
MARTHA Oh, dear!
WEATHER LADY
No one wants to scare viewers, least of all me, but folks in the New England area, especially those on the Maine coast and the offshore islands, need to take this situation very seriously. You've had an almost completely brown winter up your way, but over the next two to three days, you're apt to be getting a whole winter's worth of snow.
SOUND: DOORBELL.
MARTHA looks in that direction, then back at the TV. She'd like to stay and watch the WEATHER
LADY, but nevertheless sets her teacup down, pulls over her walker, and struggles erect.
WEATHER LADY
We sometimes overuse the phrase "storm of the century," but if these two storm tracks converge, as we now think they will, the phrase will be no exaggeration, believe me. Judd Parkin's in next to talk about storm preparations no panic, just practicalities. But first, this.
An ad comes on it's a mail-order disaster video called Punishments of God as MARTHA begins working her way across the living room toward the hall, clutching the bicycle-grip handles of her walker and clumping along.
MARTHA
When they tell you the world's ending, they want to sell cereal. When they tell you not to panic, it's serious.
SOUND: DOORBELL.
MARTHA I'm coming fast's I can!
7 INTERIOR: THE FRONT HALL OF MARTHA'S HOUSE DAY.
14
She makes her way down the hall, holding tight to the walker. On the walls are quaint photographs and drawings of Little Tall as it was early in the twentieth century. At the corridor's end is a closed door with a graceful glass oval in its upper half. This has been covered by a sheer curtain, probably so the sun won't fade the carpet. On the sheer is the silhouette of LINOGE'S head and shoulders.
MARTHA (puffing a little)
Hold on ... almost there ... I broke my hip last summer and I'm still just as slow as cold molasses
. . .
And the WEATHER LADY is continuing:
WEATHER LADY (voice-over)
Folks in Maine and the Maritimes saw one heck of a storm in January of 1987, but that was a freezing-rain event. This one is going to be a very different kettle of chowder. Don't even think about the snow shovel until the plows have come by.
MARTHA reaches the door, looks curiously at the shape of the man's head on the sheer curtain, then opens it. There stands LINOGE. His face is as handsome as that of a Greek statue, and a statue is sort of what he looks like. His eyes are closed. His hands are folded over the wolf's head at the top of his cane.
WEATHER LADY (voice-over)
(continues)
As I've said before and will say again, there's no cause for panic; northern New Englanders have seen big storms before and will again. But even veteran weather forecasters are a little stunned by the sheer size of these converging systems.
MARTHA is puzzled of course by the appearance of this stranger but not really uneasy. This is the island, after all, and bad things don't happen on the island. Except for the occasional storm, of course. The other thing at work here is that the man is a stranger to her, and strangers on the island are rare once the fleeting summer is over.
MARTHA Can I help you?
LINOGE
(eyes closed) Born in lust, turn to dust. Born in sin, come on in.
MARTHA I beg pardon?
He opens his eyes . . . except there are no eyes there. The sockets are filled with BLACKNESS.
15
His lips peel back from HUGE, CROOKED TEETH they look like teeth in a child's drawing of a monster.
WEATHER LADY (voice-over)
(continues)
These are monster low-pressure areas. And are they really coming? Yes, I'm afraid they are.
MARTHA'S intrigued interest is replaced by stark terror. She opens her mouth to scream and staggers backward, losing hold of the walker's handles. She is going to fall.
LINOGE raises his cane, the SNARLING WOLF'S HEAD JUTTING FORWARD. He grabs the walker, which is between him and the old woman, and throws it out the door behind him, where it lands on the porch, near the steps.
8 INTERIOR: HALLWAY, WITH MARTHA.
She falls heavily and SCREAMS, raising her hands, looking up at: 9 INTERIOR: LINOGE, FROM MARTHA'S POINT OF VIEW.
A SNARLING MONSTER, hardly human, with the cane upraised. Behind him, we see the porch and the white sky that signals the oncoming storm.
10 INTERIOR: MARTHA, ON THE FLOOR.
MARTHA
Please don't hurt me!
11 INTERIOR: MARTHA'S LIVING ROOM.
On the TV now is JUDD PARKIN, standing in front of a table. On it are: a flashlight, batteries, candles, matches, prepared foods, stacks of warm clothing, portable radio, a cellular phone, other supplies. Beside him is the WEATHER LADY, looking bewitched by these goods.