ring 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 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 . . .

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)

It was a mistake for any of us to go out, especially the children. We underestimated the storm. Several people wandered away and were lost. Ralphie was one of them. Angie Carver found her way back. None of the others did.

MIKE looks at the porch, where the sign has landed, then turns and walks down to his car. He puts the last couple of bags in and slams the trunk. As he starts around to the driver's side, digging the keys out of his pocket:

HATCH (voice) Mike?

364 STEPHEN KING

MIKE turns. HATCH, looking strange in a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts, walks up to where he stands. He looks painfully unhappy to be here. MIKE looks back at him coolly.

MIKE

If you've got something to say, best say it. Ferry leaves at 11:10, and I don't intend to miss it.

HATCH

Where you going?

(silence from MIKE) Don't, Michael. Don't leave.

(silence from MIKE)

Would it do you any good to tell you I haven't had a decent night's sleep since February?

(no answer from MIKE)

Would it do any good to tell you that . . . we might have been wrong?

MIKE Hatch, I have to get going.

HATCH

Robbie says to tell you the constable's job is yours again whenever you want it. All you have to do is ask.

MIKE

Tell him where he can park his job. I'm done here. I've tried until I can't try anymore.

He starts for the driver's door, and just before he swings in, HATCH touches his arm. MIKE whirls at that touch, eyes burning, as if he means to punch HATCH'S lights out. But HATCH doesn't flinch. Maybe he thinks he deserves it.

HATCH

Molly needs you. Have you seen the way she is, now? Have you even looked?

MIKE You look for me. Okay?

STORM OF THE CENTURY 365

HATCH

(drops his eyes)

Melly isn't doing very well, either. She takes a lot of tranquil-izers. I think she might be hooked on them.

MIKE

Too bad. But . . . you've got your daughter, at least. You may not sleep so well, but you can go into Pippa's bedroom and watch her sleep any night you want. Can't you?

HATCH

You're as self-righteous as ever. Can't see it any way but your way.

MIKE swings behind the wheel and looks bleakly up at HATCH.

MIKE

I'm not anything. I'm empty scooped out as a gourd in November.

HATCH If you could just try to understand

MIKE

I understand that the ferry leaves at 11:10, and if I don't get moving now, I'm going to miss it. Good luck, Hatch. Hope you catch up on your sleep.

He slams the car door, starts the engine, and pulls out onto Main Street. HATCH helplessly watches him go.

155 EXTERIOR: THE LAWN OF THE TOWN HALL MORNING.

THE CAMERA looks down toward Main Street and picks up MIKE'S car, heading toward the docks where the interisland ferry is backed up, ENGINE RUMBLING. We HOLD for a moment, then PAN LEFT, to the cupola and the memorial bell. A second plaque has been added, to the right of the war dead. Heading it is this: THOSE LOST IN THE STORM OF THE CENTURY, 1989. Below are the names: MARTHA CLARENDON, PETER GODSOE, WILLIAM SOAMES, LLOYD WISHMAN, CORA STANHOPE, JANE KINGSBURY, WILLIAM TIMMONS, GEORGE KIRBY . . . and, at the very bottom, RALPH ANDERSON.

I

366 STEPHEN KING

THE CAMERA MOVES IN ON HIS NAME.

156 INTERIOR: THE COUNSELOR'S OFFICE MORNING.

MOLLY has stopped talking and just looks out the window. Fresh tears well in her eyes and spill down her cheeks, but her weeping REMAINS SILENT.

COUNSELOR Molly . . . ?

MOLLY

He wandered away into the whiteout. Maybe he wound up with Bill Timmons, the gas station man. I like to think so; that he was with somebody at the end. They must have lost their bearings completely and gone into the water. They were the two who were never found.

COUNSELOR

There's a great deal of this story you haven't told me, isn't there?

(silence from MOLLY) Until you do, until you tell someone, it will keep festering.

MOLLY

It will fester no matter what I do. Some wounds can never be cleaned out. I didn't understand that . . . before . . . but now I do.

COUNSELOR

Why does your husband hate you so, Molly? What really happened to Ralphie?

CAMERA MOVES IN ON MOLLY. She is still looking out the window. It's sunny in the COUNSELOR'S yard; the grass is green and there are flowers . . . but it's SNOWING. The snow falls thickly, coating the grass and the walks, heaping on the leafy branches of the trees.

We MOVE IN ON MOLLY, MOVE IN TO EXTREME CLOSE-UP as she looks out on the falling snow.

STORM OF THE CENTURY 367

MOLLY

He wandered away. People do, you know. They get lost. That's what happened to Ralphie. He was lost in the white-out. He was lost in the storm.

DISSOLVE TO:

157 EXTERIOR: THE FERRY MORNING.

It's trudging its way across the reach to Machias. The cars are parked on the apron at the back, MIKE'S among them. MIKE himself stands alone at the rail, his face up, the ocean breeze blowing his hair back from his forehead. He looks almost at peace.

MIKE (voice-over)

Nine years ago, that was. I just gassed my car and left on the 11:10 ferry. I've never been back.

DISSOLVE TO:

158 INTERIOR: THE COUNSELOR'S OFFICE MORNING.

MOLLY'S session is over. The clock on the wall reads 11:55. She stands at the COUNSELOR'S desk, writing a check. The COUNSELOR looks at her with a troubled expression, knowing that she has lost, and once again the island has won. The secret whatever it is has been kept.

Neither of them see MIKE'S little white car go by.

MIKE (voice-over) I didn't think about where I was going, at first I just drove.

159 EXTERIOR: MIKE, THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD OF HIS CAR SUNSET.

He's wearing dark glasses against the BRIGHT ORANGE GLOW. Reflected in each lens is a SETTING SUN.

MIKE (voice-over)

All I cared about was that I had to wear sunglasses every night when the sun went down. That every mile on the odometer was a mile further away from Little Tall.

160 EXTERIOR: THE AMERICAN DESERT MIDDAY.

Two-lane blacktop runs through the middle of the frame. The white car enters, moving fast, and THE CAMERA SWINGS TO FOLLOW.

368 STEPHEN KING

MIKE (voice-over)

The divorce was no-fault. Moll got the bank accounts, the insurance, the store, the house, and a little piece of land we had in Vanceboro. I got the Toyota and the peace of mind, (pause) What was left of it.

161 EXTERIOR: THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE TWILIGHT.

MIKE (voice-over)

I wound up here . . . back on the water again. Ironic I guess, huh? But it's different, somehow, the Pacific. It doesn't have that hard glow when the days start to run down toward winter, (pause) And it doesn't have the same memories.

162 EXTERIOR: A SKYSCRAPER ON MONTGOMERY STREET, SAN FRANCISCO DAY.

MIKE comes out an older MIKE, with gray at his temples and lines on his face but one who looks as if he's made his peace with the world. Or found some. He wears a suit (casual, no tie) and carries a briefcase. He and the man with him walk to a sedan parked at the curb. It pulls out into traffic, swinging around a cable car. Over this, MIKE talks.

MIKE (voice-over)

I went back to school, got a degree in law enforcement and another one in accountancy. Thought about going after a law degree . . . and then thought again. Started out keeping store on an island off the Maine coast and wound up a federal marshal. How do you like that?

163 EXTERIOR: MIKE, THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD DAY. JL

His partner is driving. MIKE sits quietly in the shotgun seat, his eyes distant. It's the look of a man visiting along memory lane.

MIKE (voice-over)

Sometimes the island seems very far away, and Andre Linoge just a bad dream I had. Sometimes . . . when I wake up late at night, trying not to scream ... it seems very close. And, as I said way back at the beginning, I keep in touch.

STORM OF THE CENTURY 369

164 EXTERIOR: THE LITTLE TALL GRAVEYARD DAY.

MOURNERS move between the gravestones toward a newly dug grave, bearing a coffin (we see this from the middle distance). Fall leaves rush past in RATTLING BURSTS OF COLOR.

MIKE (voice-over)

Melinda Hatcher died in October of 1990. The local paper said it was a heart attack; Ursula Godsoe sent me the clipping. I don't know if there was more to it or not. Thirty-five's young for your pump to quit, but it happens . . . ayuh. Shoah, deah.

165 EXTERIOR: THE LITTLE TALL METHODIST CHURCH DAY.

It's late spring. Cheerful flowers shout color along the walk leading from the front door. Faintly, we can hear the TRIUMPHAL ORGAN STRAINS of "The Wedding March." The doors burst open. Out comes MOLLY, laughing and radiant in her wedding dress. There are still lines on her face, but her graying hair is hidden. Beside her, dressed in a morning coat and clasping her waist, is HATCH. He looks as happy as she does. Behind them, holding up MOLLY'S train with one hand and clutching a bouquet in the other, is PIPPA, now bigger and with beautiful long hair. Her days of getting her head stuck between the banister posts are pretty well behind her. People follow, FLINGING RICE. Among them, smiling like a proud papa, is REV. BOB RIGGINS.

MIKE (voice-over)

Molly and Hatch married in May of '93. Ursula sent me that clipping, too. From what I hear, they've been good for each other . . . and for Pippa. I'm glad. I wish the three of them every happiness. I mean that with all my heart.

166 INTERIOR: A CHEESY RENTED ROOM NIGHT.

MIKE (voice-over) Not everyone from Little Tail's been so lucky.

THE CAMERA TRACKS ACROSS THE ROOM, past a rumpled, unmade bed that looks like it has seen its share of bad dreams. The bathroom door is ajar, and THE CAMERA PUSHES THROUGH.

370 STEPHEN KING

MIKE (voice-over)

Jack and Angie Carver divorced about two months after Hatch and Molly got married. Jack fought for custody of Buster it was pretty bitter, I guess and lost. He moved off-island, to Lewiston, rented a room, and killed himself there one night in the late summer of 1994.

The bathroom window is OPEN. Through it, FAINTLY, we can hear the SOUND of a bar band lashing its way through "Hang On Sloopy." JACK CARVER is lying in a dry bathtub with a plastic bag pulled down over his head. THE CAMERA MOVES IN RELENTLESSLY . . . until we can see the paisley eye patch over one eye.

MIKE (voice-over)

He left what little he had to a fellow named Harmon Brodsky, who lost an eye in a barroom fight back in the eighties.

167 EXTERIOR: LITTLE TALL ISLAND, FROM THE REACH MORNING.

It's still except for the SLOW TOLL OF A BELL BUOY and a little ghostly, misted in shades of gray. We can see that the town dock has been rebuilt, and there's a fish warehouse there, as well . . . only it's a different color from PETER'S, and the sign along the side reads BEALS FANCY FISH instead of GODSOE FISH & LOBSTER.

Now, as THE CAMERA BEGINS TO PULL BACK, we also hear THE LAP OF WATER against the side of a boat. It comes into view a small rowboat riding on the swell. During this:

MIKE (voice-over)

Robbie Beals rebuilt the old fish house on the town dock, and hired Kirk Freeman to work there. Kirk said Robbie's wife Sandra came down there one early morning in the spring of 1996, dressed in her yellow slicker and red boots, and told him she wanted to go for a little row. Kirk made her put on a life-preserver ... he said he didn't like the way she looked.

THE CAMERA reaches the boat and RISES, showing us the prow. Neatly folded there is a yellow fisherman's slicker. A pair of red

STORM OF THE CENTURY 371

galoshes stand beside it, and placed around their toes like a collar is a Mae West.

MIKE (voice-over)

He said it was like she was dreaming with her eyes open . . . but what could he do? It was a mild morning, no wind, not much of a swell . . . and she was the boss's wife. They found the boat, but they didn't find Sandy. There was one strange thing . . .

CAMERA SLIPS ALONG the length of the boat. Written across the rear seat in either red paint or lipstick is a single word: "CROATON."