e 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.

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. 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.

JUDD

But a storm doesn't need to be a disaster, Maura, and a disaster doesn't have to be a tragedy. Given that philosophy to start with, I think we can give our New England viewers some tips which will help them prepare for what, from all indications, is apt to be a pretty extraordinary weather-maker.

WEATHER LADY What have you got there, Judd?

JUDD

Well, to begin with, warm clothing. That's number one. And you want to say to yourself, "How are my batteries? Have I got enough to keep a portable radio going? Possibly a small TV?" And if you've got a generator, the time to check your gasoline supplies or your diesel or your propane is before, not after. If you wait until it's too late . . .

During all this, THE CAMERA MOVES AWAY from the TV, as if losing interest. It is drawn back toward the hall. As we begin to lose the dialogue, we begin to hear far less pleasant SOUNDS: THE STEADY WHACK-WHACK-WHACK of LINOGE'S cane. At last it stops. There is SILENCE for a little bit, then FOOTSTEPS. Accompanying them is a CURIOUS DRAGGING SOUND, almost as if someone were pulling a chair or a stool slowly across a wood floor.

JUDD (voice-over)

(continues) . . . it'll be too late.

LINOGE comes into the doorway. His eyes aren't ordinary a distant and somehow unsettling blue but they aren't that HIDEOUS BLACK EMPTINESS that MARTHA saw, either. His cheeks, brow, and the bridge of his nose are covered with FINE STIPPLES OF BLOOD. He comes to EXTREME CLOSE-UP, eyes focused on something. A look of interest begins to warm his face up a little.

WEATHER LADY (voice-over)

Thanks, Judd. Words of wisdom our northern New England viewers have probably heard before, but when it comes to storms this size, some things bear repeating.

12 INTERIOR: THE LIVING ROOM, FROM OVER LINOGE'S SHOULDER.

It's the TV he's looking at.

WEATHER LADY Your local forecast is next, right after this.

She is replaced by an ad for Punishments of God 2 all the volcanoes, fires, and earthquakes you could ever want for $19.95. Slowly, back to us again, LINOGE crosses the room to MARTHA'S chair. The

DRAGGING SOUND recommences, and as he approaches the chair and his lower half comes into the frame, we see it's the tip of his cane. It's leaving a thin trail of blood along the rug. More blood is oozing through the fingers of the fist clamped over the wolf's head. That's mostly what he hit her with, the head of that wolf, and we probably wouldn't want to see what it looks like now.

LINOGE stands, looking down at the TV, where a forest is going up in flames.

LINOGE

(sings)

"I'm a little teapot, short and stout. . . . Here is my handle, here is my spout."

He sits down in MARTHA'S chair. Grasps her teacup with a gory hand that smears the handle. Drinks. Then takes a cookie with his bloody hand and gobbles it down.

LINOGE settles back to watch JUDD and MAURA talk disaster on the Weather Network.

13 EXTERIOR: MIKE ANDERSON'S STORE DAY.

This is an old-fashioned general store with a long front porch. If it were summer, there would be rockers lined up out here and lots of old-timers to fill them. As it is, there is a line of snowblowers and snow shovels, marked with a neat handmade sign: SUPERSTORM SPECIAL! LET'S TALK PRICE!

The steps are flanked by a couple of lobster traps, and more hang from the underside of the porch roof. We may also see a whimsical display of clamming gear. By the door stands a mannequin wearing galoshes, a yellow rain slicker, goggle eyes on springs, and a beanie with a propeller (the propeller now still) on his head. Someone has stuffed a pillow under the slicker, creating a fairly prominent potbelly. In one plastic hand is a blue University of Maine pennant. In the other is a can of beer. Around the dummy's neck is a sign: GENUINE "ROBBIE BEALS BRAND" LOBSTERIN' GEAH SOLD HEAH, DEAH.

In the windows are signs for meat specials, fish specials, videotape rentals (WE RENT OLD 'UNS THREE FOR $1), church suppers, a volunteer

fire department blood drive. The biggest sign is on the door. It reads: STORM EMERGENCY POSSIBLE NEXT 3 DAYS! "TAKE SHELTER" SIGNAL IS 2 SHORTS, 1 LONG. Above the display windows, now rolled up, are slatted wooden STORM SHUTTERS. Above the door is a lovely old-fashioned sign, black with gold gilt letters: ANDERSON's MARKET*ISLAND POST

OFFICE ISLAND CONSTABLE'S OFFICE.

There are several WOMEN going in, and a couple more OCTAVIA GODSOE and JOANNA STANHOPE coming out. TAVIA (forty-five-ish) and JOANNA (late forties or early fifties) are clutching full grocery bags and chatting animatedly. TAVIA looks at the ROBBIE BEALS dummy and elbows JOANNA. They both laugh as they go down the steps.

14 INTERIOR: ANDERSON'S MARKET DAY.

This is a very well equipped grocery store, and in many ways a charming throwback to the groceries of the 1950s. The floors are wood and creak comfortably underfoot. The lights are globes hanging on chains. There's a tin ceiling. Yet there are signs of our modern age; two new cash registers with digital price-readers beside them, a radio scanner on a shelf behind the checkout counter, a wall of rental videos,

and security cameras mounted high in the corners.

At the rear is a meat cooler running nearly the length of the store. To its left, below a convex mirror, is a door marked simply TOWN CONSTABLE.

The store is very crowded. Everybody is stocking up for the oncoming storm.

15 INTERIOR: MEAT COUNTER.

MIKE ANDERSON COMES out of the door leading to the meat locker (it is at the other end of the rear from the constable's office). He is a good-looking man of about thirty-five. Right now he also looks harried half to death . . . although the little smile never leaves his eyes and the corners of his mouth. This guy likes life, likes it a lot, and usually finds something in it to amuse him.

He's wearing butcher's whites right now and pushing a shopping cart filled with wrapped cuts of meat. Three WOMEN and one MAN converge on him almost at once. The MAN, dressed in a red sport coat and black shirt with turned-around collar, is first to reach him.

REV. BOB RIGGINS

Don't forget the bean supper next Wednesday-week, Michael I'm going to need every deacon I can lay my hands on.

MIKE I'll be there ... if we get through the next three days, that is.

REV. BOB RIGGINS I'm sure we will; God takes care of his own.

Off he goes. Behind him is a cute little muffin named JILL ROBICHAUX,

and she apparently has less trust in God. She starts pawing over the packages and reading the labels before MIKE can even begin to distribute them.

JILL

Are there pork chops, Michael? I thought for sure you'd still have pork chops.

He gives her a wrapped package. JILL looks at it, then puts it in her heaped-up shopping cart. The other two women, CARLA BRIGHT and LINDA ST. PIERRE, are already going through the other wrapped cuts. CARLA looks at something, almost takes it, then drops it back into one of the trays of the meat-display cabinet.

CARLA

Ground chuck's too dear! Don't you have plain old hamburger, Michael Anderson?

MIKE Right-

She snatches the package he's holding out before he can finish.

MIKE (continues) here.

More folks now, picking the stuff over as fast as he can get it out of his cart. MIKE bears this for a moment, then decides to put on his constable's hat. Or try.

MIKE

Folks, listen. It's a storm, that's all. We've gotten through plenty before this, and we'll get through plenty after. Calm down and stop acting like mainlanders!

That gets them a little. They stand back, and MIKE begins distributing the meat again.

LINDA

Don't be smart, Michael Anderson.

She says it the way islanders do "sma'aat." And when CARLA says "dear," it comes out "deah."

MIKE (smiles) No, Mrs. St. Pierre. I won't be smart.

Behind him, ALTON "HATCH" HATCHER comes out of the cold room pushing a second cart of wrapped meat. HATCH is about thirty, portly and pleasant. He's MIKE'S second-in-command at the market, and in the constabulary, as well. He is also wearing butcher's whites, and a white hard hat for good measure. Printed on the hard hat is "A. HATCHER."

CAT (over the market loudspeaker) Mike! Hey, Mike! Got a phone call!

16 INTERIOR: THE COUNTER, WITH KATRINA "CAT" WITHERS.

She's about nineteen, very pretty, and handling one of the cash registers. She ignores the line of customers and holds the PA microphone in one hand. In the other is the receiver of the telephone hanging on the wall by the CB radio.

CAT

It's your wife. She says she's got a little problem down to the day care.

17 INTERIOR: RESUME MIKE, HATCH, SHOPPERS AT MEAT CABINET.

The customers are interested and diverted. Life on the island is like a soap opera where you know all the characters.

MIKE She hot under the collar?

18 INTERIOR: RESUME COUNTER, WITH CAT.

CAT

How do I know where she's hot? She's your wife.

Smiles and chuckles from the CUSTOMERS. In island parlance, that was "a good 'un." A man of about forty grins at MIKE.

KIRK FREEMAN You better go see about that, Mike.

19 INTERIOR: RESUME MIKE AND HATCH AT MEAT CABINET.

MIKE Can you take over here a bit?

HATCH Can I borrow your whip and chair?

MIKE laughs, knocks on the top of HATCH'S hard hat, and hurries on down front to see what his wife wants.

20 INTERIOR: AT THE COUNTER.

MIKE arrives and takes the phone from CAT. He speaks to his wife, oblivious of the watching, interested audience.

MIKE Hey, Moll, what's up?

MOLLY (phone voice) I've got a little problem here can you come?

MIKE eyes his store, which is full of pre-storm shoppers.

MIKE I've got a few little problems of my own, hon. What's yours?

21 INTERIOR: PIPPA HATCHER, CLOSE-UP.

PIPPA is a child of about three years old. Right now she fills the whole

screen with her SCREAMING, TERRIFIED FACE. There are RED SMEARS AND BLOTCHES all over it. Maybe we at first take these for blood.

THE CAMERA DRAWS BACK and we see the problem. PIPPA is halfway up a flight of stairs, and has poked her head between two of the posts supporting the banister. Now she can't get it back through. She's still holding on to a piece of bread and jam, though, and we see that what we first took for blood is actually strawberry preserves.

Standing at the foot of the stairs below her, looking solemn, is a group of SEVEN SMALL CHILDREN, ranging in age from three to five. One of the four-year-olds is RALPH ANDERSON, son of MIKE and MOLLY. Although we may not notice it at once (right now we're more interested in PIPPA'S plight), RALPHIE has a birthmark on the bridge of his nose. It's not hugely disfiguring or anything, but it's there, like a tiny saddle.

RALPHIE Pippa, can I have your bread, if you're not going to eat it?

PIPPA

(shrieks) NO-OOO-OO!

She begins to yank backward, trying to free herself, still holding on to her snack. It's disappearing into her chubby little fist now, and she appears to be sweating strawberry jam.

22 INTERIOR: THE HALLWAY AND STAIRWELL OF THE ANDERSON HOUSE.

The phone is here, placed on a hallway table halfway between the stairs and the door. Using it is MOLLY ANDERSON, MIKE'S wife. She's about thirty, pretty, and right now vacillating between amusement and fright.

MOLLY Pippa, don't do that, honey . . . just hold still . . .

MIKE (phone voice) Pippa? What about Pippa?

23 INTERIOR: BEHIND THE MEAT COUNTER, FEATURING HATCH.

His head snaps up in a hurry.

LINDA ST. PIERRE Something about Pippa?

HATCH starts around the counter.

24 INTERIOR: RESUME HALLWAY, WITH MOLLY.

MOLLY

Be quiet! The last thing in the world I want is Alton Hatcher down on me.

25 INTERIOR: RESUME MARKET.

Steaming down Aisle 3, still wearing his hard hat, comes HATCH. All the smiling good humor has gone out of his face. He's completely intent, a father back to front and top to bottom.

MIKE Too late, babe. What's up?

26 INTERIOR: THE HALLWAY, WITH MOLLY.

She closes her eyes and GROANS.

MOLLY

Pippa's got her head stuck in the stairs. It's not serious I don't think but I can't deal with a big storm and a crazed daddy all on the same day. If Hatch comes, you be with him.

She hangs up the phone and heads back to the stairs.

MOLLY Pippa . . . honey . . . don't pull that way. It'll hurt your ears.

27 INTERIOR: THE STORE COUNTER, WITH MIKE, HATCH, CUSTOMERS.

MIKE looks at the phone, bemused, then hangs it up again. As he does, HATCH comes shouldering through the CUSTOMERS, looking worried.

HATCH

Pippa! What about Pippa?

MIKE Got a little stuck-itis, I hear. Why don't we go see?

28 EXTERIOR: MAIN STREET, IN FRONT OF THE STORE.

There's slant parking here. The vehicle in the slot handiest to the store is a forest-green four-wheel drive with ISLAND SERVICES painted on the doors, and a police flasher-bar on the roof.

MIKE and HATCH come out of the store and hurry down the steps. As they approach:

HATCH How upset did she sound, Mike?

MIKE Molly? Point five on a scale of one to ten. Don't worry.

A gust of wind strikes them, rocking them back on their heels. They look toward the ocean. We can't see it, but we can hear the POUNDING WAVES.

HATCH This is going to be one bad mother of a storm, isn't it?

MIKE doesn't answer. He doesn't have to. They get into the Island Services truck and drive off.

29 EXTERIOR: THE MANNEQUIN ON THE STORE'S PORCH.

There's another GUST OF WIND. The hanging lobster traps click together . . . and the beanie propeller on "ROBBIE BEALS'S" head slowly BEGINS TO TURN.

30 INTERIOR: THE STAIRWELL OF THE ANDERSON HOUSE.

PIPPA is still stuck with her head through the posts, but MOLLY is sitting beside her on the stairs and has her calmed down quite a bit. The CHILDREN still cluster around, watching her. MOLLY strokes

PIPPA'S hair with one hand. In her other, MOLLY is holding PIPPA'S bread and jam.

MOLLY

You're okay, Pippa. Mike and your daddy will be here in another minute. Mike will get you out.

PIPPA

How can he?

MOLLY I don't know. He's just magic that way.

PIPPA I'm hungry.

MOLLY gets her arm through the bars and maneuvers the bread to PIPPA'S mouth. PIPPA eats. The other KIDS watch this with fascination. One, a boy of five, is JILL ROBICHAUX'S son.

HARRY ROBICHAUX