Excerpt
PART 1: Linoge
Act 1
FADE IN ON:
1 EXTERIOR: MAIN STREET, LITTLE TALL ISLAND - LATE AFTERNOON.
SNOW is flying past the lens of THE CAMERA, at first so fast and so hard we can't see anything at all. THE WIND IS SHRIEKING. THE CAMERA starts to MOVE FORWARD, and we see a STUTTERY ORANGE LIGHT. It's the blinker at the corner of Main Street and Atlantic Street - Little Tall's only town intersection. The blinker is DANCING WILDLY in the wind. Both streets are deserted, and why not? This is a full-throated blizzard. We can see some dim lights in the buildings, but no human beings. The snow is drifted halfway up the shop windows.
MIKE ANDERSON speaks with a light Maine accent.
MIKE ANDERSON (voice-over)
My name is Michael Anderson, and I'm not what you'd call a Rhodes scholar. I don't have much in the way of philosophy, either, but I know one thing: in this world, you have to pay as you go. Usually a lot. Sometimes all you have. That's a lesson I thought I learned nine years ago, during what folks in these parts call the Storm of the Century.
The BLINKER LIGHT GOES DEAD. So do all the other brave little lights we saw in the storm. Now there's only the WIND and the BLOWING SNOW.
MIKE
I was wrong. I only started learning during the big blow. I finished just last week.
DISSOLVE TO:
2 EXTERIOR: MAINE WOODS, FROM THE AIR (HELICOPTER) - DAY.
It's the cold season - all the trees except the firs are bare, branches reaching up like fingers into the white sky. There's snow on the ground, but only in patches, like bundles of dirty laundry. The ground skims by below us, the woods broken by the occasional twisty line of two-lane blacktop or little New England town.
MIKE (voice-over)
I grew up in Maine but in a way, I never really lived in Maine. I think anyone from my part of the world would say the same.
All at once we hit the seacoast, land's end, and what he's telling us maybe makes sense. Suddenly the woods are gone; we get a glimpse of gray-blue water surging and spurning against rocks and headlands...and then there's just water beneath us until we:
DISSOLVE TO: 3 EXTERIOR: LITTLE TALL ISLAND (HELICOPTER) - DAY.
There's plenty of bustling activity on the docks as the lobster boats are either secured or boathoused. The smaller craft are being removed by way of the town's landing slip. People pull them away behind their four-wheel drives. On the dock, BOYS AND YOUNG MEN are carrying lobster traps into the long, weather-beaten building with GODSOE FISH AND LOBSTER printed on the side. There's laughter and excited talk; a few bottles of something warm are passed around. The storm is coming. It's always exciting when the storm is coming.
Near Godsoe's is a trim little volunteer fire department firehouse just big enough for two pumpers. LLOYD WISHMAN and FERD ANDREWS are out washing one of the trucks right now.
Atlantic Street runs uphill from the docks to town. The hill is lined with pretty little New England houses. South of the docks is a wooded headland, with a ramshackle flight of steps leading down, zigzag, to the water. North, along the beach, are the homes of the rich folks. At the far northern point of land is a squatty white lighthouse, maybe forty feet high. The automated light turns constantly, its glow pale but readable in the daylight. On top is a long radio antenna.
MIKE (voice-over) (continues)
Folks from Little Tall send their taxes to Augusta, same as other folks, and we got either a lobster or a loon on our license plates, same as other folks, and we root for the University of Maine's teams, especially the women's basketball team, same as other folks...
On the fishing boat Escape, SONNY BRAUTIGAN is stuffing nets into a hatch and battening down. Nearby, ALEX HABER is making Escape fast with some big-ass ropes.
JOHNNY HARRIMAN (voice)
Better double it, Sonny - the weather guy says it's coming on.
JOHNNY comes around the pilothouse, looking at the sky. SONNY turns to him.
SONNY BRAUTIGAN
Seen'em come on every winter, Big John. They howl in, they howl out. July always comes.
SONNY gives the hatch a test and puts his foot up on the rail, watching ALEX finish. Behind them, LUCIEN FOURNIER joins JOHNNY. LUCIEN goes to the live well, flips it open, and looks in as:
ALEX HABER
Still...they say this one's gonna be somethin' special.
LUCIEN yanks out a lobster and holds it up.
LUCIEN FOURNIER
Forgot one, Sonny.
SONNY BRAUTIGAN
One for the pot brings good luck.
LUCIEN FOURNIER (to the lobster)
Storm of the Century coming, mon frere - so the radio say. (knocks on the shell) Good t'ing you got your coat on, hey?
He tosses Bob the lobster back into the live well - SPLASH! The four men leave the boat, and THE CAMERA CONTINUES TO TRACK.
MIKE (voice-over) (continues)
But we ain't the same. Life out on the islands is different. We pull together when we have to.
SONNY, JOHNNY, ALEX, and LUCIEN are on the ramp now, maybe carrying gear.
SONNY BRAUTIGAN
We'll get through her.
JOHNNY HARRIMAN
Ayuh, like always.
LUCIEN FOURNIER
When you mind the swell, you mind the boat.
ALEX HABER
What's a Frenchman like you know?
LUCIEN takes a mock swing at him. They all laugh and go on. We watch SONNY, LUCIEN, ALEX, and JOHNNY go into Godsoe's. THE CAMERA starts up Atlantic Street toward the blinker we saw earlier. It then SLIDES RIGHT, showing a piece of the business section and bustling traffic on the street.
MIKE (voice-over) (continues)
And we can keep back a secret when we have to. We kept our share back in 1989. (pause) And the people who live there keep them still.
We come to ANDERSON'S GENERAL STORE. People hurry in and out. Three WOMEN emerge: ANGELA CARVER, MRS. KINGSBURY, and ROBERTA COIGN.
MIKE (voice-over) (continues)
I know.
ROBERTA COIGN
All right, I've got my canned goods. Let it come.
MRS. KINGSBURY
I just pray we don't lose the power. I can't cook on a woodstove. I'd burn water on that damned thing. A big storm's only good for one thing.
ANGELA
Ayuh, and my Jack knows what it is.
The other two look at her, surprised, and then they all GIGGLE LIKE GIRLS and head for their cars.
MIKE (voice-over) (continues)
I stay in touch.
3A EXTERIOR: THE SIDE OF A FIRE TRUCK.
A HAND polishes the gleaming red hide with a rag, then pulls away. LLOYD WISHMAN looks at his own face, pleased.
FERD ANDREWS (off-screen)
Radio says it's gonna snow a bitch.
LLOYD turns, and THE CAMERA HINGES to show us FERD, leaning in the door. His hands are plugged into the tops of half a dozen boots, which he begins to arrange by pairs below hooks holding slickers and helmets.
FERD ANDREWS
If we get in trouble...we're in trouble.
LLOYD grins at the younger man, then turns back to his polishing.
LLOYD
Easy, Ferd. It's just a cap of snow. Trouble don't cross the reach...ain't that why we live out here?
FERD isn't so sure. He goes to the door and looks up at:
4 EXTERIOR: APPROACHING STORM CLOUDS - DAY.
We HOLD a moment, then PAN DOWN to a TRIM WHITE NEW ENGLAND HOME. This house is about halfway up Atlantic Street Hill - that is, between the docks and the center of town. There's a picket fence surrounding a winter-dead lawn (but there's no snow at all, not out here on the island), and a gate that stands open, offering the concrete path to anyone who cares make the trip from the sidewalk to the steep porch steps and the front door. To one side of the gate is a mailbox, amusingly painted and accessorized to turn it into a pink cow. Written on the side is CLARENDON.
MIKE (voice-over)
The first person on Little Tall to see Andre Linoge was Martha Clarendon.
In the extreme foreground of the shot, there now appears a SNARLING SILVER WOLF. It is the head of a cane.
5 EXTERIOR: LINOGE, FROM BEHIND - DAY.
Standing on the sidewalk, back to us and before the open CLARENDON gate, is a tall man dressed in jeans, boots, a pea jacket, and a black watch cap snugged down over his ears. And gloves - yellow leather as bright as a sneer. One hand grips the head of his cane, which is black walnut below the silver wolfs head. LINOGE'S own head is lowered between his bulking shoulders. It is a thinking posture. There is something brooding about it, as well.
He raises the cane and taps one side of the gate with it. He pauses, then taps the other side of the gate. This has the feel of a ritual.
MIKE (voice-over) (continues)
He was the last person she ever saw.
LINOGE begins to walk slowly up the concrete path to the porch steps, idly swinging his cane as he goes. He whistles a tune: "I'm a little teapot."
6 INTERIOR: MARTHA CLARENDON'S LIVING ROOM.
It's neat in the cluttery way only fastidious folks who've lived their whole lives in one place can manage. The furniture is old and nice, not quite antique. The walls are crammed with pictures, most going back to the twenties. There's a piano with yellowing sheet music open on the stand. Seated in the room's most comfortable chair (perhaps its only comfortable chair) is MARTHA CLARENDON, a lady of perhaps eighty years. She has lovely white beauty-shop hair and is wearing a neat housedress. On the table beside her is a cup of tea and a plate of cookies. On her other side is a walker with bicycle-grip handholds jutting out of one side and a carry-tray jutting out from the other.
The only modern items in the room are the large color TV and the cable box on top of it. MARTHA is watching the Weather Network avidly and taking little birdie-sips of tea as she does. Onscreen is a pretty WEATHER LADY. Behind the WEATHER LADY is a map with two large red L's planted in the middle of two large storm systems. One of these is over Pennsylvania; the other is just off the coast of New York. The WEATHER LADY starts with the western storm.
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 (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.
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
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.
Continues...
Excerpted from Storm of the Century by King, Stephen Excerpted by permission.
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