a super on a newscast, is that motto: LET US TRUST IN GOD AND EACH OTHER.
We can see ROBBIE BEALS getting to his feet (his hair is still mussed from hiding under the table) and crossing slowly toward the podium.
116 OMIT.
117 INTERIOR: THE TOWN MEETING HALL NIGHT.
[The director will shot-block the following as he/she desires, but it should play almost as one big master, which is how it's mostly written.]
ROBBIE reaches the podium and looks out over the silent, waiting audience. Below him, on the first bench, MIKE remains seated, but thrums almost visibly, like a high-tension wire. HATCH sits on one side of him, and MOLLY on the other. MIKE is holding her hand, and she is looking at him anxiously. Sitting behind him on the next bench are LUCIEN, SONNY, ALEX, and JOHNNY self-appointed sergeants-at-arms. If MIKE tries to interfere with the decision-making process, they will restrain him.
At the rear of the room, where the KIDS are sleeping, the circle of
329
330 STEPHEN KING
adults has grown. URSULA has joined TAVIA near SALLY GODSOE; both ANDY and JILL are with HARRY; JACK has joined ANGIE to be close to BUSTER . . . although when JACK tries to put an arm around his wife, ANGIE dips her shoulders and slips away from his touch. "Jackie, you got some 'splainin' to do," as Ricky Ricardo might have said. MELINDA is sitting by PIPPA, and next to her, SANDRA is sitting by DON. CARLA and HENRY BRIGHT sit at the foot of FRANK'S cot, holding hands. LINDA ST. PIERRE is with HEIDI. The attention of all the parents is not on their sleeping children, however, but on ROBBIE, the self-appointed moderator . . . and on their fellow ISLANDERS, who will decide the fate of their children.
Making a tremendous effort to get his act together, ROBBIE looks beneath the podium and brings out a GAVEL old and heavy, a relic that has been handed down from the seventeenth century. ROBBIE looks at it for a moment as if he's never seen it before, then brings it down with a HARD BANGING SOUND. Several people jump.
ROBBIE
I call the meeting to order. I think it'll be best if we deal with this matter the way we would any other piece of town business. After all, that's what it is, isn't it? Town business?
SILENCE and strained faces greet this. MIKE looks as if he would like to respond, but doesn't. MOLLY continues to look at her husband ANXIOUSLY and to caress his hand, which is tightly (painfully, one would think) enfolding hers.
ROBBIE
Any objection to that?
SILENCE. ROBBIE brings the gavel down again WHACK! and once again, people jump. Not the KIDS, though. They are deeply asleep again. Or comatose.
ROBBIE
The item on the floor is whether or not to give this . . . this thing that's come among us ... one of our children. He says he'll go away if we give him what he wants, and kill us all the kids included if we don't. Have I stated it fairly?
SILENCE.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 331
ROBBIE
All right. How say you then, Little Tall? Will you speak of this?
SILENCE. Then CAL FREESE gets slowly to his feet. He looks around at his fellow ISLANDERS.
CAL
I don't see what choice we have, if we believe he can do what he says he can do.
ROBERTA COIGN
Do you believe him?
CAL
First thing I asked myself. And . . . ayuh, I do. I've seen enough to convince me. I think we either give him what he wants or he'll take everything we have . . . includin' our kids.
CAL sits down.
ROBBIE
Roberta Coign's got a good point, though. How many of you think Linoge is telling the truth? That he can and will wipe out everyone on the island, if we go against him?
SILENCE. They all believe it, but no one wants to be first to hoist his or her hand.
DELLA BISSONETTE
We all had the same dream . . . and they weren't regular dreams. I know that. We all know that. He's given us fair warning.
She raises her hand.
BURT SOAMES There's nothin' fair about it, but
One of BURT'S arms is in a makeshift sling, but he raises his unhurt one in the air. Others follow suit, at first just a few, then more, then almost all of them. HATCH and MOLLY are among the last to raise
332 STEPHEN KING
their hands. Only MIKE sits grimly where he is, keeping the hand MOLLY'S not holding in his lap.
MOLLY (low, to MIKE)
It's not a question