took from around PETER GODSOE'S neck. They are identical even the drawing of the cane over MARTHA'S living room door looks the same as the ones dancing on the sheet of paper.
JACK CARVER
What in God's name is happening?
MIKE starts to straighten up, then sees something else.
15 INTERIOR: THE OPEN POWERBOOK, FROM MIKE'S POINT OF VIEW.
The entire grid of HATCH'S crossword has been filled in with variations of "GIVE ME WHAT I WANT AND I'LL GO AWAY," plus the little cane-icons in the black squares.
16 INTERIOR: RESUME CONSTABLE'S OFFICE.
MIKE I'll be damned if I know.
17 INTERIOR: THE TOWN OFFICE, WITH URSULA NIGHT.
She's working the CB microphone for all it's worth. Behind her, looking anxious, are a number of men and women, SANDRA BEALS and CARLA BRIGHT among them.
140 STEPHEN KING
Mike, are you there?
URSULA f
MOLLY, also understandably worried, works her way through the knot of onlookers.
MOLLY Can't you get him?
URSULA
CHAPTER 13
The wind's knocked the damned antennas down! Over here . . . over there ... all over the island, most likely.
HATCH (staticky radio voice) Ursula, do you read me? Come on back.
URSULA I'm here! I read you! You gettin' me, Alton Hatcher?
HATCH (radio voice)
You're breaking up some, but it's better than it was. What's your problem?
URSULA
Ferd Andrews says Lloyd Wishman has killed himself over at the firehouse
HATCH (radio voice) What?
URSULA
only it doesn't sound like any suicide I ever heard of ... Ferd says Lloyd cut his own head open with an axe. And now Robbie Beals and Henry Bright have gone over there. To investigate, Robbie said!
HATCH (staticky radio voice) And you let 'em go?
i
STORM OF THE CENTURY 141 CARLA takes the mike from URSULA.
CARLA
There was no way to stop Robbie. He practically shanghaied my husband. And there could be somebody there! Where's Mike? I want to talk to Mike!
18 INTERIOR: THE ISLAND SERVICES VEHICLE, WITH HATCH.
He sits behind the wheel, holding the mike and thinking this over. Events are spinning out of control here, and HATCH knows it. At last he raises the mike to his lips again.
HATCH
I'm calling from the truck Mike's inside. With the man who . . . you know, the prisoner.
CARLA (very staticky voice) You have to send him down there!
HATCH
Well . . . we got us a little bit of a situation right here, you see, and . . .
19 INTERIOR: THE TOWN OFFICE NIGHT. MOLLY grabs the microphone from CARLA.
MOLLY
afe, Is Mike all right, Hatch? You come on back and tell me.
20 INTERIOR: THE ISLAND SERVICES VEHICLE, WITH HATCH.
Poor guy actually looks relieved. Here, finally, is a question for which he can provide a satisfactory answer.
MOLLY
He's fine, Moll. That's a big 10-4. Listen, I have to go. I'll pass on the message. This is Island Services.
He lowers the mike, looking simultaneously perplexed and relieved, then racks it. He opens the door and gets out into the HOWLING STORM. MIKE has parked the vehicle next to GODSOE'S truck. Now, as HATCH looks up, he sees LINOGE'S ghastly, grinning face peering
142 STEPHEN KING
out at him from the snow-caked driver's side window of the pickup truck. LINOGE'S eyes are DEAD BLACK.
HATCH GASPS and staggers backward. He looks at the window of the truck again. Nothing there. Must have been his imagination. He starts toward the porch steps, then turns and looks back, like "it" trying to catch one of the other children moving in a game of Red Light. Sees nothing. Goes on.
21 INTERIOR: LINOGE, CLOSE-UP.
Grinning. He knows perfectly well what HATCH saw in GODSOE'S truck.
22 EXTERIOR: THE FIRE STATION NIGHT.
The side door is open FERD didn't bother to close it when he fled the sight of his partner's corpse and the emergency lights inside the garage are throwing their glow out onto the snow.
A HEADLIGHT appears; the WASPY WHINE of a Sno-Cat accompanies it. The Sno-Cat pulls up. ROBBIE gets out from one side (the driver's side, naturally) and HENRY BRIGHT from the other.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 143
HENRY I don't know about this, Robbie
ROBBIE
You think we can wait for Anderson? On a night like this? Someone's got to take charge, and we happen to be the ones on the scene. Now come on!
ROBBIE strides in through the open side door, and after a moment, HENRY BRIGHT follows.
23 INTERIOR: THE FIREHOUSE GARAGE.
ROBBIE is standing to one side of the nearest pumper. His hood is pushed back, and he has once again lost most of his pompous authority. In one hand he holds his little gun, and now he waggles the barrel at the floor. HENRY looks, and the