base unit to base unit; it's just voices. I imagine they're still trying to raise the statics in Machias.
MOLLY
So you haven't heard anything about Peter, and you can't know
178 STEPHEN KING
URSULA
No ... but somehow I do. If I can get Lucien Fournier to stop fiddling with that TV and take me down to the constable's on his snow machine, can you mind things here? Unless the roof falls in, all it amounts to is saying everything's fine, breakfast's at seven, and we still need folks on the serving crew and to do cleanup after. Work's mostly done for tonight, thank God. People've already started going to bed.
MOLLY
I'll come with you. Tavia can handle things here. I want to see Mike.
URSULA
No. Not with Ralphie here and a maybe dangerous prisoner down there.
MOLLY
You've got a kid to think about, too. Sally's here.
URSULA
It's Sally's Dad I'm worried about, not Ralphie's. As for Tavia Godsoe ... I'd never say this to her face because I love her, but she's got old maid's disease she worships her brother. If she gets the idea anything happened to Peter . . .
MOLLY
All right. But you tell Mike I want him to set a guard however many men he needs, none of 'em's doing anything else tonight, anyway and get back here. Tell him his wife wants to see him.
URSULA I'll give him the message.
She leaves MOLLY and makes her way through the crowd around the TV, aiming for LUCIEN.
91 EXTERIOR: ANGLE ON THE SUPPLY SHED NIGHT.
CAT is still looking at her hands, but now a kind of comprehension is starting to dawn in her eyes. She looks from the bloody cane to her
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bloody gloves . . . back to the cane . . . back to the gloves ... up into the storm. Then she opens her mouth as wide as it can go, and SHRIEKS.
92 INTERIOR: THE TOWN HALL KITCHEN NIGHT.
JOANNA, who is washing pots in the sink and happens to be closest to the back door, looks up, frowning. The others continue on with their work.
JOANNA
Did you hear something?
CORA
Just the wind.
JOANNA
It sounded like a scream.
CORA
(exaggerated patience) That's how the wind sounds tonight, deah.
JOANNA, who is just about fed up with her mother-in-law, looks at MRS. KINGSBURY.
JOANNA
Did that girl from the market come back in? She didn't, did she?
MRS. KINGSBURY
No, not this way
CORA
I imagine they had things to discuss, Joanna.
A sly look. Accompanying it, probably the dirtiest gesture we can get away with on network TV (or maybe it's too dirty): the old lady makes a loose fist, then taps the forefinger of her other hand around the edge of the hole, smiling as she does so.
JOANNA looks at this with distaste, then grabs a parka from the coat tree in the corner. It's too big, but she zips it up.
180 STEPHEN KING
CORA
My mother always said, "Peep not at a keyhole, lest ye be vexed."
JOANNA
It sounded like a scream.
CORA I find that ridiculous.
JOANNA
Shut up. Mother.
CORA is stunned. MRS. KINGSBURY is surprised, but also pleased clearly restraining an impulse to yell, "You go, girl!" JOANNA, who knows a good exit line when she says one, flips up the fur-lined hood of the parka and slips out the back door into the HOWLING DARK.
93 INTERIOR: RESUME TOWN HALL BASEMENT, WITH MOLLY.
She watches URSULA speak to LUCIEN, who stops twiddling the rabbit ears and listens intently. On the snowy TV screen, we see a map of Maine. Most has been colored in red, with the words "SNOW EMERGENCY" displayed in big white letters. Also "3 TO 5 !!!FEET!!! + DRIFTING, BLOWING SNOW." During this:
WEATHER GUY
If you are in an outlying area, you are advised to stay where you are even if you have lost power and have no heat. Tonight shelter is your prime necessity. If you are in a sheltered place, do not leave it. Keep warm, bundle up, share your food, and share your strength. If there was ever a night for good neighbors, this is it. There is a state of snow emergency in central and coastal Maine tonight repeat, there is a state of snow emergency on the coast and in the central regions of the state.
JOHNNY HARRIMAN and JONAS STANHOPE come downstairs, bearing big trays of cake and cookies. Behind them comes ANNIE HUSTON, with her arms wrapped around the shiny steel belly of an
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industrial-sized coffee urn. MOLLY, still very worried, stands aside to let them pass. She's intently watching URSULA'S conversation with LUCIEN.
JOHNNY
Everything