part in a grin, revealing teeth that are really FANGS.
TV REPORTER
Catch!
216 INTERIOR: RESUME DAVEY, IN THE TOWN HALL BASEMENT NIGHT.
Moaning, he turns back the other way. His hands come up briefly, as if to ward off the basketball.
DAVEY No ... no ...
217 INTERIOR: THE TV AREA OF THE BASEMENT, FEATURING MIKE NIGHT.
His head is dropped and limp, but his eyeballs are moving behind his closed lids, and like the others, he is DREAMING.
232 STEPHEN KING
PREACHER (voice)
Be sure that your sin will find you out, and that your secrets will be known. All secrets will be known . . .
218 INTERIOR: PREACHER ON SNOWY TV, CLOSE-UP.
Yes, now we see it; the TV PREACHER is LINOGE, too.
PREACHER
(continues)
. . . can you say "hallelujah"? Oh, brethern, can you say "amen"? For I ask you to behold the sting of sin and the price of vice; I ask you to behold the just end of those who bar the door to the wandering stranger who comes, asking so little.
THE CAMERA MOVES IN on the SNOWY TV. THE PREACHER melts into DARKNESS ... but a snowy DARKNESS, because the wind has blown down the town hall antenna and there's no good reception. Only now a PICTURE starts to appear, anyway. The snow is real snow now, snow that's a part of the Storm of the Century, and PEOPLE are moving in it a dark snake-dance line of PEOPLE floundering their slow way down Atlantic Street Hill.
219 INTERIOR: ATLANTIC STREET, CLOSER NIGHT.
PREACHER (voice-over) For the wages of lust are dust, and the wages of sin are death.
Passing us is a nightmare procession of DAZED, HYPNOTIZED ISLANDERS in their nightclothes, oblivious of the HOWLING WIND and SHEETING SNOW. We see ANGELA with little BUSTER in her arms; followed by MOLLY, in her nightgown and carrying RALPHIE; followed by GEORGE KIRBY . . . FERD ANDREWS . . . ROBERTA COIGN . . . well, you get it. They're all here. And tattooed on each forehead is that strange and ominous word: CROATON.
PREACHER (voice-over)
For if the supplicant is turned away and the seeker given no respite, shall not the hard-hearted be sent hence?
STORM OF THE CENTURY 233
220 INTERIOR: MIKE, CLOSE-UP.
MIKE
(sleeping) Hallelujah. Amen.
221 INTERIOR: THE STUMP OF THE TOWN DOCK.
They march toward THE CAMERA and their death in the frigid ocean like lemmings. We don't believe it ... and yet we do, don't we? After Jonestown and Heaven's Gate, we do.
ROBBIE
(first in line) I'm sorry we didn't give you what you wanted.
He topples off the jagged end of the dock and into the ocean.
ORV BOUCHER
(second in line) Sorry we didn't give it to you, Mr. Linoge.
He follows ROBBIE into the ocean. Next is ANGIE and BUSTER.
ANGIE CARVER I'm sorry. We both are, aren't we, Buster?
With the child in her arms, ANGELA steps from the pier. Next is MOLLY, with RALPHIE.
222 INTERIOR: RESUME MIKE, IN THE TV AREA.
He is growing steadily more restive ... as who would not, if subjected to such an awful dream as this?
MIKE No . . . no, Molly . . .
PREACHER (voice-over)
For so little is asked of you, can you say "hallelujah" . . . and yet if you harden your hearts and stop up the porches of your ears, you must pay. You must be branded as one of the ungrateful and sent hence.
234 STEPHEN KING
223 EXTERIOR: MOLLY, ON THE PIER NIGHT.
She is as hypnotized as the rest, but RALPHIE is awake and afraid.
MOLLY
We hardened our hearts. We closed our ears. And now we pay. I'm sorry, Mr. Linoge
RALPHIE
Daddy! Daddy, help!
MOLLY we should have given you what you wanted.
She goes over the edge and into the black water with RALPHIE SCREAMING in her arms.
224 INTERIOR: THE TV AREA, WITH MIKE NIGHT. He snaps awake, GASPING. Looks at the TV.
225 INTERIOR: TV, FROM MIKE'S POINT OF VIEW.
Nothing but snow. The station has either lost its tower to the storm or ceased broadcasting for the night.
226 INTERIOR: RESUME MIKE.
He sits upright, trying to get his breath back.
SONNY BRAUTIGAN
Mike?
SONNY lumbers over, looking disheveled and puffy with sleep, his hair sticking up in the back.
SONNY
Man, I just had the most awful dream . . . this reporter . . .
Now UPTON BELL joins them.
UPTON
On Main Street . . . talkin' about how everybody was gone . . .
STORM OF THE CENTURY 235 He stops. He and SONNY look at each other in mutual amazement.
SONNY
Like in this little town in Virginia, a long time ago.
MELINDA (voice)
No one knew where they went . . . and in the