Storm of the Century (3 page)

I won’t argue, either pro or con, that a novel for television is the equal of a novel in a book; I will just say that, once you subtract the distractions (ads for Tampax, ads for Ford cars and trucks, local newsbreaks, and so on), I myself think that is possible. And I would remind you that the man most students of literature believe to be the greatest of English writers worked in an oral and visual medium, and not (at least primarily) in the medium of print. I’m not trying to compare myself to Shakespeare--that would be bizarre--but I think it entirely possible that he would be writing for the movies or for television as well as for Off Broadway if he were alive today. Even possibly calling up Standards and Practices at ABC to try to persuade them that the violence in Act V of Julius Caesar is necessary . . . not to mention tastefully done.

In addition to the folks at Pocket Books who undertook to publish this project, I’d like to thank Chuck Verrill, who agented the deal and served as liaison between Pocket Books and ABC-TV. At ABC I’d like to thank Bob Iger, who put such amazing trust in me; also Maura Dunbar, Judd Parkin, and Mark Pedowitz. Also the folks at Standards and Practices, who really aren’t that bad (in fact I think it would be fair to say they did one mother of a job on this). Thanks are due to Craig Baxley for taking on one of the largest film projects ever attempted for network TV; also to Mark Carliner and Tom Brodek, who put it all together. Mark, who won just about
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all the TV awards there are for Wallace, is a great guy to have on your team. I’d also like to thank my wife, Tabby, who has been so supportive over the years. As a writer herself, she understands my foolishness pretty well.

--Stephen King

Bangor, Maine 04401

July 18, 1998

OF

THE

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 Tail’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.

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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.

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 spuming against rocks and headlands .

. . and then there’s just water beneath us until we:

DISSOLVE TO:

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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.

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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:

Still . . . they say this one’s gonna be somethin’ special.

LUCIEN yanks out a lobster and holds it up.

Forgot one, Sonny.

One for the pot brings good luck.

(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.

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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.

We’ll get through her.

Ayuh, like always.

When you mind the swell, you mind the boat.

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 a secret when we have to. We kept our share back in 1989. (pause) And the people who live there keep them still.

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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.

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-

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
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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.

If we get in trouble . . . we’re in trouble.

LLOYD grins at the younger man, then turns back to his polishing.

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)

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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 wolf’s 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
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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.

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.

(continues)

--before you in all its glory. Now look down here, because here comes trouble.

She focuses her attention on the coastal storm.

(continues)

This is a very atypical storm, almost a winter hurricane--the sort of knuckle-duster that paralyzed most
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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.