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 151
'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
STORM OF THE CENTURY 181
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 all right, Molly Anderson?
MOLLY
Fine. Just fine.
JONAS STANHOPE
This is gonna be one to tell your grandchildren about.
MOLLY
It already is.
94 EXTERIOR: BETWEEN THE BACK OF THE TOWN HALL AND THE SHED
NIGHT.
Here comes JOANNA, struggling along. The parka she grabbed flaps around her like a sail, and the hood keeps flying back. At last, however, she approaches the supply shed. The door is still open, but CAT is no longer standing in it.
Still, JOANNA stops perhaps six feet outside the door. Something is wrong here, and like URSULA, she feels it.
JOANNA Katrina? Cat?
Nothing. She comes forward another two steps, into the hard, flickery light thrown by the gas lamp. She looks down at:
95 EXTERIOR: THE SNOW OUTSIDE THE DOOR, FROM JOANNA'S POINT OF VIEW NIGHT.
Most of the evidence has either been blown away or covered over by the SHRIEKING WIND, but there is still some PINKISH STAIN where CAT dropped LINOGE'S cane, although the cane itself is gone. And, beyond it, is a BRIGHTER STAIN on the shed's doorsill, where CAT stood.
182 STEPHEN KING
96 EXTERIOR: RESUME JOANNA NIGHT.
JOANNA
152
Cat. . . ?
She would like to go back now it's scary out here in the blizzard but she's come too far. She steps very slowly toward the shed door, holding the parka's hood pinched shut at the base of her throat like an old woman's shawl.
