LINDA ST. PIERRE is with HEIDI. The attention of all the parents is not on their sleeping children, however, but on ROBBIE, the self-appointed moderator . . . and on their fellow ISLANDERS, who will decide the fate of their children.
Making a tremendous effort to get his act together, ROBBIE looks beneath the podium and brings out a GAVEL old and heavy, a relic that has been handed down from the seventeenth century.
ROBBIE looks at it for a moment as if he's never seen it before, then brings it down with a HARD
BANGING SOUND. Several people jump.
ROBBIE
I call the meeting to order. I think it'll be best if we deal with this matter the way we would any other piece of town business. After all, that's what it is, isn't it? Town business?
SILENCE and strained faces greet this. MIKE looks as if he would like to respond, but doesn't.
MOLLY continues to look at her husband ANXIOUSLY and to caress his hand, which is tightly (painfully, one would think) enfolding hers.
ROBBIE
Any objection to that?
SILENCE. ROBBIE brings the gavel down again WHACK! and once again, people jump. Not the KIDS, though. They are deeply asleep again. Or comatose.
ROBBIE
The item on the floor is whether or not to give this . . . this thing that's come among us ... one of our children. He says he'll go away if we give him what he wants, and kill us all the kids included if we don't. Have I stated it fairly?
SILENCE.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 331
ROBBIE
All right. How say you then, Little Tall? Will you speak of this?
SILENCE. Then CAL FREESE gets slowly to his feet. He looks around at his fellow ISLANDERS.
CAL
I don't see what choice we have, if we believe he can do what he says he can do.
ROBERTA COIGN
243
Do you believe him?
CAL
First thing I asked myself. And . . . ayuh, I do. I've seen enough to convince me. I think we either give him what he wants or he'll take everything we have . . . includin' our kids.
CAL sits down.
ROBBIE
Roberta Coign's got a good point, though. How many of you think Linoge is telling the truth? That he can and will wipe out everyone on the island, if we go against him?
SILENCE. They all believe it, but no one wants to be first to hoist his or her hand.
DELLA BISSONETTE
We all had the same dream . . . and they weren't regular dreams. I know that. We all know that.
He's given us fair warning.
She raises her hand.
BURT SOAMES There's nothin' fair about it, but
One of BURT'S arms is in a makeshift sling, but he raises his unhurt one in the air. Others follow suit, at first just a few, then more, then almost all of them. HATCH and MOLLY are among the last to raise
332 STEPHEN KING
their hands. Only MIKE sits grimly where he is, keeping the hand MOLLY'S not holding in his lap.
MOLLY (low, to MIKE)
It's not a question of what we're going to do, Mike . . . not yet. It's just whether or not we believe
MIKE
I know what the question is. And once we start down this road, every step gets easier. I know that, too.
ROBBIE
(lowering his own hand)
All right, I guess we believe him. That's one issue out of the way. Now, if there's any discussion of the main question
MIKE
(to his feet) I have something to say.
ROBBIE That's fine. You're a taxpayer, sure enough. Have on.
MIKE walks slowly up the stairs to the stage. MOLLY watches apprehensively. MIKE doesn't bother with the podium; he simply turns to his fellow ISLANDERS. We take several beats to FOCUS
and build tension as he thinks about how to begin.
MIKE
No, he's not a man. I didn't vote, but I agree with that, just the same. I've seen what he did to 244
Martha Clarendon, what he did to Peter Godsoe, what he's done to our kids and I don't believe he's a man. I had the same dreams that you had, and I understand the reality of what he's threatening as well as you do. Better, maybe I'm your constable, the man you elected to enforce your laws.
But . . . folks . . . we don't give our kids away to thugs. Do you understand that? We don't give away our children!
At the back of the room, where the children are, ANDY ROBICHAUX steps forward.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 333
ANDY
What's the choice, then? What do we do? What can we do?
A DEEP MURMUR OF AGREEMENT greets this, and MIKE is troubled, we can see that. Because the only answer he has makes no sense. It has only the virtue of being right.
MIKE
Stand against him, side by side and shoulder to shoulder. Tell him no in one voice. Do what it says on the door we use to get in here trust in God and each other. And then . . . maybe ... he goes away. The way storms always do, when they've blown themselves out.
ORV BOUCHER
