ANDERSON.
I
366 STEPHEN KING
THE CAMERA MOVES IN ON HIS NAME.
156 INTERIOR: THE COUNSELOR'S OFFICE MORNING.
MOLLY has stopped talking and just looks out the window. Fresh tears well in her eyes and spill down her cheeks, but her weeping REMAINS SILENT.
COUNSELOR Molly . . . ?
265
MOLLY
He wandered away into the whiteout. Maybe he wound up with Bill Timmons, the gas station man. I like to think so; that he was with somebody at the end. They must have lost their bearings completely and gone into the water. They were the two who were never found.
COUNSELOR
There's a great deal of this story you haven't told me, isn't there?
(silence from MOLLY) Until you do, until you tell someone, it will keep festering.
MOLLY
It will fester no matter what I do. Some wounds can never be cleaned out. I didn't understand that . . . before . . . but now I do.
COUNSELOR
Why does your husband hate you so, Molly? What really happened to Ralphie?
CAMERA MOVES IN ON MOLLY. She is still looking out the window. It's sunny in the COUNSELOR'S yard; the grass is green and there are flowers . . . but it's SNOWING. The snow falls thickly, coating the grass and the walks, heaping on the leafy branches of the trees.
We MOVE IN ON MOLLY, MOVE IN TO EXTREME CLOSE-UP as she looks out on the falling snow.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 367
MOLLY
He wandered away. People do, you know. They get lost. That's what happened to Ralphie. He was lost in the white-out. He was lost in the storm.
DISSOLVE TO:
157 EXTERIOR: THE FERRY MORNING.
It's trudging its way across the reach to Machias. The cars are parked on the apron at the back, MIKE'S among them. MIKE himself stands alone at the rail, his face up, the ocean breeze blowing his hair back from his forehead. He looks almost at peace.
MIKE (voice-over)
Nine years ago, that was. I just gassed my car and left on the 11:10 ferry. I've never been back.
DISSOLVE TO:
158 INTERIOR: THE COUNSELOR'S OFFICE MORNING.
MOLLY'S session is over. The clock on the wall reads 11:55. She stands at the COUNSELOR'S
desk, writing a check. The COUNSELOR looks at her with a troubled expression, knowing that she has lost, and once again the island has won. The secret whatever it is has been kept.
Neither of them see MIKE'S little white car go by.
MIKE (voice-over) I didn't think about where I was going, at first I just drove.
159 EXTERIOR: MIKE, THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD OF HIS CAR SUNSET.
He's wearing dark glasses against the BRIGHT ORANGE GLOW. Reflected in each lens is a SETTING SUN.
266
MIKE (voice-over)
All I cared about was that I had to wear sunglasses every night when the sun went down. That every mile on the odometer was a mile further away from Little Tall.
160 EXTERIOR: THE AMERICAN DESERT MIDDAY.
Two-lane blacktop runs through the middle of the frame. The white car enters, moving fast, and THE CAMERA SWINGS TO FOLLOW.
368 STEPHEN KING
MIKE (voice-over)
The divorce was no-fault. Moll got the bank accounts, the insurance, the store, the house, and a little piece of land we had in Vanceboro. I got the Toyota and the peace of mind, (pause) What was left of it.
161 EXTERIOR: THE GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE TWILIGHT.
MIKE (voice-over)
I wound up here . . . back on the water again. Ironic I guess, huh? But it's different, somehow, the Pacific. It doesn't have that hard glow when the days start to run down toward winter, (pause) And it doesn't have the same memories.
162 EXTERIOR: A SKYSCRAPER ON MONTGOMERY STREET, SAN FRANCISCO DAY.
MIKE comes out an older MIKE, with gray at his temples and lines on his face but one who looks as if he's made his peace with the world. Or found some. He wears a suit (casual, no tie) and carries a briefcase. He and the man with him walk to a sedan parked at the curb. It pulls out into traffic, swinging around a cable car. Over this, MIKE talks.
MIKE (voice-over)
I went back to school, got a degree in law enforcement and another one in accountancy. Thought about going after a law degree . . . and then thought again. Started out keeping store on an island off the Maine coast and wound up a federal marshal. How do you like that?
163 EXTERIOR: MIKE, THROUGH THE WINDSHIELD DAY. JL
His partner is driving. MIKE sits quietly in the shotgun seat, his eyes distant. It's the look of a man visiting along memory lane.
MIKE (voice-over)
Sometimes the island seems very far away, and Andre Linoge just a bad dream I had. Sometimes
. . . when I wake up late at night, trying not to scream ... it seems very close. And, as I said way back at the beginning, I keep in touch.
STORM OF THE CENTURY 369
164 EXTERIOR: THE LITTLE TALL GRAVEYARD DAY.
MOURNERS move between the gravestones toward a newly dug grave, bearing a coffin (we see this from the middle distance). Fall leaves rush past in RATTLING BURSTS OF COLOR.
