A Nightmare on Elm Street Page #15

NANCY:

I swear...

Suddenly NANCY feels utterly exposed. She shivers, chilled and

vulnerable to the bone in her thin night clothes. She can't

move. It's as if some great nerve between her instincts and body

had been severed. And she hears the SOUND behind her. A sort of

filling-vibrating Scrriiitchh.

MUSIC sneaks in -- the unmistakeable NIGHTMARE THEME, creeping

over her. NANCY forces herself, by sheer will, to look.

90. Ahead of her perhaps twenty-five feet, covered with a thick 90.

plastic body bag through which we can barely see her face, is

TINA. Standing square in the middle of the street. A dark ooze

of BLACK EELS roil out of its bottom, and at its top, the zipper

CHATTERS down and the greenish-white face of TINA lolls out. She

gestures, supplicating, her watery eyes desperate to convey some

desperate message.

The MUSIC FALLS TO A HUSH.

91. NANCY backs away, eyes streaming tears. 91.

NANCY:

Glen, where are you! Wake up!

Glen!

DEEP RAGGED VOICE

I'm here.

NANCY twists around in horror at the same instant the KILLER

grabs for her face with his knife-fingers! The girl

intinctively pitches back, then scrambles up and runs like

hell!

NANCY:

Glen! Glen!!!

92. EXT. ELM STREET. NIGHT. 92.

MOVING WITH NANCY at full gallop, running blind. She crashes

through a sawhorse into a new sidewalk, sinking into the wet

cement over her ankles. The stuff sticks to her legs in long

gluey globs and she can barely pull her feet loose.

The KILLER looms nearby,

mocking her -- his scalpel claws gleaming in the streetlight. He

just misses the girl as she wrenches free and flees again, now so

winded she can only stagger.

MOVING WITH THEM. Time after time NANCY just barely manages to

elude the shadowy form, leaping from his reach by inches and

pouring on more steam. It's too close to even bother screaming

now; and besides, that would take breath she doesn't have. The

only SOUND is of RUNNING FOOTSTEPS, RASPING BREATH and the

KNIFE-FINGERS WHISTLING through the air.

93. EXT. NANCY'S HOME. NIGHT. 93.

NANCY tears across her front lawn and into the open front door of

her home, SLAMMING it with all her might. There's a tremendously

satisfying CONCUSSION of wood against doorframe, and the LOCKS

fall shut.

94. INT. NANCY'S LIVING ROOM. NIGHT. 94.

NANCY:

Glennn!!!

But her voice is garbled as if she's under water, and there's no

answer. The only clue to Glen being there at all is his distant

SNORING. Innocent. Persistent. Deep.

NANCY stops, breath in shreds, face smeared with dirt and tears.

Something is clawing the window in the dark of the kitchen.

NANCY looks and catches the MAN prying at the glass with his big

knife-fingers, the sharp blades SIZZLING against the edges of the

glass as they crack it away from the frame. NANCY runs upstairs

in blind panic.

95. INT. NANCY'S ROOM. NIGHT. 95.

NANCY darts into her unlit bedroom, slams the door and locks it.

Safe at last.

She listens at the door. Nothing. She crosses to her bed. Next

second the KILLER dives through her window and seizes her in a

shower of shattered glass!

NANCY twists and manages to grab the wrist of his knife hand with

both of hers, barely keeping the blades from her throat.

The two fall backwards in a terrible, gasping struggle, crashing

onto NANCY's bed. Her grip is broken -- the MAN stabs -- NANCY

twists away, backed into a corner of bed and walls. Defenseless,

she snatches a pillow up; the KILLER lashes out -- disemboweling

the pilow and sending a great gush of feathers flying. NANCY

dives for escape in a virtual blizzard.

The KILLER manages to snare her with his other hand, and the two

crash across the bedside table to the floor, the table and all

its contents cascading around them in a whiteout of feathers.

ANGLE AT FLOOR LEVEL -- CLOSE ON NANCY'S AND THE KILLER'S HEADS.

The blades inch towards the girl's face -- the drool of the

grizzled shadow with the horribly scarrred face spills into her

eyes. Feathers are everywhere; MUSIC is absolutely insane!

But just when the points of steel are less than an inch from her

eyes, the old fashioned alarm clock thrown to the floor next to

NANCY's head goes off with a jarring RINGGGGGGG!

96. Instantly the MUSIC STOPS. And a moment later the room is 96.

light.

WIDER as NANCY reels up, blinded by the sudden light, SCREAMING

AND FIGHTING on her bed.

ANGLE ON GLEN, lurching from his own sleep at the frightening

noise. He discovers NANCY pressed in terror against her

headboard, clutching a pillow like a drowning woman would a

straw.

It's an intact pillow, and there isn't a feather in sight.

NANCY stares incredulously at GLEN, then around the room,

untangling herself from her bedclothes. Wary and furious, her

voice hoarse.

NANCY:

Glen, you bastard...

The boy looks at his friend in groggy alarm. She's absolutely

livid, more angry than he's ever seen her, and more strange.

GLEN:

What I do?

He reaches for her -- she flattens against the wall, eyes hard,

and terribly hurt, too.

NANCY:

(low)

I asked you to do just one thing.

Just stay awake and watch me --

Just wake me if it looked like

I was having a bad dream.

(eyes wild)

But you. You sh*t -- what do

you do -- you fall asleep!

She stops herself, wiping a bit of spittle off her lip, alarmed

at how out of control she's become. And suddenly she breaks,

sinking into her torn bedclothes and rubbing her head.

NANCY (CONTD)

(mostly to herself)

I must be going nuts...

MARGE (OS)

Nancy?

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