A Nightmare on Elm Street Page #9

NANCY:

Nobody's gonna kill you.

He runs his hands down his face, trying to believe that. The two

study each other.

ROD:

I never touched her.

NANCY:

You were screaming like crazy.

NANCY says this without accusation, just cool observation.

ROD:

Someone else was there.

NANCY:

The door was locked from your

side.

ROD grabs her hard. His muscular body tenses.

ROD:

Don't look at me like I'm some

kind of f***ing fruitcake or

something, I'm warning you.

VOICE (O.S.)

Morning, Mr. Lane.

42. The boy jerks around. NANCY's father, his .38 leveled right at 42.

ROD's belly, eases out of the bushes.

LT THOMPSON:

Now just step away from her, son.

Like your ass depended on it.

I'm warning you.

ROD backs away, looking once at NANCY with a look of terrible

sadness. Then he dives out of the bushes and runs like hell.

THOMPSON snaps his revolver to fire -- but instinctively NANCY

jumps between --

NANCY:

No!

THOMPSON jerks his gun into the air, furious.

THOMPSON:

Jesus -- are you crazy!?

He plunges past the girl.

42A. EXT. STREET. DAY. 42A.

ROD races like a frightened animal across the lawns -- but is

soon cut off by the PLANECLOTHESMAN NANCY saw watching her before

-- and then TWO UNIFORMED POLICEMAN, who close from another

angle. The chase is short and pitifully off-balance, and ROD is

soon wrestled to the ground. Next moment one of the cops is

holding ROD'S knife into the air for THOMPSON to see. THOMPSON

looks at NANCY, as if to say 'I told you.' Background, ROD'S

SHOUTS can be heard as he's shoved into a SQUAD CAR.

ROD (O.S.)

I didn't do it -- !

(fading)

I didn't kill her, Nancy!

The car's door slams and ROD is gone. NANCY turns to her father,

livid.

NANCY:

You used me, daddy!

LT THOMPSON:

(exasperated)

What the hell you doing going to

school today, anyway -- your

mother told me you didn't even

sleep last night!

NANCY spins angrily and walks away.

LT THOMPSON:

Nancy! Hey!

But she just keeps going.

FADE TO BLACK:

43. INT. CLASSROOM. DAY. 43.

FADE UP ON an ENGLISH TEACHER and CLASS, NANCY among the kids,

trying to concentrate.

TEACHER:

According to Shakespeare, there

was something operating in Nature,

perhaps inside human nature itself,

that was rotten -- a canker, as

he put it.

The TEACHER'S eyes glance across the room. ANGLE ON NANCY;

yawning but listening.

TEACHER (CONTD)

Of course Hamlet's response to

this, and to his mother's lies,

was to continually probe and

dig -- just like the gravediggers --

always trying to get beneath the

surface. The same was true in a

different way in Julius Caesar.

Jon, go ahead...

She nods to a SURFER who's been waiting uncomfortably in front of

the class. He squints at his book and begins, the recitation a

struggle between baked and salted brain and the poetry of the

Bard.

SURFER:

(reading aloud)

Uh, In the most high and palmy

state of Rome...

WISEGUY STUDENT (O.S.)

California's the most high and

palmy state, man.

The SURFER halts with a grin; KIDS snicker.

ENGLISH TEACHER:

Can it.

She glares them back into silence. The SURFER starts over, as we

CUT TO NANCY.

She's nodding off now, barely able to keep her eyes open in the

warm, close boredom of the classroom.

SURFER (O.S.)

In the most high and palmy state

of Rome, a little ere the mightiest

Julius fell...

(NANCY's head pitches

forward; she jerks it

back up, barely awake)

The graves stood tenantless, and

the sheeted dead did squeak and

gibber in the Roman street...

44. NANCY's head has sunk again, eyelids drawn as if by enormous 44.

weight. By the time her cheek's against the desk, the SURFER'S

VOICE is ECHOED and DISTANT. But another voice, TINA'S, is very

near, very much present. A sad, thin plaint.

TINA (O.S.)

Nancy.

NANCY gives a start. Her eyes lock onto something.

45. REVERSE. TILTED SIDEWAYS, IN HER HEAD'S POV, we look straight 45.

out through the open doorway of the classroom into the hall.

There, standing in a black pool of fluid, is a full-sized rubber

body bag. Dark red and yellow. Weaving slightly, the merest

suggesting of movement within it.

46. BACK ON NANCY, sitting upright, wiping the sleep from her eyes, 46.

shaking her head like a punchy prozefighter. She looks back out

the door.

47. REVERSE IN 'NORMAL' POV -- the hallway is empty. But there's a 47.

dark smear on its floor tiles.

48. NANCY looks nervously towards the rest of the class. No one else 48.

has noticed a thing outside the door. All are dumbly spellbound

by the SURFER, who now recites like a deep-voiced robot, his face

wreathed by white hair.

Rate this script:3.7 / 3 votes