Bird Box Page #3

In the adjacent car, Young Man with his panicked Girlfriend

does that:
he looks at cross traffic, and runs the red light.

Other traffic screeches and veers, HONKING.

MALORIE (CONT’D)

Jess-

JESSICA:

I’m not doing anything stupid.

You’re pregnant.

The light turns green a moment later.

Jessica mashes the gas.

EXT. SUBURBAN NEIGHBORHOOD - DAY

Upper middle class. Not mansions, but trying.

Jessica’s car navigates the streets amid sparse traffic.

The clouds are the color of fresh bruises. Distant thunder.

INT. JESSICA’S CAR

Jessica and Malorie take the ride in silence. Tense. Malorie

fidgets nervously.

MALORIE:

Where is all the traffic?

JESSICA:

Okay you need to cool it because

you’re starting to freak me out

now, okay? And we can’t both be

freaking out.

14.

MALORIE:

Sorry.

A phone RINGS. Malorie looks down at her phone in her lap.

JESSICA:

Is it Dad?

MALORIE:

It’s not my phone-

JESSICA:

In back, in my purse-

It RINGS again. Malorie reaches back, into Jessica’s purse-She

opens the bag and digs for the phone as it RINGS-

Bent over, head down, Malorie finds the phone just as the

call screen switches to MISSED CALL and-

JESSICA (O.S.) (CONT’D)

OH MY GOD what was that, did you

see that what was it?

Malorie brings the phone up front, frowning-

MALORIE:

See what?

Jessica’s body language and posture changes.

Her muscles are rigid. Hands wringing the wheel.

And her eyes flit constantly. Her voice cracks-

JESSICA:

Back there I mean what I saw--

Malorie presses the RETURN CALL on the phone and puts it to

her ear while talking to Jessica-

MALORIE:

Okay, calm down, hey-

JESSICA:

What I saw it was, it was--

Malorie looks back as she listens to RING on the other end of

the line-

MALORIE’S POV:

A slight hill in the road prevents her from seeing anything

past the SUV half a block back, but it swerves violently-

15.

JESSICA (CONT’D)

I don’t care now I don’t care

anymore-

And now the phone is RINGING in Malorie’s ear and a seat belt

alarm is BEEPING and somewhere a truck’s HORN is honking the

engine REVS as Jessica picks up speed all the while looking

right at Malorie-

JESSICA (CONT’D)

We’re all going to die.

MALORIE:

Jess, what--

Malorie sees it a fraction before it happens:

Jessica has steered into oncoming traffic.

EXT. SUBURBAN STREET

A pickup truck SMASHES into the left front bumper-BOTH

VEHICLES crumple at the hood in an eruption of plastic,

metal, glass, and shredded rubber--

Airbags deploy like white mushroom clouds-Jessica’s

car spins away, momentum carrying it back to the

curb as the pickup limps into a parked car-And

then after the screech and crunch and terror:

Stillness. The car’s engine has died.

INT. JESSICA’S CAR

Malorie’s airbag deflates, revealing a breathless Malorie

dusted in white safety powder, trying to get her bearings.

She instinctively puts her hands to her belly.

Her seatbelt and the airbag saved them.

A hiss of air deflating nearby draws her attention to:

Jessica. Pushing her airbag out of the way. Only one arm is

working for her. The other one is bleeding profusely. A cut

over her forehead has bathed her face in blood.

MALORIE:

Oh my god... Jess...

16.

Jessica looks at her with the eyes of a feral creature.

She turns the ignition to start the car again. Her mouth

moves as if she’s speaking, but it’s soft as a prayer.

Malorie is in pure shock, and terrified by her sister.

She unbuckles the seatbelt and opens her car door to escape-And

Jessica grapples Malorie’s wrist, croaking a warning:

JESSICA:

You stay in.

Malorie struggles to break free-MALORIE

Let go, Jess, let go-And

wrenches away from her and out of the car.

EXT. SUBURBAN STREET

Malorie stumbles away to the sidewalk and looks back at

Jessica in shock.

MALORIE:

What is wrong with you?!

JESSICA:

GET BACK IN GET BACK IN GET-

And the SUV from down the block COLLIDES with the back of the

car, WIPING Jessica and the vehicle out of frame like a

runaway locomotive.

Malorie flinches in surprise.

But it doesn’t stop. Another CAR accelerates from down the

street, veering toward Malorie like a missile.

Malorie turns and starts to run.

Her inner ear still rings from the crash. She can’t move fast

at six months pregnant.

For six utterly agonizing seconds, she moves for a tree while

the car barrels down behind her, popping the curb at fifty

miles per hour, the driver LAUGHING at the wheel--

Malorie ducks behind the tree trunk JUST AS the car collides

with it behind her-

17.

The front end WRAPPING around the trunk on either side of her

in a shuddering impact-

And the tree rains down a few hundred leaves on her in a

terrible aftershock to the one-note cry of the stuck HORN.

Malorie takes her hands down from her head, still holding her

breath.

The horn blares, mingling with the ringing in her ear.

Shell-shocked, she gets up and starts walking.

Anywhere. Away from the wreckage both behind her and on the

street, where her sister’s body is surely mangled inside.

Her hands shake involuntarily. She can’t quite breathe.

FOLLOWING with Malorie, that war with terror and anxiety

playing out on her face again.

A hand reaches for her, out of frame, touching her shoulder.

Malorie SCREAMS-

It’s a tall, sturdy-looking MAN who shows her his hands in a

gesture of peace. His name is TOM (late 30s, blue-collar

countenance, gentle eyes).

TOM:

Hey, hey. It’s okay.

(beat)

But we need to get inside.

MALORIE:

My sister-

TOM:

Right now.

He holds out his hand. Malorie takes it.

And they start to run.

AHEAD:
Another pack of people caught outside at the moment

also start to run, searching for a destination.

A surly MAN with a pedometer is among them. This Man is

DONALD (mid-40s, former hipster). Donald is the perpetual

critic who needs to be the smartest man in the room.

DONALD:

Don’t look back! Just keep facing

this way! Listen to me!

18.

An Hispanic woman (LUCY, 20s, athletic clothes) crosses the

street ahead of Donald on a similar mission to find shelter.

Then we see where she’s going-

Three houses ahead, a well-dressed, middle-aged WOMAN (LYDIA)

gestures at them from her driveway.

LYDIA:

Hurry! It’s not safe out here!

Lucy is the first to her front door, where she meets Lydia’s

husband GREG (50s, worry lines on his face) in the threshold.

She steps in just as Donald gets there and tells Greg:

DONALD:

Pull the curtains. Now.

Greg and Donald go inside--

Malorie moves as fast as she can at six months pregnant. Her

focus is on Lydia.

Lydia keeps stepping farther down the driveway as she ushers

people into her house, looking past Malorie, trying to shout

over the din of the stuck horn.

Then, Lydia’s body language changes.

Her posture gets rigid. She trembles as if struck by sudden

illness. Her eyes widen.

And her voice stops making words, and instead begins uttering

a sound out of tune from the blaring horn.

Lydia takes two steps and then runs directly into the street-Just

as a speeding CAR drives past and RAMS into Lydia,

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