Chasing Sleep Page #15

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Ed walks slowly upstairs. The noises around him in the basement are now at their loudest.

INT. BATHROOM

Ed takes a long look at himself in the mirror. He is wet with blood and dirt. He opens the medicine cabinet and finds the sleeping pills he was using before. He opens the bottle and empties it into his hand. There are only about five pills left.

He takes the two toothbrushes from a toothpaste-crusty glass and fills it with water. He takes the pills.

Unsatisfied, he searches through the rest of the medicine cabinet. The selection, though not particularly toxic, is a good representation of standard, over-the-counter pills and tonics. He finds the Midol and takes the last few from the bottle. There is a bottle of cold medicine which he finishes off. He drinks down a nearly full bottle of pink diarrhea medicine. He finds a bottle of multi-vitamins and takes a handful of those. As he finishes each one, he drops the empties onto the floor of the bathroom.

When he stops, he notices blood seeping out of the bathtub drain. It is pure, thick, dark blood. He backs away into the hallway.

INT. HALLWAY

Ed backs into the wall and then, losing strength in his legs, lowers himself to the floor. He keeps watching the bathtub.

Piano music starts to seep through the gurgling noises. Ed turns towards Eve's room.

On the other side of the house, outside the broken door, Ed can hear Derm's car pull up. Ed watches the living room as Derm comes in carefully, flanked by Mazurek and Snyder.

Derm comes over to Ed and kneels down in front of him. Ed looks up at him helplessly.

ED:

It wasn't me.

Derm looks at Ed's hands, which are covered in blood.

ED:

It wasn't me.

Ed watches Derm looking at him. Then he notices, behind Derm, blood seeping over the rim of the bathtub.

Ed turns to Eve's room, where the piano can still be heard.

The camera continues on where Ed can't go: down the hallway to Eve's room. As it approaches, all the other noises fade out and the piano is all that we hear.

Ed watches from his position in the hall so that it all seems like his point of view.

INT. EVE'S ROOM

The camera comes into Eve's room and turns to the piano.

EVE is sitting at the piano, playing some music. We watch her for a few seconds. She turns to the camera as she plays, then continues playing.

Then the camera turns toward the clouds painted on the ceiling. A crack appears in the plaster and starts widening until there is an empty black space behind it. The sound of the baby crying seeps in from the crack. The camera zeroes in on this black until it fills the frame. Over the blackness, we can hear the baby crying until it fades out.

THE END:

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