Elle Page #6

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She ducks back behind the wall, peeks out cautiously... andnow sees the injured BIRD that collided into the glasstwitching on the patio. Thoroughly creeped-out, Michelle putsdown her hatchet and fetches a broom. She opens the slidingdoor, flicks the dying bird onto the grass, then quicklyshuts it again as if afraid it were going to try to get in.

39 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER 39

Michelle lights a cigarette. A moment later, she’s drawn backto the sliding glass door. To her horror, she sees that thebird is still alive and about to be devoured by Marty who issadistically toying with it. Michelle rushes out with thebroom to shoo the cat away.

40 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE -- LATER 40

Michelle holds the bird, swaddled in a towel, as she talks on

the phone with a VET.

MICHELLE (INTO PHONE)

I understand you can’t make a

prognosis over the phone. I was

just exploring whether, in fact,

treating birds was something that

was possible.

VET (O.S.)

We’re talking about a wild bird?

MICHELLE (INTO PHONE)

Yes. An ordinary brown bird.

VET (O.S.)

Like a sparrow?

MICHELLE (INTO PHONE)

Sparrows are pretty, aren’t they?

VET (O.S.)

Well, that’s subjective.

MICHELLE (INTO PHONE)

Is it?

VET (O.S.)

Honestly, ma’am, I wouldn’t even

know how to intubate a sparrow- or

whatever it is.

31.

Michelle mms. She looks at the bird, very still in her arms,

but breathing rhythmically.

MICHELLE (INTO PHONE)

Do sleeping pills work on birds?

41 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE - KITCHEN -- EVENING 41

Michelle grinds up sleeping pills and mixes them in a cupwith some Chia seeds.

42 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE - DEN -- NIGHT 42

Michelle watches TV. The bird, in its towel-swaddling, restsin her lap. She absently strokes its head with her thumb. Asshe scrolls through channels, something on her cable guidecatches her off-guard. Bloodline: the Legave Street Murders.

Michelle’s remote hand stays tensely suspended in mid-air amoment before she presses “OK”.

A TV documentary: faded footage of an improbably long line ofbody bags on a suburban sidewalk, what looks like a swastikascrawled in blood on a door.

NARRATOR (O.S.)

...little knowing the horror that

unfolded, or the questions that

they would be left to answer...

Michelle braces for the next image: a SLOW ZOOM-IN on an oldphoto of a nondescript, balding man with his arm around awoman- who is clearly a younger version of Michelle’s mother.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

What would drive George Leblanc,

successful entrepreneur, aldermanat his local church, loving husbandand father, to commit such horrific

and senseless acts...

The zoom PANS DOWN to the CHILD in Irene’s lap. 10-YEAR-OLDMICHELLE.

NARRATOR (CONT’D)

A single night of madness thatwould forever haunt those closest

to him....

They cut to a much more recent Michelle - recognizable asherself but less fashionable - being attacked byPHOTOGRAPHERS in a parking lot...

32.

REPORTER (ON TV)

Have you talked to your father?

She strikes the cameraman.

NARRATOR (O.S.)

Decades of court proceedings andpsychiatric interviews have shedbut dim light on the events...

Michelle dials down the volume but keeps the picture on asthe image DISSOLVES to another photo of herself as a child.

In it, she’s standing in front of a suburban house, lit bythe flash of a news camera, looking lost, covered in ash likea Dickensian chimney-sweep.

As the documentary cuts to footage of some kind of memorial -

children tying red ribbons to the mail boxes of houses -

Michelle finally turns it off. When she looks down, she seesthat the bird in her lap is dead.

43 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE - PANTRY -- MOMENTS LATER 43

Michelle carefully places the dead bird in a shoe box.

44 EXT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE -- NIGHT 44

Michelle takes the shoe box out to the trash cans. There are

more Xmas lights now, filling the street with gaudy color. Asshe closes the lid of the can, from across the street-

PATRICK:

We have to stop meeting like this.

Patrick is dragging his own trash can out to the curb.

Michelle, not wanting to get dragged into a corny runningjoke with the neighbor, gives a polite chuckle. Waves.

Heading back into the house, Michelle notices a CAR glidingdown this quiet street. It’s unfamiliar to her, from the wayshe watches it pass. Just before Michelle reaches her frontdoor, she sees the strange car very suspiciously turn off itslights and make a U-turn. Before parking in the dark acrossthe street.

45 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE -- CONTINUOUS 45

Michelle locks and bolts the door behind her. She hurries to

the living room window. Whoever is in the car is just sittingthere in the dark.

33.

46 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE - LIVING ROOM - LATER 46

Michelle sits with her hatchet and her pepper spray, as ifwaiting for a showdown. Nothing happens and nothing continuesto happen. She can’t take it anymore. She goes to the window.

That suspicious car is still there. A cigarette’s glow waxand wanes behind the steering wheel.

47 EXT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE -- MOMENTS LATER 47

Michelle comes out the side door with a flashlight (notturned on) and the pepper spray. She hugs the side of thehouse, moving like a spy. She darts to the cover of a treeand, from there, across the street. Keeping to the shadows,

bent low, she sneaks up on the stranger’s vehicle.

She hesitates one second, then rises up and charges. Shebreaks the driver’s side window with the flashlight andsprays directly into the face of the Mystery Man.

The car door opens and the occupant tumbles out, coughing andgagging. Michelle now turns on the flashlight andilluminates Richard, moaning on the asphalt of the street.

48 INT. MICHELLE’S HOUSE -- NIGHT 48

Michelle has Richard bent over the sink as she runs water to

rinse his eyes of the pepper spray.

MICHELLE:

What were you thinking?

RICHARD:

I was worried about you! What do

you think? ...Jesus!

MICHELLE:

Don’t rub them.

She turns off the water, daubs his eyes with a rag.

RICHARD:

You tell me you were raped and you

didn’t go to the police? Of course

I’m going to... My God, Jesus, you

really did a number on me...

MICHELLE:

I’m sorry... Here, let me put some

of this on.

34.

She puts Vaseline on the rag, starts applying it to his eyes.

RICHARD:

Is that gonna help? Do you knowwhat you’re doing?

MICHELLE:

It’s on the pepper spray label. Itsays to do this in case of contactwith eyes...

RICHARD:

You know I’ve always had a morbidfear of going blind!

MICHELLE:

You’re fine. I didn’t recognize thecar! Whose car is that anyway?

RICHARD:

(hesitant)

It’s a friend’s.

MICHELLE:

(stops nursing, wary)

A friend’s.

Even blinded, Richard sees there’s no avoiding it-

RICHARD:

Her name’s H.l.ne.

MICHELLE:

H.l.ne?

RICHARD:

I had to borrow her car. Mine’s in

the shop. Somebody dented thebumper.

MICHELLE:

That dent was barely visible.

That comes out somehow resounding with despair.

RICHARD:

She’s a friend, Michelle.

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