House on Haunted Hill Page #17

PRICE:

-- Schecter, how is she pulling

this off!?

Schecter doesn't turn, all his attention focused on the

computer screen, his fingers stopped dead in the their tracks

upon the keys as though suddenly terrified by something.

Price looks at the computer screen. Two words typed there:

Someone Else

PRICE:

What does that mean?

Schecter stays frozen. Price is beside himself:

PRICE:

Schecter, what the hell does it mean??

He whips Schecter around in his swivel chair -- and comes

literally face-to-face with -- a Man who no longer has a

face! It's like someone took a giant melon-baller to

Schecter's head, scooping out everything -- just leaving the

rind that's the interior wall of his skull. Well, mostly

everything:
there's still bits of bloody brain pulp hanging

from the bone. Needless to say: he's dead.

Price turns away, gagging in horror -- and his eye is

caught by a flash of motion in a --

VIDEO MONITOR -- the one trained on the Main Salon

A FIGURE (VANNACUTT) DRESSED ALL IN WHITE standing by the

sideboard, looking up into the CAMERA -- a strange

stainless-steel device in his hands that looks half-

surgical saw/half-speculum. Something dark and wet dripping

from its knife-sharp edges.

PRICE:

Someone else. Not Evelyn --

Price's Eyes jump to --

VIDEO MONITOR - THE ONE TRAINED ON THE BEDROOM

-- plain as day, there's Evelyn under the covers.

Price's eyes dart back to the SALON MONITOR -- the Figure in

White is no longer there. But Price catches a flash: the door

to the corridor just swinging shut! Price jumps to his feet

and tears-ass out of the small room, screeching:

PRICE:

There's someone else in the House!

INT. CORRIDOR - MAIN FLOOR - SIMULTANEOUS

Eddie and Sara pulling with all their might on the iron grate

to one of the windows. Eddie stops.

EDDIE:

You hear somebody?

SARA:

No -- keep pulling, it's moving!

INT. BASEMENT CORRIDOR - SIMULTANEOUS

Dr. Blackburn, armed with Sara's flashlight and his medical

bag, strides with determination through the labyrinth. Then

stops when he hears a faint VOICE in the distance:

DISTANT VOICE (O.S.)

Blackburn!

Blackburn finds he's stopped right by the door to the

"Cerebral Hygiene" room.

BLACKBURN:

(suddenly nervous)

Ms. Marr...?

INT. EVELYN'S BEDROOM - SIMULTANEOUS

We see the locks on the door, deadbolt and knob-lock both,

SNAP OPEN simultaneously. Beat. In the distance, a VOICE:

DISTANT VOICE (O.S.)

Someone else -- !

The door SLAMS. WHIP-PAN to Evelyn's bed: clearly it's been

slept in -- but now it's completely empty.

INT. VANNACUTT'S STUDY - SIMULTANEOUS

Pritchett on his hands and knees going through a large

cabinet, tossing books and papers over his shoulder in a

frenzy of frustration.

DISTANT VOICE (O.S.)

-- in the House!

PRITCHETT:

(to himself)

I know, I know -- it's gotta be

here somewhere!

INT. GRAND FOYER - CONTINUOUS

Price tearing down the stairs:

PRICE:

You sonovabitch, where are you,

I saw you!!

INT. CORRIDOR - MAIN FLOOR - CONTINUOUS

Eddie and Sara drop their arms from the window, exhausted.

But there is now a space about two inches wide between IRON

GRATE and OPEN WINDOW.

SARA:

We can do it...

EDDIE:

Sure, with three days and a

blowtorch.

SARA:

It's a thousand years old -- we just

need a crowbar or something to get

leverage -- the sucker'll pop!

EDDIE:

No prob:
I'll just hop down the

hardware store --

SARA:

-- no. The basement -- the room with

all the controls to this thing: big long

iron levers just lying there --

EDDIE:

-- not a chance -- there's too much

weirdness down there I don't think even

bullets are gonna stop.

SARA:

You're starting to sound like Pritchett.

-- and then the LIGHTS zap to BLACK and Sara SHRIEKS --

INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

-- Pritchett shrieks as the LIGHTS ZAP BACK ON -- blinding --

then OFF AGAIN -- then ON --

INT. BASEMENT - CONTINUOUS

-- the lights in the wall sconces are strobing like an

epileptic's worst nightmare. The sheer schizo-psychedelia of

it all has Dr. Blackburn frozen in his tracks --

INT. BASEMENT STAIRWAY - CONTINUOUS

-- as is Price.

-- then the SOUND starts. Price is first to hear it -- it

puts an expression on his face like someone is ramming both

eardrums with icepicks over and over again:

A LOUD CRACKLING ELECTRIC SURGE -- on-again, off-again,

in direct sync with the dimming of the lights. What makes

it so especially unsettling is the noise that accompanies

each Sledgehammer Surge: a straining, strangulating CRY. A

noise like a calf would make as its throat is slit.

The light-show be damned, Price leaps down the stairs,

sprinting towards the Noise.

INT. BASEMENT CORRIDOR - CONTINUOUS

-- likewise Dr. Blackburn --

INT. HALLWAY - CONTINUOUS

-- likewise Sara and Eddie, running as fast as they can --

INT. BASEMENT GALLERY - CONTINUOUS

Price spies Blackburn at the other end of a Corridor, shouts

over the Noise to him:

PRICE:

Where is it??

BLACKBURN:

I don't know!!

Sara and Eddie appear, spot them; Sara shouts:

SARA:

What is it??

PRICE:

Something with the power, I don't know!!

And then Pritchett is seen at the far end of another

Corridor.

PRITCHETT:

It's down there!

He's pointing to a long corridor - a light strobes at the

end.

EDDIE:

What's down there?

PRITCHETT:

(awe-struck)

The...Fourth of July.

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