Outbreak Page #13

(CONTINUED)

71.

CONTINUED:

OWI:

Are you crazy? Don't touch them.

Those are Level Four viruses.

The lead soldier raises his rifle at Owi.

FORD:

Sergeant, I want every specimen of

Motaba Virus in this lab and this

time no 'mistakes.'

FADE UP COUNTRY MUSIC with a real twang like the JUDDS'

"Red Cadillac" and...

CUT TO:

RED PICKUP:

with chrome wheels racing along a deserted country road

in the dark of night.

COMPUTER KEYS POUND: "BONNEVILLE, OREGON, TUESDAY -05:

00."

INT./EXT. PICKUP - NIGHT

TOMMY HULL, 28, a construction worker, sings along. The

windows of his pickup are wide open and the wind blows his

long hair straight back. There's an empty gun rack in the

back. He rounds a turn and BRAKES to a SCREECHING HALT.

The glare of flashing red and blue lights crosses his

face.

TOMMY:

What the hell?

TOMMY'S POV - THREE HIGHWAY PATROLMEN

wearing gas masks and toting shotguns in their latex-

gloved hands, stand in front of their patrol cars whose

emergency lights flash off and on, creating an eerie

glow. Down the road, is a second checkpoint where the

patrol cars are facing the other way.

BACK TO SCENE:

Tommy Hull climbs out. The HIGHWAY PATROLMAN raises his

shotgun and aims it.

(CONTINUED)

72.

CONTINUED:

TOMMY:

What's goin' on?

HIGHWAY PATROLMAN #1

Stay inside your car.

Tommy Hull freezes.

HIGHWAY PATROLMAN #1

Turn around, go home, and stay

there.

TOMMY:

What's goin' on? Why are you

wearin' all that stuff?

HIGHWAY PATROLMAN #2

Go home and you'll be all right.

Move it.

Tommy Hull ain't gonna argue with three loads of buckshot.

He STARTS his TRUCK, then stops and gapes, as rapidly approaching

from the opposite way towards town is...

CONVOY OF THREE STATE POLICE CARS

They ZOOM by him. In the back seat of the lead car, we

see Robby and Lisa Aronson.

CUT TO:

EXT. BONNEVILLE GENERAL HOSPITAL (TUESDAY, 6:15 AM)

The convoy of police cars pull in the parking lot where

local police, wearing respirators, hold back a crowd of

about twenty people, the families of those who are sick

inside.

Robby and Lisa and the state police officers climb out

wearing their respirator/helmets and biosafety suits. The

twenty people react as the realization sets in that whatever

their loved ones have, it's awful.

Tracy's Father pushes forward.

TRACY'S FATHER

Nobody's tellin' us what's goin'

on.

Robby turns to the local POLICE CHIEF, Ray Fowler, a

stringy, taciturn man.

(CONTINUED)

73.

CONTINUED:

ROBBY:

I'm Dr. Roberta Keough from the

C.D.C. I'm in charge.

POLICE CHIEF:

I thought he was in charge.

She follows his gaze to the main entrance of the hospital.

Standing at the top of the stairs, dressed in his biosafety

suit is...

MIKE GILLESPIE:

Robby is shocked, but not shocked. She moves up the

steps. He blocks her path.

GILLESPIE:

I've got people inside. They can

do what needs to be done. Set up

your command post outside the

town, where you'll be safe.

She tries to go around him. He grabs her arm.

ROBBY:

(quietly)

Let me do my job. Please. I know

what I'm doing.

A beat. He reluctantly lets go. She goes inside.

INT. HOSPITAL

Robby, followed by Mike, moves down the corridor.

ROBBY:

On whose authority are you here,

Michael?

GILLESPIE:

Want me to leave?

She doesn't answer. We hear only the RUSH of AIR in their

SUITS, drowning out the horror we see as they pass room

after room of Motaba patients, screaming and moaning in

pain. They pass...

Izzy in a room with Henry, the lab tech. Lips blue,

gasping for every breath, he fights against the ventilator.

Streaks of blood line the wall. In the next

bed is his girl friend, Corinne, comatose and near death.

(CONTINUED)

74.

CONTINUED:

A MOTHER'S cry of agony rips through the RUSH of AIR as

Robby and Mike pass the room where Mrs. Logan is holding

her dying toddler in her arms. Her body is covered with

the fine red vesicular rash of end-stage Motaba. She

pleads with Salt, standing there in a biosafety suit,

completely helpless.

MOTHER:

Save my baby... Please... Save my

baby.

Robby exchanges a glance with Gillespie. She's

devastated.

GILLESPIE:

I tried to warn you.

But nothing he could have said could have prepared her for

this. She moves on into...

SMALL INTENSIVE CARE UNIT

crammed with ten patients on gurneys, all sick with end-

stage Motaba.

Nurse Emma and Dr. Mascelli, in biosafety suits, pack

Tracy, the movie-counter girl, in ice.

TRACY:

(delirious with

fever)

Daddy... Daddy! Where's my daddy?

Robby looks at Rudy, lying in the next cubicle, eyes completely

yellow and lifeless, face and body covered in

black-and-blue splotches. His chest rises and falls in

short gasps.

GILLESPIE:

Bonneville patient zero. He never

regained consciousness so we don't

know how he got infected.

Suddenly Tracy starts convulsing.

DR. MASCELLI

More Valium. Quick.

EMMA:

We're out.

ROBBY:

Where's the crash cart?

(CONTINUED)

75.

CONTINUED:

Nurse Emma nods to a Sears Roebuck-style tool cabinet in

the corner.

Dr. Mascelli starts for it, but Gillespie's already there.

He punches off the plastic lock, rips open a drawer and

grabs a small box labeled Valium. He flips it to...

Robby, who in a second, pops it open, pulls out the

syringe of Valium and shoots the yellow liquid into

Tracy's IV. She stops seizing.

Dr. Mascelli and Nurse Emma are impressed.

ROBBY:

Dr. Mascelli, we spoke on the

phone, I'm Dr. Keough from the

C.D.C.

One of the patients starts coughing. Gillespie and

Robby are alarmed.

ROBBY:

How many of your patients are

coughing?

DR. MASCELLI

(indicating Rudy)

Except for him, all of them. Why?

SMASH CUT TO:

INT. MASCELLI'S OFFICE

And a grid map of Bonneville with cases of Motaba marked

in red. They're spread out all over the town.

DR. MASCELLI

The common bond is the movie

theatre.

GILLESPIE:

This isn't the same virus -

ROBBY:

-- It's mutated -

GILLESPIE:

-- To an airborne form -

(CONTINUED)

76.

CONTINUED:

DR. MASCELLI

My God, if it's spreading through

the air, person to person, by

droplets, it's... it's the plague.

Everybody in the town's gonna die.

GILLESPIE:

They may not all be infected.

DR. MASCELLI

But they will be. And if one

person gets out -

ROBBY:

The quarantine has to be

ironclad -

DR. MASCELLI

People are gonna get out over the

mountains -- it will be impossible

to stop them.

GILLESPIE:

You're wrong.

FADE UP the ROAR of CHOPPERS. An OVERWHELMING DIM.

Dr. Macselli moves to the window, pulls back the shades.

Can't believe his eyes.

In the distance, against the dawn half-light... the sky is

filled with Sikorsky Blackhawk helicopters from the U.S.

Rapid Deployment Force.

ROBBY:

(astonished)

How...

GILLESPIE:

... Don't ask.

CUT TO:

EXT. BONNEVILLE GENERAL HOSPITAL (06:40)

A giant helicopter maneuvers a mobile BL-4 lab into the

parking lot behind the hospital. Another chopper flies

behind it, carrying a portable pre-fab hospital. Another

sets down and begins disgorging combat troops wearing

chem-warfare suits.

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