Panic Room Page #12

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INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

Inside the room, Meg doesn't seem upset. Rather, she's

staring at the cell phone in her hand, thinking. Remembering

something.

MEG:

Wires...

INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

At the same moment, Burnham is having the same thought. He's

still at the door, fingertips still resting there.

BURNHAM:

Phone...

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

MEG:

... wires.

INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

Burnham looks down, at the baseboard below. What is he

looking at?

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

Meg steps up, onto the shelf she climbed earlier, and comes

up next to the vent.

SARAH:

What are you doing?

MEG:

I saw something, I saw...

In the vent, alongside the duct, she sees the bundle of

multicolored wires she saw earlier.

MEG:

... phone wires!

She jumps down off the shelf, goes to the tools, starts

searching for something.

MEG:

I may not have hooked up the phone

in here, but I hooked up the main

line, and there's a jack at the base

of this wall outside, I saw it!

INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

Yes, that is correct, there is in fact a jack in the base of

the wall outside the door to the panic room.

Burnham bends down into frame, studying it, thinking the same

thing she is. He clears his throat.

BURNHAM:

Say, while we're on the subject of

phones...

He turns, looks up at Junior.

BURNHAM:

When I said cut the line, did you

cut the main line at the junction

box in the basement like I said, and

which I repeated, or did you just

cut the cord on the phone in the

kitchen?

Pause. Swallow.

JUNIOR:

I, uh, I...

Sh*t.

JUNIOR:

... hit a little snag finding the

one in the basement.

Sh*t.

Pause. Then, as if a starting gun has been fired, Burnham

leaps to his feet and races out of the bedroom.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

That same starting gun has been fired in the panic room.

With a strong RIP, Meg pulls the whole bundle of multi

colored wires out of the wall and drops onto the floor with

it. She trusts it at Sarah, finds a wire cutter in the

assorted tools, and gives her that too.

MEG:

Strip 'em, expose the ends, try blue

first, blue is phones!

SARAH:

Blue is phones?

MEG:

Yes, no, I don't know, do 'em all!

While Sarah goes to work on the wires, Meg turns to the phone

itself, the one with the buried phone line that isn't working

yet. She rips the phone out of its housing, tears free the

wire on the end of it.

INT. ENTRY FLOOR - NIGHT

Burnham flies down the stairs from the third floor, races

across the foyer, flies down the stairs to the kitchen floor.

INT. KITCHEN - NIGHT

Burnham races across the kitchen floor, whips open a door and

heads down another, narrow, darkened stairway.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

Meg and Sarah are like animals, clawing and tearing at the

ends of their respective phone cables, foregoing tools and

stripping the wires with fingers and teeth, it's faster.

With the phone receiver cradled on her shoulder, Meg starts

twisting the ends of wires onto the exposed ends of the wires

from the phone unit. First wire -- nothing. She tries a

second wire.

INT. MECHANICAL ROOM - NIGHT

Burnham SLAMS open the door to a dark room, pulls the string

on a bare bulb. Burned out.

BURNHAM:

God damn it!

Without light, he can't see a thing. He SMACKS the bulb, it

swings wildly, SMASHES on the cement wall. He turns and

races out of the room.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

Meg tries another wire. Still no dial tone. Sarah shoves

another wire at her. She tries again. Nothing. She moves

on.

INT. LIVING ROOM - NIGHT

Burnham slides to his knees, snatches a flashlight from his

duffel, leaps up and takes off again.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

Another wire. Nothing. Another wire. DIAL TONE!

Meg SHRIEKS and punches 911.

INT. STAIRWELL - NIGHT

Burnham flies down the stairs, flashlight beam bouncing

crazily in front of him.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

The phone is ringing. An operator picks up.

OPERATOR:

911 emergency --

MEG:

I'm at 26 West --

OPERATOR:

-- please hold.

It's a mechanical voice, which gives over to MUZAK.

MEG:

NO!

INT. MECHANICAL ROOM - NIGHT

Burnham BANGS through the door again, starts searching the

darkened mechanical room, shining harsh light around its

dingy walls.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

MUZAK continues to play.

MEG:

Damn it!

No more time to hold. Meg hangs up the phone, dials another

number, a seven digit one she knows by heart.

SARAH:

Call Dad!

MEG:

On it!

INT. MECHANICAL ROOM - NIGHT

In the mechanical room, the bouncing flashlight beam falls on

a metal cabinet across the way. Burnham runs to it, flings

it open. Circuit breakers. SLAMS it shut.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

Meg listens as a phone rings on the other end. And rings.

And rings again.

This is torture.

INT. MECHANICAL ROOM - NIGHT

Burnham turns, sees another, smaller metal box, this one

clearly labeled:

PHONES:

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

On the other end of the phone, a husky MALE VOICE answers;

clearly he's been awakened.

VOICE:

Hello?

MEG:

Listen to me! There are three --

INT. MECHANICAL ROOM - NIGHT

With a subhuman ROAR of anger, Burnham rips the entire phone

panel off the wall with his bare hands.

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

With an abrupt SHRIEK, the line goes dead. Meg pauses, can't

believe it.

MEG:

Hello? Don't... are...

She looks up, see Sarah looking at her, her eyebrows arches,

her face all hope. Meg keeps her cool, but it take a hell of

an effort.

Sarah reads her face. She turns away.

She hangs up the phone.

Sarah goes to a corner of the room, faces away from her.

Meg doesn't know what to say.

MEG:

He'll do something.

SARAH:

Uh uh.

MEG:

He'll know we're in trouble. He

heard me, I said "There are

three..."

SARAH:

He won't even know who it was.

MEG:

What would you think, in the middle

of the night? I mean, three what,

three bears? He'll call the police.

SARAH:

Stop it.

MEG:

He's just across the park, this is

why we got places so close to each

other, in case we needed each other,

we're still a family, he'll help

us...

SARAH:

He --

MEG:

He WILL.

She practically shouted. Sarah drop her head into her arms.

MEG:

I'm sorry.

SARAH:

I'm sorry.

MEG:

Why?

SARAH:

I was trying not to tell you...

MEG:

What?

SARAH:

I'm dizzy and thirsty.

Meg blanches. This is very bad news.

INT. MASTER BEDROOM - NIGHT

Tired, Burnham drags himself back up the stairs and into the

doorway of the master bedroom. Raoul and Junior stand there,

staring at him.

Long pause.

JUNIOR:

She's never coming out.

BURNHAM:

Hey.

JUNIOR:

And we're never getting in.

BURNHAM:

Do me a favor and don't talk.

JUNIOR:

Jesus, what was I thinking?

INT. PANIC ROOM - NIGHT

Meg has torn open one of the water packets and is trying to

get Sarah to drink, but the little girl has gone completely

pale and seems to have lost some of the strength in her neck,

she's having trouble holding her head up. Most of the water

runs down her chin.

MEG:

Come on, come on... stay with me...

you gotta drink...

She takes Sarah's hand, checks her wristwatch thing. The

readout is now

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