Red Planet Page #11

EXT. LOUIS

LOUIS:

Come on, Church! Chow down!

EXT. CHURCH

He crosses to the stoop and begins eating the food.

LOUIS (to himself)

Christ. I don't believe this.

He picks CHURCH up. CHURCH miaows again--he wants the food.

LOUIS (wincing)

God, you stink, Church.

CHURCH is looking at the food, trying to get out of LOUIS'S arms.

LOUIS:

In a second.

He tilts the cat's head back so he can get a look at CHURCH'S

neck.

EXT. CHURCH'S NECK, CU (LOUIS'S POV)

There's some sort of mark here--a clear remnantof the crash. A

line of white fur, or perhaps a dark red scar where no fur at all

grows.

EXT. LOUIS AND CHURCH, ON THE STOOP

LOUIS sees something else as he lets the cat's neck go. He tweezes

something out of CHURCH'S whiskers.

EXT. LOUIS'S HAND, ECU

It's a shred of green plastic.

EXT. LOUIS AND CHURCH

LOUIS:

Chewed his way out. Jesus Baldheaded

Christ, he ch--

CHURCH suddenly claws at his face.

LOUIS:

Ow!

He claps his hand to his face. CHURCH leaps for the food. LOUIS

slowly takes his hand away. There are claw marks on his cheek,

welling blood. He looks at the cat.

EXT. JUD CRANDALL'S GARDEN, WITH JUD

The garden is a plot of about half an acre. JUD comes trundling

slowly along a row, pushing a wheelbarrow. There are several

pumpkins in it. JUD is wearing old khaki gardening pants and a

Ramones sweatshirt. He's wearing his headphones and we can hear

the Romantics doing "What I Like About You." JUD is singing along

and bopping a little--as much as his arthritis will allow, if you

can dig it.

He sees a real big pumpkin, stops, and bends over to get it.

He takes out his pocket-knife and slits the pumpkin-vine. He gets

the pumpkin in his arms and stands up. He turns...and LOUIS is

right there (kind of a cheap jump, but always fun), looking

totally stunned.

JUD, startled, drops the pumpkin. LOUIS reaches out and slides the

phones off JUD'S ears.

LOUIS:

What did we do?

INT. THE CRANDALL KITCHEN

LOUIS is sitting at the kitchen table. JUD is at the fridge. JUD

comes back with a couple of long-necked bottles of beer and opens

them.

JUD:

I most generally don't start before

noon, but this looks like an exception.

LOUIS:

What did we do, Jud?

JUD:

Why, saved a little girl from being

unhappy...that's all. Drink up, Louis!

LOUIS drinks about half the beer.

LOUIS:

I tried to tell myself I buried him

alive. You know--Edgar Allan Poe meets

Felix the Cat. But...

JUD:

Wouldn't wash?

LOUIS:

No. I'm a doctor. I know death when I

see it, and Church was dead. He smells

horrible and he uses his claws, but

he's alive...and I feel like I'm going

crazy. It was that place, wasn't it?

JUD:

Ayuh. It was the rag-man told me about

the place--Stanley Bouchard. Us kids

just called him Stanny B. He was half

Micmac himself.

LOUIS drains his beer.

LOUIS:

Can I have another one?

JUD:

I guess it wouldn't hurt.

He gets up and goes to the fridge.

INT. JUD, AT THE FRIDGE

JUD:

The Micmacs used to bury their dead

up there long before the whites came.

He returns to the table with the beer.

JUD:

They buried their dead and for a long

time their dead stayed buried. Then

something happened. Half the tribe died

in a season. The rest moved on. They

said a Wendigo had soured the ground.

LOUIS:

Wendigo?

JUD:

Spirit of the north country. Not a good

spirit. Wendigos are great liars and

tricksters, according to the stories.

And if one touches you...

JUD pauses, perhaps a flustered, and gathers his thoughts.

JUD:

Maybe it really was a Wendigo--

I ain't the one to say it wasn't--

or maybe it was just some disease.

Whatever the reason, those that were

left moved on. But they left that

place...the way it is now.

JUD shrugs, and drinks.

EXT. JUD AS A BOY, CU/SEPIA TONE DAY

The time here is about 1910. JUD is wearing short pants. He's

crying, not in any big-deal histrionic way, but as if he means to

keep doing it for a long time. I mean he looks really sad.

JUD (voice)

I loved my dog a lot, Louis. When Spot

died, I thought I was gonna die.

JUD is sitting on the front stoop. It's the same house JUD lives

in now, but the porch hasn't been added yet, and the road is dirt

rather than tar.

Along this road comes a horse-drawn wagon--STANNY B.'S wagon. The

wagon's full of junk, rags, bottles...stuff to sell and swap.

Strung across the top are bells, and we can hear their CHIMING

SOUND...but faint, like bells heard in a dream.

STANNY B. is old and drunk. Dust spumes up behind the wagon as he

draws up to the CRANDALL house and stops. He gets down, almost

falls, takes a bottle out of his back pocket, drinks, and

approaches JUD. We can see him speaking.

INT. JUD'S KITCHEN, WITH JUD AND LOUIS

LOUIS:

You and this old Indian rag-man--

JUD:

Stanny B. did for me what I did for

you last night, Louis. Only I wasn't

alone when Spot came back.

EXT. THE CRANDALL BACK YARD/SEPIA TONE DAY

JUD'S MOTHER is back to THE CAMERA, hanging sheets on the line.

The sheets billow. And suddenly, pushing out from behind them,

quite near her, is a small mongrel dog. SPOT. He's covered with

graveyard dirt. His eyes are red and rolling. He splashes the

sheets with the muck of his passage.

JUD (voice)

My mother was with me.

She sees who it is--what it is--and backs away, screaming,

horrified.

EXT. SPOT, CLOSER/SEPIA

JUD (voice)

He'd got caught in bobwire that infected.

You could still see the marks on him.

And so we can, around his neck and along the side of his head.

These marks are the counterpart of the marks we've already seen on

CHURCH.

SOUND of JUD'S MOM SCREAMING. Like the bells, these are screams

heard in a dream.

EXT. THE BACK STOOP OF THE CRANDALL HOUSE/SEPIA

The BOY JUD comes running out, dressed in a night-shirt.

EXT. JUD'S MOM/SEPIA (JUD'S POV)

She's cringing against the fence at the rear of the yard. SPOT

stands in front of her, swaying from side to side, as if doped.

JUD'S MOM (dim; far)

Get your dog, Jud! He stinks of the

ground you buried him in! Come here

and get your dog!

She is in utter terror.

EXT. THE BOY JUD/SEPIA

Horrified...ashamed.

EXT. JUD'S MOM/SEPIA

JUD'S MOM (terror)

COME AND GET YOUR DOG!!

INT. JUD AND LOUIS, IN JUD'S KITCHEN

LOUIS:

How did your mother take it, Jud?

How did she take it when your dog

came back from the dead?

JUD'S face is a complication. He's lying to LOUIS, certainly--but

is he also lying to himself? Yes, I think so.

JUD:

Well, she was a little upset at first,

and that's why I thought you ought to

hold your peace when you talked to

your people last night...you did, didn't

you, Louis?

LOUIS:

Yes.

JUD:

Why, then, things should be fine.

LOUIS:

A little upset is all she was? Because

I'll tell you, Jud, my brains feel a

little like a nuclear reactor on the

edge of a meltdown.

JUD:

She got used to the idea. Spot lived

another four years. He died peacefully

in the night that second time, and I

buried him in the Pet Sematary...where

his bones still lie.

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