The Crazies Page #4

Instead we hear a KEY go into the lock and turn - CLICK. The

FOOTSTEPS head back downstairs. Nicholas tries the handle a

couple of times before turning gravely to his mother.

NICHOLAS:

He locked us in.

17.

EXT. FARNUM HOUSE - MOMENTS LATER

Slinging gasoline everywhere, Farnum walks out the front

door. Empties what's left in the five-gallon can onto the

porch and lights it with a match.

He sits down in the yard and watches it burn. Devoid of

emotion. The house his grandfather built. His wife and son

SCREAMING from within as blue flames scurry up the inside

walls.

INT. DUTTON BEDROOM - NIGHT

A RINGING PHONE wakes up David and Judy. They both reach for

it. His hand gets there first.

DAVID:

Dutton...

He sits bolt upright, registering the news.

DAVID:

I'm coming.

Jumps out of bed. Judy does the same before she even knows

why.

DAVID:

Farnums’, the whole place is going

up.

EXT. FARNUM HOUSE - NIGHT

Engulfed. VOLUNTEER FIREMEN hose down the trees, too late to

save the house or anyone inside. David’s cruiser pulls up.

He and Judy push through the crowd of onlookers to the FIRE

CHIEF.

JUDY:

Norman, did they get out?!

The Fire Chief shakes his head. Judy, horrified, eyes the

inferno that used to be a farmhouse.

FIRE CHIEF:

Bill did. Begs the question,

doesn't it?

David takes his meaning. Crosses to where Bill Farnum sits

on the back bumper of a firetruck, expressionless, hands tied

with baling twine.

DAVID:

What happened, Bill?

18.

Farnum doesn't respond. David squats in front of him,

getting in his eyeline.

DAVID:

Bill, what happened here tonight?

Farnum meets his gaze, glassy-eyed, remorseless.

BILL FARNUM:

A reckoning.

Madness. David staring it in the face.

EXT. FARNUM HOUSE - NIGHT (AERIAL VIEW)

The burning house from ten thousand feet. Tiny, almost

beautiful. Fire engines flashing around it like a child’s

toys. A burst of FREEZE-FRAMES. The camera ZOOMS IN TIGHT.

Another burst.

INT. SHERIFF STATION - DAY

Next morning, Russell is outside trying to placate some LOCAL

REPORTERS as David talks on the phone.

DAVID:

Was hoping to transfer him, we’re

not really equipped for this sort

of thing. Okay, two o'clock.

Hangs up. A haunted pause. The last forty-eight hours

betraying everything he knows. He turns his gaze to Bill

Farnum who sits in a stupor in a holding cell at the back of

the station. Russell enters.

RUSSELL:

They tell me they don't want the

deputy, they want the sheriff.

David gets up from his desk. Still watching Farnum.

DAVID:

Looked at me last night like he

coulda slit my throat and barely

known the difference.

(turns to Russell)

Same look Rory gave me. Same

goddamn look.

Walks out to talk to the press. !

19.

EXT. FARNUM HOUSE - DAY

Plumes of smoke rise from the ashes. A scorched brick

chimney stands like a monument to the dead. David picks up a

charred photo. The Farnum family. He drops it, surveys the

scene with dismay.

A faint DRONING HUM draws his gaze skyward. Those SAME TWO

PLANES flying over. Side by side a half mile apart. But

lower this time. David's eyes narrow with suspicion.

DAVID:

What're you lookin' for?

And as the search planes dip below the far treeline...

EXT. OGDEN MARSH - DAY

A freshwater marsh on the outskirts, the town's namesake. An

OLD TIMER in hipwaders is dumping crayfish from wire traps

into a bucket. He hears something. Straightens for a look.

Twenty yards away, something white is billowing like an

untrimmed mainsail. He comes over for a look. Touches the

material. Ripstop nylon. Billowing again, it's clear what

it is... A PARACHUTE.

He follows the twisted cords over a rise in the marsh to

where they settle in deeper water beyond. Gives the lines a

tug and then staggers backwards in horror as

A HUMAN BODY floats to the surface. Hideously discolored.

Bloated from decomposition.

OLD TIMER:

Lord God...

A MILITARY PILOT. Oxygen mask on his face.

INT. MORGUE, FINLEY FUNERAL HOME - DAY

A bodybag zipper opens to reveal the pilot's ROTTING CORPSE.

David catches a glimpse and turns away, he's seen enough.

Russell gags at the stench. Even Finley, mortician of twenty

years, looks a little grossed out.

FINLEY:

I'll see if there's any

identification.

DAVID:

(exits; needing air)

Yeah, do that.

20.

EXT. FINLEY FUNERAL HOME - DAY

David and Russell cough the stench from their lungs as they

cross the parking lot. Then:

DAVID:

Got us a pilot, where's the plane?

Russell, as they reach the cruiser, recollects:

RUSSELL:

Travis King - you know Travis?

DAVID:

I know he's a lyin' bastard.

RUSSELL:

Said he heard something out by

Hopman Bog last week. I thought he

was tellin' stories again.

David slows, meets Russell's gaze over the roof of the

cruiser.

EXT. HOPMAN BOG - DAY

David, Russell and TRAVIS KING, a human rodent, motoring

across the bog in a flat-bottomed aluminum boat.

RUSSELL:

Sounded like a plane you said, huh,

Trav?

TRAVIS KING:

Yep. I gettin' paid for this?

RUSSELL:

Big plane, little plane?

TRAVIS KING:

I dunno, a plane, I was on the

shitter. So how much I gettin'?

DAVID:

Travis.

TRAVIS KING:

Yeah.

DAVID:

Say that again you'll be the second

person I shot this week.

21.

Travis takes him at his word. David notices something up

ahead. Turns the boat toward it for a better look.

RUSSELL:

Whaddaya see, chief?

David indicates a spot in the woods where the tops of trees

have been sheared off.

DAVID:

Something came real close to taking

a bath.

David kills the outboard and they drift in closer. A strange

toxic sheen to the water in this area. Russell reaches two

fingers down for a sample. David yanks Russell's hand back.

DAVID:

Know what that is?

RUSSELL:

No.

DAVID:

Then don't touch it.

David bends for a closer look. The spill has that chemical

rainbow quality of gasoline. Jettisoned fuel perhaps. He

scoops some into a Mason jar. Pauses as he screws on the

lid.

DAVID:

It was a big plane.

RUSSELL:

Why's that?

David straightens, oddly quiet, staring at the water.

DAVID:

'Cause we're right on top of it.

Off Russell's look, we rise up above them, to the height of

the treetops, and see what David sees

THE MURKY CONTOUR OF A MILITARY TRANSPORT PLANE submerged in

the water where it crashed, the boat floating directly above.

EXT. EQUIPMENT DEPOT - DAY

David talks on a cell phone while he and Russell unhook the

boat trailer outside the corrugated-steel equipment shed.

22.

DAVID:

(into phone)

Say, you folks missing a plane?

(brow furrows)

No? Well somebody oughta tell that

to the pilot in our morgue.

Military, yes, ma'am. Dutton. D-UT-

T-O-N. Yep, I'll be here.

He pockets the phone. Stews.

DAVID:

Plane that size goes down and

there's nothing in the paper,

nothing on the news? Make any

sense to you?

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