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JAKE:

Now you've tasted both of us!

He pulls back the hammer on the gun and levels it at Bobby's

head. Bobby sees it coming, plays his last card on his knees.

BOBBY:

O.K.! I admit it! I f***ed her! But it's

her you have to worry about, not me! She

wants you dead, Jake. She wants you dead

and she wants your money.

JAKE (hesitates)

What are you babbling about?

BOBBY (talking fast)

Think about it! How do you think I got in

here? Did you hear any glass break? Did you

hear a door splinter?

INT. HALLWAY - SIMULTANEOUS

GRACE listening.

BOBBY (V.O.)

How did the evening end? After you went to

bed did she linger a bit? Maybe just long

enough to leave the door unlocked? Is that

what happened?

INT. LIVING ROOM - SIMULTANEOUS

Like an old rag, JAKE gradually soaks all this up becoming

heavier with the weight of the knowledge.

JAKE:

You'd tell me anything to save your

pathetic life.

BOBBY:

You know what kind of woman Grace is, Jake.

You know how badly she wants to get the

f*** out of Superior. What's she to you,

Jake; a woman who wants you dead? Let me

kill her. All I want is two-hundred

dollars to get out of here with.

JAKE:

Two-hundred dollars?

BOBBY:

Two-hundred dollars...I'll do it! I'll

kill her!

A beat. Jake stares down at Bobby on the floor.

JAKE:

Sweet Christ, I'd be doing the world a

favor, ridding it of the likes of you. Get

your miserable ass off the floor. You're

positively pathetic... Go on, go kill

Grace.

Bobby slowly stands.

JAKE:

I'm not letting you walk for nothing. Two

hundred dollars. Do it, boy. Kill her.

Bobby goes.

INT. HALLWAY - SIMULTANEOUS

GRACE bolts back to the bedroom, the camera following her as she

flies.

INT. BEDROOM HALLWAY - NIGHT (MOMENTS LATER)

BOBBY walks it. His POV -- the door. Every step seems freighted.

INT. BEDROOM - SIMULTANEOUS

GRACE is in a quandary. How many seconds before Bobby walks in

to kill her? Or can he really kill her? She's not sure.

She looks around the room frantically. Picks up a lamp, puts it

down. She looks quickly through her closet, rummages below in

the boxes. Suddenly she finds it.

A dangerous looking Indian HATCHET with a feather hanging off

its bindings. It's a formidable piece of iron, quite capable of

splitting a skull or impaling flesh.

Grace hears the footsteps just outside the door. She runs behind

the door.

A moment later, the bedroom door creaks open and BOBBY quietly

enters, approaching the bed. We sense the doubt in his eyes as

to whether he can kill her.

In a reverse POV, Bobby sees the outline of Grace in the bed as

victim...closer, closer. He now lifts the edge of the bedcover

but sees a blanket bunched up to resemble a human figure.

He suddenly hears a foot fall behind him, then he feels her

presence. He spins.

She's directly behind him, hatchet raised. His life is in her

hands.

His eyes, locked in an eternal moment.

Her eyes, the hatchet.

SNAP CUT TO:

INT. HALLWAY - SIMULTANEOUS

As JAKE, anxiously torn, waits, there is a LOUD CRASH, followed

by SOUNDS of struggle, of murder, of death. Then...

GRACE:

Jake!

It is a desperate cry for help. Jake can't help himself. He

breaks into a roaring run down the hall to save his beloved.

JAKE:

Grace!!

INT. BEDROOM - SIMULTANEOUS

JAKE bulls into the bedroom. It's a mess, furniture overturned,

sheets and blankets all over the floor. The lights broken.

Waiting for him, face down on the floor, is BOBBY'S BODY in a

pool of liquid. A broken bottle lies nearby. Bobby's body heaves

in its final death throes, and then shudders quiet... Over

there, by the bed, is GRACE, who still clutches the HATCHET.

The look on her face is pure shock.

JAKE:

Well...looks like you got him, Grace.

That's good...that's real good. He must of

slipped past me, but you got him. Looks

like that drifter from this morning. Got

to be careful who you make friends with,

sweetheart.

Jake eyes the weapon in Grace's hand.

JAKE:

Why don't you put that down? It's all over

now. Put it down.

Grace eyes the gun in Jake's hand.

JAKE:

Go on, girl. Put it down.

What choice does Grace have? She lets the hatchet clank to the

floor.

JAKE:

Aww, that's my Grace: Not about to let

someone get the best of her. That's what I

love about you. As dangerous as you are

unpredictable.

behind Jake, the lifeless BOBBY rises up from the floor, very

much alive, and clobbers Jake with a golf club. Jake is

staggered, but he's one tough old customer as he manages to spin

slowly, gun still in one hand, as if to fire.

Before he can, Grace grabs up the hatchet from the floor and

drives it straight into his back.

He gurgles, stunned from both sides, but it's like trying to

kill Rasputin. He still has the gun as Bobby jumps him from the

rear, trying to get his neck in a chokehold. The gun FIRES once,

discharging into the wall. The hatchet is ripped from his back.

Grace watches as the two men bang into the walls in a rugged

rodeo-type fight, Jake seeking to dislodge Bobby off his back.

An expression of fear and excitement in her eyes.

Finally the two men go crashing to the ground, rolling around,

Bobby maintaining his stranglehold, but calling to her, his

hands full.

BOBBY:

Grace, goddamit, do something!

Jake's eyes rolls up at her like a beaching whale, pleading for

help.

JAKE:

Grace...?

She commits. Jumping into the fray, it's not clear whose side

she's really on as the three of them roll across the floor,

strangling, biting, hitting, spitting, scratching, gasping. It's

a Guignol, but the pressure from Bobby's forearm is taking its

toll on Jake. Trying to bite Jake, Grace bites Bobby instead,

but then she scratches Jake's face. Jake is grabbing her hard as

Bobby chokes him, trying to use her to leverage himself away.

But she manages to rip herself from his grip and scrambles on

her knees across the floor.

She grabs the hatchet. And stands, moving back towards the two

men locked on the floor. Bobby looks up at her, hatchet in hand,

no longer sure which way she'll go.

Jake, however, gasping for air, eyes bulging, spittle dripping

from his mouth, looks at Grace with some inner certainty that

she will help him. He gasps the words.

JAKE:

Help me, Grace, help...

GRACE:

Like you helped her, Jake?

Grace stands there, deciding, the power of the hatchet in her

hands. She raises it suddenly over the two men.

It flashes downwards. Deep into the gut of her husband Jake,

almost transfixing him to the floor.

In the silence that follows, Jake's eyes roll up to meet hers.

But all she has for him is a cold, distant stare.

Jake's head drops as the life rushes out of him. Bobby falls

back from the body puffing and dripping with sweat.

BOBBY:

What the hell'd you wait for?

She doesn't answer, turbulence in her face. He rolls Jake's body

off, upset. She may have made it a murder, but he was part of

it, and he feels the shift in himself. They're both in new

territory, feeling an apartness between them.

Suddenly JAKE gasps, still alive! It is too much for Bobby. He

grabs the hatchet and plunges it down on Jake, silencing him one

last time.

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