Nightmare on Elm Street
It so happens I work here, and there’s an unsolved murder. I don’t like unsolved murders, especially ones my daughter’s mixed up in — what are you doing here at this hour? You’re
supposed to be getting some sleep.
GLEN Listen, sir, this is serious. Nancy had a nightmare about Rod being in danger, or something,
and so she thinks…
He trails off, loosing it under LT THOMPSON’s glare. Besides, he doesn’t know exactly what the hell’s really going on himself. GARCIA puts his beefy hand on NANCY’s shoulder.
NANCY
I just want to see if he’s okay!
SGT GARCIA Take my word for it, Nancy. The guy’s sleeping like a baby. He’s not going anywhere.
99. INT. CELL BLOCK. NIGHT. 99.
ANGLE ON ROD in his cell. He’s asleep, all right, but not safely
so. His bedsheet has come alive. It twitches, pulsates, then snakes towards his throat.
ROD stirs, the sheet falls still; ROD slips into deeper sleep,
and the sheet moves again, completing the noose around his neck!
100. INT. BOOKING ROOM. NIGHT. 100.
NANCY makes a move for the cell block —
NANCY This isn’t your average nightmare,
Daddy — damn it!
The door’s locked; she hauls on it in desperation.
LT THOMPSON Now look, Nancy, don’t push it. You’ve already rubbed my nose
in sex, drugs and violence — don’t start throwing in insanity!
NANCY takes that one to heart. She wheels on him and pleads, her intensity sobering even to him.
NANCY
Just go back and check — please!
The man takes a beat, then shrugs and nods towards SGT GARCIA.
LT THOMPSON Okay, Garcia. What the hell.
SGT GARCIA
Right… (feeling in his pockets) Now where’d I put the key…
He mumbles backs towards his desk. MUSIC BUILDS as we HOLD ON NANCY’S FACE.
101. INT. ROD’S CELL. NIGHT. 101.
With a terrible SNAP ROD’s sheet jerks tight around his neck. The startled teenager is hauled upright — eyes popping, face purple. He claws at the sheet, but despite his strength he can’t get his fingers between the noose and his windpipe. He’s dragged backwards across the cot.
102. INT. BOOKING ROOM. NIGHT. 102.
GARCIA finally has the keys. Urged on by NANCY he fumbles with the lock.
103. INT. ROD’S CELL. NIGHT. 103.
ROD’S being dragged backwards, gasping and struggling in vain
against the powerful pull — right across his cell and up the wall, too. He clutches blindly at his throat at the far end of the sheet coils around the bars of the high window. Then there’s a powerful wrench of the sheet, and ROD’S neck SNAPS. The kid’s body sags lifeless.
104. ANGLE THROUGH THE BARS as NANY, GLEN, LT THOMPSON and GARCIA 104.
appear in the corridor outside, the girl sprinting ahead.
NANCY Rod!
But it’s too late; NANCY sinks back in horror as her father and GARCIA rush into the cell.
LT THOMPSON Gimme a hand, dammit!
GLEN, pale as the sheet that’s killed ROD, climbs to the bars and unties the knot. ROD slides down over the SERGEANT’S shoulders, limp as a marrionette with its strings slashed.
SGT GARCIA Goddamn loco kid — he didn’t have t’do that — Madre dios!
They lay ROD at NANCY’s feet; a strange Pieta. NANCY’s father looks at her in spooked suspicion.
LT THOMPSON How’d you know he was gonna do this?
NANCY says nothing.
FADE TO BLACK
105. EXT. FOREST LAWN CEMETERY. DAY. 105.
BURN ON:
THE FOURTH DAY
FADE UP ON a stark afternoon. On a hill of sere grass overlooking the valley, the casket of ROD LANE is lowered into
its grave.
A small group of FAMILY and FRIENDS watches soberly as the MINISTER raises his hand in benediction.
MINISTER Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
May God be with this young man’s soul.
ON THE FACES of MARGE, LT THOMPSON, TINA’S MOTHER and ROD’S PARENTS. Just for a second or two, in looks too rapid for an outsider to even notice, these adults exchange looks. Furtive, quick glances that suggest an immense something that they all
share, something beyond even this second death among their children. Then they are all staring ahead again, as if the others weren’t even there.
MINISTER (CONTD OS) His life and his death attest to the Scripture’s warning that he who
lives by the sword shall die by the sword.
ANGLE ON GLEN, watching —
NANCY, standing alone, not believing it for a minute.
MINISTER (CONTD OS)
But let us recall also our Lord’s admonition that we ‘Judge not, lest we be judged.’ Let us attempt only to love. And may Rod Lane rest in peace.
NANCY
(quietly) Amen to that much.
The mourners walk away from the grave, MARGE among them. She pauses near a MAN and two WOMEN in black — TINA’S MOTHER, ROD’S PARENTS. They almost, it seems, speak. Then MARGE hurries on.
WE MOVE WITH HER as she’s joined by LT THOMPSON. Both are worn and on edge. THOMPSON absently lights another cigarette, offering one to MARGE.
LT THOMPSON How’s Nancy doing?
MARGE I don’t think she’s slept since Tina died. (shakes her head) She’s always been a delicate kid.
THOMPSON lights her cigarette, attempting some sort of nonchalance.
LT THOMPSON She’s tougher than you think. Any idea how she knew Rod was
gonna kill himself?
MARGE No. All I know is, this reminds me too much of ten years ago.
THOMPSON blows a plume of smoke against the hard sky and looks
away.
LT THOMPSON Yeah. Well… Let’s not start digging up bodies just because we’re in a cemetery.
He gives her a look that could cut stone. MARGE toses down her cigarete and crosses to NANCY. The girl is simply staring off over the valley.
MARGE (very gently) Time to go home, baby.
She moves her away from the brink of the hill.
106. EXT. CEMETERY PARKING AREA. DAY. 106.
MARGE opens the door of the station wagon for NANCY. NANCY turns to them both, speaking in a still, small voice.
NANCY
The killer’s still loose, you know.
She has a wild, Cassandra aspect that sends a chill right up MARGE’S spine.
LT THOMPSON
You saying somebody else killed Tina? Who?
NANCY smiles a weird sort of smile.
NANCY I don’t know who he is. But he’s
burned, he wears a weird hat, a red and yellow sweater, real dirty, and he uses some sort of knifes he’s got made into a sort of… glove. Like giant finger- nails.
As NANCY has described this monster from her dream, unseen by her, the faces of MARGE LT and THOMPSON have drained completely of color.
LT THOMPSON (low, even, to MARGE)
