Nightmare on Elm Street

FADE TO BLACK

36. EXT/INT. POLICE STATION. NIGHT. 36.

FADE UP ON RED LIGHTS and SIREN as an unmarked POLICE CAR speeds to the curb.

LT DON THOMPSON, a decent-looking man in his mid-40’s, exits and

punches a cigarette from his pack. His shaken aide, a uniformed patrolman named PARKER, greets him. (CAMERA FOLLOWS them from the car straight into the station and eventually to THOMPSON’S OFFICE.)

PARKER Lieutenant Thompson. Sorry to

wake you, but —

LT THOMPSON I’d’ve canned your ass if you hadn’t. What you got?

PARKER stumbles to open the door for THOMPSON as the man bulls

into the station at a furious pace.

PARKER Her name was Tina Gray. It was her home. Father abandoned ten years ago, mother’s in Vegas with a boyfriend. We’re

trying to reach her now.

LT THOMPSON grimaces as if he knows the story.

LT THOMPSON What’s the Coroner got to say?

PARKER

Something like a razor was the weapon, but nothing found on the scene.

THOMPSON is already to the desk officer SERGEANT GARCIA. The big MAN shoves him a sheaf of papers —

SERGEANT GARCIA (wary) Leautenant. You know who —

LT THOMPSON Where is she?

SERGEANT GARCIA I put her in your office…

PARKER scurries after.

PARKER Looks like her boyfriend did

it. Rod Lane. Musician type, arrests for brawling, dope —

LT THOMPSON Terrific. What the hell was she doing there?

PARKER She lived there.

LT THOMPSON OMIT 37. I don’t mean her — OMIT 37.

38. INT. INTERROGATION ROOM. NIGHT. 38.

THOMPSON enters his office and confronts NANCY and her mother,

MARGE SIMSON.

LT THOMPSON (CONTD) I mean you. (accusingly, to Marge) What the hell was she doing there?

MARGE SIMSON is in her middle thirties; a good-looking woman despite the hour and circumstances.

MARGE Hello to you, too, Donald.

THOMPSON stops, the steam suddenly out of him. The girl is a

wreck and he winces to see it.

LT THOMPSON Marge.

THOMPSON glances at PARKER and the other UNIFORMED COPS who are in the room. As a man they head for the door. There’s no

question who the boss is here. THOMPSON turns to NANCY. She fumbles a smile.

LT THOMPSON (CONTD) How you doing, pal?

NANCY

Okay. Hi, dad.

NANCY’s dress is dark with dried blood, her skin clammy and the color of paste. MARGE shoots her ex-husband a worried glance. THOMPSON pulls a chair close to NANCY.

LT THOMPSON

I don’t want to get into this now, god knows you need time. (hotter) But I’d sure would like to know what the hell you were doing shacked up with three other kids

in the middle of the night — especially a delinquent lunatic like Lane.

NANCY weaves.

NANCY

Rod’s not a lunatic.

LT THOMPSON You got a sane explanation for what he did?

The girl is shredding a Kleenex, staring off.

MARGE Apparantly he was crazy jealous. Nancy said they’d had a fight, Rod and Tina.

NANCY

(quietly) It wasn’t that serious…

MARGE Maybe you don’t think murder’s serious —

NANCY sits bolt upright in her chair, her eyes flashing.

NANCY She was my best friend! Don’t you dare say I don’t take her death seriously! (lower, near tears)

I just meant their fights weren’t that serious.

The girl holds the woman’s eyes a moment, then looks away.

NANCY (CONTD) (to herself)

She dreamed this would happen…

LT THOMPSON What?

NANCY She had a nightmare about somebody

trying to kill her, last night. That’s why we were there; she was afraid to sleep alone.

A tear splashes off the arm of her chair.

MARGE

She’s been through enough for one night. You have her statement.

The mother and daughter rise; THOMPSON raps on the door and PARKER opens it.

LT THOMPSON

(to MARGE) I suggest you keep a little better track on her — she’s still a kid, y’know.

MARGE wheels on him.

MARGE You think I knew there were boys there!? You try raising a teenager alone.

Then she and the girl are gone. THOMPSON glares at PARKER.

LT THOMPSON (low to PARKER) See they get home okay.

PARKER shoves his hands in his pockets. ON HIS FACE we

FADE TO BLACK

39. INT. NANCY’S KITCHEN. MORNING. 39.

BURN ON

THE SECOND DAY

FADE UP ON MARGE SIMSON opening a new bottle of gin, pouring herself a careful shot, drinking it, then chasing it with

coffee. Nearby a TV drones the morning news. We can’t yet see the SCREEN.

TV NEWSCASTER (OS/FILTER) In the headlines this morning — a local teenage girl was brutally murdered during an all-night party.

MARGE TURNS, startled, seeing NANCY coming downstairs.

The girl looks a little better than she did in the Police Station, but her eyes are still red-rimmed, and a vacant stress masks her face. She looks to the TV. Stops.

TV NEWSCASTER (CONTD)

Police say the victim, fifteen-year -old Christina Grey, had quarrelled earlier with her boyfriend, Rod Lane, a punk rocker with a history of delinquency. Lane is now the subject of a city-wide manhunt.

According to —

39A. The TV PICTURE has begun featuring a HANDHELD NEWSREEL SHOT of a dark rubber BODY BAG being carried to a CORONER’S VAN. Just before the thing is lifted inside, TINA’S bloodied, white ARM slips from its zippered side and lolls into the dark night air. A man rudely shoves it back inside and pulls the zipper up the

rest of the way.

39B. WIDER — as NANCY pales visible. MARGE darts to the TV and slaps it off, then turning to NANCY. She looks at the girl a moment, then goes to her and hugs her.

MARGE (kind)

Where you think you’re going?

NANCY School.

MARGE I could hear you tossing and

turning all night, kiddo. You’ve no business going to school.

NANCY pulls away, determined.

NANCY I gotta go to school, Mom.

Please. Otherwise I’ll just sit up there and go crazy or something.

MARGE studies her face a moment.

MARGE

Did you sleep?

NANCY I’ll sleep in study hall, promise. I’d rather keep busy, you know?

She absently drains the woman’s coffee cup — then pecks her

cheek.

MARGE Right home after.

NANCY (cont’d) Right home after. See you.

MARGE watches the girl disappear outside, then lights a cigarette from the one already burning in her fingers.

40. EXT. STREET. DAY. 40.

MUSIC slips back in, subtle but tense as we TRACK with NANCY as she walks alone down a sidewalk edged with thick flowering

Oleander. She cocks her head, puzzled, as if sensing something. MUSIC mounts. NANCY looks across the street.

40A. REVERSE IN HER POV. A MAN is over there in dark clothes, reading 40A. a newspaper, but really watching her.

40B. NANCY shrugs and continues on, then stops and looks back again. 40B.

40C. IN HER POV we SEE the MAN is gone. 40C.

40D. Next moment — with a MUSIC STING — a BLOODIED HAND jumps out 40D. from the opposite direction, clamps over NANCY’S mouth and drags her into the bushes.

41. EXT. BUSHES. DAY. 41.

NANCY struggles, twisting against the powerful assailant.

A WIDER ANGLE REVEALS ROD LANE — barefoot, clad only in jeans and leather jacket, still caked with dark blood. The rest of his skin is pale as a ghost’s.

ROD I’m not gonna hurt you.

He releases her warily. NANCY makes no move to run or scream, even though several STUDENTS pass on the nearby sidewalk. This reassures ROD just a little.

ROD Your old man thinks I did it,

don’t he?

NANCY He doesn’t know you. (eyeing the blood) Couldn’t you change?

ROD The cops were all over my house. (shivers) They’ll kill me for sure.

NANCY Nobody’s gonna kill you.

He runs his hands down his face, trying to believe that. The two study each other.

ROD I never touched her.

NANCY

You were screaming like crazy.

NANCY says this without accusation, just cool observation.

ROD Someone else was there.

NANCY

The door was locked from your side.

ROD grabs her hard. His muscular body tenses.

ROD Don’t look at me like I’m some

kind of fucking fruitcake or something, I’m warning you.

VOICE (O.S.) Morning, Mr. Lane.

42. The boy jerks around. NANCY’s father, his .38 leveled right at 42. ROD’s belly, eases out of the bushes.

LT THOMPSON Now just step away from her, son. Like your ass depended on it. I’m warning you.

ROD backs away, looking once at NANCY with a look of terrible

sadness. Then he dives out of the bushes and runs like hell.

THOMPSON snaps his revolver to fire — but instinctively NANCY jumps between —

NANCY No!

THOMPSON jerks his gun into the air, furious.

THOMPSON Jesus — are you crazy!?

He plunges past the girl.

42A. EXT. STREET. DAY. 42A.

ROD races like a frightened animal across the lawns — but is soon cut off by the PLANECLOTHESMAN NANCY saw watching her before — and then TWO UNIFORMED POLICEMAN, who close from another angle. The chase is short and pitifully off-balance, and ROD is soon wrestled to the ground. Next moment one of the cops is

holding ROD’S knife into the air for THOMPSON to see. THOMPSON looks at NANCY, as if to say ‘I told you.’ Background, ROD’S SHOUTS can be heard as he’s shoved into a SQUAD CAR.

ROD (O.S.) I didn’t do it — ! (fading)

I didn’t kill her, Nancy!

The car’s door slams and ROD is gone. NANCY turns to her father, livid.

NANCY You used me, daddy!

LT THOMPSON (exasperated) What the hell you doing going to school today, anyway — your mother told me you didn’t even sleep last night!

NANCY spins angrily and walks away.

LT THOMPSON Nancy! Hey!

But she just keeps going.

FADE TO BLACK

43. INT. CLASSROOM. DAY. 43.

FADE UP ON an ENGLISH TEACHER and CLASS, NANCY among the kids, trying to concentrate.

TEACHER According to Shakespeare, there

was something operating in Nature, perhaps inside human nature itself, that was rotten — a canker, as he put it.

The TEACHER’S eyes glance across the room. ANGLE ON NANCY; yawning but listening.

TEACHER (CONTD) Of course Hamlet’s response to this, and to his mother’s lies, was to continually probe and dig — just like the gravediggers — always trying to get beneath the

surface. The same was true in a different way in Julius Caesar. Jon, go ahead…

She nods to a SURFER who’s been waiting uncomfortably in front of the class. He squints at his book and begins, the recitation a struggle between baked and salted brain and the poetry of the

Bard.

SURFER (reading aloud) Uh, In the most high and palmy state of Rome…

WISEGUY STUDENT (O.S.) California’s the most high and palmy state, man.

The SURFER halts with a grin; KIDS snicker.

ENGLISH TEACHER

Can it.

She glares them back into silence. The SURFER starts over, as we CUT TO NANCY.

She’s nodding off now, barely able to keep her eyes open in the warm, close boredom of the classroom.

SURFER (O.S.) In the most high and palmy state of Rome, a little ere the mightiest Julius fell… (NANCY’s head pitches forward; she jerks it

back up, barely awake) The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead did squeak and gibber in the Roman street…

44. NANCY’s head has sunk again, eyelids drawn as if by enormous 44. weight. By the time her cheek’s against the desk, the SURFER’S

VOICE is ECHOED and DISTANT. But another voice, TINA’S, is very near, very much present. A sad, thin plaint.

TINA (O.S.) Nancy.

NANCY gives a start. Her eyes lock onto something.

45. REVERSE. TILTED SIDEWAYS, IN HER HEAD’S POV, we look straight 45. out through the open doorway of the classroom into the hall. There, standing in a black pool of fluid, is a full-sized rubber body bag. Dark red and yellow. Weaving slightly, the merest suggesting of movement within it.

46. BACK ON NANCY, sitting upright, wiping the sleep from her eyes, 46.

shaking her head like a punchy prozefighter. She looks back out the door.

47. REVERSE IN ‘NORMAL’ POV — the hallway is empty. But there’s a 47. dark smear on its floor tiles.

48. NANCY looks nervously towards the rest of the class. No one else 48. has noticed a thing outside the door. All are dumbly spellbound

by the SURFER, who now recites like a deep-voiced robot, his face wreathed by white hair.

SURFER O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not

that I have bad dreams…

49. ANGLE BACK ON NANCY. She slips from her seat, eye warily on the 49. teacher and class. But no one turns as she disappears through the doorway.

50. INT. SCHOOL HALLWAY. DAY. 50.

NANCY turns and looks both directions. No sign of anybody.

TINA (O.S.) (distant) Nancy.

NANCY wheels and sees the bag, prone on the tiles at the far end

of the hall, at the end of a long snail’s trail of slime. A pale hand thrusts out of it. A moment later, as if pulled by invisible gravity, the bag slides out of sight into an intersecting corridor.

NANCY Tina!

NANCY starts running for it.

51. ANGLE AT THE CORNER as NANCY races blindly around the turn and 51. smashes straight into a BODY lunging at her from the opposite direction! Both go down.

52. ANGLE AT THE FLOOR. A dazed freshman HALLGUARD cranks herself up 52. on one elbow. She wears a plastic plaque on her red and yellow

sweater that reads ‘Hall Guard’. Her nose is bleeding from the impact.

HALLGUARD Y-you’re not supposed to run. W-where’s your pass — you got a pass?

NANCY leaps up —

NANCY Screw your stupid pass!

53. She turns — sees the body bag halfway down this darker, narrower 53. hall, upright again. But just as she sees it, it tips and

pitches headlong through a doorway — like some godawful rotten

tree finally timbering down. She can hear the sickening CRUNCHING of it falling down a long flight of stairs.

NANCY runs for it again. The HALLGUARD staggers up FOREGROUND, bleeding profusely from her eyes and ears.

HALLGUARD Hey, no running in the halls!

The HALLGUARD raises her hand and we see it’s tipped with long metal spikes.

REVERSE ANGLE AT THE DOOR as NANCY runs up. NANCY turns to check

out the HALLGUARD. She’s vanished. NANCY turns and looks down through the open door. The MUSIC sweeps through a strange, brooding movement of strings, mounting towards the NIGHTMARE THEME.

54. INT. A STAIRWELL. 54.

NANCY edges into the stairwell and looks down. Looks like there’s a fire somewhere down there, from the way the orange light dances. But there’s only a low WHITE NOISE.

NANCY Tina?

No answer. NANCY starts down the stairs.

55. INT. BOILER ROOM. DAY. 55.

NANCY comes off the stairs into a dank boiler room. The smear trail is there. It runs behind a cracking, red-hot boiler the size of a diesel locomotive. Everything about the place feels

dreadfully wrong, and the MUSIC is deep into the NIGHTMARE THEME when it pauses.

TIGHT ON NANCY. Slow terror moves into her face. There’s a low, sinister GIGGLE.

56. REVERSE IN HER POV — we see a tangle of pipes, shadows, and the 56. tainted fire of the huge boiler. Then from behind this, deeply

shadowed but still identifiable, steps TINA’s KILLER. The same filthy red and yellow sweater and slouch hat, the same melted face twisting into a smile, the same GARBLED LAUGH as he slides the long blades from beneath his shirt and fans them on the ends of his bony fingers.

NANCY

Who are you?

MAN Gonna get you.

57. The leering MAN brings the bloodied scalpel-fingernails across 57. his own chest, splitting a nipple. Yellow fluid pours out. MAGGOTS and WORMS.

NANCY forgets the question — jerks around and flees in blind panic into the first opening she sees — a dark pipe tunnel.

58. INT. PIPE TUNNEL. 58.

ANGLE IN THE NARROW PASSAGEWAY. In the BACKGROUND the killer shambles towards her; FOREGROUND NANCY breaks into a run.

The killer sprints — NANCY tears ahead into darkness.

She flees deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of steaming, SIZZLING pipes, squeezing through smaller and smaller openings. The killer is just yards behind her, and soon she’s trapped, just as TINA was before her.

She presses her back to the wet bricks. There’s no hope of fighting him off, for NANCY is not as strong as TINA. But she is smart as hell, and thinking even in this nightmare. So by the time the creep has raised his knives to strike, NANCY has realized something. She wheels and shoves her arm against one of the scalding steam pipes. In the sme split second we HEAR her

flesh scald, we

CUT TO:

59. INT. ENGLISH CLASS. DAY. 59.

NANCY lurches up SCREAMING, arm raised to ward off the invisible blow, books clattering to the floor — other GIRLS nearby SCREAM

in surprise as she stumbles over them. Then she stops, confused and groggy from the nightmare.

WIDER ANGLE. EVERYBODY is staring at NANCY as if she’s gone

mad. The ENGLISH TEACHER rushes over, herself frightened by the terror in the girl’s eyes.

TEACHER Okay — Okay, Thompson! Every- thing’s all right now — Nancy!.

60. NANCY jerks around with panicked eyes, expecting the killer to 60. leap from any direction. But there’s only the sea of staring eyes.

NANCY begins methodically picking up her books.

TEACHER I’ll call your mother.

NANCY No! No, really, I’m fine. I’ll go

straight home. I’m okay.

She marches for the door.

TEACHER You’ll need a hall pass!

But the girl’s gone.

61. EXT. THE SCHOOL. DAY. 61.

NANCY walks out of the building, shaken. Then she pauses at one of the big pine trees out front, stops and rests her head against its bark, teeth set. NANCY starts to shake, and next second she’s sobbing like a broken-hearted, frightened child. OMIT 61A.

OMIT 61A. 62. But she shakes herself silent. Wipes the tears away with a slash 62. of sleeve. She rubs her arm absently, lost in thought, then reacts in surprise and pain. She lifts her arm and stares at the spot she’s touched.

INSERT ON HER ARM and the BURN there; about the size and shape of

a half-dollar.

WIDER ON NANCY. Utterly, chillingly confused.

62A. TINA, against the tree inches from NANCY, (SC 7) — turns to her and says —

TINA

Couldn’t get back to sleep at all. (beat) What you dream?

63. EXT. A BUSY STREET. DAY. 63.

NANCY is walking quickly, head erect, jaw set. Then she enters her father’s Police Station.

64. INT. VAN NUYS POLICE STATION. DAY. 64.

NANCY crosses directly to the GARCIA.

NANCY

My dad here?

GARCIA looks up from his paperwork.

SERGEANT GARCIA Lieutenant.

LT THOMPSON emerges from another room, uneasy to see NANCY.

LT THOMPSON Decide to take a day off after all?

NANCY Dad, I want to see Rod Lane.

THOMPSON doesn’t miss a beat.

LT THOMPSON Only family allowed, Nancy. You know the drill.

NANCY

Just want to talk to him a second.

LT THOMPSON He’s dangerous.

NANCY You don’t know he did it.

LT THOMPSON No, I know, thanks to your own testimony, that he was locked in a room with a girl who went in alive and came out in a rubber bag.

NANCY flinches; her father shows the first signs of color in his neck.

NANCY I just want to talk to him. (beat, lower)

Please, Dad.

THOMPSON shifts almost imperceptibly towards GARCIA, then turns back to NANCY.

LT THOMPSON Make it fast.

DISSOLVE TO:

65. INT. CELL AREA. DAY. 65.

A GUARD exits pushing a cart of food trays. NANCY waits warily until he’s gone, then looks back to ROD LANE. ROD looks more like a captured coyote than a human; haggard, ribbed, expecting

poisoned bait. His hair is wet, his clothes are borrowed jeans and work shirt.

NANCY (low) And then what happened?

ROD I told you. (reluctantly) It was dark, but I’m sure there was someone else IN there, under the covers with her.

NANCY reacts.

NANCY How could somebody get under the covers with you guys without you knowing it?

ROD How the fuck do I know? (beat) I don’t expect you to believe me.

NANCY studies his encrypted eyes. Surprisingly, she looks like she just might believe him. She leans closer with a new thought.

NANCY What he look like? You get a look at him?

He looks away.

ROD No.

NANCY Well then how can you say

somebody else was there?

ROD Because somebody cut her. While I watched.

Now the place is so quiet you can hear heartbeats.

NANCY Somebody cut her while you watched and you don’t know what he looked like?

ROD smiles an insane smile, stuck with a reality no one will

buy.

ROD You couldn’t see the fucker. You could just see the cuts happening, all at once.

NANCY gives a twitch.

NANCY What you mean ‘all at once’?

ROD (low)

I mean, it was as if there were four razors cutting her at the same time. But invisible razors. She just… opened up…

By now he’s picking at a clot of dark blood on his jacket, as if it was a scab on his own body. Then he catches NANCY watching

and turns away to the back of the cell. He smashes his fist into the wall — bone-crushing blows that scare the wits out of NANCY.

NANCY Rod!

He stops, and his fist is dripping blood as he says in a small, sad voice.

ROD I probably could’ve saved her if I’d moved sooner… But I thought it was just another

nightmare, like the one I had the night before. (beat) There… was this guy who had knives for fingers…

CLOSE ON NANCY, unable to swallow the gorge rising in her

throat. ROD turns to her, and to his surprise she’s ashen.

ROD (CONTD) Do you think I did it?

NANCY No.

FADE TO BLACK

66. EXT. ELM STREET / NANCY’S HOME. NIGHT. 66.

FADE UP ON ESTABLISHING SHOT as a spooky WIND sets a DOG BARKING down the block. A CAR goes by, then this pleasant residential street falls into silence. CAMERA has MOVED IN on NANCY’s

well-tended two-story home.

67. INT. NANCY’S KITCHEN. NIGHT. 67.

The house is in shadow. Alone, MARGE scrapes the last of the evening’s dishes and slips them into the dishwasher. Neither she nor her daughter has touched the food. But MARGE is well into a

bottle of gin; her appetite for that is growing, right along with her dread. She turns and looks up the stairs, calling.

MARGE Nancy, don’t fall asleep in there.

NANCY (OS) I won’t.

MARGE Get into bed.

68. INT. UPSTAIRS BATHROOM. NIGHT. 68.

NANCY I will.

NANCY’S in the tub, so drowsy she can hardly rinse without falling asleep. The water in the tub is opaque with suds. Luxurious.

CLOSER ANGLE, AT WATER LEVEL ON NANCY. Her eyes droop. She

slides closer to the surface of the water, letting its heat sooth her nerves. Her eyes stare straight up, glazed; her breathing deepens.

REVERSE, across to her legs, crooked, one knee on each side of

the tub. There’s a ripple in the water between. Then something tiny and shiny breaks the surface between them. It pops up with a slithering MUSIC CUE and catches a sliver of light. Then it begins to rise.

Higher and higher it rises, soon accompanied by another, then two more shining, gleaming blades, and then the full glove and dark

hairy hand and then the wrist and arm, straight up light an evil sapling between the girl’s knees, the knives bloosoming into a bright flower of razor sharp steel in the air, moving over the girl’s belly. The hand rears back, the claws arch to strike.

MARGE (OS/APPROACHING) Nancy?

MARGE raps on the door. The instant she does NANCY jerks up, opening her eyes groggily. The dark wet arm, hand and knifes are gone.

NANCY What?

MARGE (OS) (through the door) You’re not falling asleep, are you? You could drown, you know.

NANCY Mother, for petesakes.

MARGE (OS) It happens all the time. (brighter) I’ve got some warm milk all

ready for you. Why don’t you jump into bed? (fading) I’m gonna turn on your electric blanket, too. C’mon, now. (then she’s gone into

another room)

NANCY (low) Warm milk. Gross.

She slides down to water level again, and sings softly,

thoughtfully to herself.

NANCY (CONTD) One, two, Freddie’s coming for you, three four, better lock your door, five six, grab your crucifix, seven eight gonna

stay up late, nine ten, never sleep again…

The next instant she’s jerked with incredible violence straight down beneath the surface of the tub — as if the bottom had suddenly dropped out and she was in a bottomless well!

68A. EXT. UNDERWATER SHOT. NIGHT. 68A.

LOOKING UP PAST HER ANKLES we SEE NANCY pulled sharply down into really deep water, the dim light of the surface and bathroom beyond receding with each yank. And yet she somehow flails and gasps and struggles back towards the surface, managing by pure panic to break the surface with her hands!

68B. INT. HALLWAY OUTSIDE BATHROOM. 68B.

MARGE rushes to the door and listens, alarmed at the wild SPLASHING audible through the locked door.

MARGE Nancy! NANCY!

68C. EXT. UNDERWATER SHOT. NIGHT. 68C.

MARGE’S VOICE reaches to the girl, who thrusts up through main force and breaks the surface with her head and shoulders.

68D. INT. BATHTUB. 68D.

Gasping and choking, NANCY breaks the surface of her bathwater,

like a drowning sailer getting one last chance. Her mother’s VOICE booms over her, ECHOED and frantic — and the loud BANGING on the door finally opens her eyes. She turns and calls gasping to her mother —

NANCY Mommy!

REVERSE ON THE DOOR — as MARGE, using the old hangar through the doorhandle truck, makes it into the room. She rushes across to the tub. NANCY is staggering up in the bathwater, again with solid porcelain beneath her feet.

MARGE

I told you! Hundreds of people a year drown like that!

The mother throws a towel around the gasping girl, helps her from the tub and begins drying her like a child. NANCY looks like she’s likes paralized with some sort of weird dread.

MARGE You okay?

NANCY Great

MARGE

(not believing it for a minute) To bed with you, c’mon.

MARGE rushes out to get the room ready. NANCY turns and looks at herself in the cabinet mirror, then opens the medicine chest and begins a quick, furtive search.

CLOSER as she takes out the box of No Doz and slips it into her

robe.

OMIT SCS. 69 & 70——————————- OMIT SCS. 69 & 70

71. INT. HALLWAY. NIGHT. 71.

NANCY emerges from the bathroom yawning. MARGE follows as the girl plods obediently to her room.

MARGE No television, forget the homework, no phone calls.

NANCY No, Mother. Yes, Mother. No, Mother.

72. INT. NANCY’S ROOM. NIGHT. 72.

MARGE

And no school tomorrow, either. you take a little vacation, relax and rest for a change.

NANCY Yes, Mother. G’night.

MARGE offers a smile, and a little yellow pill.

MARGE Take this, it’ll help you sleep.

NANCY Right.

NANCY pops it in her mouth and swallows obediently. MARGE leans to her with a kiss.

MARGE Sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.

MARGE goes out, relieved. NANCY closes the door, leans against it and spits the pill into her hand. She tosses it straight out her window and takes a NoDoz.

FADE TO BLACK

73. OMIT OMIT 73.

74. FADE UP ON INSERT OF TELEVISION SCREEN. 74.

A MONSTER MOVIE in BLACK AND WHITE. NO SOUND from the set.

75. PULL BACK to REVEAL NANCY propped up in bed, furtively watching. Or 75. is she just thinking? A bedside CLOCK reads 12:45 pm.

The girl YAWNS. She shakes herself violently and sits up

straighter, forcing herself to concentrate on the movie.

75A. ON THE TELEVISION SCREEN. A DIVER struggles to keep facing a 75A. large circling shark.

75B. ON NANCY. Her eyes droop shut — then she jerks awake, rattling 75B. her head as if it were a radio drifting off station. She tumbles out of bed, throws open the window and takes a deep breath of the

cool night air.

76. EXT. NANCY’S HOUSE AND STREET. NIGHT. 76.

HIGH ANGLE, AT SECOND-STORY LEVEL. NANCY looks directly across the street to a lighted, open window. Its curtains, sucked out and waving in the night breeze, give the only motion to the

deserted street.

Then someone pitches out of the dark at her. NANCY gives a YELP — then clamps her hand over her mouth as she recognizes GLEN, balanced precariously on the rose trellis outside her window.

GLEN

Sorry! Saw your light on. Thought I’d see how you were.

She gets herself together, barely.

NANCY Sometimes I wish you didn’t live

right across the street.

GLEN Shut up and let me in. You ever stand on a rose trellis in your bare feet?

76A. INT. NANCY’S ROOM. NIGHT. 76A.

NANCY looks over her shoulder to make sure her mother hasn’t heard. GLEN’s already through her window and planted on her bed. NANCY points to a chair.

NANCY

If you don’t mind.

GLEN crosses to the chair and plops down.

GLEN So. I heard you freaked out in English class today.

There’s no maliciousness in his voice, and the familiar frankness is actually comforting to NANCY.

NANCY Guess I did.

GLEN

Haven’t slept, have you?

NANCY Not really.

NANCY tries to smile, but can’t fake it very well. GLEN looks her over.

GLEN You look dead and rained on, if you want the ugly truth. And what you do to your arm?

She shrugs, trying to keep it casual.