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Diane is pulled to her feet. Standing tiptoes above the pillows she is DRAGGED UP THE WALL AND ONTO THE CEILING. IN DEFIANCE OF EVERY KNOWN LAW OF PHYSICS.
Diane is dragged across the mandibles of the spider stain and onto the ceiling. There she is slammed repeatedly, her rear end pounding the ceiling, her back arched, her head torn back from her shoulders, held invisibly by the hair.
Without a breather, she is then pulled across and down the opposite wall. Diane is just as quickly released. She drops onto the floor. Like jello are her legs. Diane struggles, crawling off the bed to the door, reaching, straining to open it.
Mercifully “it” lets her get out. She BELLOWS her children’s names.
DIANE
CAROL ANNE! ROBBIE! GET OUT OF HERE! RUN!
RUN!!
CLOSE - DOORJAMB TO MASTER BEDROOM
From beneath the door of Diane's room a rush of ECTOPLASMIC SMOKE snakes ahead of her, cutting her off from her children’s room. There, it forms an eerie blockade and begins to MANIFEST. Diane looks up into the face that forms and the hands that reach out to her and sees the beginning of the “great beast”. She retreats on her rear end backward down the hall, pursued by the phantom twister.
Diane rolls down the carpeted staircase and grapples for her footing as she heads toward the back door.
It is raining and Diane is instantly soaked
as she backs up looking at
the house SCREAMING.
DIANE
STEVE! ANYONE!! HELP ME!!
Diane’s feet lose her footing in the mud and she falls into the shallow end of the unfinished swimming pool, sliding all the way down the wet mud to the puddle in the deep end.
THE POOL LIGHTS COME ON. Backlighting the rain and Diane’s flopping actions as she regains her balance is the quagmire.
Then, A GUSHING BUBBLE EXPLODES next to her in the mud. She stares at it as a second bubble bursts revealing within it, the leathery face of a corpse, in its burial clothes, rising like a weed straight out of the gushing mud. Diane SCREAMS and backs into ANOTHER FACE whose mouth stretches open revealing tiny wire jaw clamps that make popping SOUNDS like a jew’s harp. With a terrible SLURP, the top of a metal coffin pushes out of the mud its lid hinged open, tossing bones and dirt and burial jewelry all over Diane.
CLOSE - CAROL ANNE
She is SCREAMING WILDLY. A white hot light erasing her features as she once again fights the phantom wind that begins to suck the room toward the closet.
CLOSE - ROBBIE
Wrestling on the floor with the clown. He tears the stuffing from its middle, shredded bits of white cotton flying at terrifying speed toward the closet opening.
The closet is becoming a living, terrifying organism as bits of flesh grow like moss along the squared off doer frame. Fatty tissues forms, veins escape into the soft pink skin until we are looking into a living mouth, all gums and blinding light and at the very back, a pale yellow esophagus that spirals to abysmal depths.
Some sort of seismic upheaval is forcing dead things up from the ground in even greater numbers. Diane is climbing up the steep, slick incline toward the metal ladder at the shallow end. With every couple of steps to safety, she slips back in the rain, turning back to see the black tie crowd that awaits her. Diane turns back reaching out her hand to dig in deeper when...
ANOTHER HAND GRABS HERS.
Diane shrieks and looks into the face of Ben Tuthill from next door.
TUTHILL
Look at that! Look at that!! Look in your
pool, my God!!
Mrs. Tuthill runs over in her night clothes.
MRS. TUTHILLY
Your children. Listen. What sort of sound
is that?
Ethereally, the SCREAMS from Carol Anne and Robbie sound almost angelic in the rain.
DIANE
I HAVE TO GET THEM OUT!!
She pulls away from Tuthill and races back inside the house. Ben starts to follow but the Mrs. stops him.
Mrs. TUTHILL
Don’t go in there. Don’t ever go in there!
Diane hits the staircase and races up. The door to the children’s room is shut and ultra-bright light., is streaming from under the jamb. Diane opens it and is immediately sucked in.
Robbie and Carol Anne hold onto their bedposts with all their might. Everything is loose and circulating the room a full revolution before surrendering to the closet and bottomless pit. Diane SCREAMS to her children.
DIANE
TAKE MY HAND, ROBBIE--!
Robbie reaches out with his one hand and Diane tries to work her way against the rip to get into position. She looks at the closet.
THE CLOSET
It sucks harder and Robbie and Carol Anne’s beds start to move toward the hot pink opening. Diane lurches the final inch and grabs Robbie's little wrist with both hands.
DIANE
TAKE YOUR SISTER’S HAND, ROBBIE. TAKE IT!
Robbie reaches for Carol Anne, who reaches out to Robbie. They are but inches apart.
ANGLE - CLOSET
One last powerful inhale and the two beds shoot out from under the children just as Robbie grabs his sister's hand and Diane pulls them both from the room.
Diane drags her children down the stairs and toward the front door. The staircase is rolling as in an earthquake, knocking them off balance and onto the landing face down. Diane sees the front door through a sudden cut over her left eye. She leads the children to it slow in motion as a phenomenally intense headwind tries to prevent their escape.
THE RAIN HAS STOPPED.
Teague’s Bronco pulls up to the driveway of the Freeling home. Steve gets out, sees the house in turmoil, and runs to the front door. Teague gets out of the car, his eyes afloat.
Diane finally reaches the front door. She throws it open and is about to step out when...
THE FRONT STEPS CRACK OPEN, AND SUDDENLY SOMETHING EXPLODES ONE ORNATE CASKET RISES UP OUT OF THE GROUND SENDING A GEYSER OF DIRT AND SPLINTERS INTO THE HOUSE, SHOWERING DIANE, THE KIDS, AND STEVE WHO HAS JUST ROUNDED THE FRONT OF THE HOUSE.
Diane picks up Carol Anne and she and Robbie run towards the kitchen.
Steve turns and is knocked off his feet by an exploding casket. Bones, mud, and decaying flesh spill over him.
As the fami1y runs for the side door, the kitchen tile bulges horrifically, splits open with a MOAN and two caskets shoot into the clean eating area, lids blowing off and rotten, rotting corpses reaching out at Diane as they pitch forward. As they reach the door, the kitchen wall explodes with the impact of the BEAST.
Steve claws his way up out of bones and flesh and runs to the front of the garage.
Dana stops out of a car with two young men and stands with her mouth agape.
Steve looks back at the house then at Teague.
STEVE
You moved the cemetery! But you left the
bodies didn’t you! I You son-of-a-bitch you
left the bodies and only moved the headstones!!
Every window in the house blows outward with bright flashes in every room.
Diane, carrying Carol Anne, and Robbie come running from the back yard. Two coffins pop up in their path. They dodge the cascading bodies and scramble towards the station wagon.
Steve jumps behind the wheel as the rest of the family piles into the car. He throws the car in reverse just as a coffin blasts through the garage door in front of them.
The station wagon roars back, crashing into Teague's Bronco shoving it into the street. Steve guns the car forward past Teague who stares after them.
ON TEAGUE
He turns as a coffin launches out of the lawn ripping up wires and cables and causing electrical shorts and flashes all around it. It flies open and a hideous corpse lurches across the sidewalk at Teague. He falls backward into a hole, the corpse landing on top of him.
Teague tries to scream but only night breath gushes out.
As the Freeling car passes the house, a coffin explodes from under Tuthill's VW knocking it out into the street. Steve swerves but cannot avoid hitting the VW, causing it to spin on it's top. Steve fights for control of the car.
The car continues past a fire hydrant. Another casket bursts out of the ground, sending mud and water 30 feet into the air. Steve slams on the brakes, stopping inches from the coffin and mud that block their path. Steve jumps out to clear the path. An incredible noise blasts forth from down the street. He turns...
STEVE’S POV
The children’s window is glowing with an almost radioactive intensity.
The entire house starts to suck inward, imploding at an angle that suggests that the closet is consuming everything in its lust and anger.
CLOSE - STEVE
He is stunned by what he sees.
A CONCUSSION OF SUCH AWESOME POWER BLOWS ALL SHINGLES OFF THE ROOF AND A CLOUD OF THIN BLUE ECTOPLASM, LIKE FINGERS AND ARMS REACHING UPWARD, ESCAPES LIKE A GREEN COMET TO THE HEAVENS.
CLOSE - TEAGUE
Dripping mud and putrifying flesh he looks up at the house. The imploding house creates a whirlwind around him. Teague stumbles backward, but cannot lock away power of the house.
STEVE'S POV
THE ENTIRE FREELING HOUSE IS TOTALLY CONSUMED BY AN AREA IN SPACE, FOURTEEN FEET FROM THE FOUNDATION THAT WAS ONCE THE CLOSET.
Water rains down on Steve from the broken hydrant. He jumps back in the car, backs up, and drives through the coffin and mud that were blocking their exit.
SCREAMING WELLS UP inside. Steve throws the car into reverse.
No longer is Robbie afraid. He’s fighting mad and takes the dead remains, flinging them out the back window as the car heads out of town.
DISSOLVE TO:
ANGLE - ROOM 237 - NIGHT
CAMERA SLOWLY MOVES INTO the door and number.
The Freelings, Dana, Robbie, Steve, and Diane are asleep, on two beds still in the clothes we last saw then wearing. It is very quiet except for the snoring. The nightmare has ended. CAMERA PANS around the room to Carol Anne who is the only family member not sleeping.
Carol Anne is fiddling with the RCA Vistacolor television trying to get it to work.
POP. IT COMES ON.
The room is bathed in cold blue TV light and we HEAR the last few bars of The National Anthem.
CAMERA PUSHES PAST the sleeping Freelings to a view over Carol Anne’s shoulder.
The Anthem ends and the station manager identifies the station, signifies the megahurts and signs off for the morning.
THE CAMERA PUSHES PAST CAROL ANNE'S HEAD UNTIL THE TV IS FULL SCREEN.
THERE IS A MOMENT OF VISUAL STATION I.D. -- BUT ONLY A MOMENT.
FLASH! EVERYTHING TURNS TO WHITE STATIC SNOW.
FADE OUT..
THE END
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