"PANIC ROOM" (2002)

The whole island, from the south. For a second. Literally.

Closer, just the skyline. For another second.

Closer still, the Upper West Side. Another second.

Three women hurry down the sidewalk. LYDIA, a real estate broker, vaults ahead, she's got a hell of a stride. MEG ALTMAN, mid-thirties, struggles to stay with her. SARAH, a ten year old *

girl, glides along on a Razor scooter, looping around, weaving in between then.

Lydia reads from a Post-It note stuck to one finger. * LYDIA -- forty-two hundred square feet, four floors, perfect, courtyard in back, * south-facing garden, perfect -- * MEG Why don't we wait for the car service? LYDIA Bah! We'll sit in traffic forever. MEG ee Can I see the listing sheet? os LYDIA * Listing sheet? There's no listing * sheet, it's not even on the market. I * heard about it this morning, it'll be we gone this afternoon. * MEG Really? How many more do we have after o this? x LYDIA

None, there's nothing else, you know how tight the market is.

CONTINUED :

1A. PINK

2/07/2001

a PINK 2/07/2001 CONTINUED: (2) 4

They approach a row of brownstones, narrow four story townhouses, nice looking buildings, a hundred years old or more. EVAN, a sour-looking man, has just locked the front door of number 38 and is coming down the steps. He sees them.

Evan throws open the front door, revealing the airy foyer of the townhouse. The place is completely empty. He talks fast, races through the tour. The three of them come in, Sarah immediately rides her scooter across the open expanse of floor.

5}

Se PINK 2/07/2001 CONTINUED : 5

Meg tries to get her daughter's attention, to tell her to stop riding the scooter in the house.

The front door closes behind them with an authoritative THUD.

Meg whispers Sarah's name, but Sarah still ignores her, loops into the living room on her scooter.

Sarah immediately stops. She wanders into the solarium (rear parlor), peers through big French doors which look out over a courtyard area. There’s another row of brownstones on the next. block, and all the patios back up to one another.

Sarah leans up against the door, sighs, her breath fogs the window. There is a profound melancholy about her.

He flings open the door of an old-fashioned cage-style elevator.

(MORE)

+ OF

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+ % OF * + + + ee *

+

5)

4. PINK 2/07/2001 CONTINUED: (2) 5

Pe a os

As he disappears upstairs, Lydia turns to Meg, lowers her voice. *

LYDIA *

You should offer immediately. *

MEG *

Okay if I see it first? *

LYDIA *

I'm telling you, there is nothing *

remotely like this on the market right te

now. You can't move from Greenwich to *

the Upper West Side and expect to still *

have a house and a yard and a dog and a *

cat, but here it is. It's got *

everything you told me you wanted and *

more. You'll have another family, my *

God, you could have two. *

MEG *

It's a fortune. * SARAH

It's not Barney's, Mom, you don't have *

to pay the price on the tag.

LYDIA x

(low) *

He can afford it. *

Sarah, who heard that, gets in the elevator and RATTLES the door *

shut with a bang. 2 EVAN

(from upstairs) It would be so lovely if I could show the property before I leave!

Evan, Lydia, and Meg are on the uppermost floor.

5. PINK 2/07/2001

From the hallway, they hear the GROANING METALLIC sound of the elevator as Sarah puts it through its paces. Evan doesn't like it, but he holds his tongue.

U INT THIRD FLOOR DAY 7

Another floor, another empty room. The trio passes through.

Columbia.

Evan gives a rather naked look to Lydia -- what the hell did you bring a student to this house for?

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5A. PINK 2/07/2001 7 CONTINUED:

Ah. Getting the picture, Evan keeps moving.

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6. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : af

Master. Closet.

Off screen, the elevator GROANS again, they hear Sarah laugh with delight. Evan winces, speaks as if his mouth hurts.

She looks at Meg and winks.

He checks his watch.

Meg looks around, studying the dimensions of the room. She looks at the far wall, the one that borders the house next door. She looks at the wall that corners it, takes two steps back.

She points to the far end of the wall, near the entrance to the closet. There is a mirrored door that leads to the closet, and a mirror on the wall alongside it.

Mh: 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 8

If you look closely, you’11 see that the mirrors are raked slightly, which causes an optical illusion in which the corner of the room appears closer to the door than it is.

He pushes on the top of the mirror on the wall. It makes a faint CLICK, then glides open a few inches off the wall. He pulls it toward him, a hundred eighty degrees, and it fastens magnetically to the back of the closet door. There is smooth wall behind it, but if you look closely, there's a faint vertical crack.

Meg looks at him -- what in the world? Evan pushes again, twice this time, first at the top, then at the bottom, and the smooth wall CLICKS ajar. He pulls it wide open. Meg and Lydia step forward, fascinated.

From the opposite end of a long, narrow, windowless space, we see the three of them standing in the open doorway, silhouetted

by the sunlight streaming through the bedroom windows behind them.

He hits a switch and a row of bulbs flick on overhead.

can't be too careful about home invasion.

The other two walk inside, but Meg lingers near the door, looking around. There are several large gray plastic crates which open down the middle, displaying survival supplies -—— water, batteries, flashlights, tools, clothes, blankets.

Ee PINK 2/07/2001

He hits a switch next to a bank of small video monitors.

Meg nods, starting to sweat.

: MEG Makes me nervous.

Evan reaches past Meg and pushes a red button on the wall behind her.

Se 12/21/2000 CONTINUED: (2) 9

With a sudden WHANG of steel, a heavy metal door leaps out of a slot in the wall and SLAMS shut. A series of metal latches CLICK into place inside it, from top to bottom, securing it.

Evan hits a green button and the door GROANS open, re-coiling its massive spring and revealing Sarah, the little girl, standing in the entryway, grinning.

She steps in, just as her mother bolts out.

Meg stops just outside the panic room door, regaining her composure. Not crazy about tight spaces. The other three remain in the panic room.

He pushes the button again, but just before the door closes, he darts a hand into a tiny red beam that shines across the doorway at shoulder height. The beam breaks, the door stops halfway shut and GROANS open again.

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10. PINK 2/07/2001 CONTINUED: (3) 9

He reaches up to push the button again. Lydia steps outside, joins Meg.

WHANG! The metal door rockets shut, the metallic clang reverberating in the room. Almost immediately, the fake piece of wall HUMS shut of its own accord, followed a moment later by the mirror, which detaches itself from the back of the closet door and HUMS silently back into place, closing over the hidden door, making the corner of the room look like a corner again.

Lydia looks at Meg.

As the mirrored door closes, it shows Meg her own reflection. She finds a trickle of sweat on the side of her face.

Cur TO:

A moving truck is parked in front of the same house, tired MOVING GUYS climbing back aboard. The narrow street is thick with blocked cars. The truck ROARS away.

The entry floor is piled high with moving boxes. Meg lies sprawled out in the middle of the black and white tile, staring up at the ceiling, beat. Sarah, not as tired, has a basketball now and is dribbling it, a little too close to her mother's head.

11 CONTINUED:

Sarah stops, conspiracy.

10A. PINK 2/07/2001

looks around suddenly, as if she's unearthed a

slack?

Sarah shifts, not missing a beat.

IL

t3

ts YELLOW 2/08/2001

CONTINUED: (2) alah Meg raises her hand to her face, she's got her cell phone. * MEG es Battery's dead. CuT TO:

Sarah bounces her basketball. One floor below, Meg picks up the wall phone in the kitchen, gets a dial tone.

MEG

The phone works.

(to Sarah)

Hey, I hooked up the phone. SARAH

Good for you. You hooked up a phone. * MEG

WAS 56 % SARAH

3000. Meg finishes dialing. It rings, someone answers.

VOICE (0.S.) Patsy's Pizza, please hold.

Cur TO:

Night has fallen. Meg and Sarah sit at a built-in island in the kitchen, surrounded by boxes. They eat pizza, Sarah picking the

cheese off hers. She finishes a glass of Coke. The can is next * to it. She picks up the can, to pour herself some more. % MEG *

Hey, that's enough. 2

Meg reaches out, takes the can away gently -- no more. > MEG (CONT’D) *

You mind the pizza? *

SARAH *

What do you mean? *

13 CONTINUED:

Sarah shrugs.

11A. YELLOW

I

2/08/2001

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+ FF +

i227 YELLOW 2/08/2001

Meg finishes her glass of wine, looks away. Her eyes are moist * and she doesn't want Sarah to see. But of course, Sarah knows. Meg shrugs. I’m human, what do you want me to do?

Sarah looks away, goes back to chewing. After a moment:

Meg looks at her. MEG

I agree. But don't. Sarah stares at her for a moment, then goes back to eating. Meg picks up the can of soda and pours Sarah another glass. Sarah looks up and gives her mother a thin smile.

Curt TO:

The entry floor is dark, a couple scraps of furniture (but not many) cast long shadows across the bare floor. On the landing, Sarah's basketball sits forgotten.

Late. Lights out, the kitchen's cleaned up. A few moving boxes in the empty room.

The door that leads from the panic room to the master bedroom hangs open. In the middle of the floor in here, Sarah has made a small tent of blankets and couch cushions, blocking one of the infrared safety beams. Explains the open door.

13. PINK 2/07/2001

Fourth floor hallway, long and dark and empty. At the end of the hall, a faint yellow light spills from upstairs. Heading toward it, soft voices are coming from --

-- Sarah's bedroom. Her twin bed has been set up and Sarah is sitting on it, hair wet, pajamas on, knees pulled up to her chest. Meg's moving around the room, unpacking a few things, putting them away.

So I'll just take a cab and meet him there.

+ + + FF OF *

18 CONTINUED:

13A. YELLOW 2/08/2001

* +

+ + He OF

14. PINK 2/07/2001

She bends down to the night stand, which is actually a mini- us refrigerator, opens the door, and takes out a water. We get a brief glimpse of a black leather pouch inside the fridge before Meg closes it, leaves the water open for her daughter on top of it. She gives Sarah a kiss and pulls her blanket up.

MEG (cont’ d) *

I really love you. ts:

SARAH *

I know. 8

Meg flicks off the light and heads for the door. a SARAH (cont’ d) *

Too dark. *

Meg comes back in. She opens the closet door, turns the light * on in there, leaves the door open a crack. She looks at Sarah -- better?

A box thunks to the floor outside the door to the panic room. Meg digs through it, pulls out a box with a new phone in it, sets it on the floor in front of a phone jack. She keeps digging, comes up with a clock radio and the charger for her cell phone. She pulls them out, along with a framed picture of Sarah.

She plugs in the charger, places the phone in the cradle, on a box she's using for a night table next to the bed. The phone BEEPS. “Charging.”

She sets the digital clock, puts that on the table too, next to the picture of Sarah. It’s 12:26.

Sheets billow out over the bed as Meg puts it together.

In the master bathroom, Meg soaks in a bath. She is exhausted.

She stares. A few tears roll down her cheek. They make her more angry than anything. She picks up the washcloth, scrubs her face, hard. Too hard.

abe)

Pal

Sie 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 19

She reaches for her wine glass, finishes the last of it. She stretches for the bottle, which is on the floor next to her. She refills the glass.

At the alarm panel, Meg reads from an instruction manual, trying to figure out the alarm. She mutters, slurring, a bit drunk.

MEG

Bypass non-ready zones... shunt, enter, zone number...

She tries it, pushing a few buttons, but the alarm panel BEEPS at her disapprovingly. She’s doing something wrong.

system armed The very moment the red light goes on, we cut to --

-- the darkened panic room, where the dozen small video screens all suddenly wink to life, showing myriad views of the house. Beneath them, a bank of VCRs whir to life, their red "RECORD" lights coming on as the heads begin to turn. Whatever she pushed turned these on too.

At least she got the alarm on for the night. She tosses the book, it lands on the floor. She mutters.

The rest of the sentence is lost in an intoxicated mumble.

MOMENTS LATER,

16. PINK 2/07/2001

CONTINUED : Ze It's dark in the room. Meg gets under the sheets, crawls to the * middle, and lies there on her back in the dark, eyes open. * CUT TO: *

A hand drops off the bed, dangles just above the floor. She's in a hard, boozy sleep. We drift off her, past the clock (now it's 2:47), out the door of the master bedroom, into the third floor hallway, and down the open stairwell.

We glide through the entry floor, still gently falling through the stairwell’s airway, dropping even further, all the way down to the kitchen floor, the ground floor.

We drift across the darkened kitchen, serpentine through the canyon of moving boxes, pass through an archway into what once must have been a nurse or housekeeper's area, and approach the window that looks out on the street. We move up against the window, peer through the glass as --

-- a van pulls up across the street. Can’t see through its windows. No movement for a moment, then doors open and TWO MEN climb out. They wear dark clothes.

The Men close the doors, look both ways, and start across the street toward us. One Man carries a bag of some kind. He goes to the door, and we drift down toward the doorknob. We hear a key slide into the door, rattle.

But the lock doesn't turn. The key slides out, back in again, jiggles. Still won't open the door.

The Man steps away from the door, turns, then walks around the side of the house as the other man goes to the kitchen window, which is heavily barred, and peers inside, right at us. Can’t see anything, it’s darker in here than it is out there.

PAY

Abg/ 6 12/21/2000

At the other end of the ground floor, we reach the dining room windows just as the Man comes around the back of the house, emerging from the narrow alleyway. We see him plainly through the French doors at the rear as he comes into the courtyard, goes to the dining room doors.

He tries another key in those doors, tries to turn the lock. Won't budge.

He looks up, thinking. And then he jumps, reaching for something. Doesn't catch it. Jumps again, and this time he comes down with --

-- the fire escape. It drops into view with a metallic SCRAPE. He climbs, his feet disappearing from our field of vision.

We drift back up, through the entry floor, past the doorway to the master bedroom where we see Meg sleeping, and as we rise we notice something all the way up on the roof that we couldn’t see before, when we were looking down.

A skylight. We continue to rise, drawn toward it. We move up, creeping up alongside the stair banister, now reaching the top floor of the house, and just as we near the skylight --

-- a figure appears, visible through it. The Man in dark clothes, on the roof now. He stops, peers down through the skylight, looking at us without seeing us again.

He steps across the skylight. This is not the way he intends to enter. We drift again, following his soft footsteps on the roof, which we can hear faintly through the ceiling.

Here in the hall, just outside Sarah’s bedroom, a closet door is ajar. We squeeze through the gap and into the closet.

IN THE CLOSET, 28

it’s completely dark. But then a sliver of light appears, coming from above. There is a ladder that’s bolted to the wall in this closet, it leads up to a square panel in the ceiling.

Roof access. And that roof access panel is moving, ever so slightly, moonlight spilling in as it twists in its setting. A shiny silver something slides through the crack along the edges of the portal.

Ge 12/21/2000

It slithers along the edge of the hatchway, searching for something. It finds a small round nub in the crack. The silver something stops. It HUMS with electricity for a moment, then there is a bright spark and a soft CRACK.

In the master bedroom, a message appears on the alarm panel, which BEEPS softly:

zone 19 disabled

Meg stirs. An alcohol sleep is restless, she’s suffering. We peek out her door, tilt up --

-- in time to see the Man step out of the closet in the top floor hallway. He starts for the stairs, moving quickly, knows where he’s going. He starts down the stairs, happens to glance to the side as he does so.

He freezes. He’s looking in the open doorway of the top floor bathroom, staring hard at something that clearly disturbs him.

A night light. Plugged into an outlet in the baseboard in the bathroom. He blinks. Still stares. Can't believe it. This is very bad news.

Meg sits up groggily, chugs from a bottle of water on her night table. Lies down again.

3i INT SARAH’ S BEDROOM NIGHT Shab

In the top floor bedroom, a night light burns in another outlet. * Nearby, Sarah is asleep in bed, the covers kicked off.

The door to Sarah’s bedroom glides open slowly. The Man stands in the doorway, staring. His gaze falls on Sarah in bed.

The Man just stares, beside himself. His lips mouth a word, soundlessly. Doesn’t take a lip reader to guess it.

SZ lNe MASTER BEDROOM NIGHT 32

In the master bedroom, Meg flops over in bed, facing away from the doorway, really having a rough go of it. She slept too hard before, now she’s awake, her head is killing her, she’s really paying the price of four glasses of wine.

32)

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CONTINUED :

ie), 12/21/2000 B32.

She lies still, on her side, facing us. Behind her, the bedroom door moves silently. Opening.

The Man stands there, one

finger still on the door he’s just

pushed open. He stares at Meg on the bed, whose back is to him. He has no idea she’s awake.

Meg lies in bed, eyes wide open, no idea a Man is standing in the doorway to her bedroom. Noiselessly, the Man moves away, down the hall. The moment he disappears --

-- Meg flops over again, facing the doorway. She closes her

eyes, gives sleep another

exy7 (bpe) 'urfo)s

83)

The Man (BURNHAM) walks across the kitchen, shaking his head in exasperation at the packing boxes all around him. Burnham steps

over to the kitchen door, panel there.

enters a few numbers on the alarm

NIGHT 34

The alarm panel flashes and BEEPS again:

zone I disabled

We whip over to the bed,

see Meg, back asleep. Didn't see it,

didn't hear it, doesn't know.

IN THE KITCHEN,

Burnham opens the kitchen slip inside.

S35)

door, letting another man (JUNIOR)

BURNHAM

We got a problem, we gotta talk.

But before Junior comes i

Hurry up.

n, he pauses, gestures to the street.

BURNHAM (cont’ d)

A third guy (RAOUL) emerges from the shadows, where he must have been waiting all along, and TAPS on the window.

Who's that?!

BURNHAM (cont’ d)

35 CONTINUED:

20. PINK JUNIOR This is Raoul. BURNHAM Who's Raoul?! JUNIOR

Raoul's okay. Raoul has experience.

Through the door, we hear Raoul, low voice.

2/07/2001

Junior admits him. Raoul wears a black ski mask and surgical gloves. He brings in a heavy bag, sets it on the floor, closes * and locks the door.

He stops in his tracks, staring at the moving boxes. *

BURNHAM

Little girl on the top floor, a woman

on the third. Both asleep.

35 CONTINUED:

21 PINK 2/07/2001 (2)

He starts for the door.

* FF OF OF +

+

+ FF OF OF

Zon PINK 2/07/2001

Upstairs, Meg sits up in bed, bleary, head pounding. She swings * her legs over the edge and collects herself for a moment. *

The argument continues in the kitchen. of JUNIOR i (to Burnham) * Twenty minutes. That’s all you need, * you said it yourself. That’s like * nothing. * BURNHAM * She’11 call the cops, they’11 be here * before I'm unpacked. * JUNIOR * So we keep an eye on her. Raoul can * totally administrate that part. * BURNHAM * I don't want Raoul to administrate that * part. *

Meg staggers into the bathroom and feels for a light switch, but * can’t find one. She blinks, squints, tries to get her bearings. The only light is a harsh white glow that comes from along one wall, from a bank of tiny video monitors.

She finds the light switch, flicks it on, nearly blinding ‘3 herself. She’s not in the bathroom. She’s wandered into the BH panic room by mistake. =

She turns around, walks out, leaving the lights on behind her. us We linger for a look at the video screens. -

ON THE MONITORS, 39*

we see the three men, still in the kitchen, huddled in a group. *

23. PINK 2/07/2001

Junior is still working on Burnham.

Junior looks at Raoul, who opens his coat, revealing the dark sheen of a bulletproof vest and a .357 in a shoulder holster.

Meg comes into the bathroom, searches for something on the counter in the bathroom, can't find it. She's in no mood.

Meg RIPS open a cardboard box, starts digging through that. OMITTED

OMITTED

Junior has pulled Burnham aside and lowered his voice.

oe He F

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+ OF OF OF

24. PINK 2/07/2001

CONTINUED : 44 JUNIOR You're right, okay, you're right. It's all fucked up, it isn't how it's

supposed to be.

+ OF

Junior darts a look over his shoulder at Raoul, lowers his voice *

so only Burnham can hear.

Meg is bent down at the spout, sucking up water to wash down the pills. She finishes, wipes her chin, turns to the toilet and starts to sit.

++ ee HF OF

PAS) 12/21/2000

Burnham, Raoul, and Junior come up the stairs from the kitchen floor, creeping silently.

In the bathroom, Meg feels around for the flusher on the toilet, not where she expects it to be.

One floor down, Burnham, Raoul, and Junior continue to head up.

Meg's hand finds the flusher, an old-fashioned one on top of the * tank, and pulls it up. "3

The three intruders freeze. They look up, hearing the water rush through the pipes in the ceiling above them.

They stare at the ceiling, following with their eyes as a pair of feet pad across the CREAKY floor. Finally, they hear a SQUEAK of bedsprings as Meg climbs back into bed.

They hold for a moment. Junior chews gum nervously.

Si INT. MASTER BEDROOM NIGHT spl Meg rolls over to go back to sleep. She sees she’s left the lights on in the panic room. She TSKS, gets out of bed, and walks across the floor toward it.

Junior still chews, blows a bubble until it pops. Burnham looks at him. Shut up.

Meg steps into the panic room, shuts off the lights.

Junior and Burnham stare at each other, listening for Meg's footsteps.

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Meg turns, the monitors catch her eye.

Hearing nothing, Junior leads Raoul and Burnham up the stairs.

Meg cocks her head, looking at something she can’t understand. She blinks. Takes a step, further into the room. She stares at

the video monitors -- at the three men in dark clothes, stealing silently across her foyer.

This can’t be. These are just pictures, they have no relation to reality. She drops to her knees, her face inches from the screens, and reaches out to touch them, as if trying to make sure they’re really there.

They reach the base of the stairs, Junior in the lead. As he steps up to the landing, his toe bumps into something dark and round. Sarah's basketball.

It caroms off the wall and rolls past him, bouncing down the stairs, just past his outstretched fingers.

Watching the monitors, Meg stares in horror as the image of the ball bouncing across the foyer is verified by the THUD THUD THUD sounds audible through the open door to the panic room.

She GASPS. It is real.

The intruders gape at the basketball as it bounces down the stairs.

Meg's like a statue, staring at the monitors.

Slowly, the basketball rolls to a curling stop in the middle of the floor.

27. PINK 2/07/2001

Meg stands up straight from the monitors.

In the living room, the intruders remain frozen. Nobody breathes. Until --

-- Meg bolts out of there.

On the entry floor, they hear her feet THUNDER across the floor of the bedroom. No more pretense, Junior starts SHOUTING.

Raoul pulls the .357 from its shoulder holster. There's a silencer screwed onto the end of its barrel. Burnham's eyes widen, fixed on the weapon. Junior holds out a hand to Raoul.

Raoul does. Junior turns to Burnham.

He heads for the stairs. Raoul follows close behind. Burnham stays, sweating -- what has he gotten himself into?

Meg bolts up the carpeted stairs, headed for the top floor. Junior and Raoul race up the stairs to the third floor.

Burnham stays behind.

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28. 12/21/2000

One floor down, Junior and Raoul reach the third floor landing. Junior heads down the hall for the master bedroom, where he thinks Meg is. Raoul heads for the stairs to the top floor.

Meg races into Sarah’s room.

Raoul runs to the base of the stairs that lead to the top floor.

Meg grabs Sarah by the shoulders, trying to rouse her.

But she’s in a profound child's sleep and won't awaken. Meg starts picking her up, but the kid is too heavy.

Raoul hears the shouting. He starts up the stairs, quickly. cENTE SARAH'S BEDROOM NIGHT 65

Meg sees a plastic cup on the night table/box, half filled with water. She snatches it and tosses the water in Sarah's face.

Now she’s awake. She SPUTTERS, SHOUTS.

On the top floor, Meg is already dragging Sarah out of the room and into the hallway.

Meg and Sarah come out of Sarah’s bedroom just as Raoul reaches the top of the stairs at the other end. They’re cut off.

BE). 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 66

Meg freezes, staring at the hulking ski-masked figure at the end of the hallway. She thinks, no idea what to do for a second. She looks frantically to her right -- the bathroom, dead end.

She looks to her left. The elevator.

She yanks open the elevator door, throws aside the gate, and races inside with Sarah.

Raoul takes off down the hall, lunging for the elevator.

Meg SLAMS the gate shut and PUNCHES the button for the first floor. The elevator GROANS to life and starts down -- slowly.

Sarah looks up at her, terrified.

As the elevator descends, they see Raoul, through the window in the door, as he lunges forward to get a good look at them.

Raoul turns from the elevator, SHOUTS to the open stairwell.

Junior turns from the open doorway of the master bedroom and races back down the hall, toward the elevator. He reaches the door, peers through the window.

He sees the bare feet of Meg and Sarah, dropping toward him. He grabs the door handle, pulls as hard as he can, but it stays locked, with the elevator moving beyond.

He bangs on the button, hoping the elevator will stop. As Meg and Sarah drop fully into view, he stands there, eye to moving eye with her for a moment. But the elevator doesn’t stop, it keeps going down.

50° 12/21/2000

Meg stands frozen, terrified, staring at Junior as they move past hin.

Junior has another go at the door, pulling as hard as he can, actually bending the door, but the elevator is still moving, the catch holds fast and the door won’t open.

As they pass, Junior runs to the railing and SHOUTS downstairs, to Burnham.

Burnham SHOUTS back up at him. BURNHAM GOD DAMN IT, I TOLD YOU, I DON'T HURT PEOPLE, I DON'T-

Junior hears him.

He turns and flies down the stairs, to cut them off himself.

SARAH

PANIC ROOM! Meg thinks, then punches the button for three, to go back up.

But the elevator continues down. She jabs at it, futilely.

dial

7T9A

Sir 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 74

She reaches past her, pushes the STOP button. The elevator

jerks to a halt. Then Sarah pushes three. Now the elevator starts to rise.

Meg looks at her, impressed. Loves that kid.

In the foyer, Junior freezes. Where the hell are they? He realizes.

Junior races back up the stairs. She's caught in the middle.

Raoul, still on the top floor, heads for the stairs, fast.

The door to the elevator BANGS open on three, the gate RATTLES aside, and Meg and Sarah leap out. They take off toward the front of the house.

Junior thunders up the other stairs, not ten feet behind them.

Meg and Sarah race through the front bedroom, into the master bathroom.

Junior races for the master bedroom as Raoul flies down the stairs.

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Looking up at the ceiling, we hear feet POUNDING on the floor above. Tilting down, we see Burnham's face, looking up, deeply concerned.

Meg and Sarah run through the bathroom. Framed in the doorway, we see Junior.

Raoul runs past Junior for the bathroom.

Raoul races in, looking for the women.

Junior sprints toward the master bedroom.

JUNIOR'S P.O.V.

Seen through the doorways, Meg leads Sarah as they run for the panic room.

Meg and Sarah scramble across the bedroom and lunge through the open doorway to the panic room.

Junior pushes on the door held closed by moving boxes.

Meg and Sarah crash to the floor, tripping over all the pillows and blankets and stuff that Sarah left in the doorway.

The boxes give way and Junior crashes through the doorway as Meg pulls pillows and blankets into the panic room.

The pillows and blankets clear, allowing the red beam to travel across the panic room doorway.

82B

84A

84B

33° 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 82B

Sarah hurls herself at the red button on the wall --

-- Junior strains, clawing through the air toward them --

-- Sarah SLAMS her open palm on the red button, the massive coiled spring that holds the metal door open is released, the steel barrier leaps forward out of the wall --

-- and WHANGS shut in a split-second.

The outer door, the mirrored facade, HUMS shut on Junior as he stands, breathing heavily, in front of the steel door. Raoul races in as Junior angrily slams the outer door against safety bars that secure the fire escape window.

Meg rolls over and pulls Sarah into her arms, both of them breathing hard, asking each other if they're okay, scared out of their minds. But safe.

Enraged, Junior slams the mirrored door again and again.

We push in on Meg holding Sarah tight, locked together, just breathing, as --

-- Junior slams the outer door until the mirror finally smashes.

Burnham, still down in the foyer, suddenly has a horrible thought.

He turns and dashes up the stairs.

34. 12/21/2000

Enraged, Junior huris himself at the bed.

Burnham enters as Junior lifts the box springs and tosses the mattress against the wall. It hits the carton Meg had set up as a night table, upending it, sending everything flying everywhere -- clock, water bottle, pictures of Sarah. Meg's cell phone flies out of its charger, CLATTERS onto the floor, and bounces under the bed.

He moves quickly to an alarm panel right near the trashed bed. He flips open its plastic door, to get at the keypad. He starts to punch in numbers until the system lets out a long BEEP --

-- and a panel in the panic room BEEPS too. The message on the screen changes to big block letters that read:

A Slimline phone, the one with the special buried phone line, is mounted next to the panel. Meg snatches it from its cradle, listens for a dial tone. But there is none.

The three intruders stand, a silent tableau.

35h 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 89

Raoul takes the gun back from Junior. As Junior hands it over, we move sideways, past them, through the wall, through four inches of reinforced steel --

-- and into the panic room, where Meg and Sarah are safe, trapped behind very, very thick steel.

Standoff.

CULELO:

Very close on the metal door, from inside the panic room. An

ear moves slowly into frame, presses up against the cold steel. Listens.

She sits back against a wall, looks around, at the tiny room. She's trying not to show how freaked out she is.

SARAH

What if they get in here?

36. PINK 2/07/2001

She checks her wristwatch, for some reason.

Sarah crawls over to the bank of video monitors, studies them. Meg crawls over to join her. They scan the screens.

92 ON THE MONITORS, 92

there are a dozen different views of the house. Front stoop. Kitchen. Dining room. Entry floor. Living room. Master bedroom. Den. Top floor bedrooms and hallways. Even one with a shot of the inside of the elevator.

The three intruders are gathered in the living room, standing in a tight little circle, arguing. Big gestures, fingers jabbing in chests, but we can’t hear a word.

93 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 93 Meg furrows her brow, noticing something interesting to the right of the video monitors. She slides over, studies a panel there with a small grilled area and a button next to it marked "ALL PAGE."

Sarah joins her, looks at it.

Meg is reluctant.

37. PINK 2/07/2001 CONTINUED : 93

Raoul and Junior are standing in the half-darkened living room. Burnham comes down from upstairs.

connected.

See? There you go. She can't. RAOUL

I thought she wasn't even gonna be

here! BURNHAM

(points to Junior) HE said she wasn't gonna be here!

A VOICE booms around then.

They practically jump out of their shoes, looking around for the source of the voice. Burnham calmly points to a small, grilled- over speaker panel up in the corner of the room.

38. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 94

Junior goes to the panel and SHOUTS up at it.

Burnham walks toward the tiny camera that’s hidden in an upper corner of the living room wall and stares up at it.

Burnham looks up at the camera and shakes his head, wagging a finger from side to side. He raises a hand, makes a gesture like a telephone, then wags his finger again. The message is clear -- you don’t have a phone.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 96 Meg is puzzled.

She presses the P.A. button again.

That sounded fairly tough. She looks at the monitor again. ON THE MONITORS, 97 the intruders have an urgent, whispered conference, then they

all start patting their pockets for some reason, turning in circles, looking for something.

392 12/21/2000

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 98 Meg and Sarah watch them, confused. ON THE MONITORS, 99

Burnham holds up a finger to the camera -- wait a second -- while Raoul and Junior rush off screen, looking for something. Junior returns a moment later holding something and the three of them hunch over a box, working on something. After a moment, they break apart and Junior steps up to the camera, holding a pad of paper. He shows it to the camera. On the top page, in big block letters, they’ ve written

WHAT WE WANT

After a suitable pause for reading, he turns to the second page, where four more words are written.

there is more frenzied writing, then Junior steps forward with another sign:

MORE THAN YOU.

40. 12/21/2000

102 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 102

Meg’s confidence is ebbing, but she doesn’t want to show it. She hits the P.A. button again.

The three intruders turn and look at each other, puzzled. What exactly does "fuck" mean?

Sarah rolls her eyes.

sort of, in Sarah's half-smile. But Sarah's eyes go back to the screen.

105 ON THE MONITORS, 105 Junior holds a note pad that says WE WILL LET YOU Go. 106 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 106

Meg looks at Sarah, who scowls. Yeah, right.

41. 12/21/2000

In the living room, her voice booms from the speaker.

With an audible CLICK, she signs off. Burnham, Raoul, and Junior say nothing for a moment. Junior opens a pack of cigarettes, takes out a joint and lights it.

BURNHAM

If there was any chance the cops were on their way, do you think I'd still be standing here talking to you?

42. 12/21/2000 107 CONTINUED : 107

Burnham starts laughing.

BURNHAM

I don't know yet. But once she does, she can't get out of this house. She can't even think she can get out of this house. We keep them here and keep them quiet for twenty minutes. And I * don't want any help from

(Raoul) Joe Pesci over here. They wanna hole up in this house? Fine, we'll make it impossible for them to leave.

Cur TO):

In the panic room, Meg doesn't look so good. She's huddled ina corner, pale and wan. Next to her, there is the low WHISTLE of aixc coming in through a vent. It vibrates a metal duct cover os next to her, low hollow BOOMS, an unnerving sound. Meg puts a ~* hand on the duct to silence it. Sarah notices this, then looks up at her mother. x

108 CONTINUED :

43. 12/21/2000

(no) Yeah.

Sarah looks around the room.

needing to comfort her mother.

Meg looks at

Sarah shrugs,

her. And how is this helpful?

hey, I'm just trying to help. Meg looks back at

the video screens.

ababat

italy

babs}

44, 12/21/2000

CONTINUED: (2) 108 SARAH * Uh oh. *

ON THE VIDEO MONITORS, 109

we see the three guys, on the move, headed into the kitchen. Cur TO:

The contents of one of the satchels is dumped out over a table, every kind of tool imaginable, many that are unfamiliar to us. They sort through the pile, choosing things.

At the French doors that lead to the garden, Burnham has a * cordless screwdriver and a pile of long screws. He reaches up, drills a screw through the door, into the corner of the door frame. He does the same at the bottom of the door.

He unlocks the doorknob, tries it. The screws hold the door fast. He moves on, to the next door. They're not leaving.

In the panic room, Meg stares at the video screens, eyes wide, terrified. She watches them. Can't take her eyes off them.

In the front hall, Junior locks, bolts, and chains the inner 3 door. Still not satisfied, he drags a sofa across the floor and * shoves it up against it. ee

In the library, right next to him, Raoul screws shut a window, driving the long screws into its frame. He looks out at the street, at two CLUBGOERS walking home. He slides back, into the shadows. The Clubgoers pass. LAUGHING.

In the panic room, Meg is cross-legged on the floor, paralyzed.

abals)

45. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 114

But Sarah is in motion, trying to find something they can defend themselves with in the large plastic supply crates. Every crate has something in it, sealed in plastic. She opens and closes, sorts and lifts, finds the following:

Waterproof matches. Flashlights. Unopened packages of batteries. Sealed water bags stamped “PURE FIVE YEARS FROM DATE," more sealed bags marked "MEALS READY-TO-EAT." A complete tool kit. Towels and tape, eyewash, a thermometer, a First Aid kit, and, strangely, a bottle of fine Cognac in a wooden case.

On the other side of the room, Meg watches her daughter, but her eyes seem fixed on Sarah's wristwatch, of all things.

+ + OF OF OF

%

But Sarah keeps at it, closing one crate, moving on to the next, *

agitated.

(Sarah ignores her) Sarah!

Sarah slows down, keeps looking, but less frenzied. THUD. THUD. THUD.

A soft vibration echoes in the room. They look at each other -- what is that?

THUD. THUD. THUD.

Meg looks down. It's coming from the floor. She lays a hand on the floor, feels the vibrations, which are coming from below. We drop through the floor, through the --

-- ceiling of the solarium, where Raoul is standing on a table, whacking at the ceiling with a claw hammer, sending chunks of plaster flying in all directions while Junior looks on approvingly.

Burnham comes down from upstairs, carrying screws and a screwdriver.

+

te HF

115 CONTINUED:

46. 12/21/2000

steel, you won't make a dent.

Raoul stares at him for a long moment --

-- and then starts flailing away again. Burnham just shakes his head, moves past them to the French doors that lead outside. He * reaches up, starts to screw one of them shut, but stops,

noticing something sitting just outside, on the balcony. It’s a large outdoor barbecue grill. There's a white five gallon tank underneath the grill.

He thinks. the ceiling,

Turns around, looks at Raoul again, who's digging at *

exposing some of the joist work and part of an air *

conditioning duct. a Burnham thinks. %

In the panic room, the pounding is still audible downstairs, - then it stops and a SCRATCHING, SCRAPING sound starts. *

But in the relative quiet, Meg and Sarah now hear another sound, * this one coming from the long wall that’s shared with the a brownstone next door.

It’s a faint -- very faint -- THUDDING sound, along with a high pitched, complaining voice, so faint it can hardly be heard. Sarah hears it too.

ilaly/

alal)

47. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 116

Meg and Sarah leap as one, facing the common wall, SHOUTING at the tops of their lungs -- get help, call the police, please, call the police, that sort of thing. They pound on their side of the wall too, but on the thick block concrete, their fists barely make any sound at all. =

The soft THUDS continue from next door, and if Meg and Sarah's

voices are as soft on the other side as the COMPLAINING VOICE is on this side, they have no hope.

+

Meg looks at the monitors, sees Burnham hurrying into the master bedroom with purpose. She stares. What's he doing?

Burnham goes to the wall outside the panic room. He taps on it with his knuckles, listening to the sound.

OMIT 118

Raoul has reached the steel core between the ceiling and the floor of the panic room. He BANGS on it fruitlessly, dull hollow BOOMS echoing through the room. He sweats, he swears, he's thwarted.

Burnham comes back down from upstairs, goes past them, and opens the French doors that lead outside.

Raoul keeps working, but Junior taps him on the leg, look at this. Raoul stops pounding and looks. Burnham comes back = inside, now lugging the white five gallon tank he saw underneath the barbecue grill before. He also has a rolled-up garden hose looped over his arm. As he passes them:

He gives the tank to Junior, who doesn't understand.

CUT rO:

48. 12/21/2000

BAM! BAM! BAM! The pounding starts again, louder now, directly outside the wall of the panic room.

Meg turns her head, sneaks a look at the funny wristwatch Sarah wears, tries to look without her daughter knowing. It’s not an ordinary watch, it only has one number, a tall digital display:

Meg nods, reassuring herself.

In the master bedroom, Burnham is like a man possessed, tearing at the wall of the panic room with the claw hammer. As the sheetrock tears away, we see the skeleton of the wall behind it. There’s a latticework of two by four studs, and beyond those the dull shine of the wall’s metal core.

Raoul and Junior watch him, still don't know what's going on.

Burnham's efforts reveal an air duct running through the wall, feeding into the panic room through a welded hole in the steel. He tears away with the hammer, exposing a short section of the duct.

Burnham drops to his knees, rips open another tool case. This

one has a sophisticated looking power drill in it, along with a couple dozen specialized bits. He selects one, twists it into

the drill.

49. 12/21/2000 121 CONTINUED : 121

Burnham grabs a pillow from the bed. He shoves it into the hole in the wall, buries the drill right in the middle of it. A muffled METAL MOAN fills the air as the drill bit tears through the pillow and into the duct, sending goose down flying everywhere.

Burnham turns and Raoul tosses him the garden hose, holding one end. The hose uncoils in the air as it snakes across the room. Burnham shoves the end of the garden hose into the hole he’s just drilled in the air duct.

RIP! He tears off a length of duct tape and seals the connection, makes it airtight.

SLIT! Raoul hacks a ten foot section of the garden hose off the coil. He stretches it out, across the room, to the white five gallon tank. We move in close as Burnham snugs the cut end of the garden hose over a spigot at the top of the tank. Red block letters are easy to read on the side of the tank:

Along with a number of other dire warnings. Finally, Junior gets it.

Burnham raises his hand to the knob, hesitates, doesn't really want to do this, but doesn't stop himself either.

He spins it open. Halfway.

50. PINK 2/07/2001 CONTINUED: (2) 121

Gas HISSES through the spigot and into the hose. We follow

along the length of the hose, across the floor of the room,

through the hole in the sheetrock, into the hole that’s been drilled in the air duct --

INSIDE THE WALL 122

-- through the wall itself, where we see the horizontal lines of an air vent up ahead. We squeeze between two of the horizontal lines --

-- and come out in the panic room as gas HISSES inside. Meg, sitting below the vent, sniffs the air. Sarah does the same.

They look at each other, then Meg looks up. Sees an odd wavering in the air, looks like heat ripples coming out of the vent. She leaps to her feet and hurries over to the bank of monitors.

On one of them, she sees the men in the room, but they're huddled around something and she can't tell what it is. She gets up, steps up onto a storage crate, and stretches her nose toward the vent in the wall.

Near the tank, Raoul shoves Burnham out of the way. RAOUL

Hey, quit dickin' around. He cranks the valve handle of the grill open all the way. The gas pours into the hose with an audible WHOOSH.

Meg, at the vent, falls back, two lungfuls of propane, and drops to her knees on the floor.

Sarah coughs. The gas is pouring into the room.

+ OF

+ + +

50A. PINK 2/07/2001

Raoul is standing guard over the tank, to make sure no one messes with the valve.

126 CONTINUED :

Bul, 12/21/2000

Junior has his head pressed against the door to the panic room, trying to hear any sounds from within.

Pause.

2 PENT

Junior turns to Raoul.

PANIC ROOM NIGHT 127

Meg and Sarah are down on the floor, trying to breathe through their tee shirts. Sarah is at the base of the exterior wall where Meg was before, and she hears that same low WHISTLING sound, air whooshing into the room from outside, RATTLING the metal duct cover. She puts her hand out, feels the air. She starts prying at duct cover, manages to wrench it off.

+ + #4

+

Al 7X7)

LAE)

52: 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : aly

It reveals a single pipe, about eight inches in diameter, that going straight through the wall, part of the room's ventilation system that leads directly through to the exterior of the house. She bends down and looks through it. It’s covered by a metal mesh at the opposite end, but she can see and smell the outside through it.

She sits up, gestures to her mother to bend down next to her. She does, and they both jam their mouths up near the end of the tube, gulping fresh air greedily. It’s temporary, but it works.

In the master bedroom, the debate has turned physical. Burnham lunges across the room at Raoul, to get his hands on the valve, to turn off the gas.

Don't start up with this shit!

Burnham bounces back up, lunges for the tank again, but Raoul holds him off with one arm, protecting the tank with the other. As they grapple:

In the panic room, Meg knows this can’t go on forever. She turns away from the portal, looks up at the vent, where the gas still HISSES. She looks to the other side of the room, where Sarah found most of the supplies. She goes over, digs through the crates. She comes up with a roll of duct tape.

She goes to one of the vents, RIPS off a strip of tape and sticks it on. Then another. Immediately, at the other air vent, the HISSING becomes louder, the force of the gas just diverted to the other vent.

5Se 12/21/2000 129 CONTINUED: 12:9

She goes to the second vent, starts taping up that one too,

holding her breath against the gas that's billowing in. As she does --

-- the tape seal on the first vent billows full, then splits a seam, and the gas pours in again. This isn't going to work.

Meg crawls back to the tube and takes a deep lungful of fresh air. She goes back to the crates, starts searching again.

Sarah watches her, what the hell is she doing now? She sees her mother come up with a screwdriver. What's that for?

Meg keeps digging, looking for something else, comes up with it. A firestarter. One of those long-handled lighters.

Sarah's eyes widen, realizes what her mother is thinking, but can't believe it.

One sec. S

She flips open one of the crates, pulls out a couple blankets in *

orange packages that Sarah found before. ty SARAH * Mom! MEG (reading the front of the x packages) @ Good. SARAH MOM!!!

Meg tosses the blankets to her daughter.

Sarah turns the packages around, reads two words printed in big ~* block letters on them -- FIRE BLANKET. *

SARAH o Oh, my God.

54. 12/21/2000 129 CONTINUED: (2) 129)

Meg drops to her knees, takes another gulp of air, and rips open * the bags, pulling out the blankets and pulling them over Sarah, ~ right up to her disbelieving eyes. But she’s getting woozy, is needs more air already. This can’t go on much longer.

She staggers across the room, hoists herself back up onto the crate she stood on before, and gets right up next to the vent. Holding her breath, she unscrews the vent cover.

The duct is not quite wide enough to put your arm in, but part of your hand will fit. She reaches in, past a bundle of multicolored wires that run down through the wall. She pokes the firestarter as far into the duct as she can get it, then practices yanking her hand out, fast, once or twice.

130 INSIDE THE DUCT, 130

we see the tip of the firestarter nose its way into the duct, Meg's hand visible just outside. She squeezes the trigger thing, then yanks her hand out in anticipation of ignition. Too slow. Not even a spark.

The firestarter creeps back in. Her hand shakes. She tries again. Still no spark. But when she yanks her hand out, the firestarter's metal end BANGS up against the side of the duct with a metallic BOOM.

Burnham turns abruptly.

He turns around. They all freeze, listening. He hears it

again. The metallic BOOM, coming from inside the wall. Nowa third time.

He backs away. But Junior walks forward.

He moves closer, gets right up next to the wall.

SCRATCH. BOOM.

ali}

eS 7

Abc)

BS), 12/21/2000

INSIDE THE DUCT, 132

Meg’s hand is trembling, tiring. She tries again, squeezes the trigger. It SCRATCHES as it rolls, the firestarter BOOMS against the side as she yanks it out of the duct.

Still, the gas HISSES through.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 133

Meg’s face is turning color, she’s running out of air. Her feet tremble on the crate, she’s about to lose her footing.

INSIDE THE DUCT, 134 she tries again. SCRATCH. BOOM.

IN THE BEDROOM, 135

Burnham has backed all the way up against the wall, as far from the panic room as he can get.

-- Junior moves in even closer, he leans into the wall, putting his ear right up next to the air duct --

INSIDE THE DUCT, 138

-- Meg squeezes the trigger, a spark sparks, a flame flames, and a hot blue cloud shoots out in two directions, one toward the panic room, the other toward the bedroom as she yanks her arm out of the duct.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 139

Meg jumps off the crate, throwing herself as far away from the vent as she can, her arm engulfed by licking blue flame. She drops to the floor of the room, covering her daughter's body just as the entire ceiling of the panic room turns into a lake of fire with a deafening WHOOMP. The fluorescent light tubes EXPLODE, showering glass everywhere.

55). 12/21/2000

IN THE BEDROOM, 140

the blue flame shoots out of the wall, bathing Junior in flame. He SCREAMS.

The flame keeps going, into the hose, through the hose, shooting back toward the tank. Fire erupts at the point where the hose connects to the tank, there is a small EXPLOSION and the tank rockets off the floor, SLAMMING into the end of the bed, sending the mattress flying up into the air.

The tank caroms off the bed, Burnham ducks, covers his head, and

it just misses him as it SLAMS into the wall where he was standing.

Junior, meanwhile, is on fire, his hair, his arms. Burnham tears the blankets from the bed and throws them over him, Junior HOWLS and rolls on the floor in pain.

The propane tank comes to a spinning stop in the middle of the floor, spitting its last tongues of fire. There is much SHOUTING and SCREAMING in the master bedroom --

ON THE VIDEO MONITORS, 141

-- which becomes vastly muffled when we cut inside the panic room, where we still see the chaos on the monitors.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 142

the blue cloud on the ceiling is suddenly sucked back up into the ceiling vents, pulling all the air in the room right out along with it. Meg, on her knees on the floor, gasps for oxygen in the airless space.

She turns, notices the look her daughter is giving her -- wide- eyed, admiring, frightened, you are an insane woman. Meg grabs her, checks her all over.

anything like that.

Sie 12/21/2000

It's much worse for Junior, who has lost much of his hair and shirt. He's at the door to the panic room, in a rage.

He's right. CULETO;:

THUNK. Meg’s head falls back against a wall. She's completely

drained, but strangely exhilarated, looking at the monitors to see what effect this has had on the intruders. Sarah full of nervous ingenuity, she's back staring out that tube to the outside.

145 THROUGH THE TUBE, 145

she can see out of the house, into the courtyard behind the brownstone. About thirty yards away she can see the backs of the brownstones on the next block. And directly across (because the tube doesn’t leave much room for lateral vision) she can see straight into somebody’s bedroom.

There’s a light on. A SLEEPING MAN is in bed, an open book on his chest.

146 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 146

Sarah sits back, an idea forming in her head. She digs around, finds a powerful-looking flashlight and loads it up with batteries. She tries it, flashing around the room.

Halogen bulb, very powerful, hurts her mother’s eyes as she flashes it past. Meg watches her. What's she up to?

Sarah experiments with the flashlight, finds the little button on the back, the kind you can flick the flashlight on and off with. Shining it on the wall of the panic room, she flashes it three times, on and off. Satisfied, she turns back to the tube.

58. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 146

Meg, curious, crawls across the floor to join her. Sarah shoves the flashlight all the way into the tube, leaving enough room on either side of it for them to see through. Meg lays down flat, squints into the tube, Sarah alongside her. She looks at her daughter -- your plan?

Out in the master bedroom, Junior carefully peels his melted shirt from his singed flesh, wincing in pain. He turns, stares

at Burnham -- great fucking idea.

Burnham scowls, looks at Raoul, and shakes his head -- great fucking idea.

Sarah carefully pushes the flashlight into the tube, which leaves just a few inches on either side of it. She reaches into

the tube, finds the little flash button on the back of the flashlight.

THROUGH THE TUBE, 149

the piercing halogen beam begins to flash, across the courtyard and into the bedroom of the Sleeping Man. The light flashes on the wall over his bed.

The flashes are in a rhythm. Short. Short. Short. Long. Long. Long. Short. Short. Short.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 150

Meg turns to Sarah, impressed.

MEG

Where’d you learn that?

ablsys}

Be). 12/21/2000

THROUGH THE TUBE, 151

the flashes continue -- dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot. But the Man continues to sleep, the light on the wall behind him has no effect.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 52

Sarah is frustrated. She adjusts the flashlight.

THROUGH THE TUBE, 153

the beam of light lowers jerkily from the wall until it is shining directly into the Sleeping Man’s eyes. He's fallen asleep with his reading glasses on, the beam reflects off of them, a hot white point of light.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 154

Sarah strains to keep the light in that perfect spot. She’s starting to sweat. Meg leans over, sneaks a peek at the watch

Sarah wears on her left wrist. The readout: D7)

Raoul stands in the doorway, silhouetted by the hallway light.

Junior nods and starts out. Raoul lets him pass, but when Burnham tries to follow him, Raoul puts a big hand in his chest, stopping him.

Burnham doesn't like it. But he stays.

Raoul turns, follows Junior downstairs. As he descends, he looks up, making eye contact with Burnham. And holding it. Something on his mind, that’s for sure.

CULELO;:

alis}7/

Le

60. 12/21/2000

Meg is still studying the monitors. On one of them, we see Burnham, in the master bedroom.

Whipping over to another monitor, we see Junior and Raoul heading down the stairs, already in heated conversation.

Whipping over off the monitors, Sarah is still shining the light through the tube.

THROUGH THE TUBE, alfsyy/

the Sleeping Man finally stirs. Opens his eyes. Winces from the light, which is bouncing off his eyeglasses.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 158 MEG Got him! SARAH Come on, come on... THROUGH THE TUBE, 159

the Sleeping Man sits up. Raises a hand, trying to block the light, which keeps flashing on him.

He gets up, out of bed. He comes to the window. IN THE PANIC ROOM, 160

Sarah keeps it up, flashing faster. THROUGH THE TUBE, 161

they see the Man come all the way to his window. He leans against it, cups his hands so he can see better.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 162

Sarah drops the flashlight, she and Meg press up against the tube and start yelling through it.

Gal 12/21/2000

High above the courtyard, we hear their faint cries for help, feeble, barely audible outside. ~

164 THROUGH THE TUBE, 164 the Man takes a step back from the window --

-- and angrily yanks shut his drapes. A moment later, his light goes out and the room is black.

165 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 165

Meg and Sarah drop their heads to the carpet, defeated. Sarah rolls over, knocks the flashlight away, stares up at the

ceiling. SARAH We’re never getting out of here. Meg's hand slides over Sarah's, ostensibly to hold hands to es comfort her, but in fact her hand keeps moving, to Sarah's wrist, and she surreptitiously takes her daughter's pulse. % She’s concerned. ca CULO}:

Burnham is concerned as well. He’s still in the master bedroom, but barely, he’s standing in the doorway, straining like hell to hear a conversation that Junior and Raoul are having in the foyer, one floor down. He can hear Raoul, who is angry: 3

+ + 4

The voice trails off as they move further away. Burnham chews a * fingernail. If only he could get closer. He throws a look back at the door to the panic room. He looks back out the bedroom door. Listening.

166AINT PANIC ROOM NIGHT 166A*

On one of the monitors, Meg sees Burnham take a step into the s hallway, leaving the master bedroom. ©

62. 12/21/2000

Junior and Raoul are huddled together in the foyer.

They’ re

keeping their voices low, but their conversation is heated.

He starts to walk back upstairs, but Raoul grabs him by the arm

and stops him.

And you straighten out Mr. Expert's shit. I'm telling you right now, you get a handle on his jumpy ass, 'cause if you think I’m gonna let my half of that money slip away because he don't have the-

dressing him... Did you ever change a colostomy bag? Do you even know what she sich

RAOUL

You done?

On one of the monitors, Junior and Raoul are visible, arguing at the foot of the stairs.

StLLL

eo OF 4 F

(53. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 168

Every four seconds, each of the monitors clicks to show a

different camera's view (two views per monitor, sixteen cameras total).

Now the monitor clicks back, to show the master bedroom -- -- which is empty. IN THE PANIC ROOM, 169

Meg sits up, alertly. The room is empty!

MEG

The bedroom's empty. Are they gone?

This is a golden opportunity. They squeeze right up close to the monitor, studying the screen.

ON THE MONITOR, 170

we peer closely at the area next to her bed, where the box/night table was upended by Junior. On the floor, Meg sees the charger for her cellular phone, sitting empty.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, gpa

Meg sits back, eyes alive. She turns away from the monitors, to check on Sarah, who’s looking pale.

Burnham is just outside the door to the master bedroom, standing above the stairwell. He's getting desperate. The argument downstairs is entering round two, and he’s got to hear what they’ re saying.

64. 12/21/2000

Burnham leans over the stairwell. Where he’s standing, he is out of view of the bedroom camera --

173 ON THE MONITORS, AL 9/} -- and can’t be seen on the monitor that covers the stairway.

174 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 174 Sarah has come forward to the monitors as well.

The bathroom. There aren't any cameras there. Where else? a

SARAH % The front room. % MEG

It's right there. *

65. 12/21/2000

SARAH = No. On the second floor. 3

175 IN THE HALLWAY, ALIS) a

Burnham is still lingering under the camera, just outside the door to the bedroom.

176 IN THE FOYER, 176

177 OMITTED eae eh 178 IN THE MASTER BEDROOM, 178

we see Burnham, lurking in the hallway, just about six feet from the door to the panic room.

179 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 179

Meg stands, raises her hand to the big green "open" button. She * wipes sweat from her palm.

MEG

If I can't get back, close the door. SARAH

No. MEG

You do what I say!

Sarah nods, looks back to the monitors.

66. 12/21/2000

180 OMITTED 181 ON THE MONITORS,

Burnham suddenly appears, in the hallway. 182 IN THE PANIC ROOM,

Sarah sees it.

Meg freezes. She looks at the monitor, wide-eyed. 183 IN THE HALLWAY, Burnham can’t take it anymore.

He turns and takes off down the stairs.

184 ON THE MONITORS,

Close one.

Burnham flies down the stairs and appears in the foyer, next to

Junior and Raoul.

gonna start this sneakin' around shit,

fuck those videotapes, I'm outta here right now.

185 IN THE PANIC ROOM,

Meg and Sarah see all three men accounted for, downstairs.

Meg punches the green button.

67. 12/21/2000

The door begins to crank open, Meg slips through the gap Sideways before it’s even all the way open. She darts across the room --

-- slides to the floor next to the bed -- -- and flattens herself, reaching underneath it to get the

phone. Damn, that phone slid far, it's right in the middle, wouldn't you know it.

She flails for it, her foot hooking on the power cord of a lamp that fell onto the bed earlier. The lamp rolls off, the bulb SMASHES on the floor. IN THE FOYER, 187 BURNHAM (to Raoul)

-got somethin' you wanna say to me,

have the guts to say it to my- They hear the breaking glass. Burnham stops, they all look up. IN THE MASTER BEDROOM, 188 Meg continues to stretch, her fingers inches from the phone. ON THE STAIRWELL, 189 the men race upstairs.

IN THE MASTER BEDROOM, 190

Meg's fingernails paw the phone, pull it closer to her. She grabs it, rolls over, and crawls for the panic room.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 191

Meg hurls herself through the door as Sarah SMACKS the red button. The door starts to close, but Meg's foot breaks the red beam as she rolls over and the door OPENS AGAIN!

Sarah SMACKS the button again, they pull their hands and feet out of the way, and the steel door SLAMS shut.

68. 12/21/2000

The three men burst into the room. Burnham stops in the middle

of the floor, turns in a frantic circle.

In the panic room, Meg punches 9-1-1 on her cell phone with

trembling fingers.

£93

Burnham's eyes fall on the cell phone charger, which Meg knocked

over as she struggled to get the phone from under the bed. lunges, picks it up.

Meg raises the cell phone to her ear -- -- and gets a rapid busy signal.

He

She looks at the phone. It’s showing just one signal bar, and

even that one is flashing on and off.

She walks around the room, raises the phone high and low, trying

crazily to find a signal. But can’t.

In the bedroom, Burnham stands just outside the door, fingertips

lightly resting on it, the ghost of a smile on his face.

69. 12/21/2000

CONTINUED : 196 BURNHAM (softly) I don’t think we’1l1 be talking on our cell phone from in there...

Inside the room, Meg is staring at the cell phone in her hand, thinking. She looks up, sees the Slimline phone mounted on the wall next to the monitors.

Now she looks over, at the part of the wall she exposed when she took off the ventilation grill. In the vent, alongside the duct, she sees the bundle of multicolored wires she saw earlier.

In the bedroom, Burnham is thinking too. He stares at the door to the panic room, wonders what she's doing. He steps toward the wall, brow furrowed. He leans close to it. From inside the wall, he hears a faint SCRAPING sound, a SCUTTLING.

The sound moves, starting at about ear level, headed downward.

He lowers himself, ear to the wall, following the scraping sound. At the base of the wall, he sees a box, the unwrapped box with the new telephone in it that Meg placed there earlier. Burnham shoves it aside, revealing --

-- the telephone jack. He thinks. Doesn't like it.

He drops to his knees in front of the jack. Junior gives him a screwdriver and he goes to work on the face plate of the jack, unscrewing it as fast as he can. Inside the wall, the SCRAPING sound is getting louder. While he unscrews:

Burnham gets the face plate off, sees the phone wires that lead out of the wall. The wires start to wiggle. He reaches for them, slowly, and just as his fingers approach the wires --

-- they ZIP back into the wall.

Meg falls back from the wall, holding a handful of wires, the

ones she just pulled out. She jumps up, starts pulling on the dead Slimline phone that hangs on the wall.

Burnham leaps to his feet and races out of the bedroom.

RIP! The Slimline phone tears free of the wall and Meg drops to the floor with it. She thrusts the bundle of wires at Sarah, finds a wire cutter in the assorted tools.

While Sarah goes to work on the wires, Meg turns to the Slimline, tearing the wires free of the housing.

Burnham flies down the stairs from the third floor, races across the foyer, flies down the stairs to the kitchen floor.

Take 12/21/2000

Burnham races across the kitchen floor, whips open a door and heads down another, narrow, darkened stairway.

Meg and Sarah are like animals, clawing and tearing at the ends of their respective phone cables, foregoing tools and stripping the wires with fingers and teeth, it’s faster.

With the phone receiver cradled on her shoulder, Meg starts twisting the ends of wires onto the exposed ends of the wires from the phone unit. First wire -- nothing. She tries another.

Burnham SLAMS open the door to a dark room, pulls the string on a bare bulb. Burned out.

Without light, he can’t see a thing. He SMACKS the bulb, it swings wildly, SMASHES on the cement wall. He turns and races out of the room.

Meg tries another wire. Still no dial tone. Sarah shoves another wire at her. She tries again. Nothing. She moves on.

Burnham slides to his knees, snatches a flashlight from his duffel, leaps up and takes off again. Raoul comes down the

stairs from above.

Raoul watches Burnham, then picks up a sledgehammer. And follows him.

Another wire. Nothing. Another wire. DIAL TONE!

Burnham flies down the stairs, flashlight beam bouncing crazily

in front of him, Raoul following closely behind him. With the sledgehammer .

Wo 12/21/2000

The phone is ringing. An operator picks up.

It’s a mechanical voice, which gives over to MUZAK.

Burnham and Raoul BANG through the door, start searching the darkened mechanical room, shining harsh light around its dingy walls.

MUZAK continues to play.

Meg hangs up the phone, dials another number, a seven digit one ~* she knows by heart.

In the mechanical room, the bouncing flashlight beam falls ona metal cabinet across the way. Burnham runs to it, flings it open. Circuit breakers. SLAMS it shut.

Meg listens as a phone rings on the other end. A husky FEMALE VOICE answers; clearly, she has been awakened.

VOICE (O.S.) Hello?

WE}. 12/21/2000

Momentary outrage crosses Meg's face. He's got her sleeping there already?

Do you have any idea what time it is?

Burnham turns, sees another, smaller metal box, this one clearly labeled:

PHONES

He unsnaps it, flips it open. It's complicated. He's frantic, trying to figure which wire is which wire.

On the other end of the phone, a tired MALE VOICE comes on.

VOICE (0O.S.) What is it?

Burnham is tugging at the wires when he hears a subhuman ROAR behind him. Almost immediately, the head of the sledgehammer WHISTLES past him and SLAMS into the phone panel.

Burnham leaps out of the way as Raoul swings the hammer again and again, reducing the box to a useless tangle of wire.

74. 12/21/2000

MEG -they've broken into the house! ss

With an abrupt SHRIEK, the line goes dead. Meg pauses, can’t believe it.

She looks up, sees Sarah looking at her, her eyebrows arched,

her face all hope. Meg keeps her cool, but it takes a hell of an effort.

Sarah reads her face. She turns away. She hangs up the phone. Doesn’t know what to say.

MEG

He’1l1 know we’re in trouble. He heard

me, I said we need help. He's just

across the park, this is why we got

places so close to each other, in case

we needed each other, he’1l help us... 3

She practically shouted. Sarah drops her head into her arms.

1h) 12/21/2000

I was trying not to tell you...

Meg blanches. This is very bad news.

218AINT MASTER BATHROOM NIGHT 218A

Junior, cursing and in pain, rifles the boxes in the bathroom, searching through Meg's medications.

Burnham and Raoul drag themselves back up the stairs and into

the master bedroom. Junior is coming in from the bathroom, washing down some Midol with a tiny cup of NyQuil.

BURNHAM

Whose fault was that?

76. 12/21/2000

Meg has torn open one of the water packets and is trying to get Sarah to drink, but the little girl has gone completely pale and seems to have lost some of the strength in her neck, she’s having trouble holding her head up, and she's sweating heavily. Most of the water runs down her chin. Meg pats her cheeks.

She takes Sarah's hand, checks her wristwatch thing. The readout is now

She flips open the crates, starts to search.

Wl. 12/21/2000

In the bedroom, Junior turns to face them.

He picks up his jacket from the floor and puts it on.

He pulls out his wallet, starts counting out twenties, mumbling as he does.

78. 12/21/2000 221 CONTINUED : 22

He holds the money out to them, but they just stare at him, thinking something.

He drops the money on the bed. Both Burnham and Raoul are still staring at him.

(imitating him) "Huh? What?"

ODS 12/21/2000

He heads for the door, expecting Raoul to block him, but as he draws close --

-- Raoul just steps out of the way. Junior passes through and heads for the stairs.

221AINT STAITRWELL NIGHT 221A Burnham follows him, continuing his thought.

Near the crates, the "Meals Ready-to-Eat" packets have been ripped open and strewn across the floor as Meg searches for sugar for Sarah, without luck. Meg keeps looking, getting more and more upset.

In the corner, Sarah is starting to tremble. Meg gets one of the blankets, covers her with it.

80. 12/21/2000

222 CONTINUED :

MEG

Hey, quit apologizing, you sound like Grandma. Okay?

Meg turns, starts opening the plastic crates that are stored in

the room, searching.

Sarah lays back, oddly passive, her lips changing color. She stares at the monitors, watching Junior and Burnham as they come

downstairs.

Pushing into the monitor, we see --

Junior is moving through the living room, headed downstairs.

Burnham is right with him.

Now Raoul is coming down the stairs.

BURNHAM

When were you gonna tell us this minor economic detail?

223)

223 CONTINUED:

PINK 2/07/2001

totally

fucking moot, why are we having this

conversation?

BURNHAM

What were you thinking? How did you expect to get away with this? You

think I was gonna open that

safe and

then me and Raoul would just go wait downstairs while you pick out your share? What the fuck is the matter

with you, did you think you

could rip

us off?! You got us into this mess and

you were gonna fuck us?!

you're the

one with the custody lawyers up your ass, your eyes were as big as fuckin' saucers when I told you about the gig,

so don't play innocent. It

didn't work

out. Too bad. Play past it.

He passes Burnham, headed for the stairs.

Raoul follows,

muttering under his breath, cursing a blue streak.

Junior reaches the door of the kitchen, tries to open it, realizes it's screwed shut. He takes out a screwdriver and starts unscrewing the screws. Burnham stops at the stairway.

BURNHAM

I'm opening that safe. If you leave here, you don't get anything, not one

thin dime.

JUNIOR

Guy.

and we will ever. And someday, we we will

See you, Burnham. Later, "Raoul."

+ OF OF OF

+ OE

+

82. PINK 2/07/2001 CONTINUED : 224

He gets the last screw out, throws open the door, a BLAST of wind gusts in, it’s a blustery night out there, he takes a step into the doorway --

-- and with a quiet PFFFT from right behind Burnham, a bullet whizzes across the kitchen and hits Junior in the back of the head. He crumples, right in the open kitchen doorway.

Burnham SHOUTS incoherently and turns. Raoul is standing there, two steps up, holding the gun.

Hey, mints. Ah, sugarless.

Sarah, who has been staring at the monitors this whole time, GASPS, horrified. Incoherent sounds come out of her mouth, terrified sounds. Meg turns, sees Sarah raise one trembling finger, pointing at the kitchen monitor.

Meg turns, sees the horrible sight on the monitor.

She grabs hold of Sarah and forcibly turns her daughter away from the monitors.

Burnham is freaking out.

Raoul walks past him, grabs Junior by the ankles, and drags him back into the house, spinning him around so his head is over a drain in the middle of the floor. Junior is still writhing, so Raoul points the gun at his head and pops him again.

Junior stops writhing. Burnham, in shock, holds his ear, which is hot from where the bullet whizzed just past it.

83. PINK 2/07/2001

226 CONTINUED : 226

He turns, looks at Burnham, whose jaw is dropped in horror.

A small, thin VOICE comes from the still-open doorway.

VOICE (0.S.) What the-

They turn. A MAN, fiftyish, stands there in hastily thrown-on clothes, a big overcoat, eyeglasses, staring down at the dead body in mute shock.

Meg is watching the monitors intently, still holding Sarah so * her daughter can't see. i ON THE MONITORS, . 228 *

Meg sees the silent image of Stephen, set upon by Raoul, who grabs him roughly and drags him inside. Burnham bolts for the door, to get the hell out of there --

-- but Raoul points the gun at hin.

Burnham thinks for a moment, staring down the barrel of the gun. He does as he's told.

Raoul vents his rage on Stephen, boots him in the side of the head. Stephen's glasses fly off.

84. 12/21/2000

Meg still has a grip on Sarah, who is squirming, trying to see

the monitors. *

SARAH s

Mom, I want to look! %

But Meg turns away, still holding Sarah, averting her own eyes ca from the horrible sight in the kitchen. She leans back against * the wall, holding onto her daughter. =

MEG * No. You don't.

Raoul draws back, to kick Stephen again. Burnham steps forward. *

a. Raoul turns abruptly, shoves his gun into Burnham’s eye, hard; we hear the faint SIZZLE of skin burning.

The skin around Burnham’s eye turns an angry red. His eyes

dart, strain to look over at Stephen, MOANING on the floor. And at Junior, dead.

SIS}, 12/21/2000 22 9BCONTINUED : 229B

BURNHAM sg Dwi.

Raoul turns to Stephen, who is on the floor. He flops him over, studies his face. He looks up at Burnham.

Burnham bends down, following orders now. He searches Stephen's pockets for a wallet, finds one. He peers closely at the driver's license, sees the name. ~

He looks up, at a moving box that's right in front of them. In * thick black marker, it says "ALTMAN - KITCHEN." Burnham puts two and two together.

(to Raoul) That's good. Phones are dead.

Raoul shakes Stephen, banging his head off the floor.

Stephen shakes his head no. Raoul pulls him up close, shoves the gun barrel right up his nose.

Stephen shakes his head no again, more convincingly. Raoul drops him.

86. 12/21/2000 229BCONTINUED: (2) 22983

Raoul turns, shoves the gun back into Burnham's face.

But he keeps the gun there.

He tilts his head over to Junior, whose brains are spreading out on the kitchen floor.

BURNHAM

Okay, okay! Okay.

S7e 12/21/2000

229BCONTINUED: (3) 229B

Cur TO:

Stephen's face. Smiling, for some reason.

Pulling back, we realize we're in the panic room, and Stephen's smiling face is on one of the monitors. Meg tilts her head in puzzlement, then realizes it's a photograph.

Sarah takes advantage of Meg's momentary distraction, which led her to loosen the grip that prevented Sarah from turning. The little girl whips around, sees the monitor, the image of Stephen.

The image backs off suddenly, yanked away, and we realize it was his driver's license photo, held right up to the video camera --

-- in the master bedroom by Burnham, who's got Stephen's wallet in his hand. Behind him, Raoul is holding Stephen up. He hurls him to the floor, hard, knees him on the way down.

But Raoul ignores him, grabs Stephen by the collar and belt, and bashes him against the metal door of the panic room.

Meg hears Stephen THUD against the door outside, looks up at the monitor and sees the corresponding image. They both watch, horrified, as Burnham goes right up to the camera and mouths three words, very clearly, for their benefit.

88. 12/21/2000

Raoul lands a kick to Stephen's ribs. Burnham, at the camera, turns around.

Don't tell me what to do!

Burnham turns back to the video camera, SHOUTS at it, his urgency heightened by Raoul's savagery.

He’s silenced by a vicious kick from Raoul, which catches him in the collarbone. *

Raoul closes in for another kick, but Burnham shoves him back. BURNHAM oy What's he supposed to do, that's his kid in there! Raoul knocks Burnham aside and lays into Stephen.

Meg SCREAMS, incoherent anger of her own. But she doesn’t open the door. Sarah turns away from the monitors, buries her head in Meg's shoulder. a

Burnham SHOUTS at Raoul, pleading. BURNHAM IT'S TOO MUCH, STOP IT, MAN, YOU'RE

KILLING HIM! THAT’S HIS KID IN THERE, HIS KID IS WATCHING THIS!!

es

89. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 235

But Raoul is in a fury. He shoves Burnham, who stumbles backwards but quickly regains his feet and launches himself at Raoul, shoving him away from Stephen. Raoul stumbles over Stephen's splayed legs and falls, hard.

Burnham whips off his jacket and heads for the camera.

In the panic room, Meg watches on the monitor as Burnham hurries over to the camera, raising his jacket to cover the lens, to mercifully spare them the sight of Stephen's beating. The jacket goes up and the image goes black.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 237

Meg holds Sarah, who’s sobbing, shaking. She can hear Burnham, faintly, SHOUTING at Raoul, then BUMPS and THUDS as a scuffle begins.

A sudden BEEPING sound tears her attention away. Still holding Sarah, she pulls her back, off her shoulder. Sarah's face is completely white, her eyes rolled back into her head. The BEEPING sounds get faster, closer together, she checks Sarah's wristwatch, the reading is dire:

And as she watches, it blinks down to 18. The beeping goes from ”* fast to one continuous beep.

Sarah's body goes stiff and begins to jerk, she SCREAMS as her lungs compress and the air is forced out of them, her jaws slam shut, her hands clamp together and she starts to twitch and convulse, she bucks right out of Meg's arms and falls back onto the floor of the panic room. Meg clears everything away from her, tries to make room for her.

Meg tries to hold onto her, just to keep her from hurting herself. Finally, Sarah's eyes roll back into her head, she slowly re-orients herself. But her wristwatch/monitor continues to beep, one long continuous alarm.

Sarah sighs, a shuddering sigh of relief, but she is nowhere near normal. Her skin is turning a sallow yellow color. She moves her lips, Meg can’t hear her, she bends down:

90. 12/21/2000

237 CONTINUED: 237,

Meg looks back at the monitors. One of them is still covered * with the jacket, she can't tell what's going on in the bedroom ~*

Meg looks quickly over at the monitors that cover downstairs.

OMITTED 238 * OMITTED 239 * ON ONE MONITOR, 240

she sees Burnham coming down the stairs, one arm supporting Raoul as he drags him into the darkened solarium and dumps him into a chair. Raoul slumps, barely conscious.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 241

Meg’s face lights up at this turn of events. They're out of the * room.

She turns, looks back at Sarah, who is trembling again.

That does it. Meg leaps up, hits the button that controls the steel door, and it starts to crank open, almost impossibly slow.

Meg steps out of the panic room, into the master bedroom. She

takes one step out of the panic room and stops, noticing a - figure sprawled out on the bed. It's Stephen, still in his 3 overcoat, lying face down. 2

MEG =

Stephen! 4

She takes an instinctive step toward him, but stops, first zs

things must be first. *

MEG (cont’ d) .

I'm coming back! us

She turns and sneaks out of the room, through the bathroom. ea

Meg comes out the other end of the hall and hurries up the landing toward the top floor.

hbo 12/21/2000

In the solarium, Burnham looks up, hearing the pitter-pat of her feet on the stairs above. Coming around behind him, we see Raoul sitting in the chair. Burnham reaches out and pulls off Raoul's ski mask, and we finally get a look at his face. Except it isn’t Raoul at all, it's Stephen, unconscious in the chair.

In the bedroom, Raoul sits up abruptly on the bed, he was the figure wearing Stephen's overcoat. With his mask downstairs, now we get our first look at his face, and it is not encouraging. Raoul turns, sees the wide open door to the panic room. In the hallway behind him, we see Burnham hurry up from downstairs.

Meg races into Sarah’s bedroom and tears open the door of the “

mini-fridge. Inside are dozens of little bottles, some insulin, * others called Glucagon.

She grabs a bottle of Glucagon and a black leather pouch and takes off.

246AINT MASTER BEDROOM NIGHT 246A

In the master bedroom, Burnham gives the mask back to Raoul, then turns and heads into the panic room. He goes directly to the panel that holds the video monitors. z

Underneath them are two VCRs, he goes straight to them and « punches the "eject" buttons. But no tapes come out. He punches * again, then flips open the little doors and looks inside. 5

There are no tapes. He could have left when he wanted to. =

Hearing a sound behind him, a soft MOAN, he turns. He sees ‘ Sarah, hovering in the corner of the room. They make eye * contact. =

As Meg nears the bottom of the stairs, she sees a horrifying sight. It’s Raoul, wearing her husband's raincoat and pulling his ski mask back on, in the doorway of the master bedroom.

She controls herself, slips across the hall and into the o bathroom. She pauses. Silence for a moment. Finally, Raoul's voice, strangely caim, echoes through the house. *

928 12/21/2000

247 CONTINUED : 247 RAOUL (0O.S.) Hey. What do you think you're doin'? (pause) We got your daughter. (pause)

C'mon back down here. Let's get this over with.

Meg begins to move, dead quiet, out of the bathroom and into the master bedroom.

She can't see where Raoul is. She creeps into the room, and as

she passes the doorway, we see that Raoul is in fact standing behind it.

Meg reaches the doorway to the panic room and freezes, seeing Burnham standing inside. And suddenly --

-- Raoul is upon her, grabbing her from behind. She drops the medicine bag as they grapple, elbows and fingernails, pawing and clawing. She lunges back into him, SLAMMING him into the outer panel door to the room. He tightens his grip on her, but she's thin, she slithers down low, squirming out of his grasp.

He shoves her away, hard, and she lands on the floor next to the medicine bag. She shoves it across the floor, hard, across the threshold of the door and into the panic room.

Raoul moves toward the panic room too, but Meg gets a hold of the overcoat he's wearing (still Stephen's) and hauls on it from behind him. Raoul twists, coming out of the coat, Meg hauls on it, pulling it inside-out over his arms. Raoul twists, RIPS his arms out of the sleeves, and Meg falls back on the floor, still holding onto the coat.

Raoul's momentum carries him back, into the panic room doorway. He grabs hold of the door frame to stop his fall. Burnham moves

a a a

to the buttons that control the door, Meg lunges toward the room * again, Raoul steadies his grip on the door frame to give her one *

last kick, to repel her, Burnham hits the red button, the door starts to move, and Raoul SCREAMS --

-- as the spring-loaded door SLAMS shut on his fingers.

ON THE MASTER BEDROOM SIDE, 249

Meg is on the floor outside the closed door to the panic room,

next to the raincoat. From inside, she can hear Raoul SCREAMING in agony.

935 12/21/2000 249 CONTINUED : 249

Meg leaps up, WAILING in agony, absolutely freaking out at this ~*~

unimaginable horror -- they are in that room with her daughter. She POUNDS on the door. From inside, more SCREAMING. =

Raoul is standing at the door, still screaming. i BURNHAM bi What?! What is it?! s

Raoul finally moves aside a bit, showing his left hand pinched = horribly between it and the frame, his screams deafening. Sarah covers her ears, cowers in a corner.

Raoul lunges toward the button that opens the door, but Burnham cuts him off, knocks his hand away.

Burnham pushes him back, against the control panel. Raoul's * body pushes all the intercom buttons. S BURNHAM

WHERE IS YOUR GUN?!

RAOUL ce OUT THERE! OPEN THE DOOR! i

BURNHAM e THEN SHE'S GOT IT! a

Meg whirls at that information, sees the raincoat on the floor, ~* starts pawing through it frantically. She finds the gun, : tangled in the right sleeve, and snatches it up. s

94. 12/21/2000

251 CONTINUED : 25a

She stands, holds the gun six inches away from the door, in both * hands, fingers trembling on the trigger. The second that door opens, there is no question that she will fire. She's enraged beyond belief.

Raoul is still SCREAMING, slapping the door with his hand, sh

convulsing with pain. Blood runs out of the crack in the door and down his hand.

Raoul practically bites his tongue off, manages to lower his voice to a pathetic whimper.

The gun barrel is still just inches from the door, she's dying to pull the trigger, and frantic about Sarah. BURNHAM'S VOICE comes over a loudspeaker.

Meg turns, sees the source of the voice -- another P.A. speaker and page button, just like the one in the panic room, that's next to the alarm panel she worked earlier. She goes to it, punches the P.A. button.

95. PINK 2/07/2001

Burnham is listening.

Stephen, who is semi-conscious, can hear their conversation over the speaker in the wall in the solariun.

Stephen's face registers horror as he grasps the situation.

Burnham grabs the leather pouch and the little bottle, picks them up.

Burnham bends down in front of Sarah, holding the medicine.

Sarah swallows, licks her cracking lips. When she speaks, it's breathy, almost inaudible.

From outside, they hear Meg SCREAM in fury and frustration, KICKING the door as hard as she can. Raoul SCREAMS, daggers of pain shoot through his hand from the vibrations of her blows.

Zor

96. 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 256

Burnham shakes his head, this woman is ferocious. He looks over at Raoul. The surgical glove on Raoul's injured hand has turned red, filled completely with his blood, trapped in the glove by the elastic seal at the wrist.

Gotta move. Burnham turns quickly to the button that controls the door and SMACKS it. The door starts to crank open.

tb oe OF

Oe 12/21/2000

ON THE LANDING, 263

the moment Meg hears the door cranking open, she bolts up the stairs as fast as she can, gun held in front of her.

IN THE PANIC ROOM, 264

Burnham hears her coming as Raoul works gingerly, pulling his mangled hand free.

As Meg reaches the door to the bedroom, Burnham SMACKS the close * button and the door SLAMS shut.

Three of Raoul's fingers have been smashed. He sags to the floor, cradling the hand, in agony.

Outside the door,

Meg quivers with impotent rage. She has the weapon, but she's powerless. A VOICE comes over the P.A., but this time it's Raoul, and he is venomous.

Stephen hears it too.

OMITTED 26 =

One quiet word comes over the speaker:

Raoul nods, satisfied, as he wraps his injured, bleeding hand in * his ski mask. Meg's voice CRACKLES over the speaker, now * reduced to pleading.

Oe}. 12/21/2000

MEG (0.S.) (CONT’D)

Just, please... give her the shot. Please.

Burnham picks up the Glucagon and the leather pouch, turns toward Sarah. Raoul looks at him, shocked.

Raoul just stares at him. If his hand wasn't wrecked, he might like to kick Burnham's ass.

As Burnham crosses the room, Raoul makes eye contact with Sarah, who is staring at him.

She looks away, fast. Raoul goes back to nursing his wounds.

Across the room, Burnham drops to his knees next to Sarah and unzips the pouch.

Sarah tries to form words, but she’s too weak. Burnham swallows.

He RIPS the Velcro on the pouch, rolls it open on the floor to have a look at what's inside.

(MORE)

99. 12/21/2000

Attagirl.

He points to things in the pouch, to find out what she needs.

He takes the syringe, starts to fill it from the Glucagon bottle.

He holds up the syringe, which is filled now.

She reaches down, weakly pulls up her shirt.

She nods. Weakly, she tries to pinch some of her skin together, to form a roll. Burnham reaches in, holds onto it.

She nods again. Burnham nods back, nervously, I get it. He starts to lower the needle, but Sarah's eyes widen, push it away in fear. She mutters something, breathy, but he can't make

it out. He leans down, closer.

100. PINK 2/07/2001

He taps the needle, to clear air bubbles, like he's seen on TV, squirts out a few drops, then looks at her for approval. She seems more calm. He reaches down, pinches a fold of her stomach together, and gives her the injection, talking all the while.

BURNHAM (cont’ d)

Wish I could bring my kids to a nice house like this. I just wish I could see 'em. Sometimes you can't make things right.

(pause) Wasn't supposed to be like this. Had it all worked out. You never woulda even known we were here.

The shot successfully given, he pulls Sarah’s shirt back down.

Sarah nods, and she does seem better. She musters up a voice.

He's puzzled for a moment, then looks down at his name, clearly emblazoned on his coveralls. He shakes his head, what kind of idiot wears a name tag to a robbery.

He turns, to pack up the equipment, and catches eyes with Raoul.

Cut TO:

BURNHAM'S VOICE comes over the intercom in the master bedroom.

He CLICKS off. Meg is hugely relieved. And extremely pissed

off. She looks at the gun in her hand, Raoul's gun. We draw closer to her.

Her face changes. Fear, anger, all hot emotions drain away. She turns cold.

She looks up at the video camera in the bedroom, the one that x still has Burnham's jacket hanging over it, blinding it. She :

thinks. That gives her an idea. a She strides briskly out of the room, headed downstairs. * 2692EXT SOLARIUM NIGHT 269A *

Meg comes down the stairs to the darkened second floor. Peering * through the shadows, she sees Stephen, sitting in the chair in

the middle of the solarium. . MEG ;

Stephen?! *

She hurries over to him. fs

Using his hand, Burnham measures six lengths in from the wall of the panic room, then digs his fingernails into the weave of the carpet, looking for a seam.

He finds one, gets hold of it on one edge, and runs his other hand along the seam till he finds a place where it seems to turn a corner. He stands, hovering over the carpet, and pulls back evenly with both hands.

The concealed carpet flap pulls back neatly, with the sound of tearing VELCRO. Underneath the flap --

-- is the smooth metal door of a floor safe. Burnham unsnaps his satchel and gives it a shove. It rolls out and opens up onto the floor, revealing a neat array of safecracking tools.

Raoul, leaning against the wall for strength, is starting to look like something out of Mary Shelley -- pale, red-rimmed

eyes, arm turning an ever-darker crimson as blood soaks his

skin. He looks at Sarah.

le

102. PINK 2/07/2001

Meg is in the solarium, kneeling in front of Stephen, who is slouched in the chair, showing the effects of a savage beating, barely conscious. Muffled DRILLING can be heard from upstairs.

Meg is taking stock of his injuries. His face is a mess, one eye swollen shut, the other watering profusely.

MEG

Raise your arm?

He tries to move his arm, but when he does, the broken bones under the skin move grotesquely, threatening to break through the skin. He GASPS, almost passes out from the pain. He looks

at her, helpless, totally dependent on her -- and not accustomed to it. MEG (cont’ d) Try again. STEPHEN Why?

She just looks at him. He looks down, sees the gun in her hand. His eyes widen.

A sudden, deafening sound rattles the house.

103. PINK 2/07/2001 271 CONTINUED : 271

The DOORBELL.

Her eyes go wide. She darts a look over to the door (the one that leads to the stoop, not the bloody kitchen door downstairs), then back at Stephen.

Shit. This is exactly what she prayed for him to do, now it’s the worst thing that could happen.

She stands, thinking, desperate. She walks toward the door, stops, thinks some more.

The doorbell RINGS again.

She goes back to where Stephen is in the chair, pulls the chair back a few feet, out of view of the door. She puts the gun in his lap, puts his hand over it to steady it.

She leans down, WHISPERS to him.

He nods. Meg takes a breath, walks across the foyer, tousling her hair as she goes. She grabs a ski parka out of an open box in the living room. She pulls aside the couch that Junior shoved up in front of the door, then begins unlocking the locks.

272 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 272 Raoul stares at the monitors, aghast.

Burnham turns, looks over his shoulder. One monitor covers the front stoop, and on that monitor they can clearly see TWO UNIFORMED COPS.

104. 12/21/2000

272 CONTINUED : YP

He points to another monitor, the one in the foyer, where Meg is looking up at the camera, miming to them -- don’t worry, I’1l take care of this.

Finally, she gets the last screw out. She raises a shaking hand to the doorknob and pulls open the big front door. The wind BLASTS in, it’s a hell of a night. On the stoop, the two Cops turn to look at her. She acts as if she’s just been awakened. The wind is gusty and cold outside. She pulls on the parka.

273 CONTINUED :

105. PINK 2/07/2001

Cop 1 looks at him. Cop 2 stops talking.

CoP 1 Can we come in?

CoP 1 We’d like to come in.

COP 1

Can we come in?

MEG

You wake me out of a sound sleep at four in the morning and then tell me how I look? You don’t look so hot yourself --

(peers at his name tag) -- Lopez. I’m freezing here, thank you for checking, can I go?

273 CONTINUED :

(2)

12/21/2000

Cop 1 studies her, notices the burned sleeve of her tee shirt, the black smudges still on her face, the screwdriver in her

hand.

Your husband says you asked for help.

That you said “There are three...” right before you got cut off.

COP 1

And somebody behind your courtyard called about a loud television, or a loudspeaker of some kind?

Cop 1 takes a step forward and lowers his voice, unconsciously making her lean forward in order to hear him.

COP 1

Ma’am, if there’s something you want to

say to us that maybe you can’t say

right now, maybe you just want to make

a signal, by blinking a few times, something like that.

She just looks at him. Wow, this guy’s intuitive sorely tempted. But she can’t.

.

She is

273 CONTINUED:

She thinks.

OTe 12/21/2000

(3) 203

Thinks. And bursts out laughing.

Cop 1 looks at her, not sure if he believes her or not.

Cop 2 turns to go, but Cop 1 lingers.

Pause. She stares at him.

Cop 2 stifles a laugh.

108. 12/21/2000

That was good. Cop 1 is embarrassed. Cop 2 thinks it’s funny.

Cop 1 looks at Meg, a long look, he holds it for one last moment, trying to read her mind.

274 ON THE MONITORS, 274

we see the video image of the Cops as they turn and head away down the front steps. Meg closes the door.

275 IN THE PANIC ROOM, 2715

Burnham and Raoul breathe a sigh of relief. Burnham goes back to work on the safe. He’s making progress.

Raoul looks at Sarah while he removes the blood-soaked mask he ‘ had around his hand and wraps it in a fresh white towel. Raoul * is thinking. Bad thoughts. The towel begins to turn a dark crimson, blood soaking through it already.

He moves over, crouches down next to Burnham.

thinking. She looks up at the nearest camera, straight into it. * A horrible METAL SHRIEK rises up over her image, a hideous SCREECHING sound that grows louder and louder --

109. 12/21/2000

-- and louder, in the panic room, where Sarah has her hands

clamped over her ears, her mouth wide open, and that same shriek seems to be coming from her.

But the sound is actually coming from the safe, where Burnham continues work, another drill, a bigger bit. The noise is deafening.

CULE TO}:

Meg is on the move. She digs through the drawers in the kitchen, finds a skeleton key, and scoops it up.

She sorts through the intruders' tools, which they left ina pile in the kitchen. Doesn't find what she needs. She turns, sees something next to the banister that leads to the basement, something Raoul brought up before and left there.

The sledgehammer.

She goes to it, picks it up, feels its heft. Likes it. She shirks out of the parka she's wearing, tosses it aside. She turns, sees something in the corner of the kitchen. A video camera. She starts toward it, picking up speed as she goes, she lifts the sledgehammer, swings --

-- and pulverizes the camera.

One of the monitors abruptly cuts to static. Raoul and Burnham have their backs to the monitors, at work on the safe, but Sarah notices. She slides over, to get a look at what's going on.

She sees her mother, moving along the edge of the stairwell that leads up to the foyer, barely visible. She sees a shadow pass

under the stairwell camera, then a blunt object darts up into frame --

-- and that monitor goes to static. Sarah's eyes widen.

SMASH! Another camera bites the dust.

LEON 12/21/2000

SMASH! And another.

In the foyer, we see Meg's shadow, moving in the front of the house, we hear the SMASHING of something in the other room.

The foyer level is plunged into darkness. A moment later, Meg's

dim shape slips past us and approaches Stephen. He's slumped in * the chair, still holding the gun in his hand. Meg reaches = behind him, grabs hold of his belt, and pulls it off. x

He looks at her, what are you doing? She shoves the gun firmly into his palm and wraps the belt around it, cinching it tight, ES securing it into his hand. x

He lifts it about six inches, but it's shaking like crazy, his Za shattered collarbone unbelievably painful. She leans down, gets * right in his face. i

He raises his arm again, this time manages to get it up in front * of him, as if pointing the gun at somebody, and he's practically weeping from the pain. *

ACROSS THE ROOM,

Meg quickly unscrews the shade from a lamp, tosses the shade * aside. She brings the lamp over to Stephen, still in the chair, * and puts it in his lap. «

CULEIO: eS OMITTED PADS *

In the panic room, Burnham is still working. ‘

BURNHAM

Gimme a chisel.

ilahil 12/21/2000

284 CONTINUED : 284

Raoul turns away from the safe to get the tool and notices for the first time that eleven of the monitors on the far wall have turned to static.

He bolts over, studies them. But between the darkness and the wrecked cameras, he can't see a thing out in the house.

Aside from the two exterior cameras that cover the front and back entrances to the house, there's only one interior camera

left working, the one in the master bedroom, but it's still covered by a jacket.

Raoul puts his face right up next to it, squinting to see if he can see anything. As he watches, the jacket is abruptly yanked off, revealing MEG'S FACE, right in the foreground, surprising in its viciousness, but it's only visible for a split-second before that final monitor FLASHES and turns to static.

284AINT MASTER BEDROOM NIGHT 284A *

The skeleton key slips into the lock of the door in the master bedroom and turns, CLUNKING the old-fashioned lock into place. Meg moves from the main door to the pocket doors on the other side of the room, locks those too.

In the closet area, she pulls on a pair of blue jeans.

284BINT MASTER BATHROOM NIGHT 284B

Bt

POW! A bare light bulb in the master bathroom yields to a swing * of the hammer, vacuum packed glass spattering all over the tile. *

Meg CRUNCHES through the glass, barefoot. Doesn't seem to

notice. She slips out the door and loses herself in the shadows.

CLOSE ON a door frame as Meg's thin hand slips in and locks that *

door too, with the skeleton key.

ly 12/21/2000

Burnham is this close to getting the safe open. Raoul is going nuts.

RAOUL

What's she doing?! What the fuck does she think she's doing?!

Burnham keeps at it, the drill SCREAMS into the metal. While Burnham and Raoul are distracted, Sarah grabs the leather pouch, palms the three syringes that are left in there.

OMITTED Pas} a

FROM HIGH ABOVE, 233)

we see Meg come to the middle of the foyer, in a tiny pool of < moonlight coming through the skylight two stories up. From above, we see her standing there, breathing hard, sledgehammer dangling at her side. She takes one last look around, makes sure all is in readiness --

-- and withdraws, disappearing into the shadows. . Cur TO: .

Finally, the door to the safe CRUNCHES in on one side, yielding to the drill. Burnham throws it open, revealing --

-- nothing. Raoul races over, looks over his shoulder.

Burnham reacts calmly, what he expected, and opens a false bottom, revealing a manila envelope.

italis} 12/21/2000 289 CONTINUED : 289

He snatches it up, RIPS it open, and his eyes dance as he holds up a stack of one million dollar U.S. Treasury Bearer Bonds. He fans them out, counts them, disbelieving.

RAOUL

What? BURNHAM

Twenty-two. ss RAOUL

Get the fuck- BURNHAM

This is twenty-two million dollars! < They look at each other, incredulous.

Burnham shoves the loose bonds into his jacket.

Burnham bends down, puts his hands on Sarah's shoulders. a

Sarah looks up at him and nods.

CULELO: = 289AINT ELEVATOR NIGHT 289A* Inside the elevator, Meg's hand flicks the "POWER" switch from ON to OFF. Then she reaches up and gently unscrews the fluorescent bulb, plunging the elevator car into darkness. zi That's where she is. =

The house is quiet.

114. 12/21/2000

Nobody moves.

Anywhere.

OMITTED 293%

In the darkened master bedroom, there is a CLUNK and a low GROANING sound. Flickering fluorescent light spills across the floor as the door to the panic room slowly cranks open, its heavy spring coiling into the wall.

Burnham steps out first, head darting left and right as he comes into the empty room. Close behind him is Raoul, who brings up the rear, sandwiching the girl as closely in between them as

possible. 3 Raoul hesitates in the doorway to the panic room, bends down and * pries something out of the door frame. Burnham looks back at cd him what are you doing? Raoul bends down, searches for y something on the floor. As he shoves the something into his * pocket, Burnham realizes what it must be. cs Raoul's fingertips. * Burnham turns, they all look around frantically -- she's out :

here somewhere, but where? They cross the master bedroom, go to the door, and turn the handle. But it's locked. Doesn't budge.

Raoul scowls at him -- open it. Burnham tries again, puts a shoulder into it, tries to bump the door open. No good. 3

They stand there, thinking. She's messing with them. Tension rises. Raoul nods, gestures to go the other way. They move to the pocket doors, try those, but they're locked too. %

Raoul gestures, go through the bathroom. Burnham looks back, * shakes his head, that's what she wants us to do. Raoul nods more viciously. A

Reluctantly, Burnham leads the way and they head for the bathroom.

OMITTED 295

OMITTED 296m

2977

alas} 12/21/2000

They come into the master bathroom.

He steps into the darkened room, broken glass CRUNCHING beneath

his feet. He stops, what the hell? Flicks the light switch, but nothing happens. Looking at the white floor, he can see the bloody footprints of Meg's bare feet, crossing the bathroom and disappearing on the dark wood of the neighbor room. BURNHAM Shit. Sarah, barefoot, stops in the doorway, won't walk any further. Raoul tries to shove her, but she resists. SARAH There's glass! Raoul thinks, then steps in front of her, bends down, and picks her up, piggyback. Sarah doesn't like it, but he yanks at her roughly. RAOUL Hold on, damn it. She does.

They come out of the bathroom, into the front bedroom. Burnham hits the light switch, but there's no lights here either. Their breath is quickening. This is merciless. They head for the hallway.

They squint out into the hallway, which is a tiny bit brighter from the moonlight coming through the skylight. Raoul is still prodding Burnham to go first.

+ FH OF

116. 12/21/2000

299 CONTINUED : 299

They walk slowly out of the front bedroom and head for the stairs, still in a very tight formation.

As they pass the elevator, we linger, peering inside, we know that Meg is in the elevator.

But the shaft is empty, the car elsewhere.

They come down the stairwell, headed for the foyer. Sarah, who is in the rear, hears a soft SOUND from above and looks up -- is her mother there? But she sees nothing.

Raoul feels her turn, he looks up too. Nothing there.

Burnham reaches the landing, where the stairs turn the L. He steps down onto the floor of the foyer. A moment later, Raoul does the same. Just as his feet touch the floor of the foyer --

A bright light switches on from the middle of the floor. Raoul whips back around, looks in that direction, they blink, half- blinded, as their eyes had adjusted to the darkness.

They peer toward the light, which is coming from the shadeless

lamp held by Stephen, slumped in a chair in the middle of the foyer.

Pointing the gun at them.

Burnham SHOUTS in surprise and alarm, Sarah cries out to her father, and Raoul immediately flips the kid around, off his back and to his front, legs around him, so that she's between him and the gun, as he cowers behind a pillar with her.

Burnham is left exposed.

Sarah SHOUTS from behind the pillar.

117. PINK 2/07/2001 300 CONTINUED : 300

Burnham starts edging toward the patio doors.

Raoul edges out, holding Sarah. Stephen turns the gun to train * it on Raoul, but quickly moves it away, back to Burnham, as

Raoul is holding his daughter. Suddenly Sarah finds herself looking over Raoul's shoulder, in the one direction everybody else is not looking, in the direction of the elevator --

-- as its door opens silently. Meg creeps out, raising the sledgehammer, and steals across the foyer in bare feet.

This negotiation is breaking down. Meg, creeping up behind Raoul, gestures to Sarah with one hand -- drop. Sarah lets go of Raoul's neck, pulls her legs free from his waist, and drops to the floor.

He grabs at her, hears a strange WHISTLING sound from directly behind him, turns --

-- just in time to see the head of the sledgehammer swinging right at him. He flinches just enough to prevent a direct blow to his temple, but the sledgehammer still SMACKS him in the skull, sending him flying over the railing, pulling Sarah over with him.

Sarah grabs hold of the railing and dangles there as Raoul tumbles through the open airway, SMACKING onto the kitchen floor below, his leg twisted grotesquely under him.

Meg drops the sledgehammer and lunges for Sarah, grabs her by the wrists, and hauls her back up over the railing.

alas} . 12/21/2000

Burnham, who is suddenly not the focus of anyone's attention, * turns and bolts for the French doors that lead to the patio. He* throws open the one he unscrewed earlier and darts outside.

Meg grabs Sarah by the arms, looks into her eyes.

MEG

Did they hurt you?!

A sound comes from below. THUMP. DRAG.

Meg turns, looks down, through the airway, to the kitchen floor below. A long blood smear leads from the spot where Raoul fell over to the stairs. He's dragging himself up them.

THUMP. DRAG. THUMP. DRAG.

Meg puts Sarah down, shoves her back, picks up the sledgehammer again, and turns to face the stairs.

Raoul emerges at the top, hideous. Sarah SCREAMS. Stephen swings the gun over, points it at him, and FIRES. Two slugs ro SLAM into the railing inches from where Raoul is standing. cz

But the gun's recoil sends Stephen's arm violently up and back, and the broken bones in his collarbone GRIND into one another. Stephen SCREAMS in pain.

On the patio, Burnham is halfway over the fence when he hears the SCREAM from inside. He stops, in spite of himself, looks back. Wind and leaves blow around him, want to pull him over the fence and away. He could make it.

Abate)... 12/21/2000

Raoul lunges across the floor toward Stephen, who is struggling with his useless arm to bring the gun up for another shot. Meg raises the sledgehammer, to clock Raoul before he gets there, but suddenly Raoul turns and lunges at ker instead, ducking under the blow and upending her, flipping her over his head.

She lands on the hard marble floor with a SMACK, her wind knocked out, her skull CRUNCHING into the wood. *

Stephen FIRES again, a huge chunk of wood flies up between Meg * and Raoul, and he SCREAMS in agony at the gun's recoil. Raoul lunges toward him and knocks Stephen and chair over backwards. * Stephen's hand SMACKS into the floor, the gun slides away out of his grip, toward the patio doors. a

Stephen stretches to get to the gun, but can't reach it.

Raoul stands, grabs Meg by the hair, and drags her across the floor to where the sledgehammer lies. He begins to choke her. im

Sarah leaps on top of him and plunges three hypodermic needles

into his neck. Raoul SHOUTS and paws at the needles, wrenches ~* them out of his skin, and BATS Sarah away with his other hand, then punches her. She tumbles across the floor, SMACKS into the * fireplace, where she cowers, screaming. *

Stephen stretches even closer to the gun, but he won't get there in time. A HAND comes into his field of vision, picks up the gun --

-- Raoul reaches the sledgehammer, picks it up, raises it --

-- Meg rolls over, blood matting her hair, looks up at Raoul -- -- and Burnham, whose hand it was that picked up the gun,

appears suddenly beside him. He raises the gun to the side of Raoul's head, turns away, closes his eyes, and FIRES.

Raoul is dead before he falls. *; Sarah SCREAMS. Meg crabwalks backwards, grabbing for Sarah and

pulling her away from Burnham, who leans down and gently sets the gun on the floor of the foyer.

He and Meg stare at each other. ( Nak as vie BURNHAM Yve NK / I told him. WW

208 12/21/2000 CONTINUED : 302

Suddenly, flashing red light washes over him. He looks up sharply. Through the windows of the library, in the front of the house, he sees a couple police cars pull to a stop, lights flashing, hears the SQUAWK of their radios.

Burnham zips his jacket over the protruding bonds, races across the foyer, through the solarium, out the French doors --

-- and comes out onto the balcony. He races down the twisting metal staircase. Untended, the loose bonds start to fall out of his jacket, he grabs big fistfuls as he goes down, saving as many as he can, never breaking his stride as he comes out in --

-- the courtyard. He just reaches the bottom of the stairs and is heading for the wall when THREE COPS climb over it.

He turns, to head for the other wall, but THREE MORE COPS climb over that one. In the din of their SHOUTED COMMANDS, Burnham turns in a circle. Trapped.

Defeated, he raises his hands, still stuffed with million-dollar bearer bonds. The now-ROARING wind tugs at them, trying to wrench them away.

Burnham lets his head fall back and opens his hands. He stands there, encircled by police, head thrown back, arms outstretched, watching the bonds swirl around him, bucking and diving out of his reach. Gone forever.

In the foyer, the front door suddenly BANGS open and COPS pour

through it, led by the First Cop, the one who came to the door

earlier and was so suspicious of Meg. As the room turns into a frantic hive of activity and SHOUTED COP TALK, Sarah looks up,

sees her father drag himself to a sitting position.

She pulls away from Meg and races across the foyer to her father, throwing her arms around him, holding him tight. Stephen, now conscious, holds her too, saying her name over and over.

121. PINK 2/07/2001

Meg just watches her daughter, reunited with her father. As if she senses her mother's gaze, Sarah turns and looks at her, afraid she's betraying her in some way. She starts to pull away from her father, but Meg smiles at her with quiet strength.

Sarah stays with her father, who looks gratefully at Meg. Meg stands.

CLOSE ON a newspaper, the real estate section, apartment sales and rentals. SARAH'S VOICE comes over.

MEG (0.S.)

I still like the west side.

Pulling back, we see Sarah and Meg are on a blanket on an expanse of grass. Sarah searches the ads again (as credits begin to roll).

Still pulling back, we see them on a vast expanse of grass, the Great Lawn, on a crisp fall day. It's full of PEOPLE throwing frisbees, playing football, lying there doing nothing.

306 CONTINUED :

122. PINK 2/07/2001

Higher still. Sarah's voice grows fainter.

High above, we see the skyline of Manhattan, full of infinite

promise.