a naked, peeling ceiling. the hum – a mosquito, perhaps – stops.
the picture of the girl on the beach.
the empty hallway, a pair of shoes before each door. at the end of the hall a dim red bulb burns over the door to the staircase, punctuating the sick yellow glow of the line of wall sconces.
the bathing beauty.
the wallpaper is lightly sheened with moisture from the heat.
a gargoyle secretary sits typing a document.
we boom down to show the blue serge pants and well-polished shoes of the stall's kneeling occupant.
the stall door opening.
his hands writhing under the running water. we hear footsteps approaching.
the blank part of the page around the key-strike area, under the metal prongs that hold the paper down.
tracking in on the paper, losing the prongs from frame so that we are looking at the pure unblemished white of the page.
the page.
the bathing beauty.
the bathing beauty. faint, but building, is the sound of the surf.
audrey touches mayhew's elbow. he looks at her, stops singing, she murmurs something, and he bellows:
the typewriter sits on the secretary, a piece of paper rolled halfway through the carriage.
next to the typewriter are several crumpled pieces of paper. the page in the carriage reads:
the ceiling – a white, seamless space.
moving in on the ceiling. we close in on an unblemished area and cease to have any sense of movement.
it is 12:30.
the white ceiling. a humming black speck flits across the white.
audrey lies facing away on her side of the bed, half covered by a blanket.
the alabaster white of audrey's back.
his hand is dripping with blood. too much blood.
blood seeps up into the sheet beneath the curve of audrey's back.
audrey's corpse, in long shot, face up on the bed.
the long hallway.
charlie is groping for the front doorknob, cradling the sheetswaddled body in his arms.
the room. the bed. the blood-stained mattress.
the holy bible – placed by the gideons.
mastrionotti in the hallway in full shot, framed by the door, still looking puzzled.
charlie is charging down the hallway, holding his shotgun loosely in front of his chest, in double-time position. the fire races along with him.
through the open doorway we see charlie pass, pushing two shells into his shotgun.
charlie stands in front of the door to his room, his briefcase dangling from one hand, his other hand fumbling in his pocket for his key.
down the beach, a bathing beauty walks along the edge of the water. she looks much like the picture on the wall in barton's hotel room.