How It All Goes Down
Catatonic
- Wendy is running down the main stairs to the lobby. She doesn't stop to look at the stairs that lead to the second floor. If she had, she would've seen Danny standing there, looking extremely pale and dazed, sucking his thumb. She would have seen the "puffy bruises on his neck and just below his chin" (27.1).
- Jack has stopped screaming, but she doesn't feel any better. She recognizes that he's screaming in the drunk's voice "she remember[s] so well" (27.2).
- When she gets into the office, Jack is pressing on his temples, and staring at the broken radio.
- He says her name, and she realizes he's about to cry, for the first time since he's stopped drinking.
- Crying he comes to her. There is no smell of alcohol on his breath. He falls into her arms.
- He tells her he was dreaming that his mother told him to listen to the radio for a message from his father; then his father's voice was coming through the radio. He tells her he broke the radio to stop the voice.
- Jack says that he fell asleep down in the cellar; he must have walked up here while he was dreaming.
- Alarmed, Wendy asks where Danny is. He says he thought Danny was with her.
- When he sees the look on her face he says, "Never going to let me forget that [I broke Danny's arm], are you, Wendy?" (27.20). She says she just wants to find Danny and walks out.
- He follows her, apologizing. She calls out to Danny.
- Jack asks if she's sure he isn't just sleeping. He asks if she had fallen asleep, too, and if she'd checked Danny's room before he came down.
- She admits she fell asleep, and that she didn't look in Danny's room; Jack is a little smug.
- He runs up the stairs, and Wendy follows him. She almost runs into him when he stops on the stairs.
- Danny is standing there, looking pale and dazed, still sucking his thumb. They can both see the bruises on his neck.
- Wendy hugs him, but he doesn't respond.
- Jack goes to him and asks how he got the marks.
- Wendy screams at Jack to get away from Danny. She accuses him of hurting Danny. She takes Danny into her and Jack's bedroom.
- Jack hears the door lock.
- Could he have done it? No. No. He couldn't have done it! He refuses to believe it.
- Wendy rocks Danny, who is totally unresponsive, and thinks about Jack. She's sure he's the one who hurt Danny. He must have done it in his sleep, just like he destroyed the radio in his sleep.
- She knows she has to get Danny out of this place and to the doctor. She doesn't need to plan beyond that at this point.
- The question is, how can she get Danny out to the snowmobile, without letting him near Jack again?
- She thinks of the knives in the kitchen. She could use one on Jack if she has to.
- That decided, she picks up the unresponsive Danny, opens the door, and calls out to Jack.
- She hears him singing angrily from somewhere below. It scares her, but she has no choice but to go to Jack.
- So she goes down the stairs.