Ninth Life
Chapter 1
Start off with scene in small apartment in West Covina. It’s Stephie’s 28th birthday. Her husband Ray (5 years older than Stephie) hasn’t yet come home from work as a roofer and should have been home hours ago but stopped at a bar. The oldest child, Travis, 8, is asleep on the sofa. The baby, 3 months old, is asleep in her baby bed. It’s Stephie’s birthday, but she had to cook her own dinner. She didn’t really want to have any kind of a party, but Travis was excited about it. He fell asleep frustrated because his dad hadn’t come home. He wants the cake. Ray arrives, obviously been drinking, turns up the radio, wants to dance with her. She’s tired, doesn’t want to disturb the kids with the music and wants to eat dinner. He ratchets up the music and she turns it down. He explodes, the baby starts to cry. Ray tells Stephie to shut the kids up. Rays says, “I would have come home on time, but you’re always wacko these days. I don’t remember you being this way after Travis.”
She picks up the baby, he grabs Katie and holds her over the stove. Stephie intervenes, grabs Katie back. Ray charges Stephie, Travis steps them and is knocked to the floor. Ray storms out to go back to the bar and Stephie gathers the children and decides to leave with little money and few possessions. Ray has gone too far this time.
She has lots of options, but opts just to run. She drives blindly east on I-10. Car starts making noise. Gets off at Morongo exit. She pulls into a gas station and uses credit card. Gas station can’t help her, so she just gets gas. Decides to stop for the night. Sees a house and thinks she’ll go there for help. Turns out the house is abandoned, so she breaks a window and goes inside for shelter. It’s so isolated she figures no one will notice her and the kids there for the night. She doesn’t sleep very well. Constantly checking on the baby. Keeps hearing noises. Develops a headache. Starts seeing halos of lights and thinks it’s just the obvious -- stress.
Morning. Now optimistic. Starts looking around. Lots of stuff abandoned in the house. They need provisions, so she leaves Travis and Katie and goes into town for supplies. She’s frantic, but figures she’s easier to notice with the two kids so it’s better if they don’t come with her. Her car is sounding worse. She pulls into the parking lot of a hair salon. Linda the hairdresser asks if she can help or call someone to help her with the car. Stephie makes excuses about not having anyone and Linda offers to drive her home because she was going to drop something off to her boyfriend anyway. She drives to police station, which makes Stephie nervous, but it turns out Linda’s boyfriend is a cop. Linda tries to chat up Stephie, but Stephie deflects her questions. Linda just moved to town. Misses some turns leaving town because she’s new. Because Linda new, the fact that Stephie is a newcomer doesn’t stand out.
Stephie fearful and wonders how she is perceived by the outside world. Hairdresser asks about how old the baby is. Stephie worries about her responses. When they get close to the house, Stephie has her drop her off at the end of the blacktop, which is near a neighboring house. She insists she’ll walk the rest of the way. As Linda drops her off, Stephie sees the dust of another car leaving her house. She bolts for the house and finds Travis standing out in front with Katie. Travis says a lady was just here and asking whether we own the house. Travis is holding Katie with his non-dominant arm. She questions him about it; he says been hurting.
Stephie starts seeing images of cats and murmurs something to Travis one day. Travis tries to pacify her by saying, “Don’t worry, mom. They’re just hungry. I’ll put out milk.”
Over the next couple of days, Stephie tries to make a couple of rooms in the house livable. She says as soon as the car is fixed they’ll move on. Travis asks whether he’s on vacation from school and whether they’re going to stay there…will I ever go back to my school? She tries to reason out a plan. Travis’ arm is still hurting and not getting any better. She goes back into town and hocks her mother’s diamond ring. Arranges to get the car fixed and takes Travis to Gary. As they’re going into the office, a woman is coming out but sniping at a man. Travis identifies the woman as the visitor to the house. The man turns out to be Gary. Stephie tells Gary Travis fell. Gary meets with Travis alone. Travis says Gary asking about his family and how he fell. Gary also talks with her alone and tells her he doesn’t believe Travis fell. Stephie’s anxiety increases.
All about what happens at night: seeing the halos, hearing and smelling cats, etc. Next morning, although they were planning on leaving, she’s exhausted and has a bad headache. She decides they’ll leave the next day.
First plot point: That night the baby starts running a 103-degree temperature. She’s walking with the baby trying to soothe when she sees a flame outside. Sees figure running away. She bundles up kids and charges to the car to take baby to hospital. Turns out Gary is on duty that night in the hospital and he says the baby has to stay. Now she’s stuck with staying at the abandoned house.
While at hospital, Gary says he’ll check Travis’ arm. Takes Travis into room and during chat Travis talks about mom acting weird and having headaches and seeing cats. Travis talks about being scared. Gary thinks Travis maybe scared of being abused and draws him out. Travis talks about the fire and Gary is appalled that someone would vandalize the house.
Travis falls asleep. Baby is medicated and asleep. Gary confronts mom about the fire and she breaks down and tells him about Ray and his history. Gary wants to take mom out and calm down and gets food. Asks nurse to keep an eye on the kids. Stephie spills her guts and says she’s left Ray eight previous times and is scared for her life. Gary tells Stephie she needs to report the fire, but she says she can’t because she can’t afford to have the police involved. Gary tells her that Mel’s a sort of hermit and is obsessed with finding treasure at the abandoned house. He says everyone in town has searched unsuccessfully for the loot at the old lady’s house, but Mel is obsessed and is constantly searching the property with a metal detector.
In the morning, Stephie and Travis go for groceries before going home. On their way, Linda pulls them into her salon and shows them TV news. Ray is making a plea for help searching for his wife and kids. He’s putting on this BS about how Stephie is suffering from major post-partum depression and has kidnapped the kids and the kids are endangered. Linda doesn’t believe Ray’s BS. She moved to Morongo to escape bad memories of her recent miscarriage and doesn’t believe that Stephie could be the same wacko person Ray claims she is. Stephie gives Linda a short version of her history with Ray. Linda says they have to disguise them a bit to keep hiding from Ray. Linda gives Travis a Marine buzz cut (Marine base at 29 Palms) and cuts and dyes Stephie’s hair.
Ray has traced Stephie’s credit card to Morongo (when she used it that one time) and shows up in town. Linda happens in the police station and hears Ray when he shows up to inquire about Stephie.
Linda comes racing down to Stephie’s – he’s in town. Stephie wants to run, but Linda says can’t because APB on the car, so hide the car behind the house. Linda says you have to lie low, I’ll bring you provisions. When she leaves Stephie’s house, she gets into a car accident and gets hurt enough so that she can’t deliver on her promise to help. Stephie can’t use her car to get to the hospital to see Katie. When she hasn’t turned up for 24 hours, Gary comes out and is surprised to find her now brunette. She tells him that her friend the hairdresser was helping her avoid her husband.
Gary tells Stephie about treating Linda after the car accident and that Linda is laid up. He’s just chatting…I would have been here sooner but I had to take care of this hairdresser….turns out to be Linda. He then sniffs around the house and finds a funky smell, thinks its suspicious and tells Stephie it might be the cause of her headaches and hallucinations. Gary realizes how desperate Stephie is and goes home and gets one of his handguns that he keeps for protection from druggies and gives it to her.
Mel is a hermit who normally doesn’t watch TV or read newspapers. He stops at a liquor store to stock up. While he’s browsing, Ray is at the cash register and the clerk has the TV on with Ray’s plea. Ray starts bragging about how that’s him and he’s going to track down his wife and thinks she’s in the area. Mel overhears Ray and as they leave the store, he says, “What’s it worth to you?” “What do you mean, dude?” “How badly do you want to find her?”
Mel and Ray caravan out to the house and Mel shows where Stephie is. She sees them coming up the road because she recognizes Ray’s car. She tells Travis to stay in the house and goes outside with the gun. She threatens him with it.
Mel goes back to his place; Ray roars off. When it starts getting dark, Ray creeps back and torches the car. She sees it and goes out to try to put it out. Ray sneaks in the backdoor and kidnaps Travis and takes him to the hospital. On the way, Ray tells Travis that his mom his wacko and that Travis needs to stick with Ray.
Stephie goes berserk. Ray has stolen Travis, the baby’s in the hospital and the cats are driving her crazy. She starts hallucinating cats again. She starts randomly shooting cats. Mel hears the shots and races out. She’s used up all her bullets. Mel questions what she’s doing. She says she was shooting at cats. He says there aren’t any more cats because he poisoned them (and names the poison). Mel sees his opportunity to teach her a lesson and rapes her, telling her that she should have heeded his first warning (he set the first fire). Afterward, he says, “You are one crazy woman. You’re so crazy, look, you’re trying to feed cats that don’t exist.” As she cowers on the floor, he pulls from his pocket a child’s toy that emits cat noise. Enraged, she throws the saucer of milk at him and when he ducks, he loses his footing and falls and hits his head. She sobs violently with the realization that she has been victimized yet again and that she has to be on the offense rather than on the defense. “It’s the last time I’ll be victimized.”
She’s been running from the law, but now she’s reached the bottom and has nothing left to lose. She gets in Mel’s truck (he left the keys in it) and races to the hospital. At the hospital, she sees Ray’s car. She races inside and finds Ray confronting Gary, insisting that he’s entitled to take Katie from the hospital because Stephie is clearly crazy. Gary is holding Katie, having already taken her away from Gary. Gary says he doesn’t think Stephie is crazy but has been poisoned. Stephie tells Gary the name of the poison that Mel had told her he’d used to kill the cats. Gary says he thinks those are the same chemicals that they traced into the baby’s bloodstream. Travis runs out from behind Ray and runs to Stephie. Linda’s boyfriend Steve the cop happens to be visiting her in the hospital and hears the commotion. When Steve shows up to intervene, Ray attacks him and takes his service revolver and shots him. Nurse had already summoned the police (not knowing Steve is there) and Ray is taken into custody.
Gary takes Stephie and Travis back to the house to get stuff so they can stay the night with him. While there, with a full moon shining at the correct angle, Travis sees the carving of a cat on a tree. “Look mom, there’s your cat!” he says. They investigate the carving and find in a knothole the crazy elderly woman’s pot of gold.