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Ending
from "Dangerous Days" 1/7/80
Deckard fires again. This one goes home. Batty falls like he was
poleaxed, hits the floor dead weight.
Deckard starts to tremble. His arms go limp as his head tilts back
and he closes his eyes. He can breathe again.
On the floor, Batty's hand is crawling toward Deckard's ankle.
With the unsuspected abruptness of a man slipping on a banana peel,
Deckard comes down. Pace knotted in horror, he empties the laser
in Batty's body -- but the hand holds on. With a screech of frustration
he drops the laser and like an animal claws at Batty's dead fingers
-- but the fingers are welded shut.
Deckard starts to crawl, pulling Batty behind him. He struggles
through the door and stumbles to his feet.
Deckard plunges down the corridor dragging Batty along. He falls,
gets to one foot, falls again and crawls the last couple feet to
the stairwell.
Groaning, he tugs and pulls, hauls and heaves Batty's body to the
edge of the landing. He pauses for breath, then lays back, wedging
his feet against Batty's shoulders and pushes. Inch by inch the
body goes over the edge. Then all at once it drops. But the hand
holds and the weight of the body takes Decked with it. As Deckard
slides over the edge he grabs hold of the railing.
Deckard's hanging three hundred feet over the basement floor, supporting
himself and Batty's corpse -- almost four hundred pounds of stress
on his fingers.
With his free foot he chops away at Batty's hand, trying to break
it loose. But it's not working. Deckard's fingers are starting to
slip.
His face is a mask of agony as he wedges his heel over Batty's thumb.
With the help of gravity and everything ha's got in his right leg
to push with, he pushes. The thumb breaks loose. Batty falls.
The sound of his body hitting below sounds good, but Deckard doesn't
notice. He's in an awkward position. He must reverse the way he's
facing to pull himself up. He lets go with his right hand and crosses
it over the left. Then turns the left around so he's got an overhand
grip.
Like a man doing his last pull-up... the one that can't be done,
Deckard pulls himself up, throws a foot over the edge and grapples
and heaves and wiggles himself onto the cold solid steel of the
stairwell landing.
And lies there, body jerking spasmodically, slowly clenching and
unclenching his cramped hand, but it's his burning cheek against
the cool metal he's most aware of.
Dizzy, hot, lungs on fire, he stands -- and putting one foot in
front of the other, Deckard descends the stairs.
THE LOBBY - NIGHT
Sebastian's sitting in the middle of the floor, hugging his knees,
rocking back and forth. Pris is laid in front of him.
Deckard enters the lobby and comes up behind the aging, stricken
boy and stops.
Sebastian looks up, his face knotted with pain and condemnation.
He stares right at Deckard and the accusation is plain. It hurts
to see and Deckard starts to speak but there's nothing to say. He
walks away, so dead on his feet he hasn't got the energy to fall.
Ten feet from the door he stops. Rachael is in it.
She stands there staring at him. The lack of life in the man makes
him hardly recognizable. She wants to help, but doesn't know if
she can touch him.
There's no hiding his frailty, he can't even try. He stumbles towards
her and stops an inch away. What he sees in her eyes is tender and
naked.
It comes from low and deep down and forms so slowly that it's not
recognizable for a moment that what's forming on his face is the
most grateful smile Deckard's ever smiled. And it's for her.
He drops his forehead on hers and when he looks up, her eyes are
flooding with tears. One spills over and rolls down her face. And
then another. Almost frightened, she lifts a hand and touches the
wet on her cheek. Rachael is crying.
The well of Deckard's tenderness is deep and not easily tapped but
it's tapped and beginning to flow. He holds her close and tight.
Rachael's head is buried in his chest and for a moment it looks
like they'll never move.
As one, they push their way through the door and together, walk
into the night.
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