Mrs. Brand: Steve! Steve, please. (Then looking around frightened, she walks to ward the group.) It's just a ham radio set. A lot of people have them. I can show it to you. It's right down in the basement.
Steve (whirls around toward her): Show them nothing! If they want to look inside our house—let them get a search warrant.
Charlie: Look, man, you can't afford to—
Steve (interrupting): Don't start telling me who's dangerous and who isn't, and who's safe and who's a menace. (He turns to the group and shouts.) And you're with him, too—all of you! You're standing here all set to find a scapegoat—all desperate to point a finger at a neighbor! Well now, look, friends, the only thing that's going to happen is that we'll eat each other up alive—
(He stops abruptly as CHARLIE suddenly grabs his arm.)
Charlie (in a hushed voice): That's not the only thing that can happen to us. (A figure suddenly materializes in the darkness. In the silence we can hear the slow, measured footsteps on concrete as the figure walks slowly toward them. One of the women lets out a stifled cry.)
Tommy (shouting, frightened): It's the monster! It's the monster!
(The people fall back in a group, staring toward the darkness and the approaching figure. DON MARTIN joins them, carrying a shotgun. He holds it up.)
Don: We may need this.
Steve: A shotgun? (He pulls it out of DON's hand.) Will you people wise up? What good would a shotgun do against—
(CHARLIE pulls the gun from STEVE's hand.)