Tommy: Mr. Brand...you'd better not!
Steve: Why not?
Tommy: They don't want you to.
(STEVE and CHARLIE exchange a grin. STEVE looks back toward the boy.)
Steve: Who doesn't want us to?
Tommy (jerks his head in the general direction of the distant horizon): Them!
Steve: Them?
Charlie: Who are them?
Tommy (very intently): Whoever was in that thing that came by overhead. I don't think they want us to leave here.
(STEVE walks over to the boy. He kneels down in front of him. He forces his voice to remain gentle. He reaches out and holds the boy.)
Steve: What do you mean? What are you talking about?
Tommy: They don't want us to leave. That's why they shut everything off.
Steve: What makes you say that? Whatever gave you that idea?
Woman (from the crowd): Now isn't that the craziest thing you ever heard?
Tommy (persistently): It's always that way, in every story I ever read about a ship landing from outer space.
Woman (to the boy's mother, SALLY,): From outer space yet! Sally, you'd better get that boy of yours up to bed. He's been reading too many comic books or seeing too many movies or something!
Sally: Tommy, come over here and stop that kind of talk.
Steve: Go ahead, Tommy. We 'll be right back. And you 'll see. That wasn't any ship or anything like it. That was just a... a meteor or something.