I own nothing except a few characters and the plot.
HALLOWEEN: THE SERIES
MISSISSIPPI MADNESS
SPARTA, MISSISSIPPI
Gunshots and a woman's screams penetrated the early morning calm. Mary Johnson called the police like she had the past three times. So far she had gotten nowhere with the police. She thought to herself what she could do. Then she remembered her nephew Curtis is involved with the Empire. She looked for his last letter to her and called the number written on it when she did.
HADDONFIELD, ILLINOIS
Imperial Colonel Curtis Morlandt stepped off the elevator in the Haddonfield Police Station. He walked over to his desk and found it covered in wadded up paper.
"Wasting paper is an Imperial pet peeve as much as it annoys Mike." He told the source of the paper wads. Detective Tommy Doyle was being his usual annoying self.
"It's scrap paper." Tommy said quickly, but not quick enough.
"There's no such thing as scrap paper in this department, Doyle. Every piece of paper is important." Michael Myers stood behind Tommy holding his usual cup of coffee.
"Meeting, my office in ten minutes." Michael started towards the elevator, but doubled back to slap Tommy on the back of the head.
"For wasting my paper. Clean up that mess and don't do it again."
"At least he isn't stabbing people to death when they annoy him anymore." Curtis decided to go for a walk around the station since he couldn't do any work with all the paper on his desk.
"She did it again." Sergeant Harry Jankins said as he opened the bag of donuts.
"Did what again?" Curtis asked.
"I ordered two, she gave me four." Curtis reached into the bag.
"Now you have three." He said taking a donut.
"Colonel, long distance call. Line 2."
"Chicago?"
"You have an aunt in Mississippi?"
"Tell her to wait." He made a dash for Michael's office eating the donut before he got to Michael's door. Michael often considered donuts to be contraband, but the penalty for having them was the same slap on the head Tommy usually gets for acting silly.
"Can I use your phone? My aunt from Mississippi." Michael got up from his chair.
"We do have a meeting in 5 minutes."
"Where's Alex?"
"Evidence locker. I'll go get him." Michael left.
"What do you mean the police down there aren't doing anything? I'll come down there and I'll bring Myers with me if it gets them motivated to do something. You take care of yourself. Bye, Aunt Mary." Michael, Kelsey, Harry, Tommy, and Alex walked into the office.
"Mike, I gotta go to Mississippi. My aunt's having problems and the police are doing nothing about it."
"After the meeting." Michael picked up a clipboard.
"Just a couple of things. Soda cans and bottles are to be recycled. I will headslap anyone I catch throwing recyclables in the regular trash from this point forward. We have a speeding problem on Railroad Avenue. I want it dealt with. We have those radar guns, use them. And I want to make it clear that you people are not allowed to drive around town like you own it. You will receive the same ticket anyone else caught doing it will receive with the same required court appearance." Michael of course directed that last part at Tommy.
"Any other business?"
"Someone reported that an Army guy was going through people's garbage." Tommy said.
"Why would Colonel Thompson be interested in people's trash?" Alex asked.
"Annoying yet tolerable because people aren't dead yet." Kelsey said.
"Until he starts ordering my people around like a certain doctor did back in `89, I'm not complaining." Harry added.
"Besides, the CIA has their own people for trash digging, torture, phone tapping, mail tampering, evidence planting, and murder." Tommy said while Michael poured himself a cup of coffee.
"Slap him Curtis." Curtis promptly slapped Tommy on the back of the head.
"We had a hit on the print we got from the Jewelry Store robbery. But, AFIS kicked us out and deleted the file." Alex said.
"Three guesses who ordered that to be done." Tommy said.
"He shows up, you chase him around town." Michael told him.
"What's left in this department for him to look into? Alex's secret private life?"
"Low blow, Tommy. Considering you're the only person I know of that broke into the psych ward." Alex shot back.
"Are you two done?" Michael asked.
"Until Thompson sneaks in here or we find him in someone's garbage." Tommy said.
"Back to work. Doyle, Stay out of Martinson's personal e-mail account." Tommy looked at Michael bewildered.
"He'll be trying to figure out how I know he did that for weeks." Michael and Curtis waited for everyone to leave, except Kelsey.
"What's wrong?"
"Somebody's been killing my aunt's neighbors at the rate of one a day. Sparta Police are from what I'm being told unable to do anything." Michael noticed the hint of worry in his voice. Imperial soldiers were trained to hide their feelings, but Curtis knew that Michael would find out either by picking up hints or from Tommy eavesdropping.
"Isn't there an Imperial base that covers that area?" Kelsey asked.
"Atlanta, Georgia covers that area. Commander down there is a damn pencil-pushing bureaucrat. Won't do anything until the paperwork is perfect. I really wish Dallas-Fort Worth covered that area." Curtis told her.
"That's where Kyp works." She said.
"You guys know Kyp Durron?"
"Long story that involves USAF dropping bombs on the Sanitarium." Michael said. Curtis grinned and went back to his desk. He looked at Tommy as he sat down.
"Were you in my e-mail?"
"There's nothing interesting in there. It's all military stuff that I don't understand. I'd rather read about what Alex does behind closed doors." Curtis went wide-eyed as the elevator dinged.
"Can I help it if he leaves his e-mail open for anyone to read it."
"Except you're the only one who does read it." Alex said.
"You should change your password. I should change mine anyway" Curtis told him
"Yeah, we'll let Michael walk in here and catch him trying to hack into our e-mail." Alex replied. As if on cue, Michael walked into their room.
"Why can't you take the elevator like everyone else?" Tommy asked
"Because I can't head-slap the elevator for alerting you." Michael said.
"Since you seem to enjoy playing with the computers. I want you to look up anything on the recent murders in Sparta, Mississippi and get me the name of whoever's in charge of their police department." Michael looked at Curtis. It troubled Michael to see the colonel like this.
"And can the tomfoolery or you're going to be working traffic detail for the next month."
Curtis paced back and forth in front of Tommy's desk. Michael came in from the stairs as usual.
"Curt, conference room. Doyle, did you find something?"
"As you would expect I did. Police Chief in Sparta, Mississippi is Luann Corbin, she's sending an e-mail to you with the details. Detective on the case is a Luke Everett. They have extra patrols in the area where the murders are taking place." Michael and Curtis walked into the elevator. Michael pressed the button for Kelsey's lab. After about a minute, he flipped the stop switch.
"I cleared it with your C.O. for you to go down there." Michael told him.
"You know ATL's gonna have a beef with you for sending me down there."
"I'm going with you."
"Just what they need."
"I could send Martinson with you."
"Yeah, give Tommy something else to spread rumors about."
"I will smack him if he is spreading rumors about people."
"He told me that Alex meets up every weekend with some guy. No name, but he once managed to convince Jones and Oakson to follow Alex to this meeting." Michael flipped the stop switch again, this time turning the elevator back on. They stepped off to the sound of techno music. Kelsey as expected ran into Michael's arms.
"What's wrong with Colonel M?" She asked.
"Family in trouble. I'm going down to Mississippi with him. Keep Doyle in line and put every deck of cards in the building under lock and key. Then check the patrol cars and put any card decks in them under lock and key. I'll have Harry tell patrol there will be no more playing cards on duty."
SPARTA, MISSISSIPPI
Two officers sat in a car playing cards.
"You think Corbin's onto something?" One of them asked.
"Matt, she was hired by the late Bill Gillespie. I heard a rumor that some department up north was looking into the murders."
"What department, Frankie?"
"Haddonfield, Illinois. Miss Johnson's nephew is an Imperial Colonel attached to their police department. Everett isn't thrilled with the idea of them coming down here, but Corbin would rather have Haddonfield's people here then Imperial Stormtroopers." A van drove past the two officers and stopped in front of a house.
"What kind of house painter comes at this hour?"
"None that I know of." Frankie opened his window.
"Hey, over here." He called at the three men who got out of the van.
"Let's see some ID." The three men pulled guns instead and shot the two officers dead before they could reach their guns or call for backup. Mary heard the shots and quickly called the police station and then called Haddonfield to tell Curtis what had happened.
INTERSTATE 55 SOUTHBOUND
Michael and Curtis had packed enough for a week and were on the move to Sparta.
"I hope we get there in time." Curtis said.
"We will, I told Corbin to call Kyp if anything happened."
"Except that my aunt will call the station first if something does." Harry's voice came over the radio.
"Michael, Corbin said that two cops were shot dead while playing cards in their car last night."
"Did she call Kyp?"
"Durron's got a commando squad en route to Sparta and she's e-mailing the dash cam footage to Kelsey."
"All right, tell Doyle and Martinson I want them to pack just in case." Curtis looked at him.
"That's what I mean, Kyp Durron said jump. General Ashley said how high. ATL would still be processing paperwork."
"Now you know why I forbid playing cards on duty. Back in 1989, two of ours got stabbed to death with a pitchfork because they were playing cards when they weren't supposed to be. But they were idiots to begin with. Jones and Oakson could learn from those two." Harry was on the radio again.
"Do you know anythng about all the playing cards disappearing?"
"I took them away. There's no playing cards on duty and they can thank the late Deputies Ross and Farrah for that rule. And the games were taken off the computers also."