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There Should Only Be One (Version of "Halloween")!

by Carycomic

Synopsis: The truth behind Michael Meyers' apparent indestructibility is revealed.

Disclaimer (re: characters & concepts): if you recognize them, I don't own or profit from them.

SOMEWHERE IN CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

(NOVEMBER 1, 2001)

Laurie Strode's flashed open.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!" she screamed.

"No-no-no-no-no!" Cassandra hastened to exclaim. "It's all right! You're alright. You're just having another nightmare."

Laurie had been having them every time she tried to get some sleep after first waking up, twelve hours earlier. Which was the same time she had first met Cassandra the Enchantress and her fellow Immortal, Katherine DelGreco. And which, in turn, had been roughly ten minutes before they had told her the truth about herself… and her brother.

"Now that your Immortality is no longer latent," Cassandra had begun. "…your body will cease aging. You'll also no longer get sick. And you'll be able to regenerate, with varying degrees of speed, from most injuries. The only exception being your limbs..."

"...and your head," added Katherine, taking up the litany. "Lose that to another Immortal? And he'll absorb every bit of your Quickening! The bio-electrical manifestation of your life force."

"Another down side," continued Cassandra. "...is that you'll no longer be able to have children."

Katherine nodded in affirmation upon viewing Laurie's shocked facial expression.

"I don't know why that is, exactly. But, I've studied enough medical science over the centuries to hypothesize that it might be some kind of evolutionary check-and-balance. To keep expansion of the world's population from getting too excessive too quickly."

"And is that why my brother Michael is... the way he is?"

"Partly," replied Cassandra. "But, there are other contributing factors."

"Such as?" insisted Laurie.

The enchantress looked at Katherine who nodded.

"Haddonfield, Illinois, was founded in 1837 by settlers from the eponymous town in New Jersey. Unfortunately, what none of them knew at that time was that, during the Black Hawk War, the site of their settlement had also been the scene of a brutal massacre."

"Scalp-hunting civilian white trash," added Katherine. "...nominally scouting for the U.S. Army as 'mounted rangers', attacked a Sac-Fox Indian encampment composed primarily of women, children and the elderly, and slaughtered them. Without mercy!"

"The psychic energy from the collective emotional trauma of those deaths," resumed Cassandra, "not only cursed that area forevermore. It also initiated what you might call a 'spiritual chain reaction'. One that's been building toward a critical mass, with ever-decreasing slowness, in recent years. No thanks- -in large part- -to the actions of certain others."

"Like whom, for example?"

"A secret society of high-tech occultists," replied Katherine. "Founded back in the Roaring Twenties by an Irish neo-pagan named Conal Cochran. He lost his family during the Easter Uprising of 1916. Innocent by-standers caught in the crossfire of an IRA ambush on a British army patrol. He consequently renounced all forms of Christianity. Vowing to return the whole world to what he calls 'the True Old Faith'."

"And, nineteen years ago," Cassandra concluded, "he very nearly succeeded. But, in spite of that defeat, his followers have been carrying on his work. Most of them, as the leaders of small splinter factions. Every single one of which would like to recapture Michael- -and use him- -for their own purposes. The only way to prevent that? Behead your brother. Once and for all!"

The End?

Author's Notes:

Cassandra made the first of three appearances, on HIGHLANDER THE SERIES, in the Season 5 episode "Prophecy."

Katherine of Samothrace made her one-and-only appearance on HTS in the Season 6 episode "Two of Hearts."

Conal Cochran is the main antagonist from HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982).

The fictional backstory for the equally fictional Haddonfield, Illinois, however, was inspired by the unfortunately all too real Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado during the Civil War.