A/N: The 1978 movie was really fun, so I wanted to put my own spin on it...with some extra spice added. Michael is basically the supernatural mystery he was in the movie-the Thorn doesn't exist here! Also, I'm on the fence on the extent of the dubcon that's going to take place.
I hope you all enjoy!
The universe is balanced. Everything is within an order that holds the very fabric of reality together, and it is rarely so lazy as to leave things incomplete.
Like Haddonfield.
It's a prime example of a perfect push and pull, an ebb and flow of time and people trapped in the perfect place, ready for the ultimate price they must pay for their stay. Myers comes, and the townspeople drive him out. Life continues, and then it cycles back. The killer, the psychopath, the Boogeyman of this quaint little settlement of cute suburban houses. The monster.
Julia holds that within the loosest terms of the word, for what is it really? A 'monster' can be anything perceived as inhuman, unfamiliar, or threatening to our mortality (or is it morality? What is the difference?). Michael Myers is a 'monster' not because he kills but because he takes so little pleasure in doing so. The very thought of a strange masked man breaking into one's home on Halloween night is the ultimate fear of a parent who leaves their teen children at home with the baby. He enters the dreams and nightmares of all, an unknown entity to the waking world.
But there are more monsters in this little pocket of space than just Michael Myers. They are connected to each other, driven together for nothing more than the shared ostracization society places upon them. It is an instinct for them as much as it is for the townspeople who shiver unconsciously as they pass, inattentive to their fear while it hangs low over their insignificant lives. The universe is so big, and they are so small. It is this knowledge they understand when death comes; the meaninglessness of their lives is the same as that of Myers' relieving them of it.
No one thinks of this outside of mourning on crisp autumn days.
Even Julia Loomis.
…
Run, my darling!
…
She is an innocent, fresh-faced and young for what it was worth, innocuous against the vibrant red painted across cold wooden floorboards.
In the gloom, she can make out a shadow against the cool brown of the home. Something is there beyond sight. The blinking sirens burn in her peripherals, and when she blinks, it is gone.
"Julia!"
Dr. Samuel Loomis pants heavily over the side of the police car, electric blue eyes dashing back and forth frantically. It reminds her of some of the older ward patients damaged during the era of shock therapy—that was how he looked—damaged.
"Papa? Are you—"
Her gentle father is gone, replaced with a grieving man. Three teens had died tonight. It could easily have been her instead.
"You are going back to Warren County tonight. Your mother will be with you shortly."
"But what about you? What about Myers?" she asks. "What if something else happens?"
His lips flatten to a line. "That is for me to worry about. He is my patient, and it is my duty to retrieve him."
He bends through the open window and kisses her forehead, Julia grasping his hand briefly before he steps back.
"Officer Hardy will drive you back, my dear. Stay inside the house until either I or your mother come for you. Lock all the doors and windows."
She nods, staring at him as the officer starts the car, leaving him on the edge of that flashing, strobe-lit scene until he is a speck on the horizon. He is gone, like Laurie Strode and all the rest. She could imagine none of it had happened if she just closed her eyes.
Halloween wasn't supposed to turn out this way. Julia shouldn't have been in Haddonfield, not here where one couldn't tell man from shade. But she was. The fiend lurking on the fringes of her reality was there too—she just didn't know it.
…
Go, for what it is worth!
…
At sixteen, most girls' lives are supremely fickle. Julia does not condemn her peers but neither does she partake in their usual activities. There is no time or interest in it when she has more important things to accomplish. Her mother, Mary, does not care what she does as long as her homework is finished, and her grades are excellent. That is one way to please Samuel (psychiatrist, divorcee, and now, slave driver in what little hold he retains over his daughter's life). His will is also Mary's in this at least.
And so, she whiles her days away in tedium while Haddonfield (and her father) recover. They pick up the pieces to build once again; the lingering failure over catching Myers forces them to.
Julia feels far too young and far too old at the same time. The grief does not hit her the same way it does Samuel—likely because she does not have as personal a connection to the events that took place as he does. She spares all the time she can to be with her father and misses him even when he is with her.
Myers' shadow is everywhere he looks.
"Papa, do you think they'll ever catch him?" she says, running her fingers through his graying hair. It reminds her of when she was a little girl and he did the same for her.
"I don't know. I can only hope and pray. Tomorrow, I will resume the search as well."
"You should leave it to the police," she murmurs. "There's been an alert across all of Illinois and beyond."
He doesn't answer, and she drops it, frowning. His hair is sparser than she remembers it.
"I'll bring you tea, Papa." She kisses his cheek and slides off the couch, padding to the kitchen.
She isn't such a fool as to think Myers had stopped just because there were no bodies turning up, but she can't help but hope he'd disappeared. He would fade from memory, and she'd never hear of him again. It was all so simple when she thought of it like this. Samuel would come out of his guilt-induced stupor and return to her, to Mary, who had melted just a little in the wake of her ex-husband's pain. They would heal together.
The swirling tea comforts her. She smiles to herself as she carries the warm mug, gripping it gently, running a finger down the handle.
When she turns around, it drops from her hands.
…
Stay away…
…
Her cry rings through the halls of their pretty home hours after the mug shatters, after five stitches are woven into her pale skin at the hospital, after Samuel holds her tight and tells her he'll never let her go.
The dead cat hanging from the lonely, sunburnt elm in the backyard persuades her otherwise. She can see the satisfaction in Samuel's eyes as he stares upon it. He relishes every drop of blood that drips onto the cold cement, some sick measure of knowledge and awe written in those deep lines framing his gaze.
She knows he must go.
"He's trying to lure you away!" she says. "What if—what if it's a trap?"
"It is a risk I am willing to take. To rid this earth of such evil is worth anything, including my life."
"Don't say that!"
She clutches his jacket and cries, really truly cries for the first time in years. Fat wet drops roll down her cheeks as Samuel pats her blond head. She's against him now, curled up into a ball. It's weak, it's pathetic, and yet, she can't help it.
"I—I'm sorry, my darling. I shouldn't have said it in such a way…I won't die, I won't—"
But he cuts himself, mouth twisting because he cannot keep that promise. Myers is no easy adversary, especially to a man pushing sixty.
It takes a long time before she is willing to lift her head, sniffling back unshed tears.
"Mother will murder you first, you know. Michael Myers shouldn't get the pleasure."
He chokes out a chuckle.
…
O, Demon!
…
Mary left Samuel for a reason. Many, in fact.
She had drunk herself into a stupor upon finding Samuel gone, unable to face reality without the aid of simpler vices. It is a weakness Julia finds herself despising and longing for all at once. She has no escape, no hope of it, and now, it is up to her to set things right. Samuel will be fine if she wills it hard enough.
Julia goes out to clean up the cat the next day, fear gone in the bright morning sunlight. It is not as scary as it was in the night, and she feels silly for even dropping the coffee. The stitches in her foot pull tightly at the thought. She halts at the corpse, wrinkling her nose at the smell. It is grounding, in some disgusting way, and she finds herself thinking less of her absent father and more of the task at hand.
Her glare doesn't magically wrap the cat in plastic or levitate it to the garbage can. It dangles in a mindless daze, dragging her into it as she tilts her head, eying the rope knotted around its legs. It is a very deliberate gesture, and she does not fully understand it. The symbolism is nearly lost on her (English literature had never been her strong point) until she realizes that it resembles an offering. It was as if a child had strung it up like a holiday goose on Christmas Eve—the cat's edibility is questionable, but she feels a little better at having solved a portion of the mystery it offers.
She wonders then if Samuel was merely mistaken, and maybe some cruel child had simply wanted to exact a bit of vengeance for the deaths caused by Myers' escape.
Shears slice through the rope, and the body falls into the bin, black as the bag that serves as its coffin. Only the dull shine of coagulated blood winks up at her. She ties it up after a short prayer, comforted by the knowledge that the trash collectors would be there soon to take it.
The floor is a different matter. Julia takes out a bottle of bleach and pours it onto the dried mess, dashing back into the house and slamming the sliding glass door shut to keep out the stench. Her nose has been burned enough for one day.
She has never been more grateful for the garden hose after that. She sprays her toes as well as the concrete walkway, the early November heat enjoyable on her body. It makes her unbearably drowsy even though she'd just downed a whole mug of coffee. The past few days were so tragic that it should have been a crime to have such nice weather. One would associate pain and death with rain, but it seems not even the earth itself is interested in mourning.
Julia takes a great stretch, flopping back onto the sun-warmed lawn. The blades of grass are green and rich and beautiful—perfect for lying on. She rolls over onto her stomach and arms, kicking her legs up and down until lethargy takes over.
And she falls asleep.
She dreams of a man, a familiar one. In the quiet, well-worn walls of Smith's Grove, he is there among the flowers. He's not so different from his surroundings, nearly indistinguishable in her memory. It's fitting in some strange way, that he can feel so familiar and yet so alien all at once, as much a stranger as her or anyone else.
The stars roam above, reckless and wanting, aching for contact. Her nap is cut short when his eyes turn to hers.
Her clothes are drenched in sweat from the heat and mingled with a strong, unfamiliar smell—not bleach; it's something sharper, more immediate than the cleaner she'd diluted hours ago. It takes a moment to register that it's some type of antiseptic. Peroxide was always the weapon of choice in the sanitarium when patients were injured.
Her nostrils flare, and she coughs, getting to her feet. A bit of brilliant silver against the mottled orange-brown leaves catches her bleary gaze.
It's a mouse this time, pinned to the dirt and mud by the blade of a paring knife.