Disclaimer: I don't own Halloween.
Summary: Every night on the week leading up to Michael Myers' return, Annie finds strange gifts left on her doorstep. MichaelAnnie, oneshot
This idea just came to me. I thought it was interesting, and I couldn't get it out of my head, so I decided to write it down. It's nothing really huge, but I hope that y'all like it. It's basically a little series of scenes leading up to the events in H2. It's slightly AU, but yeah. Aren't they all? Anyway, hope y'all enjoy!
Seven Devils
The first day, Annie doesn't know what to make of it.
She is leaving to go to the store - Laurie used all the bread again without even bothering to tell her - and she is about to set off, when she almost trips over something. A simple item set on the welcome mat on the porch stares up at her when she searches for the offending object.
Annie tilts her head to the side and looks at the thing like it's particularly obscene.
It's nothing special, really. Just a small bag of candy corn at her feet, tied with the reddest ribbon she's ever seen.
Something about it sends a small shiver down her back.
Annie shakes her head and picks up the small bag. Opens the door and sets it in on the table next to the door.
She pushes it to the back of her mind.
The second day, Annie ignores the vague sense of suspicion forming in her thoughts.
Out to get the paper that morning, her toe nudges against an object. Half expecting it to be another bag of candy corn, she looks down to check it out.
A doll.
One of those creepy, cloth dolls. One eye's missing, the mouth crooked. The yarn hair of the doll is a bright crimson.
She throws the doll into a nearby bush and wills herself to think nothing more.
The third day, she begins to suspect something.
Annie should have known after the second day that there was something potentially wrong, but she couldn't bring herself to think that something bad was happening. Maybe it was the cloud of normality that had finally settled - as much as it could with Laurie about, and people looking at her with pity at the scars on her face - and she didn't want to dispel whatever tiny grasp on humanity she had left, but…
There's a tiny jack-o-lantern sitting on the mat, carved crudely into a somewhat wickedly smiling face. She bends over to pick it up, cringes as her fingers skim over the ridged surface. There's even a small candle lit inside it.
Gingerly, she turns the thing around, as if the person who made it left a calling card of some sort. There's nothing, and maybe that's what makes her look around, in case the person is still around.
She tells herself that, but in reality, she has the uncanny feeling of eyes watching her every move.
The fourth day, she knows there's something wrong.
She's coming back from a friends' house - it's rare, that - and she has a bit of a smile on her face. She's dead sober, too, and reveling in the fact that she has had one night away from Laurie and her tantrums and her nightmares, one night away from the constant fog of what had happened.
Annie is just stepping on the welcome mat when she sees it.
Curled up like a snake ready to strike, a belt lays before her feet. The tough, brown leather looks oddly familiar, and she thinks it may be one of her dad's. But what is it doing out here?
She picks up the belt, twirls it in her hands haphazardly, her curious eyes staring at it as if it would miraculously come to life.
Annie drops it as if it were a real viper when she sees the crusted blood beneath the buckle.
She mutes the scream building in her throat by covering her mouth with her hand, but still a wounded sound - like a dying animal - emits from her.
The fifth day, Laurie is the one that discovers it.
She'd just gotten done screaming at Annie, throwing hateful words as if they had barbs, and was stomping out the door.
"And what the hell is your fucking shirt doing out here?" she shouts, turning and throwing the aforementioned item into Annie's face.
Annie pries the material off her face before looking at Laurie's retreating form. Though upset at their fight, she looks down at her shirt. Not remembering that she left any of her clothing out on the porch, she studies it.
She freezes.
The shirt, torn slightly and dirtied with grime and muck and brown-red spots, makes her stand stock-still, all her joints locking in place, her breath coming out in shocked pants.
It's her shirt from that night. The night in which she almost died, the night in which her boyfriend was killed right in front of -
She pauses before running into the house, up the stairs, and barreling into her room. She moves to the chest of drawers and slides open the last drawer. The items from before - the candy corn, the odd doll, the jack-o-lantern, and the belt - sit inconspicuously there. She immediately goes to the belt, grasps it in her hands and examines it.
Yes, there it is, the pattern carved so intricately into the leather, his initials etched in such a small manner that no one would be able to see it if they weren't specifically looking for them.
The belt is her boyfriend's…worn that night before everything went to shit.
Annie lets out a pitiful scream, rocks back on her heels and falls to the floor, sliding back to the bed and pressing her back against it. She starts sobbing, the first time she's had a break in so long, and her father immediately comes from downstairs where he had just gotten home from work.
She tells him everything about the gifts in excruciating detail, while he holds her and strokes her hair, telling her constantly, "It's going to be fine, Annie. It's just a sick prank. You're fine, Annie."
She wishes she could believe him.
The sixth day, the gift throws her for a loop.
She expects something from that night, something more gruesome. And she knows it's coming, she just doesn't know when.
Annie is walking up the steps, grocery bag in hand, keys outstretched to unlock the door, when she sees it.
The item looks innocent, even more so than the very first.
A lavish, beautiful, red ribbon is tied around the doorknob.
Annie would think it was innocent, sweet even, if it wasn't the color of blood.
The seventh day is Halloween.
She gets nothing, for that she is grateful - at least, at the beginning.
She thinks that everything is over, that all the gifts will stop since she's managed to escape the one day without any threats.
She's in the bathroom that night, waiting for her father and Laurie to return. She has a police officer out front, so she feels no need to worry. She stares at her scarred face in the mirror, sighing, looking down at the sink.
And when she looks up, he's there.
He's staring at her with an almost childlike curiosity and interest, his head tilted in the oddest of ways. Then, his whole demeanor changes and he charges, drowning out Annie's resounding scream with the heaviness of his tread.
Annie thought everything was over…that everything would go back to normal. That those gifts were just a one-time prank, played by some person who got off on taunting her with her past.
As she looks into the Shape's black eyes when the knife comes down, she realizes that she was wrong.
End.