He stood in the shadow of the tall hedgerow, looking and listening. He had seen them kissing in the kitchen, then Danny had come out on the porch for a minute to set the jack-o'-lantern down. When Danny returned, they had gone upstairs. A few minutes later, the light in Judy's bedroom had gone off. Now, above the rustle of the wind in the crisp leaves of the huge oaks on the front lawn, he could hear their sighs, moans, and giggles.
And they filled him with murderous hatred.
The voice in his head had become subdued for the moment as he listened to Judy and Danny, not really understanding the significance of their utterances except that it had to do with love. He had heard similar sounds coming from his mother and father's room. But he had felt warmly toward his mother.
His step-father was a different story.
He never liked his step-father. He would always berate him, talk down to him and beat him. And he was drunk most of time. Like now.
Which would make him easier to tie up.
Looking around to make certain he wasn't being observed, he slipped across the lawn past the front porch, ducking stealthily to avoid the orange glare of the jack-o'-lantern. He sidled along the shingles on the side of the house and tiptoed up the stairs of the side door. He turned the knob and the door opened. He wasn't surprised. People didn't lock their doors in Haddonfield; what was there to fear?
He slipped into the kitchen and crossed to the sink. Go ahead, the voice told him, you know what to do. He opened the drawer and reached in and pulled out a large roll of duct tape. His fingers enclosed on another thing he was looking for, and he withdrew it from the drawer.
It was a butcher knife.
He touched the tip with the meat of his index finger. It pricked him. He ran his thumb along the edge of the eight-inch blade. It left a thin neat trail of blood.
He glided out of the kitchen and into the parlor, where he paused, listening. He heard them talking while they dressed and straightened up. But he never heard the leave the room, so he went into parlor and continued with his plan.
Slowly, he walked up behind his step-father as he slept and stared at him. And then he began.
He started with his legs, opening the tape as quitely as he wrapped it around his legs. He moved on to his torso and then his head, leaning it back as he exposed his throat. That was good.
Admiring his work, he slipped on his clown mask. Raising his hand, he ran the blade of the knife along his step fathers exposed throat. His eyes snapped open as blood splurted out from his gaping wound. He stood above his step-father watching. Waiting.
Eventually, his step-father stopped twitching, and the flow of blood stopped. It ran down his body, and pooled together on the carpet, staning it a dark brown. Satisfed, he left the room and waited.
He pressed himself against the wall as footsteps creaked down the stairs.
He saw Danny, in jeans, barefoot and shirtless. His hair was mussed and his cheeks were flushed as if he'd been kissed with hard passion. He stomped into the kitchen and popped open the fridge, gathering ingredients and bread for a sandwich.
Danny never noticed the smell of blood.
He never turned to look into the parlor to watch TV.
He never heard the footsteps behind him.
He never saw the baseball bat raise above his head.
Danny's body hit the floor with a thud as his spasmmed and twitched, drooling on the floor from the shock of the blow. The bat was brought down again, as blood splattered everywhere. He swung down again, and Danny's head cracked. He swung again and again and again, until Danny's head was mush, and dropped the bat with a thud.
He stepped out of the shadows of the parlor and furtively made his way up the stairs, pausing at the landing to look and listen. Judy's clothes were still strewn in a trail from the top of the stairs to her bed. He followed them like a hunter tracking the spoor of his prey. He stopped outside her open door, and saw a stark, white mask laying discarded on the floor. He took off his clown mask and slipped on the white one on, peering inside the room. She sat in her red valentine bikini panties, brushing her hair before the mirror on her dresser. She hummed a tune in her pretty voice.
He stepped into the room and was halfway across when she saw him. Her eyes clouded and her eyebrows knit with puzzlement. She crossed her wrists in front of her exposed breasts. She recognized him through the mask and called his name, bewildered. "Okay, is this a joke . . . ?"
He continued coming at her.
"Get out of here, Goddamn it. Get out of here before I . . ."
The first slash of the knife caught her on the wrist, splashing blood across her chest and legs. She looked at the wound with more surprise than pain. She couldn't believe it was happening. Then she realized.
She jumped to her feet and backed away to the wall, knocking over her chair. "What are you doing? What are you doing?" she cried. As he raised the blade again, she held her hand out to protect herself. He slashed the hand viciously, and it dropped limply to her side. Now she was shrieking insanely as she grasped what was happening. He plunged the knife into her right breast, and a great gout of scarlet blood spurted out of the wound and soaked his hand and wrist. He thrust the blade into her belly. At what point she died, he didn't know, for now that she was defenseless he stuck the knife into her again and again, jamming it into her breasts, belly, crotch, arms, legs, and throat. He stabbed her fifty times if he stabbed her once, exultation sweeping over him like no joy he had ever known.
The paroxysms began to die down and he stood over her, spent. It was almost impossible to recognize this piece of hacked flesh. Blood was everywhere, and the sour odor of it rose up from his hands, intoxicating him.
The gory little figure turned and stepped over the fallen furniture and scattered clothing and walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, stepping over Danny's disfigured body. Suddenly he realized he was hungry. He reached into a bowl on the kitchen counter and stuffed a cookie into his mouth, then opened the refrigerator door and removed a bottle of milk. He emptied half of it into his mouth directly from the bottle and wiped his mouth with his bloody sleeve, leaving a streak of red and white across his cheek.
He opened the side door and went outside, still carrying the butcher knife, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. He stepped out onto the lawn and stood there for a minute indecisively.
At that moment a dark sedan pulled up to the curb. The assassin made no attempt to flee, but stood on the lawn waiting for the occupant of the car to get out. After a moment the front door opened and a woman emerged. She took two or three paces toward the house, then saw him and stopped, staring at the figure in the bloodstained clown costume with a bloodclotted butcher knife in his hand.
The woman reached out and removed the mask from the boy's face.
"Michael . . . ?"
I met him, fifteen years ago; I was told there was nothing left; no reason, no conscience, no understanding; and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, of good or evil, right or wrong. I met this boy, this 10-year-old child, with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes... the devil's eyes.
"...killed by her younger brother, 10-year-old Michael Myers..."
" ...the Myers family, and was described by police as Manson-like in its viciousness, and more horrific than anything Hollywood could imagine. Judith Myers' body was found lying face-down in a pool of blood in an upstairs hallway. Apparently she had been stabbed 17 times. Her boyfriend Daniel Haley's body was found in the kitchen downstairs, the victim of an apparent vicious beating with an aluminum baseball bat.Along with Myers and Haley, a third victim, Ronnie White, who was found bound to a chair, White's neck slit wide open with a kitchen knife and stabbed numerous times in the face and chest. Of course we'll have much more on this horrific story as it develops. But for now, three people brutally murdered, and a 10-year-old boy, Michael Myers, being held in custody. . ."
". . . I'm standing outside Smith's Grove Sanitarium where late last night, 10-year-old Michael Myers was transferred after being found guilty of first-degree murder. Myers' verdict comes after one of the lengthiest and most expensive trials in the state's history. In attendance during this trial, Dr. Samuel Loomis. Loomis has now been appointed by Judge Masterson to oversee Myers' care while incarcerated here at Smith's Grove. . . "
Those eyes will deceive you, they will destroy you. They will take from you, your innocence, your pride, and eventually your soul. Those eyes do not see what you and I see. Behind those eyes one finds only blackness, the absence of light, those are of a psychopath.
". . . This is Chopper 2, I wanna take you below. This situation is just incredible. I can't believe what I'm reporting, but a man who police believe to be deceased serial killer Michael Myers has taken a hostage, now identified as Laurie Strode. Miss Strode allegedly shot and killed Myers herself after being abducted on Halloween night. And as if this story couldn't get more twisted, it was revealed earlier today. . . "
". . . Moments ago police reported that Michael Myers, formerly of Haddonfield, who had fled the Smith's Grove Sanitarium last night, was believed to have been shot to death. Meanwhile, three bodies were discovered in the house directly behind me. Identification of the victims is being withheld."
". . . Doctor Samuel Loomis has been reported dead after a massive car accident yesterday . . . "
I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply. . . evil.
"This just in: police have recently discovered that Laurie Strode has died. Strode was blindsided by a drunk driver crossing through a red light. A survivor of the bloody chain of brutal murders that occurred on Halloween night in 1978, Strode leaves behind her 4-month-old daughter Gwendolyn Corduroy, who is currently in the custody of her biological father and was Strode's boyfriend at the time, Daniel Corduroy. Upon further investigation of the events that occurred in 1978, it was revealed that the perpetrator of the murders, masked serial killer Michael Myers, was in fact the brother of Laurie Strode. Myers was believed to be dead after being caught in a massive hospital fire. However, a body was never recovered."
It was time of year when the days are short and the shadows are long. When the earth tilts still further on its axis and the seasons hang suspended between autumn and winter; when the very light seems to change and colors deepen mysteriously. . . .
You know what it is like.
The morning sun arcs away across the sky, the afternoon rushes impatiently toward dusk, the cutting edge of darkness like the blade of a sundial pointed and turning under eaves and porches. A time of dampness and slow, flaking rust, of barking dogs that are never seen, of creaking lampposts and pale neon signs, of telephone lines that crackle as if underwater. Of distant traffic and the laughter of children fading behind you and in front of you all at once; of the broken moon drifting like a gauze-covered face. Of the dripping condensation in chattering drainpipes, of the clutching of wings in the roofs of mouldering garages. Of frost on glass; of moist, endless coughs. Of mildewed gloves and too-thin socks, of soft newspapers and food that is never hot, of litter dropped in gutters melting into paste, of laundry wilting before it can be folded away, of labels buckling from jars in the musty cupboard and of your own white breathing, alone at midnight, glazing the window and then slipping out through the screen to meet the cold steam settling in the flowerbeds below. . .
It was the thirty-first of October in Gravity Falla, Oregeon.
It was late. Very late.
Once again, it was Halloween.