October 26th, 1992, 4 Days Until Halloween

Blandly

Blandy ditched recess like always, heading towards the stinking dumpster behind the cafeteria where his older brothers always gathered to cop a loaded smoke, slithering through his favorite gap in the playground fence and straight into a wall.

A blue wall.

Blue... coveralls?

He froze as a very, very large hand clamped down on one of his shoulders.

Blandy looked up.

And up.

And up.

And up.

Damn, big ol' boy here must be in the NBA!

Blandy's eyes finally reached the big man's face.

NO!

Squealing, Blandy struggled, landing on his butt in the mud.

Free, he tore right for Mrs. Lane (wherever she was), faster than he'd ever tore before, looking like he'd shit his pants, squealing, "The Boogeyman! The Boogeyman!"

Jamie

Today the bright light between her eyes was almost blinding. Was Uncle Mikey here?

Seated across the dining room from the studying Rachel, Jamie thoughtfully put down her red crayon. It immediately rolled off the dining room table and onto the floor beside her. Today had been a good day: she finally tied her shoes by herself, and cousin Blandly ran away from her since she head-butted him in the mouth in front of the other kids on the playground and the other kids laughed at him for getting beat up by a G.I.R.L.

You should have done that sooner. Now the Universe is almost balanced.

Jamie retrieved her crayon and resumed coloring in the apple that Snow White was taking from the Wicked Witch who was really the Wicked Stepmother. It had taken Jamie her best, most persistent nagging skills, and mommy FINALLY gave in: she could Trick or Treat this year on her birthday FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!.

(She even got to pick out her own costume at the hardware store: a clown!)

I like clowns. Was Uncle Mikey's reply when she showed him her costume. Clowns are useful.

Laurie

The Illinois State Policed still hadn't managed to catch him.

"Tell no one."

The Birthday Suit Bandit was real.

"Tell no one."

The Boogeyman of Haddonfield, was real.

"Tell no one."

And he was headed her way.

Terrified of and for her child, Laurie hung up her office phone, praying that Loomis was right in using her daughter as bait and as a way to figure out why Michael was, well, Michael.

The worst part was that Jamie didn't even know the danger she was in.

Laurie pulled a file out of her filing cabinet from 1978 that she'd had sent over from the County Records Division, and laid it and its contents on the top of her desk.

She frowned, mentally digesting the information fanned out before her. If Michael Myers, the Boogeyman of Haddonfield revealed himself as predicted and stuck to the pattern he'd established the last time he came to Haddonfield, it would start with burglary and end with bloodshed.

Laurie no longer felt comfortable with just Rachel watching Jamie after school before she and Harry came home for the day.

Could they afford to get a full burglar alarm system installed at such short notice?

If so, how could she convince Harry that the expense was necessary in this backwater County seat where the worst crime in the last three months was one of her fourth cousins setting fire to one of her second cousin's hay barn because one had caught the other with his girlfriend (a third cousin) while one of her first cousins stole his truck? (Only to be arrested by yet another third cousin of hers, a sheriff's deputy who lived across the street from the Lloyd house - who recognized the truck parked out in front of still another first cousin's bar, "The Dew Drop Inn" a barely legal dive just outside Haddonfield city limits.)

And as for Rachel, Rachel was a good girl, much like Laurie had been at that age - only with better "people skills". Seeing what happened to her two best friends and cousins that horrible, horrible Halloween night fifteen years before, should she close her office early and send Rachel home before sundown on Halloween night? She had a big out of County case to deal with. It might keep her out late… they needed the money… Oh GOD! Rules be damned, why couldn't they have let Michael stay in his cell?