THREE

"You happened to me. I was happened to like an abandoned building by a bull-dozer, like the van that missed my skull happened a two-inch gash across my chin. You were as deep down as I've ever been. You were inside me like my pulse." ~ Marilyn Hacker, Nearly a Valediction

Maggie Bloom's car reeks of menthol cigarettes and cheap body spray, the type that Allyson used to bathe herself in to mask the smell of weed after coming in from a night out. That'd been when she'd actually cared about her image. That'd also been when her mother was still alive to care, too. Unfortunately, Karen Strode is dead, and Allyson doesn't give a shit what she looks like to anyone anymore.

Allyson's long fingers find the button to roll the window down, only to be assaulted by the freezing downpour. The reporter shoots her a sideways glance.

"Do you mind?" Maggie asks, looking pointedly at the rain Allyson's letting soak the interior of her car.

Allyson simply lets her hands fall into her lap, head lolling back against the old seat, and says nothing.

Maggie's pen taps against her legal pad and rolls the window back up.

"So," Maggie starts, clears her throat, "you know why I called you this late. The girl-"

"Becky O'Rourke," Allyson interjects, "her name was Becky. She was seventeen. I tutored her my junior year, when she was in middle school. And now-"

"She's dead. She was stabbed nine times. Her dog was found hanging like a tapestry in her living room."

"I know."

Maggie hands her a worn wallet-sized portrait, at least a few years old. Allyson can't even bear to look at it, eyes squeezed closed as if it were a portrait of Myers being handed her way instead, but she takes it in hand to turn it over in her palm. She remembers when she'd first actually looked at Judith Myers, how unassuming she'd looked and, most of all, how looking into her face had been like looking into a mirror. The same sensation fills her, almost makes her heave.

Allyson is older than both Becky O'Rourke and Judith Myers had been.

She keeps the portrait between her fingers.

"Where did you even get this?" she asks finally, voice surprisingly steady.

"Don't worry about it."

Allyson chuckles.

"You're like a vulture, you know that?" Allyson finally glances at her, a smirk threatening the corners of her mouth. "I know you don't care about these girls. You don't care about me, or my mother, or my grandmother. Or stopping Michael. I've seen enough true crime shows to know exactly what your intentions are."

"Then why the hell are you even agreeing to meet with me, Allyson?" Maggie snaps, taking Allyson's bicep in her hand. "Is it the attention? Is everyone else sick of your whining? Your self-victimizing? Because that's what you sound like to me - a victim. You're weak."

Allyson's hand closes around Maggie's, her other hand in the lapel of her coat.

"Fuck you," she breathes, then, as if realizing what she's done, lets go, sitting back against the seat. Maggie breathes fast, as if she's just run a mile. Allyson glances down at her own hands, exhaling as she reaches under her sleeve to unclasp the bracelet there, hands it to Maggie. Old blood browns the pendant.

"What's this?" Maggie asks, turning it over in her hand.

"Michael stole that from my house," she says, "around the time he took me, three years ago. It appeared on my bedside table. He left a necklace I lost with him in my car. He left the belt I was wearing that night in my gym bag. He's playing with me. Everyone else thinks I'm insane. I think - even my grandmother has started to doubt me."

"What makes you say that?" Maggie asks, staring into her own reflection in the bracelet. Allyson's fingers close around it to take it back, letting it drop in her pocket.

"I-I don't know. Just a feeling," Allyson huffs. Their talk the other night had been sobering, but as the threat of Michael's return has become more and more real, almost palpable, Allyson doesn't want to get her involved. She doesn't want to lose her, too, so she's already prepared to let her go before that's happened.

Shit, she needs a fucking therapist. Or to actually go back to her own therapist.

Allyson shakes her head, leg shaking.

"Where is the belt, and the necklace?"

"What does it matter?"

"How do you think any of this is going to work, Allyson?"

"I thought you would believe me. I thought you were better than the police," she says pointedly. Maggie swallows back whatever tension wracks her jaw and, with a sigh, concedes with a nod.

"Okay," Maggie nods, digging a notepad from her pocket, "what do you think him killing these girls means, then?"

"He wants my attention. He wants me to be scared of him. This is like an appetizer, all of it, leading up to the real thing. More like - a roller coaster, maybe, before the big drop."

"Does he have it? Your attention, I mean."

Allyson sighs, looking back out toward the night. Rain hits the windows hard, distorting the outside world. She remembers lying in the perpetual dark of the room he'd kept her locked in. The fever from whatever infection had beset her had made all of the days bleed into each other, until her entire world revolved around her anticipation of his presence. The excitement of him lying next to her. At the time, she'd thought it'd been human contact that she craved. The sound of his heartbeat follows her to her waking and sleeping hours alike.

Has she changed at all? It'd been a month and three days in captivity, but it'd marked her for life. She's been in a state of stasis since.

"There's before Michael Myers and there's after Michael Myers," Allyson explains, "after, all I do-all I've done is lay in wait. I haven't lived my life. He didn't just get my attention, he's always had it. We're always going to pursue each other. I never understood what my grandmother meant by that until now, but he didn't want to possess her, not like he does me. She doesn't get it. She doesn't know how it feels and if anything, all she is is a reminder of why all of this has happened to me. Without her, I wouldn't be here. And he wouldn't possess me like he does."

"Possess you?"

"You wouldn't get it, Maggie," she shakes her head, eyes stinging with tears, "not until you go through something like this."

"When I was a teenager," now it's Maggie's turn to sound hesitant. She sighs, swallows a thick lump in her throat. Allyson's sure she's playing right into her hands, but she can't help but hang off every word. Is she really so starved for connection that she's actually indulging this bullshit?

"When I was a teenager," and it's impressive, the way Maggie swallows back like something's about to spill from her mouth she doesn't want to see the light of day. That's when Allyson feels guilty for being so skeptical, for being so mean. It's a fleeting sort of regret, replaced quickly by resentment that gnaws at her core like nausea, "I was raped by someone who I was supposed to trust. Then I shot him. He didn't die."

Did Bloom manufacture that story, tailored just to tug Allyson open? She's struck with the irresistible urge to laugh, and is grateful she looks away from her before the hyena smile on her face spreads.

"My life wasn't the same after that. It hasn't. It motivated me to do this, though, to write, to be the voices of all of the victims who have none. Because the police were incompetent. The system was incompetent. People like us have to stick together."

There it is.

Allyson glances back at her, managing a straight face. Maggie doesn't miss a beat, though, thin fingers coming to grasp at Allyson's shoulder.

"I understand, more than you think I do. Which is why you should trust me."

"Thank you, for telling me all of that," Allyson says softly, like a normal person would. Like seventeen-year-old honors student Allyson Nelson would. Her mother had always thought she'd been so kind, too kind.

"You're welcome. What do you want to do, now?"

"I-I don't know, honestly," Allyson chuckles, "I want people to be careful. I want people to know what's happening. But I don't want mass hysteria. I just want to end this, just me and him."

The silence that follows is weighty, marked only by the scratch of pen against paper and the constant tapping of rain against windows.

"You're not alone, Allyson. You're not. And you won't be when we figure all of this out, together."

Maggie's hand closes around Allyson's. Allyson squeezes her hand back. Artificial, unfeeling. She smiles.

In the afternoon that Allyson withdraws from all of her classes, she leaves the confines of her bedroom for the shooting range. Her punch card is lined with a layer of dust, and unlike her grandmother, she refuses to allow her home to manifest into her obsession via a shooting range in the backyard.

At least, not in that way. Besides, considering their house's position relative to downtown Haddonfield, that'd be outright inconvenient.

Unlike the last time she was here, the sun peeks out from between the clouds, though it doesn't compensate for the October chill in the air. Allyson rubs her arms through the sleeves of her jacket when she steps out of the car, a gust of cold air sending shivers wracking through her willowy form. It's certainly almost Halloween. The dread that follows makes her grip onto her firearm tighter when she slings it over her shoulder.

Dead leafs crunch under her boots as she approaches the revolving door. Another gust of wind sends a smell that is as close to death as she's smelled in the years since escaping from Michael. It makes her stomach clench and for an instant, she's seventeen again, sticking her hand in the decomposed flesh of where a woman's face once was in the iron dark of that basement.

She swallows back bile, nose following the smell like a bloodhound. It's when she catches the glint of reflective vests in her peripheral vision. Ambling down the sidewalk toward the group, she finds herself face-to-face with the rigid and dead face of a dog. Not a dog, really, a coyote with its teeth bared, as if it went down biting. Its bowels prolapsed from a gash that lines the middle of its body, from neck to groin. Allyson swallows, stilling in her path as her hand clutches at the firearm slung over her shoulder, the other at the holster at her hip.

One of the men notices her, quickly stepping toward her with his hand outstretched as if to push her away. Quickly, she backs away before he can touch her, as if the contact alone would burn her.

"Ma'am, you shouldn't be over here," he admonishes. She catches a glimpse of a badge at his breast: Animal Control Officer.

She doesn't move, blinking once.

Remembers that day, when she'd woken up unaware her entire world would change that night. She'd gone on her morning sprint, unhindered by a knee replacement or chronic pain. She'd felt watched for the entirety of her usual route, and her paranoia had seemingly been vindicated at the sight of a dog strung up only a few blocks from her home.

It'd been a gift.

"Ma'am?"

She shakes her head, looking everywhere besides at the man. He has to look up at her, thanks to her tall height combined with her boots.

"You shouldn't be over here," he says, "clean-up, and all. Not to mention, who knows what kind of rabid animal did this."

"Right. Sorry."

She retreats, turning back toward her car in the lot, but not before glancing behind her at the dead dog several times. It's with a trembling hand that she opens the driver's side door and barely manages to climb inside, locking the door quickly behind her. She pushes her fingers through her dark hair before quickly tying it up, exhaling and inhaling deeply to steel herself.

"You already knew it was happening again," she mutters to herself, "you already knew."

She throws her hands against her steering wheel, shouting in equal parts frustration and anguish. Would this be enough to make anyone else believe her? She can't help but ponder the question but knows her answer already.

There's a lot of things Allyson can shake away and shrug off, and there's many things Allyson's forgotten in the scramble of her mind after the coma. First responders had found her in critical condition, hypothermic and unresponsive, almost embedded in blood-soaked snow. It'd been her and a shape of where Michael had laid beside her, a mess of their blood combined.

She hadn't found out until much later that her heart stopped on the way to intensive care, that the doctors had worried about how long oxygen had been deprived from her brain thanks to Michael's big hands around her throat like a vice, like a noose. An infection in her stomach had laid dormant in the weeks following her recovery from the fever that'd plagued her the second week of captivity.

But she survived, with hundreds of stitches and a metal knee and chronic pain seemingly everywhere on her body. She became a war zone of a girl, a woman.

She survived, because she's a Strode, and she's made of strong stuff.

More importantly, the same stuff as him.

There's so many things Allyson has allowed herself to forget since then, but not the sound of Michael's breathing, the steady thrum of his heartbeat in the cavern of his chest and, most importantly, not the feeling of his fingers in her hair. It'd been soothing at the time, but in retrospect, the phantom sensation is what she thinks having a dismembered limb must feel like.

In the midst of her delirium from fever, she'd been too sick to lift up her head. What she remembers from then is mere fragments, but she remembers what she can salvage very well: Michael's hand on the back of her neck, holding her up to help her eat, then his fingers pushing through her long and unkempt and sweaty locks. She'd remembered savoring it.

The first thing she did when she could was cut her own hair off, to her chin, and smother it in cheap black box dye. It'd taken almost a year for her hair to recover, and almost as long thereafter to muster up the strength to see a hair stylist to properly tend to the massacre she'd made on her own head. Not even Kelly was allowed to touch her hair. But the short dark locks and the angry scars on her face and the hollowed look in her eyes meant that she could look at herself in the mirror and not see Judith
Myers or, even worse, whoever Michael had kept locked away. That girl doesn't exist anymore.

But she feels his fingers in her hair again, tonight, in the iron dark of the living room. The sound of heavy breathing. Immobilized with the familiar sensation of sleep paralysis, she makes out the shape of him in the living room before her, staring down at her. His hand is as rough as she remembers, fingers coarse against her cheek. The two of them are equally as scarred, unlike when this had happened last.

Her eyes flutter closed once more, hazy with sleep and alcohol.

When she wakes up, it's to Laurie turning on the overhead light and frantically tossing a shirt and pants on top of her. When Allyson responds with a mere grunt, Laurie shakes at her shoulder.

She doesn't remember how she got in the living room. She doesn't even remember falling asleep, or the way her head throbs with a white hot sort of pain that adds to her existing nausea.

Mouth dry as bone, Allyson bites her tongue in her haste to sit up.

"Allyson!"

Allyson realizes she's still drunk when she sees two of her grandmother, the outline of her form in the dark of the living room, a mere shape in itself.

"Allyson!" she repeats. Allyson shoves at her, extracting herself from her inebriated daze as she's hit with the sudden urge to vomit.

"Grandmother-grandmother, what is it?" she asks, voice coarse.

"It's Kelly-"

"Kelly?"

Laurie's already throwing Allyson's jacket over her shoulders. She groans as she's pushed up to stand, barely awake let alone able to stand on two feet.

"She's in the hospital, in critical condition."

Allyson is suddenly very awake, blood gone cold.

"What happened?"

"I can explain in the car. Get your shoes on and wake up. Brush your teeth or chew some gum to get the goddamn booze out of your breath."

"What happened, grandmother?"

"Kelly was found in her room, stabbed repeatedly - Brady is in custody. That's all I know."

Allyson's hands finally seem to cooperate as she zips her coat up, unsure of what to do as fear and adrenaline paralyze her.

"Do you think-"

"Just come on, Allyson. We'll talk more about this on the way."

Laurie's strong hand finds her shoulder. Allyson merely nods, brow furrowing. Her mother would know what to do, if Michael hadn't killed her to get to her too.

Is this what this is?

The glass of the passenger seat window is cool against her forehead. She suddenly feels feverish, and she doesn't remember how many days it's been since she showered. The sight of a lit jack o'lantern makes her avert her gaze back to Laurie, who looks to be doing anything she can not to speed to the hospital, knuckles white against the steering wheel.

"Do you think it's him?" Allyson asks quietly. Laurie cranks down the radio.

"You want my honest answer, Allyson?"

"I don't know," Allyson says tersely.

"I don't recommend bringing up your theory to Ben, or to her family."

"Since when did you become so tactful?"

"Excuse me?"

Allyson looks back out the window to the road alongside her. There'd been a time when she was so careful about everything she said, when she felt painfully awkward in every social scenario. Vicky was always there to hold her hand through it. She'd even felt guilty shoving Oscar away that night after he tried to take advantage of her situation.

Not anymore, though.

"They should know, shouldn't they? This entire town should be on lockdown and you know it."

"No one wants to think about Michael Myers again. No one wants to hear about the conspiracy theories, either. Trust me."

"Conspiracy theories?" Allyson baulks, feeling bile rise in her throat. She swallows it back down, tastes copper in her tongue from its acidity.

"I've been through it, Allyson. Trust me. You don't want to go down that road. There's a reason your mother cut me off for so long, why I had no one for so long."

"You had me," Allyson says softly, "and no, I never believed you, not until I saw him. Do you believe me?"

That's when Laurie averts her gaze. Allyson swears that her heart physically sinks in its chest.

"Let's just get to the hospital, Allyson."

Allyson doesn't look back at her, biting back tears as teeth gnaw into the soft flesh of her lower lip. The rest of the drive feels like a daze and the lights of the waiting room are so fluorescent it makes the beginning of a hangover throb between her temples.

Accompanied by a sling of doctors, Ben Meeker steps out of the swinging doors, face drawn taut. He looks older and more gray under this light than he has in the years Allyson has known him. Allyson stands at her full height, ignoring the razor sharp pain from her knee from the sudden movement, and steps over to him. Without preamble, Meeker wraps her in an embrace that takes her a moment to adjust to, arms wrapping around his shoulders. They're nearly the same height.

"How is she?" Laurie asks from somewhere behind them. Allyson breathes in the smell of stale cigarettes and coffee from his coat before patting his back twice, pulling away gently. Underneath all of his gruffness, he's always been exceptionally kind and even sweet.

"She's stable," Meeker says, sniffling once as his head shakes, the crooked bridge of his nose pinched between his fingers, "her mom's in there with her now. I-she's been in surgery for twelve hours."

"I'm so sorry, Ben."

"What happened?" Allyson asks. That's when Meeker starts to lead them back into the hallways leading to Kelly's room.

"Dispatch came in with a call to my house - found Kelly covered in blood, stabbed, repeatedly. Brady was picked up not too far," Ben clears his throat, clearly struggling to keep himself together. Allyson crosses her arms and spares Laurie a sidelong glance.

"I'd appreciate it - if you ladies wouldn't tell anyone. The investigation is still ongoing, obviously, and - well - we're trying to keep this close to the chest, as much as we can in this town."

"Of course not." Laurie's worn hand finds Meeker's shoulder. Allyson looks away and at the ajar door that leads to Kelly's hospital room. One of the officers posted outside the door meets her gaze and only looks away when he realizes Allyson won't stop staring.

Allyson's ears begin to buzz as Meeker and Laurie's voices drop into whispers about a copycat killer, eye twitching as her fingers clench and unclench at her side. A step closer to Kelly's room gives her only a glimpse at the hospital bed, of all the tubes hooked into Kelly. The ventilator beeps loudly with every breath she takes, though the rise and fall of her chest doesn't disturb the colostomy bag at her side or any of the bandages covering her arms.

Michael had gasped when she'd stabbed him, hadn't he? Right in the same place in the stomach, then over and over again, wherever she could reach. Had he done the same to Kelly? What had Kelly sounded like? What had Vicky sounded like, more importantly? She'd had a closed casket funeral that Allyson hadn't been able to attend.

"You really think it was Brady?" Allyson finally asks, gaze torn away from the sight of her friend in the hospital room, "that Brady did it? That he's a copycat?"

"It's a strong possibility," Meeker's voice sounds stiff, "that he got close to Kelly because he knows about our connection to Myers."

"Huh."

"Allyson-" Laurie's voice sounds like a warning.

"You really think he could've done this? Brady. Have you seen him?"

"Allyson, now isn't the time for this," Meeker interjects before Laurie can add anything, hand gripping Allyson's forearm in a way that makes her breath catch, "I understand that you're upset. I understand what you went through. But right now - please. Don't do this."

It takes all of the strength within her not to wrench her arm away from his grasp; as much as she loves Meeker more than her own father, it doesn't make the instinct to fight off most of the people who touch her go away

"Meeker," says an officer from down the hall, brandishing a smart phone in his hand. "Think you should see this."

Meeker takes the phone from the officer's hand, instantly tensing up. It's at that moment that she gets a notification from her own phone from Cameron. She opens it up to find an article written on Maggie's website, about Brady. She doesn't need to scroll long enough to feel the burn of her own words being used against her, of Meeker's alleged incompetence. Her own senior portrait stares back at her in a way that feels like mocking.

She clicks out of it. To see #AllysonMyers trending is enough to make her put her phone away entirely.

And before she can fully take in Meeker and Laure's stares, she runs down the hall and out of the doors of the emergency room, hearing Laurie's shouting behind her until she's out of the doors of the hospital. She remembers the first time she'd tried to escape, when she'd squeezed herself out of the tiny window of the house, how cold the outside world had been. It makes her shiver again.

It takes a great deal for Maggie Bloom to shut her laptop for the night. The promise of leaving Haddonfield and all of its mundane suburbia in the morning definitely serves to be a motivation in itself. That, along with the never-ending stream of push notifications sent to her phone, means she can lie in the plush motel bed for some time and marinate in her own cunning and success.

The shitty water pressure of the suite's shower feels more rewarding than it ever has, especially when she turns the water temperature to what feels nearly scalding. She stands under the stream until it goes cold, which is unfortunately much faster than she'd anticipated. Billows of steam puffs follow her form out of the bathroom as she wraps herself in a robe and lies in bed, scrolling through Google to find something that would deliver much-needed nourishment to her location at such a late hour of the night.

She throws her phone down in frustration when she finds nothing.

"Fucking Haddonfield," she mutters. Thank god she's leaving tomorrow, which is a mantra she's been repeating for hours now.

She rolls out of bed to contemplate the status of her minifridge, of one of the frozen burritos in its tiny freezer compartment, before a knock sounds at her door. She freezes up.

Upon looking through the peephole, Allyson Nelson stares into it, disheveled and pale. She contemplates locking the door and calling the police, but knows what will happen if she does. In her so-called brand of journalism, she knows she's contaminated at least several crime scenes and that she's trespassed too many times. Now, with this new insult to Sheriff Meeker's incapacitated daughter, she's overstayed her welcome. The hicks in the Haddonfield Police Department would be no help.

"Allyson?" she asks through the door.

"Let me in, Maggie."

"I don't know if that's a good idea."

"I just want to talk, that's all," Allyson breathes out. Her pupils are so flown and red that Maggie swears she's high, her breathing fast.

"You should call your grandmother, or one of your friends. I can call them for you. You don't look well."

"Maggie, just open the door. Please." The girl clears her throat, splaying one of her lithe hands over the door. "You're all I have. Just open up."

Something about the statement twinges a chord within Maggie and, against what some would say is her better judgement, she opens the door wide. Allyson ambles inside, reeking of booze and weed.

"Did you drive here like this?" Maggie asks, nose furling. Before she can even blink, the door slams shut and Allyson punches her hard in the nose. She falls against the wall behind her, feels Allyson's hand find its way around her neck, squeezing tightly as she slams her back. Maggie groans, head throbbing from the impact. She swears she must have a concussion, feels the steady stream of blood flowing from her broken nose.

Allyson happens to have a solid few inches and some lithe muscle and strength on her, because she claws and struggles to push at her and Allyson doesn't even flinch, like some sort of immovable object.

"What the fuck have you done?" Allyson breathes, speaking through gritted teeth as she starts to shout, now, "what have you done? You said you were trying to help me. What the fuck is this shit, Maggie?"

With her free hand, Allyson shoves her phone in her face. Maggie doesn't need to focus her eyes to know she's referring to her own article published through her own website.

"It's the truth," Maggie says, breathing sharply as Allyson lets her go. Her own gaze falls to the phone on her bed, a few feet away, but Allyson's form blocks her from getting to it, "I told you, I wanted to tell the truth."

"This isn't the truth, Maggie. It's bullshit. All of it. At least-everything you've written about me, about my family, that's bullshit. I thought you weren't like any of the other greedy assholes looking to make money off of me, but I was wrong."

"Not everything is about you, Allyson!" Maggie exclaims, standing as she cups her nose. Allyson's gaze follows the blood before looking back at her, "your best friend is in the hospital. Innocent girls have been murdered. And all you can do is think there's some kind of conspiracy against you, because you can't stand to have the attention, the spotlight taken off of you for more than a minute. You don't care about anyone here besides yourself."

Allyson breathes in and out sharply. In the mean-time, Maggie slowly inches closer to her phone, comforted by the sound of the way it buzzes with notifications in the layers of the plain bed sheets.

"You're so full of shit, Maggie, do you know that? You and I both know you don't care about anyone besides yourself!"

Maggie feels the impact of Allyson's hands shoving her back. A lamp knocks over, a lightbulb shattering on the ground. Blindly, Maggie reaches for a shard to stab Allyson in the hand. The girl cries out and Maggie would be free to get away if not for the muzzle of the handgun that pushes into her temple.

"Enough!" Allyson seethes, "enough!"

That's when Allyson hits her with the butt of the gun. Maggie groans as she falls back against the broken glass, breath labored as her perception of the world starts to feel dreamy.

The last thing she sees before the world becomes a black haze is Allyson Nelson tilting her head down at her, eyes black as the devil's himself.

Author's Notes: Again - I do apologize for the lengths between updates. This chapter has been in the works for months and I intended on finishing it shortly after the Halloween Kills trailer was released, but life is life and a recent promotion at work has made it insane. Please let me know of your thoughts! The new goal is to wrap this story up before October 15th, considering we all know Halloween Kills will likely spawn some more plot ideas from me.

This is a very slow burn, slower than I'm used to, but I feel like it's culminating very well. I promise that Michael will be make an actual appearance soon, though we'll just have to wait and see when. ;)

Let me know your thoughts in a review!