FOUR
"These eyes will deceive you; they will destroy you. They will take from you your innocence, your pride, and eventually your soul. These eyes do not see what you and I see. Behind these eyes one finds only blackness, the absence of light." - Dr. Samuel Loomis, Halloween (2007)
Blue and red headlights dance across the motel room's bland walls, over the macabre collage of newspaper clippings and school portraits and copies of crime scene photos. The light switch by the door flicks on, leaving the ugly sight of the crime scene fully on display under the harsh overhead light. Blood streaks the walls like strokes of paint, leading to a pool of blood by the mini-fridge. Deputy Logan's nose scrunches at the sight of Maggie Bloom, whose dead face is so mangled he wouldn't recognize her if not for the press badge brazenly stapled to her chest.
"Jesus goddamn Christ," Deputy Logan mutters. An officer beside him shines his flashlight onto the scene and shakes her head.
"Should we call in Meeker?" she asks.
"No. Hell no. His daughter is in intensive care. All of this is already a clusterfuck, and now this - goddamnit. Do me a favor, make sure the press stays back. This is one of their own, so it won't be long until they come for the body, like the fucking vultures they are."
"Okay," she swallows, "what do you think this is, then?"
"I think this is a goddamn mess, that nothing is as clear as it seems in any of this. That's all I think."
He bends down, sterile gloves stretched over his fingers, and picks up a strand of fine chestnut hair from the ground to drop into a tiny evidence baggie.
"We'll call Meeker in shortly," Deputy Logan amends, "I want him to hear about it from us first, before he hears it from anyone else. Who knows how quick it'll get to him? God help us. God help us all."
"I think you're right about that, Deputy Logan."
"Allyson, you need to pick up the phone now."
"Allyson. I know you're there, goddamnit.."
"You need to answer me."
"Please, Allyson. Please. I just want to talk to you, that's all."
"Please come home, Allyson. Just come home."
Overgrown moss covers the Elam house like another layer of paint. The grass on the front lawn is knee length, a rotted tree stump sitting beside the front door. Allyson rubs sleep out of her eyes as she raises her hand to ring the doorbell.
Before she can press a thumb against the bell, Cameron opens the door.
"I heard your car pulling up," he admits with a sheepish smile. Allyson grins back at him. The embrace he pulls her into makes her heart ache.
"Do you want to come in?"
She nods. "I uh - I slept in my car last night, so - yes."
"I heard about Kelly."
Allyson feels herself go tense.
"I'm sorry. I know you were close."
Were.
Allyson swallows the knot in her throat at the implication of the past-tense. Past-tense, like everything else in her life, like everyone else. Thanks to him.
But there's no tears - there's nothing. She has nothing else and she tries to shrug it away, even as her thoughts flick to Kelly, the texts that are still unread on the phone she's since shut off. "It's - I can't go home. I just can't."
"It's alright, Ally. I've got you."
She doesn't correct him when he pulls her in again, instead simply burrowing her face into his neck as she grips onto the soft fabric of his t-shirt where only she can see the blood crusted under her fingernails. When Cameron takes her upstairs, she takes a shower to scrub her body and hair. The water comes away pink.
Changing into a turtleneck and jeans and boots, Allyson steps back out, towelling off her hair as Cameron flicks through his phone on his bed. Gently, she plucks it out of his hand, pleased to find that his arms wind around her lithe waist as if on instinct. She feels guilty for using him, but the guilt doesn't supersede the pleasure of being touched with such casual affection even if it makes her stomach drop on instinct.
"We should go."
"Go where?"
Allyson shrugs, then, looks back down at Cameron with a fixed look on her face. "Promise you won't judge?"
"Now I'm afraid."
Allyson chuckles.
"I want to go to the house."
"The Myers House."
Allyson shakes her head. She hasn't been there since being plucked from the snow and has no desire to return, not now. She isn't ready.
"The Bowles House. Where he kept me."
"You know they have that place on lockdown. You know it's being demo'd soon -"
"Obviously, I know that. It'll be fine."
"It's condemned."
"I know for a fact that you've done worse shit than this."
He rolls his eyes. A victorious grin spreads over her features. For a moment, she feels like a dog baring its teeth.
"Okay. Alright."
Her eyes close as she leans down to kiss him. First, on the cheek, then the nose. Then his mouth. He hums in pleasure. She feels like she may explode. It's not the first time she's kissed someone in the years since they'd broken up in the auditorium, but it's the first time she's felt so close to anyone in a way beyond the physical since Michael had laid beside her.
She pulls away from him, still smiling as long fingers push through overgrown curls.
"After that, we should go. Let's just leave Haddonfield, fuck it all. There's nothing here for me. We could go anywhere, do anything."
"What have you been smoking?" Cameron teases. She shoves gently at his shoulder before entirely withdrawing, reaching for her coat strewn on his bed.
"I-Kelly. That article that Bloom wrote. My mother. Vicky, David, Oscar - I have to get away from all of this. I can't escape this, but I can try. At least for a few days, until we come back."
She's already reached the cusp of it all, the point of no return - but pretending, playing dead is easier. What else does she have left to do? She feels oddly free.
Cameron stands, just less than a head taller than her, and takes her hand. She allows her fingers to entwine with his, avoiding the bedroom where his father sleeps in after a graveyard shift to load into her car. She half-expects to be stopped by every officer on the block, but the fear subsides when they get on the freeway, then the back roads, increasingly vacant.
She turns the heat on with a turn of the knob as Cameron plays with the radio.
"I can't believe you really convinced me to come."
"It means a lot to me that you did. I've been meaning to stop by, but I didn't want to be alone. My grandmother - no, I couldn't do this with her. You know how she gets."
"It's alright," Cameron's fingers find her shoulder. She offers him a sidelong smile. When he cups her face, she thinks about Kelly's lotion soft hands, then of a hand even rougher brushing the hair out of her face, his outline a shape in her living room.
Exhaling, Allyson gently withdraws, eyes fixed on the road.
"It's not that far. I haven't even left Haddonfield since Michael took me back. Can you believe that?"
"You know, I've tried to get you to leave so many times."
"I know. I guess I've been too afraid."
"Why?"
"I'm afraid of the shitstorm that is my life following me out of Haddonfield. I thought I could keep it contained if I stayed, but now, I'm not so sure. Or maybe I just don't give a shit anymore."
"I don't blame you," Cameron says, constantly supportive, as he lays a hand on Allyson's forearm. She glances at him sidelong, a smile twinging at her mouth. He smiles back warmly.
"You're the only person I trust," she says. It feels like a lie. It is a lie. She doesn't trust anyone. But it makes Cameron happy so she allows it to stay, unbothered, in the air between them. His hand squeezes her tighter.
"I'm glad we have each other."
"Me too."
That part isn't a lie, at least.
She pulls onto a dirt road leading to the old Charlie Bowles house. From where she stands in the woods, it stands the same as it once did. The only time she'd ever gotten a glance of it outside of the news and police reports had been when she'd tried and failed to escape. The house had seemed magnificent in its old age and Victorian architecture, the dark blue paint still rich even with the passage of time.
"This is it," Cameron says quietly, as if equally in awe. His fingers entwine with her own, and she glances at their conjoined hands before glancing up at him with a smile. The closest house is the house Michael had taken her, miles down the road. She squeezes his hand comfortingly and leads him up to the overgrown lawn, the long grass dead thanks to the change in season. Colored leaves crunch under her feet.
"This is it," Allyson parrots. "The same year that Michael Myers killed his sister, Charlie Bowles lived here with his wife and two kids. They were a normal couple. Apparently, Charlie was happy to get away from the city, even though he went there for work about twice a week."
She releases Cameron's hand to withdraw a serrated knife from her coat pocket, cutting into the condemned tape sealing the door shut. It only takes a moment longer to sufficiently pick the lock. Cameron looks around, clearly growing impatient with the delay in the story.
"What does that have to do with anything?"
The door creaks when she opens it. It's far too dark to see much inside, especially thanks to the screen door blocking the way, but Allyson exhales at the blackness of the interior. Then, she looks back at Cameron.
"Let me finish, will you?" She opens the screen door, waiting for Cameron to follow her inside before she shuts the door behind them, locking the deadbolt behind them.
"Anyway," she continues, joining hands with Cameron once more as she leads him up the stairs, trying not to cringe at the way they creak under their weight, "one day, out of the blue, Charlie took a break from doing work in the garage. I believe he was a carpenter. He grabbed a hacksaw. He kissed his wife, Betty, and his two children goodbye before killing and dismembering them. The police didn't find their bodies until days after, and Charlie had killed himself along with them. Right in this house."
She finds the door - the same room Michael had kept her locked away in, much of the time. She's happy to find the door swings open easily behind them, the lock broken. The bed that she'd laid in is now gone, taken for evidence, leaving the room empty save for the bedside table.
"That's bullshit."
She opens the bedside table drawer, finding the engraving she still remembers Charlie + Bettie, surrounded by a crude heart, then gestures to it with the flashlight attached to her knife.
"See? I don't know what drove Charlie to do what he did. He just snapped."
"This makes no sense, Allyson. Why wouldn't we hear about it?"
"Think of how much Haddonfield's tried to cover up what happened to my grandmother, what happened to me. The only reason it hasn't is because Michael won't let it. He won't die. The legend won't, either, not until he does."
"Michael Myers has been dead for years, Allyson. They found-"
"They found his blood and some tissue and DNA in some woods. It doesn't mean shit. He isn't a man, Cameron. He isn't. Do you believe me?"
Cameron sighs, and Allyson can't help but wonder if he's lying when he nods and tells her, "yes, of course I do."
Pleased nonetheless, Allyson grasps both his hands and leans up to kiss him, close-mouthed until he opens his mouth up with his own. She tries her best not to tense when he turns them around so he can press her against the wall as she feels dust and drywall fall into her hair.
Gently, Allyson extracts herself from him, which is when he winds his arms around her waist. It's nice to be held. Allyson almost feels guilty - almost, just enough to turn to face the wall to look away from Cameron, eyes closed.
"This is the room he kept me in, most of the time," she admits softly, as Cameron's lips press against her neck. His hands push insistently up her sweater, tickling against her scarred skin. She shivers from his cold touch against her warm skin, his wild curls somehow in her mouth. This is nice, this is good - it's everything she wants and more. She ignores whatever Cameron has to say and takes in the smell of the old house, the way she warms his hands up as he keeps touching her.
"I'll protect you," is one of the things he murmurs. She wants to laugh and she does, which earns a tug to her hair. A grunt escapes, which causes him to pull harder, which is what she wants. This is better than sharing a blunt or tripping or popping pills, it's better than being drunk at seven in the morning.
She shoves her ass back against him as he pushes her face against the wall and unbuckles his own belt. A chuckle escapes as he sighs shakily, clearly struggling to gather his bearings. She's turning to face him when he's suddenly off her, and when she turns around fully, she already knows the sight that will greet her before her eyes even adjust.
Cameron grabs onto Allyson's sweater as he screams in anguish, a blade impaling him through his stomach. Allyson can't scream, can't do anything besides stare with wide eyes in horror as his blood splashes onto her cheeks. She's immobilized - here is the moment she's been waiting for, the moment she's known has been inevitable for the past three years because her entire life has been on borrowed time - and she can't even move. Her eyes close at the sound of Cameron dropping to the floor, discarded just as her mother had been and gargling the same way, and she doesn't open them again until she feels herself being backed into the wall.
When her eyes open, The Shape's stark white face stares back at her, eyes black.
"Michael," she whispers. This time, it's not a dream or a feverish or drunken hallucination. It's real. The blade in his hand, with Cameron's blood still fresh, presses against her sternum as his hand finds the small of her back. It's an odd sort of embrace, one that she expects will end in the knife pushed through her chest until she's choking up blood. The Michael Myers in her dreams has shoved his hand into her chest and ripped her still-beating heart out, but this Michael merely drags the blade against the fabric of her sweater, the pressure intentionally delicate and taunting. She breathes heavily as she stares up at him, as if she can read him that way. Actions have always spoken louder than words for the two of them.
Before she can freeze up any longer, the knife in her sleeve comes out and stabs him in the abdomen. The give is enough for her to push him off her, reaching for the gun in her hip that he quickly manages to wrangle out of her hand, his other arm forming around her waist to haul her under one arm like a football. She begins to struggle against him, scratching desperately at the wall, at him, at anything that could get her away from him, as the gun falls onto the floor near Cameron's body. She grips hard enough onto the wall to break away rotted wood, desperate not to be carried through the doorway to wherever Michael has in store for her.
With the small slice of wood, she stabs at Michael's neck. With a grunt, he drops her onto the ground, where she lands in a way that makes her artificial knee screech in pain. Quickly, she ambles into the other room to grab her firearm but only finds the knife. She returns to the hallway to find it empty.
"Michael!" she exclaims louder. The evil whose name she's barely spoken in years is more than palpable, more than a man, as she hears him everywhere. Allyson herself is a mere shape in the dim light of the hallway, lit only by the boarded up windows in the room down the hall. Her heart thrums hard against her ribcage.
"Come out now," she says, "you don't get to run and hide. You don't get to play dead anymore, because I don't. You made sure of that. You ruined me, and now I want what's mine."
She stills, listening for motions, for anything. The only thing she hears is the sound of her own heavy breathing.
"Come out! Come out now!"
She has no time to react before Michael obliges her request, shoving Allyson against the bannister. She grabs at his mechanic's uniform and swings her blade at him wildly, hits him in the shoulder. The blade digs into the sinew there and his weight breaks the banister, sending him down the stairs. She breathes out hard, shaky from adrenaline, as she takes in the sight of the vulnerable Shape at the bottom of the steps. Still, as always.
If she didn't know better, she would believe he's already dead.
Unfortunately for them both, she does know better.
She approaches him down the stairs, knife in hand. His blood drips all over the steps as she descends.
"You're mine," she feels vulnerable, like all her layers have been peeled back, all of the scar tissue, leaving her entirely exposed. There's no stopping her now that the floodgates have opened.
She bends, slowly, to kneel beside him, then over him.
"You're mine," she says again, steadier and surer now, quiet enough to be intimate, like it isn't just the two of them here again, alone with only the other. "Michael."
His hand closes around her wrist. She screams as he grabs her, tries to turn them over so he pins her down with his weight. Considering their size difference - as tall as she is, he's bigger than her in every way - it's not terribly difficult. Like their struggle in the snow, Allyson's hands immediately find his mask. While he pins the other down, she manages to get the mask completely off his head. The moment of surprise is enough for her to gain the upper hand via a head slam against his own. He falls back onto the ground.
Quickly, Allyson digs for the tiny hand piece she keeps tucked away in a sock holster, pinning Michael with her thighs straddling his hips. By now, the mask is entirely sheathed, and Michael merely stares back at her as if to challenge her. Allyson exhales shakily, sore knuckles gripping the handle of the gun as he breathes steadily under her.
She has a choice.
And she makes it by hitting him hard upside the head with the butt of the gun. The hands that move up to stop her fail when she continues until his eyes close, breathing lighter but still noticeable. Allyson exhales softly, staring down at his unconscious, vulnerable form, thighs still locked around him as if that will do anything to keep him there if he didn't want to be. Then she slowly stands, grabbing at his arms to drag his heavy weight into the kitchen to lay him out onto the floor.
As an afterthought, she peels back the mask and sets it on his chest, left with just his bare face staring at her. He is as vulnerable as she feels and yet, it does little to comfort her. His eyeballs shift behind closed eyelids as he breathes, in and out. She counts the breathes he takes as she watches the blood rise and fall from his mouth and nose.
That's when she situates herself on the cold tile floor beside him.
"You-you don't want anyone in my life that's not you," and that's not exactly a revelation, but she wants to speak it out into the space between them anyway.
She shrugs off her coat, exhaling sharply as she steadies her hands enough to find the end of the lamp she'd used to hit Maggie Bloom before leaving her. She sets it beside Michael's form.
Then, on his chest, she lays out her own knife, smeared with his blood, and sits back against the sink cabinet. The sound of Michael's breathing and her own is what fills the room around them. She feels like she's reciting a monologue in English class all over again, but she can't stop talking and won't.
"And now you have me. All of me. I've killed for you," she clears her throat, letting the ugliness of her own statement sink in and marinate. It makes her chest hurt. She grips at the place Michael had dug the blade in with a splayed palm and swallows back the dry lump forming in her throat.
"I've killed for you, and I liked it. I guess that means I can't say it was for you, right?"
She stares at Michael's face, peaceful and blank in sleep, or what he pretends is sleep, like any good predator.
"It's time for us to end this, Michael."
She reaches for the small handpiece, dented from impact against Michael's face and covered in blood. Flicks off the safety and cocks it and hears herself whimper like a dog when a worn hand closes around her wrist. Not stopping her, but steadying her.
Through tears, she realizes she can't pull the trigger. Full-body sobs begin to wrack her form as she shakes her head. The salty taste of snot touches her tongue.
"I can't do it," she whispers. That isn't a revelation, either, but it hits her like one. Michael takes the gun out of her hand and throws it to the floor. She doesn't notice when he sits up - only when he hauls her to her feet to press her back against the counter. Her own knife digs into the bare skin of her abdomen, where her sweater rides up, against an old scar from their last encounter. Scarred and ruined like the rest of her.
Her hand finds its way around Michael's. He doesn't even flinch, simply staring down at her as she unravels.
"Do it," she says, "do it. Kill me. I know it's what you want. And I'm giving it to you."
The knife presses in harder. Hard enough to break skin. The warmth of her own blood trails down her skin, onto the floor. She welcomes what's to come like a good night of sleep, knows the borrowed time that he's allotted her has run its course.
Then, the knife relents before it can find its home in her innards, in her skin.
That's when Allyson laughs in his face, sounding truly unhinged, as the Shape cocks his head down at her, knife still pressed against her between the two of them.
She laughs and laughs and laughs, until his stark white face becomes a mere blur behind her tears.
Author's Notes: Huge chances are that this won't be finished in time for Halloween Kills like I wanted - Halloween is my official goal now. :)
Please feel free to send me prompts via PM or via my Tumblr, opened. I'd like to explore something new, whether it's between Michael and Allyson, or Michael and others, and I'd love to see what ideas you have in mind. Thank you for following along with this story and I hope you enjoy the conclusion that is set to come.