Author's Note: decided to play around with the "childhood friends" trope. I'm primarily following John Carpenter's continuity, but there will be some Rob Zombie influences and will be divergent from canon at some point. I've decided to go through and edit this to make improvements grammatically and for the sake of plot, so if this looks familiar it definitely is. Another chapter is definitely in the works.
MAY 3, 1963:
HADDONFIELD, ILLINOIS.
The dirtied white tips of Katie Jones' pointed flats brush against the mulch of the playground as she swings back and forth on the swing absently, letting the wind take her. Over her thick head of wiry curls, she watches other children play hopscotch, jump rope. She itches to get up from her spot on the swing, ask if she can join but she knows the response to her attempts at friendship already-the older kids have spit on her, called her names, one time even locking her in a supply closet until a kindly janitor had come to her rescue when her mama came to pick her up. Kids her age are no better, and the teachers are no help, regardless of her mama's urging.
Katelyn Jones is only six-years-old, but she knows already that the kids hate her because she doesn't look like them. Not with her darker complexion or her big wiry head of hair that her mother painstakingly braids in the summer. It confuses her, because her mama always tells her she's beautiful because she's different, not despite it. But they still hate her, or they're afraid of her, or something else, and it makes no difference because she can't play hopscotch or jump rope or sing the same nursery rhymes they sing. It's nothing like Chicago.
She swings herself back and forth on the swing absently, still, eyes scanning the playground. Teachers congregating, kids running and playing, birds chirping. Upon a quick glance at her watch, she notices she only has ten minutes until the end of recess bell will ring, and she very decidedly plants her feet in the ground to stand. She wants to play, and she'll make them see how great she really is.
She's in the middle of approaching the biggest group of kids—Duke Elam, the oldest among them, and a few others—when her eye catches a sandy blonde head of hair sitting in the patch of grass a distance away from the other kids. Her gaze diverts quickly between the group of kids and the boy sitting alone, and it only takes her a moment to decide to head toward him instead.
Her flats crunch in the grass as she approaches, and she hesitates for only a moment as she stares at the expanse of grass beside the boy. Hears her mother's voice in her head, admonishing her for getting yet another pretty dress filthy. The boy seemingly doesn't acknowledge her presence even as she sits beside him, pretty dress be damned, his gaze downturn as lithe fingers pull at the grass from its roots.
She looks at him from the side for a long moment, waiting for him to acknowledge her at the very least. When he doesn't, she clears her throat like her daddy does when he demands attention.
"Hi," she says. Her heart beats fast. She hasn't made a single friend in all of her time in Haddonfield and she's nervous, suddenly. Undeterred, she goes on. "My name is Katelyn, but only my mamma calls me that. You can call me Katie."
The boy looks at her, at least, from under the shaggy fringe of blonde hair covering his features. She knows she's seen him around, before, in the few days she's been here. The thought to approach had She knows that some people are shy, so she settles down beside him, wiping the dirt on her palms off on the fabric of her dress. He looks down at her hands, as if the dirt offends him, then back at her.
"I really hate sitting by myself. Unless I'm drawing," Katie confides, quieter now as she looks into the same distance of white picket fences and homogenous houses lined up and down Haddonfield's streets beyond the confines of the park. She brings her knees to her chest, resting her cheek against her leg. "I saw you sitting by yourself. You shouldn't be alone."
The boy stays silent. She frowns, but refuses to be discouraged, considering silence isn't nearly the same as vehement dislike and even violence, sometimes, when the opportunity strikes.
"I can be your friend."
The bell rings. The teachers begin to yell for the kids to line up to go in for lunch. Katie sighs, trudging herself up by her hands to stand. More dirt wiped on the frilly pink dress as she moves to leave, gripping her metal lunchbox against her chest, but not before she hears an even smaller voice, raspy from disuse.
"Michael."
She looks at him. He looks down at his worn red high-top shoes, then back at her. She smiles at him even as he clearly hesitates to reveal more than the succinct statement.
"My name is Michael."
She reaches for his hand to lace their fingers. He tenses like a live wire, but she doesn't seem to notice as she pulls him along. He goes accordingly after relaxing for a moment, grip loosening in hers but not pulling away entirely.
"Come on, Michael," Katie says. "My mamma made me a peanut butter and jelly and packed an apple and a juice. If you don't have anything, we can share. School lunch looks pretty gross."
He's quiet again, then nods.
One of the teachers, Mr. Davis, notices their entwined fingers. Immediately, he steps over to them.
"Jones," he almost barks. She jumps, dropping her lunchbox. Michael stares at the lunchbox as it clings loudly on the concrete, then at Mr. Davis, his expression unreadable. Half of the lined students stare at them, along with the two other teachers on lunch duty.
"What did we tell you about touching the other students?"
Katie feels tears burning in her eyes already. Her lower lip trembles, and she looks at Michael, then at the fair-skinned boy and girl holding hands in the line beside theirs. She points to them.
"They're touching right now!" she argues. Her mother had already told her to watch her smart mouth earlier today, and here she is, unable to stop herself. "I'm not hurting Michael. I'm his friend."
Mr. Davis guffaws, then bends to meet her gaze, one hand gripping her wrist hard. She swallows, tries to pull her arm out of his grasp only for him to grip it harder.
"You're not," Mr. Davis says. "You're not. And if you talk back one more time, Jones, you'll be cleaning my chalkboard after school for a whole month, whether you and your mom like it or not. Do you want to test me?"
Katie feels the tears streaming down her face already, and she shakes her head. He releases his grip, and she rubs the red mark left behind, lip trembling and face burning in shame.
"I'm sorry, sir."
"That's more like it, Jones. Leave him alone and come with me, now."
When Mr. Davis tries to pull her away, she feels a hand reach out to take hers. Michael.
Katie blinks. Mr. Davis guffaws once more, even more incredulous.
"Mikey," Mr. Davis says. "You don't—"
Michael offers Katie her lunch box with his free hand, pulling her back to stand near him when the teacher releases her in his surprise at the movement. The boy makes no attempt to explain his actions and his nearly blank expression says even less, and Katie feels her heart racing wildly in her chest at it.
Mr. Davis huffs, standing at his full height and leaving the two of them. Katie pulls Michael along to catch up with the lines that have already filed, and the boy follows accordingly. He watches as she wipes the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand when they arrive at their table, a fair distance away from the others at the other end. He sits beside her instead of across from her, and she offers him one half of her sandwich with a tear-filled smile.
He hesitates before taking it, biting into it. He eats it like a wild animal, loud and lacking any sort of grace or etiquette.
"My mamma says you can choke if you eat too fast, Michael," she admonishes, quietly, biting into her half. He slows on the last few bites. "Are you hungry? You can have my carrot sticks. I don't like them anyway."
When she offers them, he takes them. Instead of his trademark sentence, he offers something.
"Thanks," he says so low, She smiles at him, brightly, the confrontation in the schoolyard from moments ago seemingly forgotten despite the tear tracks over her cheeks and the nose that still sniffles every inhale or so.
"I'm glad you're my friend, Michael," the girl confides through a mouthful of peanut butter and jelly.
He watches her for a long moment and nods, looking back to the remnants of the sandwich in his hands, where grape jelly smears over his fingers. She hands him a napkin from the dispenser on the table, which he stares at for a long moment before taking to wipe himself up. Her smile doesn't leave her features, though her cheeks head up when she notices him watching her again.
"You don't talk much, do you, Michael?"
He blinks.
"That's-that's okay. I talk a lot. Enough for two people, my mama says. So you won't feel lonely, if you need me."
The boy takes another bite of his sandwich, and Katie goes on, undeterred by the silence.
|O|
When Patty Jones arrives at three on the dot to pick up Katie, she isn't greeted by the usual sullen sight of her daughter. Instead, Katie races out of the double doors of the kindergarten exit, barreling into her mother's arms. Patty laughs, picking up the girl with ease in an embrace and earning a giggle. When she sets her down, Katie offers a haphazard drawing of a beach that she'd just finished in art class.
"I made this for you," Katie says. Patty smiles, taking it and examining it as if it were a Da Vinci piece instead of a six-year-old's crude drawing.
"It's gorgeous," Patty says. "I love all your art. This will join the rest of your stuff in my office."
Katie laughs, hand lacing through her mother's as they begin their walk home.
"Is that all you did today, silly?" Patty asks, teasingly.
"I made a new friend today!" Katie exclaims. Patty almost stops the both of them in her surprise. In the five months since their family had moved from Chicago to Haddonfield, Katie had been more withdrawn than usual, coming home in tears more often than not because of her despair at her lack of friends like she had in Chicago. That and things Katie wouldn't tell her full stories of, of teachers seating her away from other kids and how they pull at her hair. She's been furious at her husband since first finding out one of the kids laid a hand on her little girl, furious at him for making them move to this hick town in the first place.
But it seems like Katie is adjusting, as Charles had told her would be the case. She's going to take some time to adjust, Patty. We can't just pull her out of every school that has a problem with her-what will that teach her? More importantly, what will that teach them?
"Oh yeah?" Patty asks, genuine intrigue showing in her innocent inquiry. "What's this friend's name?"
"His name is Michael," Katie says. "Just like the archangel. He's really nice. I um, I shared my lunch with him. I know you don't like it when I waste my food—"
Patty shakes her head, glancing down at Katie.
"No, no, that's okay. Michael would've been hungry if you didn't, right?"
Katie nods.
"Then that's okay. You did a good thing, sharing with your friend," she pulls the girl closer to her with an arm around the shoulders. Katie rests her head on her mother's side as they walk, pleased with the contact. "I taught you well, baby."
"Yeah! He's so nice. And he lives over on Lampkin Lane. Only a street over! It's so cool."
Patty smiles.
"I'm really glad to hear that, sweetie. I'm really glad you're making friends. I know it hasn't been easy."
After a moment, the girl gets a little more serious after being uncharacteristically quiet for a few long moments. "Do you think you can pack me two lunches tomorrow? I told Michael you make the best ham and cheese sandwiches, and I want him to give them a try."
"Yeah. Of course I can, sweetheart. I'll do that before we go to bed tonight."
Katie beams. "Thank you, mamma! You're the best."
Patty laughs.
"Thank you, baby. I just want you to be happy."
"I'm really happy."
"I know you are," Patty sounds a little sad. Katie doesn't seem to notice, trotting their way until they reach their house at the end of the block and running up the steps. Their Siamese cat, Princess, sits in the window on top of the back of the couch, meowing loudly through the screen at the sight of Katie approaching. She touches the cat's whiskers through the screen until her mother comes up the steps and unlocks the door, letting the two of them inside.
Charles Jones, fresh from a job and still clad in blue jeans and a paint-stained t-shirt, smiles wide at the sight of the two of them. Katie rushes toward him so his big arms encircle her in a hug, head burying in his shoulder for only a moment before withdrawing. Her face wrinkles in displeasure.
"You still smell like paint, daddy," Katie says, wiping herself of imagined residual paint stains on her coat.
"That's what happens when I get a job, sweetheart. Don't be so dramatic; you're fine. No paint anywhere."
"Mhm. Good."
She heads toward the coat rack to hang up her jacket, while Patty takes her backpack and lunchbox. The lunchbox is set in the kitchen to be cleaned out and prepared later, while she sits with her backpack to look through at the dining room table. With a groan, Charles stands and stretches, joints crackling and popping with the movement, and heads toward the dining room to join his family. Katie runs by to hug her mother before sitting beside her.
"I got a 90 on my spelling test," Katie says when Patty takes the slim sheet of lined paper with the spelling on it. "It just wasn't a 100 'cause I had no idea how to spell 'squeeze.' But Michael spelled it for me."
"Michael?" Charles intercedes, sitting down with two bottles of Coca-Cola and a butter knife. Eager, Katie sits beside him, eager as her daddy pops open the bottles and hands one to her. Patty gives him an admonishing look, to which he responds with a simple shrug and a grin, hand running over Katie's wild head of hair.
"Michael," Katie confirms upon finishing her first sip of the sugary drink. "My new friend. Michael Myers."
"Myers," Charles says thoughtfully. "I think I know of his mother very, very well-"
"Katie," Patty interrupts, sparing her husband another seething glance, before returning her attention back to Katie, setting her homework folder down on the table. "Before you start your homework, why don't you tell daddy what you did today at school?"
Katie looks confused for a moment, before realizing exactly what her mother means and, in her eagerness, nearly spills the bottle over before Charles stops her. She stammers a few times getting the words out.
"I-Today, I shared my lunch with Michael, 'cause I thought he was hungry. He really liked it. I did a good thing for my friend."
"Oh, sweetie, that's good. You always need to be nice to people. I knew we taught you well. What else did you do today?"
"Well, Michael and I decided to sit together in our class, 'cause we both sat in the back anyway. He helped me with spelling and I helped him with the science homework from last night."
"Oh yeah?"
Katie nods.
"Uh-huh. His mama came to pick him up before mama came to get me. She was really nice, too." Katie pauses to sip at her Coke, frowning at the homework sheet her mother lays out before her mid-sentence.
"Come on, sweetheart," Patty says. "Quicker you get it done, quicker we can play hopscotch and make the cookies."
Katie's expression lightens immediately, grabbing the sharpened pencil her mother lays out beside the paper.
"Okay. As long as you help me."
Patty kisses Katie on the temple.
"Of course, baby. I'll be right here, and so will daddy."
It takes Katie a little under an hour to finish her homework-and it only takes so long because the usually quick girl resorts to rambling about Michael Myers, much to the endearment of her parents, who are more than relieved at the fact that their daughter has finally planted roots in their new home despite their initial fears over her first few days, especially so far into the school year.
Haddonfield seems like a very fine place to make home after all.
OCTOBER 31, 1978:
HADDONFIELD, ILLINOIS.
HALLOWEEN.
"Do you want to come to the Tower Farm party later on? I'm sure there's still booze and music going on. Something, I don't know," Budd Scarlotti asks as Katie slides her coat over her scrubs. She knows she's smelled better and looked better, at the very least, and the jacket isn't nearly enough to cover it. She lets out a laugh, gentle and soft, and shakes her head. She knows, too, that Budd, one of the EMT's that always circulates through the hospital's wards, has been eyeing her for weeks. He's got the hots for nurse tail, Karen had told her, another nurse in the natal unit who Katie also knew ended up sleeping with him. Something must be working for him.
Unfortunately, Katie Jones is not nearly as adventurous as Karen, and especially not after a twelve hour shift with only a ten minute break for a piss and a cigarette.
"Sorry, Budd. I've got to go feed my cat and I'll be honestly, my records and my bed are just calling my name right now." She buttons up the wool coat, and offers, "maybe another time? You've got a long shift too, so you're crazy."
Budd laughs.
"Sure. Another time. You know I'm a party animal."
Katie rolls her eyes, shoving at his shoulder playfully and without meaning. "Yeah, alright. We'll see how you feel after tonight. Mrs. Alves has got a stick up her ass on another level tonight."
Budd's face gets a little more somber as he groans, heading to the door to open it wide for her. Katie steps through, slinging her purse over her shoulder and nodding in thanks.
"Are you serious? What's her problem now?"
"A lot of people have called out. A few no-shows," Katie gets a littler quieter as they head toward the exit, realizing belatedly that Mrs. Alves could be lurking around any corner. Thankfully, she doesn't materialize out of nowhere to scold her for her slander, "but I don't know, she's been in a heinous mood all day."
"Shit," Budd says, shaking his head. "I don't blame her, though. You've heard the news today, right? That mental hospital in Warren County sanitarium, you know the one? A bunch of patients escaped. Crazy shit."
Katie nods. Budd holds the exit open for her.
"Yeah, crazy shit alright," she digs for her box of cigarettes, turning to face him. "Take it easy, alright? Especially on Karen."
That earns a chuckle. Katie grins.
"Yeah, we'll see. Hey, you be safe tonight, alright? Always some crazies roaming through the streets on Halloween."
"Thank you! I'll see you tomorrow, I bet."
Budd grumbles as she weaves through the parking lot, laughing to approaches her Mustang, lighting up the cigarette between her lips only when she's sitting inside with the doors locked and radio on. Her favorite blues station can always be trusted for good content, even at this time of night. Tipping ash from her cigarette, she rolls her window down only a crack, finding herself staring at a shape that lurks in the red hue of the hospital's lights. Her heart skips a beat and she blinks-the silhouette gone.
With a shake of her head, Katie starts up the car and heads to the diner just down the street for a cup of coffee, a breakfast spread, and her dog-eared copy of her newest find from James Baldwin at the bookstore downtown. She sits tucked into her favored corner booth, book open over the table as her waitress brings her her favorite eggs and bacon and pot of freshly brewed black coffee, which she fills up on. She gets to the halfway mark of her book before she pays for her bill, waving at the manager before heading out, throwing her coat over her shoulders. The drive home takes around thirty minutes, avoiding the heavy traffic and police cars, when it normally only takes ten from the diner.
By the time she unlocks the front door, Katie thinks she could fall asleep right on her sofa in her scrubs. She would, if she couldn't smell her own perspiration from a day of running around, short-staffed and with little to no break. Caffeine pumping through her veins, she decides to head to the cabinet under her sink to retrieve her half-finished bottle of whiskey. It'd been a birthday present from her father, though the two of them found themselves drinking it more together than not. He'll be fine if I have some without him.
Today's been a stressful day. Understaffed at the hospitalas always, with the few staff they did have constantly slacking off. The screams and cries of newborns in the maternity ward, the demands of new mothers, the general flippant attitude from doctors—it's enough to drive her up a wall, and this is only her third month as an officially licensed nurse. God help me in ten years then, right? At least I won't have Dr. Motherfucking Mixter to answer then, that creep. Luckily, he hadn't been on shift today, though he would officially be on-call for the graveyard shift tonight. She'd been lucky enough to not have to work that one, not after the double she worked today.
Katie huffs, sliding off her coat and heading to her vinyl player with the bottle of rum in hand. She doesn't take long to finger through her pile of records beside it, choosing the Earth, Wind, and Fire disc at the top. The tune of "Shining Star" plays through the house as she hums along, sipping from the bottle of rum in her hand.
She's in the middle of undressing for a shower, unlacing her clunky work shoes to put her feet up with her toes spread, when her cat heads down the stairs to chirp loudly at her.
"What is it, baby?" she asks, over the music. Princess comes up under her hand when she overs it, rubbing her cheek against her fingers as she pets her. "I fed you wet food already today. You don't need anything else, big girl."
When she glances up, she screams. A tall silhouette in the light of her hallway, blocking the front door. She barely makes out the blank white mask and the shine of a knife in his hand before the man is collapsing to the floor of her kitchen, so heavy that the entire room shakes. Princess bounds away, quickly, and Katie grips at her chest, breathing heavily as her heart races. The hand loosens on the handle of the knife before she kicks it away.
She thinks to grab her daddy's gun in the living room before she notices the blood pooling on the freshly waxed floor of the kitchen. She bends down, tentative, looking for some sort of entry wound on the dark fabric of the mechanic uniform. She finds a few holes—exit wounds, thankfully, so no bullets to dig out there—and counts to five before she reaches the neck of the mask, heart thumping loud and hard in her ears. She notices the burns over dirtied hands and the charred collar of the coveralls and wonders, wonders if he was caught in a fire in the same incident that landed the nasty holes in the coveralls.
When her hand touches along the mask's hem, intending to pull it off, a vice grip of a bloodied hand on her wrist stops her.