Disclaimer:

Almost all the characters in the following story are the sole property of companies and persons other than the author. Their use herein should be considered no challenge to that ownership whatsoever. Please don't sue.

Note:

The author considers everything that happened in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and Halloween: H20 to be pure fantasy and not inclusive to the Halloween timeline. If you saw the films, you'd understand why.

Comments are demanded.


Samhain
An X-Files/Halloween story
by jimmy4eyes@yahoo.com

Four
1.

At the sound of the first gunshots, Scully leaped off the floor of the men's room. She gripped the Smith and Wesson tightly in her right hand, moved to one side of the closed wooden door. Conflicting reports of gunfire upstairs. Panicked screams. The sound of dying men.

Scully looked over at Jamie.

The girl knelt on the floor. Her entire body trembled. She clutched at herself, arms tightly bound to one another by her own grip. The terror in the exposed whites of her eyes was raw.

Scully unclipped the borrowed police radio from her belt, thumbed the TALK button. "What the hell's going on up there?"

No reply but static and crying.

"We've got to get out of here!" Jamie said.

"Agent Mulder's up there!" Scully shot back. Internally, she said, Stay calm, Dana. Don't let the fear get through to you. Calm. Stay calm. Mulder's all right.

Jamie got off the floor, the makeshift bed of jackets. "It doesn't matter! We have to leave! Now!"

An agonized wail of such crystal, perfect torment cut through the thunderous reports of guns, the confused shouting. It cut off suddenly, replaced by nothing. Another one dead.

A dozen cops in this bus station. It was impossible.

How many police died in '89?

Mulder. . .

"Dana!"

Jamie knocked over the garbage can, used its crushed shape to boost herself up to one of the windows. Something in her hand. A piece of wood. Paper-towel roller from some dispenser in the restroom. The girl chipped away at the reinforced glass.

The decision clicked.

"Jamie, get out of the way!"

Jamie ducked. She clutched the roller close to her like a talisman.

Scully drew down on the window, tripped off four rounds into the center of the pane. Thick glass exploded, carried away shreds of fine-thread wire. Good grouping. The size of a palm. The instructors at Quantico would be happy about that.

They attacked the remains of the window together. Water poured through the opening, driven by the storm, the wind. Shards of glass cut Scully's fingers. Jamie's hands were already bleeding.

Upstairs, the gunfire slowed. Only one gun shooting now. Deep-throated bullroar of a shotgun. A man bellowed over the gunshots. Indecipherable. Primal. Enraged.

Almost big enough now. Large enough for. . . "Jamie," Scully said. "Go on."

Scully boosted Jamie up. The girl squirmed through the jagged hole. Glass slashed at her clothes, opened new, bleeding gashes. For a terrifying instant, her hips were snagged going through. Then she was out.

No more shooting.

Footfalls on the steps.

Scully turned back to the door. "Mulder?"

"Dana! Agent Scully!" Jamie's face reappeared in the window. She gouged at the remaining glass with her wooden roller. Chips of sharp pane flew everywhere. "Come on!"

Scully held up her hand. "It might be Agent Mulder."

Slow steps. Even. Measured.

"Dana!"

"Who's there?" Scully demanded. She raised her pistol.

The door of the restroom swung open.

"Stop right where you are!" Scully ordered.

Sheriff Meeker stepped through into the restroom.

Scully couldn't stop it. "Oh, my God," she said.

Meeker's body was covered in blood. Deep gashes rent the front of his uniform jacket. Crimson dripped down his face from a cut on his scalp. His white eye was stained with red. He still held his shotgun. Convulsively, his finger twitched on the trigger. No more ammo.

"Agent. . . Scully," he said.

"Sheriff." Scully ran to him. His clothes were sodden with his own blood. Something kept the man on his feet, but Scully didn't know what. He was a shredded mess. "Sheriff, where's Agent Mulder?"

". . . right behind me," Meeker said.

Meeker dropped to his knees. Scully struggled with the weight of him, lowered him to the floor as gently as she could. The sheriff wouldn't let go of the shotgun. He kept it clutched in a death grip.

"Who's right behind you?" Scully asked.

"Dana." A very calm voice.

Scully looked up from Meeker, back to the window. Jamie was poised there. The hole in the glass looked just big enough to let Scully through, but the fit was tight. Jamie's face was smooth, no longer panicked. "Jamie," Scully said.

"He's coming right now," Jamie said.

Meeker grabbed Scully's shoulder. with one hand. ". . . gotta run."

Scully turned to the door of the restroom. No one there. No sign.

"Just go!" Meeker managed to say. Blood bubbled on his lips.

The sound was barely a scuff. A shoe on cement. Any other time, Scully might have missed it. Adrenaline iced through Scully's heart.

She dashed to the window. Meeker was left behind, maybe dead and maybe alive. Jamie held her hands through the hole. "Come on! Give me your gun!"

Scully tossed her pistol out to Jamie, hiked herself up to the high windowsill. Ground bits of glass and metal filament stabbed her palms. Her blood slicked the concrete ledge.

She dragged herself through the hole in the window. Ignored the claws of shattered glass that grabbed at her clothes, cut through the material of her slacks. She fell out onto the asphalt of the parking lot. Rain water streamed down on her. The sky rippled with lightning.

Jamie crouched beside her. She pressed the Smith and Wesson into Scully's hand. "Here," she said. "Come on. Where's your car?"

The Taurus was parked ten yards out, beyond the ring of silent, darkened police cruisers. Scully made it to her feet and dashed for it. A deep cut in her leg made her limp, sent shocks of ache through her muscles.

They reached the car at a dead run. Scully slammed into it full on. She jammed her hand into her pocket, searched for the keys. Her fingers were slick with water and the oilier sheen of terrorized perspiration.

She thrust the key into the doorlock.

Someone grabbed her by the arm.

Scully whirled around, shoved her pistol out in front of her, squeezed the trigger.

"Oh, Christ!" Sam Loomis shouted. He deflected her gun arm. A round discharged harmlessly into the night. "It's me! It's Sam!"

"Sam!" Scully clutched his arm. "Where's Mulder?"

"He's still inside! I'm sorry, Dana! I ran! I ran away!"

Mulder. . .

Scully looked back at the bus station. It squatted there, dark and faceless. Dead neon. The place was like world's largest crypt, all its ornate decorations stripped away by time and the rain. "We can't leave him!"

On the other side of the car, Jamie shouted, "Dana, let's go!"

Sam held Scully tightly. "He's dead, Dana. We've got to get out of here! Michael is inside!"

One last look.

I'm sorry, Mulder.

"Okay," Scully said. "Let's go."

They piled into the Taurus. Scully behind the wheel. Jamie secured herself in the passenger seat with the seat belt. A moment later, Sam piled into the back. "We've got to get as far away from here as possible!" he said. "Buy time until the rest of your people get here!"

Scully twisted the key in the ignition. The car's engine roared into life. She popped the brake, slammed the car into DRIVE and floor the accelerator.

Wheels spun on the slick asphalt. Scully fishtailed around, pointed the Taurus out onto the road. Traction bit despite the rain and the leaped forward. Acceleration slammed them back into their seats.

"Damn it!" Sam buried his face in his hands. "Damn it, I should have done something!"

"You couldn't do anything those police didn't try," Scully said. She left-handed the car around a turn, made a long, skidding ninety-degree. "It's over."

Beside her, Jamie said, "No."

High beams burst into life behind them. Police bubble lights whirled over them. On the wheel, Scully's hands felt like stone. Dazzling illumination reflected from the rear-view into her eyes.

Sam twisted around in his seat. "Oh, my God. It's him."

Rain slashed down, pummeled the windshield. Scully pushed the accelerator to the floor. The digital miles per hour readout climbed steadily past fifty, past sixty, toward seventy. Keep the wheel steady. Be ready for deeper water. The driving instruction from Quantico circled around in Scully's head endlessly.

The road was narrow, lined with trees that curved overhead. Branches stripped of leaves did little to stop the downpour. The Taurus' headlights barely cut through the rain. Scully squinted, the wipers beat desperately, but she the broken white line in the roadway was almost invisible.

"Faster!" Jamie demanded.

Scully urged more power out of the engine. Faster still.

The headlights closed.

Sam moved right behind her, spoke urgently into her ear: "He'll run us off the road like this. We've got to figure out how to shake him."

Scully shook her head slowly. Her knuckles were flushed white on the steering wheel. "He's not going to catch us," she said. "Not while I'm driving."

The road made a sharp curve up ahead. Scully took it at seventy miles per hour. The front wheels touched a puddle that stretched across both lanes. Traction vanished. The Taurus lurched sideways. Momentum carried it forward.

Scully played the wheel, the pedals. The Taurus spun off the road, slammed sidelong into a cluster of thick-boled trees. Side-mount safety bags exploded on Jamie's side, cushioned the crash.

The seatbelt grabbed Scully across the collarbone and yanked. All the breath rushed out of her. She choked on the pressure. Then she hurled back into her seat. The engine whirred for a moment before it died.

Behind them, the police cruiser jammed on its brakes. It slewed down the straightway, tires protesting on the slick asphalt. The driver kept it upright and on the road until it came to diagonal stop in the middle of both lanes.

Scully hefted her pistol. "Is everyone all right?"

"Okay back here," Sam said.

Jamie rubbed her neck. The side of her face was red where she hit the airbag.

No one moved inside the police car.

Scully opened her door. The storm rushed in. Rainwater almost blinded her. She got out, pointed her Smith and Wesson at the cruiser. "In the car! Don't move! Do not move! FBI!"

"Dana, don't!" Sam yelled from inside the Taurus.

The driver's side door of the police car lurched open. Scully tensed. She put both hands on the pistol, steadied her aim. "I said don't move! I will fire!"

A person tumbled out of the cruiser, sprawled onto the road. Not Michael Myers.

"Scully!" the man called feebly.

"Mulder!"

Scully ran up a short embankment, dashed the last yards to Mulder's side. The flowing rainwater on the road was mixed with red. Mulder's blood. He looked pale and weak and awful.

He managed to turn onto his back with Scully's help. She saw the massive intrusion into the chest cavity, probably made by a long, sharp instrument. A butcher knife or something very close to it. "Oh, my God, Mulder. You need a hospital."

Mulder rolled his eyes toward the Taurus. "See what happens when I let you drive?"

Scully smiled a little. "Let's get you in the back of your car. Sam must know where the hospitals are."

"Sam?" Mulder asked.

"Yes, he's--"

Another set of headlights appeared down the road. Back toward the bus station. Closing quickly. A small pair of dots growing into a powerful glow. The wind turned. Scully heard the roar of an engine.

Mulder turned toward the light. "He's coming, Scully. We've got to go."

Scully tried lifting Mulder's body. He was too heavy. She could only drag him a few feet. "Sam! Jamie! Help me with him!"

Sam and the girl reached them quickly. They all grabbed Mulder, dragged him off onto the embankment. Down the road, Michael's car was closer. Scully definitely heard the engine now.

"Mulder, where's your gun?" Scully asked.

"Dropped it," Mulder said.

Sam looked around. "Listen, the three of you head back that way, into the woods. I think I know where we are. There should be an abandoned farmhouse about, I don't know, a quarter mile away."

Scully paused. "What about you?"

"I'm going to stop him."

"How?"

Sam reached into his pocket, yanked out a handful of white stones. "With these."

"Sam. . ."

The headlights fell across all of them. "Go!" Sam moved took a step toward the street. His shoes sank into the muddy embankment. Water dripped constantly from his face, his hawk nose, but he didn't seem to notice.

Scully shook her head. "Damn it, Sam, this is crazy! Help us move Mulder."

Sam turned back to her. Touched her face, very lightly. His hand was cold. "I wish we could have met at a better time, Dana."

He left them, climbed back to the street.

Scully watched him for half an instant. "Jamie, help me lift Mulder. We don't have much time."

The girl got under Mulder's left arm, Scully under the right. They propped him up together. Weakly, he made a few steps to assist them, but it was little help. Down the embankment, past the wrecked Taurus.

Into the woods.

Away from Michael.

2.

Sam spread the runestones on the asphalt in front of him.

Michael was almost here. The headlights washed over Sam, pinned him down. Sam forced himself to ignore them. Placement of the runes was important to the ritual. The correct distance, the correct combination of power symbols.

Dawn brings the sun. The sun brings light. Light brings life. Life brings. . .

Michael's car slammed on its brakes. It skidded forward. So controlled. So graceful. It crashed into the rear end of Mulder's stolen cruiser. The impact drove the first car past Sam, off the side of the road and into the trees. Michael's stopped a few feet beyond, the engine dead.

The door opened.

Sam completed a ring of runes around his body. He turned on the balls of his feet, crouched in the middle of the power circle.

Michael left the car.

It was bizarre. Seeing him so close. There were pictures, sure. Drawings. Sketches by police artists. The descriptions from dozens of people who had, or pretended to have seen, Michael. But this. . .

A knife clutched in his right hand as if it belonged there. The unalloyed tranquillity of Michael's movements. He stalked toward Sam with no more urgency than a man going to get his mail. Measured steps. He brought a wave of fresh new cold with him.

"Michael!" Sam said. "Do you know who I am?"

Michael stopped. Six feet away. His head cocked to one side. Thinking.

Sam's heartbeat drowned out his own hearing. He couldn't hear himself talk. "My name is Sam. Sam Loomis. My father. . . my father tried to help you, Michael. Do you remember that? Do you remember my father?"

The knife did not raise. Michael's grip shifted on the haft.

"I want to help you, too, Michael," Sam said. "If you'll let me."

Sam got to his feet. Slowly. Michael still hadn't moved. Sam's knees trembled.

"I know about Thorn," Sam said. "I know what's tearing you apart."

Nothing. Michael cocked his head the other way.

"Michael, don't do this. Fight it." Sam licked his lips. Despite the rain, they were dry. "I know how strong you are. You fought it for years. You've fought it all this time. Don't let it consume you now. You can do better. You can be better. It's up to you, but you have to fight!"

Michael took one, halting step toward Sam. Instinctively, Sam recoiled. Careful, he thought. Don't move outside the ring.

The thought seemed to reach out to Michael. Sam watched the rubber face turn downward. Hidden eyes looked at the stones. "They're runestones, Michael," Sam said. "Power. The power of light. We can use them to turn you away from the darkness that's eating at you. They protect me. They can protect you."

Another step.

"Michael, listen to me!"

Closer. Three feet away. Michael straightened. Black sockets locked onto Sam's face. The knife blade turned outward and up. Tighter grasp.

"Michael!"

The knife slashed through the intervening space. It buried itself halfway in Sam's chest. Agony. Pain unlike any he'd ever felt. The breathless, crushing pain of a heart attack.

Sam didn't scream. He groaned, instead.

And fell backward.

The blade slipped free as he tumbled onto the roadway.

Michael walked past him. Into the woods. After Jamie. He didn't look back.

Sam coughed. Muscles spasmed around the burning coal in his chest. Blood in his mouth. Fox, he thought. Dana. Jamie!

He dragged himself toward Michael's stolen cruiser. From inside the car, Sam heard the squawk of the radio. Not far. One inch at a time, Sam.

So much blood coming out of him. His belly was slippery with it. Like warm oil. Hard to find the strength to crawl. It ebbed out of him with each heartbeat. A little farther. A little farther more. . .

Sam grabbed the lower edge of the open door. Up, onto the seat. The heater was blowing. Flow of hot air right into his face. It felt good. He took the handset from the radio, held it to his face. Almost no grip to push the TALK button.

"Somebody out there,": he panted. "Please, help."

3.

They cut through the dense, scratchy branches of the woods. No lights in front of them. No lights behind. Blood ran from half a dozen cuts on Scully's face. She heard Jamie gasping in panic and exhaustion. Mulder slumped between them. She wasn't even sure if he was still conscious.

No sound from behind them. First, a loud crash, then nothing. Scully prayed the Sam was all right. He was crazy, but he didn't deserve to die. No more then any of them did.

"Where is this place?" Scully asked Jamie.

They broke through a final line of trees into a clearing. Up ahead, dimly illuminated by the rolling lightning overhead, two dark structures. A house and a barn.

Jamie stopped dead. Scully almost stumbled. Mulder was too heavy.

"Jamie?" Scully asked.

"It's the Tower farm," Jamie said. Her voice was hollow.

"What's the Tower farm?" Scully asked.

"He tried to kill me here."

No sign of life. "Is anyone around?"

Jamie shook her head. "No. It's abandoned now."

"Let's get inside."

They hurried as fast as they could. At the house, the front door stood partially open. Two padlocks dangled from shattered clasps. A NO TRESPASSING sign was tacked onto the rotted wooden door.

Inside it was damp. The hall stank of mildew. No furniture. Sodden, threadbare carpeting. They maneuvered Mulder into the biggest room in the center of the house. Probably the living room.

Scully eased Mulder to the floor. His eyes were closed. She checked his pulse. Weak and fluttery, but still there. "Hang on, Mulder," she said.

Jamie crouched on the other side of him in the darkness. "We can't stay here," she said. "He'll catch up to us."

"We can't run anymore. It's dangerous to keep moving Agent Mulder," Scully replied. She checked her weapon. Almost a full load. She had two spare magazines. "This is where we have to stay."

Jamie looked at Scully's pistol. "That won't hurt him."

"We're going to have to try," Scully said.

Jamie sniffed. "He'll kill you."

Scully's jaw hardened. "He'll kill us all if I don't do something."

"We can run!"

"What about Mulder?" Scully shot back.

"He's dead, anyway!" Jamie screamed.

"No! We'll stay here and--"

The front door creaked.

Scully's head whipped around. Jamie was suddenly silent, as if she'd been slapped.

"Scully," a thready voice. Mulder.

"Quiet," Scully said.

He put his hand on hers. Half-congealed blood caked his skin. "Scully, don't do it," Mulder whispered. "Run."

Scully shook Mulder off. She crept forward, pistol up, aimed toward the dark hallway that led to the front of the house. "Jamie, stay behind me," she said.

The hall was dead ahead of her now. She saw all the way through to the front door, eyes adjusting.

To see him.

He stood framed in the doorway. Unmoving. Lifelessly still. Faint light glinted off the butcher blade in his fist. The sight of him froze Scully to the spot.

"Special Agent, FBI," Scully warned. "Move and I'll shoot."

Running footsteps, heading away. Jamie slammed a door farther back in the house. Making a break for it.

Michael moved.

Scully fired six rounds into the densest part of Michael's chest. Bullet impacts slammed him back, out of the house. He tripped on the front steps, tumbled backward. The slide locked back on Scully's gun. She reloaded automatically.

Michael's foot twitched once, and was still.

"Jamie!" Scully yelled. "He's down! Jamie!"

She advanced on Michael, kept the pistol locked on the body. Closer. . .

The knife was still in his hand, but the fingers no longer wrapped tightly around it. His chest was motionless. Dead.

Thunder rumbled, but farther away. The rain slowed.

Scully kicked the knife away into the grass. She knelt by Michael. The rubber mask encased his face and most of his neck. With her left hand, she peeled up the lower edge of the colorless material. Scarred skin underneath. Ugly, twisted map of burn scars.

Hospital fire.

She felt for his pulse.

Nothing.

"Dana, get away from him!"

Scully looked up. Jamie stood at the end of the hall. Eyes wide.

"He's dead, Jamie. I killed him."

"No," Jamie said. She had tears on her face. They shone slightly in the light.

Scully got up, moved back toward the house. "It's true. He wasn't bulletproof."

"You can't kill him," Jamie said. She sniffed. "You don't kill the boogeyman."

4.

His fingers stirred. Consciousness returned.

Eyes opened. Sights and sounds.

One desire.

One goal.

One chance.

5.

Scully reholstered her pistol. "Let's find a telephone. I lost mine."

Jamie was rooted to the spot. "Dana," she said.

"What?"

"Dana!"

Something made Scully turn.

Michael was there. He grabbed her arm as she reached for her gun. The other locked around her throat. Steely fingers as icy as the frost. All air cut off. Scully felt her feet leave the warped wooden floorboards. He lifted her effortlessly.

"No! Leave her alone!" Jamie's screams.

It's impossible, Scully thought. A single, rational thought flitting through at just the wrong moment. Run away, Jamie. I'm sorry.

Michael tossed her away. Scully slammed into water-etched wood and plaster, crashed through into the room on the other side. She tumbled painfully on the carpetless floor, came to rest against the opposite wall. Michael paused long enough to glance through the hole she made. Then he moved on.

Colors flushed Scully's vision. Blood rushed back into her brain. She filled her lungs with air. "Jamie," she gasped. "Jamie!"

Gun in her hand now. She staggered to the door of the small room, threw it open. Mulder on the floor of the living room.

No Michael.

No Jamie.

6.

Jamie ran, but she didn't know why.

It seemed like she'd been running her whole life. Michael would never stop. Not until he had what he wanted. That was all that mattered to him. And by extension, it was all that mattered to his niece.

Tonight I'm going to die.

They could run all night. All day. It wouldn't make any difference.

Somehow, thinking that changed things.

Jamie stopped at the edge of the woods.

"No," she said aloud.

She turned back to the house.

Michael stepped off the back porch. Heavy, sullen steps in her direction. The white shape of his mask was like a beacon in the darkness. So much like the man beneath: a blank.

"I'm here," Jamie said. "I'm here!"

He didn't call back to her. Did she expect anything more?

"I'm not going to run anymore," Jamie said. "If you want me, here I am!"

Scully appeared in the back door of the house. "Jamie! What are you doing?"

Thank God you're not dead, Jamie thought. That's one, anyway.

"Jamie!"

"Stay away, Dana!" Jamie shouted. "It's over. Come on, Uncle! Come kill me!"

"Jamie, don't!" Scully yelled. She fired her pistol.

Michael was stumbled. Bullets struck him in the back, in the legs. He fell to one knee. Rose unsteadily. Thirty feet away and still coming. Jamie's heart raced. She wanted to run, but she couldn't. Too many people died protecting her. It had to end.

Now.

"Come on," Jamie urged. "Come on, come on!"

Scully kept shooting. Michael pitched forward. He held himself off the ground with one hand, inched toward Jamie. Unstopped. Unstoppable. The unkillable boogeyman with a score to settle Jamie never understood.

An empty pistol magazine clattered on the porch. Scully reloaded.

Michael fell on his face. His knife hand was stretched ahead of him. The blade shone against the dark, wet ground.

"No!" Jamie screamed. "Let him!"

Scully descended off the porch. "I can't let him kill you!"

"He'll just kill more people!" Jamie protested. "I don't want him to hurt anyone else. Just let him do it!"

Jamie rushed forward. She fell to her knees into front of Michael, grabbed the knife out of his hand. Point toward her chest. Good grip with both hands. Drive it in. . .

Michael surged off the ground. One scarred hand grabbed Jamie's. Fingers like steel, unyielding. Jamie screamed.

Scully shot Michael in the back. Over and over. Bullet impacts ripped open the dark blue of his jumpsuit. Blood spurted. Flesh shredded. Michael twitched like a man being shocked.

"Just die!" Jamie screamed in his face.

He clawed his way up her body. The knife was torn loose of her grip. Michael wrapped those powerful fingers around it. One hand pressed Jamie to the ground. The other hand raised the knife.

Scully threw herself onto Michael's knife arm.

They all sprawled on the ground, a tangle of limbs and bodies. Michael fought to keep his grip on Jamie as she wriggled. He struggled against Scully as she tightened her hold on his arm. Blood, his blood smeared all of them.

Jamie broke out from beneath Michael. She searched for something, any kind of weapon.

Scully forced Michael's arm to the ground. The blade hovered in front of her face, his wrist and elbow locked up in her embrace. She kicked him in the head once, then again. "I won't let you!" she shouted at him. "I won't let you! I won't let you!"

An old sawhorse. Jamie saw it, dashed away from where they fought. The crossbeam was waterlogged, but still solid. Jamie wrenched it loose of its moorings, returned to Scully's side.

Michael twisted in the mud, the wet. Scully fell beneath him. He turned his arm, pushed the blade toward her neck. Scully lashed out with her feet. Kicked him in the ribs. In the groin. He didn't slow.

"Don't kill her!" Jamie cried.

She brought the crossbeam down on Michael's skull. The blow sounded hollow and wet. Again. Again. She battered him mercilessly. Every reserve of strength she had left. Don't stop. Don't stop!

"Die, Michael! Die! Die! Die!"

Scully shrieked as the tip of Michael's blade penetrated the flesh of her shoulder. The metal drove in slowly, half an inch. An inch. Two inches. It was a cry of unarticulated, awful pain.

Another blow to the back of Michael's head. The fake rubber scalp split open. Bloody real hair and skin underneath. Jamie poured all her rage, all her fear, all her sorrow, into one last strike.

Michael went down.

He slumped over Scully. All the tension left his body. Unconscious.

"Oh," Scully said. "Oh!"

Jamie helped ease the knifeblade out of Scully's shoulder. The blood shone bright red on the metal. She flung the weapon away, into the deeper blackness of the woods.

Scully dragged herself out from beneath Michael's lifeless body. "He's not dead," she said. "I can feel him. He's not dead."

"He's not," Jamie agreed. "Let's go."

A spotlight crashed into them. Blinding white illumination. Behind it, the roar of a helicopter turbine. Somewhere above, a PA clicked on. "Agent Scully, this is Special Agent Hawthorne, Chicago office. Please stay where you are. We have men on the ground right now."

Scully hugged Jamie close to her. She smelled faintly of perfume, but mostly of dirt, water and fear. Jamie hugged her back.

The helicopter landed nearby.

And it was done.

7.
Final Case Evaluation -- Dana Scully
November 7, 1996
5.42pm

"In the final analysis, it is difficult to say what daemons drive Michael Myers' killing urges. Whether they are spawned by some chemical imbalance of the brain, a genetic malfunction or some other cause yet unknown to science, there are no clues. All that remains is the grisly evidence and inconclusive studies of the man himself.

"Agent Mulder is recovering at Bethesda Naval Hospital from shock, blood loss and internal injuries. Dr. Sam Loomis is in charge of Michael Myers' care at the Chinlund Maximum Security Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Jamie Lloyd has returned to the care of the sisters at St. Mary's Home for Girls in Haddonfield, Illinois. A dozen members of the Haddonfield Sheriff's Department are dead, though Sheriff Ben Meeker has managed to survive another near-death encounter with Michael Myers.

"As for myself, I can only report what I saw: a deranged man with an obsession toward his niece. A man capable of withstanding grievous injury and who feels none of the genuinely human sensations of pain, love or fear. The root cause of this: unknown. I cannot subscribe to the theories put forth by Dr. Loomis, but at this time, there is nothing else I may add to the analysis.

"The murders of Mr. and Mrs. Parkinson, their son Jim and their daughter Elaine remain unsolved."

FADE OUT

Special Thanks to John Carpenter and Chris Carter.