-2-
THE VISION
"Welcome, my children, back to Mistress Zoe's temple of fortune." Who is our next caller?"
"Um, uh, hi, Mistress Zoe...My name is Susan. I'm concerned about my boyfriend...we've been fighting a lot..."
The voice on the other end was clearly young, timid, and easily dominated. Yet, it seemingly yearned for validation, likely due to some sort of childhood trauma, or lack of parental affection. Her father...
"Salutations, honey-chil'! Say no more... let Mistress Zoe look into the cards of fate for you. Hmmm....he is much older, yes?"
"Yes! Yes, that's right!"
Yep, that was it, all right. Dead on. She's being smothered, likely even abused by some older creep, and she's desperate to get out of the relationship. Standard fare. She'd seen it a thousand times before. Mistress Zoe continued to read the cards. Time to drop some of the obvious observations, as "surprisingly profound" as they would seem to the girl on the other end of the line.
"Hmmmm...he's always questioning you about where you've been, correct? Always waiting up until you come in the door?"
"Oh my god! Yes! That is SO right!"
"Yet when you ask him where he's been whenever he comes in late out of legitimate concern for him, he chastises you, and gets very angry. That boy has one feisty temper!
"That is so true...there wasn't a week that didn't go by in high school where he didn't get in a fight...oh wow, this is so cool!"
Okay. Avoid the abuse assumption. Too much red tape to have to deal with the station. Again, Mistress Zoe scattered the cards and read, conveniently turning up a card with a storm cloud.
"You fear that he's cheating on you."
A pause, a sniffle, and then, "Yes, I do."
"And you are right. He is a dog, girlfriend! You need to kick him to the curb!"
The young girl released a relieved giggle, amidst a sob. "I know, it's just so hard, but you're right. I have to. It's true. Thank you. Thank you, Zoe."
Poor girl. Be nice now; keep her mood positive. "That boy ain't nuthin' but bad seed that needs to be trimmed at the branch! Drop that stray cat and hook yourself up with a man who deserves you!"
Again, that sad giggle. Half laugh, half sob. But she was cracking her up! Give her more, but not much - remember the time window...other callers await.
"I see brightness and light in your aura. And see this card? It is the lovers' card. It says that your true love will find you, before the advent of Samhain." Now that was a little tacky - should have kept it real - hopefully it will slip by. She's bound to hit the bars by then...
"Okay, thanks."
"Bye-bye, sweet chil'...I love you!!"
Two hours later, a very exhausted Mistress Zoe left the stage, and disappeared behind the door of her studio change room. Ten minutes after that, her alter ego, Clarrissa Evans, mild -mannered mother of one, emerged from her change room cursing under her breath as she made hastily for home.
Damn it, she thought. Dannika was going to have her head for being so late.
And to top it off, her last caller had been nothing but an exercise in frustration, accusing her of being a fraud and sleaze-bag opportunist. Sure she had dealt with it professionally as usual, but it didn't change the fact that tonight, this one particular caller had got under her skin. The bitch. Who the hell was she to judge? So what if she was a fraud? An opportunist? So what? She made people happy by telling them what they wanted to hear. Besides, if the common caller was self-actualized enough to work through their own problems on their own without her, then Mistress Zoe wouldn't be such big business.
After all, it's not like she'd had it easy over the years. Clarrissa Evans, a graduate of the University of Minnesota at the top of her class with a double major in Dramatic Arts and Psychology, had set herself out to Hollywood, as an aspiring actress. After countless rejections and an unfortunate casting couch incident, she had left Tinsel-town morally and emotionally bruised, not to mention 5 months pregnant.
Her unfortunate situation and lousy luck had brought her to here, Butt-Fuck, Illinois (a.k.a. Haddonfield.) where she took shit job after shit job, as a waitress, or hostess or measly corner store clerk, just to make ends meet, and to keep food in the mouth of her sweet little Dannika.
Dearest, Dannika. She hadn't planned on being a mother so early in her life, but that didn't change the fact that she loved her on sight, and had managed to spoil her rotten at the tender age of 4. Now things were paying off, so miss lady caller could just stick it where the sun don't shine. Besides, it was kind of fun - the outrageous outfits, the trinkets and the goofy Jamaican put-on with a touch of fly girl were just too great. She had fun doing her job, and she doubted that many around here could say the same, including that trailer trash whore, the lady caller.
Clarrissa unlocked the drivers side door and was about to step into her car, when from behind her spoke a raspy voice, grainy, with a thick British accent;
"Yo, brown sugar,"
She turned to face the voice, startled, and the only observation before she was knocked unconscious was that the smiling figure before her looked like a lost member of the Rolling Stones. His narrow, leathery and hard wrinkled face bespoke of premature aging due to the smoking of a thousand cigarettes, (and probably a whole lot of booze combined with that, Clarrissa thought). It was a pallid contrast to his long black hair, a throwback she hadn't seen a person that age wear since the `80's. As well, he was wearing sunglasses. Why was he wearing sunglasses at night?
Clarrissa didn't have a chance to ask. He hit her across the head, and darkness consumed her.
When consciousness flooded back into her brain, she found to her horror, that she was locked in a cage suspended in a dimly lit room full of candles. Beneath her was a stone basin filled with dry kindling. Incense filled the air, and Clarrissa noted that her skin was soaked with something slippery. Cooking oil?
Attempting to keep herself together, Clarrissa focused on her surroundings, and looked ahead. A dark robed figure stood with its back to her, chanting. Was that Latin? The figure's arms were animated and upraised like some sort of priest, in praise. In its left hand it held a dagger. On the altar before it, Clarrissa could just make out the shape of an animal's head - a goat.
"Laudemus Cernunnon, Hernem; Cornigerum; Deum venationem. Poscimus te accipere hoc sacfrificium, signum modestum venerationis nostrae."
The robed figure brought the blade down and slit the goat's throat, while using its other hand to steady and hold the diminishing thrashing of the poor beast's body. At this particular moment, Clarrissa did the only thing any rational human being would do. She began to scream her lungs out. The robed figure turned at the sound of her screams, removed its hood, and began to walk in her direction. On its way, it grabbed a towel and began soaking the blood off it hands into it, while the dead beast continued to bleed all over the altar.
Into the light, stepped Dr. Sam Loomis. Clarrissa had time to note that the man's face was surprisingly warm and inviting, the face you'd expect to see across the dining room table at Christmas; the face of a grandfather. Yet something was off. Something was wrong. His eyes...they were coal black, like the eyes of a serpent. She began to panic.
"Ah, hello, my dear. My apologies. I hadn't realized that you had awakened yet."
"Oh God, oh God....please...don't hurt me.... Oh God, please..."
"Yes yes, dear, I..."
"Please, anything you want...I'll do anything at all...please just let me go. For the sake of my little girl, please just let me go." I'll do anything..."
"Anything?" Loomis quipped. "Anything at all? That's very generous of you, dear. I think I'll take you up on your offer. It's a very small request, I'm sure that you'll..."
"ANYTHING! Whatever you want I'll do it! Just please, let me go..."
"Yes, dear, yes. As I was saying, my request is quite small. It is simply that you shut your fucking mouth."
"Wha-what?"
"Shut up. You're raving, and you're interrupting me. I hate that. You're being rude. Besides your groveling has already gone far beyond pathetic."
In stunned shock, Clarrissa's jaw dangled, then she closed it slowly, her eyes round and white, staring back at the doctor in silent terror.
"I understand that you fancy yourself a psychic. A telepath. I once held a girl in my company for six years, whom manifested such abilities, though I hadn't known at the time. It wasn't until the acquisition of my present...facilities, that I gained the knowledge of how truly special she was. And how special her child still is. A very special boy indeed."
Loomis stopped talking for a moment, and walked over to the far wall. He picked up a large torch, and with one of the candles illuminating the room he lit it. He then walked back over to the cage. Once again, he began to speak.
"In order to appease the gods, the Druid priests held fire rituals. Prisoners of war, criminals, the insane - animals were....burned alive, in baskets. By observing the way they died, the Druids believed they could see omens of the future."
Panic began to rush in again, with the dawning of understanding, as Clarrissa's eyes once again fell to the dry kindling below the cage.
"Oh God! Please...Oh no, oh no, oh no no no...."
"You fancy yourself as one who enlightens, Clarrissa? Then by all means. Enlighten me."
Loomis threw the torch below the cage, and it went up like a matchbox. Clarrissa began to scream as the fire blazed up and began to consume her. Loomis tilted his head slightly and watched, in silent fascination as the smoldering stench of Clarrissa's skin searing began to drown out the smell of the room's incense. Near the end, when her screaming had long since stopped and her body stopped its convulsions, the fire danced it's orange flames and reflected back in the black of Loomis' eyes, and that's when he saw it.
The vision.
Only there for a second, barely visible. Some psychic, he thought. Yet it spoke to him in volumes.
Michael.
Michael. His dear boy. He was coming home. Finally, he was coming home. It was about time, as he had grown tired of the search and the long wait. In the shadow of the flames, the thing that had consumed Sam Loomis and taken his form had smiled.
It smiled with good reason. Things were finally coming together. With Loomis' memories, and Loomis' secrets, he now had all of his pawns in place, and it was merely a matter of bringing them together.
He (it) disrobed, and donned the ever-familiar guise of Loomis' tan trench coat. No more time for ritual. There was work to be done. Office work. There were phone calls to be made, and people to talk to. Again it smiled, with anticipation that it had not felt in millennia.
Back at the home of Clarrissa Evans, Lindsey Wallace, Dannika's baby-sitter, held the crying little girl in her arms. Dannika missed her mommy.
THE VISION
"Welcome, my children, back to Mistress Zoe's temple of fortune." Who is our next caller?"
"Um, uh, hi, Mistress Zoe...My name is Susan. I'm concerned about my boyfriend...we've been fighting a lot..."
The voice on the other end was clearly young, timid, and easily dominated. Yet, it seemingly yearned for validation, likely due to some sort of childhood trauma, or lack of parental affection. Her father...
"Salutations, honey-chil'! Say no more... let Mistress Zoe look into the cards of fate for you. Hmmm....he is much older, yes?"
"Yes! Yes, that's right!"
Yep, that was it, all right. Dead on. She's being smothered, likely even abused by some older creep, and she's desperate to get out of the relationship. Standard fare. She'd seen it a thousand times before. Mistress Zoe continued to read the cards. Time to drop some of the obvious observations, as "surprisingly profound" as they would seem to the girl on the other end of the line.
"Hmmmm...he's always questioning you about where you've been, correct? Always waiting up until you come in the door?"
"Oh my god! Yes! That is SO right!"
"Yet when you ask him where he's been whenever he comes in late out of legitimate concern for him, he chastises you, and gets very angry. That boy has one feisty temper!
"That is so true...there wasn't a week that didn't go by in high school where he didn't get in a fight...oh wow, this is so cool!"
Okay. Avoid the abuse assumption. Too much red tape to have to deal with the station. Again, Mistress Zoe scattered the cards and read, conveniently turning up a card with a storm cloud.
"You fear that he's cheating on you."
A pause, a sniffle, and then, "Yes, I do."
"And you are right. He is a dog, girlfriend! You need to kick him to the curb!"
The young girl released a relieved giggle, amidst a sob. "I know, it's just so hard, but you're right. I have to. It's true. Thank you. Thank you, Zoe."
Poor girl. Be nice now; keep her mood positive. "That boy ain't nuthin' but bad seed that needs to be trimmed at the branch! Drop that stray cat and hook yourself up with a man who deserves you!"
Again, that sad giggle. Half laugh, half sob. But she was cracking her up! Give her more, but not much - remember the time window...other callers await.
"I see brightness and light in your aura. And see this card? It is the lovers' card. It says that your true love will find you, before the advent of Samhain." Now that was a little tacky - should have kept it real - hopefully it will slip by. She's bound to hit the bars by then...
"Okay, thanks."
"Bye-bye, sweet chil'...I love you!!"
Two hours later, a very exhausted Mistress Zoe left the stage, and disappeared behind the door of her studio change room. Ten minutes after that, her alter ego, Clarrissa Evans, mild -mannered mother of one, emerged from her change room cursing under her breath as she made hastily for home.
Damn it, she thought. Dannika was going to have her head for being so late.
And to top it off, her last caller had been nothing but an exercise in frustration, accusing her of being a fraud and sleaze-bag opportunist. Sure she had dealt with it professionally as usual, but it didn't change the fact that tonight, this one particular caller had got under her skin. The bitch. Who the hell was she to judge? So what if she was a fraud? An opportunist? So what? She made people happy by telling them what they wanted to hear. Besides, if the common caller was self-actualized enough to work through their own problems on their own without her, then Mistress Zoe wouldn't be such big business.
After all, it's not like she'd had it easy over the years. Clarrissa Evans, a graduate of the University of Minnesota at the top of her class with a double major in Dramatic Arts and Psychology, had set herself out to Hollywood, as an aspiring actress. After countless rejections and an unfortunate casting couch incident, she had left Tinsel-town morally and emotionally bruised, not to mention 5 months pregnant.
Her unfortunate situation and lousy luck had brought her to here, Butt-Fuck, Illinois (a.k.a. Haddonfield.) where she took shit job after shit job, as a waitress, or hostess or measly corner store clerk, just to make ends meet, and to keep food in the mouth of her sweet little Dannika.
Dearest, Dannika. She hadn't planned on being a mother so early in her life, but that didn't change the fact that she loved her on sight, and had managed to spoil her rotten at the tender age of 4. Now things were paying off, so miss lady caller could just stick it where the sun don't shine. Besides, it was kind of fun - the outrageous outfits, the trinkets and the goofy Jamaican put-on with a touch of fly girl were just too great. She had fun doing her job, and she doubted that many around here could say the same, including that trailer trash whore, the lady caller.
Clarrissa unlocked the drivers side door and was about to step into her car, when from behind her spoke a raspy voice, grainy, with a thick British accent;
"Yo, brown sugar,"
She turned to face the voice, startled, and the only observation before she was knocked unconscious was that the smiling figure before her looked like a lost member of the Rolling Stones. His narrow, leathery and hard wrinkled face bespoke of premature aging due to the smoking of a thousand cigarettes, (and probably a whole lot of booze combined with that, Clarrissa thought). It was a pallid contrast to his long black hair, a throwback she hadn't seen a person that age wear since the `80's. As well, he was wearing sunglasses. Why was he wearing sunglasses at night?
Clarrissa didn't have a chance to ask. He hit her across the head, and darkness consumed her.
When consciousness flooded back into her brain, she found to her horror, that she was locked in a cage suspended in a dimly lit room full of candles. Beneath her was a stone basin filled with dry kindling. Incense filled the air, and Clarrissa noted that her skin was soaked with something slippery. Cooking oil?
Attempting to keep herself together, Clarrissa focused on her surroundings, and looked ahead. A dark robed figure stood with its back to her, chanting. Was that Latin? The figure's arms were animated and upraised like some sort of priest, in praise. In its left hand it held a dagger. On the altar before it, Clarrissa could just make out the shape of an animal's head - a goat.
"Laudemus Cernunnon, Hernem; Cornigerum; Deum venationem. Poscimus te accipere hoc sacfrificium, signum modestum venerationis nostrae."
The robed figure brought the blade down and slit the goat's throat, while using its other hand to steady and hold the diminishing thrashing of the poor beast's body. At this particular moment, Clarrissa did the only thing any rational human being would do. She began to scream her lungs out. The robed figure turned at the sound of her screams, removed its hood, and began to walk in her direction. On its way, it grabbed a towel and began soaking the blood off it hands into it, while the dead beast continued to bleed all over the altar.
Into the light, stepped Dr. Sam Loomis. Clarrissa had time to note that the man's face was surprisingly warm and inviting, the face you'd expect to see across the dining room table at Christmas; the face of a grandfather. Yet something was off. Something was wrong. His eyes...they were coal black, like the eyes of a serpent. She began to panic.
"Ah, hello, my dear. My apologies. I hadn't realized that you had awakened yet."
"Oh God, oh God....please...don't hurt me.... Oh God, please..."
"Yes yes, dear, I..."
"Please, anything you want...I'll do anything at all...please just let me go. For the sake of my little girl, please just let me go." I'll do anything..."
"Anything?" Loomis quipped. "Anything at all? That's very generous of you, dear. I think I'll take you up on your offer. It's a very small request, I'm sure that you'll..."
"ANYTHING! Whatever you want I'll do it! Just please, let me go..."
"Yes, dear, yes. As I was saying, my request is quite small. It is simply that you shut your fucking mouth."
"Wha-what?"
"Shut up. You're raving, and you're interrupting me. I hate that. You're being rude. Besides your groveling has already gone far beyond pathetic."
In stunned shock, Clarrissa's jaw dangled, then she closed it slowly, her eyes round and white, staring back at the doctor in silent terror.
"I understand that you fancy yourself a psychic. A telepath. I once held a girl in my company for six years, whom manifested such abilities, though I hadn't known at the time. It wasn't until the acquisition of my present...facilities, that I gained the knowledge of how truly special she was. And how special her child still is. A very special boy indeed."
Loomis stopped talking for a moment, and walked over to the far wall. He picked up a large torch, and with one of the candles illuminating the room he lit it. He then walked back over to the cage. Once again, he began to speak.
"In order to appease the gods, the Druid priests held fire rituals. Prisoners of war, criminals, the insane - animals were....burned alive, in baskets. By observing the way they died, the Druids believed they could see omens of the future."
Panic began to rush in again, with the dawning of understanding, as Clarrissa's eyes once again fell to the dry kindling below the cage.
"Oh God! Please...Oh no, oh no, oh no no no...."
"You fancy yourself as one who enlightens, Clarrissa? Then by all means. Enlighten me."
Loomis threw the torch below the cage, and it went up like a matchbox. Clarrissa began to scream as the fire blazed up and began to consume her. Loomis tilted his head slightly and watched, in silent fascination as the smoldering stench of Clarrissa's skin searing began to drown out the smell of the room's incense. Near the end, when her screaming had long since stopped and her body stopped its convulsions, the fire danced it's orange flames and reflected back in the black of Loomis' eyes, and that's when he saw it.
The vision.
Only there for a second, barely visible. Some psychic, he thought. Yet it spoke to him in volumes.
Michael.
Michael. His dear boy. He was coming home. Finally, he was coming home. It was about time, as he had grown tired of the search and the long wait. In the shadow of the flames, the thing that had consumed Sam Loomis and taken his form had smiled.
It smiled with good reason. Things were finally coming together. With Loomis' memories, and Loomis' secrets, he now had all of his pawns in place, and it was merely a matter of bringing them together.
He (it) disrobed, and donned the ever-familiar guise of Loomis' tan trench coat. No more time for ritual. There was work to be done. Office work. There were phone calls to be made, and people to talk to. Again it smiled, with anticipation that it had not felt in millennia.
Back at the home of Clarrissa Evans, Lindsey Wallace, Dannika's baby-sitter, held the crying little girl in her arms. Dannika missed her mommy.