This fan fiction takes place immediately after Rob Zombie's Halloween (the first movie only.)

Summary: After Michael disappears and Laurie has left for her own safety, the town of Haddonfield deals with the fallout of Michael's latest crime spree. Meanwhile, another seventeen year old girl starts having strange dreams about the Myers family.

Rated T. Language and sexual situations are toned down from the Rob Zombie movies, but they are going to make a presence once in a while.

November 1

Today is my birthday. At least, today is the day that I've always celebrated my birthday. I was actually born on October 31st, at midnight, which is technically still Halloween.

On that same night — October 31, 1978 — a ten year old kid named Michael Myers killed his sister Judith, as well as his stepfather and Judith's boyfriend. The bodies were rolling into the morgue of the same hospital, at the same moment, when I was born. My mildly superstitious parents had pushed for the doctor to subtract that extra minute so my birthday would fall on November 1st.

When I wake up, my alarm clock radio is blaring "Don't Fear the Reaper." I get up and shuffle to the bathroom and splash water on my face, hoping it will eradicate the strange images that have invaded my sleep.

I return to my room. From my window, I can see squad cars cluster down the block. I am not surprised to see them. Throughout the night, I could hear sirens wailing by.

My house feels empty. My dad usually leaves for work at this time, but Mom is around somewhere. I go downstairs. Mom left the cake out to thaw on the counter, but I don't encounter her on my path to the door.

I jog out the door and down the driveway, trying to absorb any information I can from afar. The police are not doing anything of note. A few officers were searching the area.

"Stella," Mom calls from the house. She emerges at the open door. It seems to take a long time for me to recognize her.

"Chelsea's on the phone," Mom says, anxious to coax me into the house.

Chelsea's the gossip queen of Haddonfield. She would know everything about what happened last night.

"It's Laurie," Chelsea announces when I pick up the receiver.

"Laurie's dead?" I echo.

"No, she's not dead. Annie and Lynda are dead and the guy tried to kill Laurie, but he got stopped."

"What guy?"

"You wouldn't believe it." Chelsea sounds prematurely insulted that I might not believe her. "It was Michael Myers. You know, the kid who offed his sister? Of course, you know. You read that book by the doctor. The doctor's dead too, by the way."

"He escaped," I guess. "On Halloween."

"Did you hear this before?" Chelsea questions harshly.

"No. Go on."

"It gets weirder. You remember there was a baby in the family? Michael's little sister? Well, it turns out Laurie's the baby. The Strodes adopted her. Would you have ever guessed that? She doesn't act like a Myers."

This news does surprise me. Dr. Loomis never mentioned what had happened to the baby afterwards. Like everyone else, I had guessed that Angel Myers was living far away from Haddonfield.

"What happened to them?" I ask, meaning Laurie, the Strodes, Michael Myers, Dr. Loomis . . . I'm not sure who.

"I'll tell you everything at the party," Chelsea promises. She hesitates. "There is still a party, right? Your parents haven't called it off?"

"I'll have to ask," I tell her.

II

When I first read Dr. Loomis's book, The Devil's Eyes, Chelsea did not share my interest. No one did, not even my best friend Joanne. "But it happened here," I told them once, trying to explain what appealed me to the grim case of Michael Myers. Joanne reminded me that no one cared about here. They all wanted to escape Haddonfield and move out into the world.

Dr. Sam Loomis's book inspired my interest in criminology. I read a lot of mysteries and true crime, and I look particularly for human behavior and its multiple causes and effects. The Michael Myers case is the most elemental in that regard. Why was he a killer? It could not only be his drunken, abusive stepfather or his being bullied at school. So many other kids grow up in similar circumstances and they had not all slaughtered their families.

His motives for killing Judith are especially a mystery.

There are other stories about the Myers that are not based in fact. Many of them are vile. That Michael had an incestuous relationship with Judith. That Michael had an incestuous relationship with his mother. That Judith and her boyfriend were Satanists and they made Michael take part in their rituals. There is a definite, single-minded pattern to these rumors. While the Myers obviously had their problems, there was no actual evidence to suggest any of these are true. It's amazing that no matter how shocking a murder is, people have to try and make it even more shocking.

Dad arrives home, bearing a small package.

"Guess what I got prepared today," he announces cheerily.

He behaves like he has not heard of what happened last night, which is impossible. I am puzzled, but when I catch sight of the package, I forget all about Michael Myers.

"It's here? Already?" I ask. I bounce over to take a closer look at the package. I see my name printed on the crisp, brown parcel paper in permanent marker.

I can already identify what's inside: my class ring. I'm the first in my class to get one; Dad's a jeweler and he mounted the ring himself, though he sent it out for engraving. I can tell he put in extra time so it would be ready for my birthday. I hug him and thank him profusely.

We gather in the kitchen. I sweep the paper away and Mom compulsively picks it up. Dad's elegant store jewel box was revealed. I open it and lift out the ring. For a while, I marvel at the yellow and brown streaked topaz stone. Most people don't ordinarily think of yellow and brown as beautiful colors, but on this stone they blend just right.

"It's beautiful," I say, awestruck. "Thank you, Dad."

I turn over ring, and immediately my fingers freeze through the cold metal. I examined the letters etched on the band in disbelief

Instead of spelling out Stella in its tiny typeset, the six letters proclaim JUDITH.

"What is this?" Dad spots the different name as well. I can't answer so he took the ring.

"A mistake," he says tightly. He tries to keep it light, but he sounds as alarmed as I feel. "I'll take it back and get it fixed."

I nod. It is no big deal that I have to wait a few more days for my ring. I am more stunned that that name - JUDITH- is imprinted on the ring. It seems an incredible coincidence that of all the wrong names the ring could possibly have borne, it is JUDITH. I wish it were any name but JUDITH.

III

Later, when my parents are out of the room, I sneak another look at the ring. I expect the name to disappear like the specter it has to be. Of course I'm disappointed. JUDITH's ring has not changed.

My parents do not cancel the party. My disappointment with the ring must contribute to their decision. JUDITH's ring preys on my mind, and I doubt I am able to hide my preoccupation from them.

I go with Mom to pick up some extra paper plates and napkins and extra batteries for the stereo. At the store we run into Mrs. Wallace. Mom gives her an uneasy greeting and inquires about how Lindsey is faring. She also blathers on about my birthday party.

Mrs. Wallace stares at me in wonder. "That's right. Today is your birthday. I was thinking it was yesterday."

"No," Mom says in a tight voice identical to Dad's when we examined JUDITH's ring. "It's November first."

"Oh," Mrs. Wallace's face melts into a smile. "Well, happy birthday dear. Don't do anything I would do." She laughs.

IIII

Though the weather is reasonably warm, we stay inside in the living room. Dad and I have shoved all the furniture aside for games, but we just stand around. There are six of us: me, Joanne, Chelsea, and then Alice, Bree, and Melanie.

Alice takes command of the stereo. She slips in a tape. "Dancing Queen" blurts from the speakers. I am not crazy about ABBA, but I am relieved to have something replace "Don't Fear the Reaper," which has been running through my head all day.

Joanne speaks first. "I brought movies," she volunteers. Joanne's boyfriend works at Blockbuster so she rents tapes more frequently than the rest of us. She lists a few of the videos she has brought. No one pays attention, including me. I hear the titles, but I cannot summon interest in them.

Then Bree whines "Why don't your parents let you invite guys over, Stella?" As if that's the reason we're standing in a stupor.

"Yeah," Melanie chimes in. "The way your parents act sometimes, you'd think you were the lost Myers baby instead of Laurie."

"I would have never guessed Laurie was a Myers," Alice confides. As she talks, she sways a little to the music. She is not that invested in the news.

"Neither did Laurie," Chelsea reports, with more concern than she usually exhibits. "She had no idea she was even adopted, I bet. The Strodes are that type; they would say Laurie is their child even if they weren't the ones that birthed her."

Apart from Dr. Sam Loomis, Morgan and Pamela Strode had been the only ones who knew who the masked assailant was at the time of their deaths.

I ask, "So where is Laurie anyway?"

"Witness Protection Program," Chelsea answers. "The Feds will create a new identity for her in another state."

"Cool," Melanie mutters. At least she has the decency to blush when she realizes she's been overheard. "Well, I never knew anyone who did that."

I wonder how Laurie is taking all this change. I don't know her all that well - mostly from class - but she always struck me as shy and quiet. I could not imagine her reacting to her friends' and parents' deaths at the hands of her estranged brother with anything but terror and grief.

"It's like Michael Myers gets superstrength on Halloween," Bree mentions.

"What superstrength?" Chelsea rasped. "He escaped while he was being transferred from the clink. He took advantage of a weak link in the system."

"On Halloween."

"It's a coincidence."

"Then how come he got away even though he was shot and stabbed all those times?" Bree persists.

"Let's watch a movie," Joanne said, more firmly this time. She lunges over and slaps the Stop button on the stereo.

"Hey," Alice protests, outraged that Joanne silenced her precious ABBA.

"It's movie time," Joanne announces.

I choose Sleepless In Seattle, the movie least likely to meet with any gripes. We spread blankets and pillows all over the floor and watch in sullen silence. During the slower scenes, my eyes would rove to the window.

At one point, I glance over and that mask greets me through the glass. I jump and let out a hiccup. Next to me, Joanne looks over, but she doesn't see anything alarming. Nor does anyone else. The mask has vanished.

I have to write it off as my imagination, I suppose, but I cannot relax and enjoy the movie. I am waiting for that mask to appear again and it unsettles me that I'm sure I am the only one who will see it next time.

The movie finally ends. Mom enters. "Are you girls ready for some cake?"

We scramble up, grateful for another distraction.

"I hope you got ice cream cake," Melanie says.

I shake my head. "It's just ordinary cake," I say, apologetic.

Melanie looks disappointed.

Mom sets the cake down on the table. My friends starts singing "Happy Birthday to You," but the individual melodies fall away one by one as we get a better glimpse.

Under the green curlicue letters that proclaim Happy Birthday, someone had squeezed in, in red icing, the name JUDITH.

IIIII

Mom scrapes off the letters, but we have all mysteriously lost our taste for cake. We avoid it. Chelsea and Alice and Joanne and I dig into the ice cream. Eventually I carve out a slice for myself, mainly because Mom is close to tears, but it remains largely untouched. When I brave a couple of bites, the others watch me as if they expect me to keel over from poison.

"He put a tombstone over Lynda's body," Chelsea blurts out. "Judith Myers' tombstone."

"So what, does he think Lynda is Judith?" Alice asks with a nervous giggle.

No one can answer that because no one knows what Michael Myers thinks. I am aware when I write this, I have to say "thinks" in the present tense because he is still out there, thinking and planning.

Author's note: I'm having a slight disagreement with the formatting features on this site. It apparently isn't recognizing single line breaks, even though I've done the Shift + Enter steps the site recommends. I've been trying to find the most unobtrusive means to preserves those spaces, but they were originally supposed to be blank spaces. I want to reserve the use of the in-formatted horizontal numbers to designate any notes, and it seems like only letters and numbers will do: no asterisks or hyphens or any other symbols like that. So far I'm sticking with II, III, etc. even though they aren't supposed to be official Roman numerals. They're just place holders.

If anyone has any better suggestions, I'll welcome them.