11:12 a.m.

Michael lay on top of the last boxcar on the train, staring blankly at the sky. It had seemed so long ago-especially since he did most of his work at night-that he could enjoy the sun. Especially in the last few years before his first escape, Loomis had made sure he'd spent more and more time locked in his room at the sanitarium. Although Michael was now used to the night, he hadn't realized how much he missed the daylight hours. Once he finished with the business he had planned, he'd go somewhere where he could enjoy lots and lots of sunlight.

He noticed several familiar buildings. The train was now passing through Haddonfield. Michael rose up and leaped off into a ditch. Dusting himself off, he climbed out and surveyed the town before him past the Haddonfield railroad station. It looked just as he'd remembered it from so long ago. All the cars and clothing styles of the people out and about in the late morning hour now in hindsight screamed 1978 (indeed, he took note of the movie theater on the corner touting, COMING SOON, SUPERMAN THE MOVIE: YOU'LL BELIEVE A MAN CAN FLY). He noticed the clock atop the bank across from the railroad station: 11:15 in the morning exactly. Henceforth, it would be critical to remember what he'd been doing during October 30, 1978 at any given time (at quarter after eleven that day, for instance, he recalled he'd been brooding and planning on how to force all the other inmates out onto the lawn once night had fallen). His past self would break out in exactly nine hours from now; he'd need all that time to set up what he had planned for Her and the others.

He started trudging up High Street, ignoring the strong glances of disdain from several passersby. While he wanted to get to the Myers house quickly, he had something else to take care of first...

11:27 a.m.

Laurie finished the geometry test and put her pencil down. It had seemed easier than she'd thought, perhaps because she'd studied for it all afternoon yesterday. She put her head down, waiting for the bell, which she predicted would come in no more than two or three minutes. The frantic scraping of pencils around the classroom hinted the majority of her classmates were having a harder time with it than she had.

By now she was starting to get hungry; that light breakfast seemed almost a whole day away. Fortunately, lunch was next on her schedule, and it was in fact now that the bell did ring, like a siren in the night. With loud groans, the other students passed in their likely less than perfect tests and started gathering up their belongings. Feeling more confident than they about her results on the quiz, Laurie headed for the door...

Only to be abruptly tripped from behind them moment she was in the hall, sending her toppling to the ground and her books spilling everywhere. "Whoops, have a nice trip, Strode?" snickered an all-too-familiar voice behind her. Laurie gritted her teeth in frustration. She didn't believe in holding grudges, but if there was one person she disliked above everyone else, it was conceited, popular, pretty Janet Walden, who treated every girl not in her clique with more or less utter disdain. "Did you really need to do that, Janet?" she mumbled as calmly as she could manage.

"Hey, no hard feelings; let me help with some of those-whoops again," Janet instead kicked Laurie's books out of her grasp, prompting sycophantic laughter from her entourage behind her-laughter that quickly dissipated as they noticed the principal casually strolling up the hall towards them, not noticing anything yet. Nonetheless, the popular girls quickly scattered in the other direction. Rolling her eyes, Laurie crawled over to where her books had landed and started picking them up...

...and was soon aided by a familiar set of hands. "More Janet trouble, I presume?" Lynda asked her knowingly, bending down to pick up a few titles.

"Unfortunately," Laurie nodded, taking the other books back from the blonde, "What's it going to take for her to start seeing me and everyone in this school as more than just a caricature?"

"Who knows?" Lynda shrugged, "Well, I don't know about you, but I'm totally starved, so let's go eat."

"Agreed," Laurie followed her friend towards the cafeteria at the end of the hall; hopefully a good lunch would get her mind off her social problems. The cafeteria was already packed when they slipped through the doors. The line moved fast enough for them to have their lunches all delivered in a little under five minutes. The two of them quickly located Annie at the end of the table against the far wall. "I swear, if they make this food any worse, we'll all be keeling over dead soon," the other brunette vented as they sat down, gesturing at her tray, "How do they expect us to eat any of this?"

"I don't think it's that bad," Laurie countered, taking a bite of macaroni from her own tray.

"That's half the problem with you right there, Laurie; you never challenge convention or authority on anything," Annie shook her head.

"Problem? I really don't think it's a problem, Annie," her attention was momentarily diverted by several popular boys entering the cafeteria at the moment. If only they cared that she existed...

"And another thing; what do they expect us to get out of this?" Annie continued venting, holding up a piece of chemistry homework that had been graded a D+, "Most of us don't have a clue what the melting point of molecules is, and we all could care less, so why do they bother with quizzing us on this?"

"I see you're totally in a mood today," Lynda noted.

"How incredibly observant of you, Lynda; yes, I am, because on top of all this, Paul told me after second period he had to cancel for this afternoon; something that came up last night he had to take care of after school," Annie sighed in frustration, "I swear I can't understand boys half the time, so in a way, maybe it's a good thing you're not dating, Laurie, or you'd...Laurie? Hello, are you in there?"

Laurie's attention had been diverted again. She'd been glancing towards the window-and had seen, to her surprise, a homeless man right outside, staring inside-staring right at her. Or was he? "What's he doing?" she mused out loud.

"Who?" Lynda turned to follow her gaze.

"That homeless man, looks like he's..." Laurie had turned away briefly when her friend had spoken, and found the homeless man had completely vanished from the window when she looked back. "That's strange, how'd he disappear so quickly?" she frowned.

"Assuming he was there in the first place," Annie was dismissive, "Knowing how you study till the crack of dawn for everything..."

"He looked pretty real, Annie; I swear he was there, looking in at us," Laurie glanced back out at the now deserted street. Had it all been in her mind?

Michael waited a few moments before sliding back to the window and looking back in. Yes, it was her, as young and lovely as he had once remembered her being on that fateful day and evening. He pressed his face almost up against the glass, watching her return her attention to her lunch...

"Hey, you," came the abrupt shout from behind Michael, making him jump slightly in surprise. He turned to see Sheriff Lee Brackett leaning out the window of his cruiser, which had pulled up behind him without warning. "Yeah, you," the sheriff continued, frowning, "Come over here."

Michael wearily trudged away from the window as Sheriff Brackett climbed out of his cruiser and stormed over. "What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, "Haddonfield High is not a place for anyone to be spying. We'd all like our children to have some privacy while they learn; I certainly do myself. Who are you, anyway?" he glanced at Michael from head to toe, "I've never seen you in this town before. Passing through, are you?"

Michael quickly nodded. "All right, I'll let you off with a warning this time, but don't let me catch you hanging around here like this again, or I'll run you in for trespassing," the sheriff admonished him, "Move along, now."

He waved Michael up the block before climbing back into his cruiser and driving off. Michael shot a contemptuous backwards glare at the retreating police car. Even though Brackett had hardly done anything to hinder him on that fateful night, he disliked the man anyway. Oh well, he thought to himself, the man was still going to lose his daughter by the time Halloween was through, and go into the downward spiral that her death had indeed put him through in the unaltered timeline.

He kept trudging down the streets of Haddonfield, ignoring the disapproving glares of people he passed, until he reached the Myers house. He stood before it reverently for a moment before quickly slipping inside, knowing with relief that his tramp disguise worked well under the circumstances; anyone who did see him inside would just assume he was a transient looking for a roof over his head for the night, especially with the rain that was coming later in the evening. He inhaled deeply, soaking in the memories of the house, both those that had already happened here at this particular point in time, and those that would happen here over the years to come. One other memory, though, was strongest of all at the moment...

Dr. Clugg, Michael had discovered, had more in common with him than he'd thought when they'd first met, for, as the insane magician had related to him in the asylum, his family had owned the Myers house three generations ago. His great-grandfather had been an insane surgeon (madness apparently ran in the Clugg family) who, it had been said, operated a secret torture chamber somewhere inside the house. As the years had gone by, though, most people had dismissed that as an urban legend.

Michael, however, knew the urban legend was true. When he'd been four, he'd been wandering around the house and, after crawling into a closet, had accidentally triggered a secret entrance and fallen through the door and down a set of stairs into a tunnel. Fascinated, he'd followed it to the end and discovered the torture chamber, which had completely fascinated him. For a minute, anyway, before Judith had swooped down, dragged him back upstairs, nailed the door shut, and vehemently made him swear never to go looking for it again, little suspecting that in doing so she was helping to plant the seeds of her own demise. The first time out of the asylum, he'd been too excited at simply being out and able to wield a knife again to bother looking for the chamber. Now, it was finally time to do so. However, his memory after all these years wasn't exactly the best, and he forgot which closet it had been in.

He stepped into the nearest one and tapped at all the walls. No hollowness was apparent at all. Undaunted, he strode a few feet down the hall into the next one. This time, there was a hollow sound when he tapped the far wall. Michael stepped back and gave it a hard kick. The wall immediately collapsed from years of rot. The stairway down into the chamber was visible on the other side. Michael followed it down to the bottom-about seventy feet down or so-and up a tunnel that didn't seem quite as long as he'd remembered. Finally, he bumped into the heavy iron door to the chamber. Slipping inside, he groped around for the old time light switch he'd remembered being on the wall and threw it when he found it. A low hum coincided with the flickering of ancient lights all around the former torture chamber. They emitted only the weakest of light, but Michael preferred it that way for his purposes.

He stepped into the middle of the chamber and took it in. Everything appeared to be the way it had been left so long ago when the authorities had dragged Dr. Clugg's great-grandfather off to the nuthouse, little knowing what had lain under the house. Decomposing skeletons still hung in shackles on the wall. Ominous surgical equipment was stacked next to empty cages all around the room. And a thick layer of dust and cobwebs covered everything-in short, Michael couldn't have asked for a more terrifying environment for his plan.

He strolled over to one of the most notable features in the room: an early electric chair. He examined it closely: the leather straps were starting to wear out, and he'd need something with far more power than the ancient and likely no longer functional generator currently hooked up to it, but those replacements could be easily obtained. He then walked to the center of the room and examined the operating table there. Its straps also needed replacing, but otherwise it was what he needed; already he could just imagine Her strapped down to it, his complete prisoner. No other imminent implements of death were readily available in the chamber, so he'd have to pick them up later. Lastly, he took note of the door. It looked quite heavy and could probably withstand an effort from outside to break in once closed and locked. And better, the iron locking bars still looked in prime condition. No one was coming into the chamber later on that he didn't want coming in.

He returned to the middle of the chamber and admired his new domain. His next goal in his master plan would be to find Dr. Clugg and get some of the items he needed off of him-whether the not so good doctor wanted to share them or not...