5:31 p.m.

On another lonely stretch of Illinois road, the same light phenomena that had heralded Michael's arrival through time lit up the heavens again. Out of it, a solitary figure hurtled to the ground. Hitting the grass hard, he looked around and cursed his luck; his physical 1978 destination had somehow deviated from what he'd entered in the computer back in the future. After all these years, technology still tended to fail at critical moments. But that was no further concern to him. He needed to get to Haddonfield as quickly as possible; given the head start Michael had, there was no telling how far along in his plans he was.

Fortunately, a tractor trailer was coming up the road towards him. He hobbled out into the middle of the road and waved it down. "What's the story, mac?" the driver leaned out the window once he'd braked to a stop.

"Are you heading to Haddonfield?" he asked, "I need a ride there A.S.A.P."

"Nope, I'm going to Alton," the driver said.

"Close enough," he opened the passenger side door and climbed up into the cab, "I'll catch another ride there."

"Good Lord," the driver was staring at him in shock, "What happened to you, buddy?"

"I'm forbidden to tell you that," he gestured for the driver to start going again, "All I can say is that it's something that could have been avoided if I'd thought things out better at one point or another."

It was his turn to stare at the driver. He knew of this man; he would have been one of Michael's victims shortly after his second escape ten years from now, a murder that had left the man's wife and children destitute. If his plan, unknown to the people who'd sent him back in time, worked, he could spare the man's family the agony of losing him. All he'd have to do was find Michael. And recruit the right help, difficult though that would be given the circumstances...

With a loud crash of thunder, the heavens opened up. "Woo boy," the driver exclaimed, switching on the windshield wipers, "I knew they were calling for wet stuff, but I didn't expect it this heavy. Maybe some big force knows it's going to be Halloween or something."

"You may be right," his passenger nodded grimly. He glanced at his watch. Two and a half hours before Michael would first break out of Smith's Grove. The clock was ticking for everyone...

6:41 p.m.

The Michael of the future was also trying to memorize his past movements as he backed into a space behind the Ambridge Town Hall. He really wanted to be out of Ambridge no later than eight so he could pick up some loose ends back in Haddonfield for his plan tomorrow night, and be all done by the time his past self arrived home for the first time.

He took a quick glance to the back of the van, where Vett's body was safely locked in a trunk formerly filled with his Stain-Off bottles. Still, Michael wished to be in and as quickly as possible; parking where he was parking now carried the great risk of alerting the police something might not be kosher with the vehicle. Nevertheless, he left the engine running as he climbed out and trudged around to the front of the building. Throngs of people, many of them happy families, having been duped by Dr. Clugg's posters into thinking his show was family friendly, were streaming in the front door. "Three dollars admission," a man in a vampire outfit at the door told Michael when he tried to simply walk in, frowning at his tramp disguise. Michael pulled the money out of Vett's wallet, which he'd filched just in case, and handed it over. Although there were plenty of seats still available inside, he leaned against the back wall instead of sitting down. His plan was to sneak backstage once the show started, and that would work best if his departure wasn't apparent to other people.

The minutes stretched on towards show time. No one else seemed to notice Michael, even though his homeless man guise was out of place among the affluent middle class families sitting down to wait for the show to begin. Finally, at seven o'clock exactly, the lights dimmed. "Ladies and gentlemen, boy and girls," came a low, hissing voice over the microphone that Michael knew belonged to Dr. Clugg's hunchbacked assistant Klaus, "give a warm welcome to the master of the macabre, that great illusionist himself, Dr. Thaddeus Clugg."

Michael forced himself to clap laconically as loud, scary music heralded Dr. Clugg's arrival on stage, wearing his usual stage makeup that made him look like a rotting corpse. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen," he hissed ominously at the audience, "Tonight, for your viewing pleasure, we will examine the very essence of life and death, as is fitting for Halloween. As such, you will experience such sights as THIS!"

He made a burst of flames rise from his hand, and when it died down, a skull that Michael knew was real rested in the doctor's palm. Clugg then nonchalantly hurled it into the front row, prompting numerous terrified screams. "Klaus!" he called out.

"Yes, Dr, Clugg," Klaus ambled on stage, causing more screams at his hideous appearance.

"Prepare the manacles," Dr. Clugg ordered him, "The first illusion tonight will be a most terrifying one-an escape from a coffin filled with live cobras."

"Yes Dr. Clugg. Bring forth the shackles and the snakes!" Klaus shouted to the wings. Several additional members of Clugg's staff, all wearing black robes with the hoods up, trudged solemnly on stage, carrying a coffin, chains, and several jars from which angry hissing could be hear even from the back row. Several families immediately got up and left, none of them noticing Michael slipping through the door that led backstage.

He waited quietly behind a group of flats and watched the men set up the snake coffin trick for Dr. Clugg. As luck would have it, one of them ambled off stage once everything was in place and started rooting around in his robe for something, possibly a cigarette. Michael ever so carefully shoved over a nearby stack of boxes to get the man's attention. "Hey, what's going on over here?" he took the bait and sauntered over. In a flash, Michael drew his knife and drove it home. The man's low scream was easily drowned out by the loud music on stage. Michael dragged him behind the flats and quickly put the man's robe over his tramp disguise. No one had apparently noticed the brief disappearance of his victim, so he easily slipped into place at the edge of the stage just as Dr. Clugg had been completely nailed into the coffin. "The curtains, please," Klaus ordered the rest of the assistants.

"Hey Otto, come on, that means you too!" one of the hooded men yelled at Michael, standing quite separately from the rest of them, as they strode as a group towards the set of curtains on wheels at the back of the stage. Keeping his head low, Michael rushed over and helped them push the curtains around the coffin. He knew how the trick worked: ordinarily, the screws in the head of the coffin were too short, and thus Dr. Clugg could easily push it open once the curtains were in place and slide out. In the future, when he had killed some of his victims in this manner, he'd simply added the normal, longer screws back into place, which was what Michael was considering doing himself once he gained possession of the coffin-if it would turn out he needed it in the end.

Although he knew it had taken Clugg mere seconds to escape the coffin, the deranged magician kept the audience sweating for close to four and a half minutes before stepping triumphantly through the curtains to loud applause. "Thank you," he told them without a drop of sincerity, "And now, for my next illusion, I will need a volunteer from the audience."

Michael paid no attention as he and the rest of the assistants carried the coffin and its sawhorses off stage. He'd memorized Clugg's schedule to the T, and the time to make his move was now.

Once everything had been deposited backstage, he hung around and waited till he was alone. Then he made a beeline for the prop section, and more specifically, the case containing Dr. Clugg's personal collection of restraints. He opened it up and lovingly examined the collection of handcuffs, leg irons, and heavy leather straps, among others. Then he closed it up, grabbed several straitjackets off a nearby pile, and bustled for the back door. Outside, he opened the van's rear doors and tossed the case and straitjackets inside. He returned in time to note Dr. Clugg placing a young woman inside a guillotine. While this guillotine happened to be a fake, Michael recalled that Clugg did occasionally, when not performing, kill his victims with a real one-and that indeed, he'd been exposed and arrested after the real one had been set up on stage by accident about five years from now. Had it been available for the taking at the moment, Michael would have left with it, but he couldn't see it anywhere.

What was available, however, was a large vertical rack of spikes right behind the curtain. Michael walked over and examined it thoroughly. All the spikes were real and very sharp; when Clugg was locked underneath them during his act, Michael knew, only the fact his restraints were usually attached to the table with Velcro allowed him to slide safely off the table in time before they'd fall on him. But if he simply replaced the decaying straps on the operating table in the torture chamber...

Nodding, he glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then wheeled the spike rack out the back door and into the back of the van. On his next trip, he hefted and carried out the coffin, by now cleansed of the snakes, and a fistful of the longer screws from the toolbox nearby. Finally, his attention fell on Dr. Clugg's water torture cell in the corner. Again, Michael had learned how it worked: Klaus would normally remove the bolts while locking his master inside, allowing Clugg to easily swing up and get all the air he needed once the curtains were in place. All he'd have to do was leave the bolts firmly in place for his victim. And the water torture cell had a handy automatic filling valve at the bottom, a special innovation by Clugg that would allow it to fill up quickly for a performance. All he'd have to do, Michael realized, was turn it on when he was ready, and his victim would quickly be under water. He started to wheel the water torture cell out the door...

"Hey Otto, Klaus says you're supposed to get the spiders ready for the..." one of the hooded assistants grabbed his shoulder just as he was out the door and turned him around, "Hey, wait a minute, you're not Otto! Where's Otto?"

Cornered, Michael stabbed this man as well. This time, with no music on stage, his scream was heard by all, and added to by a loud crash of thunder outside, making many members in the audience scream in fright as well. On stage, Dr. Clugg stopped in the middle of swallowing a sword and glanced towards the wings. "Well, it appears perhaps the spirits of the dead may just be with us ahead of schedule tonight," he said grimly to the audience. Covering the microphone, he gestured Klaus over and muttered softly in the hunchback's ear, "Find out what the hell's going on back there; they're ruining the act here!"

"Yes, Dr. Clugg," Klaus ambled offstage and towards the open back door. "Where do you think you're going with that!" he shouted, seeing Michael loading the water torture cell into the back of the van outside, "The show's not over yet! We need that for...!"

Then his gaze fell on the newest dead assistant at his feet. "Hey, what...you...hold it right there, you!" he shouted at Michael, charging straight towards him. Michael slammed the van's back doors shut and ran hard for the front door. Klaus, however, caught up to him and seized him around the chest. "You're not going anywhere, my friend, whoever you are!" he bellowed, trying to wrestle Michael to the ground, "You've got a lot of explaining to do, buster!"

Unable to go for the knife, Michael pushed Klaus up off him and kicked the hunchback in the face. He dove headfirst into the van, shifted into drive, and peeled back towards the highway, not bothering to shut the door behind himself. The van disappeared into the rain just as Dr. Clugg barreled out of the building. "What happened!?" he demanded to his chief assistant, jerking Klaus back to his feet, "Who was that, and why did he kill Bonar? And how many of my things did he take?"

"I don't know, Dr. Clugg," Klaus shook his head, "But I did memorize his license plate, so we should find him very easily after the show."

"Good," Clugg nodded, "Because if he finds out what he's got, we could be in deep, deep trouble with the police. So let's go back in and finish the show so no one gets suspicious, then go on the hunt as soon as possible."

As he finally pulled the van's driver's side door closed as he roared out of Ambridge at double the speed limit, Michael was thinking about Clugg as well. He knew it would be best to ditch the van once he got everything loaded into the torture chamber back at the Myers house; Clugg always had been a harsh man with anyone who crossed him, and stealing the man's prize possessions was guaranteed to bring down his wrath.

He hunched over the steering wheel and stared blankly ahead at the road unfolding before him in his headlights. There was still one more thing he needed before he returned to Haddonfield, and fortunately, there was a power substation just off the highway about halfway back to town where he could get it...