11:01 a.m.

Down in the torture chamber, Michael listened to his past self finish up "breakfast." The dog, likely a stray, had somehow gotten into the Myers house at some point just before sunrise and had started barking up a storm once it had seen him. After snapping its neck clean in two to keep it from alerting the neighbors, he'd decided in the end not to let fresh meat go to waste. While "breakfast" hadn't tasted like chicken at all, it had, at least, been more than enough to sustain him for the rest of that Halloween.

Abruptly the sounds of eating stopped. Moments later, the front door crashed shut. His past self was now on the hunt. Michael, though, waited a few minutes before lumbering back up into the Myers house proper. With the sun being close to directly overhead at the moment, no light shone currently through the shattered downstairs windows, although a brisk breeze rattled the broken glass. Over in the corner behind the dog's corpse, where it had lain until he'd returned for it around six to prepare for the horror show he'd eventually set up at the Wallaces' house, was Judith's tombstone. Michael now hefted it and carried it down into the chamber. Much as he had eventually done at the Wallaces', he wished to make the torture chamber's atmosphere terrifying for his guests once they arrived, and, as in the past (or present as it technically was now), Judith was going to unknowingly help him do it. He set the tombstone down on top of a pair of old cages he'd set up at the head of the operating table; he appreciated the symbolism this would telegraph once he had Her in place. He did one last check in his memory to make sure he'd taken care of everything. Everything did in fact seem to have been accounted for so far. A smile crossed his lips; it was time to begin his own hunt. As long as he didn't run into his past self-which wouldn't be too much of a problem given he remembered his every move on that day-he had nothing to worry about.

Slipping out of the magician's assistant's robe and back into his usual attire, he pushed the chamber door almost all the way closed and sprinted back upstairs, slipping his mask on right before he stepped outside into the afternoon sun. His plan now was to go to her house and wait. When she arrived, he'd pounce. And then, she'd be all his for the rest of the evening-at least until her time came at midnight...

As he walked off for the Strodes' house, he failed to notice Dr. Clugg's truck coming up the street behind him, pulling up in front of the Myers house just as he turned the corner . "This is it," Michael's future cellmate told his hunchbacked assistant as they climbed down from the cab and bustled up to the front door, "This is where the Clugg family legacy began. And I just know in the pit of my stomach our little thief came here."

"Hmm," Klaus peered through the front windows, "No sign of anyone inside, Dr. Clugg."

"He may be down in the chamber if he discovered it; my uncle told me where it was located," Dr. Clugg seized the doorknob hard, apparently expecting to have to force the door open, but looked pleasantly surprised when it opened without any resistance. "Aha, someone HAS been here recently," he proclaimed, nodding at the very prominent NO TRESPASSING sign next to the door that certainly precluded that it would have been normally locked, "Once we do find the chamber, Klaus my friend, we simply wait for him to return. And then, he'll have a very hard lesson to learn from us."

12:58 p.m.

"...hello in there, earth to Laurie, are you even listening to me?"

Laurie snapped out of her malaise in front of her open locker. Annie was staring at her to the right with raised eyebrows. "That's four times I had to ask to get your attention just now; you've been out of it since third period this morning. What is eating you today?" she asked firmly, looking both mildly concerned and almost bemused at the same time.

"Oh, uh, nothing, Annie, it's just...I think someone was looking in at me in literature class from across the street," Laurie confessed, putting a number of her books away, "After last night, I can't..."

"Maybe Mr. Faceless from last night wants to ask you for a date tonight," Lynda leaned over Annie's shoulder, clearly trying hard to restrain from laughing, "Maybe he wants to spend Halloween with you in his dark dimension, to ask you to be his bride for all eternity."

She did crack up laughing at this, and Annie had to fight to do the same. Laurie lowered her head. "You don't believe me about any of this, do you?" she asked them, hurt.

"Look, Laurie, it's not that we don't believe you, really, but I mean, honestly, teleporting homeless men and faceless phantoms?" Annie inquired, raising her eyebrows even higher and fighting as hard as she could to keep from laughing, "I think I know what the problem here is: you've been studying too hard lately, and your mind's finally cracked. Maybe it's a good thing you don't drink, or you'd've seen the Headless Horseman coming after you on the way home last night."

"Or the Great Pumpkin rising up out of the pumpkin patch to give her treats," Lynda cracked up harder as the bell rang. She and Annie galloped off to their next class. Laurie slowly swung her locker door closed and slumped her head against it. Were they right that she was starting to crack up? Everything had seemed so real yesterday and this morning, but was it all in her head? She wasn't even really sure anymore.

"Is everything all right, Laurie?" came a sudden, more sympathetic voice in her ear that made her jump. "Oh, Mrs. Hill," she acknowledged her literature teacher, "I, uh...I, um, suppose I'm all right, yeah."

"You just seemed a little off in class earlier," the teacher said, looking genuinely concerned, "Since you're usually so attentive, I worried something was wrong. Everything OK at home...?"

"Yes, yes, my family good, Mrs. Hill, thank you," Laurie told her, wondering how much she should let on about what had been going on for her over the last twenty-four hours, "It's just, well...it's...I've had a lot on my mind lately..."

"Yes, graduation can be a little tough to take the closer you get to it," Mrs. Hill remarked.

"Well, yes, that and...Mrs. Hill, is it possible...I know some people have...what I'm saying...do people my age have breakdowns from studying too hard?" she figured it wouldn't be that detrimental to tell some of it in the end, "I've thought I've seen things the last few days, and some people seem to think..."

"Well, I don't think you have to worry about that, Laurie," her teacher offered some helpful advice, "I've never head of anyone studying themselves to insanity-certainly very few students in Haddonfield High even come close to that level these days, it seems. And after all, it is Halloween; people's minds do tend to play tricks on them at times during the Season of the Witch. Whatever's on your mind is probably just your mind working against you."

"Hmm," Laurie mused, unable to stop herself from thinking how much the phrase 'Season of the Witch' would make for a good book or movie title if someone would know how to apply it correctly for whatever reason, "I suppose that's a reasonable explanation. Maybe it was all in my mind..."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing. Thank you for everything, Mrs. Hill," she told her, starting to walk off. Then another thought that had been nagging her for a good part of the afternoon came to her. "Oh, Mrs. Hill," she spoke up as the teacher was starting to leave, "I've, uh, also been thinking about what we read today, and I can't help wondering...is fate really that unchangeable? I mean, I know what the author was meaning to say, but, well, are we...?"

"Well, Laurie, I suppose that everyone's opinion on the subject of fate's probably a little different," Mrs. Hill admitted, "Some might see it one way and others an entirely different one. And I guess my answer for you would be both yes and no. Sometimes we can't control what happens to all of us, but it's how we handle it that makes a difference. Take for instance Quasimodo; fate dictated he and Esmeralda would never be together happily, but he chose to make the best of the situation, and could be fairly considered heroic by we the readers. And in a way, if we make the right choices when such a decision counts, we can tilt fate in our favor, I suppose, even if the end result isn't a happy one. On the other hand, our futures aren't set in stone; each decision we make along the way changes our fates each second. And since we have this freedom, there's really no need for us to be bound to a certain outcome if we wish. I hope that answers your question."

"Well, sort of. Thanks again, Mrs. Hill," Laurie told her as the bell rang again.

"Glad to help. Well, enjoy the rest of the day, and I think you'll enjoy what we're going to start working on next week," her teacher informed her with a wry smile.

"Can't you give me a hint?" Laurie inquired.

"Now that would spoil the surprise, wouldn't it? Happy Halloween, Laurie."

She walked off. "Happy Halloween to you too, Mrs. Hill," Laurie called back, bustling up the hall towards the chemistry lab. Hopefully Alice wouldn't be too upset she was late; her lab partner had been leaning heavily on her all semester long. Part of her felt at ease now; at least she felt glad she probably wasn't cracking up, and most of what she'd gone through was probably just tricks of the mind. Still, the chance existed that she could be wrong and something far worse could still depend upon her, fate or not...