7:34 p.m.
Laurie slowly drifted back into consciousness. She felt quite sick, and her wrists hurt for some reason. Slowly but surely, the struggle at her house came back to her-the unseen intruder that had overpowered and chloroformed her...
She opened her eyes to see...nothing, as everything was pitch black wherever she was now. She became aware that she was tied to the chair she was sitting in, accounting for the pain in her wrists. Something soft but thick had also been bound over her mouth, as she found when she tried to cry out for help and got only a low muffled moan. But she wasn't alone: the sound of someone struggling could be heard to her left. At first, she could make nothing out when she turned her head towards the sound, but as her eyes adjusted to the faint sliver of light streaming from under the door directly in front of her, she made out a familiar figure thrashing about in another chair: Janet...
"Why?" she thought to herself, confused and worried by their sudden predicament, "Why kidnap the two of us? Who would...?"
And then it slowly materialized out of the darkness in front of her without warning, as if by magic: a monstrous Shape with a pale white face. There was a low muffled shriek from Janet at its sudden appearance, and it took all of Laurie's self-control not to do the same-particularly since the Shape was staring right at HER. It walked towards her and slowly glanced at her from head to toe, lingering in places Laurie definitely did not want to be looked at. Her eyes went quite wide as she saw the knife in its hand, glistening in the weak light coming from under the door. Without making a sound, the Shape slid the knife down the length of her arm without actually making contact. Laurie had no idea what it was planning at the moment-and the ambiguity frankly terrified her.
"Maybe it's not money he...it wants," a horrible thought occurred to her, "Maybe it wants...my body...or worse...!"
Just then, her ears picked up a very welcome sound: voices getting louder, approaching wherever they were. Laurie's heart leaped as she heard a door creak open on the other side of her door. "HELP!" she screamed as loud as she could through her gag, "SOMEBODY HELP...!"
The Shape abruptly thrust its knife to her throat, forcing her to stop. With its other hand it smothered Janet's face even though it was clear she had been gagged too. Footsteps trudged across the floor outside the door, and the gleam of a flashlight snaked through the door's edges. "What is that?" came a man's low voice on the other side.
"A dog," came a second voice that Laurie recognized as Mr. Brackett's. "Still warm." the sheriff mused softly.
"He got hungry," the first man said grimly, making Laurie grimace in horror at the mere thought of whatever the Shape might have done to the poor creature.
"Ah, could have been a skunk," the sheriff scoffed.
"COULD have..."
"A man wouldn't do that..."
"This isn't a man," the way the other man said this made a shiver run down Laurie's spine. She glanced up at the Shape, who certainly didn't seem all that human at the moment to be sure. Other than slightly heavier breathing, it made no sign that the arrival of the newcomers made any difference to it. Nevertheless, it kept its knife firmly against Laurie's throat even after the men had started climbing upstairs to the second floor. "It happened in here," Laurie could just make out the other man saying directly above them, "She was sitting right here. He could have seen her through this window. Standing on the lawn, he could have seen inside..."
A loud crash rang out from above, making Laurie jump in surprise. Above her, however, the man breathed a loud sigh of relief, followed by a forced laugh. "You must think me a very sinister doctor," he half-joked to the sheriff, "Oh, I do have a permit."
"Seems to me you're just plain scared," Sheriff Brackett sounded unconvinced.
"Yes, yes, I am," the other man took a deep, nervous breath, "I met him fifteen years ago. I was told there was nothing left, no reason, no conscience, no understanding, and even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong. I met this six year old child with this blank, pale, emotionless face, and the blackest eyes; the devil's eyes. I spent eight years trying to reach him, and then another seven trying to keep him locked up, because I realized that what was living behind that boy's eyes was purely and simply evil."
The Shape, also apparently listening in, let out a very deep breath. Laurie had little doubt whom the topic of the conversation was. Whoever was holding her captive, he now seemed to be even more unhinged than she'd thought...
"What do we do?" Sheriff Brackett asked.
"He's been here once tonight," the other man said, "I think he'll come back. I'm going..."
There came a loud buzzing sound. "What've you got?" Sheriff Brackett asked out loud-probably over his radio, Laurie surmised from the crackling sound that was ringing above them now. She couldn't make out what the policeman on the other end of the radio was saying, but whatever it was, it made the sheriff say, solemnly, "Oh? Really? Be right there, then. Just got another call, mister," he told his companion, "Missing person report-someone I know, in fact-so that takes precedence over this. I've got to check it out right now."
"Go right ahead," the other man said calmly, "I'll be here, waiting for him. But I believe, Sheriff, that in the end you'll find whatever you've being called to is connected with what I'm telling you."
"Maybe. I sure hope not, though. I'll check back in an hour," Sheriff Brackett said, sounding more than a little worried now. His feet thumped back down the stairs and out the front door. Moments later, Laurie heard an engine start and the blare of a police siren that slowly faded away. She listened as the other man paced around in circles upstairs for some time before coming downstairs himself. He paused for a moment, making Laurie wonder with trepidation if he'd heard Janet and herself at any point before, but her heart sank as the door slammed shut and his footsteps trudged away. It was only then that the Shape removed the knife from her throat. This did not make her feel any better, however, given that it continued to stare psychotically at her. The sooner both she and Janet got out of this, she knew, the better. But how...?
8:06 p.m.
"Annie, something's going on over at the Doyle's," Lindsay Wallace called from her front window.
"Like what?" Annie joined her at the window-and was amazed to see almost half a dozen police cars parked by the Doyles' across the street. "What do you think happened?" the younger girl asked, looking concerned.
"I don't know, but...wait a minute, here comes my dad," she frowned, seeing him in fact walking towards the Wallaces' now, with Tommy Doyle in tow. "Wait here; I'll take care of this," she told Lindsay, bustling to the front door just as the doorbell rang. "Dad, what's going on?" she asked once she opened it for him.
"Maybe something big," he looked grim, "And maybe you could help me a little, Annie. Was the last time you saw Laurie when she went by our house earlier on?"
"Well, I called her around four thirty, and she seemed all right then. Why?" her stomach started dropping, "What's happened, Dad?"
"We're still not sure," he shook his head, looking quite worried, "Laurie never showed up to babysit Tommy here," he gestured at the boy, who looked, if possible, even more worried, "His parents waited about a half hour, then called us. Did Laurie say or do anything suspicious this afternoon that you noticed? Annie?"
She couldn't answer. Inside she was horror-struck. Perhaps Laurie HAD been seeing someone watching her all around town after all. "She...she did say she thought someone had been following her lately, Dad," she admitted, now regretting having driven away from the Strodes' earlier without fully checking out the house, "I...I thought it was all in her mind...I'd never have thought..."
"I see," he mused softly, "Did you happen to see anyone or anything suspicious?"
"No...wait, there was this guy earlier, he was driving past us on the way home from school," she suddenly remembered the incident, but decided not to let on that she had shouted at the driver and perhaps set him off, "Laurie did seem a little freaked out by him; I thought it was someone from school at the time..."
"Did you get a good enough look at him?"
"No, but it was a beige car. I didn't get the license plate, though."
"I see," he nodded, writing something down on a notepad. "All right, thank you, Annie; this may help us with the investigation. Before I go, would you be willing to watch Tommy for the rest of the night?" he put a hand on the boy's shoulder, "His folks already had to go."
"I guess so," she nodded softly, still a bit stunned from what she'd been told.
"OK then. And above all, Annie, be VERY careful here tonight. We think that there could be someone in town tonight who's very dangerous, so if I were you, I'd lock all the windows and doors and keep an eye open at all times. In fact, I'd feel more comfortable if I brought you home myself, so I'll be by at eleven to pick you up if this is over by then; we can worry about your mother's car tomorrow. Oh, and Annie..."
"Yes?" she'd been turning to leave with Tommy.
"I thought I warned you not to smoke, young lady," he waved an accusing finger at her, but didn't push the matter any further as he trudged back towards the street. Annie groaned as she closed the door; he HAD noticed earlier after all. But that was quickly driven out of her mind as the full weight of what her father had said began sinking in: Laurie was likely in trouble, and she'd ignored the warning signs when they'd been in plain sight...
Even without realizing it, she trudged almost zombielike to the kitchen, where she slumped into a chair and buried her face in her arms. All these years, she'd almost taken Laurie for granted, but now, in the present, she couldn't imagine life without her friend-and now she realized just how great of a friend Laurie had been. And if she was in any true danger...
"Are you all right?" Tommy had appeared in the doorway without any warning. Annie jumped slightly from the surprise. "Oh, uh, yeah," she said quickly, "Uh, you, uh, you didn't notice anything over your place that might help...what is it?"
Tommy looked pale. "I saw the Boogeyman, over here, just after you showed up," he pointed out the window. Annie walked over to it and squinted out. "There's nothing there now," she frowned.
"But I saw him, I swear!" the boy insisted, "I'm sure he's got Laurie; I told her not to go to the Myers house this morning; she most have woken him up or something...!"
"Now just relax, I'm sure this is nothing to be upset about," Annie assured him in the calmest voice she could manage, "I'm sure my dad'll find Laurie in the next hour or so, and she'll be all right. Why don't you go play with Lindsay? I'm going to make an important call."
"OK," Tommy ambled back to the living room. Annie glanced around the corner to make sure he wasn't listening in, then closed the door, reached for the phone, and dialed a familiar number. "Hello?" an somewhat inebriated voice picked up after a few rings.
"Bob, put Lynda on, this is important," she told him firmly.
"Give me a minute," Bob told her. It was, though, more than a minute later before Lynda came on the line. "Hiya, Annie, how's it hanging?" she asked jovially, clearly having already had one too many.
"Lynda, listen, this is bad," Annie told her grimly, "Something's happened to Laurie..."
"Oh, you mean she finally found a date...?"
"Damn it, Lynda, this is no joke, so just shut up and listen to me!" Annie roared loudly. She pressed an ear to the door to check that Tommy and Lindsay hadn't been alerted to the shout before continuing, "She never showed up to babysit Tommy; my dad's over there looking into it right now, so I know it's something serious. And Tommy's saying something about the Boogeyman; I don't know what he might have seen, but I can tell this is bad, this is really, really bad (had she looked over her shoulder out the window, she might have seen a pale Shape in the bushes, one that quickly dropped out of sight when she turned slightly in its direction and started moving away from the house). Laurie's in danger, I just know it, and we have to do something, right now, or she might be..." she found herself sniffing back tears, "We owe her, both of us, if we want to call ourselves her friends; we owe it to her to find her and help her. Do you understand me, Lynda van der Klok!?"
There was a sobering silence on the other end of the line. "Where and when do you want me?" a decidedly worried Lynda asked slowly.
"At the Wallaces', as soon as humanly possible," Annie told her firmly, "We'll go from there. And try not to drink anything else; I'd like you as sober for this as possible."
"All right, we're on our way," Lynda said in parting before hanging up. Annie trudged back to her seat and stared blankly ahead into space, hoping that what she was planning would be in time to help Laurie-if they could find her...
8:25 p.m.
Laurie strained hard with her wrists, trying hard to loosen the ropes. Whoever her abductor was, he-or perhaps IT-seemed rather adept at tying knots, for she had little slack to work with. She knew she had to keep trying, though; there was no telling what else the Shape had in mind for Janet and herself. At the moment, the Shape had melted back into the darkness, but she could still hear its labored breathing, and indeed, she somehow sensed its presence all around the darkened room.
She could also hear Janet sobbing hysterically to her left as she threw herself around her chair in a wild panic. In spite of all the dirty tricks the popular girl had played on her over the years, Laurie couldn't help feeling sorry for her at the moment; she could understand how traumatic the situation was. Glancing around to make sure the Shape wasn't (directly) watching, she jerked towards Janet until the two of them were quite literally face to face, and she could see straight into Janet's terrified eyes. "It's going to be OK," she enunciated as best as the gag would allow, "We'll get through this all right, trust me."
Janet stopped struggling, a stunned and surprised look on her face. She mumbled something through her own gag that sounded like, "How do you know? And how can you ask me, after...?"
"Because I care about people," Laurie mumbled back as best she could, "Even those who don't like me. I'm here if you need anything, Janet."
Janet bowed her head in shame, a look of deep humility on her face. Laurie raised a sympathetic leg onto her fellow captive's kneecap. "Come on, turn around," she mumbled at her, "We can work on each other's ropes."
Janet nodded in acknowledgement and started to jerk around in a circle so she and Laurie would be back to back. Unfortunately, it was at this point that the Shape materialized out of the darkness and roughly pushed the two of them as far apart as it could. Without saying a word, it then bent down and removed Laurie's right shoe, but not her left. She frowned, completely puzzled, as it gently slipped the shoe outside the door and closed it, then started rummaging in its pockets for...something. "What's he up to now?" Laurie thought to herself, wondering at the same time if she really wanted to know...
8:32 p.m.
"No sign of Michael here," Loomis said over his radio to his future self, "Any luck on your end?"
"Nope," Samuel admitted, "I'm going yard to yard on the block he was on at this time to..."
"Freeze!" came a loud shout, followed by the sound of lots of guns cocking. "Blast," Samuel grumbled, "the authorities. I shouldn't have..."
The line clicked off in a blast of static. Loomis shook his head, hoping this could be cleared up quickly. He leaned against a tree in front of the Myers house, where he'd been standing guard for the last hour. Thus far, few people had passed by the Myers house during that time, and things were in fact so calm that under normal circumstances, Loomis might have considered stepping out for a coffee. He knew better than to walk away now, though, especially with lives at stake...
Just then, he heard a low crashing in the bushes two houses down, followed by a scraping sound. Loomis jerked around. Trick-or-treaters didn't usually go crawling through the bushes like that. He drew his gun and bustled quickly towards the house in question. Sure enough, when he looked around the side of the house, he saw a dark Shape trying to climb up the fence-a very familiar Shape...
"Michael," the doctor barked. His patient slowly turned and stared intently at him, as if daring Loomis to make the first move. Loomis trudged slowly towards him. "It ends now before it begins, Michael," he said sternly, keeping his gun trained on him, "Come over here and..."
Without warning, Michael swung his knife at Loomis. Loomis jumped out of the way in time, but the sudden maneuver made him lose focus long enough for Michael to plow into him, knocking him down, and then take off running up the street. Loomis rolled onto his chest and fired a pair of shots after his patient, both of which missed. He heaved himself up and chased after the killer, but Michael proved too fast, despite all the time he'd spent locked in the asylum before this evening. Finally, he jumped into Loomis's former car, which was parked up the street, and peeled off into the night. Loomis huffed to a stop in the middle of the street and cursed his bad luck...
...until he heard the blaring of a horn right behind him. A taxi was coming straight at him. Loomis quickly flagged it down. "Follow that car," he instructed the cabdriver, pointing at Michael's car disappearing into the distance.
"Hey, I run a business, pal; this ain't no movie," the cabdriver retorted, "Give me one good reason I should."
"How about because Benjamin Franklin says so!?" Loomis shoved a hundred dollar bill into the man's hand.
"Works for me," the cabdriver gestured him into the taxi and burned rubber after Michael.
8:58 p.m.
Annie saw the familiar van coming up the street. She waved it into the parking space in front of the Wallaces' with the two flashlights she'd found in the kitchen drawer. She knocked on the driver's window, which took a good minute to roll down. "Bob, go look after the kids while we're out," she told him, raising her eyebrows when he stumbled out of the van, half-drunk, "I'll get nailed if they're unattended. We'll be back in an hour if we don't find anything. Keys."
He tossed them towards her, almost missing. Annie rolled her eyes and climbed into the van, again not noticing the winded, huffing Shape rising up to glance out from behind the nearby bushes-which then quickly ducked back down out of sight before she could have gotten a good look anyway. The police had largely left the Doyle house across the street by now, her father included, and the two officers still left weren't paying her any attention anyway. "I can drive, you know," Lynda insisted with a slur across from her in the passenger seat.
"I'm sure you could, Lynda, but then we'd get picked up for driving on the sidewalk, and my dad would never let me hear the end of it," her friend pulled into traffic, "I just hope you're sober enough to help with this."
"Of course I'm totally sober," the blonde insisted. Her expression grew more somber. "Any news?"
"None," Annie shook her head grimly, "I've watched the Doyle house like a hawk since I got the news; no sign of Laurie at all, so I know it's serious. She wouldn't just disappear without telling anyone, especially us."
Lynda merely grunted knowingly. "So where're we going first?" she asked, gazing almost dreamily out the window.
"It's a long shot, but it's worth a try," Annie told her, "When Tommy came over to Lindsay's, he mentioned Laurie had been at the Myers house this morning. Maybe someone was in there or something."
"Maybe it was the guy you yelled at when we were walking home," Lynda suggested offhandedly, "He was totally uptight about the whole thing."
"Oh God, I hope not," Annie shivered; if yelling at that driver had caused him to snap and come after Laurie, she'd never live with herself. The two of them were quiet the rest of the way to the Myers house, where they pulled in right behind Dr. Clugg's truck. "Hey, I saw this guy's show last year," Lynda commented, stumbling out of the van, "It was totally too bizarre."
"But what's it doing here?" Annie frowned, handing off one of the flashlights to her friend. Taking Lynda by the arm when she started swaying drunkenly, she led her friend slowly towards the Myers house, which loomed ominously before them in the night. "This is a total dump," Lynda commented out loud as they climbed up onto the porch, "I hope whoever buys this off Laurie's dad tears it down and builds something that's..."
A sudden loud crash behind them made both girls cry out. They turned and breathed a simultaneous sigh of relief to see it had merely been the drainpipe falling to the ground. "See, that's what I mean," the blonde continued, "That could have totally hurt someone who..."
"Quiet," Annie raised her hand, a worried look on her face. She glanced warily through one of the broken windows. "I thought I saw something moving in there," she whispered softly, "Stay behind me; run if anything happens."
She flicked on her flashlight and pushed at the door, which creaked open like a coffin lid. The two of them crept inside the house, which seemed completely deserted. The floorboards creaked loudly under their feet, and the wind howled softly through the other broken windows on the first floor, adding an ominous whistling sound to the haunting environment around them. "Hello?" Annie called softly, shining her flashlight uneasily around the front hallway, "Laurie? Anyone?"
There was no response and still no sign of life. Annie gulped nervously; the house was making her very ill at ease. The sooner they got this over with, the better.
"You see anything?" she mumbled to Lynda, who was staggering into what had once been the living room to their right.
"Not unless someone turns on the lights," the blonde almost laughed out loud for seemingly no reason, leaning against the wall to keep from falling over, "You see the switch anywhere?"
"I don't think it'll work, Lynda; I think they shut off the juice after the Myerses moved away," Annie aimed her flashlight up the stairs, but saw nothing out of the ordinary within its beam, "Wish they'd left it on, though," she shivered, "All those stories about this place..."
"So what are we supposed to be looking for, anyway?" Lynda asked, now slumped against the wall and shining her own flashlight straight into the corner without moving the beam at all.
"Any sign that Laurie might be in here, anything at all-and the sooner..." Annie stopped midsentence as the sound of glass breaking in the direction of what was once the kitchen rang out. She gulped worriedly. "Wait here," she hissed at her friend, then started walking very slowly towards the closed kitchen door. If only she'd thought of bringing something as a weapon in case of a fight, she rued to herself. At least, though, the flashlight would make a reasonable weapon. She reached the kitchen door and pressed herself against it. Taking a deep breath, she seized the knob, flung the door open, and shone her flashlight straight into the kitchen...
...into the face of an equally terrified raccoon, who chattered in fright and scuttled rapidly out the kitchen window, breaking more of its glass in the process. Annie breathed a huge sigh of relief and turned around...
"BOO!" Lynda, her flashlight held vertically under her chin to illuminate her face, shouted right in her friend's face, having sneaked up undetected directly behind her. She laughed loudly as Annie shrieked in terror and jumped back into the kitchen. "Oh, that got you good!" she snorted in hilarity, "You should have seen...!"
Unamused, Annie whacked her hard across the shoulder. "What the hell's the matter with you!?" she demanded, "This is serious business, Lynda, remember!?"
"Oh come on, Annie, can't you take a joke!?" the blonde protested.
"Not when Laurie's in danger, as I told you very clearly over the phone, Lynda! You did have more to drink before you came by the Wallaces', didn't you!? I swear, sometimes you're more trouble than you're worth!"
"Hey don't yell at me; I was just trying to...!" Lynda let out a low cry as she toppled backwards over something. "Now what!?" she complained loudly, "I thought all the furniture was moved out of this place a long time ago!?"
"That doesn't look like furniture, Lynda..." even in the darkness, Annie could tell the object her friend had fallen over was something animate-or at least had once been. She shone her flashlight on it-and had to jam her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming at the sight of the badly mutilated dog lying on the floor. Who would have done that to a dog, she thought fearfully to herself? And if it was the same person who'd grabbed Laurie...
She noticed something else in the corner of her flashlight beam. She shone it directly at the object-and instantly, her stomach dropped clean to her ankles. "That's Laurie's shoe," she whimpered in horror, "Oh my God, Lynda, I hope that doesn't mean...!"
"Do you hear that?" a now worried Lynda was staring at the closet door behind the shoe. And Annie heard it too; muffled moaning. She frantically threw the door open. "Laurie!" she gasped upon seeing her friend, fortunately unharmed, but gagged and tied to a chair, moaning desperately at her, "Laurie, what hap-!"
Without warning, something swooped in behind her. Suddenly, a cloth was pressed hard over her face, smothering her with the overwhelming smell of chloroform. Annie fought to escape her assailant's grip, but he was far too powerful for both her and Lynda, whom she could see was also being chloroformed, and it took mere seconds for her to succumb and pass out.