My teeth hurt.

I've never been too good at taking care of myself even before becoming a patient. If it hadn't been for the nurses, Jennifer, I would have fared worse during my stay.

I step over the fresh pooling blood as I follow the other patients outside. It's raining and dark. I didn't think to ask Doctor Taylor what day it was, so time is a little nebulous to me at the moment.

Headlights beam a few miles out, and I make my way through the other wandering patients. I walk out of the pried open gate. It was damaged beyond repair.

Michael.

He's escaped.

*

It's 1982–I know because the first thing I did when I got out was grab a newspaper. If my math is right, it's been four years since that night.

My name is Shannon Melissa Davis.

At least that's what it says on the I.D. I stole from the staff's records office—I looked enough like her. Thankfully, no one had asked me too many questions when I applied for missing documents.

"House fire," I had said.

I didn't travel too far out. I took frequent stops if I felt I was close to detection, so it caused me to have a few days of travel. Mason, Illinois is where I ended up. It's a very small town of about maybe two hundred, but no one knew me here—I had originally been born in Iowa.

Can't afford to go back home.

Making friends in a new town wasn't too difficult—at least, it wasn't when both of them were as extroverted as they came.

K. C. O'Neill was easy going but very excitable when it came to her psychiatry classes. She's a big Doctor Loomis fan. Violet Castilleja on the other hand was outgoing in her gothic dress and her sharp wit. The tattoo artist with no tattoos to speak of.

"I'll come up with my own design some day," she had said once.

The two had already been dating their respective boyfriends, Gabriel Lopez and Eddie Rivera by the time I became familiar with them. Gabriel was the strong, silent type, but very much into his uncle's record shop. Whereas Eddie made his keep at the arcade, and never failed to sneak the rest of us some extra tickets if we all kept quiet.

*

"Dolphins kill sharks, y'know," I said as I flipped through the pages of my Biology textbook.

The college's library was almost empty this late in the day. I sat with my little group in an almost hidden corner.

"What?" asked Eddie.

"You know how sharks have to keep moving to breathe underwater, right?" I continued.

"Yeah," said K.C..

"Dolphins converge as a group, they surround the shark to stop it from moving."

"Basically suffocating it to death, right?" Violet finished.

I nod, "yep."

"What the fuck!" Eddie exclaimed, horrified. "Why do they do that?"

"For fun I guess?" K.C. shrugged, "dolphins are, like, the second smartest creatures on earth—humans being number one."

"Kind of like how some humans just do fucked up shit for fun?" murmured Gabriel.

"Man, fuck dolphins," declared Eddie in a huff.

"That's why I like sharks. They're just trying to live," I reasoned. "They eat, they breathe, and they procreate. There's almost an innocent pureness to it because they're not sentient."

"You're saying they're dumb?"

"Not exactly," K.C. said as she tapped her eraser onto the tip of her nose.

"Sentience means they can feel complex emotions—love, fear, anger—what's she's saying is that sharks just live," Violet clarified.

"They don't have to think," Gabriel chimed in.

"Fuck dolphins," repeated Eddie.

"More importantly," began Violet seriously. "What are we gonna be doing for Halloween this year? And don't say full moon orgy because I am not in the mood."

Eddie promptly closed his mouth with an unnecessarily dramatic roll of the eyes. Gabriel snickered.

"Well, we went to the corn maze last year, and did that bonfire the year before that…" K. C. pursed her lips in thought.

"What about just watching some scary movies at home?" I suggested quietly before receiving a lighthearted slap on the shoulder courtesy of Violet. I grinned.

"Oh come on, you always suggest that, Ann."

"I've got simple tastes," I shrug helplessly.

"Boring, is what she meant," agreed Eddie as he adjusted his green rimmed glasses. "So full moon orgy is out. What about going to a spooky house?"

"Like a real one?" Gabriel asked, chewing absentmindedly on his coffee lid. "The only one I know of is several miles out."

"Not that one!" hissed K. C. "You know how antsy she gets when I talk about Loomis—imagine how she'd feel if we tried going there!"

I took a deep breath to reorient myself.

None of them knew about the Sanitarium. And why should they? They'd probably look at me differently because of it. I was finally able to live a normal life after severing that part of myself.

My mother was dead. For better or for worse, and I needed to keep that buried. They couldn't know about Michael either. How he inadvertently assisted my escape.

In a strange way, I felt indebted to him. After reading about that night at Haddonfield in the papers all those years ago, there was no way I'd mention my loose connection to Michael. I didn't want them to think I was the same as him.

Never.

"What about Susan's costume party?" suggested Eddie. "Violet, you totally hate her, and you could show her up by just being there!"

The dark haired woman turned her nose up and smirked at the idea. "Very true. Girl's still obsessed with Charlie, so I could invite him too."

"Gross. Weasel Brain?" K. C. grimaced and Gabriel laughed. "What?! He's got that terrible peach fuzz—definitely weasel aura."

"I mean, we could go to Clifford Olson's execution," I finally joked as casually as I could manage. "He got convicted this year, right?"

"Please don't joke like that," breathed the would-be redheaded psychiatrist. "I'd kill for front row seats."

"Uh, same here."

"Me too."

"Don't count me out either."

"Okay, so glad to know we're all on the side of child murder is bad," I grinned wryly, steadier now. "Susan's party. What's the game plan—what costumes are we wearing?"

"I could go as Batman," Gabriel's tone very serious.

"Hot. Maybe I could be a flower child?" K. C. hummed thoughtfully.

"But you dress like that all the time."

"Yeah, and I'm sure you were just gonna dress as yourself too," she playfully stuck out her tongue at a smirking Violet.

"You're not wrong," she conceded. "What about you, babe?"

"I dunno," Eddie scratched at his goatee. "Clown? I know how much you like them."

"I guess I'll be... Indiana Jones?"

"Everyone is gonna be Indiana Jones," Gabriel said earnestly.

"I know! I can't think of anything honestly," I blurted out hysterically. "This is the worst."

But I was happy regardless. Having friends, a stable job at the library, and college. It was more than I could have asked for.

"We've got time to figure it out," K. C. reassured me.