November 30
Dad and Lindsey are already at the Sheriff Brackett's office. After Lindsey and Mom noticed I was missing, they called Dad at the shop. They made a quick search, but found nothing. Then they alerted the police.
Lindsey had handed over the note we found in Judith's box to Sheriff Brackett. I had to admit it might not be real. Then, after Sheriff Brackett talked to me alone, I explain everything that happened.
I rejoin my family while Brackett and a few other cops set off for the Doyles' house. Several guards are still around to keep watch over us. I curl up on a bench between my parents. I am still shivering. Mom had grabbed some warmer clothes for me before we left for the police station, but my body has not adapted to the shock of the past eighteen hours.
Someone must have explained to Lindsey about where her mom was. She comes to us, pale and trembling.
"I'm so sorry, Stella," she sobs. "I knew she was doing something awful but-"
She breaks off.
Mom hugs her. "Honey, it's not your fault. It's not your mom's either. She was just trying to handle the situation."
Mom and I scoot over so Lindsey can sit down with us.
"She chained him up," I say hollowly. "She was trying to keep him from getting to anyone." I don't mention the people that Mrs. Wallace brought to Michael, though I'm sure Lindsey knows about that.
"Are the police going to hurt her?" Lindsey asks.
"No," Dad says reassuringly. "They understand these are different circumstances. They might have to take her to a hospital, but she might not have to stay there long."
I imagine Mrs. Wallace in a hospital like Smith's Grove and I'm not sure that that is a pleasant outcome for her. Lindsey does not seem to take the possibility of it too badly.
Lila is right. She is resilient.
A half hour later, the attending officer receives a call from Brackett.
"Brackett just canvassed the Doyles'. Seems like Michael Myers isn't there anymore. They found the door to the basement torn off the hinges and the chains dangling loose from the walls, and signs that someone has nested there for a while."
"What about my mom?" Lindsey whispers.
The officer's face softens.
"Brackett found your mother's body at the door," he says apologetically. "They called an ambulance but they were unable to get a pulse. I'm sorry. It looks like Myers got her on his way out."
II
Lindsey cries the whole way home.
The police escort us and search the house before they allow us to enter.
Brackett reinstates the guard duty. This time the rest of the department agrees with the urgency, now that Michael's presence has been confirmed.
"We should stay together," Dad orders. "We'll set up down here for tonight. Hopefully, the police will find the fugitive soon."
We go upstairs to bring down our sleeping bags and pillows. Then we take turns in the bathroom. Though I want to linger in the hot shower forever, because I still feel grimy from all that time in the Doyles' basement, I cut it short and join everyone downstairs like Dad wants.
We eat dinner in silence, aside from Lindsey's snuffling. She barely touches her macaroni and cheese. I, however, gobble mine down as quickly as I can.
We set up our den in the living room. Mom makes a reference to us camping but it falls flat. Lindsey starts crying again. My parents ask if she needs anything, but Lindsey says no, she just wants to go to bed.
We make another field trip to the bathroom, then we climb into our makeshift beds for the night.
III
I don't know about the others, but I have fallen deeply asleep. I have a weird abbreviated dream where Judith comes up to Michael's room, only to find Tony standing over the crib. Tony is holding Judith's T-shirt over Michael's face. "Breathe it in," he coaxes the baby.
"Don't!" Judith cries. She thinks Tony is trying to suffocate him. ButTonylooks at her with that sadistic smile.
"Well, look who's here," he says to the baby. "Don't worry, son. You'll have your turn. This one'll be all yours."
IIII
The music starts playing. "Don't Fear the Reaper" blares out of my alarm clock. I snap up from my sleeping bag.
I hadn't brought down my alarm clock.
My parents and Lindsey also stare at the alarm clock in shock.
"What-" Mom mutters sluggishly. I feel sluggish, too. My back aches as I crawl out from the sleeping bag to turn off the alarm clock. That simple action has me gasping for breath.
The air moves in weird flashes of heat. Beside me, Lindsey rubs her head and Dad and Mom begin to look glazed over.
"Carbon monoxide," Dad identifies after a minute. He staggers up and assists Mom to a stand. "He's piping - We have to leave the house."
Mom reaches the door first. "Nick," she wails. I glimpse out the window. I see the two guards lying in puddles of blood.
Dad doesn't look surprised. "We can't stay here," he says sensibly. He opens the door and peers out quickly, then widens it so the fresh air will reach us. "Stay together."
My parents sandwich Lindsey and me between them as we inch out the door, skirting around the guards' bodies. Mom moves backward behind us.
"If you see anything move, let us know," Dad instructs.
Dad reaches for the keys in his pocket.
We scramble for the car. But when we get to the door, Dad discovers the wires have been yanked out and severed. It will not be possible to drive anywhere.
Michael springs up behind us and plunges his knife in the closest person - Mom. He slaps his other hand around her collarbone and tries to drag her away.
Dad and I grab her arms. I worry that this is hurting her but we can't let Michael take her away. Dad is shouting something.
Lindsey steps forward. She produces a chopping knife (she must have nabbed it from the kitchen before we went to bed) and digs it into Michael's arm. Blood slides thickly over his arm, soaking his sleeve. Lindsey drives the blade deeper into his elbow, until I can almost hear it scraping against his bones.
He releases Mom. Dad and I propel Mom into the car. I jump in the front seat with her. Dad lunges for the side door, but Michael regains his grasp of the knife and plunges it into his back.
Michael shoves Dad aside and grabs the door. I yank it back. Then I blast the horn.
The horn pierces through the chaotic mix of screams and moans. I keep it going in one long blast.
Then suddenly Michael is gone.
I collapse back in the seat.
I don't know if Michael is lingering nearby.
I have to get Mom and Dad to the hospital. I have to stop their bleeding. I have to find Lindsey.
A knock sounds on the window. A flashlight materializes.
Sheriff Brackett raps on the door. Though my mind is screaming "Big Mistake", I roll down the window.
Next to me, Mom moans. I squeeze her hand. "It's OK. It's Sheriff Brackett." I warn Brackett. "He was just out there."
"Are you OK?" Sheriff Brackett asks, though the answer is obvious.
"My parents need to go to the hospital," I say wheezily. "Have you seen Lindsey?"
"We'll find her," he promises. "Why did you leave the house?"
"Carbon monoxide," I clip my answer.
Brackett slams the flashlight against the car door and swears. "Son of a bitch." He exhales.
"Sorry," he says. "Let's move to my car."
By now, several more police cars are congregating in the street. The swarm is slightly more reassuring. I overhear that someone has contacted the paramedics and they soon arrive.
I help Mom maneuver out of the car seat and settle down on the gurney. The meds have already transported my dad to another ambulance.
Mom is breathing hard.
"If it weren't for the radio," she mumbles deliriously, "we'd all be dead."
She closes her eyes. The medics lift her into the ambulance. I let go of her hand.
In my palm is a braided bracelet. The yellow and purple V patterned bracelet that was in Judith's box of treasures. It has been shredded into several pieces and tufts of cat hair are embedded in the weaving.
The dead cat in the graveyard . . .
The ambulances speed away. My parents will be safe. But Michael has taken Lindsey.
I look to Sheriff Brackett. He will want me to go to the hospital with my parents. He will want the doctors to check on me for the carbon monoxide.
I steer myself for the police car. Sheriff Brackett's gun is in the front seat. I slip it out of its holster and slip it into my waistband.
Then I take off for the graveyard.
IIIII
Michael waits for me. He is sitting on Judith's tombstone, with Lindsey on his lap. One large arm pins Lindsey to his chest and the other hand balances a knife against the stone. Lindsey sits rigidly, not daring to move.
He watches me approaching him. His empty eyes give a brief flicker.
"Michael, let her go," I order. I hold out my hands, keeping them in his sight.
He lifts up his knife hand. Moonlight glints off the blade.
When I step closer, he wraps his arm tighter around Lindsey. He brings the blade down to her neck.
"Please," I say. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry about letting go of the bike. I'm sorry about killing Toby. I'm sorry about blowing you off to hang out with my friends instead. I'm sorry about letting Ronnie get away with his shit."
He angles his head. He studies me for a long time.
"Please, let her go, " I repeat.
He stands up, letting Lindsey spill to the ground. My vision blurs as he walks towards me. I hear an impossible sound of metal scrape against cloth. He raises his arm. The knife extends.
I keep my eyes on him while I pull out the gun.
Before I can get it loose, he lifts me up by the neck. Before I can try and wriggle out, he locates the gun and drops it carelessly on the ground.
He drops me in front of Judith's gravestone, positioning me so I'm kneeling in the dirt. The cross shaped stone bearing the name "Myers", I realize, is going to be the last thing I see.
He pushes me forward.
In the dark, I have failed to spot the hole in the ground. I collapse into Judith's open coffin. I dig my knees into the velvet and the dust - into Judith's bones. My right hand sinks into the decaying ribcage and my left hand lands on top of a hand . . .
(I feel a distinctive crack against her little finger)
I lose traction and face plant again into the dust and bones. My arms refuse to respond. I rotate to a fetal position, coughing and gagging.
After my lungs have mostly cleared, I look up again.
Michael stares down at me from the ground above. He lowers his body and puts out his hand as if he is offering to help me up.
Though he maintains the position for only a second or two, the time stretches on, with both of us frozen in place.
Then he moves his arm to a crowbar behind the lid of the coffin. He gives it a small nudge.
The coffin claps shut.
IIIIII
I am deprived of seeing or hearing anything. The soiled velvet blots out everything. I can feel only spongy bones and matted hair.
Then a baby starts crying.
IIIIIII
Judith stomps through the door. She can hear Angel crying from half a block away. The crying warns her that her mother is not home.
Ronnie is propped in front of the TV where he spends most of his day. Angel Myers's bassinet has been set where he can reach it. Ronnie leers with relief when he sees Judith come in; finally, someone else can do the task of taking care of his baby and he can go back to watching his game in peace.
Judith lets him suffer the interruption a little bit longer. She positions herself in front of the TV, her arms crossed firmly in front of her chest.
"Where's Mom?" she demands.
"At the school," Ronnie answers as his leer descends to Judith's bare legs. It causes Judith to squirm away from the TV.
Fortified by that small victory, Ronnie continues, "Your fag brother was caught sucking cock in the boy's bathroom, so the principal called her in."
Judith has heard this tale often enough not to accept Ronnie's version of events at face value. The truth, as she translates it, is that Michael had another run-in with those bullies and they all got sent in for fighting.
"Don't you ever have something intelligent to say?" she snaps at Ronnie, deliberately voicing her complaint so she sounds bored to death.
"Not with that brat screaming all the time," Ronnie whines. "Be a good little woman and see to her, will you?"
"Be a good little patient and rot from your bedsores," Judith retorts. She lifts the baby from the rocker and stalks out of the room. Angel's wails quiet down once she's away from Ronnie's toxic aura, but she emits little pained burbles.
Poor kid.
Judith changes her diaper and retrieves a teething ring from the freezer, then carries the baby upstairs. She gives it to Angel after she sets her in the bouncy sling seat. Angel grabs her hand, as if she's trying to take the ring by herself.
"I hope you're not going to be fussy when Steve comes over tonight," Judith tells her, though she keeps her tone gentle. Seeing Judith attend to her baby sister always dampened Steve's ardor. Not that she can blame him. In fact, she would not want to do him if he fantasized about Judith in any family moments.
Angel shrieks, "Meh." as if in agreement, then grabs for the ring again. Judith helps her direct the teething ring to her mouth. Angel gums at its edge, giving a big, drooly, lopsided smile.
"Of course you'll be good," Judith tells her. "You're a good kid. And don't ever let any fuckface tell you anything different. You're better than him. Probably better than any of us."
A brief vision flits through Judith. Angel will never remember this moment of Judith handing her the teething ring and talking to her as she bounces in her baby seat. Angel will not remember her at all. It saddens Judith, not just because she herself will be forgotten, but because Angel will lose these pleasant memories. The family has had happy memories: like Judith's father, Wendell Myers, holding her on his lap and letting her "steer" his truck, or Michael, at two years old, shrieking with delight as they spun around on the merry-go-round at the playground, or her mother humming as she slices up a watermelon and leading seed spitting contests in their backyard. Angel will not associate them with any of that. By the time Angel grows up, the Myers family will have morphed into a white trash nightmare. These normal moments, these happy moments, will be gone.
Judith shakes herself out of her useless sentimentality. Angel notices she is distracted and burbles insistently. Judith can't help but grin back. She plants her thumb on the middle of her forehead, crosses her eyes, and sticks out her tongue.
"This is a Halloween face," she tells Angel. Angel bounces, clapping her hands together over her ring. She giggles.
So does Judith.
IIIIIIII
Because Mom would be working tonight, I leave the baby's door open. If an emergency arose, I would have to handle it.
The events blur through. Mom wants me to take Michael trick or treating, but I let her -and Michael - know I already have plans. He can go by himself, if he's that set on going. Most ten year old boys don't want their seventeen year old sister dragging them down, anyway.
Then I'm gyrating with Steve. When we stop he pulls out his "surprise"; he dons the mask.
He leaves. I turn on the radio. The masked figure returns, plies his knife against my skin. I catch him. I shout at him. He stabs me.
I try to escape. He steps behind me, tracking me like a hunter to wounded game. He stabs me several more times and I fall.
I am outside Angel's room when I fall.
Michael steps over me.
He goes into Angel's room.
He's going to kill her.
I have to keep him away from her.
I try to stop him - yell - grab for him - anything that will distract him. I cannot move. My body is impossibly weighed down. I am shrinking, disappearing.
IIIIIIIII
A cold breeze descends on me. Sheriff Brackett's flashlight reaches my eyes before I can distinguish that the coffin has been opened.
I am lifted out of the coffin. I sprawl onto the lawn. Two other officers flank me, the ones that had pulled me out of the ground. At the opposite side of the grave, a black shape lies still.
"Where's Lindsey?" I say, searching the graveyard for her.
"She's safe," Sheriff Brackett assures me. "That was a reckless stunt you pulled."
On his silent direction , the deputies step back to let me room to breathe.
"Can you stand?" the deputy asks.
"Yeah," I stagger up. My movements are awkward because I keep my eyes trained on the body that the others are cavalier in ignoring.
One deputy roams over to Michael and the other strays behind him. He scrutinizes the body.
The shape twitches.
"He's not dead," I say.
My warning comes too late. The blade thrusts up under the first deputy's chin. His head snaps back with a force so strong that it nearly detaches from his neck.
Sheriff and the other deputy look in time to see Michael rise to a sit.
As Michael lumbers to his feet, Sheriff Brackett and deputy unholster their guns, aim, and fire off another round. Michael's arms flail, deflecting any bullets that would have hit his face. None of the bullets slow him down.
We back away from him. Michael grips the arm of the other deputy and twists it in an elaborate pretzel bend. Then he slashes her neck.
Sheriff Brackett has run out of bullets. He shoves me towards the graveyard's exit and we start running down the uneven path.
After a few steps, I realize that I am the only one running. Sheriff Brackett has turned back, grabbed the crowbar from the ground and charges towards the looming shape.
"You killed my daughter," Sheriff Brackett says. "Motherfucking scum."
He strikes Michael in the face. Michael's head jerks, but otherwise he doesn't react to Sheriff's wild blows. Eventually he decides he's bored with attack. He skewers his knife through Brackett's neck, then lifts the sheriff off the ground so Brackett's eyes can meet his.
The crowbar clatters to the ground.
I start running down the path. Michael follows. He closes in with a few determined strides. He jerks out his knife. He is less than an arm's length away but, at last minute, I round a large tree. The blade lodges into the trunk.
I double back to Judith's grave. Michael yanks out the knife. I push myself to run faster, though I know that the ground I gained will disappear in no time.
I stop beside the pit in front of Judith's grave and grope for the extra gun, which had fallen forgotten (I hope) before Michael dropped me into the coffin.
I pat around the ground but I can't find it anywhere.
He's by the grave. In a couple of strides, he will be standing over me.
My hand collides with metal. I scoop up the gun, sneak back a few paces, and point it at Michael
He stops walking. He does another amused head tilt.
I press the trigger. I have never shot of gun, but Judith had, at a gun range with Steve shortly before the murder. My finger slides, as if something is pushing it, to a lever and I hear a click.
The gun discharges. The bullet punches Michael's shoulder. I try to aim the target to his face, his eyes. Two bullets strike his forehead; he is unable to block them this time.
He topples over.
He won't stay there. He's survived a bombardment of shots twice - on Halloween and tonight. Every instinct in me warns - screams - that shooting him has no permanent effect. I have to find something else that will stop him. Something stronger.
I waste no time making my escape.
When I stop, I am at the other side of the cemetery. This side has more trees and taller gravestones. More places to hide.
I duck behind a low set tree and peer between the U shaped trunk. I don't see Michael anywhere. I grip the gun. I may need it again.
I let my gaze wander through the cemetery. It lands on a forklift on the main path.
The branches of the tree shake. The leafy top pulls back to reveal Michael's mask as he dives through the U.
I dodge from the tree trunk. I hope Michael will get too tangled in the foliage to catch me but he severs the middle patch of leaves and raises his knife to plunge it into my head.
I drop to the ground, evading the initial slice. Wriggling behind him, I barely escape the second slice. The blade grazes my calf, but the thick folds in my sweatpants shield the delicate joint of my ankle.
I ram the muzzle of my gun onto the back of his knee and shoot.
Blood drops fly onto me. But the massive knee seems to have absorbed the bullet. Michael teeters a little, but he does not lose his balance.
Before he can pivot to reach me (flexibility not being one of his advantages, thank god), I crawl out and dash toward the forklift.
I am halfway to the vehicle when he turns around and catches sight of me. He walks after me, each of his strides taking up at least five of my hurried steps. When I lunge up to the forklift, I nearly trip over a body. The body of the caretaker, I assume; I don't take a good look. I hop over the body and climb into the forklift, setting the gun on the dashboard for easy retrieval.
The keys are inserted in the ignition. Another incredible stroke of luck. I twist the keys, but they stick half way.
Michael crosses into sight.
"Fuck!" I press harder on the ignition. What am I doing wrong? Is there some kind of safety feature that prevents me from starting the engine? Meanwhile, Michael angles to the car's left.
The engine revs. I immediately stomp on the gas pedal and the forklift rockets forward. I wrench the forklift to the left, to aim the truck's spears at Michael.
The two center prongs lodge firmly into the shape's torso. It drags him across the graveyard. His head tilts to face me. He is still holding tightly to his knife, making half hearted slashes at the windshield.
I accelerate, turning the vehicle in a wide arc to a set of power lines that border the back of the cemetery. I fiddle with the buttons to raise the fork so his upper body will connect with the wires barely hovering over the ground, in case I miss the pole. When I get near enough to assure my aim, I stand and roll out of the forklift into a hedge.
I misjudge my dive a little. When I tumble out, my wrist whacks against a tombstone. Despite the pain, I will myself to sit up and watch as the forklift plows into the utility pole.
Searing light engulfs the collision. I hear one deafening pop, and the rest of the scene plays in silence. The pole has cracked at the based, tilting precariously as wires snap and whip down over the offending vehicle. Sparks shower down, leaving tiny flames in the lawn and the hedges.
Michael's mask glows, while the rest of him recedes into silhouette. The glowing mask burns through the spasmodic flashes of light. Then it all shuts off.
There is the heavy smell of smoke. Lavender wisps, illuminated by the small fires, float upward; they look both beautiful and sinister. The mask still gives a faint glow. Michael's head slumps forward.
He doesn't move.
I watch for an excruciatingly long time.
My ears ring terribly so I don't hear the sirens until the state police arrive.
