CHAPTER 6: Patient

"Get back!" Laurie pushed her son further behind her. "Get back, John!"

And oh God there he was and it was like something out her nightmares – a dark shape, blood staining his clothing, his hands, his knife, and that mask, cracked and monstrous –

The blood was pounding in her ears, the whine of her memories at fever pitch; he was approaching her and her son with every step and Laurie had no idea, no idea what he wanted this time.

"Michael!" she screamed, not sure any longer if she was trying to stop him or plead with him.

He halted.

John was breathing hard behind her. She pressed a hand to his shoulder, trying to give him a reassurance she did not feel, then took a hesitant step forward.

Mom, he killed someone...

Who had he killed?

What did he want?

"Michael..."

Oh God, what could she say? Once she had been terrified to just visit him, but now she knew that had been nothing – under the eyes of cameras, of guards, under restraints, she had been so unaware of how safe she actually was. This was horribly, terrifyingly different from her visits; this Michael, whose face she could not see, who was just standing there with no hint of his intentions – this Michael, she had no idea how he would react.

She moistened her suddenly dry mouth. "Please, Michael –"

He stepped forward, and the light gleamed off his knife, and she gasped, backing up several steps in response. He stopped, head tilting slightly. Was he responding to her? Or was he simply waiting, amping up the tension until he was ready to strike?

Laurie took another swallow of air, one shaky step towards him. If she could just pretend that she was back at Smith's Grove… that this was just another regular visit… that nothing had changed... she might get through this. "It's okay..." Keep her voice calm, low. "Michael, it's okay." His head tilted back. "It's okay. Just... just…"

...the only person Michael even listens to...

"Please..." She stepped forward again, heard John whimper but ignored him. She kept her eyes solely on her brother, trying to peer through the dark into his eyes. "It's me…"

Did a hint of recognition appear? She could not be sure.

"Can you…" The knife shone once more, held so that its blade pointed at her, making Laurie's gaze flick down to it. "Michael… can you drop the knife? Just… drop it? Please..."

He cocked his head to one side again, then looked down at the knife. Back up to her. Laurie held her breath. Slowly, he lowered the blade, his grip loosening just a fraction.

A screech of brakes. Michael's head jerked up, and Laurie whirled around. Sirens approaching fast, the sound of tires squealing on pavement – and a police cruiser turned around a corner and came to a sudden halt just a few feet behind Laurie's car. She threw up a hand against the flashing lights, the wind whipping her hair in her face. Blinking back the stinging in her eyes at the sudden brightness, she heard a voice, amplified many times over:

"Drop your weapon and get down on the ground!"

Instinctively she crouched, groping for John and tugging him close to her own body. "Wait!" She could not even hear herself over the voice, the sirens. "Stop! Don't –"

A gunshot. Laurie cried out, throwing herself and John to the ground. Somewhere in her peripheral vision she saw Michael's body jerk from the impact. Fumbling frantically, she ran along the length of her car, dragging her son with her, keeping him tight and low to the pavement. Another gunshot, and another, and she clapped her hands over John's ears as hers rang from the echo. She thought she heard someone yell, "No!"

The gunshots ended, the sirens went silent, though their lights still flashed, sending red and blue shadows flickering against Laurie's closed eyelids.

"Stay in the car!"

"You've killed him."

"I said, stay in the car! Keep back!"

She recognized the voice – Deputy Hawkins. Laurie peeked up. Hawkins had exited the police car, which was still running. His gun was raised as he approached her.

He came up next to her. "You okay?" he asked her, though he kept his eyes focused on something behind her. Laurie nodded, pushing herself into a sitting position. The deputy let go of the gun with one hand, pressing Laurie's shoulder. "Good. Everything's going to be all right now, you hear?" For just a second he broke his unwavering stare to look at her. "Get to my car with your son. Let me handle this."

Laurie gave no response; she doubted Hawkins expected any. John was still tucked in her arms, and she stroked his hair just to give her hands something to do.

Hawkins walked past her, gun still raised, but she did not turn around. Not yet, though she knew Michael was there. His presence (Dead? Unconscious?) felt almost physical, a pressure against her back. Still brushing John's hair, she looked around at the houses, expecting to see their owners peeking through curtains, drifting out of doors to see the commotion. All was silent – but it was the tense, loud silence that always followed chaos.

Laurie sucked in a breath, heartbeat still pounding in her ears. Steeling herself, she turned.

Her brother was lying on the ground several feet in front of her car. His knife had dropped near his hand. Hawkins stood some distance away, peering cautiously at the prone body, still keeping his weapon trained on him. Was Michael breathing? Was he dead?

And what did that mean for her? She tried to focus on something, some thought, some feeling, but her mind was fractured, emotions scattered.

"Is he…" Dead? Alive?

And which did she want?

"Not sure," Hawkins said, still moving cautiously. "But stay back. Don't come any nearer."

She had no intention of doing so. John was looking up from her arms now, wiping his face. Laurie stood shakily, hoping her legs wouldn't buckle beneath her. Her entire body had a deadened, numb quality to it, and there was a faint buzzing in her ears.

A car door opened, then closed. She felt a presence brush near her, then tap her arm. Laurie blinked in confusion. It was Michael's doctor, Dr. Sartain.

"Laurie Strode. Thank God you are unharmed," said the doctor, beckoning her over. He looked rather the worse for wear – his usual impeccably parted hair was ruffled, there was a livid bruise over one eye, and his left arm was in a cast and sling.

"What –" Laurie stuttered. She shook her head; seeing him in the threatening streets of Haddonfield instead of the calmness of Smith's Grove was too much, too disorienting. "Why – why are you here?"

"Michael Myers is my patient and of all the people here, I know him best. As soon I regained consciousness, the sheriff asked me to come with Deputy Hawkins here to help track him down." He waved her over more commandingly. "Come here now, come. Your daughter's in the back seat."

"Jamie?" John echoed her word as Laurie dashed forward, pulling him along. Now that they were closer, Laurie could see the car was no ordinary police vehicle, but a kind of cruiser, larger and higher than others. And sure enough, there was her daughter sitting in the back, face shiny with sweat and her dress muddy and torn, but alive. Jamie cried out as she saw her mother, clambering towards the grille separating the back and front seats. "Thank God," Laurie breathed. The passenger window was down, and she leaned in through it to speak to her daughter. "Jamie, are you okay? Are you hurt? Did he–?"

"I got lost," Jamie sniffled. "But then – Uncle found me –"

Laurie gripped the window. "Did he do anything?"

"No, he –"

"Deputy Hawkins!" Dr. Sartain shouted. "You have done enough to my patient. Step back."

"As far as I'm concerned, Dr. Sartain, this man is an escaped criminal who has brought death to our town, and wants to kill the woman and children behind me!" Laurie flinched. Death… the only question was how many… "Now get Mrs. Lloyd and her son into the car!"

Some emotion Laurie could not grasp flashed across the doctor's face. "Perhaps you have the keys?" he asked the deputy calmly.

Hawkins unhooked them from his belt and tossed them over his shoulder. He still had not taken his eyes off Michael. Laurie watched uncomprehendingly as Dr. Sartain unlocked the back door and pushed her son into the seat with Jamie, still feeling numb, still feeling that she was a mere inhabitant in her body, viewing everything from a distance.

What had Michael wanted?

What would he have done if Hawkins had not interrupted – saved them?

"Mrs. Lloyd?"

Without realizing it, she was approaching her brother's body, where Hawkins was standing guard a safe distance away. He stared at her as she drew near.

"Keep back, Mrs. Lloyd," he said firmly. "If he's not dead, there's no telling what he might do."

But what had he wanted to do?

"He's dead, Deputy," Dr. Sartain called from behind them. "Now let me deal with my patient myself."

"This man has killed at least half a dozen people in the last few hours alone!" shouted Hawkins.

Half a dozen? Who? The words impacted on her brain, then dissipated. And Laurie just kept staring at Michael, taking long breaths.

What did he want?

"He is property of the state, he cannot be harmed," Dr. Sartain was saying.

"Then the state can sue me, right after they fire me. Far as I'm concerned, he should have his brains blown out!" Hawkins retorted right back.

"Laurie!" Dr. Sartain said. "Ms. Strode, please, help him to see reason."

"There is no reason for Mrs. Lloyd to want this man alive!" said Hawkins loudly. He looked back at her, just for a second. "What possible reason can there be," he murmured. It more a statement than a question… as if he could not fathom why Laurie would question his decision.

And why should she? Laurie stared at him, her mind in turmoil. She could see an end to her fear, to her burdens, if Hawkins killed Michael right there. No more looking over her shoulder, no more having to face her brother's impenetrable stare, week after week, month after month, hoping and praying she would say the right words, do the right things, to keep him pliant; no more holding up that weight of guilt, for her parents, for Lynda and Annie, for all the others he had killed, to get to her, for her –

And yet – how could she let him be killed? This last member of her biological family, the only connection she had to the mother and sister she had never known – the last link she had, in a sick, twisted way, to her dead adoptive parents, her dead friend. Something deep in her body rejoiced in his imminent death – and, at the same time, recoiled at the thought of letting Hawkins shoot him, because…

Because this was her only family left. Because at one point he had found her and her children and taken them away from people who would have hurt the. Because he was vulnerable right in this moment. And because she could still remember a photo being held out to her, a man taking off his mask and bowing his head and simply waiting, waiting for her words like there was nothing else in the world that mattered to him, and a hand left open for hers –

She said, "Wait –"

Michael sat up, and lunged at Hawkins.

Hawkins brought the gun up, but too late. Before Laurie's terrified eyes, Michael had one hand wrapped around Hawkins's neck while the other found the knife.

Light refracted off the blade – and then it was jutting out of Hawkins's belly, dark blood leaking around the handle. She thought she might have cried out; she knew she had fallen back, slamming into the pavement.

Michael pulled – a horrible squelch that brought bile rising to Laurie's throat – and the flow of blood quickened, spreading its dark stain over Hawkins's uniform. The gun dropped as he tried to press at his wound, only for Michael to squeeze his hand tighter around Hawkins's neck, and lift –

Laurie screamed. "No!"

She ran forward, not thinking about anything except that she had to stop this – so stupid, so stupid of her to hesitate, why hadn't she let him – and grabbed hold of Michael's arm –

Only for Michael to throw Hawkins's struggling body, with Laurie hanging onto him, flinging both of them from him.

Hawkins's body and Laurie slammed into the side of her car together. All the air was knocked from her body. Her head was ringing, there was a heavy weight suffocating her still further and she couldn't see, all was white and flashing – except for a blurry shape moving faster than she had ever expected, next to her, past her –

A crash.

Shattering.

Shrieking.

"Mommy!"

Laurie shook the white spots from her vision, panting as she tried to stand. Hawkins's body was half on her, she could see him still struggling to move, a dark stain on his stomach, but she had no time for him now – the screams of her children were all that mattered –

"Mom! MOM!"

She staggered to her feet, clinging desperately to her car and pulling herself along its edge – the flashing lights were sending spikes of pain through her eyes but she shook it off –

And saw Michael, at the window of the police car. He had plunged his hands through the glass and was reaching inside – for a screaming, struggling Jamie –

"NO!"

Laurie stumbled over Hawkins's leg, falling – panicked, she saw Michael grab hold of Jamie's sleeve and heard cloth rip and Jamie's accompanying cry as he dragged her towards the broken window – towards himself –

"Get away from her!" Laurie shouted. "Get away –"

Something gleamed at the corner of her vision – and without thinking, as if her body knew what it was before her mind did, she grabbed it.

"MICHAEL, STOP!" She aimed the gun, finger on the trigger –

Without warning, the police car shot revved up and shot towards her. Laurie saw John being flung at the grille from the sudden momentum, Jamie thrown forward too, saw pink cloth tear and Michael lose his grip on her as the car roared past him, and she threw up her hands to shield herself knowing that she would not survive a hit – that the last thing she would hear would be her children's screams –

And instead, felt air rush past her face as the car pulled up next to her. The passenger door swung open – Dr. Sartain was in the driver's seat, turning the wheel as best as he could with one arm in a sling.

"Get in!" he yelled.

Laurie needed no further prompting. She threw herself into the car, slamming the passenger door. In the rear view mirror, she could see Michael advancing on them.

"GO!" she exclaimed.

Dr. Sartain slammed the accelerator, and they sped down the street – away from Hawkins's body, away from the houses, away from Michael.

"Where should we go?" demanded Dr. Sartain, executing a wild turn around the corner.

Laurie was still shaking, breaths coming in small pants. "Away," she gasped. "Get as far away from Haddonfield as possible."

"You can't outrun him," said Dr. Sartain, turning onto a larger road.

Laurie sucked in a deeper breath. Her body was quivering, adrenaline still racing through her system.

"I'm not trying to outrun him," she said at last. "He's going to come for me. I just – I just need to make sure I'm as far from everyone else as I can… when he does."

In the back, she could hear her children sobbing, but she could not think of them right now. She could no longer see Michael in the mirror, but she knew he was there. He would always be there, at her footsteps. He would follow her until one of them was dead.

Ranbir Sartain could still remember the day he heard the name Michael Myers.

In some ways, Michael Myers had been with Sartain for his entire professional career. He still recalled reading of the crime during his graduate studies. The brutality of the killings, the youthfulness of the killer, the closeness of the victims to him – nothing like it had ever been seen before. The papers were lurid with details, but what Sartain remembered, even during those feverish days of trying to finish his thesis while simultaneously following the news circus, was a photo. It was a photo of the boy as he was taken away in the back of a police car, snapped surreptitiously by a particularly careful reporter.

He remembered the eyes of that young boy.

Those eyes had haunted him, driven him, as he acquired his degree, obtained his license, climbed the professional ladder in hospitals, in private care, in institutions. At first he had tried to put it aside. To care for his many supposedly incurable cases, the many patients he received whose relatives insisted were a drain on them, were incapable of living normally, who had to be locked up. Such helplessness. All those patients had been little more than a distraction; their symptoms, their causes, so banal, so easy to cure. A little medication, a touch of therapy, and they were gone, to live out their dreary, normal lives or fall through the cracks of society, whichever one. It was a rotating door of patients, in and out with their worries and anxieties and paranoias.

But oh, the truly criminally insane? Now there was the incurable. The unfathomable.

Deep he had dived into those cases, even with the little spare time he had. He wanted to penetrate those minds, to understand the face of evil: how they thought, what they understood. What motivated them.

And yet – the more he studied, the more dissatisfied he felt, the further he drifted from true comprehension. Like his other patients, even these cases, the ones the public labeled with such words as "depraved" and "deranged", became... boring. Dissembling these "serial killers" was all too simple: to place labels upon each symptom, to ruminate over every little spat they witnessed between their parents, every sexual perversion they possessed. Too easy to harp on the uselessness of the education system or the prison system or the government system, on their many woes that had, inevitably, led to their crimes.

Was this truly the nature of evil? Some random mix of internal and external forces dolloped onto a human being?

There had been nothing approaching the purity of that little boy with the impenetrable eyes, whose case Sartain had found himself following once more – newspaper snippets stuffed in a drawer, case studies perused furtively in his spare time.

So when he had heard that Michael's doctor was leaving, he had petitioned for the job. It was helpful, by then, that he had had so many successful cases. Smith's Grove had snatched him up eagerly, given him access to all of his predecessors' notes, and let him have free reign over Michael. He doubted any of them had expected him to have any success, probably felt he was wasting his talents on a hopeless case.

He still remembered meeting Michael.

Sartain had been led into a room to await his new patient's arrival. He remembered projecting an outward calm to hide his shivers of anticipation. At last, he had thought, he could stand in the presence of the man himself, feel his awareness, his intelligence, the processes that only Michael himself could fathom. He could recall savoring those last few seconds before Michael entered... the last time he would be truly innocent of pure malevolence.

And oh, it had been everything he had thought it would be. For all his silence, his lack of expression, the lack of any movement save breathing, nothing could hide how Michael had filled and dominated that room. Sartain was nothing more than a tiny insect standing before a god; that was how important he was in Michael's comprehension, in an awareness so vast that it entirely erased all individuality. He had looked into those black eyes behind the hand-made mask and seen absolutely nothing he could call human.

For five days, he had devoted himself to the case. To Michael's voluminous case file, the many studies written on him. To speaking to Michael. To attempting to dissect the layers of his mind, joyfully aware that he could spend a lifetime and not begin to penetrate beyond the uppermost regions of his patient's thoughts. The sheer purity of evil that Michael represented, devoid of morals or values or conscience, the complete lack of anything like compassion or remorse or empathy – the complete lack of anything human – promised years and years of study.

Those five days had been just a blissful journey into his patient's cognizance. The only mar, the tiniest regret, was his envy of Dr. Loomis, for only Loomis had seen such purity in the wild, while Sartain had to be content with the limitations of the lab.

And then, on the sixth day, he had met her.

Angel Myers.

Sartain was, naturally, aware of the woman. He had studied Michael's entire family, was well aware of the father who had died, the older sister he had murdered, the mother who had killed herself. The younger sister, he knew, had met the brother on his one escape, had survived and married and produced offspring and was currently living with her own small family in Michael's hometown, making periodic visits to her infamous relative. He had not thought of her beyond that; he had supposed that she had come out of duty, some family obligation mixed with, perhaps, morbid curiosity.

He had been very wrong.

She had been petite, he remembered, with none of her brother's height. Young; she was a decade younger than Michael. He had noted a passing resemblance to Michael's mother and Michael himself as a child. Otherwise, he had never seen a more normal woman, maybe with more dark circles under her eyes than should be usual, a touch more trauma. Michael's doing, obviously. Had she been a patient of his, he would have diagnosed her, cured her, and sent her on her way with no more than a passing thought.

He had led her to the room, making just enough small talk to note just how ordinary, how average, she was – such a contrast to her brother, he had thought idly, with her mundane worries about her job and her children. He had opened the door to the visitor's center and moved to an observational room, thinking he would witness a half hour of boredom. He had been slightly puzzled when the guards insisted on freeing Michael from his restraints during the visit – "previous doc's orders, sir" – given that his own sessions with Michael always had the man shackled to his chair. Perhaps, he had mused, she might liven up the situation by doing something stupid like accusing Michael or trying to shoot him. He had wondered, with some anticipation, if he might witness a retaliatory attack of some kind – it would be the closest he would ever come to seeing Michael's true form, after all...

But then she had stepped into that room with her brother, and everything had changed.

Sartain had witnessed the whole thing from a one-way viewing window. Angel Myers had gone into the room, and Michael had simply transformed.

It was like the man had come alive, as if all Sartain had been seeing in their sessions was a shell masking his true self. From an unassuming young woman, Angel Myers had become the center of attention – not because of anything she did (he remembered all she had done was lay her purse on the table and sit down), but because of Michael. That perfect blank awareness, that unfathomable incomprehension, had focused like a laser point to hone in on her.

And she, the ignorant child, had not understood a bit of it.

She had not even noticed.

But Sartain had seen the way Michael's eyes followed her, and only her – as if she formed the center of his world. Nurses would enter, or guards, or Sartain himself, but none of them entered Michael's consciousness, all were excluded – save for her. He had seen the way Michael had mirrored her smallest movements – a wisp of hair coming loose, a tiny gesture of her arm. And at first he had tried to justify that concentration – that Michael was lying in wait, that he was observing her weaknesses, poised for attack. But no: he had witnessed this girl with her tired eyes and trembling body lay hands on Michael's body, on his masks, on his face, without any repercussions. He had seen her speak to him, and had seen Michael respond – not with speech, but with just the tiniest movement of his body: a breath, a tilt of the head, an open hand. He had seen her bring her children with him, and watched as Michael had done nothing. She had infiltrated Michael, down to his core. Sartain could see it, in the relaxed set of his shoulders, the long breath when she had left, the distance of his gaze for hours after each of her visits.

That inexhaustible, incomprehensible evil that he had thought was the very essence of Michael Myers had, instead, given way to that.

This girl, this ordinary, normal sister of his… this Angel Myers… knew every secret of Michael's.

And she could not have cared less about it.

Now he turned onto the street Angel Myers had indicated. There was a pain in his left arm, broken when he had crashed against the bus as it fell over the embankment, but it was easy to ignore. He had known that he would have to sustain some injury in his efforts to allow Michael into the wild. It was a small price to pay for this opportunity.

The girl, Angel Myers, appeared to be hyperventilating. He could see her clutching a gun in her right hand. Good. She would need that soon.

Her twins were still whimpering behind him, and he asked her to take care of them, more to keep them quiet than for any other reason. She turned around, and he had to strain to hear her over the wind gusting through the broken window.

"Jamie, John – did he hurt you? Are you okay?"

He could not hear the girl's answer, but he thought he heard the boy – thought he heard him say something about seeing a man killed.

"Oh God." Angel Myers had turned away, was leaning her head against her free hand. In the back, Jamie was talking frantically to her brother, but Sartain could not make out their conversation. "Oh my God..." she said again. He knew what she was feeling, knew from his long experience how the cracks of her trauma were re-opening, fracturing her carefully patched mind.

She peered up at Sartain, blonde hair falling in her face. "Do you know, Dr. Sartain? Do you know how many he's... killed?"

"I saw him slaughter both of the guards on our bus."

Hhe remembered that moment, the one he had been working towards for months. It had easy, blindingly easy, to switch out the drug they would use to keep Michael calm for a simple salt solution; to check that his restraints were just the tiniest bit loose; to give the bus driver something that would make just a little less alert.

Then his only duty was to sit and wait. And when he had seen Michael stand from the wreckage of the crash and step over the patients, majestic even in his ragged robe and wearing the remnants of his shackles… Sartain had known he would never forget that sight.

He brought himself back to the present, to Angel Myers's stricken face. Allowing his voice a tinge of remorse, he continued, "Deputy Hawkins informed me that he killed four others at a nearby gas station. On our way here, we also heard a report that a woman was found dead, her knife missing."

"Oh God-"

"And with the man your son has reported and our good deputy, I would guess he's murdered at least eight people since his escape."

Angel Myers – Laurie Strode – was leaning against the dashboard now. Sartain watched her dispassionately.

"None of this is your fault, Ms. Strode," he said soothingly. Which, of course, only made her go paler. "You cannot hold yourself responsible for your brother's actions."

"Of course it is," she said, in a deadened voice. "He's after me."

He nodded to himself. Guilt. "You are certain of this."

She raised her head. "That's what he did the – the first time." A long breath. The first time. Sartain had done his research, even more so once he knew of what precisely Angel Myers meant to Michael. Had learned that this first escape had done as much to define Angel Myers – Laurie Strode – as it had Michael.

"Keep driving," she ordered. "Take a left until you get to Cherrywood."

Sartain did as she said. "Where do you intend to go?"

Her eyes were large, haunted. "After my parents... died... I stayed with one of my friends and her father. They had a house, all the way at the edge of town, at the end of the road... I don't think anyone ever bought it... so there's nobody there. I have to get him away from the town..."

"And what will you do if he comes for you?" he asked.

She looked even more terrified. "I have to – I have to –" She sucked in air. "I don't know..." Dr. Sartain let her stew in silence, saw her twisting her fingers along the barrel of the gun. After a moment, she said, "I don't know what he wants."

"Do you believe he would hurt you?" he asked. "Hurt your children?" He glanced back at her twins – the boy, still tense with remembered horror, eyes staring, unseeing, out the window; the girl, her dress dirt-stained and her sleeve ripped, curled up into herself.

"I don't – he's never hurt them – or me..." But she sounded uncertain, and Sartain pressed on that.

"Never? Not in all the time you've known him?"

She stared at him, swallowed. "There was... one time. When he first escaped. He – he chased me into his house and – pushed me over – over the –"

Sartain knew of the incident, confused as it had been. From the accounts he had read, Michael had attempted to kill his younger sister only once, the confrontation ending when she had grazed him in the head with a gunshot and he was arrested once again. The incident puzzled him, for in all the times Laurie Strode had visited her brother, he had never shown any such inclination again. Which meant that either Michael had simply forgotten himself when he escaped... or there was some other inciting incident.

Laurie Strode had stopped speaking, but Sartain needed to know what this incident had been. So he asked her, "Do you fear that he will repeat this incident?"

A stare, and he saw confusion. "He won't..." She seemed to think about it. "I don't think – what he did, I think that was because I stab–"

She stopped, brow furrowing, but it was all Sartain needed. Confirmation of what he had guessed. So it was indeed Laurie Strode's actions that had caused the incident. He clenched the wheel. To have seen Michael in that state… completely unrestrained… he could only imagine it.

"If he has tried to attack you before," he said, drawing out each word slowly, "he may do so again. Now that he's free of the confines of the institution – in the wild, as it were – he may well give into his more... predatory instincts."

"He wouldn't," she said, but he could see the beginnings of fear. She shook her head. "Why – why are you saying all this? A few minutes ago, you were asking me to stop him from being killed."

"That was before I saw what he was capable of," said Sartain. "He has murdered a man in front of your son and tried to kidnap your daughter. He attacked Deputy Hawkins and hurt you in the process. Can you say with full certainty that he will not harm you?"

She did not respond, just stared out the window. Her hand was groping in a pocket, though her glassy eyes suggested that she was barely aware of what she was doing. Dr. Sartain let her, making the indicated turn. They were now traveling a smaller road, one that evidently saw less maintenance. The street lights were spaced out at longer intervals, the houses giving way to larger and larger yards. He thought they might soon reach the isolated farmlands that surrounded Haddonfield.

"That was what the visits were for," Laurie Strode said suddenly. She was not looking at Sartain now; she had pulled something out of her coat, was staring at them. "To keep him... quiet. Keep this from... happening." Sartain chanced a look over. It looked like she was holding two slips of paper – no, he saw as they drove under a light. Two photographs. He wondered what they showed, what significance they held for her. "That's what they kept telling me." Whether she even saw the photos was questionable; the numbed look in her eyes was only growing. "His old doctor. Those journalists. They keep saying I'm..."

"Special," he finished. Yes, it was rather remarkable that this unassuming slip of a girl had undergone such a change in her status. Dr. Loomis had been quite dismissive of her, even in his second book. Crime journalists had only focused on her improbable survival. Only Michael's previous doctor had examined her role, her relationship, more closely... but then only as a means to cure Michael. To keep him quiet.

None of them, not even the girl herself, had realized just how significant Angel Myers – Laurie Strode – was.

The girl in question had pushed her forehead against the palms of her hands once more. Bitterness filled her voice. "That's what all of you have said. But I – I didn't want this. I don't want to be the only one… the only thing…"

A pause, the span of a heartbeat.

"What does that make me?" she murmured. "What does that make them?"

He knew she was speaking of her children. He kept driving, waiting.

It was another moment before she raised her face. "Do you know," she said, in a flat little voice, "I can barely remember what my life was like before him? I never – I never thought about anything like this, I just wanted to – to graduate and go to college and get married, until this – until him-"

Angel Myers. The only person who had the privilege of knowing Michael's mind, his motives – and she was too stupid and ungrateful to care.

And now he swept in on this girl who had so little idea of the honor she had been granted. "It is a great burden, Ms. Strode." He made his voice soft, comforting, the way he always sounded with his patients. "Nor is it something anyone should have to take on." He watched the road for a moment. The houses were becoming ever rarer, with a whole minute going by sometimes of only grassland and fields. "It is not your job to save him. Particularly if it puts others at risk."

She turned to face him. "What?"

"All the people he has killed. The people he might come after. Your children. You." He focused on the road, sharply aware that she was staring at him. "I'm sure you recall his earliest murders. His sister. Her boyfriend. His mother's boyfriend. Only you survived. Because you were special? Or merely because of luck?"

She was silent.

"And when he escaped – the people he killed. Your friends. Your family. You survived, once again… but was this due to his actions, or yours?

She continued to stare into the night.

"And now that he is free… you have already seen that he will stop at nothing to come after you or your children. Do you truly believe he will restrain himself from his deepest instincts, for you?"

She did not answer.

"Even Dr. Loomis did not hesitate to fire upon his own patient to protect others. To protect you, as I recall. After what I have seen today, I can say the same." He indicated his broken arm ruefully. "I would not blame others for doing what is necessary."

He let that hang, driving on in silence.

Streetlamps flashed by at long intervals, their brightness dim in the inky blackness of fields and pastures and forests. The only other light came from the car, cutting through the darkness as they drove on. Inside was quiet, broken only by an in-drawn breath from Laurie Strode, a small whimper from the children.

The true significance of Angel Myers was known only to him and, for a brief moment, the journalists who had come on their ill-fated attempt to interview Michael. She, and by extension her children, were the one tiny link to what little humanity remained in Michael Myers.

And the nature of evil – clean, uncorrupted evil – allowed for no humanity. He would not allow Michael to continue to be sullied by this connection. There could be nothing to mar the perfect purity of Michael's purpose.

They had reached the end of the road. On their right Sartain could see an old-fashioned, two-story house, built in a farmhouse style. Its doors and windows were boarded up, a broken "For Sale" sign swinging in the wind. He would have stopped there, but Laurie Strode indicated for him to drive further, off the road and into the grass surrounding the house. He could see a small shed in the distance, a row of trees lining the street, but otherwise it was just the house and its land, atop a small embankment that sloped down into the surrounding forest.

As soon as he put the car in park, Laurie Strode unbuckled her seat belt. He saw with satisfaction that she was gripping the gun.

"I want you to get Jamie and John to the police," she said, voice tight. "I have to – I have to –" For a moment he thought she might choke on her own fear. "When he comes, I have to do this myself."

Her children, who had been so quiet all this time, let out a cry. "No!"

"Mommy, don't leave, don't leave us –"

"Mom, you can't!"

"Shhh," she said distractedly, opening the passenger door. Halfway out, she turned to face them, pressing her hand to the grille. "It's going to be all right. If you stay, you're going to be hurt, okay? Dr. Sartain will get you to the police; they'll protect you."

"Mommy," said Jamie in a tiny voice, "you're going to see Uncle, aren't you?"

She hesitated. "Yes. I'm going to – to talk to him."

In the mirror, Sartain saw Jamie glance at her brother. He looked at their mother.

"Our uncle is Michael Myers, isn't he?" He paused. "The Boogeyman."

Silence. There was something dark and resigned in their mother's eyes. "Yes."

She jumped out of the car and closed the door. Sartain could see her fingers running along the gun, twitching with nervousness. They waited, the twins making no noise except for the rare little whimper, Laurie Strode standing by the car, staring back at the road.

Then John gasped. "There."

The shape of a human figure had emerged from the trees.