A screeching wail, a terrible sound that tears through any peace one could hope to have while strapped to a gurney. The red and blue lights circled and flashed around the vehicle as it round into the night. The voices around me were unfocused and garbled so I couldn't make out all the medical jargon being said. However I could steal bits and pieces of the conversations and yet I remained mute, my eyes trained on the twin doors and the glass windows in front of me.
"She's lucky to be alive…"
"…I mean so many people have died…"
"You can expect this in a city but in a sleepy town like this…?"
"Surprisingly the only thing off about her vitals is low blood pressure…"
The road that led to the highway and the Chicago area hospital that awaited me was not the smoothest and someone apologized for the uncomfortable ride. My eyes broke from the doors and rolled towards my left and found the source of the voice.
Dark alert eyes, friendly slanted eyes met mine and I absorbed this new personage in continued silence. Tall and slender in build with a croaked smile and limp black hair brushed away from his angular face, he was the youngest paramedic I had encountered that evening.
"Miss Ramsey, we are going to see you get the best care and if you need anything or have questions you need only to ask."
Quietly I regarded him and decided that I would need to try and lessen the monotony of my time, perhaps talking would help. Oprah and Dr. Phil always stressed talking as a way to relieve stress and coup with hard circumstances. But how could I convey to a stranger what I had experienced? I had been a child ready to celebrate a fun evening with my friends just days ago. Life had been safe and predictable, easy, and content for us all; now my peers—or the majority thereof were cooling in the morgue. Was the man seated in the ambulance at my side capable of understanding what that could mean? As friendly as he appeared, did he see me as a child lost, or a woman newly made, fashioned and formed by certain violent and loving events?
This man probably had been briefed on the murderous situation that had gripped Haddonfield, Illinois and maybe pitied me. If that were so, I preferred the abysmal silence.
I realized that I was staring at him and quickly averted my eyes.
"Sorry…could you tell me your name." I asked hoarsely.
A brilliant smile widened across his face and he boldly seized my chilled hand in his heated one. "My name is David Kwan," he began and leant forward so I had no choice but to acknowledge his comfort, "I'm here to help anyway that I can. But you look exhausted so if you want to nap you may. If you do I'll be here when you wake up, Miss Ramsey."
"Please, call me Angie, and no I don't want to sleep. I'm tired," I admitted slowly, "but I don't think I'll ever be able to close my eyes again."
David's chiseled face fell into an expression of deep concern and he again tried to reiterate that no further harm could befall me. For him, Michael Myers had been the boogieman who had spread his wrath on the suspecting residents of Haddonfield. Angelina Ramsey had been targeted, kidnapped, beaten and raped and of course frightened to close my eyes because the memories might resurface and plague me in my sleep.
Something about this man's demeanor compelled me to speak about the truth, to brief him about the real happenings that brought me to be strapped down. I wanted to explain that I feared that should I dare to sleep and eventually wake up, the reality of Michael's death would consume me again. Could I really hope to regain my previous standard of living when he and the rest of America would soon learn my name in the worst way?
No doubt the media would soon descend on Haddonfield like a swarm of cicadas, devouring every obscure and irrelevant detail, regurgitating sensationalist gossip. If I fell asleep would I really find this gentleman at my side or Nancy Grace?
"Where are my parents? Are they still at the cemetery?"
Thankful for a change in conversation, David explained that my family was being escorted by one of the deputies and meet me at the hospital. Apparently my sister had taken the responsibility to return to our home to collect clothes and toiletries, but also with a deputy; even though Michael was tucked inside a body bad, his fearful influence still existed.
"What happens to me when I arrive at the hospital? Couldn't you just give me some first-aid and just take me home? I mean I know Haddonfield Memorial is probably a crime scene now, but to go all the way to Chicago…"
"Unfortunately it's not just first-aid you require. A police investigation is handling things and your parents are prepared to sign certain documents—"
"Wait, certain documents? What are you talking about?" I asked, suddenly so agitated that David had to press me to the gurney with both hands on my shoulders.
The other paramedics had been talking amongst themselves and communicating with the hospital personnel. Now they were watching this animated and awkward exchange. David's frown deepened and he sighed heavily even as I stared daggers into him. The phrase 'don't kill the messenger' definitely applied in this instance but I couldn't help my abrupt anger.
"Once we get to Sacred Heart you can talk with your parents and the doctors and they will review with the procedure of performing a rape kit."
For a moment I couldn't hear the siren, the beeping of the machines that crowded the interior cabin of the ambulance. Fear crept into David's eyes and I could feel an abhorrent sensation of acidic bile rising up in my throat, read to choke me and caused tears to sting my eyes. Fortunately I swallowed against it and tried to gather my scattered thoughts.
"R-rape…kit?" I whimpered aloud in a small and unfamiliar voice.
"Yeah, it'll help the police gather evidence so we know what that monster did. After that you'll receive all the care in the world to help you recover from your trauma."
Of course I heard David but his words still failed to pierce the dense fog that was enveloping my brain and strangling my heart. My chest seemed compressed and my lungs devoid of air. A sweat broke out across my face and my neck and surprisingly, instead of a cloth or something one would expect in an ambulance, David reached into his pocket and retrieved a crisp, white handkerchief. Somehow I temporarily forgot my reverie and watched him shake the fabric loose from its fold and handed it to me. Having noticed that I was taken aback by the gesture, he muttered that his grandfather always insisted on his carrying one. A pulse, a quivering trailed through my hands as I accepted the cloth and pursed my lips until I was sure I could voice my thanks. When I did he waved it away, insisting that it was a pleasure to be of assistance any way possible.
"Do I have to it? Take the rape kit, I mean? How the hell do you even do a rape kit in the first place?"
David did not immediately answer but looked to his colleagues, but none of them intervened. Perhaps the entire situation made them uncomfortable, maybe they were accustomed to emergencies and tragedies of a different sort and therefore hadn't the words to prepare me. So they were happy and relieved to relinquish the lead and leave the unpleasant duties to a man fresh from training.
He ran his hand through his midnight dark hair and took a moment to breathe before launching into the details.
Swabs for any foreign substance and DNA, a record of any sexually inflicted injuries, and pictures of those injuries. All of that will be necessary for the professionals to help me. The culprit who did the 'rape' was thankfully dead and so there would be no search, and once the doctors and the police concluded their investigation and pieced together their version of events, I'd be handed over for psychiatric assistance.
I desperately wanted to tell him that I didn't need any of the help the adults were forcing upon me. If the ambulance hadn't already hit the highway we could have turned back and let me return to the relative quiet of my bedroom. Every fiber of my being wanted to scream out in misery that didn't need to rape kit.
How can I need a rape kit when I wasn't fucking raped? Michael Myers may have broken out of Smith Grove Sanitarium, killed mercilessly, left my hometown in shambles and singlehandedly dismantled the senior class of Haddonfield High—but he was no rapist.
Michael had kidnapped me, yes, but his intentions were to protect me and his sister, Laurie. We were all he had left in this world and when I should have feared him most, I gave into my love for him.
What we shared was not Stockholm syndrome, nor was it puppy love. I could live a thousand years, meet and marry a hundred times over and still love only one knife-wielding mute murderer. If I closed my eyes I would not be further traumatized, I would see a pair of ice blue orbs and never want to wake again.
Shaking my head, I forced away those thoughts and realized that all eyes were on me. The men and women who tended to my care would estimate my lapses into silence to equate something other than bittersweet introspection. Just as I had tried to compel Michael to communicate with me, they would do also and record every blink and sigh.
However my attention was drawn to David who had never withdrawn his hand. The look of sympathy he provided should have angered me but I was thankful for his presence. He did not coddle me completely and offered to hear me without judgment, something I doubted I would have in the coming days. Hopefully he would see me not as a victim but a survivor; one that could rise above what everyone assumed had brought me down.
"Listen, Miss…I-I mean Angie," David quickly amended with a blush, "I'm new to the field and after everything is straightened out I'll be working at Haddonfield Memorial."
"Oh, really?" I asked, trying to sound just as colloquial.
"Yeah and my uncle in the hospital chaplain so if you think you need to talk to someone, you could always call on me, I-I mean him…my uncle that is."
His blush spread and I still could not bring myself to be angry for his ill-timed offer. In his mind I was a frightened and distressed teenage girl, instead of the young woman who felt more like a spouse newly windowed. If Michael had been a soldier killed in action in Afghanistan he would have tried to voice his offer better, or not at all. I was no victim, no battered child. Yet the sincerity that laced his voice led me to nod slowly before collapsing on the gurney's hard padded surface, suddenly exhausted.
"I think I will try to sleep a little, but of course you knew I would need to eventually."
David's sheepish smile was not lost on me and when he refused to take back his handkerchief, preferring I hold onto it. Nodding my continued thanks, I settled into the cushion of the gurney and tried to relax.
"Remember I'll be here when it's time to head into the hospital. Just let me know what I can do if you need anything."
Wordlessly I acknowledged his kindness and sighed heavily as the invisible weights on my eyelids pulled them down. Unfortunately the one thing I desired most was for the hand clutching mine to revert from gentle and warm to cold and scarred. What would I give to not be holding this ivory handkerchief but the soiled torn fabric of a mechanic's uniform? Instead of the smiling face of these fresh new paramedics, David Kwan, I ached to behold a ghostly white mask, devoid of emotion and blues that could change to onyx black within seconds. David's voice held a sweet note that could attract any woman and I bemoaned the fact that I yearned for the silent communication I had shared with Michael.
And so my thoughts continued in that lamenting vein until the darkness of a dreamless slumber overwhelmed me. The blaring of the sirens were drowned out, my locomotive surroundings vanishing and I welcomed this oblivion Michael had spent fifteen years sinking into this same detached catatonic state, and so when able to I vowed to do the same. Let my body be present but please allow my heart and mind retreat. Where would they go? I would send them to that dilapidated house left to weather its bloody history and hopefully find the peace that was snatched from me.