Haddonfield was basically shut down for three weeks.
Normally, residents would be fully engaged in preparations for the holiday season. There are scarecrows, hay bales, snowmen, and reindeer everywhere. The Haddonfield Knitting Society knits turkeys in ovens and the most festive and ugly sweaters.
None of that was now possible.
My high school's gym, still decorated for the Autumn Ball with streamers and paper pumpkins hung from the ceiling, glittery orange bunting draped the walls, and balloons and confetti suspended and waiting to float down as the King and Queen of the ball were crowned— had become a makeshift morgue.
Rows of Michael's victims lined up in body bags on the polished wood floor where I hoped Billy would slow dance with me. Billy lay next to his father; Annie next to the old man who owned an antique store…The names were printed in the local paper and updated as more bodies were discovered. The media was perplexed by the seemingly random selection Michael's victims, and Sheriff Brackett remained tight-lipped.
But I suspected my hunch was correct.
Michael killed the people he felt had slighted me.
Billy and Annie had betrayed me. Billy's dad, the tavern owner, did not hide how he felt about people like me and my dad. Mister Carruthers had practically chased us girls out of his store when I touched an old Mardi Gras mask.
I was surprised to see that Michael had killed my gym and health teacher. Ms. Hollander used to do bodybuilding contests and did not go easy on us in class. She yelled and called us names and made us run laps at any perceived insubordinate behavior. The last time I saw her was the day before Halloween when she ordered me to run in the cold rain with no coat. What had I done? I gave tampons to Cecilia Conway.
Hollander's voice had echoed through the room, full of anger and frustration. Her fake-tanned face was contorted in a fierce scowl as she gripped my tampon box tightly in her hand. I couldn't help but notice the bulging vein in her neck, pulsing with each word she spat out. Fear crept into my body as I took a step back, trying to distance myself from her intensity.
"It's just a tampon!" I blurted out, lifting my hands up in defense. I could feel the weight of her words hanging heavy in the air as if they were something tangible that could physically harm me. My attempts at diffusing the situation seemed futile against her rage.
The other two gym teachers were never so cruel or rude. We teenage girls trying to adjust to our changing bodies was enough to deal with. But none of that mattered to Hollander. Despite my protestations, she threatened to revoke my access to the Autumn Ball and the only way to appease her was to accept my punishment.
I stumbled through the pouring rain, my school-issued gym clothes soaked, each step weighed down my humiliation. My tears mixed with the frigid raindrops. I didn't want to tell my parents or the principal, I wanted payback for me and the other girls she mistreated. However, I never got the chance.
They found my gym teacher in her home workout area, her skull obliterated by what the medical examiner believed was the vicious bashing by a fifty-pound dumbbell.
The police were finding so many bodies that they were going door to door, to houses and businesses and municipal buildings in search of corpses. Caution tape was rolled out like Christmas lights across lawns, including that of our elderly next-door neighbor.
For years since I turned twelve, I've had to keep the curtains drawn on one of my bedroom windows, the one that faced Mister Ambrose Bailey's house.
Mister Bailey was a retired dentist who was widowed when I was about six. Pouchy with a bald head with only few sprouts of gray hair and liver spots, he always wore suspenders and loafers. He was relatively harmless, and he attended our church and sang in the men's choir.
But unlike Laurie and Annie, I started to develop earlier and faster. It was incredibly awkward and uncomfortable to be peppered with questions and to have adults comment on my sprouting breasts and rounded hips. I had no idea what to do with the attention of boys; Annie always leaned into it but Laurie and I recoiled.
My bedroom was supposed to be my sanctuary, and it was until one day when I was thirteen. I was undressing after school and felt the burn of what felt like someone staring at me. Turning around, I gasped, clutched my shirt to my chest, and froze.
Across the way watching from his bedroom was Ambrose Bailey staring at me. He leaned closer to the windowpane, his breath fogging the glass. One hand was caressing the glass as if he was reaching out and touching me and the other hand…
I never told my parents because it just felt too awful to discuss. I never told my school counselor or our pastor. I just tried to keep the curtains closed. That's how a lot of people in town seemed to deal with issues they didn't want to face.
Sometimes Mom would open the curtains when she was grabbing my bedding to add to the wash or if she was trying to make my room cheerier. When that would happen, I would rush to close them, to block his view. Countless times I would grab the curtains and there the old man was, leering at me.
From that same window a few hours after returning from Chicago, I watched men and women from the medical examiner's office slip on protective scrubs and plastic booties over their shoes. They passed a deputy who was vomiting off the side of the porch. An hour later they were carting Mister Bailey out in a body bag strapped to a gurney.
"What did you do to him, Michael?" I asked, my face pressed to my window.
Ultimately what Michael had done was make sure Mister Bailey could peep at me anymore.
Not everyone on the list had done something to me. Some had done something to Laurie and others I assumed had gotten in his way. Wrong place at the wrong time.
It was a wonder that the streets had not turned to rivers of blood.
Desperately, I wanted to talk to Laurie. We were best friends before Michael came back and I hoped that we could be sisters in survival. But she wasn't accepting my calls, she didn't return voicemails or text messages.
"She needs time to process all of this, Angie," Christie said.
Christie had come to check on me and found me crying into my pillows. Mom had allowed me an hour and I had spent that time scrolling through photos on my phone, looking at images of better times and my heart was breaking all over again.
"You need to process too."
I rolled over on my back and scrubbed my eyes with the heels of my palms.
Christie, dressed in leggings and an oversized sweater, crawled onto the bed and laid on her belly. She was close enough that I could see the roots of her hair where the strawberry blonde was growing out. For whatever reason she thought having slightly darker hair would make her look more sophisticated, but I preferred her natural color; it reminded me that she was my sunshine, and I was her moon.
"I know but I really think that if we could talk we could, well…" I waved my hands trying to form my thoughts into words.
"Michael being her brother is kind of the tip of the iceberg. Once the Strodes come back a lot will come to the surface."
Shifting onto my uninjured side, I gave my sister a skeptical glare.
"Mom said something like that."
Christie hugged a pillow under her chin. Before she went away to college, I loved it when she would spend time with me like this, listening to me ramble on about school and friends or whatever held my interest at the time. I could relax and be myself.
But now, I need her help to guide me through all the information that was blatantly kept from me.
"Think about it," Christie promoted. "Michael Myers, Laurie Strode. Siblings but they don't have the same last name."
I frowned. "Chris, you and me, we're siblings and we don't have the same last name. Y'know, different dads and all."
"Well, yeah, but Patricia Strode isn't Michael's mom."
I froze. My ears heard her, but my mind hit the pause button. Christie pushed off the pillow and moved to sit cross-legged on my comforter. I did not appreciate her looking at me as if I was being silly.
"Didn't Doctor Loomis tell you when he came rambling and ranting about Michael after he escaped?"
I shook my head. "No," my voice was small as I searched my memory for details about that first and very strange encounter. "He just said that Michael killed his sister Judith."
"Yeah, Judith Myers. She was about the same age as you are now. But their parents were Edith and Kenneth Myers."
I attempted to get up but winced at the sharp pain radiating in my side.
"Careful!"
I ignored Christie's warning and forced myself to sit up. I felt like clutching my hair and ripping it out! Instead, I said, "B-but…Michael didn't kill his parents. No one has ever said he killed them. What happened to Laurie and Michael's parents? How did Laurie end up with Strodes?"
When Christie didn't answer me, I slapped my comforter and through clenched teeth demanded, "What happened to the Myers? Tell me!"