Halloween 2

by Jack Martin

  But he did not have eyes in the back of his head.

  He did not see the pair of gloved hands that reached out from nowhere and clamped onto his shoulders.

  He whirled around, bringing up the barrel of the gun beneath his coat.

  A man in a Sheriff's uniform.

  It was Brackett. He lowered his gun and tried to slow his heart from stopping his throat.

  "You all right, Loomis?" said the Sheriff.

  "Yeah." He wanted to sound as matter-of-fact as possible. If Brackett knew what was really at stake in Haddonfield tonight he might . . . well, he might not believe it. He might think it was a joke, another holiday prank. He would laugh it off. And then it truly would be too late. Too late for us all. He straightened his collar and made a herculean effort at self-control.

  "Nothing's goin' on," announced Sheriff Brackett. "Except kids playin' pranks, trick-or-treating, parking, getting high. I have the feeling you're way off on this."

  He sounded like he was reading off a yellow sheet of the night's crimes. Is that all this is to him? thought Loomis. Another misdemeanor for the report?

  "You have the wrong feeling," said Loomis.

  "Well, you're not doing much to prove me wrong." The Sheriff rocked smugly on his heels.

  "What more do you need?"

  They walked. Brackett shone his flashlight at a twisted shape under a tree. It turned out to be a kid's bicycle.

  "It's gonna take more than fancy talk to keep me up all night crawlin' around these bushes."

  Loomis felt it coming. It was for him a statement of fact, deduced from observations made in proper scientific fashion over a long, very long period of time. Fifteen years to the day. To the night. The conclusion was inevitable. Even if this petty civil servant couldn't see it. His patience expired precisely then, strung out beyond the breaking point of human endurance. As of this minute he no longer cared if the Sheriff thought him mad. They'll all go down with him, he thought, if he's too blind to see. Lift the scales from his eyes before it's too late.

  I've got to try.

  "I watched him for fifteen years," Loomis began. "Sitting in a room, staring at a wall. Not seeing the wall. Looking past the wall, looking at this night. Inhumanly patient. Waiting for some secret, silent alarm to trigger him off. Death has come to your little town, Sheriff. You can either ignore it, or you can help me to stop it."

  There. That was the reality. Now what was the Sheriff going to do about it?

  Brackett wouldn't look him in the eye. "More fancy talk," he said simply, as if that, too, was a crime in his little black book, to be dealt with and dismissed as easily as a slight case of smalltown vandalism; less than that. A moment's indigestion, the residue of a bad dream that would fade to nothingness in the reassuring light of day a few hours from now. The Sheriff was clearly a man who had no truck with matters he could not reduce to a few marks on a booking slip.

  Loomis became quietly enraged at this man's, this town's small-mindedness.

  What would it take to wake them to the danger? Two more hacked-up bodies like the ones in 1963? The continuing carefully-plotted, methodical destruction of the entire population? Of the Sheriff's own children? Even they can't be as pathetically stupid as this man, this keeper of law and order, this low-potential over-achiever, to use the current lexicon. The children, thought Loomis. Even they know to run for cover when pure, unadulterated evil brushes too close to them in the dark.

  "Doctor, do you know what Haddonfield is?" The Sheriff continued in his flat bureaucrat's voice, convinced of the viability of ignorance as a means of survival. "Families. Children. All lined up in rows, up and down these streets. You're telling me they're lined up for a slaughterhouse."

  A fitting metaphor for a midwesterner, thought the doctor. Never expect more than a grunt from a pig. That's as much as he can conceive of, God help him. God help us all.

  But, as a matter of fact, he may not be that far wrong.

  "They could be," said Loomis.

  The Sheriff hiked up his belt with its jangling weaponry and clenched his jaw muscles. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips. He scanned the street effortlessly, as if examining the back of his hand, making no conscious note of it; its condition had not changed in so long he was certain it never would. He thrust his chin out and bit down, making a decision. It was clearly not an easy decision for him. But it was based on the concept of chain of command, the hierarchy of authority which he had sanctified in his own mind the day he first put on the uniform. He extended himself now beyond the call of duty and reluctantly gave the last measure of his loyalty to orders from above. That and no more.

  "I'll stay with you tonight, doctor, just on that chance that you're right. And if you are—" And this was the kicker, his vague threat should common sense prevail in the morning, as he had no doubt it would. "—If you are right, damn you Jor letting him out."

  With that the Sheriff turned away, crossed the street at a fast clip, and headed back to his car.

  Loomis did not watch him go.

  He had more important matters to worry about.

  The hands on his watch turned and the night grew colder.

  Loomis waited through the waning of the moon, the last trickling of water in dammed-up storm drains, the barking and then the bored silence of dogs, the winding down of crickets and the settling into sleep of the first houses on this block and the next as leaves fell over roofs and mist occluded windows. He even heard muffled choruses of snoring now from bedrooms shuttered on alleys. Cats abandoned their nocturnal prowling, cars ticked into cold iron in locked garages, lawns became dewy and recorded the footprints of his soundless passing. Minutes became hours, hours crept along on the falling scythes of his watch hands, and still he waited.

  As the night pressed toward ten o'clock in this small town, he was wide awake.

  Suddenly he tensed.

  His ears were picking up—something. Not the swishing of the wind in the trees nor any other aspect of the street so familiar to him by now. His ears fine-tuned, zeroing in on the new sound. . . .

  The sound of automobile tires rolling too slowly over slippery pavement.

  Probably it meant nothing. A teenaged couple on their way to lovers' lane, a family outing with kids asleep in the back seat, a businessman returning from drinks with his after-hours secretary. A police car, perhaps, if Brackett had kept his word and sent a back-up squad car on the prowl, after all.

  But how could he be sure?

  Loomis stood stock-still beside a brick house. A car drifted past on the uneven street.

  It was not a police car. The driver was veiled in shadow, as if there were no one behind the wheel.

  Loomis focused his eyes.

  A station wagon.

  And there. On the driver's door. A design, a circle containing a familiar emblem.The state seal.

  It was the car, the same official station wagon Loomis himself had driven to the sanitarium—was it only last night? The car he had been given to transport Michael Myers to his hearing before the judge. There had been no danger of parole; Thorazine and Myers' own unearthly silence guaranteed that each time the case came up for review.

  Except that last night Myers had made his move.

  Unbelievably, he had tricked the guards and freed himself from maximum security. When Loomis and the nurse arrived, he was ready. He overpowered them and took the car. Just like that. And all without a word.

  Of course.

  He could have done it at any time.

  Except that he had been waiting. Waiting for that night.

  It was a mistake that would not happen again.

  I was right the first time, thought Loomis. There's no one behind the wheel. No one human, at least.

  He drove the car straight here to Haddonfield, as I knew he would. No one would believe me, but I knew it would happen sooner or later. I knew.

  Just as I know now what I must do to finish it.

  He gripped the revolver in his pocket and began
running across lawns, pacing the car.

  The station wagon cornered. Loomis followed. It turned again, accelerated, leaving him behind.

  Had it seen him?

  Loomis sincerely hoped so.

  He poised at the corner, listening. He opened his senses and his memory, admitting to his consciousness all that he had learned about Myers. And again, he knew.

  Loomis did not have to reason further.

  The remainder of the night would run true to Myers' inevitable plan. It was as clear as water on the air.

  He would escape.

  He would come home.

  That much had already happened.

  And now Loomis knew beyond the shadow of a doubt the single, murderous obsession that would control Michael Myers' every move until it was time for it to be over.

  He would kill again.

  Unless he could be stopped.

  With a strangely calm, almost doomed sense of purpose, Dr. Loomis plunged across the intersection in a full run, tracking his patient.

  Chapter Two

  Brackett, he thought, where are you when you're needed?

  He stood by the station wagon. He had found it here, empty, had spent the last half-hour searching the yards and surrounding area.

  There was no place to hide, and yet he was hiding. Somewhere. Very close by. Loomis could feel it. Waiting to strike and move on.

  And all the while time was passing. Too much time.

  To hell with you and your tired schedule, Sheriff, he thought. Your normal methods won't work tonight. Not anymore.

  Loomis unpocketed his gun, opened the cylinder, held it to the moon and spun the chambers. Loaded.

  It was all he needed to know.

  He left the station wagon and started out again on his own.

  After several blocks a pair of saucer-eyed headlights knifed abruptly out of an alley and caught him square in the face. He held up his hand.

  The car braked. Brackett got out. Slowly. Almost casually.

  "Where were you?" said Brackett disinterestedly. "I went back to the Myers house—"

  "I found the car. He's here."

  "Where?" Brackett's voice tightened.

  "Three bloeks down. Get in the car," Loomis ordered. There was no time to reason. "Go up that side street and then back down here. Keep watching. I'm going ahead."

  Brackett swallowed hard and dropped his cigarette.

  A moment later he was swinging wide in a U-turn.

  Loomis kept walking.

  He was close now. He could all but smell it, taste it. There was an aura in the town, hanging like a cloud over the ordinary lives that played out in these ordered streets and houses, safe and sane lives that knew nothing of the chaos that might erupt at any second and blow their safe harbor out of the water. He did not envy them their complacency. Enjoy your haven while you can, he thought. It may not last much longer.

  Lined up for a slaughterhouse. Brackett had said that. The Sheriff did not know how right he was. Is that what you all want to be—lambs to the slaughter?

  Wake up! he thought.

  I should scream bloody murder at the top of my lungs. Would that startle you out of your warm beds and into action?

  No. You would only think it another Halloween jape, the final ritual of a holiday that long ago lost its meaning. A child's game made of nothing more substantial than colored paper and bobbing apples and cardboard broomsticks.

  Except that the one who's playing the game tonight is no child.

  And to him, it is no game.

  Loomis came to another street. A peaceful, tree-lined lane filled with more classic two-story houses and old oaks. It was no different from any other street in this section of town.

  He paused under a grove of trees strung with crepe paper, streamers blowing in the wind. He noted the corner, getting his bearings.

  It was a wide street with close-cropped lawns and well-kept yards. Tidy and conservative.

  Loomis was not reassured.

  Now a last echo of Halloween play sounded from one of the yards. Squealing laughter. It lifted on the night air and rose over the housetops, to be lost on the rushing autumn wind.

  The sound set his teeth on edge.

  Nothing seemed simple or normal to him anymore. He tried to hold the irrational side of his nature in cheek, but it was no use. In terms of what he knew now, the wailing might as easily have been the keening of banshees. Where was the distinction?

  Just then a little boy came running from the porch of a house on the other side of the street. A late trick-or-treater, thought Loomis. But, really, where was the dividing line between ritual and reality, between costumed playacting and genuine monsters? Was the difference only in how seriously one played the game? Take that litle tyke, for instance. He's running like he believes the gates of Hades have really opened behind him, tripping over his costume, his face smeared with makeup. His wailing certainly seems genuine enough. Who's to say it isn't true? Do I know what he has seen? Does anyone? It's real to him. We should all be so easily convinced. Perhaps it would increase our potential for survival.

  His wailing . . .

  Loomis frowned.

  The little boy wasn't laughing. He was crying. He was beyond tears. Someone must have played a particularly frightful joke on him. And his costume—

  It wasn't a costume. The child was in his pajamas.

  And his face. It wasn't a mask and it wasn't makeup. It was smeared with—what?

  Could it be blood?

  Loomis stiffened.

  He heard more crying—screaming—above the sudden pounding of the pulse in his ears.

  A little girl with dark hair flying came running behind the boy. Was she chasing him? No. Fear contorted her face into an expression of sheer horror. She was too terrified even to glance back over her shoulder at whatever she was running from.

  Loomis had not seen such an expression in years. Not since the police photographs of the faces of the two victims who were slashed to

  death fifteen years ago. In this very town.

  Only a few blocks away.

  Now the two children were tearing across the lawn, the sidewalk, slapping dark outlines of their tiny feet on the pavement.

  Loomis took quick steps.

  The children spotted him but kept running, screaming even louder. They passed him, trying desperately to grab hands but pulling apart as their toes scraped cement.

  They were running for their lives.

  "Help!" they shrieked. "Help, mister! The bogy man . . . !"

  "Keep going!" shouted Loomis. "Don't stop and don't look back, no matter what you see or hear!"

  "He's in the house! He's—"

  "Get your asses out of here!" Loomis yelled.

  The house. Not the old Myers house this time. Not his old stomping grounds. Another house, apparently one picked at random.

  Why?

  Because, thought Loomis, there's no one left to kill in the Myers house. He has to seek new blood.

  Why didn't I think of that?

  Loomis sprinted full out across the lawn.

  Before he got to the porch he heard more screaming. Inside. Upstairs.

  The door stood open on darkness. He kicked it back and jumped inside.

  His eyes were already attuned to the dark. He raised the gun and braced his arm with his other hand. He crouched and swung his body in a half-circle, sweeping the room, straight-arming the gun from side to side in front of him.

  The old light fixture in the ceiling creaked, vibrating.

  The sounds of a struggle upstairs.

  The metallic smell of blood in the air.

  There. At the top of the landing. Legs, ankles moving in a spastic dance. Feet lifting off the floor. Squirming, kicking.

  Dragged away down the hall.

  Loomis mounted the stairs two at a time. He flattened against the wall.

  A girl, a teenaged girl was dangling at the end of the landing. She was held around the throat by two huge white ha
nds. The hands were attached to the heavy, muscular arms of a tall, very tall shape wearing a mask.

  It was him!

  Loomis aimed. He couldn't get a clear shot. The girl—she could no longer scream. She was reaching up, clawing at the pale death's-head in front of her in a last mad spasm. As Loomis watched, the rubber mask wrinkled and slid up under her fingernails.

  The shape let go of her just long enough to pull the mask back down. Then the head tilted to one side, observing. Like an animal. Curious. Utterly detached.

  The girl's mouth opened and she screamed again. It was a scream that curdled Loomis' blood, a scream of someone who at that instant might have wished she had never been born.

  Loomis cocked the hammer with both thumbs and sighted at the mask. It had been raised only an instant, but long enough to reveal the inconceivably bland, emotionless features of a face free of any feeling, a creature so devoid of any recognizable human expression that it was capable of absolutely anything. It could as easily tear the arms and legs from a human being as from a fly, with no inner restraints, conscience, guilt. No hesitation. No consideration of the consequences, and no remorse. No conscience. A perfect killing machine, a pure and simple alien ego devoted entirely to its own subhuman purposes. It had not been born of man and woman—through them, but not of them. An imposter in humanlike form, a simulacrum catapulted here across generations of evolution from the dawn of prehistory to subvert and destroy the accomplishments of an entire species.

  I will not have it! thought Loomis savagely. In the name of my own kind and all that we have come to stand for, I send you back to the darkness from which you were spawned. You go to Hell, Michael Myers, or whatever your name really is!

  Now!

  Without hesitation, Loomis pulled the trigger.

  There was a sound like thunder in the closed hallway.

  The bullet struck the shape in the chest and knocked it off its feet.

  The girl fell back to the wall. Loomis started toward her, one hand extended.