Halloween 2

by Jack Martin

  Something was still not right.

  There was a thump behind her, in the living room.

  "Oh, God," she said.

  She dropped the phone.

  She went to the dim archway that opened on the living room. She glanced back uncertainly at the telephone, its coiled cord dangling.

  She looked ahead into the living room, where only a plastic pumpkin was clearly visible. The front door stood open. "Who is it?"

  She left the phone and took a step, two steps into the other room.

  She stopped. Nothing moved. The pumpkin light wavered on the walls. Expanding, contracting.

  There was a breathing in the room that was not her own.

  She closed the collar of her blouse around her neck and cleared her throat.

  "Is anybody . . . ?" she began.

  Before she could finish her voice was cut off. The words bubbled in her mouth, below the startled whites of her eyes and above the clean white cotton of her shirtfront, which was suddenly splashed with tiny red polka dots. The cut came swiftly from behind, clean and deep and straight across, so that the blood shot out in all directions from the extra mouth that now opened below her chin, spattering her face and eyelashes and hair as well as her white shirt with a hissing, pumping spray that covered several feet of carpet and furniture before the shape released her and let her sink down to the floor. It stood over her with its head cocked to the side like a dog's, its flat, dead eyes unblinking behind the pale and featureless Halloween mask.

  Then it stepped over her body and through the door.

  Her lips were still twitching, trying to form a scream.

  "Circle the block again."

  "How long now?" Sheriff Brackett pulled the wheel hand-over-hand and the squad ear squealed around another corner. In the green light from under the dashboard his face was stony and reptilian.

  Loomis checked his watch with eyes that shone fiercely in the unnatural light.

  "It's about thirty minutes." His head tugged to one side. "Put the light there. There, by those trees."

  Braekett obliged with his hand-held spotlight. The beam swept the front of a house, a tree strung with a roll of toilet paper. "There's nothing."

  "Well, keep going." Loomis sucked in his breath and suppressed what he wanted to say.

  "You know, doctor," said Braekett tightly, "I'm just about there."

  Loomis shot an impatient glance at him. "What?"

  "The point where I stop takin' orders from you.

  Was that a threat? I don't have time to play games with him, thought Loomis. Let him think what he likes.

  Loomis dropped open the chamber of the gun and began reloading.

  "All right, Sheriff. Whatever you want. The primary concern is that we stop him."

  "You let him out."

  It was an accusation. So that was his game—assigning the responsibility. Of course. Let him, thought Loomis, if that will ease his mind. If that's what keeps him going.

  "I didn't," said Loomis automatically.

  "His own God damn doctor."

  "I didn't . . . let him out." My pride made me say that, thought Loomis. I'm letting him play on my guilt. Why? What does it matter what this man thinks of me?

  Loomis jumped several inches as the two-way radio squawked. Brackett snatched up the microphone.

  "Who is it?"

  Static.

  "Say again. What is it?"

  The voice on the other end cleared as they passed under high-voltage wires. "Hunt."

  "Where are you?"

  "Out by the bakery . . . moving north on Scottsville Road . . ."

  "Get the hell back into town. Come up 17th Street and meet me at the bypass."

  As Brackett hung up, Loomis swung the gun closed. Brackett turned on him.

  "Will you put that thing away?"

  Loomis held the gun and stared out the window.

  "You couldn't have shot him six times," Brackett informed him.

  "You think I'm lying, Sheriff." It was not a question.

  "I think you missed him. No man could take six slugs."

  Loomis bristled in spite of himself. "I'm telling you this isn't a man."

  Brackett's expression changed to open derision. His thin lips opened to speak. His eyes left the road.

  "Look out!" Loomis all but reached over to jog the wheel. "Slow down!"

  "What?" said Brackett.

  "All right, over there! Look look look!"

  It was hard to make out through the clear half-circles in the windshield. Four trick-or-treaters. Brackett sighed.

  Loomis waved his finger.

  There. Farther up the sidewalk, emerging from under a streetlamp.

  A tall figure in black. With a pale, almost featureless Halloween mask over his head. Walking steadily a few yards behind the children. Patiently. Tracking them.

  Brackett took his foot off the gas. "Is it him?"

  "I don't know!"

  Loomis leaped from the car. "Get back!" he yelled to the children.

  They looked at him and giggled.

  "Run!" shouted Loomis. "Come on, RUN!"

  "Loomis!" called the Sheriff angrily.

  "Get back!" He kicked the children past him and spread his legs in a defensive stance.

  "Loomis!" shouted the Sheriff as the pistol was raised.

  Loomis heard the car brakes, the slamming of the door, running feet. He refused to take his eyes from the tall shape. Two of the children were now safely past him, but the other two—he couldn't get a clear shot!

  And now the shape turned in its tracks and started walking away in the opposite direction.

  Loomis cocked the gun. "Stop!"

  "Loomis!"

  The tall shape crossed the street.

  The Sheriff came running as Loomis stepped into the street. The black-coated figure blended into the shadows. There, a flash of pale rubber skin, the grotesque tuft of colorless hair sewn to the top, the deliberate, unstoppable gait—

  Loomis braced himself in the middle of the street. He was getting away!

  "Don't shoot!" yelled Brackett.

  There was something else moving on the other side of the street. Was it children? An onlooker? Loomis hesitated, afraid he might miss. The shape kept walking. Loomis turned further, drew a bead on the exact center of the head—

  Before he could squeeze the trigger, he was blinded. Bright white lights flared into his eyes. Through glare he saw the shape, still walking.

  A car finished its turn. At the last instant its headlights swept the figure in black. The car swerved, braked. Too late.

  It was a patrol car.

  With an ear-splitting screech like a thousand fingernails scraping over a blackboard, the car scooped the shape up onto its hood and continued to brake, skidded, and ploughed headlong into a line of parked cars. There was the smell of burning rubber, and then sparks shooting upwards like a corona around the collison. The sharp scent of gasoline. And then the bursting roar of the explosion.

  Loomis staggered back in the force of the shock waves, his skin and the gun in his hand suddenly reflecting bright orange as a fireball rolled into the sky. Then black smoke and the crackle of flames.

  From within the car, a scream. Then a deputy kicked open a door and lurched out. His uniform was smoking.

  Loomis watched Brackett run to the figure trapped between the cars, but it was too late. The burning became a blast furnace, forcing Brackett back in its terrible light.

  Loomis stood transfixed as the tall shape burned black, trapped between the cars.

  He didn't make a sound, thought Loomis. He never has.

  Even as it burned, it remained upright.

  It might have been held that way between the smashed bumpers. But Loomis knew better.

  "He—he came outa nowhere," gasped the deputy. "I couldn't stop."

  "Was it him?"

  It burned to a crisp, popping and sizzling as the mask melted away to reveal the glowing skull beneath. It burned until there
was nothing left but a twisted scarecrow, its arms fiery matchsticks. Still Loomis watched. His face, flushed and sweating in the heat of the conflagration, never changed from its expression of grim, humorless satisfaction.

  He lowered the gun. It swung hot and heavy against his leg. Then a wind caught the flames and the smell blew over him. He turned aside and retched.

  "WAS IT HIM OR NOT?" shouted Brackett.

  Loomis did not bother to answer. This is the moment, he thought, that I have been waiting for. Nothing else matters.

  Another patrol car roared up. Another deputy rushed to join them."Leigh!"

  "You're too late, Hunt."

  Brackett stared with Loomis at the carnage. Loomis felt contemptuous eyes on him.

  "Leigh," patrolman Hunt tried again, "they've found three bodies."

  "Where?" Brackett spun around.

  "Across the street from the Doyle house." Hunt's voice broke. "Three kids."

  Brackett spat in Loomis' direction.

  The patrolman waited. "Leigh," he said. His voice was hesitant, almost kind. "Leigh, one of them was Annie . . . !"

  Before Hunt could say anything else, Brackett ran to the patrol car and slammed the door. The patrolman followed and got in next to this Sheriff.

  Loomis went for the back seat.

  It wasn't over yet. The fallout from tonight would last a long time. Perhaps for the rest of his—of all of their lives. There were the survivors to worry about. For them it would never be over. And those who didn't survive . . . it would not make the rest of the night easy; there would be a lot of stories to tell, lives to unravel. Perhaps even the burden of some new patients, now. Maybe even someone like Brackett. The more rigid the personality the more complete the break. It happened that way sometimes. He did not look forward to it. But he wanted to know it all. He considered it his personal responsibility.

  As they sped away, Loomis gazed numbly out the back window. The four children in trick-or-treat costumes were huddled together, watching animatedly.

  It should be a moment of celebration, he thought. If it were spring this would make a wonderful Feast of Beltane.

  But it was too late. Far too late.

  Chapter Four

  Several blocks away, an ambulance screamed up to the Doyle house.

  Inside, Laurie heard it. She concentrated on it.

  She was trying to keep the dream from coming.

  Then hands were lifting her from where she lay on the second floor. She could not feel them. She had not felt anything since the first knife slash across her shoulder; through that special grace by which the human nervous system survives times of great crisis, she had been granted the gift of non-feeling. It was this absence of pain which now kept her from passing out.

  She knew the crisis was over.

  She had seen him driven away from her and off the second story balcony by a burst of gunfire, louder than anything she had ever heard before. He had fallen—finally in a hail of bullets. She had actually seen them tear into his chest, the gouts of blood squeezing out. . . . It was over.

  Why, then, couldn't she feel anything now?

  It was over, wasn't it?

  "Don't let them put me to sleep," she said.

  She realized what she was saying. She knew. More than the ambulance attendants, more even than the tall policemen. Some part of her knew the real truth, even if she could not make sense of it.

  And still the dream tried to come.

  "It's okay, miss."

  Eyes were watching her. Curious neighbors, vaguely-familiar faces rubbernecking as she was carried down the steps.

  Now I know what it's like to be on a stretcher, she thought. I always figured it would be peaceful. Nothing to worry about, doctors to take care of you. Only it's not.

  Did she see his eyes there, just there, at the edge of the crowd?

  Voices: "Where's Brackett?"

  "Brackett'll take care of it."

  "Where is he?"

  "All right, folks, let's give 'em room, please . . ."

  "Don't let them . . ." she said.

  "Okay. It's okay."

  She tried to sit up but the straps held her, just under her breasts. The blanket that covered her body was bleeding through in red splotches. No, it was only the reflection of those goofy spinning light bulbs on top of the police cars.

  She felt herself dropping, then rising as the gurney legs scissored open under her. She heard what sounded like drips of blood as wheels clicked over the pavement. The stars circled above her. Then the doors of the ambulance opened and she was shunted inside. The doors shut and now she could hear only the idling of the motor through the steel compartment. She wanted to reach out and steady herself as the ambulance started to move. But her arms wouldn't work right. They were held to her sides. It was like being buried alive.

  Her mouth worked thickly, though she couldn't feel her lips. "Don't let them put me to sleep."

  "It's okay it's okay it's okay . . ."

  "Don't let them. Promise!"

  "I promise. Now try to get some rest."

  A young man sat down next to her, over her. He had on a blue jacket with a white patch. A name was stitched there in blue thread. JIMMY.

  "T-talk, to me, Jimmy," she said weakly. Her voice sounded hollow in her ears, as though she were in a cave.

  "What do you want to talk about?"

  She concentrated on his face. It would help her to keep from passing out. It was a good face with nice features. He had curly black hair. She held to him with her eyes. His face was real, with so much expression. A sensitive face. Like Ben Tramer, a little. Not like—

  "I don't know. Just don't let them—don't let me—"

  "Nobody's going to hurt you."

  "Don't leave me. I mean, can you stay with me wherever they're going to . . . ?"

  He was her age. Or older. Maybe eighteen or nineteen. She wanted to think only of him, of what she could see in front of her right now. Not—other things. He must have graduated already, she thought. I never saw him before. I don't think I did. I would have noticed.

  The ambulance yawed and the gurney rolled a few inches, then locked into place. Jimmy put out a hand to hold it steady.

  Behind her head the voice of the driver: "Hey, you know this chick?"

  "Yeah. Her name's Laurie Strode." Jimmy's voice. She wondered if the driver knew she could hear them. Probably he didn't care. But somebody cared. Jimmy cared. She tried to keep that thought. "She goes to school with my little brother Ziggy."

  "Her old man, uh, Strode Realty?"

  "Yeah."

  "O-kay. That means old Bud don't let up on the hammer!"

  The ambulance accelerated.

  "Don't worry," said Jimmy. "He does the same for all the girls." He was grinning manfully.

  "I'm not worried about that. Just don't let them put me to sleep . . . !"

  The siren started up.

  It jolted her. She felt it tingle through her body like an electric shock. With it came pain. Pain she could feel. Needles-and-pins. Memory returned to her, too. It started to wash over her in waves like her pulse. Like the dream. Trying to get inside her.

  "Oh . . . !" she said.

  "Don't think about it," he said. He meant the way her body felt. He didn't understand.

  Or did he? Maybe that was the best advice he could give. What I need to hear. Don't think about any of it. What happened tonight, and the other, before. Don't think.

  "Okay," she said.

  She trusted him.

  The siren screamed.

  Outside the ambulance flashing lights that swam past like phosphorescent fish, then darkness again, overlaid with a filtered color that is found nowhere in nature: the sodium vapor lights of the hospital parking lot.

  No one touched her. Only the stretcher. The doors of the van opened like metal wings.

  She raised her head a few inches as they lowered the gurney and wheeled her toward the EMERGENCY entrance. Beyond the yellow blanket over her toes s
he saw red lights blinking like drops of luminous blood in the glass doors. But they were only reflections from atop the ambulance.

  She knew she had to remain conscious.

  To her left the dark, polished tops of cars parked under the HADDONFIELD MEMORIAL HOSPITAL sign. To her right a '57 Chevy.

  Next to the Chevy, a dark car door opened and a shape emerged.

  She tensed.

  But it was only a pirate. Only a pirate? she thought. Yes. Why not? It was Halloween.

  I guess anything is possible tonight.

  There shouldn't be such a thing as Halloween. It's bad for the kids—evil. They don't know that. They think the same as I did. They think it's fun. I'll tell them the truth when I get out of here. I'll make them listen. I should have remembered. I should have—

  But she didn't want to remember. Not now.

  She wasn't ready for it.

  The pirate got out of the dark car and leaned on the '57 Chevy. He had a red bandana around his head. And a towel. He was holding a towel to his face.

  "Okay, just—just get out easy," Laurie heard a woman saying. The pirate's mother.

  "It'll be okay. Just walk slow, okay?"

  The towel fell away from the boy's face. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and blood was percolating out of his open mouth.

  "All right? You okay, hon? God, oh God!" The mother's face twisted as she walked him slowly forward. "Here, just-just-just put it up there, real gently. Just walk real slow. Come on . . ."

  The little boy was led forward. He was hunched over like an old man. See? thought Laurie. Look what Halloween did to him.

  Then her stretcher was wheeled ahead and up the ramp.

  Inside, the emergency receiving room was bright and reassuring. There was nothing in here that didn't show, Laurie was sure. The lights made her head ache. She forced her eyes to stay open.

  The doors closed behind her.

  "Jill, where's Dr. Mixter?" snapped Jimmy. His voice was soft but urgent.

  "Ah," said the nurse behind the desk, caught off-guard. She was trying to concoct an excuse. She gave up. "He's been at the country club. I think he's drunk."