Halloween 2

by Jack Martin

  "Doesn't matter who she is. Rules are rules."

  "We wanted to get a reaction from the Strode girl about Michael Myers' death," said a man in a color-coordinated suit. It was Robert Mundy, the local news personality. He modulated into his most oleaginous voice, oozing charm.

  To which Mrs. Alves was impervious. "Sorry, but you'll have to leave right now. Don't make me call Security."

  The cameramen gave up and started breaking down their equipment.

  Janet buttonholed Mrs. Alves. "Mr. Garrett said to tell you to call the police."

  "What?"

  "Yes, ma'am. Somebody broke into—"

  "Are the phones fixed?"

  "I don't know, Mrs. Alves. I'm trying to tell you. He's still outside working on them, the last I heard. But he said to tell you . . ."

  Jimmy elbowed through to Mundy, the announcer.

  "Michael Myers is dead? The're sure now it was him?" repeated Jimmy.

  The announcer showed his sandbagged teeth automatically, as if he were on camera. "About twenty minutes ago. A policeman nailed him—literally."

  Mrs. Alves' voice rose. "All right, let's gol Come on!" She ushered them all back down the hallway.

  "Are you sure he's dead?" asked Jimmy.

  "Oh, yeah," said Mundy. "They don't come any deader. He burned up alive. Car wreck. Say, do you think Debra might be outside, trying to get in?"

  "Debra who?"

  "I thought everybody knew Debra." Mundy laid a manicured hand on Jimmy's shoulder.

  "Are you in the industry?"

  Laurie lay in semi-darkness in her safe white hospital bed, listening to her heartbeat.

  From time to time footsteps passed in the hall. Each time she prayed for them to pass by and her heart speeded up. Then, when she heard that they were the regular, businesslike footsteps of the night staff, she turned hopefully to the small wire-glass window in her door and waited for someone to stop. But each time they passed by. That, too, made her heart speed up. She did not know which was worse—the trapped loneliness from which she could not free herself, or the fear that someone or something she could not name might find her here and enter her room.

  I know what I'll do, she thought. I'll lock the door and let in only that nice woman, Mrs. Alves, or one of the other nurses.

  Or Jimmy.

  But the door had no lock.

  She tossed on the pillow in despair. I can't go to sleep. Because if I do the dream will come again.

  It was an arid, suffocating dream, filled with a hideous light so bright it caused time to stop and left her hanging suspended, unable to make contact with anyone or anything. And then the shadows would begin to creep in, dissolving the light and threatening to devour

  her.

  Like the shape that could shuffle to a stop outside her room at any moment.

  And if she were to fall asleep, she would not even have a chance to run to the window. If she could manage to get that far.

  Cold tears of fear squeezed out of her eyes. She rolled her head—

  Now. Someone was coming now. She could feel it, through the floor and up through the tight sheets. The I.V. tube that fed into her arm began to sway in the moonlight.

  She held her breath, trying to quiet her heart.

  A voice came to her through the glass. Close, already here.

  "Jimmy, don't! You're gonna get in trouble." It was the blonde nurse. Jill, her name badge had said.

  Yes. Jill was nice. She helped that doctor and Mrs. Alves when I was first brought here. How long ago was it?

  "It's okay. Mrs. Alves is busy."

  That was Jimmy's voice. Good Jimmy. She raised her head

  He was standing in the doorway. Even in the backlight his eyes were clear and shining. Warm.

  She wet her lips to speak.

  "It's okay," said Jimmy. "Everything's okay."

  He always made it sound so simple.

  "What time is it?" she said.

  He ignored her question as if it didn't matter. It must not matter, she thought. Why am I worrying about a thing like that?

  "The police got Michael Myers," he told her. "He's dead, Laurie. You don't have anything more to worry about."

  He sounded as if he really believed it. "He's not dead," she told him.

  "He is, Laurie. I just talked to a reporter. He was in some kind of accident."

  "He didn't die." She tried but could not raise her voice above a whisper. "He's still out there. You've got to believe me."

  "It's over, Laurie. It's all over."

  When she kicked the sheet off and worked her leg over the edge of the bed, he was there to hold her back.

  "No, he's still out there! I know he is—I know it! You don't know. You think you know but you don't. You've got to help me! I've got to get out of here!"

  She fought him. Why would he stop her? Doesn't he understand? No, he doesn't. He couldn't. He didn't see.

  Jimmy restrained her gently. She could feel that he did not want to hurt her. But the more she pushed, the stronger his arms became. It was as if there was no limit to his strength; as much as he needed to keep her here would be his. She was as unable now to summon the strength needed to free herself from danger as she had ever been. It's not the wounds, she realized. It's me. I'm weak. I need people to protect me—I always have. God damn them! Well, there are no people to protect me, not now and not ever. I've got to do it myself. I've got to—

  "Laurie, cut it out."

  "He—he'll find me here! Yes! It's true! You've got to help me. Please help me!"

  Jimmy called over his shoulder. "Jill!"

  Running feet, rubber soles against the linoleum. Two nurses' caps in the doorway. Jill and the other one, the dark one. Perhaps one of them would listen. There was no more time; it had to be now before the night got any darker.

  "I've got to get out! I've got to . . . !"

  "Go get Dr. Mixter," commanded Jimmy, "quick!"

  "Stay with her," said Jill. "I'll get Mrs. Alves."

  Laurie collapsed against Jimmy with sobs that tore painfully inside her.

  "Take it easy. Everything's going to be okay."

  Even though it hurt so, she could not stop herself from sobbing, not even when the others came running in.

  The lights went on.

  Dr. Mixter's voice: "Jill, get me five milligrams of Diazepam."

  A cold wetness on her arm. The acrid smell of alcohol sliced her nostrils.

  "No, don't put me to sleep! He'll find me!"

  She opened her eyes wide. A long silver needle streaked toward her arm. Her wrist was held down and—

  Everything stopped as, soundlessly, every light in the rooms, the hallway and the building was snuffed out.

  "Oh no," said a voice.

  She sat there in darkness, her body twisted, the pressure on her arms and legs, the tearing pain in her shoulder. Their eyes were bluish-white in the moonlight that washed in on them all. No one moved. Laurie remained tensed against the piercing of the needle. Which did not come.

  "Everyone stay as you were," said Dr. Mixter. "The emergency generator will kick in. It has to."

  JILL'S (Tawny Moyer) face registers shock and pain as THE SHAPE (Dick Warlock) plunges his scalpel savagely into her back.

  Red Dreams

  Hindered by a cracked ankle LAURIE STRODE (Jamie Lee Curtis) stumbles terror striken through the hospital halls attempting to escape from the relentless SHAPE (Dick Warlock).

  Chapter Eight

  "This is difficult."

  And it was. Loomis watched the dentist, Graham, stooping over a charred body, probing like a scrimshaw artist at a row of still-hot teeth.

  Next to him, Deputy Hunt wadded a handkerchief to his nose to keep from being sick.

  The dentist scraped blackened deposits from molars and wiped his probe on the sheet.

  "Even the gums are charred. Look here." He wielded a flat-bladed tool and cut away clotted blood and tissue. "See here?" The man abraded a tooth all the way dow
n to its roots in the socket. The blade squeaked grittily. "No fillings."

  Loomis' nostrils flared. Even the air conditioner and the blowing scent of green soap and formaldehyde could not mask the stench of boiled entrails and rank organs.

  "He's young," said the dentist. He excised a crisp strand of jaw muscle and laid it in the pan like a burnt anchovy. "Maybe seventeen, maybe eighteen."

  Loomis said, "Michael Myers was twenty-one.

  "A positive ID means we check X-rays and dental records." Graham looked up. His scalpel slipped and skittered up the skull to where the nose had been. The blade caught in the sharp edges of the burned-out cavity; a last remaining squib of gristle broke off from the skull and rolled into one of the drainage holes in the autopsy table.

  "That will take hours," said Loomis.

  "No other way to know for sure. I'm sorry." Graham smiled helplessly at Loomis, showing his teeth, and adjusted his eyeglasses with a sooty rubber glove.

  "We haven't got hours." Loomis paced, seeing the scales for weighing, the jars of preserved kidneys and intestines, the plastic bags full of tagged appendages. On top of a purring refrigerator, a floating brain segment shivered like molded gelatin. "Listen to me." His voice rose with fatigue. "We've got to assume that Michael Myers is still alive."

  There was a clacking in the hall. The doors swung wide and another patrolman approached the deputy, Hunt.

  Hunt diverted him from the table. "Everybody goes back, out."

  "But we just closed it up," said the patrolman.

  "I want a sweep from Chestnut south to the bypass. Every street, every house, every back yard."

  The patrolman held out his hands to object but thought better of it. Hunt's eyes were red but unblinking above the handkerchief.

  "Okay. You got it." The patrolman left.

  Hunt's eyes met Loomis' and bored into him.

  "Thank you," Loomis said.

  At Hunt's back, a life-sized anatomy chart covered part of one wall. Loomis saw the graphic veins and arteries that flow in infinite complexity throughout a human being, each delicate connection originating from something called the heart. As small and nondescript as that organ was, it dominated the entire picture and seemed to give the pattern meaning.

  Hunt lowered the handkerchief, his eyes never leaving Loomis. "I knew Annie Brackett," he said with difficulty. "The other kids, too. And now there may be another boy lying on this slab here who died because of you. So don't thank me, doctor. Just help me find him."

  "All right," said Loomis. But the deputy had already left the room.

  Graham was preocuppied with sorting his tools. As he packed them away he hummed a tune, oblivious to the grisly, grinning witness next to him on the table. There gaped a ribcage opened by tongues of fire; here a hand whose fingers were melted to stumps; and there a legbone contorted like a blackened pipecleaner, ending in a foot that was a lump of coal. The skull with its jawbone opened wide to the examination light in a last searing scream, unable to close ever again.

  The dentist eyed Loomis curiously.

  "You can go now," said Loomis.

  "What about my fee? Shall I send the bill to the HPD, or to—?"

  "I don't care what you do," said Loomis with unconcealed contempt.

  Then he was out the swinging doors of the coroner's office, after Hunt.

  Karen was sorting tomorrow's medication, dropping colored pills into a trayful of little paper cups, when every light in the hospital went out.

  "Oh!" She let a yelp out of her throat and froze. Her hands shook, tapping the paper cups.

  She waited as her eyes opened to the sunspot of orange light bouncing on the ceiling. It came from the top of the pumpkin.

  Then there was a rumbling in the walls as the emergency generator cut in. The sealed bulbs buzzed overhead, restarting, and an interrupted line of light advanced toward her along the corridor.

  Dark areas remained by some of the doors; the emergency generator was equipped to handle only half-power, so that every second light remained off to conserve energy where it was needed most. The floor now appeared to be inlaid in an unfamiliar checkerboard pattern of black and white.

  She returned as best she could to her sorting. The pills she held had begun to dissolve in the sweat of her palms. She dropped them into the waste basket and started over.

  Janet came running, a white shape at the end of the hall.

  She panted as she came up. "Have you seen Mr. Garrett?"

  "No, I haven't. Why don't you call him?"

  "The phones are still out of order. He's supposed to be fixing them. I don't know what's taking him so long. What a night, huh?"

  "What happened to the lights?"

  "I don't know. But you want to hear something really creepy?" Janet was vaguely disheveled. A strand of hair was pasted to her forehead.

  "What?" Karen set the tray aside.

  "Somebody broke into the storeroom. Mr. Garrett said some stuff was gone."

  "He probably took it himself."

  "I don't think it's funny," Janet persisted. "It's just real creepy."

  "Why? What was missing?"

  "Hypodermic needles!"

  Karen laughed nervously. "Oh, that must have been Bud."

  "That's not very funny, either."

  "Hey, take it easy, Jan."

  "Yeah, well, Mrs. Alves sent me to talk to Mr. Garrett, and I still can't find him. Has he come by here recently?"

  "No. This place is deader'n an Iowa State Picnic."

  Janet was racing. "Yeah, and I can't find Mrs. Alves now, either! It's creepy, I tell you!"

  "Take a Valium, Janet. You're getting all pushed out of shape over nothing."

  "Easy for you to say. You didn't hear Laurie Strode screaming about how Michael Myers is still out there—how he's coming to get her!"

  "I thought he was dead," said Karen edgily.

  "He is. She just flipped out." She was making an effort to calm herself, but the words tumbled out. "I'm telling you, it's pretty

  creepy." She bit down. "Anyway. I gotta go."

  "See you later, said Karen.

  Karen watched her disappear into the next corridor. Then she blew a hair away from her nose, pulled her neckline out and blew down, ventilating her uniform. She resumed her pill-sorting at half-speed.

  Her hands were shaking.

  "One yellow," she reminded herself, "one red-and-gray . . ."

  An emergency call buzzer went off.

  She dropped the pills, bumping the counter and breaking one of her nails.

  "I'm coming," she said. "I'm coming already, don't have kittens . . ."

  She collected the pills and deposited them in one jar. Put the lid on the jar. Rearranged the tray. Grabbed the rubber noose of her stethoscope and went up the corridor, away from pediatrics.

  With so many of the hall lights out, the signal near the ceiling flashed with an unusually bright urgency.

  She checked the door, but there was no patient name on it.

  She bit at her broken nail. The glass observation panel in the door was absolutely dark.

  "Mrs. Alves," she said to herself, "where are you?"

  She grasped the knob.

  The door budged an inch, then stopped. It was not locked. But something was blocking it from the other side.

  She set her heel against the floor and pushed harder.

  The door gave and opened wide.

  There was a breathing in the room.

  The white shape of a patient lying on the bed. The sheet rising, falling.

  She tiptoed all the way in, groped to adjust the edge of the bedding.

  At that moment the shape under the sheet grabbed her. Her scream was cut off by a hand. Another hand, a very strong hand, flipped her onto her back and held her down. Her eyes widened. The hand was over her mouth. She couldn't breathe. She opened her teeth and bit as hard as she could. The sheet fell away.

  "Shit!"

  She stared in horror at Bud.

  "Y
ou—you idiot!" she sputtered.

  Bud sucked his finger. "You coulda broken it!"

  "I wish I had."

  "Had your rabies shot lately? Jesus, baby, that hurts!"

  Karen showed him what she had in her uniform pocket. "I also could have used these on you!" A small pair of hook-nosed scissors. "What an asshole!"

  "Happy Halloween," said Bud mirthlessly.

  Karen climbed off the bed. "You're the biggest jerk I've ever known, Bud."

  He grinned sheepishly. "But you love me."

  "I'm an idiot."

  "Let's go down to the therapy room. Bud's finger needs some. . . . therapy"

  Karen caught her breath. She softened against her will. "I can't leave the kids now."

  "Ka-ren . . ."

  "We have to wait until Marlowe comes on."

  "That's another three hours. Bud can't wait."

  "Bud'll have to."

  She was standing with her knees touching the bed. Bud crawled closer. "Everybody's all weirded-out tonight," he said. "All this Michael Myers crap. I just want to get away for a little while—"

  "What happened with the lights?"

  "They go out about twice a week, remember?" he said in his most reasonable voice. He touched her wrist. "Come on. The therapy room's only three doors down."

  "Bud," she said, her voice rising and falling on mixed emotions.

  "Think about it." He stroked the inside of her arm, up under the sleeve.

  "I can't."

  "Everybody else is in the east wing, right?" he argued. "All weirded-out, right?"

  Karen looked at him in the dimness from the hall. She pursed her lips. "If we left the door open we could hear someone coming. Or if one of the kids started to cry." She sounded like she was convincing herself.

  "Exactly."

  "I have to check things out first."

  "Fifteen minutes."

  The floor was silent except for the restless dreaming of babies in their cribs.

  "If everything's okay."

  "So go, said Bud. "You're wastin' time.

  As she left he fell back on the bed, sucking his finger.

  A strange scene was in progress at the old Myers house.

  As Hunt's car arrived at the curb, the crowd had already become a mob. A black-uniformed policeman catwalking the second story roof with gun at the ready was covering his head, dodging rocks.