Halloween

by John Passarella

  Not that it mattered. With everyone back onboard, the church van drove off the lot as Dana stepped into the office. Behind the counter, next to an electronic cash register and a transistor radio tuned to a classic rock station, a man wearing the same style dark coveralls as the mechanic aimlessly flipped through the pages of a tabloid-sized newspaper. At the sound of an overhead door chime, the clerk looked up at her expectantly.

  “Bathroom?” she inquired.

  Hooking his thumb around in an arc behind his shoulder, the clerk said, “Back out around the side.”

  Nodding, Dana stepped back outside and walked around the corner, past an ice machine and another stack of tires, these painted in alternating red and white layers. She supposed it was meant to be festive, but they still came across as sloppy. The phrase “lipstick on a pig” came to mind, which made her think of Aaron’s horrendous ham and egg fable, and she chuckled. The man was gorgeous, with a sense of style, but sometimes displayed a jarring lack of common sense.

  Between a brick wall painted white and a partial privacy fence she found the door to the ambitiously signed “Ladies’ Lounge.” Because she was at a gas station, not a nightclub, she kept her expectations suitably low. Clean and functional would suffice.

  Prepared for the worst, she stepped inside the restroom.

  Reasonably clean, she thought, but the odor leaves something to be desired.

  Pulling a paper towel from the dispenser, she approached the row of three stalls. Using the paper rather than her bare hands, she pushed open the first door and grimaced. Second stall… not much better. Figurative fingers crossed, she opened the last stall door. It was… acceptable.

  She ducked inside, closed and locked the door, set down her bag and took a seat.

  * * *

  Absently, Aaron watched the Holy Apostle Church van drive away. Then he caught himself staring off into space, much as the old woman had been. Maybe she hadn’t been looking at him after all. With a mechanical thump, the gas pump handle shut off, signaling a full tank. Aaron wondered if one full tank would get them through the rest of their field research.

  Aaron noticed a piece of paper shoved into the credit-card slot of the fuel pump: PLEASE PAY INSIDE.

  Aaron looked around the empty lot.

  Dana still hadn’t returned.

  He called her name.

  * * *

  Sitting on the only acceptable toilet seat in the so-called Ladies’ Lounge, Dana amused herself by reading the graffiti scrawled on the walls and door of the stall. One to her left read, “Amazing Grace come sit on my face. Don’t make me cry, I need your… pie.”

  Dana wondered if this “Grace” person was real and, if so, what about her made her so amazing. From her bag, Dana withdrew a permanent marker and crossed out the word “pie.” Right above it she wrote “smile.” Thinking of Aaron this morning, she chuckled to herself.

  As the bathroom door opened, she fell silent, self-conscious.

  She heard measured footfalls on the tiled floor. Not the click-click of high heels or the squeak of rubber-soled trainers. Heavier…

  The first stall door thumped open, rebounding with force.

  Dana flinched at the noise.

  In the ensuing pause, she heard breathing. Steady breathing, but, again, a heavy sound.

  She sat still, afraid to move a muscle, her own breathing shallow.

  The footfalls moved closer, stopping at the second stall.

  Even though she braced herself, the abrupt bang as the second door slammed open and shook the partition between stalls made her jump.

  * * *

  Aaron walked to the service station’s small office and opened the door to pay the clerk for his gas. A chime sounded as he walked through the doorway—and froze.

  The clerk’s lifeless body sat slumped over the counter, one arm flung over a transistor radio and a blood-flecked cash register, his neck twisted at an extreme angle to reveal his broken and bloody jaw, all but ripped out of his face. Most of his teeth had been smashed out. The pool of blood spreading around his head glued his face to the pages of a newspaper.

  “Dana!” Aaron called.

  A plate-glass door to his left led into the garage, a pickup truck in the first bay, its hood propped open for service. Aaron surveyed the room through the glass but saw no sign of the mechanic. Slipping through the doorway into the garage, he called out, “Hello! I need help! Have you seen—?”

  Again, Aaron froze.

  First, he saw blood splattered over the engine block, some dripping to the floor below. Then he saw the man’s body, clad only in a dingy white t-shirt and briefs, lying face down in a larger pool of blood near a wooden-handled mini sledgehammer. The back of the man’s head looked like raw meat—wet clumps of brain matter mixed with bone splinters. Someone had crept up behind him while he worked on the truck and caved his head in with the hammer, then taken the dark coveralls from his lifeless body.

  Frantic, Aaron yelled, “DANA?”

  Other than the dead mechanic, the cluttered garage seemed unoccupied.

  Casting about for anything useful, Aaron spotted a crowbar on a workbench and grabbed it.

  15

  Dana stared at the pair of dirty work boots visible below her stall door. A man’s boots. She recognized the cuffs of the coveralls the mechanic and the clerk had been wearing—the service station’s de facto uniform. Why would a man—even a service station employee—enter an occupied “Ladies’ Lounge” and behave this way? She had no good answers.

  “Excuse me,” she said indignantly, fighting the tremor in her voice. “Someone’s in here.”

  A closed, bloodstained hand appeared over the top of the stall door.

  Slowly the fingers spread, releasing what appeared to be a dozen white pebbles that fell to the floor, clattering around her feet. Glancing down, she gasped. Not pebbles. Teeth! Human teeth—ripped out by the root and streaked with blood.

  Looking up again, she now saw two hands as they clamped down on the top of the stall door in a white-knuckled grip. They shook the door violently back and forth, testing the strength of the simple slide lock and hinges. The partition walls trembled, the screws securing them to the wall creaking. In seconds, the metal of the door twisted under the extreme pressure.

  Dana rose from the seat in a hunched-over stance to keep clear of those hands and yanked up her pants before dropping to the floor on her rear. Flipping onto her stomach, she began to crawl under the partition into the second stall. She made it halfway before the door to her former stall gave way and burst open. There was a rustle of movement before the intruder grabbed her legs and yanked her backward.

  With a shriek, she twisted around, raising both arms to catch herself on the partition between stalls. Strong hands grabbed both her ankles for more leverage.

  Her own hands slid across the slippery metal surface of the partition, scrambling for purchase but finding none. She hooked the fingers of her right hand through the toilet paper holder to buy herself a precious second or two. Then kicked furiously against the hands clutching her ankles.

  Suddenly—heart racing and gasping for air—she broke free of the powerful grip and scrambled up, slammed the door shut and engaged the slide lock. A moment’s reprieve, time enough to catch her breath before—

  Fists banged on the stall door, rattling it against the lock.

  The Ladies’ Lounge door swung open again.

  Crouching to peer under the door, Dana saw gray trainers—

  “Aaron?” she called. “Help!”

  As she backed away from the door, she saw a crowbar come down from an overhead swing to strike her attacker three times in rapid succession. With each blow, Aaron yelled, “Down! Down! Down!”

  Two sets of arms wrestled for control of the crowbar.

  Beneath the stall door, Dana watched as two pairs of feet became entangled. Slowly, the heels of Aaron’s trainers rose off the tile floor. He cried out briefly then began to cough and gasp.

 
“No!” she screamed.

  The crowbar clanged on the tiles.

  Crouching, Dana reached across the gap under the door and grabbed the crowbar before her attacker could snatch it. Then she jumped back and climbed onto the toilet seat, one boot braced on each side, for a higher vantage point.

  The intruder slammed Aaron into the stall door. A work boot slipped forward, near the edge of the door. Without hesitation, Dana dropped from her perch and turned the crowbar to drive its narrow tip into the boot. Whether from the pain or the distraction, the intruder released Aaron, who collapsed to the floor, his face visible under the door.

  They locked eyes, her terror mirrored in his gaze.

  “Aaron—”

  His throat raw, Aaron whispered, “What have we done…?”

  Before she could reply, his body was yanked away. The heels of both trainers slid across the floor as the intruder dragged him away from her. She heard a brief, muffled struggle then a loud crash of shattered glass. Pieces of the bathroom mirror rained down on the tile floor.

  “Aaron!”

  Unbearable silence followed—no response from Aaron. She couldn’t see either of them. Her palms sweaty, she shifted her grip on the crowbar. Agonizing seconds passed, then…

  Shuffling sounds.

  The intruder approached. Aaron’s heels slid across the tile floor.

  “Aaron!” she called. “Aaron, are you—?”

  THUMP!

  The door rattled under the weight of Aaron’s body slamming into it.

  THUMP!—THUMP!—THUMP!

  He’s using Aaron’s body as a battering ram!

  THUMP!—CRASH!

  The door flung open, banging against the partition as Dana leapt out of the way. Aaron’s body, still clutched in the intruder’s grip, knocked the crowbar from her hands. Dana screamed.

  In that moment of contact, she glimpsed Aaron’s bloody face, his jaw sagging. He was alive, but barely conscious. Then the intruder pulled him back and tossed him aside, hurling his body toward the far corner of the restroom where he crashed helplessly into the trash can.

  * * *

  Too weak to offer any further resistance, Aaron felt himself careen through the air and crash into a round metal trash can in the corner of the women’s restroom. Even with the crowbar and the element of surprise, he’d failed to stop Myers. Or slow him down. To Aaron, it seemed as if the man felt no pain—or that physical pain registered as nothing more than a temporary distraction.

  Aaron tried to rise, but his legs wouldn’t budge. Each time he tried to stand, he merely twitched in pain. Blood dripped from his face and hands. Broken ribs made breathing painful and difficult. With blurred, fading vision he watched helplessly as Myers entered the toilet stall.

  Dana’s boots rose from the floor…

  …and her head appeared above the stall as Myers hoisted her in the air with one hand clamped around her throat. She clawed at his hand with both of hers but couldn’t break free. Aaron heard the muffled thuds of her kicking him, frantic at first, then gradually slowing.

  Myers’ hand choked the life out of her.

  Desperate to act, Aaron redoubled his effort to rise, to come to her aid—but only managed to lift his left arm, hand outstretched, fingers reaching, trembling helplessly.

  Horrified, Aaron watched as Dana’s struggles ended.

  Her body hung lifelessly in Myers’ hands…

  16

  The service station remains empty as The Shape leaves the restroom and turns the corner to walk past the ice machine.

  On the transistor radio in the small office, a man with a deep voice gives a weather report accompanied by Halloween-themed sound effects: shrieks, chains rattling, creaking doors…

  The sound fades as The Shape takes a direct path to the black rental car at the self-service pump. In the backseat, The Shape sees a storage box with a binder, folders, newspaper clippings and photos—some of The Shape. None of these items interest The Shape.

  Using the tall man’s keys, The Shape opens the trunk of the car and finds another box, opens the flaps and pauses, staring down.

  The Shape’s hands reach into the box, gripping the Mask between them, lifting it close enough to smell, staring into the eye holes. The Shape turns the Mask around, lifts it overhead, pulls it down, fitting it into place… Perfect.

  The Shape breathes…

  Complete again.

  17

  Officer Frank Hawkins stood beside Ranbir Sartain’s corner bed in Haddonfield Memorial Hospital, thumbs hooked inside his duty belt, willing the injured doctor to wake the hell up. According to the hospital doctor, Sartain had lost a lot of blood from the bullet wound in his shoulder and—though in a stable condition—remained obstinately unconscious. Not for the first time, Hawkins considered removing the extendable baton from his belt and giving Sartain a gentle prod to rouse him. Failing that, he could always poke the center of the freshly bandaged shoulder.

  Glancing at the monitors, wires and tubes hooked up to the unconscious Sartain, Hawkins wondered if he could cajole the on-duty nurse into temporarily lowering the man’s IV dosage of pain meds. Considering the significant age difference between him and the nurse, Hawkins didn’t like his chances of succeeding with a charm offensive.

  Clearly, he had to wait for Sartain to awaken on his own. But he didn’t have to like it.

  Shifting his feet, he crossed his hands in front of his waist and sighed. “Time to wake up, Dr Sartain,” he said in a conversational tone. He’d read that comatose patients might hear everything said at their bedsides. Maybe the same held true for victims of gunshot wounds. “Do you hear me, Ranbir? Can I call you Ranbir? Yeah, probably not. Okay, but it’s mighty important you wake up and tell me what you know.” He tapped a piece of paper on the hospital bed tray table. “I need to know about this list, Doc.”

  Sartain’s eyes remained stubbornly closed.

  Bearing two cups of coffee in a cardboard serving tray, Sheriff Barker arrived in a much better mood than Hawkins. Barker was a powerful black man with a neatly trimmed goatee, sporting an impressive black cowboy hat to go along with his dark suit and light-brown necktie. If it were not for the small sheriff’s pin on his lapel, one might not realize he was in law enforcement. In contrast, Hawkins wore the standard-issue Warren County police uniform, which included a forest-green jacket with a faux-fur trim collar and a full-sized six-sided star pinned to the chest, over khaki slacks with a dark stripe down the outside of each leg. He would be mistaken for nothing other than a police officer.

  After handing a coffee to Hawkins, Barker said, “Thought I heard you talking to someone, Hawkins.”

  “Just the good doctor here,” Hawkins said, nodding toward Sartain.

  “But… he’s unconscious, right?” the sheriff asked in a tone that suggested Hawkins’ sanity might be in question.

  “Currently,” Hawkins said. “Any news?”

  “Still waiting to ID the patients we recovered to see who’s who. Almost all accounted for. Two were checking their email at the local library, and we just found three sons of bitches holding hands and chasing butterflies by the flea market off 220. No clarity on what happened.” He took a sip of coffee. “Any word from Rip Van Winkle over there?”

  “Not yet,” Hawkins said. “Hasn’t really regained consciousness. Nurses say he’s been in and out. Lost a lot of blood. Somehow managed to fall on a bullet. I’m trying to get the story because here’s my concern.” Hawkins picked up the piece of paper on the tray table and passed it to the sheriff. “Take a look at this list.”

  Barker looked it over.

  “Most of the passengers were minor offenders. Mental patients.”

  Setting his coffee cup on the table, Barker ran his thumb down the list.

  “One stuck out. A-2201,” Hawkins continued.

  Barker’s thumb paused on the line, marked with a yellow highlighter. He looked up at Hawkins, concerned.

  Hawkins nodded. “Michael Myers. The Bab
ysitter Murders, 1978. It’s forty years to the day.” Hawkins took a sip from his coffee to let that tidbit sink in. “Is this a coincidence or some part of a greater plan?”

  Frowning, the sheriff looked at Sartain. Hawkins wondered if Barker had now reached his level of impatience over the doctor’s inconvenient state of unconsciousness. “Greater plan?” Barker asked. “You talking about fate or karma or some damn shit?”

  Hawkins shook his head. “Myers,” he said. “Maybe he waited for this specific day, the anniversary, to come back to Haddonfield.”

  “He’s a serial killer, Hawkins,” Barker said. “Not Houdini. This isn’t some nefarious plan, it’s just… really bad timing.”

  “Bad timing, sir?”

  “Look, Frankie, I don’t want to incite panic until we have all the facts. Myers loose with a bunch of nutbags in Haddonfield on Halloween night is a fucking joke if it’s not legit.” He scoffed. “It sounds like a joke.” He sighed, shook his head. “It would ruin our department. And if it is legit, if Myers did escape, we’re gonna have a serious circus on our hands.”

  Hawkins stared at the sheriff in disbelief. Right then, the reputation of the Haddonfield Police Department was the last thing on Hawkins’ mind. With a serial killer on the loose, he didn’t give a shit about spin or optics or whatever the hell the latest buzzword was for covering your ass. The only thing that mattered was apprehending the killer and throwing him behind bars. Then again, Hawkins wasn’t a Warren County elected official worried about polling numbers for the next election cycle.

  “I mean, what are we gonna do, cancel Halloween?” Barker asked with a nervous chuckle.

  Forty years had passed since the Babysitter Murders. Many of Haddonfield’s residents hadn’t been alive the last time Myers terrorized the town. A fair amount talked about the knife-wielding madman—whenever the topic arose—as if he were a damn urban legend. Few experienced the terror on a personal level, and none more so than Laurie Strode.

  Ask the average Haddonfield resident the meaning of Halloween and they’d talk about kids walking door to door for trick or treat, carrying bags of candy, sexy costumes for adults, fog machines, zombie movie marathons, and parties. Most of them had forgotten, if they ever knew, that ancient civilizations believed the dead returned to Earth on Halloween. Hawkins remembered a quote from a movie, “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Had Myers’ infamy followed a similar trajectory, his heinous acts transformed into scary stories for summer camp, his very existence forgotten? Had they all been lulled into complacency?