Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition (20 page)

As quickly and as carefully as she could, Rachel stepped out the attic window and balanced on the ledge. She straightened herself, mindful of the tenuousness of the wooden lip, gazing warily at the steep upward slope just inches away. She leaned away from the window and pressed her body against the cold slate roofing tiles, the brisk wind coming down upon her from one side bringing with it a bitter chill. Jamie weighed her down a bit, clinging to her back the way she was, gripping with her life, but Rachel forced herself to get used to it. She couldn’t fail. To fail meant to die, and for Jamie to die along with her.

As soon as she acquired a reasonable foothold, she glanced around her and caught sight of the chimney and the aerial. As swiftly and as steadily as she could, she proceeded to attempt a climb toward it.

When she was reasonably beyond the forefront of the broken window, she chanced a look back and in doing so nearly lost her handhold. Startled, she saw the voluminous effigy of her pursuer as he emerged from the shattered attic window and stepped over onto the roof. With mechanical precision, he made his advance toward the two girls, climbing, gaining.

Rachel continued climbing upwards and to the side, growing nearer and nearer toward the roof’s peak. Jamie turned and gazed back down just as the shape reached a large, burly hand for Rachel’s left ankle, then she quickly turned back to Rachel.

“Your left foot! Move your left foot…..!”

As soon as the hand came down, Rachel moved it away briskly, the hand clasping empty air.

Finally, at last, the girls reached the roof’s peak. Rachel set Jamie down momentarily as she glanced frantically around.”

There was nowhere to run. They were trapped.

And there, before them, was their murderer.

***

Halloween night had never been this cold. Perhaps it was merely the circumstance rather than the weather. Nevertheless, Rachel and Jamie were quite helpless there, on the very top of Sheriff Meeker’s roof, and Jamie’s uncle was there directly before them, ready to kill. There was absolutely nothing for them to do; no where to turn, nothing to fight with. Rachel lowered herself and scooped up her foster sister once again into her arms and held her close. She could feel Jamie shaking from the chill of fear, and she realized that a great deal of the shaking came from her own self also.

“Rachel?” Jamie called out in panic, “Rachel, what are we going to do?”

The shape slowly advanced, towering over them in shadow.

Rachel tried to keep her foster sister calm, brushing her fingers gently through her hair nervously. “Try to go to sleep, sweetheart.”

Jamie laid her head on Rachel’s shoulder and shut her eyes. It was then that Rachel looked out into the darkness and spotted something.

A tree branch; it was over at the roof’s far side, a bit more than a stretch away but close enough for a slim chance of escape. Quickly, just as the dark figure moved upon them mere steps away, Rachel hurried Jamie over to the branch and turned her over towards it.

“Jamie,” she told her, “I want you to grab the branch. Grab the branch, and climb down that tree. I want you to hurry.”

Jamie reached and strained, Rachel gripping her as close to the branch as she could. The shape was almost upon them. A few yards more, and

Jamie’s fingers brushed against leaves just shy of solid wood.

“I can’t,” the little girl cried out.

“
Try
!”

At last, Jamie found a firm hold on the branch and pulled away from Rachel, scrambling to the tree trunk. She looked back, screaming.

“Jump, Rachel!”

Just as the shape came upon her, she took to the air toward the tree. She managed somewhat of a hold, but it was the firm grip of the dark man behind her, yanking hard at her right ankle, which caused the fall. Breaking through a series of thin branches and leaves, she screamed until she thumped onto downward tiles of the lower roof and began to slide further. As she went, she reached out a hand and grabbed hold of the gutter. It held her weight for but a moment’s time before it broke loose, sending the girl tumbling out of sight over the side.

There Jamie was, face to face with the very thing that wanted her dead, the two staring upon each other from tree to rooftop: one staring in want and fascination, the other in fear and hatred.

The little girl climbed down the tree as fast as her six-year—old body allowed her to, her clown suit partially shredding and ripping against the bark and protruding branches. Halfway, she was forced to fight her way down amongst several branch groupings. Finally she broke free and tumbled downward to the grass lawn below. Springing to her feet, she ran around to the front of the house where Rachel’s body disappeared.

There she was; Rachel, lying quietly and motionless half in and half out of the hedges. Jamie rushed over to her.

“Come alive, Rachel.” Kneeling, she wept and placed her foster sister’s tilted head into her arms. She noticed a little dribble of dark blood running down the side of Rachel’s head and neck. She sat there, rocking the teenager, trying failingly to bring her to her feet. “Oh please don’t be dead, Rachel. Please, please don’t be dead. Come alive, Rachel. COME ALIVE. OH, PLEASE COME ALIVE.
COME ALIVE!”

But her friend and sister remained unmoving like a torn rag doll, eyes closed and mouth silent. Jamie continued to sit there with her, sobbing.

Her despair over Rachel was overcome by the fearful notion that Uncle Michael could appear right behind her at any instant and catch her. Her eyes left Rachel at the impulse to turn, and she spun around to face the rest of the yard. The yard was empty but for the twisted moonlit web of shadow the tree cast, stretching into the blackness of the hedges and trellises of climbing roses.

A section of the shadows began to move.

What stepped out from the yard’s black void wasn’t Uncle Michael. Jamie remained still as the figure further advanced into view. As it drew closer beneath an illumination of nighttime sky, she began to make out who it was.

It was a woman.

It was her
mother
.

Jamie breathed, “Mommy?”

The woman wore what appeared to be a brightly-colored nightgown, a trail of dark buttons and lace dripping down the front to a hem hung past her ankles. Her arms were crossed in a self embrace as if she was cold.

Then one hand extended out to her daughter.

“Jamie,” spoke Laurie Strode, her eyes never leaving the little girl. “I want you to live for me. You’re not going to give in and let him take you. Snap out of it. You must snap out of it and run. Go, run!” “Mommy,” Jamie asked her, “am I going to heaven now?”

But Mommy was suddenly no longer there.

The spell of the vision was broken, replaced by the tangible reality of the masked shape of her uncle looming over her.

Jamie immediately scrambled to her feet. Leaving Rachel’s body behind, she dashed across the lawn, nearly slipping on a streak of wetness, then reached the sidewalk and street.

The silent stalker continued in pursuit.

Down the street, at the center of the intersection, Jamie faltered minutely, considering a direction. Frantically, she chose one and continued to run amidst the street’s all consuming darkness. Darting furiously, she kept her gaze before her this time, fearing that if she looked back she would see her nightmare man reaching out just inches from her back. In reality, the shadowy shape was in the distance, walking, seemingly taking its time as if in all confidence at winning its prey.

As she ran, she cried out, hoping someone in the town would oblige her, praying someone would be able to hide her and save her. “Help! Somebody, help me!”

As she went, doors began to open around her, but as soon as they opened, they closed just as quickly, and the sounds of locks and deadbolts echoed and rang through her ears and fed her terror and helplessness.

“Somebody please help me!”

But there was no use. The nightmare man did not stop coming.

He would never stop.

Chapter Twenty—eight

Jamie rounded the black street corner, silence encompassing her with the exception of her exhausted gasps for breath. She stopped momentarily, resting at the sidewalk, leaning against the shadowy outline of a birch tree.

She cast her gaze behind her, expecting her pursuer to be close at hand. As she looked, she saw no one. There was only the wind and the night. More concerned than ever, she shot glances all around her, expecting to see the shape elsewhere in an unexpected spot, stalking her from somewhere, ready to attack his victim. All was still silent.

As much as she could see through the night, the little girl saw nothing of the thing that chased her down the streets. She realized that she would much rather see him, knowing where he was, than suddenly stumble directly into his grip. She even glanced up into the thickness of the birch tree.

Nothing. Nothing anywhere.

But she hadn’t contemplating that her stalker might possibly be around the bulk of the tree, and when she backed blindly into the figure, she screamed.

It was him.

No; wait

The figure was much shorter. It knelt down, and Jamie found herself face to face with a wearisome and concerned Doctor Loomis.

“What are you doing out here alone?” he demanded.

At first, Jamie didn’t know what exactly to say. Her mind was a whirlwind. But then the words
did
come, and she spoke them out, “Everybody’s dead.” Then, softy, “I just want to go home.”

“No,” Loomis said, “I’ve just come from there. That’s the first place he’ll look for you.”

The doctor rose back to his feet and took the little girl’s hand. He would have felt her nervous trembling if it weren’t for the trembling his own hand generated itself.

“Come on,” he continued. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”

As fast as her legs could carry her, Loomis ran with the girl down the avenue, and within a few moments, Unexpectedly, the power returned to the town. Porch lights, street lights---even the sounds of television sets, suddenly popped on. The streets of Haddonfield were illuminated once again. The two were somewhat relieved, but the strict meaning of the word was far from what they actually felt. Loomis’ mind was feverishly working on a location in which to hide. He knew, in reality, that there was no such place. Reaching into the inside of his overcoat, he pulled out his 9mm pistol and held it firmly, expecting anything.

As they went, Jamie called out to him, “Is my uncle really the Boogeyman?”

“I’m sorry, Jamie,” Loomis told her, “but your uncle is something far worse.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

A few lights came alive at Haddonfield Elementary School. During the night most of the usual lights clicked off by the commands of a timer leaving on a few outside entrance lights. The school was illuminated just enough now as the city’s power returned, driving away two young lovers from the bushes near the kindergarten classrooms. It wasn’t merely the sudden appearance of light which spooked them into dressing as did Brady and Kelly, but the presence of people---what looked like an older man in a shadowy overcoat with a little girl at his hand. They made their way under the light; the two heading their way indeed turned out to be what they had guessed. The man and girl were actually hurrying, running, in the direction of the main entrance.

As Doctor Loomis and Jamie made their way across the sidewalk, passing a short, chain link fence, toward the grade school building, they slowed, nearly exhausted. The night wind blew the swings on their chains in the playground beside them, the sound of shackles ringing through the darkness.

The main doors were chained and padlocked. Using his gun muzzle, Loomis broke the glass window on one of the doors, setting off a sonorous alarm. Jamie’s hands went to her ears. She stepped back as the doctor aimed the gun at the chains and shot them apart. He pulled the doors open.

Loomis turned to the girl. “Come on.”

Inside, the school was sectioned by long hallways, complete with endless trails of lockers, glass display cases with various trophies, pictures and lopsided artwork, and neverending classroom doors. Frightening shadows and engulfing darkness accented the eerie scenery. The alarm continued with its boisterous wailing.

“We’ll hear sirens soon,” Loomis continued. Jamie looked at him as they moved down the corridor. “Then we’ll be safe?”

“Yes.”

Jamie continued her gaze. “You don’t believe that, do you?”

Loomis was silent for a moment, then, “You’re very intuitive.”

“I saw Mommy tonight.”

“What?” Loomis said, startled. “That’s not possible.”

“I think I was dreaming, but I was awake.”