Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition (5 page)

Hoffman had hastened over to the passenger’s side, opened the door and hopped in.

“If you’re wrong, he said, “I don’t want you starting a panic.”

“And if I’m right?”

“You won’t be,” Hoffman told him.

But there was that encompassing fear.

Chapter Four

Four Illinois State Highway Patrol cars were parked on the shoulder of the dust-filled country highway. A state trooper was in the process of lighting flares, placing them across the asphalt of the breakdown lane, occasionally raising his gaze to the remote distance of the road and wiping the newly- formed sweat from his brow. The area was silent save for the crackling of the patrolmen’s radios and the talking. Three troopers were working their way down a muddy embankment beyond the shoulder which sloped down into a deep ravine of marshy undergrowth.

The Smith’s Grove medical transport bus rested on its roof; a wasted dissolution at the bottom of the ravine. Ground fog swirled and eddied around shattered bits of glass and metal.

The three troopers scattered around the wreckage, investigating the surroundings carefully.

“What a mess,” the first one exclaimed. Then, to the others, “Swing around the backside. Anyone alive is a lucky son of a bitch.”

“Anyone alive’d be too messed up to be a lucky son of a bitch,” another remarked.

The troopers circled the vehicle, moving moderately nearer through sucking mud and swamp runoff. The youngest of the three sloshed towards the rear quarter, finding the back doors twisted open. He peered into darkness. The other two joined him there, gazing closer into the bus’ interior. As soon as they began to realize what they beheld, repulsion set in and the younger one dodged over to a nearby clump of weeds, doubling up, retching into the thickness. Another newly arrived trooper, a much older man, nearly stumbled over to the other two and joined them as they continued their gaze inside.

“Holy shit,” he whispered. “Looks like those traffic films we show to Driver’s Ed classes.”

A trooper beside him unbuckled a flashlight from his belt and flashed it within the bus for a better view. Behind him, still others circled through the weeds.

Back out on the highway, Loomis’ sedan joined the patrol cars pulled over to the shoulder. He killed the engine and stepped out, gravel crumbling under his heels. Hoffman shut the door on the other side. Hoffman walked over to the embankment and in dismay followed Loomis’ gaze down the slope to the overturned vehicle. Doctor Loomis appeared calm, sounded calm, but Hoffman noted there was a seriousness, a cast of despair within his eyes; always this despair.

“Is that it?” asked Loomis to Hoffman.

“Yes,” he answered regretfully. A state trooper approached them, and Hoffman turned to him. It was time to be serious, terribly serious, as was his fellow professional with the cane. But there was no need for panic. The circumstances were very simple: Michael Myers was
dead
. If not, he was laying seriously injured down there in the wreckage. He must believe that; to do otherwise would place himself at the same level as the overly negative, paranoid doctor beside him. Emotions aside, he asked the trooper, “Do you know when this happened?”

“Sometime during the night. They probably lost the road in the storm. Went off the embankment. It happens.”

Hoffman turned back to Loomis. Perhaps the good doctor would
now
realize what
really
happened here. “An accident,” he said plainly.

Loomis started up, “Do you really think that ”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Hoffman told him.

“How many staff on the bus?” Loomis snapped.

“Four plus Myers.”

Loomis turned to the trooper immediately. The baldness of his forehead was streaming with sweat. “How many bodies have you found?”

“Hard to tell,” the trooper answered. “They’re all pretty chewed up.”

Determined, Loomis started down the embankment. The Ridgemont administrator called after him. “Loomis. It’s over. Leave it alone!”

He threw his hands into the air in total frustration. The trooper beside him shook his head and gave a half amused sort of grin.

“Oh, hell.” Hoffman went off down the embankment in turn.

Loomis carefully approached the wreckage, not minding the filth and mud encasing his shoes as much as what he feared he would find, or, rather, what he would
not
find, up ahead. He scrutinized each piece of metal; studied every bit and portion of the accident as he passed. Finally, he reached the twisted metal doors and poked his head heedfully inside.

Coming up on the rear, Hoffman in turn made his way to the twisted doors of the bus. He met Loomis’ dismal frown.

“He’s not here,” Loomis proclaimed. “He’s gone. Dammit, he’s
gone
.”

Hoffman felt a sudden sense of anguish; a sense of profound uneasiness. It was like waking up to what you thought was a nightmare only to soak up the realization that the terror was truly taking place. He called out to a trooper nearby. “Have you found any other bodies?”

“Not yet,” was the response. “There’s a lot of ground to cover.”

“You won’t find him,” Loomis insisted. “He did this. Now he’s escaped.”

“You don’t know that,” Hoffman said. “Michael could have been thrown from the bus.”

The trooper agreed, “I’ve seen bodies thrown fifty, sixty feet from a crash site.”

Hoffman continued, “And even if by some miracle Michael
is
conscious, his muscles will be useless. The man’s been ten years flat on his back. Immobile. Give the troopers time to search.”

Loomis wasn’t listening. He was preoccupied with something else, something on the ground, something nobody else seemed to notice. He needed a closer look to be sure, and, with the tip of his cane, he raised the metal object for a better inspection. The object was an earring, gold, or at least gold-plated, a small glimmering star hanging from the ring itself. Attached to this earring was something pale. A piece of flesh.

A human earlobe.

Loomis turned back to the other two. “You’re talking about him as if he were a human being. That part of him died years ago.”

He dropped the object and immediately proceeded up the embankment, Hoffman calling after him.

“
Now
where are you going?”

“To Haddonfield,” he yelled in return. “It’s a four hour drive. You can reach me there through the local police. Four hours should be long enough for you to find him if he’s here. If you don’t, then I am sure I will…..”

Hoffman and the other trooper gazed on as the doctor strode up the muddy embankment using his cane as a lever. For one moment, it appeared as if he were about to fall. He reminded Hoffman of some sort of minikin nobleman, waving his cane about in effort to gain footing up the slope. He gave a disconcerted sigh as Loomis disappeared over the shoulder and onto the highway.

Even with all the pandemonium of the searchers, Loomis’ sedan engine could still be heard. “What’s his story?” the trooper asked Hoffman. “You don’t want to know.”

Chapter Five

It was another peaceful Autumn morning in the tranquil community of Haddonfield, Illinois. Birds sang gleefully within the auburn branches of maple trees and the cool morning breeze scattered leaves playfully over grass dampened by the previous night’s showers. An occasional car cruised leisurely down the quiet street, every so often catching a puddle and splashing it over the curb. In the distance, a lone paperboy was making his rounds, hurling morning editions with long practiced ease from a sturdy blue bicycle.

The very first sounds in the kitchen echoed
throughout the Caruther household, and soon
afterwards were followed by the usual, daily hustl
e
-
and-bustle of hurried family members moving to and
fro, munching down some sort of breakfast so they
could hurry to work or to school; the kind of confusion which had become so commonplace that no one had time to give any thought to how confusing things were. Richard Caruthers had just finished pouring a cup of hot coffee into his I HATE MONDAYS mug. He was dressed in a white button-down shirt, grey slacks and a silk tie which was now absorbing a new decoration while floating in the mug as he brought it to the kitchen table.

“Damn it,” he cursed as he noticed it, then called to his wife. “Darlene.”

The phone began to ring, and Darlene entered the kitchen in a hurry to answer it.

Richard continued to call her, ignorant to the ringing.

Darlene silenced him. “There’s a clean one in the laundry room next to your blue slacks.” Then she silenced the phone. “Hello?”

Richard followed his wife’s directions and exited into the nearby laundry room.

Darlene was a typical, clean scrubbed midwestern housewife, modestly attractive. She bore little resemblance to her seventeen-year-old daughter, Rachel, but what the two did have in common, aside from good-looks, as Richard frequently pointed out, was gentle, compassionate eyes. Actually, Richard claimed that none of these traits were exactly hereditary; Darlene acquired her beauty from hanging around her husband for a long time, and Rachel well, she was their daughter. Darlene always teasingly pushed him away whenever he joked around like that; a tradition he managed to keep alive within the Caruther household.

It was Rachel’s turn to enter the kitchen, and the first thing she went for was the refrigerator; another daily tradition. She yanked open the door, peered inside for a moment, found what she wanted, and grabbed a carton of nonfat milk and a bagel.

Richard complained yet again from the laundry room. “Darlene, this tie has a spot on it. I can’t wear this today! I have a ten-thirty with Chuck.”

Into the phone, Darlene told a Mrs. Pierce to hang on, then shouted, “Not
that
tie. On the other side.

Look…..
” She spotted her daughter’s breakfast. “That’s not all you’re eating, young lady.”

“Oh. I found it, honey,” Richard shouted back. “Mom,” Rachel explained, “I’m on a diet. You want an oinker for a daughter?”

Darlene sighed and returned to the phone. “Sorry,” she said into the receiver, “do you think Susan could just bring her crutches? Stupid question. Tell her I hope she feels better. Yes. All right. That’s fine. Good.”

Behind her, Rachel popped the bagel into the microwave and set the timer. Richard reentered the kitchen, almost bumping into his daughter, working a Windsor knot into his second silk tie. Darlene hung up the phone.

“Who’s that, dear?” he asked her.

“Susan’s mother. She can’t babysit tonight.” He appeared half—surprised as he began to down a mouthful of his coffee. “Why not?”

“Susan broke her ankle last night at the ice rink. Rachel…..”

Rachel had been attempting a soundless escape into the next room from the inevitability she sensed even as her mother had returned the receiver to its cradle, her bagel still heating in the microwave. She halted at her mother’s command.

“Mom, please.”

“You have to watch Jamie tonight,” she told her.

“I can’t do it,” Rachel complained. “Not tonight. You know I have this date with Brady. You know how important it is.”

“Well tonight is very important to your father and me. ‘This dinner party could set your father up for a much deserved promotion. You wouldn’t want your date to mess that up, now would you?”

By this time, Richard had sat down to a warm
plate of french toast, virtually ignoring the
conversation, knowing his daughter had to succumb. She persisted. “Can’t you find somebody else?” “It’s too late,” was the reply.

Silence, save for the ding of the microwave.

“What am I supposed to tell Brady?” Rachel said. “What am I supposed to say? ‘Sorry, I’ve got to babysit my foster sister. Go have fun by yourself?”

Darlene sighed. “It’s not the end of the world, for goodness’ sake.”

“Sure it is,” she argued. “I think tonight, Brady was ready to make a commitment. Now my future relationship, engagement, marriage, children, and
your
grandchildren have all been wiped out, and all because
Ihave to babysit
. Oh joy.”