Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition (8 page)

In some ways, it was funny, all of them, dressed as clowns and bears and ghosts and buffalo, spacemen with ray guns and girls with little aluminum foil fairy wings. But to a little girl of six, it seemed like an abstract nightmare.

They all surrounded Jamie, resembling a childish imitation of a police brigade, except that she didn’t feel threatened by their presence as much as the words they chanted, repeating
Boogeyman, Boogeyman, Jamie’s uncle’s the Boogeyman.

Boogeyman, Boogeyman JAMIE’S UNCLE’S THE BOOGEYMAN. BOOGEYMAN
.

Then another girl spoke out amongst them, “How come your mommy didn’t make you a costume, Jamie????”

“How could she?” another boy responded. “Her mommy’s dead!”

Suddenly the boy flashed a rubber skeleton straight into Jamie’s face. At first she thought he was about to knock her down with it.

“Jamie’s mommy’s a mummy,” Kyle continued to tease.

Impulsively, Jamie pushed her way through the band of children and managed to succeed in getting away from them. They began to chant once more.

JAMIE’S AN ORPHAN! JAMIE’S AN ORPHAN!!!!!

An orphan!

As the little girl stumbled her way through the remainder of the playground, her self-control gone wild as she sobbed and cried, she barely heard the rest of what they were saying, and didn’t care who said it.

GO LIVE WITH YOUR BOOGEYMAN UNCLE, JAMIE. WHEN YOU GROW UP, YOU CAN BE
JUST LIKE HIM!!

And, between her sobbing, Jamie cried back, unaware that they could not hear her, “Stop it. Please, please stop it.”

She continued to run. She ran out the gate, to the walkway and down a narrow asphalt driveway past a few parked cars, a parked stationwagon and out onto the neighborhood sidewalk, out of the sight of her tormentors. Had they followed? She turned, but could see no one. She hurried towards a patch of grass in front of a large home, and leaned against the maple tree there, exhausted and frightened. She tried to compose herself, as her mother taught her to do before she

Her real mother
.

She tried to force those thoughts from her head, from her memory, and, very slowly, she managed to succeed as best as she could. She told herself to be calm.
Just be calm. Everything will be all right
.

There it went again, the voice of her mother. The voice of Laurie Strode. It was useless.

She wiped the tears from her eyes, sniffing, and as she did so she began walking again. It didn’t matter
where
she walked; all that truly mattered was the distance she put between her and those children somewhere behind her. Just to be sure, she glanced behind her again. No, they weren’t there. But they would eventually show if she remained.

She continued walking, past driveways and green lawns littered with deadened leaves, past other children engaged in eating some early Halloween candy and giggling to themselves about some inane joke.

Just then a dark brown sedan pulled up in front of her as she approached a remote intersection, the driver rolling down her window. Jamie thought she recognized this girl, and then Rachel leaned over the driver and began to wave.

“Hi, Jamie!”

Surprised, Jamie stepped over to the car. Rachel immediately sensed something immediately in the girl’s eyes and stepped out of the car, coming around the front and walking up to her. The closer she came, the more obvious were Jamie’s tear reddened eyes.

“Jamie,” she asked, concerned, “are you okay?” Jamie forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m…..”

For the moment, Rachel seemed to accept Jamie’s halting answer and took her hand. Together, they hopped inside the sedan, Jamie squeezed between the two teenagers. The girl at the steering wheel pulled the car away from the curb.

“Jamie,” Rachel said, referring to the other girl, “you remember Lyndsey, don’t you?”

Lyndsey glanced down at the little girl. “Hi, Jamie.”

“Hi,” Jamie said back, shyly.

“Well, kiddo,” Rachel asked her. “You ready for some ice cream?”

“I want to get a costume and go trick-ortreating like the other kids,” she replied.

Rachel was half—stunned; pleasantly surprised. “But I thought you didn’t want to go trickor-treating.”

Jamie said, nearly pleading, “Can’t a girl change her mind?”

Lyndsey let out a brief chuckle.

Rachel smiled and accompanied Lyndsey with giggles of her own, inching towards the little girl. “I guess she can if she’s as cute and ticklish as you are!”

And with that, Rachel’s fingers managed to catch her foster sister’s underarms and began to fiendishly tickle, while Jamie squealed and squirmed in her seat.

Among the childish uproar, and after a few final giggles from herself, Lyndsey spoke up casually as she made a left—hand turn at the following intersection, “You know, Rach, the discount Mart’s having a sale on Halloween costumes.”

Sly, Lynd, real sly
.

“Brady’s working there today till six o’clock,” Rachel told her, knowing that was the reason behind the suggestion.

“I know,” Lyndsey said, confirming Rachel’s thoughts. “Don’t you want to talk to him?”

Yes you do, Rach. You gotta admit it
.

“I don’t want to look pushy,” she replied. “You won’t look pushy.”

“I don’t want to come on too strong,” she said. “Guys hate girls who come on too strong. Fragile egos and all that.”

“You won’t come on too strong,” Lyndsey repeated.

“I don’t want to seem desperate or anything.” “Face it, Rach. You
are
desperate.”

Right you are. It can’t be denied
. The way Lyndsey glanced at her helped to apply the conviction.

“No, seriously,” Lyndsey continued. “You’re just going in to buy a costume for Jamie. Perfectly legit.”

Rachel sighed. “I don’t know….”

Lyndsey impatiently awaited a definite answer. “Well, do I drop you at the Discount Mart, or do I drop you off at the Dairy Queen? Which is it?”

Rachel realized she must first ask the girl who actually started the whole predicament. “Jamie....?”

“The Discount Mart,” Jamie said. Then, “Can we get ice cream after?”

“You bet,” Rachel said.

Another turn to the left, and the sedan went in the direction of a series of apartments, after which was a shopping district.

They didn’t notice the tow truck idling at the intersection a block away.

Chapter Nine

It was afternoon and it was hot. To Doctor Loomis it was hotter as hell compared to before, with the exception of the magnitude of temperature in what he had witnessed earlier that morning.

He had been out there---what was it---five, maybe six hours? He had lost track of the time, merely guessing at when he departed from the smoldering station and diner. He was walking up the road in the breakdown lane, and he realized as he went that if he kept an even, languid pace, he seemed to be all right; if he walked too fast, he would stagger and fall. He found that out the hard way a few miles back, when he staggered and hit his head on the asphalt. No damage done, though. At least none that he knew of. Hell, he’d been through worse.

The distant sound of a motor engine. He turned and spotted the station wagon; yes, it was a beige station wagon, and there appeared to be a family inside, a family with children. They looked like the kind of people who would help a desperate man in the middle of scorching desert. He could now cast aside his fear of being picked up by a gay rapist or a drug dealer ex—con.

He held out his thumb. It didn’t look like the station wagon was going to stop.

It didn’t.

Well, so much for that.

He came across a road sign:

EATON, Ill. 59mi.

HADDONFIELD, Ill. ll9mi.

Suddenly, another car engine echoed down the road; the engine of a red and white convertible. This time, this car slowed, veering over to the shoulder about fifty feet ahead. The car was filled with teenagers, and from the looks of them they were returning from a high school football game. Two girls, cheerleaders complete in skimpy yellow and black outfits with megaphone patches across their chests began to wave him towards the car.

Thank God
.

“Thank you,” Loomis called out to them, trotting towards the vehicle, “....thank you for stopping....”

Just as he came up to the car, barely close enough to touch it, the rear wheels began to spin, propelling a roostertail of dust into the air around the doctor. The teenagers gave a hearty laugh as they proceeded up the road a short distance, then they swerved to the right and the vehicle halted again momentarily, leaving a trail of scorching tire marks upon the road. The car faced him sideways, encompassing both lanes of the highway. Someone struggled with his clothing in the back seat, and in the next moment a couple of pasty white bare naked ass cheeks hung out into the open air. The car then drove away, off and into the distance like a bat out of hell. Loomis was left alone, angrily beating the dirt from his clothes and the coat he carried in one arm.

As he looked up the road he noticed what appeared to be a beat-up old pick-up waiting in the center of the asphalt up ahead. An older man lifted his head out from the driver’s side window and yelled to him.

“Get it in gear, old man, I ain’t got till
Judgment Day. An’ my ass is stayin’ smack down on this seat where it belongs.”

Loomis approached the vehicle, walking a bit too fast and almost staggering, until he came up to the passenger’s side, opened it, and climbed inside.

“Thank you,” he told him gratefully, panting, still unconsciously wiping dust from his shirt.

“Anything for a fellow pilgrim,” the old man replied. “We’re all on a quest. Sometimes we need help getting where we got to be. Milk Dud?”

“Excuse me?” Loomis saw the small yellow box on the man’s dashboard, and shook his head politely.

Occasionally, Loomis would glance at the old man, each glance revealing something different and curious. He appeared to be in his late sixties, with wheat textured tufts of whiskers and scalp hair. The man wore a preacher’s collar around his neck, and he was holding a fifth of corn whiskey in each hand, one appearing as if he were on the verge of spilling it as he steered. And his name was ”

“Jack Sayer. Just a pilgrim trodding this here Earth in the guise of an old country preacher tryin’ to save a few poor damn bastards from takin’ a dive into hell. And you?”

“Uh, Loomis. Doctor Sam Loomis.”

Sayer motioned to shake his hand, then declined, not knowing where to rest the corn whiskey. Loomis felt slightly uncomfortable, and at first he feared the man would run the truck off the road at any moment; but it was a fear that subsided as the miles steadily went by. The man was definitely a preacher. A crucifix hung from his rear view mirror like a guardian angel. Dangling by invisible fishing line, it appeared to be floating there rather than hanging suspended. There was a Gideon bible on the dashboard near a small box of tissues and the Milk Duds.

A moment of quiet passed, the man apparently in thought. Then, “Yeah, you’re huntin’
It
all right. Just like me.”

Loomis looked at him. “What are you hunting, Mister Sayer?”

“Apocalypse. End of the world. Armageddon. It’s always got a face and a name.” He took a slow, easy drink of his whiskey. “Been huntin’ the bastard for thirty years give or take. Come close a time or two. Too damn close.”

Loomis studied Sayer for a second, detecting a certain sincere firmness in his voice. Sayer glanced back at him, and in his long glance he appeared sober as ajudge.

Then Sayer said to him, “Can’t kill damnation, mister. It don’t die like a man dies.”

“I know,” Loomis told him, speaking from experience.

“You’re a pilgrim,” Sayer said. “I seen it in your face back there in the dust. I seen it clear as breasts and blue suede shoes. Drink?”

At first the doctor’s impulse was to decline, then, he figured, on second thought, he might as well. Jack Sayer handed him one of his fifths, and, hesitatingly, he managed a sip. The old man then flipped on the A.M. radio to an all gospel station and began to sing along with an unseen choir at the top of his lungs, proudly but off key.

When the roll…….is called up yonder, when the
roll...is called up yonder, when the roll is called up
yonder, when the roll is called up yonder I’ll be there....

Loomis gazed out the window, his thoughts wandering while the old man missed all the right notes.