Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition (21 page)

“You were going into shock, honey. No one should go through what you are tonight, most of all a girl your age. You were seeing what you wanted to see.”

Together, they passed main offices, a conference room, a janitor’s closet; the hallway’s shadowed corner was only a few feet away. Suddenly the shape of Michael Myers stepped out before them and lunged toward Loomis, grabbing him, hurling him through a nearby office glass door. The deafening sound of shattering safety glass thundered above the wails of the grade school’s alarm, raping the silent
hallways. Panicked, Jamie turned and fled, shrieking, running down the hallway for escape. And at the dark figure’s feet, Doctor Loomis settled into bloody unconsciousness.

There seemed to be no escape for the little girl. Her mind raced through her consciousness, telling her that this task of being chased, being stalked relentlessly, was her destiny; a living nightmare that would never end. She fled down the maze of hallways and around corridors, missing the exit, thinking she may very well be safer within the confines of the school than out again on the streets. Perhaps she could find someplace really quiet to hide, some place deep within this grade school labyrinth. The hallways, blind corners and stairways seemed to be endless, as was her fleeing and her ability to flee. As she ran, the casual irrationality of her racing mind, that part of a person that steps out of the scene and watches as a sort of unbiased audience, applauded her performance at being able to endure the tremendous exhaustion which threatened to slow her down.

There, at the end of the next adjoining hallway, was an open classroom. Swiftly, Jamie ducked inside. She scurried past rows of desks toward the dark room’s farthest corner. When she arrived at the outside corner of the room, she reached for the near window and attempted to force it open. It failed to give way; it was stuck. No. It was locked at the top, just beyond her reach.

Outside the room and down the hallway, the dark figure turned the corner and proceeded silently down the hall’s length, closing the distance between himself and the opened classroom door.

Jamie skidded under the teacher’s desk, pushing the chair aside and then pulling it back as soon as she was situated underneath. It was a chance to catch her breath, however, she found she could not; she held it silently, in intervals, as she attempted to remain absolutely quiet and watched the door from the space between the floor and the desk itself.

Silence. No movement outside the opened door. There was only the constant darkness.

Fearfully, she waited. She couldn’t dare make the slightest sound; the slightest sound, her own or otherwise, could bring the shape popping up from the shadows behind her or to her side, or she could feel the painful blade of a knife crashing down before her into her face.

She was waiting...
.waiting

There he was; the shape was entering the classroom. Jamie watched in terror as he made his way inside. To her shock he was crossing directly towards the teacher’s front desk. The girl jumped in fright as his legs shoved desks violently from his path.

He knew where she was.

Jamie trembled with terror as the shape drew nearer. Then there was the pounding---the thunderous pounding above her head. The shape was over the desk now, slamming fist and knife into the surface of the top wood. It was like the sound of a sledge hammer, splintering, bashing the woodwork to dust.

Above Jamie’s head, the desk began to crack, splitting open down the middle under the pounding force, raining woodchips. Desperately, Jamie slid from the space between the desk and the floor and jumped to her feet. She began to race, terrified and screaming, dodging the desks, disappearing out of the room, the shape missing her by a millimeter as her hair danced through his fingers as she ran away.

Down the hallway she went until suddenly an obstacle appeared before her. She slammed into it, the force causing her to stumble over onto her back.

Turning, she saw through the darkness the subtle outline of a hall monitor’s desk. A sharp pain sprung immediately from within her right ankle and she grasped it, moaning both from distress and agony.

The shape reached the threshold of the classroom door. Seeing his towering figure, Jamie tried to stand. She could not manage to rise at first, and weight upon the injured leg sent her back down to the floor in pain. Half crawling, half hopping, she rose and leaned against the wall. However, her attempts at escape seemed futile. Behind her, the shape closed the distance between them with silent ease.

Just as she reached the hallway’s corner; just when she thought, she
knew
, she would make it around and out of her pursuer’s grasp, the figure grabbed her arm and turned her forcefully to face him.

There she was, face to face with the pasty white Halloween mask of death, his steady breathing a steady counterpoint to the relentless sound of the school alarm. She knew now that there was truly no escape. She knew she was finally about to die.

Jamie uttered forth one last scream as the blade from her executioner came down, slicing through the air.

Then there was steam. No; it was more than steam, it was the sudden freezing vapors of smoke which appeared between them. The shape released the girl and staggered backwards in confusion. Jamie turned.

It was Rachel. Thank God it was Rachel. She was holding a canister of CO2 directed at the shape’s face.

“I knew you weren’t dead,” Jamie told her, both relieved and overjoyed.

Frantically, Rachel picked Jamie up into her arms and hurried down the corridor toward the nearest exit.

Exiting through the main doors, the alarm silenced within the last instant, the two girls met the brilliant beams of headlights sweeping around and before them.

Earl Ford’s pickup swung up onto the sidewalk and stopped short of Rachel and Jamie, who nearly toppled over onto the pavement in exhaustion and relief, and lingering fear. Earl came up out of the driver’s side, and at once the others jumped out from the rear bed, all men with rifles and shotguns ready to protect the good and blow away the bad.

“What’s goin’ on?” Earl called out to the girls. “We heard the alarm.”

Rachel looked up at all of them, almost not believing her eyes---that out there, before her, there actually
was
help. She was near tears. “He’s inside ”

Orrin was taken. “Jesus, where?”

“In the school,” Rachel directed.

“All right,” Earl spoke out, determined, moving forward, “let’s get this bastard.”

“No.”

Everyone halted at once.

“No,” Jamie repeated herself. All eyes went to her, and immediately there was silence. “He’ll kill you, too.”

There was a certain matter—of—factness within the little girl’s voice which stunned the men and cut through the air like a razor. Rachel gazed at the men in agreement, slowly nodding. The two were trembling, but their eyes were stern and serious; warning.

“We have to get out of Haddonfield,” Rachel told them. “The State Police are on their way. Let them handle it.”

A moment of silence passed between the girls
and the men, then the thinnest of the bunch, Unger, spoke up first.

“I don’t know about you, Earl, but that makes sense to me. Let’s get the hell out.”

Al said, “You saw the police station. Let the troopers have him. That’s what they get paid for.”

Earl stared at the grade school’s dark expanse. There was no sign of movement anywhere within. Only silence and wind.

“Screw it,” he said finally. “Let’s get outta here. You two kids ride up front with me.”

Everyone began to pile up into the pickup, some of the men gazing back into the dark mouth of the grade school’s gaping entrance. Rachel and Jamie, however, did not. They merely did as they were told, gratefully and obediently, and climbed up into the front cab beside the hefty bartender.

The engine began to rev, and Earl swung back around to the street and accelerated off the sidewalk, burning rubber down the lane.

***

Inside the pickup, amidst the roughness of the bumps in the street as it made its way toward the outskirts of the town, Earl snatched up his C.B. microphone. As he did Rachel was reminded of the radio in the basement of Sheriff Meeker’s place. She flinched at the memory of the nightmare she had left behind there.

“All patrols, all patrols,” Earl said, speaking into the mike, “I got Rachel Caruthers and her sister in the truck. I’m takin’ ‘em outta town. Four—ten route. State Police are on the way.”

“Packin it in,” came a deep voice from the radio speaker. “Good beer joint out four-ten. Maybe they got power.”

The night passed outside the pickup as Rachel held Jamie, gazing out into the blackness, remembering, knowing that for some ungodly reason the horror was not over yet.

Far from it.

Chapter Thirty

NOW LEAVING HADDONFIELD
COME AGAIN SOON

the road sign read. Earl’s pickup was now on the town’s outskirts on route four—ten.

Rachel held Jamie tightly in her arms, rocking her softly, letting her know that they were finally safe from the nightmare. As she thought to herself, Rachel realized how lucky they were, coming face to face with death as they did and escaping with their lives. She did little worrying as to what effect this sort of thing would have on Jamie for the remainder of her life; the little girl seemed to be, surprisingly enough, taking the whole matter like a real trooper. As for her own self--- well, she’d rather not give it any thought.
Try not to think about how traumatic this all was
, she told herself.
Right now, let’s just think about good things, nice things, and not about what just happened. Okay, Rach?

And speaking of real troopers

Ahead, a convoy of headlights rushed toward the pickup from out of the darkness on the other lane in the road. Sirens grew in volume as the State Police cars began to approach and race past on their way to the town which held the nightmare.

“There’s the cavalry
,” Earl declared, and at once he honked the pickup’s horn to get their attention. At the same time, the men in the back bed began to wave their arms and shout, and Orrin took his shotgun and fired two shots into the air.

At the same time that Earl’s pickup came to a halt at the side of the road, one of the trailing State Police vehicles did the same, turning. As soon as the two vehicles met, Earl proceeded to roll his window down and push his head out, calling to the trooper in the passenger side of the other car.

“Hey.”

“You comin’ out of Haddonfield?” the trooper yelled.

“Yeah,” Earl told him, “Myers is in the elementary school. We’re taking these kids to safety.”

“There’s a highway patrol substation four miles down the highway. You’ll see turn-off signs. We’ve got officers on duty. They’ll take care of you.”

“Thanks.”

Earl rolled up the window as the State Police car began to screech away to catch up with the convoy. In turn, Earl put his pickup in gear and accelerated down the dark highway.

As the vehicle moved further down the highway, it passed through wispy patches of fog. Soon, the vapors became curtains which the pickup sliced through as it continued onward towards its destination, visibility dropping.

Earl switched to low beams; the speedometer hovered at eighty. Earl was determined, yet half of his mind was back in Haddonfield, thinking about how the State Police were arriving in front of the school, Michael Myers being driven out by tear gas or something, the firing squad ready, aiming….

Something jumped out through the fog in front of the pickup. Earl veered to the side, the wheels screeching, over into the dirt on the road’s shoulder.

It was only a frightened doe. The animal bolted across the roadway into the blackness and the fog.

“Goddammit,” Earl exclaimed, then gazed over to his side at the two girls, momentarily terrified until they realized what had caused the commotion.

No one noticed the set of fingers closing over the tailgate in the rear, or the hint of white Halloween mask as it rose. The men who were sitting there, huddled in the rear bed, were too weary to look up. When they did, what their eyes beheld still didn’t register within their brains until it was too late.

Pulling himself up from the pickup’s undercarriage, the figure of the very thing they thought they left behind rose to his terrifying fullness, towering above the exhausted men. It remained there, even as the truck began to move.

Orrin turned.