Halloween: The Official Movie Novelization

26

Julian’s frightened words echoed in her ears.

Vicky could tell Julian wasn’t lying. He believed it. But he’d had nightmares before. And nightmares often seemed real to kids, even after they woke up. Sometimes they were afraid to go back to sleep because the nightmare might be waiting for them.

Of one thing she was certain. Unless she calmed Julian down and got him back to sleep, her evening with Dave would take a permanent turn toward the platonic. And she was determined not to let that happen. She hadn’t minded missing the dance too much because she’d anticipated a sweet end to the night.

She considered the interruption a minor setback, covered in full by the unofficial basics of babysitting. She’d have a calmed Julian under his covers in ten minutes—thirty tops, if he was really freaked out. “Come on,” she said in her best reassuring tone. “Let’s go see this creature, then get you back to bed.”

Taking Julian’s hand, she led him back toward the stairs.

A quick glance back revealed Dave shaking his head. She mouthed, “Ten minutes,” and gave him a hopeful smile.

Watching Vicky escort Julian back upstairs, Dave heaved a sigh.

If he’d read Vicky’s lips correctly, she needed only ten minutes to get their evening back on track. Wishful thinking on her part, he decided bitterly. The kid was spooked. And Dave had gotten him more riled up, sparking that f-bomb-littered rant. Might as well hand the kid an energy drink or a shot of espresso. He’d beg Vicky to hold his hand until his parents came home. And even if she somehow managed to get the little tyke back to sleep, Allyson and Cameron were due to show up soon on the Morriseys’ doorstep. He predicted the night would turn into a movie and popcorn event after all.

Absently, his fingers reached up and touched the sensitive skin around his fresh tattoo. Should’ve had a question mark added after the date.

Wallowing in a bit of self-pity, he pulled a joint from his pocket and made his way back to the kitchen, intending to step out back to smoke it. But then he noticed light emanating from the front of the house. The kitchen had windows that faced both front and back. A breakfast nook beside a bay window overlooked the front lawn and driveway. Stepping around the table to peer out the extended, angled window, Dave could see one of the two garage doors was open. Light from inside the garage spilled onto the driveway.

Maybe a power surge caused the automatic door opener to trip and the rumbling sound woke the kid.

Neither Dave nor Vicky had heard a thing, but they were preoccupied with each other at the time. A little rumbling could have been a distant car, the furnace firing up, a dishwasher or washing-machine cycle. Short of a firecracker exploding in the kitchen, Dave doubted he would have noticed any odd sound in those few, fleeting minutes. Of course, Vicky had noticed Julian, but he had to cut her some slack. Her internal babysitting sensors would have been on high alert, especially for anything involving Julian waking up or spying on them. Dave, meanwhile, had been hopelessly lost in a raging hormone stupor. “One-track mind,” he mumbled to himself.

Rather than go out the front door and walk over to the garage, he opened the interior kitchen door and stepped through the doorway, down two steps into the garage, closing the door behind him. As good a place as any to light up without stinking up the house and getting Vicky in trouble with the Morriseys.

Vicky stood at the top of the stairs with Julian, staring down the dark hallway toward his corner room. She’d left the light on when she put him to bed and didn’t remember turning it off. Could have been an absent-minded flick of the switch between then and when she’d washed the dishes, but Vicky wasn’t sure. They stood next to a wall clock with a huge face, the house so quiet she could hear each second tick by.

“He was standing in the door right there,” Julian said, pointing toward his room. “I closed my eyes. When I opened them, he was gone.”

She flicked on the hall light.

Julian’s bedroom door was open. No reason he would have closed it before running downstairs. Scary dream, jumps out of bed, opens his door, walks down the hallway, she imagined. Perfectly natural. Would have been stranger if he’d closed the door behind him.

“That’s the last time I let you watch a horror movie,” she said.

Vicky decided she needed to break the tension, to get the kid to relax before he freaked out even more. Leaving him at the top of the stairs, she slid down the hardwood floor hallway, sock-skating all the way to his door. There, she pivoted and slid her way into his dark room.

She palmed the wall switch, flooding his room with light. Scanning the room, which was empty, of course, she crossed to the fish tank and turned on that light as well. If it will make him feel better, let him have a jumbo night light.

“Vicky?” came Julian’s frightened voice.

Oops! Left him hanging. “All clear, little dude,” she called, hurrying to poke her head out the doorway. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

Dave took a hit off his joint and scanned the garage. Not too much clutter. Odds and ends on racks of shelves, hammers and other tools mounted to a section of plywood nailed to the wall the garage shared with the kitchen. Couple of bikes on the floor, one up on a tall bike rack. But he smiled when he looked over to the second bay and saw a vision.

“Sick bike,” he said with awe.

It was a black-and-silver vintage Harley Davidson motorcycle, sadly collecting dust.

Dave approached the Harley reverently, wondering if it would still run. If it’s been sitting long enough to collect this much dust, he thought, definitely needs a tune up.

He walked around it in a slow circle, fingertips caressing the smooth body, leaving clear trails in the coating of dust, evidence of his envy.

Dave swung his left leg over the seat and sat on the Harley, joint dangling from the corner of his mouth as he gripped the handlebars and gazed down the driveway, picturing an open highway in front of him. “And the only speed limit,” he said in a deep voice, “is your own fear.”

Why had it languished in the garage?

Dave imagined a scenario. Whenever Mr Morrisey rode the bike, Mrs Morrisey thought he looked cool. Maybe seeing him on the bike is what attracted her to him in the first place. Then, of course, she gives birth to Julian and she no longer sees a motorcycle. She sees a donor-cycle. So, she tells her husband his bike-riding days are over. He’s a father now and she won’t have her son grow up without ever knowing him. And so, the Harley sits idle in the garage. Years go by and Mr Morrisey rarely thinks about the wild and carefree days on the open road, the feeling of the powerful motor rumbling beneath him.

Or maybe Dave had it all backward. Maybe Mrs Morrisey rode the Harley and Mr Morrisey grew fascinated with the hot biker chick in town. They fall in love and ride all over town and the countryside together. Then she becomes pregnant and decides to give it up, no longer willing to risk her life or the new life growing inside her.

Either way, sucked for the Harley.

Julian sat on his bed, back against the headboard, arms around his knees, not quite ready to get under the covers but getting there, bit by bit. Vicky sat on the edge of the bed, hoping her proximity would chase away any lingering frights.

Dave was probably pissed, but she hadn’t been away that long yet, and if Julian settled down and let her leave, she saw no reason the two of them, alone downstairs, couldn’t rekindle the mood. Weeks from now, they would laugh about the little interruption to their raging libidos.

Vicky leaned over to the end table and switched off Julian’s bedside lamp.

The aquarium light bathed them in blue, the equivalent of twenty nightlights. With the glow from the aquarium and the soft bubbling of the filter, she seemed to have all the ingredients to put a tired boy to sleep.

“We good?” she asked.

But Julian had one more request.

“Will you turn on the closet light?”

She glanced at the closet door then back at the nine-year-old boy and thought, Seriously, kid? You’ll need sunglasses to fall asleep. But then she remembered Dave waiting—patiently, she hoped—for her downstairs. Or toking up on the front lawn. She thought she saw him reaching for a joint before she escorted Julian upstairs.

“Then you go to sleep for real,” she said, making it a statement, but careful not to let her own impatience surface in the tone of her voice. No more bargaining, she thought. Time for you to count sheep, young man.

After a moment, he nodded. She scooted down, lifted his covers so he could get under them, then she tucked him in. Standing, she straightened the legs of her jeans and walked to the closet. As she turned the doorknob and pulled the door open, she glanced back at him and said, “Remember, I’ll be right downstairs until your folks get home. Okay?”

Again, he nodded. She returned his nod as she reached for the closet light switch and flipped it up. Light from the bare closet bulb flooded the bedroom.

“Oh, shit!” Julian exclaimed.

Vicky whirled toward the closet to see—

Standing before her, the dark shape of a man in coveralls with a pale, lifeless face staring back at her with dead eyes. Not a face—a mask of a face.

Before she could react—or utter a sound—he grabbed her throat in his left hand, while his right arm rose, his hand gripping a large kitchen knife. He swung the blade down, its tip slicing into her left shoulder then across her right forearm as she tried to break free.

In an instant, she felt as if her skin had caught fire, the sudden burst of pain momentarily incapacitating her. But she knew immediately she was in a fight for her life. Stumbling back out of his grip, she picked up the desk chair and hurled it at him. But he batted it away.

Casting about for any weapon, she grabbed a basketball trophy off the bookcase and swung it like a club at his masked head. His raised forearm deflected the blow and the trophy snapped free of its weighted base.

Screaming, Julian kicked his blankets aside and scrambled out of the bed, running toward the door.

The Shape of a man turned…

Tired of waiting for Vicky while pretending to ride the lonely highways—and a little buzzed—Dave had decided to give the old Harley the benefit of the doubt and fire it up. The engine had roared to life, especially loud in the confines of the double garage, even with the doors open. He revved the motor several times, admiring the full-throated power—and edging closer to realizing his biker fantasy. But that was as far as he could take it. No matter how long Vicky took to get Julian back to sleep, there was no way in hell he’d take off down the driveway. Maybe he could cozy up to Mr Morrisey, ask to borrow the bike sometime, but—

What the hell was that?

He thought he heard screaming. He turned off the bike and listened…

Nothing.

Nevertheless, he’d heard something and decided he’d better check it out. In his haste, he climbed off the Harley without setting the kickstand and the damn bike fell over with a loud crash.

“Aww. Idiot,” he yelped.

Reaching down, he grabbed the handlebars and struggled to get the damn thing upright again…

Julian had darted out of his room, Vicky right on his heels. Soon as she passed through the doorway, she saw him racing down the stairs. But in her socks, she had little traction on the hardwood floor and her feet slipped out from under her. She fell hard, knocking the wind out of her. The pressure in her chest felt like a vise had clamped down on her ribs, as though her body had suddenly forgotten how to breathe.

Lying there, she saw Julian climb back up the stairs, his eyes unnaturally wide with fright. Then, towering over her, the dark shape appeared in the doorway. Twisting to glance back, she saw the light gleaming on his long knife, the trickle of blood—her blood—pooling near the hilt and dripping to the floor.

When Julian spotted the intruder standing over Vicky with the knife, he shook his head violently and said, “Nope.” As quickly as he had returned, he rushed back down the stairs.

With Julian out of sight, the intruder turned his attention to Vicky.

She rolled over, to keep him in sight. As she tried to kick him, his free hand caught her left foot by the heel and started to drag her back toward the bedroom.

Instantly, she changed her strategy, flipping over again and clawing at the floor. With the full body flip, she broke free of his grasp and scrambled across the hallway, trying to rise and slipping again, maybe in her own blood. She couldn’t be sure how bad her shoulder was bleeding, but she could see the blood running from the gashes in her forearm, down to her wrist, trickling between her fingers to coat her palm. He caught her foot a second time and tugged, but she grabbed one of the railing’s balusters and held on as tight as she could.

For a few precious seconds, she resisted his grip. But he was strong, and her shoulder had grown weak, almost numb from blood loss. Her hands slipped, her grip faltering, betrayed by her own bleeding wounds. With a sudden jerk, he yanked her away from the baluster and across the floor, slippery with her sweat and blood.

He pulled her back into the bedroom, and this time she couldn’t stop him. All she could do was shout a final warning to Julian, to make sure he was safe. She screamed so loud, she felt her voice shatter with terror. “RUNNN!”

The second Dave opened the garage door and stepped into the kitchen, Julian slammed into him, screaming incoherently. Dave caught his shoulders, trying to track the kid’s wild eyes.

“Dude! Chill,” Dave said, loud enough for Julian to pay attention. “Why are you screechin’?”

“That man up there,” Julian said. “Uh-uh!”

“There’s no man up there,” Dave said, trying to calm him. As a babysitter, Vicky might be accustomed to dealing with irrational-kid drama, but it was foreign territory to him. If he tried to ask himself, what would Vicky do in this situation, he didn’t have the first clue. “Calm down.”

“You go up there,” Julian said breathlessly, looking past Dave’s left shoulder at the back door, “you’re gonna get killed, Dave!”

As Dave looked toward the family room, Julian broke free of his grasp and rushed out the door. Dave debated following the kid, who’d probably hide inside the massive wooden playset Dave had noticed out back until his parents came home, but decided Vicky was the pro. Let her deal with Julian. The whole twitchy-kid thing was getting old fast. After opening a few kitchen drawers, Dave found what he was looking for. Smiling, he tossed the large kitchen knife from right hand to left and back again. He adjusted his straw hat like a major-league pitcher tugging on the bill of his cap, about to deliver some serious heat.

Time to show the kid there was nothing to be afraid of except his overactive imagination.