Halloween: The Official Movie Novelization

35

“Stay in the car!” Hawkins shouted to Allyson.

She looked rattled by the impact. She’d barely had time to buckle up before he rammed his cruiser into Michael Myers.

At the last second, he’d held back, hit his brakes rather than crushing and running over the murderous son of a bitch. Hawkins had no idea where the merciful impulse had come from. He’d like to think his better angels had prevailed, but he thought it probably had more to do with the presence of the teenaged girl in his backseat. A small part of him had balked at letting someone so young and innocent witness him commit cold-blooded murder—even if Myers deserved that and more.

In hindsight, the best thing he could have done for Allyson and her whole troubled family—not to mention the entire town of Haddonfield—would have been to rid the world of Michael Myers once and for all. He doubted a prosecuting attorney in Warren County would have found a single jury member willing to convict Hawkins of anything more severe than reckless driving. With luck, Myers had been killed on contact. Hawkins’ conscience would be totally fine with that.

He and Sartain got out of the cruiser and approached the prone Myers from opposite sides. Clutching his service weapon, Hawkins advanced cautiously. A quick glance back at the cruiser showed Allyson leaning forward, peering through the windshield at the three of them.

Sartain lowered himself to one knee to examine The Shape lying in the middle of the road. He leaned forward, reached out with his good hand and checked the neck for a pulse.

Seemingly relieved, Sartain looked up at Hawkins and said, “He’s alive.”

Okay, not as simple as I’d hoped.

Nodding, Hawkins extended his weapon, sighting down the barrel for a head shot, mid-forehead, just north of the eyes partially concealed by the pale mask.

“Not for long,” Hawkins said. “Stand back.”

Outraged, Dr Sartain bellowed, “Officer Hawkins, do not kill my patient!”

Hawkins’ finger lay beside the trigger guard. As soon as Sartain moves his condescending ass, this is over. “I’m finishing this,” Hawkins told him. “That’s a promise.”

“No!” Sartain shouted defiantly. “He’s unarmed.” A moment later, Hawkins thought he heard Sartain whisper, “But I’m not.”

“What did you say?”

“If you do this,” Sartain replied, “I’ll see you prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“I’ll take my chances,” Hawkins said. Hell, the mayor might give me the key to the city for putting down this rabid animal.

Hawkins took aim again.

Sartain stepped in his way.

“Get back now, Doctor. I’m going to fire! GET BACK NOW!”

Instead, Sartain removed a pen from his pocket, clicking it nervously.

“I’m not going to ask you again, Doctor,” Hawkins said, practically spitting out the words in frustration. “Step away from the suspect!”

From her obstructed view in the backseat of the patrol car, Allyson strained to see what was happening out on the road. She slipped her fingers through the openings in the steel-mesh barrier and pulled herself forward, the tip of her nose brushing the metal as she stared intently through the windshield.

Hawkins had struck Michael Myers with the car, but hadn’t killed him, at least according to Dr Sartain—apparently Michael Myers’ doctor from Smith’s Grove—who checked for and found a pulse. She could only hear some of their contentious conversation through Hawkins’ half-open window, but the topic of the debate seemed clear. Hawkins wanted to put a bullet through Myers’ brain, and Sartain wanted to save his patient.

Personally, Allyson sided with Hawkins; she wanted the nightmare to end as expediently as possible. If she closed her eyes longer than a moment, she saw the gruesome image of Oscar impaled on the fence spike, bleeding out in front of her. Forty years after his incarceration, Michael Myers continued to threaten her grandmother and anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path. Clearly, the justice system had failed.

But Sartain never spoke to Hawkins after closing the distance between them. Instead, Allyson saw him fiddling with his fancy pen, twisting the clip and—

—a gleaming two-inch blade flipped out of the pen!

Sartain held the blade to the side, hidden from Hawkins’ view, while clearly visible to Allyson—but only for an instant. Long enough for Sartain to switch the pen to an overhand grip.

NO!

Before Allyson could scream a warning, Sartain grabbed Hawkins’ gun hand by the wrist with his injured arm, pushing it to the side as he as he swung his right hand around and plunged the pen-blade into Hawkins’ neck. Hawkins’ gun fired, wide of the mark, the bullet ricocheting off the asphalt.

As Sartain drove his blade deep, cutting back and forth, Hawkins’ dropped his gun, his body swaying. He toppled over to his left, blood gushing from the jagged wound in his neck. He fell below the hood of the police cruiser, mercifully out of Allyson’s view.

But the murderous doctor stood calmly between the headlights of the police cruiser, twisting the clip of his pen to retract the bloody blade. She stared at him through the windshield, petrified with terror.

Dr Sartain stared down at the corpse of Officer Hawkins.

The blood pulsing from the man’s neck had stopped within moments. If he wasn’t clinically dead yet, that moment was only a few feeble heartbeats away. Sartain inhaled, smelling the fresh blood, filling his lungs with the moment of the kill. His kill.

Once again, he felt the power and freedom that he knew Michael must feel each time he sank his blade into a living body and snuffed out the life inside. A profound dominance, the power to twist the fate of another to one’s will. Despite the discomfort radiating from his injured shoulder, a sense of utter calm flowed through him, invigorating him.

He examined the bloody blade extending from his custom pen for a moment, then twisted the barrel and—

Click!

—the blade retracted, hidden from view.

As he returned the pen to his jacket pocket, he turned toward Allyson who stared back at him in shocked disbelief from the back of Hawkins’ cruiser. When he spoke to her, he raised his voice, but his tone was measured and calm. “Do not move, young lady,” he said. “Do not scream. Stay where you are.”

She couldn’t open the car door, but he preferred she not spend the rest of the night screaming her fool head off, attracting unwanted attention and giving him a headache. She was a minor player in what was to come and should not try to rise above her role.

Panicked, Allyson immediately reached for the door handle only to find the door locked. Of course, she realized belatedly, police cars transport prisoners! Between the locked steel-mesh barrier, the uncomfortable seat and the locked doors, she basically sat inside a mini jail cell.

Without a weapon, she was trapped and helpless.

Movement at the front of the car caught her eye. As she looked, Sartain squatted before Michael Myers and dropped out of sight. He was right near the body, but she couldn’t tell what he was doing. Then, a moment later, he shifted position, moving forward, placing one knee on Michael’s chest, leaning forward… jostling for a moment or two, then he was suddenly still. His head bowed forward, and she saw his arms move, fussing with something. His back rose and fell as he took deep breaths.

When he stood up, his back to her, his hair seemed different somehow… disheveled.

Then he turned around to face her—

—wearing Michael’s mask.

The shock of seeing it again was too much.

Cowering down, out of sight, she screamed, finally losing control of her fear, giving in to the terror of what she had witnessed earlier—and in this moment.

Sartain began to scream with her.

He pounded on the hood of the car with his fists, his own scream almost muting hers. Suddenly, he stopped moving, straightened, and stared at her through the mask.

Breathless, she stared back in new horror, crying now, tears streaming down the sides of her face. She pleaded, “Please… Don’t.”

Sartain walked calmly to the side of the car and stood by the back window, staring eerily at Allyson. He had control. While the doors remained locked to her, all he needed to do was reach out to the handle and pull the door open to get to her. Whether he was pretending to be Michael or wanted to be Michael, the difference didn’t matter. He was armed, and she was not. He had killed someone in cold blood. For all intents and purposes, he might as well be Michael Myers. She braced herself for a fight—a fight for her life—with no tangible weapons and no combat training. All she had was desperation and her instinct for self-preservation. A potent combination of doubt and dread clawed at her insides. She held her breath…

He raised an index finger to the mouth of the hideous white mask and made a shhh sound at her. Then walked away…

She exhaled so forcefully she had to grab the wire mesh to stop herself from doubling over in relief. Don’t relax, she warned herself. It’s not over. Not even close…

Lacing her fingers through the openings in the wire mesh, she pushed and pulled, testing for any give. If she could pry either side loose, she might be able to squeeze through to the front seat where the doors weren’t prisoner-proof. Despite a little flex in the center of the cage between front and back, farthest from the anchor points, it held firm. She checked the edges, tugging with all her might, praying for loose bolts, then ran her fingertips along the edge, seeking a gap wide enough to reach through and pry back one of the corners. Here and there the metal squeaked, but nothing moved. Stronger arms than hers had probably tested the wire-mesh barrier in a cop car with similar results.

Allyson checked on Sartain through the windshield. He stood over Michael, talking to him, attempting to coax him awake, “This is a dream, Michael.”

No, it’s a nightmare! What are you—?

Sartain crouched close to Michael and slipped his right arm under his prone form. Then, with a grunt of effort, he lifted Michael first into a sitting position, before placing his left arm—still in the sling—against Michael’s chest. Straining, he stood, pulling a groggy Michael up with him. Sartain braced himself, supporting most of Michael’s weight, and slowly walked him toward the police car.

Allyson pounded on the mesh and the side window, trying to get Sartain’s attention. “No!” she shouted. “Please no! Please!”

When they were close enough, Allyson saw beads of sweat on Sartain’s forehead. The effort of bringing Michael to the car with his injured arm taxed him to the point of exhaustion. Allyson prayed for the deranged doctor to have a massive coronary. But the man was determined to finish what he’d started. Propping Michael against the side of the car, he pulled the back door open.

Allyson pushed herself to the far side of the car and slammed into the opposite door, her head bouncing off the glass so hard she saw stars.

With much grunting and shifting of his feet, Sartain wrangled Michael’s listless body into the backseat with Allyson. Bending over, he picked up Michael’s legs and pushed them inside the car, so he could close the door. With his knees pushed up out of the way, Michael flopped backward, bumping into Allyson; his sparse hair, greasy with sweat from the mask, brushed her arm, and she shuddered in disgust.

“Make room, my dear,” Sartain said to her with his hand gripping the edge of the doorframe, his face hidden behind the creepy mask. “Beautiful girl. Mindful of my patient.” He looked down at The Shape sprawled across the backseat. “Are you with us, Michael? Are you listening?” No response, but Sartain nodded anyway and looked at Allyson again. “I do believe he hears everything.”

For a brief, anger-fueled moment, Allyson’s revulsion overcame her fear and she shoved Michael away from her, pushing him to the far corner of the uncomfortable seat. An instant later, she backed away as far as possible within the confines of the backseat cage and huddled in the corner.

Before closing the door, Sartain tugged off the hellish mask and tossed it on the seat, where it landed in the gap between Allyson and Michael. When Sartain slammed the door, locking her in with the murderer, she flinched. Panicked, she banged her fists against the wire-mesh barrier and screamed at him—at anyone who could possibly hear her, “NO! LET ME OUT OF HERE! HELP!”

Glancing down, she saw the flattened mask, how the empty eyes seemed to stare back at her. She had the creepy idea that it had inched closer to her thigh. Disgusted, she pinched a clump of the fake hair between her thumb and index finger and flung the mask as far away from her as possible. It slapped against the door window—the rubber clinging there for a moment—then tumbled into Michael’s lap.

And despite knowing the doors would not open, she banged on the door and the window, throwing her body against it, praying that somehow her weight might pop the door free of its lock.

Sartain put the car in gear, steered around the lifeless body of Officer Hawkins and drove into the night.