Halloween: The Official Movie Novelization

8

After their expensive interview with Laurie Strode failed to produce even the possibility of the desired outcome of a face-to-face meeting between killer and intended victim, Dana and Aaron returned to the Siesta Motor Lodge, which was as extravagant as the name suggested. No matter how many lamps and lights Dana switched on, the interior of their room remained gloomy. If she subscribed to a more poetic frame of mind, she might concede that the room mirrored their present mood.

Aaron considered a face-to-face meeting, to borrow a basketball metaphor, the slam-dunk outcome they wanted for their story. But the lack of a meeting between those two wasn’t a deal breaker. They still had a story to tell.

Besides, Laurie might change her mind. More optimism than that, Dana couldn’t muster. Because the clock was ticking. Once Smith’s Grove transferred Michael Myers to Glass Hill, the maximum-security facility in Colorado, any hope of getting them in the same room ended. That’s what Aaron believed. And Dana was inclined to agree with him.

Since they couldn’t force Laurie into the meeting, their only option was to approach the request from a different angle. Find some tidbit of information that might change her mind. Dana sat cross-legged on the motel bed, poring over Dr Loomis’s files, research articles, essays and forensic exhibits, while nibbling on a deli sandwich in a foil wrapper. Aaron preferred to pace the small room to spark his own creativity.

They had photos of Laurie and her family, though neither of them believed they had a personal angle to exploit, for want of a less predatory word. Karen and Allyson had never faced the threat of Michael Myers. Laurie’s own experience was their only way in. Probably a good thing, Dana thought. Their journalistic ethics had already taken a beating.

Aaron glanced at the handwritten label on an old cassette, slipped it into their tape recorder and pressed play. An old recording, the audio came through distorted and muffled, so Aaron turned up the volume. It was the recording of a state doctor interviewing Loomis about his professional opinion on his infamous patient.

The prefatory statement to the state doctor’s question was lost to time and the limits of technology. The audio picked up in the middle.

“…Dr Samuel Loomis, January twenty-second, 1979. Do you wish to give a statement regarding your former patient, Michael Myers?”

No hesitation in Loomis’s reply. “My suggestion is termination.”

“Doesn’t pull any punches,” Dana commented.

“When it came to Michael Myers,” Aaron said, “Dr Loomis had a one-track mind. Never wavered.”

And Dr Loomis’s grim recommendation, a warning from nearly forty years in the past, continued…

At that moment, inside Smith’s Grove State Hospital, Kuneman, who considered himself a seasoned security guard, approached Michael Myers’ cell with some trepidation. While most of the patients possessed various quirks or oddities and others were prone to manic behavior or depression, Myers was an outlier, well beyond the limits of any bell curve describing the population of the facility. Eerily, almost inhumanly calm, he radiated a controlled menace, a terrifying capacity for cold-blooded violence simmering beneath the shape of a man. Kuneman considered the possibility that his perception of the serial killer was biased by past events. But he thought it was more than that.

Of course, Dr Sartain considered Myers at least somewhat rehabilitated. And Sartain was the expert, so Kuneman had to defer to the professional and simply do his job. Nevertheless, he took a moment, standing before the metal door, before he opened it.

There he is, Kuneman thought. Nothing unusual.

The Shape stood on the far side of the cell, his back turned to the door. Again, Kuneman noted how still Myers seemed; no shifting foot to foot, no swaying. His arms hung at his sides, not the slightest twitch of a finger. A marble statue couldn’t move any less.

“A-2201,” Kuneman said. “Myers, Michael.”

“A shot of sodium thiopental would render him unconscious.”

Outside Smith’s Grove State Hospital, on the far side of the road, Laurie sat in her idling pickup truck, watching the facility through the security fencing. She hadn’t intended to come here. She’d almost convinced herself to let the fate she’d described to Allyson play out just as she suggested it would, with Michael Myers’ transfer to maximum security in Colorado. After all, she had her family dinner with Allyson to look forward to… But she’d found herself pacing at home, needing to get out. And once she climbed into her truck, she drove on mental autopilot, coming directly to Smith’s Grove because some deep-seated part of her psyche refused to relax and let events play out on their own. Part of her believed that without direct action and preparation on her part, she’d fall into the role of hapless victim again.

She reached over to open the glove box, reached inside and pulled out the comforting weight of the Smith & Wesson revolver.

If asked, she couldn’t say what she intended to do next.

That thought terrified her.

No longer motionless, The Shape walked down the dim hallway, manacles and shackles binding his wrists and ankles, limiting his mobility to a shuffling gait. Kuneman had hoped the restraints would diminish Myers’ threatening aspect, but chains only made him seem more dangerous.

The other patients scheduled for the night’s transfer had already been lined up along the corridor and stood facing the wall. Haskell, four years into his tenure as a Smith’s Grove security guard and least likely to tolerate insubordination from any of the patients, had also been assigned to the transport detail. He watched the motley group suspiciously, baton at the ready. Some chattered among themselves—any variance to their daily routine agitated most of them—while others rambled incoherently, a personal running commentary only they understood.

As Myers approached the rear of the line, Haskell called out instructions to the group for the second or third time, repeatedly slapping his baton against the palm of his hand to add weight to his commands. “Stand up! Hands up! Shut up!”

Without fuss, The Shape fell into line with the others.

Kuneman again considered the possibility that Myers’ reputation rather than his recent behavior had spooked him.

“Then a shot of potassium chloride to stop his heart. He goes quietly, without incident.”

“Forehead on the wall!” Haskell continued.

Kuneman referred to his patient transfer checklist to verify nobody was missing. “A-2209, Aaron White… A-2217, Anthony Murphy. A-2243, Jeffrey Neundorf.”

Roll call complete, Kuneman led the group of twelve patients toward the loading area. A long buzzer sounded as the door lock released. Kuneman and Haskell shepherded the patients out to a parking area where a secure transport bus idled under harsh spotlights. Kuneman stepped forward to check with the armed bus driver, who had his own matching checklist.

Before the patients began to board, Lynch, a wild-eyed patient who always seemed on the verge of jumping out of his own skin, had worked his way back behind Myers. At the door of the bus, Kuneman shouted to the milling group of transferees, “Everybody line up! Time to go!”

Haskell walked up and down the group until the semblance of a line reformed. Nodding to the driver, Kuneman stepped away from the open door and nodded for the first patient to board the bus.

“I’ll be with him to make sure his light is extinguished. My ear on his chest to hear for myself that his vitals no longer function. At that point, with the help of a coroner, we will extract the brain for our studies and immediately incinerate the body.”

As one patient after another boarded the bus, the driver checked off their names. Soon the whole bunch of them would be somebody else’s headache.

With The Shape next to last to board, the door buzzer sounded again and Dr Sartain hurriedly approached the bus, wearing a brown suit rather than his usual lab coat and clutching a file in his hand. He stopped beside his eerily silent patient. “Don’t worry, Michael. I’ll be by your side.”

Kuneman suppressed the urge to shake his head in disbelief, though he couldn’t claim surprise. He didn’t need to poll the entire staff of Smith’s Grove to know that Sartain was the only person sad to see Myers leave. Everyone else would probably sleep sounder knowing he was locked up three states west.

“Would have been here sooner,” Sartain continued, glancing toward Kuneman, “if not for a few reports I needed to complete before the trip.”

Curious, Kuneman glanced at The Shape, but nothing in Myers’ face or body language indicated that he’d heard or cared about Sartain’s presence or excuses. He climbed the steps carefully, due to the limitations of his leg shackles.

From where she’d parked her pickup truck, Laurie heard the buzz of a door lock release as a muted sound. Nevertheless, she sat up straight, her palms suddenly damp as she clutched the revolver between them. Almost without blinking, she stared at the group of patients preparing to board the transport bus.

Even among a dozen similarly dressed patients too far away to distinguish individual faces, he stood out. He had an “otherness” about him. The utter stillness. The others milled around, impatient, distracted, excited, nervous, or any combination of those emotions. Not him. When he stood still, not a single link of the shackles binding his arms and legs moved. All his energy was directed inward, creating the appearance of infinite patience.

Laurie Strode knew it was a lie.

His patience was inhuman, not infinite.

But maybe it no longer mattered.

Lock him up and throw away the key, she thought. She glanced down at the revolver in her hand. Maybe I can live with that.

When next she looked up, he was boarding the bus. A minute or two later, everyone had boarded, and the doors closed.

Laurie exhaled.

“This is your fate,” she said, her gaze fixed on the bus. “No more superstition.”

Kuneman followed Haskell to the back of the bus, through the steel-gate partition that separated guard seats from the patients. With two pairs of padded seats three rows deep, separated by the center aisle, the bus accommodated twelve prisoners. Kuneman stood guard while Haskell crouched to secure the patients’ shackles to the steel rings bolted to the floor of the bus. Glancing to the front, Kuneman watched as Dr Sartain boarded and settled himself in the seat behind the armed driver. The doctor took note of his special patient’s location, sitting by the window in the left middle row. Satisfied, Sartain opened his file and took notes on a legal pad with his fancy pen. Something about the doctor’s casual air of entitlement got under Kuneman’s skin.

“A-7367 secure,” Haskell said, standing and brushing his palms on his uniform trousers. “All clear.”

He sidestepped down the line to Lynch.

With a quick glance to confirm—for at least the third time—that Myers wasn’t going anywhere, Kuneman backed toward the partition near the front of the bus. A sneak peek at the doctor’s illegible handwriting was enough to convince Kuneman he’d never decipher those notes. Clearing his throat to get Sartain’s attention, he said, “Still not sure why you’re here.”

His pen paused over the paper, Sartain looked up. “Michael Myers is my patient until he is in someone else’s care,” he said. “I’m seeing my duty through till the end.”

“It needs to die. It needs to die!”

Kuneman was about to respond when Lynch started screaming. “What the hell—Haskell?”

Glowering, Haskell stood and punched Lynch in the gut.

With an explosive grunt, Lynch collapsed in his seat and groaned in pain. Haskell dropped to one knee and checked that Lynch’s shackles were secured to the ring on the floor. Fists on his hips, Haskell towered over the seated Lynch and said through gritted teeth, “All clear!”

As Haskell moved forward, Kuneman ducked through the partition and said, “Buckle up, Dr Sartain. This show’s about to hit the road.”

“There’s nothing to be gained from keeping evil alive and gestating.”

Haskell settled into the seat next to Kuneman opposite the driver’s side of the bus. With everyone secured and accounted for, Kuneman signaled to the driver to roll out. Sartain clicked his pen and again turned his attention to The Shape sitting in the middle left row, staring out the window as if he were carved from stone.

Kuneman wondered if the murderer was glad to leave Smith’s Grove behind. Or if he worried about spending the rest of his days in solitary confinement. Somehow, Kuneman had the impression nothing mattered to him now.

Nothing ever would.

From the vantage point of her pickup truck, Laurie watched as the transport bus approached the perimeter of the state hospital’s grounds and stopped briefly while the gate trundled open. She closed her eyes.

Could she free herself? Let it go?

Let the moment pass unwitnessed…?

The self-enforced darkness became a suffocating eternity.

She opened her eyes and grabbed a miniature airplane bottle of whiskey from the glove box. Her hands shaking, she fumbled with the cap for a moment before dropping it on the floor mat. She raised the tiny bottle to her lips and downed two quick sips.

Then she stared as the bus turned onto the state road, turned toward her and rumbled closer to her parked pickup truck, while she sat hypnotized—paralyzed.

“Death is the only solution for Michael. Quiet death before it kills again…”

Holding her breath—

—unable to blink—

—staring at the row of dark, reinforced windows—

—wondering if he stared back at her—

The transport bus rolled past her, “Illinois Department of Corrections” painted on the side and the back door, belching a plume of dust in its wake that, moment by moment, coated her pickup truck in a gritty layer of filth.

In that instant, Laurie found her breath.

And she screamed at the top of her lungs, louder than she’d screamed in the last forty years, until her throat was raw, and she was convinced blood would spray from her ruptured lungs and splatter her dusty windshield—

Tossing the empty whiskey bottle aside, she plucked the revolver from her lap, gripping it in her sweaty palm as she pressed the tip of the cold barrel to her temple.

—and she continued to scream.

But no one on the departing bus—and no one inside the state hospital—heard her primal roar. No one came. She sat outside the hospital parking lot, lost in private torment as the gate closed.