Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition Read online

  The little girl turned again.

  In a firm but innocent voice, shaking, she told the darkness, “Whoever you are, I’ve got a big dog with me. He bites.”

  But yet again there was no reply.

  She stood still, waiting to hear something, anything, but all there appeared to be was the encompassing darkness. But as she stood there, she heard the footsteps once again. They were approaching her, and she could not see a single soul. Her eyes searched frantically.

  “You hear me, I’ve got a dog,” she managed to speak out, but it only sounded forth in a mere whisper.

  She tried to run this time, but she found that she couldn’t. She was frozen in place, stiff, like a terrified rabbit knowing that there was a python in its cage ready to feed but not knowing where it was.

  The footsteps were growing closer…

  …..closer still....

  ....until…..suddenly….

  She miraculously began to run. Her movements were fast and swift, the wind on her back helping her along. In the midst of her panic, she nearly fell. She was paying more attention to what was behind her than where she was going, panting and gasping tremendously, barely being able to breath. She almost swore she was going to simply die from exhaustion before whoever it was that followed could get to her. The world before her now was a whirlwind of blinding haze, bucking and yawing in one fantastic fit of frenzy. Then she ran directly into a figure, nearly knocking it down and her along with it. She uttered a startled scream as hands grabbed at her, and she fought them blindly. It was no use.

  Rachel bent down close to her.

  “Jamie,” Rachel said, fearfully, “Jamie, calm down. Jamie, where have you been?” After both girls caught their breath, Rachel having been running herself, she scolded her. “Don’t ever run off on your own at night. You hear me? Not ever!”

  Suddenly the two girls were washed in the brightness of automobile headlights. A car swerved to the curb and stopped, and within the next second, Sheriff Meeker and Doctor Loomis began to climb out and rush over to them. Meeker was the first to cry out.

  “Rachel Caruthers. Jamie Lloyd. Thank God.”

  The two girls were confused. But that was only part of it.

  “What’s going on?” Rachel demanded.

  The other man with the overcoat spoke out, “Get in the car.”

  As the two girls reluctantly obeyed, Loomis turned and stopped cold in his tracks.

  There in the distance, as far as the darkness could allow him to see and with the assistance of the car’s high beams, was Michael Myers. He was simply standing there, motionless, on the sidewalk across the street.

  Stricken with fear, Loomis stood frozen. Meeker caught what was happening and followed the doctor’s line of sight. Then he saw him.

  “Is that him?”

  Loomis continued his seemingly thoughtless gaze.

  Meeker repeated, desperate, “Doc, is it him?” Loomis quickly and urgently drew out his pistol. “Yes!”

  Meeker went immediately for his shotgun. Just as he was about to aim, he noticed something--- something to his right on his side of the street, a figure standing below the dark branches of a tree.

  There, right before his unbelieving eyes, was a second Michael Myers.

  Holy shit

  Just then, another Myers---a third one, appeared from out of the dark and between the shadows of two houses.

  “What,” Meeker exclaimed, then the presence of a fourth Myers materialized from behind a Volkswagon.

  A fifth.

  A sixth.

  There was a whole goddamn army of them!

  This wasn’t a dream anymore, Meeker told himself, inside his mind. This was a nightmare. One shitload of a nightmare. And he knew just like the next person did that this sort of thing just didn’t happen in real life.

  Loomis was equally terrified. Perhaps more so. “Dear God. No. NOOOOOOO!! ! !”

  Loomis brought up his pistol and aimed at the first one. Just as he was about to fire, the sheriff realized something suddenly and knocked the doctor aside, Loomis pulling the trigger. The bullet went into empty air.

  Then there was the voice of a child crying out. Before them, across the street, the first Myers took off his mask and revealed the panic stricken face of a tall sixteen—year-old baring freckles and long red hair. He darted into the shadows and disappeared. So did the rest. The kid between the house yelled out something which sounded like don’t shoot! and he scurried off in kind.

  Shouting angrily, Meeker ordered them all out of there. “Get home, goddamn it. There’s a curfew. I catch your asses and it’s a weekend in jail!”

  He turned, and saw Loomis leaning heavily against the squad car. He was trembling, exhaling terribly.

  “You okay?” the sheriff questioned him.

  “Good God,” Loomis managed. “I could’ve killed a child. What does that make me?”

  Then Meeker said, “Let’s get back to the station. Get these kids here safe.”

  But as the squad car swerved away, no one noticed the dark presence behind them, back on the street, its reflection glimmering within the car’s rearview mirror until, a heartbeat later, it was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Headlights swept over the face of the darkened police station and revealed something neither Loomis nor Meeker expected to see. The entire outer portion was in shambles. Meeker had to skid to avoid the shards of broken glass from the doors. Broken fixtures swung in the constant draft in the doorways.

  The squad car idled, and Meeker and Loomis crawled out, Meeker charging the two kids to remain in the back seat.

  Meeker and Loomis entered through the broken glass double doors, their guns ready and a flashlight scanning. The interior was a veritable ruined nightmare. The cold breeze emanating inward from outside was blowing papers everywhere, from the lopsided desks and onto the floor, and from the floor to all corners of the room. The sheriff was about to flip on the light switch when he remembered there was no power. He shown his flashlight in the area ahead of him and proceeded forward, with utter caution, the doctor coming up on the rear.

  Meeker could not understand what his men were doing to allow such a catastrophe to take place; couldn’t believe that one man could actually do all this. And where the hell were his men, anyway?

  “They wouldn’t have given up without a fight,” Meeker said.

  Loomis told him, “They didn’t know what they were up against.”

  Glass crunched under their shoes as they continued inward, past broken desks and desk chairs, past broken telephones and scattered trash. They went around to the side, near a closet door. The flashlight came across a pool of what seemed to be blood from beneath the door. It was blood; the sheriff was merely having difficulty believing it. He made the light crawl upwards until it came upon a pale hand, closed in the door jamb. It was clutching a .38 revolver. Reluctantly, Meeker opened the door. There was no body; the hand fell and tumbled, dismembered, splashing into the pool of blood.

  “Christ,” Meeker exclaimed.

  Something caused him to look up, and when he did, he jolted backwards just in time to avoid the pasty white, blood drenched body of Deputy Pierce which leaned out of the darkness near the ceiling, then tumbled to the ground before him in one tremendous splotch. As the body met the ground, the head rolled backwards, revealing dead, unseeing eyes. The throat was slashed, and thick blood seeped from the gaping wound until it rested at the sheriff’s feet.

  Meeker gazed down in horror upon what was once his best deputy, not to mention one of his best friends. His eyes momentarily refusing to leave the sight, he brought himself to speak. “How can one man do this? How, Loomis? Tell me. How?!”

  “He’s not a man, Sheriff.”

  “Then what is he?” Meeker demanded, trembling. “What the hell are we dealing with?”

  “Evil,” Loomis replied, and that was all he said.

  Outside, Earl Ford and the other townies were pulling up to the station’s p
arking lot, driving past the library and halting near the sheriff’s squad car. Loomis was standing in the doorway, Meeker coming up behind him. Rachel and Jamie gazed on with extreme interest from within the back seat of the squad car.

  As the men from the bar stepped out of their respective vehicles, Meeker informed the doctor, quietly, “The other two are in the back....dead.”

  “Ben?” Earl marched up to them. “What the samhill is goin’ on?”

  A second man by the name of Sam Unger went towards the shattered glass doors and peered inside. “Holy shit. What the hell did this? Terrorists?”

  “Go home, Earl,” Meeker told him; told them all, in fact, weariness in his voice intermingled with a hard stern overtone, “....this is police business.”

  Earl said back, almost sarcastically, “Looks to me like you’re outta business. I want some answers.”

  “I don’t have the time or the patience to argue with you,” the sheriff said, stepping forward past Loomis. “Just go home to your families. That’s where you belong.”

  “You forget who’s paying your salary, Sheriff?” That came from Sam Unger.

  “It was Michael Myers,” Loomis said, and he caught their undivided attention. Meeker shot the doctor an angry glance. “He’s come home to kill.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Earl exclaimed softly, shocked suddenly into a perpetual fear. “Michael Myers?”

  Meeker interrupted, agitated. “Leave it alone, Earl. Let the police handle it.”

  But Earl was determined now, and he yelled back to the sheriff, emotionally stricken with remembrances of a time gone by. That terrible time, ten years back.

  “Let the police handle it? Like the last time? How many dead back then? How many kids? Al here, he lost his boy ten years back. Not this time, Ben. I’ll handle this my own way.” The husky bartender turned to the others, “We’re gonna fry his ass. Get your weapons, boys!”

  “You’re all gonna die!” A voice broke out, from the direction of the neighboring public library and behind the hibiscus bushes. “How can you expect to fry his ass, when it don’t work that way in the presence of Apocalypse?!”

  The Reverend Jack Sayer stepped into view before them all, and all eyes turned. He was drunk, and he staggered his way toward the crowd. His clothes were wrinkled and bloodied, and his hair was matted and unkempt. He looked like he’d been through hell.

  “Who the hell are you?” Ben Meeker insisted.

  “Mister Sayer,” Loomis called out to him, “you’re an old fool. You shouldn’t have lingered around. I can more than imagine what you’ve seen tonight.”

  “I’ve beheld the face of Apocalypse,” said the reverend, “and I can see no more.”

  As he hobbled into the moonlight, black-red liquid streamed down his face in tears over dried blood caked in layers across his unshaven cheeks and chin, and over his lips. The sockets of his eyes were hollow craters of puss and blood, sightless, yet the man remained capable of speaking his mind.

  “Jesus,” Earl exclaimed.

  “You’re all doomed to death,” proclaimed Sayer. “There’s no stopping It! You’re all dead. You, and whoever else stands in It’s way!”

  Meeker had enough, turned and spoke to one of the townies. “Warren, your car here?”

  “No Ben, I’m ridin’ with Al.”

  Meeker dug into his pocket and retrieved a key from his key ring. “I’m trusting you to take Pierce’s squad car and drive this man to the hospital, pronto. It’s a wonder he’s still conscious, or alive at all. There’s a med pack in the front seat, you’ll find some gauze and bandages to cover his eyes and help stop the bleeding. I don’t know what else to do. Christ.”

  “Will do, Ben.” Warren took the key.

  “Christ is what you need, now!” Sayer continued. “May God have mercy on your souls!”

  Loomis held his tongue as the vagabond preacher was led to the last remaining deputy vehicle, babbling incoherently under his breath. The doctor’s reprimands and grief were at a loss to the situation at hand. All were at a loss, horrified, speechless.

  Rachel held Jamie as the two of them looked on from within Meeker’s squad car, having already seen more than enough for one night.

  “All right then,” Earl called out. “Show’s over. Let’s get this bastard.”

  The other townies, grumbling to themselves of the vengeance they would bestow upon the grisly murderer this evening, this old, old evil that had once again returned, followed Earl back to their vehicles. Their Broncos and their Fords and their pickups revved and whirled, swirling and skidding until they reached the street and disappeared past the library.

  As soon as they had left, Meeker spun around and faced Loomis angrily. “You stupid son of a bitch! You’ve just created a lynch mob. And that friend of yours sure as hell didn’t help none, either.”

  “Without a police force,” Loomis said, taking a handkerchief from his coat pocket and wiping the baldness of his head, sweat dribbling down the sides of his face, “those men may be Haddonfield’s only defense.”

  Meeker stepped back and shone his light once again into the ruined shambles of the building. He flicked the switch off and turning, the sheriff knew that he had enough guessing and enough shocking episodes of death. He was going to get to the bottom of this and kill that son of a bitch Myers once and for all, and he’d be damned if he didn’t get all the help he was going to need.

  “Then God help us,” he replied to Loomis.

  As they started back to the squad car, Loomis said, “We still need a place for the child.”

  “My house,” Meeker said immediately. “It’s secure, and I’ve got a shortwave in the basement. We can call the State Police.”

  As they climbed into the squad car, leaving the Sheriff’s station nightmare behind for the time being, they disappeared into the darkness of the silent streets. It was then when the sheriff realized that hell was too goddamn moderate for describing what the remainder of the night would be like.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The front door to the Caruthers’ house swung open and Logan exited, hurryingly closing it behind him and not bothering to check the lock. His mind was on the urgency at hand, and this was no time for trivialities. He rushed from the house to the squad car, climbed into the driver’s side and started the engine. He snatched up the car’s police radio.

  “Ben, I’m on my way,” he reported into it. Then, he added, “Were they really ”

  “I know how you feel,” Meeker’s voice came in. “Just get over to my house right away.”

  “Be there in five minutes.”

  As he pulled out of the driveway, he thought he saw something in the rearview mirror. He turned, seeing only darkness.

  But as he traveled down the street, the black figure remained within the shadows of the back seat. Motionless.

  Waiting.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Candles glowed and flickered with a subtle resplendence atop the television set and the fireplace mantle, providing a maudlin atmosphere for the two lovers embracing, stretched across the carpet below. They were lying there together, alone, and their kisses grew long and passionate as time vanished into a vague simplistic notion called the past; they were entranced inside the shear delicacy of their intermingled world.

  Kelly leaned up from the carpet and gazed down dreamily upon Brady beneath her. Her long t- shirt draped downwards and spread across the faded logo of his own shirt. Brady’s hands moved underneath and up along the smoothness of her skin.

  Kelly spoke softly, “Let’s go upstairs.”

  “I don’t want to wait,” Brady whispered in reply.

  The girl was thoroughly delighted with livingrooms as much as bedrooms or anywhere for that matter. She smiled down upon him teasingly. Slowly, she slipped off her t-shirt, pulling it over her head and dropping it to one side. Her eyes were saturated into his, watching with playful curiosity the somber yet hungry expressions his face displayed. She reached behind her and unsnapp
ed her bra. She allowed it to slide to the carpet. Her panties were of lace, and as Brady’s eyes glided across her body and downwards, he could see the triangle of pubic hair daintily exhibited before him.

  “What do you think?” she breathed.

  Brady let out a sigh of ecstasy. “I think I’m in heaven.”

  He reached and pulled Kelly on top of him, and as they kissed he writhed out of his shirt and flung it over the coffee table nearby. Kelly worked her lips erotically down across the surface of his chest, her hands skimming past his sides and to his waist. Her fingers played with the buckle of his pants until it separated, and she drove her mild hands into his underwear, searching and grasping, afterwards sliding his pants down to his knees. His skin rippled with desire. He brought her down to him once again, and as tongues caressed he held her, his hands moving down the backside of her voluptuous body, finding her panties and bringing them down to her legs. She kicked them off of her feet.

  The two fondled and caressed there within the sensuality of the semi—darkness. As the minutes ticked by and the quickened heat increased, Kelly wrapped her legs around his, welcomingly, and he moved his body upwards to enter her.

  “Oooh, Brady,” she moaned.

  “Oh, shit!”

  Headlights flooded the livingroom mingled with the whining sounds of a car engine. Brady sat up in terror. Kelly joined him, sitting up also. Immediately, her hands went for her clothes and she proceeded hurryingly to get dressed.

  “It’s my dad,” she muttered. “If he catches us like this he’ll skin you alive for starters.”

  “For starters?” Brady panicked, reaching for his clothes in a frenzy. “Christ. Oh, man.”

  Nothing seemed to fit right for him, and he nearly put his pants on backwards. God knew his underwear didn’t feel right, and he thought he heard the ripping of its pliant fabric.

  Outside, Sheriff Meeker brought out his house keys, fussed for one, and inserted it into the doorknob. Behind him, Rachel and Jamie stepped up to the porch followed in turn by Doctor Loomis.