Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition Page 2

  And then there was Halloween.

  Halloween used to be no exception to the thrilling festivities of yearly customs. Children never used to fear the night of October thirty—first, when they gathered their share of candy as they trick-ortreated down chilly sidewalks, usually getting treated and rarely getting tricked.

  But the horror began back in nineteen sixty— three, when the scream of murder broke the autumn silence in Haddonfield. And, years after, the horror returned, and this time to a more gruesome and terrifying magnitude.

  Time had been unsuccessful in keeping away the horror; in the midst of innocence and quietude there is always a share of horror. It is a fact we all must face. But sometimes the horror goes away.

  In Haddonfield, however, the horror keeps coming back.

  Chapter One

  A muddy wave rolled over the shoulder of the rain drenched road as the medical transport bus cut through the showers. The thick blackness of the night was illuminated only by the bus’ headlights and an occasional flash of lightning. The crimson hues of Autumn burned from horizon to horizon but seemed to remain within the boundaries of the sky, disassociating themselves from the darkness of the world below. The sunset that separated day from evening was now but a memory on this, the thirtieth of October.

  Somewhere within the far horizon, despite the encompassing darkness, a cold Fall breeze whispered through the fields of corn silent words of somber hush like a mother to her child, and the whisper found the industrial harvesters which in turn would soon rest in preparation for the following day’s work. Crows remained perched on the shoulders of scarecrows until the wind grew from a whisper to a scream and the rain drove them off into the sky and the blackness.

  In a clearing near the midst of the fields, paper witches riding brooms fell victims to the wet rain, and a cardboard skeleton which swung on a string like a hanged man from the same Birch tree met the same fate. At a farmhouse nearby, another row of skeletons looked on under the newly painted beams of the porch, almost in mock comparison to their comrades yards before them.

  Back on the country road, rain washed the asphalt in sheets before the headlights of the transport bus. Within the bus, two Smith’s Grove Medical personnel waited silently to reach their destination amidst emergency monitoring equipment and a space which would hold the gurney of the patient they awaited custody of. Heavy smoke filled the front section of the bus, smoke from the driver’s filtered cigarette, and the nearly-overweight security guard muttered something to nobody in particular before he let out a brief coughing fit which languished into a dreamless sleep. The driver suddenly felt it best for all concerned to turn on the radio, and found that as he did so nobody seemed to care either way. There were very few stations available to choose from, and he picked the one which emitted a familiar song, which he soon recognized as Mister Sandman by The Chordettes.

  So what, he figured. So I’m an oldies fan.

  And occasionally, between puffs, he mouthed a few of the words to himself. The ashes from the cigarette were tapped between each verse into a glass Magic Carpet Motel ashtray situated on the dashboard directly below a red and white sticker above the windshield which read THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING.

  And the bus drove on.

  It drove on through the pouring rain until the distant reaches of the headlight beams came across the gleam of the high security gates up ahead. The driver crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and flicked on his high beams for a moment’s time, which cut through to disclose a sign on the right:

  Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium

  MAXIMUM SECURITY

  Authorized Personnel Only

  No Visitors

  All vehicles subject to search

  High beams remaining for the sake of a reasonably better view through the dimness, the driver made a right-hand turn into the driveway just past the sign and rolled the bus to a stop in front of the main gates. He waited as the gates slowly retracted, then proceeded to drive through as the guard beside him shifted in his seat and opened his eyes to the realization that they had finally arrived. He swished away accumulated smoke from his face with his hand.

  “Okay,” the driver announced. “Time to party.”

  He switched off the radio, which was now beginning to broadcast something which sounded like an old James Brown tune.

  Inside the sanitarium, there was a security guard seated within the confines of a large glass booth, a more bulky individual than the guard who remained within the bus outside. He gazed up at a fly buzzing around the lukewarm coffee within his I LOVE MY COCKER SPANIEL mug, the LOVE symbolized as a heart and the COCKER SPANIEL an undersized picture of a floppy-eared mutt. He gave his crew cut a quick scratch before attempting to ward off the fly with his hand, grabbing at it rather than giving it an offending wave. He had attempted to actually grab at it before, perhaps out of boredom or perhaps out of merely hoping to catch the insect one day. Regardless, the circumstances were evident. But he didn’t exactly hate his job, however boring it seemed. As a matter of fact, he favored his surroundings more than any other aspect of his work experience. It was most likely due to his father being an architect and his desire to follow in his footsteps, but he was deeply interested in how Ridgemont was actually a penitentiary which had been built in the late 1920’s. Fifty-year—old light fixtures hung above slowly rotating ceiling fans. Beams of painted wood stretched from wall to wall. Of course, it was no work of art. But the guard didn’t exactly like ART. He liked OLD. He liked

  NOSTALGIA.

  Anyway, nothing could truly say much for his job now that he thought about it; he was still known to all of his Friday night buddies at Larry’s Bar as the GUY WHO WORKS IN A LOONEY BIN.

  What the hell. Somebody has to guard this place. Make sure no crazy gets out. Sometimes crazies get in, and they don’t even hafta be the damn patients, either.

  He tested the coffee with his finger to make sure it really was lukewarm, then swirled around what little cream there was floating towards the center. He thought he heard within the next second what sounded like snoring, and he turned and saw his companion guard on the stool beside him as always, and he was simply clearing his throat and turning another page of FIELD AND STREAM. Turning back to his coffee, the fly gone to return again possibly later, the guard looked up and saw the two attendants from Smith’s Grove. He withdrew his finger from the coffee and set the mug down next to a small build-up of paperwork. He gave his crew cut another quick scratch.

  “Good evening,” one of the attendants spoke cheerlessly. The other attendant, a woman, looked on with much the same enthusiasm. “We’re from Smith’s Grove ”

  No shit, the guard thought, seeing that it was written several times over their uniforms.

  “All metal objects into the tray on your left,” he told them.

  There weren’t very many objects for this tray, and the guard barely managed them a glance. He was busily sorting out the paperwork before him, found something on a clipboard, and proceeded to jot something down. He continued talking.

  “Purpose of visit?”

  “Patient pick-up and transfer to Smith’s Grove,” the male attendant answered.

  Another clipboard. More jotting. Another sip of coffee.

  “All right,” he said. “Hold on a second. I’ll take you down there myself.”

  The guard grabbed the last clipboard and stood from his seat. His fingers disappeared under the counter and a buzzing issued forth the news that the two could now enter the glass door through the side. He joined them as the other guard with the magazine took his place at the window, reaching for the SPANIEL coffee mug. The guard with the attendants turned to him, noticing this.

  “I got mono,” he warned, half-jokingly.

  The guard set the coffee mug down.

  The two attendants then proceeded to follow the guard down a silent corridor.

  “You’re late,” he told the two. He wasn’t angry; he was simply inviting conversation.

  �
�Yeah, well, you should be on the road,” the male attendant exclaimed.

  “Helluva night, huh?” the guard said.

  “Real charmer.”

  The guard led the two attendants down the silent corridors, silent save for the echoes of their footsteps against the grey stone floors. Soon enough, after they passed a series of small see—through offices, a janitor’s supply closet, and employee restrooms, they arrived at what the guard referred to confidentially as the “corridor of the crazies.” The three of them beheld locked ward doors baring small square windows. There were faces behind the windows; faces of human beings. The degenerates of society. Some appeared to be distressed and physically damaged, but what they all had in common the attendants swiftly noticed was that each one of them displayed the same emotion: some sort of agony. For some, the agony was distorting their physical appearance, creating elongated arms and cheekbones as if from starvation. Others were beyond agony, simply staring blankly into empty space.

  Staring……..forever staring….

  “First time here?” the guard asked the two behind him.

  “Hope it’s the last time…..” the woman remarked.

  “You never get used to them,” the guard said, keeping his eyes ahead of him, not looking up. “You never get used to the faces.”

  As they passed, the three felt the eyes of the onlookers gazing out, watching them, gawking at them. Their faces pressed to the glass, molding their faces into the undersized panes, one man’s scar tissue rubbing off and creating a crimson smear, his hot breath now a steamy film.

  The woman turned away, disgusted. “They’re all criminally insane?”

  “They’re here, aren’t they?” the guard replied. He scratched his head once more. The woman noticed a paltry layer of dandruff dots on the shoulders of his uniform. “Over there,” he pointed, “we got a man use to pick up hitchhikers, you see, take their picture, bath ‘em, cut ‘em up, bake ‘em in a stewpot. Left side we got a woman does everything in threes. Buried three husbands, three children, alive you know. Next to her is an obstetrician. He murdered every ninth child he delivered, then stole their bodies and kept them in this huge nursery in his basement. We even have a ten— year—old who had his family for Christmas dinner. Literally. Took the leftovers to school and handed them out as sandwiches to his friends.”

  A saneless wail issued out from one of the rooms as they passed, and the woman exhaled a languished vociferation of intermingled dismay and disgust as she caught sight of a small boy’s face against yet another window, his eyes widened to the extent that they appeared to be lidless.

  The male attendant uttered a slight groan. “Jesus Christ.”

  “Christ got nothing to do with this place,” the guard muttered.

  Up ahead, the gaping mouth of an elevator awaited their admission, and they formidably obliged the invitation and entered. The doors joined, and the guard turned to them. He was neither smiling nor frowning; but his gaze was that of pure dread.

  It was times like these that he hated his job. He’d much rather be swirling his finger in lukewarm coffee back at the front desk, combating flies. Now, he was forced to combat fear.

  “This,” he said, “is where society dumps its worst nightmares.” The harsh winding of their mechanical descent was frighteningly boisterous, and the woman attendant thought it wise to simply keep her eyes glued to the level indicator and her mind not on the human abominations viewing them in the corridors but rather harnessing it within her skull. As sub-levels ticked off one by one, the security guard had to raise his voice over the reverberating noise to continue. “The one you’re picking up, just talking about gives me the willies. Decade ago, Halloween night, killed sixteen people. Maybe more. Out to get his sister. Nearly got her, too, the poor woman. But his doctor of all people, his doctor shot him six times, and the bugger got away. The doc found him again, shot him, set him on fire both of ‘em nearly burned to death.

  Glad to see this one gone. Yes indeed…..”

  The indicator was now at the lowest level. The elevator jolted to a stop. The woman attendant drew her breath in. The guard looked at her.

  “Welcome to hell.”

  He raised his hand to a wall-mounted lockdown latch, and the elevator doors opened to yet another pair of doors, steel—caged, which in turn came open with an agonizing creak thus sounding forth their arrival.

  Truly this is hell, thought the woman as she was first introduced to the rush of forced-air heating which greeted her out of the shadows. Of course, this isn’t the hell I imagined growing up in Sunday school, with the ol’ fire and brimstone, but it’s just as bad. Maybe worse. This place is silent; warm, but somewhere within the warmness there’s an underlying coldness. And it’s dark. So goddamn dark.

  Ward “E” was just like that, with a few extra added attractions. There were virtually two people the guests could see thus far, one appeared to be an orderly swamping the floor with soapy water next to a steel bucket, nodding rhythmically to the music of his headset which was attached to a small radio hanging from his front pocket. Probably the only measure of life around, both attendants figured coincidentally. At least by measure of life as they knew it.

  The other figure was that of a young woman who stood below a single, naked yellow light bulb which simply dangled, the chain falling into her face unnoticed. She stood beside a windowless steel door opened to distinct dimness and, together with the bulb overhead, it gave her a sort of queer sinister countenance. As the three proceeded forward in her direction, the darkness revealed vacant spring—framed single beds, old with rust, near silent medical equipment. The Ridgemont nurse then moved from her stance under the light and spoke into the room beside her.

  “The transfer personnel are here, Doctor,” she said.

  Suddenly the dimness of the light issuing forth from within the room was interrupted, and the shadow of another figure appeared. The doctor then stepped into the light. He seemed calm, although there was a certain vague expression of relief in his eyes, an expression only a keen observer could readily detect. He had journeyed through the trials of growing old and was continuing to do so with undeniable anguish at the present age of fifty-five. His hair was cut short, a mixture of brown and grey, and the above light seemed to swirl the colors, making them come alive; it played luminary games with the profound wrinkles embedded in his forehead and cheeks.

  “Smith’s Grove?” he questioned the attendants. His voice was commanding, yet somehow either age or occupation gave him a certain somber resonance.

  The male attendant nodded. “Yes.”

  The doctor offered a hand to the male. “I’m Doctor Hoffman, medical administrator.”

  “Has he been prepped?” the attendant asked. The doctor answered, “Ready to go. All I have to do is sign him out, then he’s all yours.”

  As the two attendants began to follow Doctor Hoffman, who turned and headed back into the cell, the nurse motioned the security guard to follow her in the opposite direction. The guard gratefully obeyed.

  The first primary objects the two attendants beheld in the room were the gurney and the figure which the gurney held. The figure was motionless and darkened by the absence of light in its corner of the room. They could partially see the outline of its face, and a closer inspection proved there to be heavy bandages covering its entirety. The rest of the body was garbed in nothing but a white gown and was in turn covered halfway with an equally white sheet. An IV needle protruded from each arm like tiny, unmoving serpents.

  This was their man.

  This was their patient.

  The second object they beheld was the silent monitoring equipment stationed in another corner, diagonal to that of the patient. This bed had been unmade, and the imprint showed that there had once been a body in that space. Probably moved out like theirs would be. Probably dead.

  The woman attendant stepped closer to the patient. “You say he’s been in a coma for ten years?”

  “That’s right,” the
doctor answered, his amazement worn thin. However, the presence of other company somewhat revived his astonishment. “With bullet wounds and severe burns. It’s incredible that’s he’s still alive.”

  “A lot of people wish he weren’t,” the male attendant remarked, remembering the stories he had heard, the stories passed down from employee to employee at Smith’s Grove.

  The doctor stepped over to the wall adjacent to the rear of the steel door and grabbed a clipboard stationed on a rack. As he withdrew a pen from one of the pockets in his white smock, the woman moved over to the body. In the meantime, the male handed papers he took from a shirt pocket and exchanged them with another paper from the doctor, after which was followed by a few scribblings on the clipboard. The woman gazed over the body, lingering for a moment, almost afraid to touch it, then proceeded to check one IV needle followed by the other. Behind her, the two others were moving back out into the ward.

  The male attendant spoke to the doctor as he waited for the signing of documents. “I’d assumed Doctor Loomis would be here. Michael Myers is still his patient.”

  Indignant, the doctor looked up and gazed into the eyes of the man. He had ceased scribbling. “This is a legal mandate. Any patient stable for a continuous ten year period must be remanded to State psychiatric authority. This isn’t medical, therefore, this matter doesn’t concern Doctor Loomis.”

  “I was simply saying……it’s usual procedure to inform the case doctor.”

  The doctor returned the remainder of the signed documents. “If Loomis read memos, he’d be standing here right now. Fortunately, his position is more ceremonial than medical. And with Myers gone from here, my hope is that the good doctor will either transfer, retire or die.”