#sfoahe

The cold of October hung heavy in the air. It twisted around trees, sunk itself deep in the mud, and sent a chill down the earth’s spine so harsh the ground rumbled. By the riverbank, a hand barely brushing the water, pale and lifeless like the arm attached.

And then a struggling gasp for air, a desperate choke on the night’s frosted talons as the hand jerked away to hold up and balance the weight of Michael Myers as he doubled over to retch. What came out was black like tar, and then it disappeared into the ground. His arms weakened, and he laid back in the mud.

A long while later—minutes, hours—his eyes stared unblinking at the sky. He drew to the moon like a moth to a lamp, like he hadn’t seen it in years.

He observed what was around him, what he’d been thrown back into, as a keen sense of déjà vu bit into him sharply; he couldn’t remember why. He wondered how long he’d been laying on the ground and whether he was even alive.

His eyes closed, and a lingering glow from the bright white danced over the black behind his eyelids and fell out of shape within seconds. Soon it was all black, but he saw something again shining down in the corner of his limited view: a glint of the moon that didn’t want to leave.

Then he opened his eyes to see if it stayed with him, but it was gone.

Somewhere in California, Danny Johnson was met with the same miserable fate.

Danny’s drive through Utah was short and uneventful since he wanted to lay low after leaving Frank to rot away in the sun. He stayed at another dingy motel the night before, but the image of Frank’s eyes stopped him from getting any sleep. He was so frightened, so confused and betrayed, and Danny didn’t care. He didn’t care about what the waitress would think when he didn’t show up the next day, or whether he had anybody to call about his absence. If he really had buddies, Danny didn’t care how they would react either. The only thing he’d felt was the hard plastic in his hand, hot before he killed Frank, and even hotter after he had. Dried blood still clung to his nails, but he tried not to look.

Where he did look was right down the road, eyes fixed straight ahead without any other distraction. To stop driving would mean to think even more about what he’d done in the few days since he’d regained his consciousness, and to wonder if nineteen-ninety-three was a dream the whole time. He stopped for gas once, buying himself another cup of coffee and taking care of his business, but he was determined to keep driving even if it killed him.

He would deserve that, wouldn’t he?

Driving out of rural Nebraska and into the populated towns of Idaho made Danny realize how much he really needed new clothes. Not only did he smell like rotting body odor and metal, but he looked so dirty that one might suspect him of stealing the car—and more if he wasn’t careful. He thought about Max Junior in his torn up tank top and mud-caked jeans and wondered what he did if the crop field was so barren. The stains on his own clothes came to mind, how they had started to look like mud the longer he went without washing them. They wouldn’t come out anyway.

The town he’d come upon wasn’t different than any other small town, and it had the same kind of thrift stores that he’d gone to before. They were nondescript, small, and unpopulated, so he didn’t feel like he would be drawing a lot of attention if he were to go inside one. He parked far away from other cars and walked from the end of the parking lot to the building, wanting to be in and out quickly to avoid any questions. The cashier greeted him with a smile when he walked in and had the same pity in his eyes that he had for Max Junior. Danny turned away from him.

Without spending too much time looking through clothes, Danny bought a couple t-shirts and a pair of black jeans to put on once he got back to the car, sighing in relief when he could toss the old clothes into the back. The coolness of something new against his skin was so refreshing, the glint reappearing in his vision went unnoticed until he looked away from it and realized something was missing.

He used the dead man’s credit card to squeeze out all the cash he had left. He might have been able to last a couple days with what cash he’d found in Jed Olsen’s pockets or what he kept in the car, but how far would a couple days get him? He bought himself a bagel and a pack of cigarettes the next morning. Not that he had much of an appetite even after using so much of his energy, but sleeping in the car on the side of the road was enough to get himself going again. When he woke up, he just kept on driving, dehydrated and hungry and praying for a store to pop up along the way. To his relief, it didn’t take long to find that little hint of civilization he needed, so he went into the first shop he found.

Danny used the dead man’s cash to buy himself a switch blade. Not that he’d need it, or that he was thinking about using it for anything in particular, but he saw it hanging on the wall towards the back, and something in his mind nagged at him to buy it. What was the harm in a little self defense? The grip felt good in his hand, sturdy and comfortable; it fit like Jed Olsen’s glove. He picked his teeth with it in the rear view mirror. It was a beaut.

The radio didn’t work. Maybe he should have been glad for that in case news got out about the dead couple back in Roseville.

Roseville.

Daylight came upon the sky and shone over Danny’s sleeves, turning the blood stains an even darker brown. His eyes were glazed over—one wouldn’t know whether he was alive or dead—as he kept focused on the road, not paying attention to his surroundings. He could hardly drive straight as he swerved along the otherwise straight path he was on. The light in his eyes had only gotten bigger, more distracting, and he started to wonder if he was going blind. The only thing that eased that thought was the way it faded away at times, dissipating into the glint of the sun that hid behind thinning clouds. And the clouds had gotten thinner the longer he drove. He was back in the countryside.

Not only was it difficult to stay awake after another treacherous night, but it was hard for him to tell if he was getting anywhere. Flat and empty terrain spanned for miles upon miles, every other building that looked the same as the last, the occasional cattle barn whose animals grazed on the land—it was dull, to say the least. Danny thought he might have had to pull over again and take a nap, but before he could finish his thought, the car came to a steady halt.

Michael Myers was always an enigma to the people of Haddonfield, slipping in and out of their thoughts and age-old stories of the Boogeyman. They had long expected him to disappear, and for the old house to remain empty and unmaintained for the rest of its bitter life, but the Boogeyman found himself back again in the middle of that cold October night. Waking up in the middle of nowhere with no recollection of anything since last Halloween didn’t hardly faze him at all. Nobody saw him, and he liked it that way. He was home.

“So, Canada, eh?”

Danny shifted his eyes towards his new friend, briefly catching a glimpse of his hands. “Why, what about it? What’d you find over there?” he asked with amusement in his tone, but there was a sudden sharpness in his chest and a sinking in his stomach.

“What is this, a club card? It was in the cup holder.” Danny glanced over again and nodded at the matte black card engraved white on its face. He smirked. “Jed Olsen,” Frank read out, and Danny got goosebumps hearing the name come from someone else’s mouth. “Alberta, Canada. That where you’re from? That’s pretty cool. I’ve never been to Canada.”

“No? That’s too bad, it’s nice over there.” He gritted his teeth. Lying didn’t feel any better than burning his tongue on his coffee the night before, but even that wasn’t so bad. He watched Frank fiddle with the card, let the sun shine over it and put it back where he found it. He went back to messing with the hem of his sweater, head leaning against the side window.