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 parking 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.