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Time keeps moving, days passing more like hours to one who has spent so many years waiting. Halloween ends the way it always must, in a whirlwind of sirens and shouting. The leaves begin to change in earnest, like the town itself is withering in solidarity with the bodies of its fallen. Those bodies are eventually laid to rest, every funeral attendant in mourning black. All except for the one that the rest can’t see, not even the sharp-eyed girl whose gaze never strays from the treeline for long.
The inevitable is delayed too many weeks, but finally, his doctor must abandon the town to its fate. It infuriates the man, who clearly doesn’t trust the authorities to do what he couldn’t, for all his years of expertise. But his obsession makes no difference in the end. His responsibilities elsewhere must be answered to, and so he goes. The Shape stays, for he answers to nothing but his obsession.
He knows the girl’s name. But who she is holds less significance to him than what she is. A watcher, a fighter… a romantic, but not like her friends were. No, she doesn’t boldly chase and lay claim to her desires. She yearns, sings dreamily into the wind, a fairytale princess patiently waiting for just the right one to hear. The one who will understand her want without a word needing to be exchanged. The one who will chase her.
At least, she did sing, before. The Shape hasn’t heard her do it again, not since the night he came home. It would be pointless, he supposes; her ballad had already served its purpose, her call answered and her want returned tenfold. There’s no more singing after the ever after, when the picture fades to black or his sister closes the storybook. But he aches for the sound all the same.
Otherwise, her patterns and quirks remain much unchanged, merely amplified by his intervention. She was already alert and skittish to begin with. Now she’s truly paranoid, jumping at every little noise, whirling with a cry when an unexpected shadow falls over her. Not his, not yet, but that must be what she expects. What she’s waiting for.
She continues chatting with the boy who cries Boogeyman in the mornings, though now she walks him all the way to school, and he takes the vacated place of her friends’ company in the afternoons as well. She’s appointed herself his protector, it seems. An admirable effort, if a wasted one. The Shape has no interest in hunting prey that can’t even fight for itself.
Many days pass this way. She goes to school, spends the mornings twitching in her window seat, vanishes from the view of any outdoor vantage point for a few hours after that, and then reemerges in the afternoon when the final bell rings. She drops the boy off and then returns home, where she stays for the rest of her nights, no friends to go out with, again lost to his gaze behind tightly-drawn curtains.
The Shape watches, waits, but doesn’t take action. Not because he doesn’t want to. On the contrary, the more he’s denied the sight of her, the more he burns to step out from hiding and take all of her instead. But then what? He’d set a precedent on Halloween night, crafting an elaborate, macabre spectacle, all for her to find. Letting her unleash the repressed frustrations of her loneliness and carve them into his skin.
After that, just jumping out of the shadows with no plan would underwhelm the both of them. No, he’d have to outdo himself. He doesn’t just want her fright, but her awe, at his efforts, at his ability to satisfy the dark impulses she can’t even recognize are her own. He’d done it before, making it so it was only the two of them that night, just like she’d sung. He’d find a way to do it again.
Inspiration strikes when eventually, she breaks the pattern. Instead of exiting her school alone and turning down the path towards the elementary, she exits with a boy. Not the child, but a peer. He’s tall, dark-haired, and smiles handsomely. He holds her books, standing almost companionably close. The Shape’s knife has sat idly in his pocket, untouched, for weeks. Too long, perhaps.
She leads the boy behind the school to have some privacy. Weaving between bushes, trees, and blind spots, the Shape pursues. Wherever she goes, and thus wills him to follow. A shadow tethered to its caster; a satellite in unbreakable orbit. So much more to her than a boy holding books.
She comes to a stop. “I can’t talk long,” she says, distant, but audible. “Tommy gets out of school in five.”
The boy nods. “I won’t keep you long, just wanted to talk somewhere besides class.” Besides class, but in class, he already has. Is this what she does when the Shape can’t watch? Entertains the boys too stupid to keep their distance? He’ll have to take her now, put her… somewhere. That, or gut the boy and leave him on her doorstep. That sounds easier.
She laughs, humorlessly. “What, is Looney Laurie’s sideshow audience too much for you?” The boy begins to stammer, but she cuts him off. “Don’t. I understand. What do you need to talk about?”
“Well, uh…” He shuffles his shoes, bears the books with one arm to lift a hand and straighten his curls. “I’ve been thinking, maybe you’d like some company, some time. Or, I guess I’ve been thinking that I’d like yours. We could… go somewhere. Out?”
The Shape’s rhythmic breathing falters, deepens into something ragged. Yes, this boy’s going to die. That’s decided. But not just now, as much as he wants it. He needs to know how she will respond, first.
She stares at him. “Out,” she repeats, flatly. “When that maniac’s still…” She shakes her head. “No, Ben. No, I can’t.”
The boy frowns. “His doctor said he got him—”
“Said he shot him,” she corrects. Now the boy stares, not understanding the distinction. She sighs and tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear, still fair, but browner with each Autumn day. The sun itself couldn’t be more golden to the Shape’s eye. “Look, even if he were back in Smith’s Grove right now, or six feet under, I just couldn’t.”
She steps forward to collect her books. The boy lets her. “I get it. Too soon.” He gives her an odd smile, somewhere between sheepish and reassuring. “But I still owe you a dance. When you’re ready, Laurie.”
Blushing and murmuring something inaudible, she retreats to collect the child. The boy lingers. The Shape lingers with him, blade in hand, considering. Ultimately, he lets the impulse go, stalking off. Another day. This one, he’ll spend thinking of more important things.
A dance. He’d seen posters, that Halloween, as he walked and drove through the town. He hadn’t thought much of it then, other than to muse on the irony of it being a Homecoming. Now he thinks about it intensely. She’d been planning to go. And instead she’d spent that day, the day after it all, holed up in a hospital room, only released to be transferred to the Sheriff’s Department and surely berated for every lurid detail by his doctor.
He only half-regrets it. If it had kept her from going with that boy, or any other, then it’s hard to regret anything. But… he remembers his sister going to dances, maybe the happiest he’d ever seen her, dressed in sparkling things that fought a valiant but losing battle to outshine her grin. He’d never been pleased when she went places he couldn’t follow, but she’d always done her best to satisfy his curiosity enough that he’d let it go.
He remembers, distinctly. It was amazing, Michael. Like a Cinderella ball, right at school! If only I could stay out ‘til midnight… Oh, this? Danny gave it to me. It’s a corsage. Well, I dunno, it’s a tradition. I guess you just give a girl something pretty so she knows you care about— Hey, don’t rip it! Oh, you’re back to pouting now? Come on, Michael. You’ll get to go when you’re older. I’m sure the girls will just be tripping over themselves to ask you.
Michael wants that.
No. He jerks free of the memory’s grip, breathing hard. No, it’s the girl who wanted that, and wants it still, which means the Shape will give it to her. And in return, he’ll get her fright, her awe. He’ll hold her close, like she’d sung, like he had on Halloween. And this time, the doctor won’t interrupt. No one will.
The day’s still young, so he sets himself to making it a reality immediately. His first consideration is the venue. Home feels right, the place he knows best, the place he first saw her. But it’s impossible. The police check there, every morning and every night. He won’t allow any intrusion. And even if they didn’t, there would be no way to bring everything he needs there in a timely, inconspicuous fashion.
Someone else’s house will have to do. Ideally one close to hers, for convenience’s sake. He finds himself stalking through neighboring backyards, peering through windows, more bold than he’s dared to be since Halloween. There won’t be consequences. If anyone spots him, that will be the house he chooses.
No one does, proving again the girl’s singular keenness. He chooses a house anyway. A few doors down from her he finds an older couple readying for an event, perhaps a date night. Whatever the case, they’re dressed nicely, their house has open floor space, and he decides it will do.
This hunt provides no challenges or excitement, not like chasing her had. He kills the man first, driving his blade into his chest without preamble. A simple execution for simple prey. The woman, he does not kill, instead securing her hands and feet with a length of rope he’d never found a use for on Halloween. He has to remind himself she’ll be useful when her sobs begin to grate his nerves.
The couple also has a dog, a small thing that yaps and whines, nipping at his heels. The Shape finds a different use for that. The woman gags. When he’s finished, he moves on, surveying the house more thoroughly. They have a record player, a disc already sitting beneath the needle, which is the most important thing. Can’t have a dance without music, after all. But what else can he do?
They really outdid themselves with the decorating this year. Balloons, streamers, everything! The banner was huge. Oh, you’d have loved the string lights, Michael.
Well. He takes a few pillows, tears them open, and shakes the feathers out onto the floor. It adds something, he thinks. The house has a few different flower vases that he relocates to the center room. After that, he fiddles with the lighting, using a combination of lamps and light from other rooms to create the right conditions. He wants to be able to see her, but it can’t be too bright, lest she startle before she crosses the door’s threshold.
That leaves one last objective. He doesn’t expect to find a corsage, weeks out from the event in a house with no teenaged residents, but a nice enough bracelet should do. As long as it’s something pretty. He rifles through jewelry boxes upstairs, overturning what doesn’t catch his eye, until he at last finds something suitable. He pockets it, and returns to the ground floor.
Now begins the most difficult part, the luring of prey that already knows it’s hunted. And he’d rather lure than drag her here and rob her of the sense of discovery. The woman will help with this. She’s made it all of halfway to the door on elbows and knees, so he takes hold of her ankle and drags her back where he wants her. She can scream very loudly, but he’s already shut every open window.
He stands at the phone now, the woman whimpering beneath him. He sits her upright enough that the receiver will reach her ear, then dials the number on the keychain the girl left at his door. Theoretically, anyone could answer. The girl, her mother, or her father. But he knows it will be her, having spent enough nights outside her house to be certain her parents will be gone at this hour.
It rings. Once, twice, thrice… “Strode residence.” It’s the first time she’s spoken to him since that night, albeit unknowingly. He hesitates to surrender the receiver, wanting more. “Hello…? Can you hear me?” But now suspicion creeps into her voice, giving him no choice. With one hand, he presses the receiver to the woman’s ear. With the other, he presses his knife to her throat, prepared to end her if at any point she missteps.
“H-hello?” the woman rasps, paying the consequences of her shrieking. “Who… who is this?”
“Strode residence,” the girl repeats, voice tinnier with the added distance. “This is Laurie. Ma’am, are you alright?”
The woman inexplicably finds more energy to sob. “No! No, I’m—” He presses the blade harder, daring her. She swallows, whimpering. Pauses to think. Even if they weren’t neighbors, they all know the girl’s name, all whisper about her and the encounter she had. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out what he wants. “This… is Laurie?” she eventually asks.
“Yes.” The girl sounds concerned. He remembers the way she looked afraid, and visualizes it now. “Ma’am, do you need me to call some—?”
“No.” The woman shudders, surely ashamed of what she’s about to do, but willing to do it all the same to save herself. “No, you’ll be just fine, dear. Sorry to give you a scare. This is Mrs. Elrod. I’d hoped Morgan would be home…” She takes a breath. “Mr. Elrod’s had a fall, and I can’t quite get him up myself, you see.”
“Oh,” says the girl. “Is he alright?”
The woman grits her teeth, tears streaming steadily down her cheeks. “He needs help, but… he’ll live,” she manages, shoulders shaking.
There’s motion on the other end of the line. Then, “I’ll be right over. P.E.’s not my best subject, but if we can’t get him up, I’ll dial the Mackenzies for you.”
The woman’s relief breaks her down completely. “God, thank you, thank you.” The line goes dead as the girl sets off. The Shape replaces the receiver, and slides his knife back into his pocket. Then he strangles the woman to death, drags her across the floor, and deposits her on the couch beside her husband. Finally, all that’s left to do is put on the record and wait. The sound that comes out of it is slow and dreamy, accompanied by a man’s vocals. It works.
Minutes later, there’s a timid knock at the door. The Shape does not answer, but crosses the room to stand beside it, waiting. She knocks twice more, long pauses between, before she works up the nerve to rattle the knob herself. It offers no resistance to the turn of her hand. The door swings open, just wide enough to cloak the Shape in shadow, making him invisible.
She steps over the threshold. “Mrs. Elrod?” she calls, venturing a few feet more. From his position, he can only glimpse her profile, but it’s enough to read her expression. Anxious, but not afraid. For all her paranoia of him, she’s still too trusting of the rest of this town to expect their deception. What she doesn’t understand is, just as he bends to her, Haddonfield bends to him.
Her search leads her around the corner. He pushes the door closed behind her, no louder than a breeze, and follows only steps behind as she comes face to face with the twisted tableau he’s laid out for her. The couple sits where he’d left them, lounging carelessly. Crimson blossoms out onto the man’s nice white shirt. The woman remains bound, eyes bulging, a dark ring of purple around her neck. Low notes croon from the record player.
The girl screams. The Shape is unsurprised by this. Chaperones! They’re just the worst, Michael. Can’t have a dance without ‘em though, God forbid anyone have too much fun. Oh my gosh, Danny, don’t say that in front of him! He’s kidding, Michael…
She recovers faster than she had the last time, only frozen in horror for a moment. When he takes another step, the shadow of his bulk swallowing the light that once touched her, she finds the wits to spin and stagger back a few steps. And there he stands, looming silently, just like she’d been waiting for. Been willing, because he has no choice in the matter of satisfying her expectations.
She’s in the light again, facing him now, so he takes the opportunity to absorb the sight of her, etching it into stone in his memory. She cries no tears, either this loss too impersonal, or the last leaving her too jaded for fresh grief to touch. But he doesn’t miss her weeping, because she still gives him her terror, every muscle quaking, pupils dilated with the rush of adrenaline. Her heart must be pounding. He wants to reach out and feel it.
She isn’t dressed for the occasion, still wearing the simple jeans and long cardigan she’d selected for school. But neither is he, his coveralls and mask unchanged from the last time she saw him, exempting a few new stains. It makes no difference. The visual of her in a dress, the pale flesh of her legs and the pink slash on her shoulder exposed, would be striking. But she’s striking no matter what she wears.
The record’s first song fades out to a long beat of silence. She breaks it before the next tune can. “Michael,” she croaks. He cants his head in acknowledgement. To him, he’s the Shape, and she’s the girl; the girl who sings and screams, watches and waits. The girl who had drawn his blood, just as he’d drawn hers. The girl who will wear his scar forevermore.
But he knows that’s not the language she speaks, and so he will answer to whatever she chooses to call him. The Boogeyman, the maniac, or the boy’s name he’d long since shed when the skin no longer fit. Anything, so long as she’s addressing him and him alone.
She swallows. “Michael, you…” He waits, breath held. What will she say? You… monster. You… did all this? You… came back for me? Something in her shifts as he watches, the shaking of her frame suddenly communicating something other than fear as she bares her teeth and squares her shoulders. “You son of a bitch!” From her back pocket she frees her own blade, designed to fold and then snap back to its full length at the press of a button. Meant for carrying anywhere. Meant for him.
He catches her wrist before she can drive it into his neck, their arms shaking in a deadlock of force. Oh, she’s changed after all. On Halloween night, any embers of fire inside her had been snuffed out by shock and fear. She’d fought, but only when running, crying, and begging had failed her. Now she’s had time to gather her pride, her rage. Now she’s had long weeks to reflect on the way she’d felled him, twice. She is no prey, not anymore. There will be no running this time, he knows.
With a shout of exertion, she overtakes him. He allows it, ever pliable to her will, but not without moving just enough to make her steel miss its intended mark. It slides into the junction between his collarbone and shoulder instead, all the way to the hilt. The Shape spares no mind to pain. But letting her pull it back out and try again would waste precious time, so he decides to take control of the situation.
One hand around her throat forces both of hers to busy themselves clawing at it, which frees his other to dig into his pocket. She blanches and struggles harder, likely assuming it will reemerge with his own knife. It doesn’t. Her neck is released, only so he can seize one arm and straighten it, sliding the stolen bracelet over her hand and around her wrist. Her fighting falters, and then stills. She stares at it.
It’s a simple band of silver, one blue gem in the middle. Pretty, but modest. Anything louder wouldn’t suit her, sensibly button-down as she is. She’s nothing like her friends were, demanding the world’s attention with bright colors and hollered gibes, or distinctive hairbows and too-knowing giggles.
In fact, if she hadn’t trespassed the boundaries of superstition that day, luring him out of his home to be caught in the thrall of her song, he might have overlooked her completely. The thought is unacceptable to him. She’s consumed him so wholly now, killed every part of him that isn’t her. He can hunt many, but he can only ever haunt her.
She’s beginning to realize this, he can tell. Slowly, her eyes move away from her wrist, head turning to take in the room with new context. The music, if it had registered to her at all before, was perhaps assumed to be left on by the couple before he struck. Or maybe she’d thought he put it on just to mock them and their lovers’ death. But she grasps his true intentions now, gasping with the revelation. It’s all for her, and it always was.
She gapes at him now, dumbstruck, mutely shaking her head. That’s fine. He enjoys the sound of her words, but they’ve never needed them. Just a song, and he was hers. A dance, her confession returned, and she’ll be his. The hand he’d placed on her arm slides down, catching hers. With his other, he takes her opposite wrist, anchoring them together, pulling her closer. So close to me…
This makes her find her voice. “No! No, let go—” He doesn’t, and every step she retreats, he moves with her. When she inevitably backs herself into a wall, trembling and staring up at him like she expects him to pin her to it, it’s his turn to move back, dragging her along with him. She complains, pulls against him, but her feet have no choice but to follow if she doesn’t want to trip.
They don’t move exactly in time with the music, their push-and-pull too erratic, but he wouldn’t choose any other pace than the one she sets. At one point, she kicks his ankle, as hard as she can. He forgives it. I must have stepped on his foot like ten times! So embarrassing… Danny’s such a sweetheart though, didn’t even let it phase him. That’s how you know a guy’s a keeper.
“Stop it!” the girl demands, still doubtful. “This— this is ridiculous. You’re insa—!” Abruptly, he spins her. She yelps, perhaps expecting to be thrown. The length of her cardigan twirls like the flowing skirt of a dress. It’s perfect. She’s perfect. And she proves it when the completed turn brings her back to him. She presses the hand he’d had to free for the maneuver to his chest, to his heart. Just as he’d ached to touch hers. They are mirrors, always.
She breathes hard, quivering, cheeks flushed. “Okay. Okay, just…” He lets her other hand slip free when she pulls, too curious of what she’ll do to resist. For a moment, both her hands are still as she hesitates. Then she arches on her toes, and they reach up, locking together behind his neck. His next exhale stutters. No, they don’t need words at all. Her touch is a declaration all its own. Instinctually, his hands drop to her waist.
They sway in this embrace for a while, finally obeying the record’s rhythm. This side must be nearing its last track by now. He won’t turn it over, not if it means parting with her and breaking the spell. But maybe the music is the spell, entrancing her, just as her song had done to him. Still, he doesn’t want to let go, even for a second. He’s not able to mull over the debate long before she reclaims his full attention, hands moving again, moving to—
Her fingers hook beneath the latex on either side of his neck, and he stops breathing entirely. He’d let her, he instantly decides. Only her, if she dared. He is the mask, just as he is the Shape. But it’s no longer Halloween, and he’s helpless to the thought that she wants to see him, too. Peel back the face of his choosing and scrutinize the flesh beneath.
She’d also marked him, on his neck, on his other face. Does she too crave the scabbed sight of her handiwork? The feel of the claim she’s staked beneath her fingertips?
He closes his eyes, surrendering to her choice, whatever it is. Then he grunts, eyes snapping open, because she makes a choice he hadn’t anticipated. He’d forgotten about the knife. But clearly, she hadn’t, not for a moment. Now that she’s seized the opening to take it back, she screams her bloodlust and plunges it into his chest again. And again. And again… He loses count of how many times when the dizziness becomes too much.
He doesn’t have long now. On a last impulse, he throws his deadening weight at her, bending to bury his face in the crown of her hair. He inhales deeply, deep enough to make the flowery scent penetrate the mask. The girl makes a small, choked sound of disbelief, shoving him away. With that, the Shape falls.
She stands over him, breathing heavily, blood spattered across her hands, her clothes, her face. From this angle, he can’t quite see her eyes, shadow submerging them in black. But he doesn’t need to see them to know what she’s feeling. He feels it, too. In this moment, she is him, and he is her. Not a role reversal, but the shattering of glass that divides two sides of a reflection, straining to touch. They were always one and the same.
At some point, the music stopped, leaving only the sounds of the disc spinning and the needle’s futile drag. The girl drops down beside him, exhausted, and too daring to distance herself before succumbing to it now. With a final, sated exhale, the Shape allows himself to lose consciousness. Let death try and separate them. They both know it won’t last.
Come on, Michael, up to bed. No buts! Mom and dad will flip if you’re still up when they get home. A story? Tonight? Alright, alright. Just for you. But you’d better listen! “Once upon a time…”