Author's Introduction
This is an Alternate Universe story, based around Halloween I through V; however, the end of Halloween V leaves Michael well on the way to a maximum security prison, Jamie safe and sound with her soon-to-be ex-foster parents, and Tina alive. This means that the events of movies VI through Resurrection have not happened. The story is set in 1998 - the same year as H20, for those of you paying attention - and I am under the assumption that Loomis was correct when he called Jamie nine years old in V. There are two original characters, though I don't know how long either will be around.
Disclaimer: I do not own Halloween, blah blah blah, Michael, Tina, and Jamie (c) their respective creators, Valerie and Chloe are (c) me, they are fictitious characters and any resemblance to people, places or objects is simply coincidence, etcetera etcetera. We will be dealing with Michael as well as his emotions, and no doubt once I get my copy of the Halloween novelization, I'll be incorporating some of those ideas into his characterization. (Seriously, any novel that talks about him getting all hot and bothered by Annie is A-OK in my book!)
Sorry for the ramble, but I like to do so on occasion. Hopefully the Author's Notes will be at a minimum for this fic. Read, enjoy, and let me know what you think.
Sympathy For The Devil
"Somehow, our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face."
-Nelson DiMille
Michael is in chains.
His arms, previously free for battle, are held by thick metal links to a medical table, feet bound in similar fashion. The table, tilted to a near ninety-degree angle, allows him to see only darkness – though he does not need his eyes to see that he is not alone. All around him are people; hundreds of them stare at him in sick fanatical awe. They view him as a saint. A being beyond humanity.
He cannot free himself.
A voice from his past whispers around him, hissing and pleading for him to do this one last thing. Just for him.
He can rest then.
Something – a feeling unknown to him – curls in the pit of his stomach.
Now his eyes are focusing and he can see, beyond the multitude of pathetic worshipers, that there is a woman. She seems to be behind water, her form wavering and slightly blurred.
She reaches towards him, and says in a voice he should recognize, he knows he should, but cannot:
"I'm coming, Michael."
Michael Myers wakes up after this moment, every time without fail.
He is bound in a straight-jacket he does not feel the need to destroy, held to the wall behind him with chains he cannot break. His eyes, peering through the wide slits in his pale mask, are always focused ahead of him. Beyond the door of his cell, beyond the walls of the maximum security penitentiary, he can feel the woman calling.
That unfamiliar emotion twists his stomach and, if he were any other person, he would be heaving against the cold cement floor.
Michael Myers, however, is not any other person. He isn't even sure if he is, indeed, a person at all.
The door opens and though he does not flinch at the sudden light, his eyes dilate and readjust their focus from the reoccurring dream-woman to the reoccurring woman in reality, who comes in every day to give him tranquilizers that do not last and pills that do not work.
"Good morning, Michael," she says in a deceptively pleasant tone, "How was your nap?"
"I don't get why you talk to the fucker, Chloe. He doesn't even understand you."
Chloe, the penitentiary's best and most compassionate nurse, doesn't even glance at the security guard who has spoken. She is always accompanied by no less than ten guards when she visits Michael, who doesn't think ten is nearly enough.
"He's perfectly capable of understanding me. He's not stupid, Jon. He's just..."
"An animal?"
Chloe does not respond and instead gives the silent Michael his shot – he doesn't even twitch as the needle pierces his skin – and then feeds him a series of pills using an elongated mechanical device that inserts the medicine into his mouth for him to swallow.
He swallows without complaint. Michael Myers never complains.
"He's not an animal," Chloe sighs, returning to the security guards.
The door is closed and Michael doesn't hear Jon's response, though he knows what it will be.
Michael returns to the dream-woman and does the one thing he has become very good at doing.
He waits.
Michael is in chains.
He is a distant character in a strange and terrifying nightmare, bound to a medical table and forced to look out onto the hundreds of strangers all praising his deeds and calling him a saint.
A voice she doesn't know calls out for his blood, for him to do this one last thing. Just for them.
Then he can rest.
Though his shape is wavering in her vision, and though his expression is blurred and unintelligible, she can feel his fear.
She reaches out and calls, "I'm coming, Michael!"
Jamie Lloyd wakes up after this moment every time, without fail.
The dream terrifies her.
Maybe not the dream itself – but the feelings in it do. Her own fear... not for herself, but for her own uncle – the one whose actions have placed her in this life of paranoia, pills, and therapy sessions.
How can she worry about the wellbeing of the man who has killed everyone she's known and loved?
"Jamie? You up yet, hon?"
Almost everyone.
Tina is standing in her doorway, grinning at her so easily that Jamie wonders if she even remembers that her uncle is the boogeyman.
Of course she does. She's only reminded of it every day. She's the one who created an online group for people who had run into people like Michael; she's the one with the scar from where he stabbed her in the shoulder; she's the one with the book out. I Spent Halloween With Michael Myers, by Tina Williams.
Jamie would've written the forward if she could think of the night without breaking into a cold sweat. The therapy helps to make that the only thing that happens.
Seeing him kneeling there in the cell... drawing chain through his hand as though knowing it was only temporary...
She knows that he'll be in a prison halfway across the country for the rest of his life – a place even he can't escape, not without a weapon or a plan.
"Jamie, you're gonna be late. Just because it's almost summer doesn't mean you can bail."
Jamie sighs and struggles into her clothes, running a brush through her long hair just enough to keep the stray strands out of her way.
A horn honks outside the apartment and Jamie leans out the window, waving in exasperation at the black truck parked below.
"Valerie never comes in," Tina complains in jest as Jamie comes into the living room.
"Well, you creep her out." Jamie grins and adds, "You know – you're too happy, Tina. She's..."
"Yeah, yeah. Well, she'll grow out of it. Teenage angst is only fun for a while."
Jamie checks herself in the mirror and double-checks her backpack.
"Oh no! Where's my math-"
She spins to search for her book and finds Tina grinning at her, holding it out.
The truck honks again and they both roll their eyes.
"Hurry up, Jamie. Don't leave Val waiting, or she'll leave."
Jamie nods, slips on her shoes, and waves over her shoulder as she shuts the door and heads down the small flight of steps into the parking lot.
Sometimes, Jamie wonders if Valerie would be her friend if she still lived with her foster parents. Not that it matters.
The Carruthers are nice people, really great parents, but they had been Rachel's parents first.
It is, really, Jamie's fault that Rachel had died. She, not Rachel, is the niece of Michael Myers. She had brought him to Haddonfield after ten years.
But Tina didn't hold that against her. And since she had been a legal adult at the time...
"Hey, girl, the hell are you so down for?"
Jamie jerks and looks into the cab of the truck, unaware that she had walked all this way. "No reason. Just..."
"Thinking," Valerie and Jamie chorus, prompting both to grin.
"Well, get the hell in! We're gonna be late."
Jamie doesn't know if Valerie is really the kind of girl Jamie would normally be friends with. Despite her blonde hair and bright brown eyes, she's more of a weirdo to most kids at school than even Jamie.
Jamie, whose uncle was the Boogeyman.
"I heard the new Slayer album was coming out soon," Jamie says once she's sure she probably won't die from Valerie's reckless driving.
The girls take off with screeching tires, the speedometer hitting forty before they're even out of the parking lot.
"Yeah – it's gonna be totally awesome."
Valerie is wearing a black tee with a white silhouette ironed on the front – a Frank Sinatra shirt she had bought off a street vendor downtown a few weeks ago.
"You know that you have to wash that shirt sometime," Jamie adds, wrinkling her nose a little.
"Yeah, well, I will once I'm done mourning."
Valerie isn't a bad person, and Jamie's been reassured of the fact hundreds of times – mostly when she takes five extra side streets in order to avoid Lampkin Lane and the Old Myers House. She likes bands that Jamie really doesn't – heavy metal and speed metal and all the other types of metal – and her record time without a shower is two weeks, but Valerie isn't bad.
No matter what anyone tells Jamie, she's sure that if things had been different, she would still love to be Valerie's friend.
They had only met because of similar interests; that is, they were both hiding in the permanently "Under Maintenance" girl's bathroom on the second floor of the Haddonfield High.
Jamie had been ducking out of the hallways to avoid one group of kids who took an obscene amount of pleasure in reminding her of her family tree – Valerie had been ducking out to have a cigarette and avoid the hassle of dealing with some girls who loved to get her in trouble.
"You're that... girl. Right? Jamie."
Jamie had known that the girl wanted nothing more to say, "Your uncle is Michael Myers," but surprisingly, she had refrained.
"I'm Valerie. Want a cig?"
Jamie had declined but they had stayed in there for the seven and a half minutes it took for Valerie to finish her smoke. They walked back to class together – neither willing to part company with the other, even though hanging out together definitely put the last nail in both of their social coffins.
"Valerie, you know you're great, right?" Jamie asks, looking with wide eyes to the girl who had just run three consecutive red lights and pulled into the school parking lot with one minute to spare before the second bell.
"Babe, everyone knows I'm great." Valerie taps the side of her nose and says, "That's why they're so afraid."
Michael is in chains.
The dream is different now – he has never had it during the afternoon. He is still bound, still silent, still staring into the dark filled with people praising him, but...
The woman is not there.
His stomach churns and he hears the voice, chanting in a strange language unknown to him. He can't help but gaze to where the woman normally is –
What will happen, now that she is not here to wake him?
A face he recognizes from his youth appears and his stomach aches now, a painful and distressing feeling.
The chanting voice is now echoed by hundreds of worshippers.
"Samhain."
"Samhain."
"Let it in, Michael."
"Let it in!"
Michael now recognizes that previously unknown feeling:
Fear.
Michael is not awake when Chloe and her ten body guards come to give him his afternoon shot. That alone is enough to worry the nurse, who does not feel right doping him up while he's still out –
His eyes roll under closed lids, and she's never seen him like this.
"What are you doing?" Jon exclaims as she reaches up and pulls the mask off for the second time during his stay.
His face is not grotesque. Not to Chloe, anyway, who has seen far worse at crime scenes; it makes one man shout, "Holy mother of God!"
He is scarred, though not nearly as heavily as he should be.
He is burned, but not nearly as badly as he should be.
Michael Myers opens his eyes and stares at the nurse, who stares back in shock.
He mouths a single word and closes his eyes, sagging in his restraints and falling into unconsciousness.
The guards call for help and Chloe gazes up to Michael.
She manages a weak, terrified smile.
"That's right, Michael. Chloe.
"So, Jamie, what are your plans for summer?"
Jamie jerks in her seat and stares at Mr. Snyder. He's a nice old man and he always makes her feel relatively comfortable in his class – namely, by never calling on her – but today she's pushed her luck. She had almost dozed off, since the conversation has turned from Physics to summer, and she guesses he must've not liked that much.
Or maybe he's just trying to make her feel a part of the conversation.
"Jamie?"
"Probably gonna go hang out with her favorite uncle," one boy chuckles from the back of the class, earning giggles all around.
Jamie stares straight ahead.
"I'm..."
Valerie nudges her with a pen.
"I'm staying in."
Mr. Snyder is nice enough to let her go after that, and moves on to another.
"Your uncle not up for a visit, Jamie?" the boy asks quietly, practically breathing into her hair.
"Fuck off, Paul," Valerie responds for Jamie, who is still staring straight ahead.
"Bet you're gonna take Val here with you. I bet she totally gets off on the fact that your uncle's a mass murderer."
The boys on either side of Paul chuckle dumbly.
Paul is still quiet as he looks to Valerie, "Isn't that right? Bet that's the only reason you're friends with creepy Jamie."
"Shut the fuck up," Valerie hisses.
One of the other boys says in a high, sing-song voice, "Creepy Jamie's only friend wants to fuck the Boogeyman!"
"Stop it!"
The room falls silent as everyone turns to stare at Jamie, whose eyes are shut tight, and she shouts, "Just stop it!"
She leaps from her chair as Valerie touches her shoulder and sobs loudly, running from the class as quickly as she can.
Just like in the hallways of elementary school, when they would all chant, "Jamie's uncle's the Boogeyman!"
Only this time, when she bursts through the front doors of the school, Rachel isn't there to pick her up and take her to get ice cream.
Instead, she's alone.
Alone, alone, alone.
"Don't listen to Paul, Jamie."
The girl whirls to face Valerie, who is standing under the cement overhang, lighting up a cigarette.
"Let's blow off the rest of Snyder's class, okay? He's cool with it. We are only a week away from graduating."
Jamie nods and, when her friend half-heartedly offers her the pack of cigarettes, she takes one and lights up without hesitation.
"Say, Valerie..." Jamie looks through the smoke between them and asks, "Can we go get some ice cream?
"You know I don't... I'm not your friend just because no one else is, Jamie."
Jamie looks to Valerie and forces a smile that she knows the other needs. "I know. You're friends with me because no one else will be friends with you."
Valerie laughs and steals the cherry off of Jamie's sundae, popping it into her mouth. "That Paul, though. He's a fucking asshole. We should... slash his tires or something."
"That's the last thing we should do," Jamie sighs, stealing Valerie's shake and taking a long gulp. "That'd be a violent act. Since I'm related to a psychopath, violent acts and I just don't get along in the eyes of the law."
"Fuck the law!"
Valerie and Jamie wince and duck their heads as they realize that Deputy Jones is sitting on the other side of the parlor, and hope that he doesn't notice them ditching school.
"Anyway. I say we go see a movie or something. Fuck sitting around doing nothing."
"Valerie... you sit and do nothing when you watch a movie."
"Well, it's the thought that counts, you know?" Valerie leans back and looks around, completely at ease. "Let's do something, Jamie! I'm bored."
"Drink your shake and quit complaining. I'm not... really in the mood for movies."
"You've been out of it all day." Valerie pushes her shake to the side and asks, quietly, "Are you okay?"
"It's... it's nothing. I'm just..."
Jamie knows that Valerie will understand if she explains, but at the same time...
Telling someone means she can't forget about it. Someone else will know. It'll be real.
"...I've been having... weird dreams. Just lately, for the last few weeks."
Valerie looks uneasy and Jamie isn't surprised – when your friend has survived a horribly traumatic experience, the last thing you want to hear are their dreams about it.
"Well? What are they about?"
That's why Valerie is a good person. Jamie smiles, if a bit shakily.
"It's really only one. I... I'm standing across this big, black room... and there're all these people. And..."
Gotta tell her. If not her, then who? Tina will just write it off as a nightmare.
"...On the other side of the room is... him."
Valerie nods slowly, eyes wide and transfixed on something just beyond Jamie's left ear.
"He's... tied down, or something. I can't see him really well. But... but then, there's this voice... and it's telling him to do something – I never understand it, though." Jamie doesn't want to continue but finds herself unable to stop. "He's... Valerie... He's terrified."
Valerie jerks and stares into Jamie's eyes.
"You mean... M-Myers? Terrified?"
"It's... I don't know. I can't see his face, but... you know how dreams are." Jamie shudders, "They always feel worse than they look."
"What happens in them? These – dreams. Does anything happen?"
Jamie shakes her head. "That's just it – nothing happens. I... I reach out to him, but I always wake up. It's so weird."
"I don't know. That sounds... that's really creepy, Jamie."
The girl sighs and draws her spoon through the melting sundae. "Yeah. There's a reason they call me creepy Jamie."
"Seriously, fuck them. They can call you whatever they want, but if they had been in your situation, you know as well as I do they would've shit themselves. They're just... jealous!"
Jamie stares at her friend and echoes weakly, "Jealous?"
"Of you. Don't you realize? You survived, Jamie. You survived, and you're not comatose in a fucking bed somewhere. You're out, about, eating ice cream and relaxing a few days before you graduate from high school! You even got accepted to Lafayette! Do you realize how good a school that is?"
Jamie looks to her sundae – what's left of it, at least – and nods. "I guess."
"Man, Jamie! I wish I could be half as badass as you! I don't know anyone at that damned school who would've survived the first night – much less all the way to their eighteenth birthday!"
"...I'm not that strong, Val..." Jamie sighs and shakes her head. "I'm not strong at all. I can't even hand out candy at Halloween – hell, the little kids in costumes scare me! We have to take at least five side-streets to get to school because of me... and damn it, I turned down a good college in Oregon because I can't fly over Colorado – just because that's where he is. I'm paranoid all the time, constantly afraid that..."
"You're better than you were when I first met you. Therapy does lots."
The girl sighs. "So do lobotomies... And I think that would be a lot easier on me."
Valerie looks around and then leans in, eyes set on Jamie's and expression serious and a little frightened.
"Jamie. If... If you want – I'm not saying we should, but if you want... We can... you know. Go there."
"...G-Go...?"
"To the house."
Jamie feels as though someone's dumped a bucket of ice water over her head. Valerie is – she's just like all the others – she just wants one good scare from Jamie –
"I don't mean it like – no!" Valerie grabs Jamie's hands and holds them tight, forcing her to stay in her seat. "I don't mean it like, we go in. Just go see it. So you can... I don't know. They always say facing your fears helps you beat them. I don't want you to if you don't want to, but I'm willing to. That place freaks me out, you know... You're not the only reason I avoid Lampkin."
Jamie stares Valerie down but the other doesn't look away, doesn't blush or stammer more excuses. Valerie doesn't do that – she says what she wants to say and then she waits.
She's good at waiting.
And that fact makes Jamie think about Michael, who is also so good at waiting –
She can't live like this anymore. Lampkin is just a street; the house is just a house. Valerie is not Michael. Not everyone is the Boogeyman waiting to get her.
"Alright," Jamie says, standing suddenly, "Let's go. Let's go to the house."
Valerie finishes her shake and stands as well; they walk to the truck parked at the curb. After they climb in and she turns on the engine, Valerie says, quietly, "I'm your friend, Jamie, and I'm not going to trick you."
Jamie looks straight ahead as they take off towards forty-five Lampkin Lane.
"I know."