The Shape steps out of the car, knife in hand. He feels no exhilaration at having killed the vehicle’s occupants, nor does he feel any amazement at the absurdly lucky way he managed to dispatch the woman with the gun. He observes the scene with clinical detachment, looking over the three bodies before turning his cold gaze to the playground, checking to see if the other prey—the woman with the long black hair, the two girls who aren’t wearing their masks—are still there. If so, he will kill them next. But the playground is empty. The prey has escaped.
This does not dismay him. Perhaps he will run across them again, but if not, it doesn’t matter. The world is filled with prey, and one is the same as another to him. They bleed, they die, and that’s all he requires of them.
He starts to walk away from the car when he hears something behind him, a soft scuffing sound, like a shoe sliding on asphalt. Curious, he begins to turn…
* * *
Lindsey came around the back of the car, holding the pillowcase of bricks by one end, gripping it tight with both hands. Michael’s back was to her. He’d finished with Marion, Marcus, and Vanessa, and was preparing to move on in search of someone else to kill. She didn’t intend to let that happen. Moving as quietly as she could, she stepped up behind him, lifting the pillowcase…
Michael started to turn around, and Lindsey swung the pillowcase hard and slammed the bricks against the back of his head. She put everything she had into the strike, and the blow caused Michael to grunt in pain and stagger forward. Encouraged, she moved toward him, stepped to his side, and this time swung the pillowcase directly at his face. He grunted again, louder this time, and when he staggered backward, he stumbled and fell onto his hands and knees. Lindsey didn’t let up. She swung the pillowcase one more time, smashing it against the side of his head. The impact knocked him against the car, and he bounced off and slumped to the ground. He was still moving, although he was clearly dazed, and Lindsey made ready to hit him one more time with what she hoped would be the killing blow.
But this time when she raised the pillowcase, the fabric ripped and the bricks spilled onto the asphalt. Feeling weak and shaky, Lindsey dropped the useless pillowcase and walked toward the front of the car. She had to pass Vanessa’s body on the way, and while she tried not to look too closely at the poor woman, she caught a glimpse of the bloody ruin that used to be her face, and she thought she would throw up that instant. The only thing that stopped her was the fear that she’d vomit on Vanessa’s body, and that thought slammed a lid on her nausea. She didn’t want to leave the woman here, lying in the street like some piece of unwanted refuse, but there were already two dead bodies in the car. Vanessa would just have to stay here for a bit until the police arrived.
Lindsey hurried around the front of the car, opened the driver’s door, and started to climb in, but then she stopped. Marion lay on the front seat, taking up most of the room. Lindsey had left the engine running when she’d gotten out to check on those girls, and all she needed was enough space to squeeze in, then she could put the car in gear and get the hell out of here.
“Sorry, Marion.”
She reached inside and, grimacing, awkwardly tried to push Marion’s body to the side. It took some effort, but Lindsey made the room she needed. She got in, pulled the door shut, and reached for the gear shift. Next stop: the sheriff’s department.
Lindsey had made a fatal mistake, though. She’d failed to lock the door behind her.
The door flew open, and Michael grabbed hold of Lindsey’s arm and yanked her out of the car. He slammed her against the side of the vehicle, wrapped his hands around her neck, and began to squeeze. She grabbed hold of his wrists, tried to pull his hands away from her throat, but he was too strong. Then, as if to prove how truly strong he was, he lifted her off her feet with ease, as though she weighed nothing to him. The bastard was in his sixties! How could he do this?
Lindsey thrashed and kicked, but all her exertions did was use up the remaining oxygen in her lungs that much faster. She heard a roaring in her ears, saw bright speckles of light in her eyes, and she knew that she was going to die. She told herself that she’d managed to live an additional forty years after Michael had failed to kill her the first time, which was a damn good run, all things considered. But the thought did little to comfort her as darkness gathered on the edges of her vision, like storm clouds rolling in.
Suddenly, the horn blared, one long blast followed by several shorter ones.
Lindsey had no idea who could be doing it, but then she heard Marion—voice raspy, barely audible—say, “Let her go, Michael! And take what’s coming to you! The killing must stop!”
Michael tossed Lindsey aside, and she fell to the ground and hungrily gulped for air. She was too weak to move. Her throat felt as if it was on fire, her lungs burned, and all she could do for the moment was lie there gasping for breath, and listen to what Marion said next.
“This is for you, Dr. Loomis…”
Then Lindsey heard a soft click.
She realized with horror what had happened. Marion, severely wounded, maybe even dying, had managed to aim her gun at Michael and pull the trigger. Unfortunately, she was out of ammunition. That, or the gun had misfired. Either way, she was fucked.
Lindsey saw Michael reach into the car. She heard rustling, as if he’d grabbed hold of Marion and she fought him with what little strength remained to her. Then there was a thud and the horn blared again. Another thud, another horn blast. A third, a fourth… Lindsey felt a sick twist in her gut as she realized that Michael was slamming Marion’s head against the steering wheel, over and over, each blow setting off the horn.
No… She tried to speak, but no sound escaped her swollen throat.
Another thud, another horn blast, only this time the horn continued blaring. It took Lindsey a second to understand what was happening. Michael had shoved Marion’s head against the steering wheel, and this time he was holding it there, pushing, pushing, exerting more pressure with each passing second…
There was a sickening crunch, and Lindsey knew she had just heard the sound of Marion’s skull being crushed. Her friend was dead.
Fear propelled Lindsey to her feet, and she staggered away from the car, coughing. Her head swam with vertigo, and she had to fight to maintain her balance, but she knew if she couldn’t put distance between her and Michael—fast—she was a goner. She continued on, struggling to draw in air, and with each step she took it got easier. But then her right ankle rolled under her on the uneven ground, and she fell to the grass. The pain was sharp, and she cried out, reflexively wrapping a hand around her injury. She sat up, turned to look behind her, saw Michael walking across the grass, moving with the smooth, mechanical stride that she remembered so well from her childhood. How many times had she lived through scenarios like this in her nightmares? A hundred? A thousand? Now here she was, living the nightmare for real.
Then, as if she really was in a dream, she heard Laurie’s voice speak to her. Not the voice of today’s Laurie, one roughened by age and years of drinking. This was the voice of a young girl, a teenager, and it said three words.
Run, Lindsey! Hide!
Just like she had forty years ago, Lindsey listened to that voice. She forced herself to get on her feet and start moving again, half-running, half-limping, ignoring the screaming protests of her injured ankle. She didn’t look back to see if Michael followed. She didn’t have to. Michael always followed.
As she ran, she tried to remember what she knew about this park from when she’d brought her son here years ago. She remembered pushing Evan on the swings, playing tag with him on the grass, kicking a soccer ball back and forth… What else? At the back of the park was a stream—really a drainage ditch that sometimes filled with enough water to mimic a stream. The parks department had erected a small bridge over it so people could cross more easily, and Evan had liked to stand on the bridge, look down at the water, and pretend there were little fish in it, so small that only kids could see them.
She headed in the direction of the bridge— at least, she hoped it was the right direction. She hadn’t been here for almost fifteen years. Her ankle throbbed, her leg felt like so much dead weight, and she was still having trouble getting full breaths. She was beginning to slow down, and she knew she couldn’t keep running much longer. If she didn’t find the bridge soon, Michael would catch up to her, and she would die.
But then she saw it—a short wooden bridge with rails on both sides—stretching across a sloping ditch, trees all around, houses in the distance. She risked a backward glance and saw Michael, a silhouette against the night sky, coming toward her, single-minded, relentless. He was several hundred feet behind her, she judged, but gaining. She didn’t have much time. She reached the ditch and intended to climb down into it, but her injured ankle betrayed her, and she slipped and fell. The last time it had rained had been several days ago, and while the ground at the bottom of the ditch was moist, there was little actual water. She crawled toward the bridge, hoping to hide beneath it, but it was smaller than she’d remembered, and she wasn’t sure it would provide sufficient cover, especially with the light from the full moon. Her hands and knees slid on mud, slowing her progress, and she had a flash of memory—Evan, jumping down into the ditch when it was like this, muddy after a recent rain, laughing as he rolled around, getting mud all over him. God, what a mess he’d made! She did the same now, rolling in the mud, scooping up handfuls and smearing it onto her face and neck. Then she moved beneath the bridge, pressed herself low to the ground, and waited.
Moments later, she heard heavy footfalls on the wooden planks above her. They stopped in the middle of the bridge, and then all she heard was Michael’s breathing inside that mask of his, a labored, beast-like sound. Lindsey held her own breath. Her swollen throat was irritated, and she had to fight the urge to cough. If she made a noise—any noise—it would all be over for her.
There were small spaces between the bridge’s floorboards, and she glanced upward. She once more saw Michael’s silhouette—his shape—against the sky, saw the metal of his blade gleaming in the moonlight. Seconds passed, and then Michael started moving again, his boots clomping across the bridge. He’d turned around and was headed back the way he had come. Then he was on the grass, and she heard him continue on. She allowed herself to breathe then, and tears began to flow down her mud-stained cheeks. She’d listened to Laurie, or rather to her memory of Laurie: she’d run, she’d hid, and she was still alive. The babysitter was still taking care of her after all these years.
“Thanks,” she whispered.
A wave of dizziness hit her then, and she felt herself losing consciousness She fought it, but she was too weak, her energy spent, and she had no choice but to surrender and let the darkness carry her away.