Even among a dozen similarly dressed patients too far away to distinguish individual faces, he stood out. He had an “otherness” about him. The utter stillness. The others milled around, impatient, distracted, excited, nervous, or any combination of those emotions. Not him. When he stood still, not a single link of the shackles binding his arms and legs moved. All his energy was directed inward, creating the appearance of infinite patience.
Laurie Strode knew it was a lie.
His patience was inhuman, not infinite.
But maybe it no longer mattered.
Lock him up and throw away the key, she thought. She glanced down at the revolver in her hand. Maybe I can live with that.
When next she looked up, he was boarding the bus. A minute or two later, everyone had boarded, and the doors closed.
Laurie exhaled.
“This is your fate,” she said, her gaze fixed on the bus. “No more superstition.”
Kuneman followed Haskell to the back of the bus, through the steel-gate partition that separated guard seats from the patients. With two pairs of padded seats three rows deep, separated by the center aisle, the bus accommodated twelve prisoners. Kuneman stood guard while Haskell crouched to secure the patients’ shackles to the steel rings bolted to the floor of the bus. Glancing to the front, Kuneman watched as Dr Sartain boarded and settled himself in the seat behind the armed driver. The doctor took note of his special patient’s location, sitting by the window in the left middle row. Satisfied, Sartain opened his file and took notes on a legal pad with his fancy pen. Something about the doctor’s casual air of entitlement got under Kuneman’s skin.
“A-7367 secure,” Haskell said, standing and brushing his palms on his uniform trousers. “All clear.”
He sidestepped down the line to Lynch.
With a quick glance to confirm—for at least the third time—that Myers wasn’t going anywhere, Kuneman backed toward the partition near the front of the bus. A sneak peek at the doctor’s illegible handwriting was enough to convince Kuneman he’d never decipher those notes. Clearing his throat to get Sartain’s attention, he said, “Still not sure why you’re here.”
His pen paused over the paper, Sartain looked up. “Michael Myers is my patient until he is in someone else’s care,” he said. “I’m seeing my duty through till the end.”
“It needs to die. It needs to die!”
Kuneman was about to respond when Lynch started screaming. “What the hell—Haskell?”
Glowering, Haskell stood and punched Lynch in the gut.
With an explosive grunt, Lynch collapsed in his seat and groaned in pain. Haskell dropped to one knee and checked that Lynch’s shackles were secured to the ring on the floor. Fists on his hips, Haskell towered over the seated Lynch and said through gritted teeth, “All clear!”
As Haskell moved forward, Kuneman ducked through the partition and said, “Buckle up, Dr Sartain. This show’s about to hit the road.”
“There’s nothing to be gained from keeping evil alive and gestating.”
Haskell settled into the seat next to Kuneman opposite the driver’s side of the bus. With everyone secured and accounted for, Kuneman signaled to the driver to roll out. Sartain clicked his pen and again turned his attention to The Shape sitting in the middle left row, staring out the window as if he were carved from stone.
Kuneman wondered if the murderer was glad to leave Smith’s Grove behind. Or if he worried about spending the rest of his days in solitary confinement. Somehow, Kuneman had the impression nothing mattered to him now.
Nothing ever would.
From the vantage point of her pickup truck, Laurie watched as the transport bus approached the perimeter of the state hospital’s grounds and stopped briefly while the gate trundled open. She closed her eyes.
Could she free herself? Let it go?
Let the moment pass unwitnessed…?
The self-enforced darkness became a suffocating eternity.
She opened her eyes and grabbed a miniature airplane bottle of whiskey from the glove box. Her hands shaking, she fumbled with the cap for a moment before dropping it on the floor mat. She raised the tiny bottle to her lips and downed two quick sips.
Then she stared as the bus turned onto the state road, turned toward her and rumbled closer to her parked pickup truck, while she sat hypnotized—paralyzed.
“Death is the only solution for Michael. Quiet death before it kills again…”
Holding her breath—
—unable to blink—
—staring at the row of dark, reinforced windows—
—wondering if he stared back at her—
The transport bus rolled past her, “Illinois Department of Corrections” painted on the side and the back door, belching a plume of dust in its wake that, moment by moment, coated her pickup truck in a gritty layer of filth.
In that instant, Laurie found her breath.
And she screamed at the top of her lungs, louder than she’d screamed in the last forty years, until her throat was raw, and she was convinced blood would spray from her ruptured lungs and splatter her dusty windshield—
Tossing the empty whiskey bottle aside, she plucked the revolver from her lap, gripping it in her sweaty palm as she pressed the tip of the cold barrel to her temple.
—and she continued to scream.
But no one on the departing bus—and no one inside the state hospital—heard her primal roar. No one came. She sat outside the hospital parking lot, lost in private torment as the gate closed.
9
Per Allyson’s request, her mother had made reservations at Ristorante Bellini, located at the short end of an L-shaped strip mall. Despite the modest surroundings and a parking lot in need of resurfacing, Bellini’s had an intimate candlelit ambience and pleasing Italian fare. Framed paintings of the Italian countryside along with several old-world-styled maps decorated some of the walls, but their table was in the main room, Allyson’s favorite, near the wall of lit candles. All the glowing candle flames not only gave the room a calming vibe and warmth but also, for Allyson at least, each flame represented a symbol of hope, comfort from the various storms of life, burning bright.
While Allyson enjoyed the chicken parm and other dishes, her real reason for choosing Bellini’s for her celebration dinner was the atmosphere. She always felt relaxed and unhurried at Bellini’s. No matter how busy they were, the staff remained calm and efficient. With enough space between tables and booths, she never worried about ducking a serving tray or having to pull her chair extra close to the table. Bellini’s had a way of making her lingering anxieties fade away.
Mostly, the restaurant offered an opportunity for Allyson and her mother to put on pretty dresses—Allyson’s accessorized with her gold Honor Society stole—and enjoy a special evening as a family. And what better way to introduce Cameron to everyone than on a celebratory occasion with good food in pleasant surroundings.
Cameron had pushed Allyson’s Honor Society trophy—a modern, laser-inscribed clear obelisk—to the far end of the table, opposite the side where the server had set an extra chair for Laurie, to avoid an accident. After intermittent text notifications from school friends kept popping up on her cellphone, Allyson flipped it face down and slid it over to Cameron to place beside her trophy. They’d finished their meals, for the most part, with an occasional bite from their cooling dishes, and everyone was laughing, having a good time. But Bellini’s soothing atmosphere hadn’t been put to the test, because Allyson’s grandmother—a potential source of conflict with her own daughter—hadn’t showed. Allyson focused on the positives of Cameron not freaking out over meeting her parents and their nonjudgmental acceptance of him, rather than on her grandmother’s absence.