Halloween III - Season of the Witch

  DO YOU KNOW

  WHERE YOUR KIDS ARE

  TONIGHT?

  The streets are quiet. Dead quiet as the shadows lengthen and night falls. It’s Halloween. Blood-chilling screams pierce the air. Grinning skulls and grotesque shapes lurk in the gathering darkness. It’s Halloween. The streets are filling with small cloaked figures. They’re just kids, right? The doorbell rings and your flesh creeps. But it’s all in fun, isn’t it?

  No. This Halloween is different. It’s the last one.

  THE WITCHING HOUR

  Dr. Challis sat up. There was a sound like nothing he’d ever heard before. A muffled groan. Then a shriek. Then a high, steady, inhuman wailing that went on and on. It was not of this world. It was a sound made in Hell.

  And it came from Marge’s room . . .

  MOUSTAPHA AKKAD PRESENTS

  HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH

  A JOHN CARPENTER/DEBRA HILL PRODUCTION

  STARRING

  TOM ATKINS • STACEY NELKIN

  AND DAN O’HERLIHY AS COCHRAN

  DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: DEAN CUNDEY

  ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: BARRY BERNARDI

  PRODUCED BY

  JOHN CARPENTER AND DEBRA HILL

  EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS:

  IRWIN YABLANS AND JOSEPH WOLF

  WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY

  TOMMY LEE WALLACE

  HALLOWEEN III

  SEASON OF THE WITCH

  A Jove Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Jove edition / October 1982

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1982 by Pumpkin Pie Productions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

  ISBN: 0-515-06885-3

  Jove books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.

  The words “A JOVE BOOK” and the “J” with sunburst are trademarks belonging to Jove Publications, Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  TO

  DENNIS ETCHISON

  If a way to the better there be, it lies in taking a full look at the worst.

  —THOMAS HARDY

  It was my intention to set down the story of what happened to myself and to a little group of my friends—and I soon discovered that what was happening to us was happening to everyone.

  —KENNETH PATCHEN,

  The Journal of Albion Moonlight

  HALLOWEEN WILL COME, WILL COME,

  WITCHCRAFT WILL BE SET AGOING,

  DEMONS WILL BE AT FULL SPEED

  RUNNING IN EVERY PASS,

  AVOID THE ROAD CHILDREN,

  CHILDREN.

  —Traditional

  Prologue

  Challis was dead.

  “EIGHT MORE DAYS TO HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN, HALLOWEEN . . .”

  Children’s voices drifted into the room, thin and tinny, sinuating from the corridors into the bright light, bouncing off sterile walls and ringing like beaten silver over the bowed head of the man in the white lab coat.

  Which, of course, did not move.

  “EIGHT MORE DAYS TO HAL-LO-WEEN . . .”

  The insistent refrain, chanted inanely to the tune of “London Bridge Is Falling Down,” was for a few moments everywhere, even cutting into speakers which were set to carry only a steady drone of Muzak around the clock throughout the hospital and, it had seemed to Challis lately, the entire world.

  But tonight he was feeling no pain.

  “. . . SIL-VER SHAMROCK!”

  At last the advertising jingle wound down, followed immediately by a few bars of what sounded like Madison Avenue’s idea of an Irish jig. Then that, too, faded and a syrupy sea of characterless middle-of-the-road orchestral pop music washed over everything once more. It was a thick, blue sound, like Bow bells muffled by fog, and it fell softly on the ears, demanding nothing but passive consumption. On a night like this even Challis might have found it soothing. It was the music of merciful oblivion.

  Challis was slumped forward, his forehead distorted against the ersatz woodgrain of a table in the staff lounge. There was no one else in the room. In the distance a bell was ringing dully. There was the creak of a stainless steel cart wheeling through the halls, somewhere the squeak of rubber soles on polished floors followed closely by clipped, efficient voices as brittle and cold as window glass, and the thumping of doors opening and closing in another part of the building.

  At this hour, just before the majority of the hospital staff changed shifts after dinner break, no one had found him yet.

  Challis could not have planned it better if he had tried.

  Above and in front of him hung an institutional TV set. Its sound was off, a badly adjusted picture rolling from top to bottom like an out-of-control microfilm scanner.

  Nothing else moved.

  Now, however, there was a new sound: an electrical buzzing. It came from the lighting fixtures, as if an insect were trapped within the panels of the ceiling. The buzzing continued for a few seconds. Then suddenly one of the neon tubes sizzled and flickered out, as though dark wings had settled over that part of the room.

  Outside the windows there was a blinding flash.

  Instantly the other lights shut down. The fluttering TV picture popped and shrank to a tiny point, a single glowing eye receding rapidly away down a tunnel, and gone.

  The lounge was plunged into darkness.

  Rain scattered against the windows, illuminated from behind by headlights in the night. Drops clung to the panes, suspended there and seemed to turn, each an individual lens reflecting cars that passed on the road, then quickly flowed together and ran down the glass in sheets as the landscape blurred.

  The first crack of thunder hit. It shook the walls and the cold fluorescent tubes vibrated back to life. The squares of the low ceiling brightened in no particular sequence, flicking back on in random order until the overhead checkerboard was complete.

  In the peculiar strobing, Challis’s arm appeared to twitch on the tabletop. His head seemed to raise uncertainly an inch, two inches.

  A running in the halls.

  The door burst open.

  A nurse stood there, hands on hips. She hesitated before coming in all the way. She was on the downhill side of middle age, resignedly overweight, and wore the perpetual expression of a woman who has seen enough of all the wrong things to last two lifetimes.

  “Doctor? You all right?”

  She paused, glanced back at the commotion in the hallway, and came to a decision. She took two more steps into the lounge.

  “Is that you, Doctor Challis?” Her face relaxed a bit. “How did you like the fireworks? Another one of life’s little tests—a power blackout, wouldn’t you know. As if we didn’t have plenty to worry about already. That old emergency generator kicked in, praise the Lord. But I don’t know how much longer Mr. Garret can keep it . . . Dan? Are you all right?”

  She pursed her lips and crossed the room.

  “Poor man. Working too hard, same as always.” She sighed wearily. “Well, it’s that way for everybody these days, I reckon. Seems like the Last Times, doesn’t it? You look like you’re dead to the world.”

  She reached up and twisted the knob of the TV. The picture steadied, but immediately broke up into a swirling vortex of snow. She slapped the side of the cabinet. The picture pulsed into temporary focus. It was the Seven O’Clock Report with Robert Mundy, the local plastoid TV newscaster.

  She adjusted the volume.

  “. . . AND LATER,
IN TONIGHT’S SPECIAL EYEBALL-TO-EYEBALL SEGMENT, TRINA WILL SHOW US HOW TO MAKE A BRIGHT AND BREEZY REPAST WITH A FLAIR BY DRESSING UP A CARD TABLE. AND WE’LL HAVE THE LATEST ON THAT UNUSUAL CASE OF VANDALISM OVER IN MERRY OLD ENGLAND. BUT FIRST, LET’S PAUSE FOR THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE.”

  The nurse rested her spotted hand on the back of Challis’s neck.

  On TV, a grinning witch’s face filled the screen. Gnarled skin glistened, a warty nose inches from the camera as the witch peered down into the room through a storm of salt-and-pepper static. The effect was grotesque.

  “Those masks,” said the nurse with distaste. “They’ve gone too far this year—too realistic.” She shuddered. “Wish we could hurry up and get Halloween over with. Nasty holiday. Nothing but trouble for children—for all of us. It’s un-Christian.”

  “EIGHT MORE DAYS TO HALLOWEEN . . .”

  The picture destabilized again as a new round of lightning split the sky outside. The commercial broke up and began to roll vertically, but the chorus of taunting, pre-teen voices continued to nag from the cracked speaker.

  “HAL-LO-WEEN, HAL-LO-WEEN . . .”

  Again a blast of thunder shook the walls. This time some of the lights went out and stayed out, as the small hospital’s emergency system struggled to maintain half-power.

  In the wavering light, Challis moved. His neck swelled angrily beneath his white collar.

  Startled, the nurse snatched her hand away.

  “Don’t they ever give up?” he roared.

  “EIGHT MORE DAYS TO HAL-LO-WEEN . . .”

  “Turn that damned thing off!”

  The nurse regained her composure. “Yes, of—of course.” She reached to lower the sound.

  “I said off! Now! Will you do that little thing for me, Agnes?”

  Quickly she touched the knob again and the image collapsed and faded from the screen.

  “Thank you, Agnes. Thank you very much.”

  “It does get on one’s nerves, doesn’t it?” she said sympathetically. “Dan, it’s after seven. When you didn’t sign out, well, I was worried.”

  “I know, I know.” Challis rubbed his face as though to brush away cobwebs. “Sorry, Agnes. Really. I must have dozed off.”

  “Passed out from exhaustion is more like it.” She positioned herself behind him and began kneading his hunched shoulders through the coat.

  He didn’t seem to notice. He shuttered his fingers over his eyes and let out a sour breath. “What else is new? Christ, this is getting to be a regular part of my rounds, isn’t it? Tell me the truth, Agnes. I can count on you. You always tell me the truth. Don’t you.”

  “Well, all I know is that a person can’t keep working double shifts for as long as you have and not expect to pay the piper sooner or later.” Her voice took on a maternal quality, scolding and solicitous at the same time.

  “Everything,” said Challis matter-of-factly, “has its price. I knew that. But it didn’t stop me, did it? No, not me.” His voice trailed off bitterly. He snorted to clear his throat.

  With surprising tenderness the nurse said, “You know, sometimes the price isn’t worth paying. Ever think of that?”

  “I did, Agnes. Truly I did. Thought about it night and day for six months. A lot longer than that, if you want me to be honest about it. More like since the first year Linda and I were married, how do you like that? Then, after a while, that was all I did. Think. I couldn’t even sleep.”

  “And are things any better now?”

  To that Challis said nothing.

  From outside on the highway came a bleating of horns, followed by a siren. A streak of red light swept across the dripping panes.

  “Well,” said Agnes finally, massaging her strong thumbs deep into his medulla. “I think it’s time for you to get on home. Nothing personal, now, but I do believe we can manage without you for a few hours.”

  “Home?” said Challis bitterly. “What home? I know, I know. I made my bed. Now I have to lie in it. Isn’t that what you were about to say?”

  “Well, as I believe Our Lord once told Pilate, ‘You said it, I didn’t.’ ”

  “At least I have a bed. Even if it’s only a mattress on the floor.”

  The nurse lowered her hands from his neck and wagged her head behind his back. “My, aren’t we feeling sorry for ourselves tonight?”

  “If I don’t, who will?” he snapped.

  He unbent and turned to her, his spine cracking like breadsticks.

  “Hell, Aggie, you’re the only one I can talk to. Crying in my beer again, am I? Well, why the hell not? I put it to you. Seriously, now.” He tried a smile. It came out brave but crooked. “Agnes, tell me you’ve got a nice cold beer stashed somewhere with my name on it. You were just about to say that, weren’t you? I can tell. My mouth feels like a bedpan.”

  The nurse’s eyes twinkled in spite of her best efforts. “You get on out of here, Daniel Challis. Go on, now.”

  “Want to get drunk with me tonight, Agnes?”

  “Thought this was the night you’re supposed to see those beautiful kids of yours.”

  He made a fist and slammed it into his forehead. “Oh, Jesus. You’re right.” He sighed hoarsely. “That means I still have to pick up something for them. Another peace offering. You know, it never ends. I never spent this much money on them when I was living there.”

  “They don’t want your money,” she said reproachfully. “They want you.”

  “Spare me.” He pulled back his sleeve and checked his watch.

  “They want their daddy, don’t you know that? That’s all they want. They—”

  He rose abruptly.

  “It’s not what they want or don’t want that’s at issue anymore.” He unbuttoned his white coat and headed for the door. “Their mother’s the middleman now. She’s worse than that pimp of a lawyer. The two of them won’t be satisfied till I’ve sold off my body parts to keep them comfortable. And you know what? Even then they won’t be happy. They’ll still think I’m hiding assets.” He was in the hall. “See you in the morning, Agnes. You know where to reach me if there’s an emergency.”

  “At the house, Dan?” she said hopefully. “I remember that number by heart. I’ll bet Linda’s going to be so glad to see you that—”

  “At the apartment, Agnes, at the apartment. I don’t live at the house anymore, Agnes. It’s not my house anymore, Agnes. Do me a favor and try to get that straight.”

  “Why, it’s still your house. If you want to live in it, I’m sure—”

  “I’m sure, too.” He cut her off. “I’m sure, understand? Anyway, use the pager. It’s simpler.”

  She watched him go.

  “Poor man,” she whispered sadly. “Poor, foolish man. They’re all the same. They never learn.” The rain bled down the windows like tears, casting rippled shadows over her. “By the time they do, it’s too late.”

  She let her eyes close and lifted her face to the dim ceiling in the empty room.

  “He’s a good man, Jesus,” she said. “Lift the scales from his eyes that he may see, and put Thy Word in his heart that he may listen, and hear. Before it’s too late for him, too. Before it’s too late for all of us.

  “This man matters. He can make a difference. I believe he can . . .”

  THE NIGHT

  HE CAME

  HOME AGAIN

  C H A P T E R

  1

  The headlights stabbed the road like icepicks.

  Challis left Main Street behind and cut across town to Chestnut. The rain had let up but his wipers continued to skitter across the windshield, doggedly trying to clear his field of vision. Now they began to drub the glass, the rubber blades tearing under the useless effort. He gave up and shut them off.

  It was Sunday night and virtually every place of business in Sierra Mesa was locked up until morning. The only potential signs of life he encountered were a taco stand, an automated Terrible Herbst gas station, a Weenee Wigwam drive-thru and a self-serve laundromat within
which sleepwalking shapes glided in slow-motion as if underwater among gaping washers and dryers, laboring through the night over vaguely disturbing mounds of dirty linen. As he drove past the steamed-up front, an elongated figure of impossible height seemed to emerge from the depths of the store, growing larger in a sickly green glow from behind the coin-fed machines.

  Challis accelerated and left the area, his unease increasing as he made for Tenth Avenue and his last remaining hope.

  Otherwise he would have to throw himself on the mercy of Linda and the kids empty-handed.

  Kids, he thought. They don’t forget—they’re too young—and so they don’t forgive. They’re the only truly uncivilized beings left on earth, a race apart, a primitive tribe and a law unto themselves. Like Linda. She’s allowed herself to regress to their level without bothering to reacquire any of their saving graces. Somewhere along the line she became a beautiful woman with a steel bar shoved up her ass all the way to her brain. She can’t bend an inch; it might kill her. She could relax her sphincter muscles and let it go anytime she wants to. But she won’t. It’s her choice. And that’s something I can’t forgive her for.

  Unlike Bella and Willie, who are growing all the time. Unless she succeeds in shoving a rod up their asses, too. With her help they’ll grow straight, all right—they’ll turn into petty fascists, all intolerance and kangaroo court judgments and inhumanly rigid verdicts. Like machines.

  I’ve got to get over there, he thought, and let some real life blow through that house right now, tonight, no matter what. If it’s not already too late.

  He peered ahead for the convenience market, his last chance. They never close, he thought, isn’t that right? Raul’s there night and day, every time I stop by. He’ll have something. Something to get me off the hook so my kids won’t think I’m the schmuck their mother tells them I am.

  The sky cleared above the trees and the STOP ’N START MARKET sign materialized out of the mist.

  Well, praise the Lord, he thought, easing up on the accelerator. I’m saved, after all. At least I hope I am.