ONE
I munched on the small pack of purple nerds that I pulled from my Halloween bag. I had gotten so much candy from trick or treating earlier with mommy. She and daddy went out for a few hours and now I was waiting for them to come back. I was excited to show her how much candy I had gotten!
I looked up at the TV which was flashing with a scary show. The shower curtains suddenly opened with a start and revealed somebody standing there, holding a knife, stabbing the lady who was taking a shower. Loud, high pitched music was playing in the background.
With wide eyes, I put a hand over my eyes while I continued to eat my Halloween candy.
“She got dead,” I shook my head, uncovering my eyes again as I reached into my pillow case and pulled out a pack of candy called Pop Rocks. I neatly put the empty package of nerds on the coffee table next to the couch I was sitting on, adding it to my collection of candy wrappers. I planned to start a collection just of Halloween candy!
Suddenly, another scream came from the movie, but this time it was louder, startling me. I jumped, dropping my Pop Rocks all over the living room carpet. I glanced down, a sad expression written all over my face.
That was my last package of Pop Rocks, I thought. One of my favorite candies.
I glanced back at the TV, expecting to see another person dead, but instead there were two people just talking.
That was when I heard the scream once again, except this time it was much more clear than before. It was a blood-curdling scream and actually sounded like somebody needed help.
I stood up, now distinguishing the difference between TV and reality. It sounded like it came from somewhere inside the house, so I stood up, fear in my eyes.
What if… what if the shower-monster is inside the house?!
I was about to make my way across the room and up the stairs where I knew my older sister and brother were, but before I could get up, I heard the sound of somebody making their way down the stairs. I stood where I was in the living room and watched with caution until I could fully see the person. It was somebody wearing a clown costume with a mask. It looked like the costume my brother had been wearing for Halloween. The only thing that looked different was the fact that he was holding a knife from the kitchen.
Why would he be eating upstairs? I thought, confused. Mommy and daddy don’t like us eating upstairs.
He didn’t even look my way as he quickly walked straight to the front door and opened it. Then, he disappeared outside. It wasn’t long until I heard the sounds of my parents voices, talking to him. They sounded shocked.
A smile began forming on my face as I ran out of the living room and rushed up the stairs.
“Judith!” I shouted excitedly, calling for my older sister. She didn’t like it too much when I went into her room, but I wanted to let her know that our parents were finally home.
“Mommy and daddy are…”
I stopped talking when I got to the doorway of her room. I stopped in my tracks, standing beside the doorway outside her room, both confused and scared. My sister was laying on the floor in a pool of blood.
I screamed out in fear just as I heard the sound of someone calling my name. It sounded so far away yet so close. I looked around me, seeing nothing but pitch black darkness.
That was when somebody touched my shoulder.
I sat up, still screaming from my dream. Standing next to my bed was my mother. She wore a concerned face and was touching my shoulder.
“Kenzie, honey, you’re okay,” she reassured, her voice thick with worry. “It’s just a dream. I’m here.”
I glanced at her. Still breathing heavily, I was speechless. I was still filled with complete terror.
“Are you okay, honey?” my mom asked me slowly. “You haven’t had nightmares in for a long time now.”
“I-I…” my voice trailed off. I looked down at my blanket, unsure what to say. I was unsure what to think myself. This nightmare was nothing like I had before. All my other nightmares were full of haunting images from that night last Halloween, along with the gruesome deaths of people I loved, but this one was nothing like those.
In this nightmare, I had witnessed the dead body of somebody who I apparently referred to as my older sister. But the thing was… I didn’t have a sister. I was an only child.
“I’m fine,” I managed to keep myself together. I put my head in my hands, shaking my head. “Just a dream.”
But I haven’t had nightmares in so long, why are they starting up again?
“Alright, well after school today you have an appointment with Doctor Graham,” my mom gave me a pat on the shoulder as she began to walk to the doorway of my room. “Don’t forget to go there right after school today.”
I nodded. “I know.”
Doctor Graham, my psychiatrist.
A psychiatrist was never something I ever even remotely needed. So many things changed after that night. In fact, I became a different person after that night.
I had always been the girl with the boring life. I only had two close friends, never had a boyfriend, and spent her nights babysitting as her source of money.
But after Halloween night last year, everything changed.
I lost both my friends.
I lost the boy I had liked.
I lost myself.
It started as a normal Halloween night: October 31st, 1978. But it ended as the most horrific night I had ever experienced.
Upon going across the street to the Wallace’s house - where my friend Lynda and her boyfriend were - to check if everything’s fine, I found the body of her boyfriend, Bob, hung up in a closet - a bleeding stab wound in his chest, a jack-o-lantern over his head, and Halloween lights wrapped around his entire body. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I also found the body of the boy I liked, Ben Tramer. The boy I had found so perfect and always hoped he would one day like me back. I found him, lifelessly sitting tucked underneath a white sheet, his throat slit. The police had reported that Ben had been dead for longer than any of my other friends, that he had to be dead already for at least half the day. That would mean he was killed shortly after Lynda and him had left my house after pranking me.
I witnessed the death of the boy my friend Annie liked, Paul. I tried to warn him, tried to tell him to run, but he wouldn’t listen to me…until it was too late.
Later that night, the police recovered the body of my friend Lynda, tucked away in another closet in the Wallace’s house. She had been strangled, strangled by the wire of a phone, actually. And I was the one who had been on the line with her when it had happened. I had heard her choking, but I had thought it was a joke. Little did I know that I was actually hearing her death. Hearing the last sounds she’d ever make.
A short time after that Halloween, the Wallaces moved out of that house. I wasn’t sure if it was because their whole house practically became one of many crime scenes, or because they didn’t want their daughter to become even more traumatized and frightened than she already was. Either way, whatever the reason, I completely supported their decision. If only my parents had been that easy on me.
The police also recovered the body of my friend Annie. Her body was found hunched over in the back seat of her car.
And I was almost dead, too. That is if I wasn’t stumbled upon by a police officer and a psychiatrist, Doctor Loomis. I was about to be strangled to death when they entered the house. The police officer shot the masked killer six times before he eventually fell down the stairs, landing at the bottom of the staircase, laying there motionlessly.
I learned it was whom Tommy and all the little kids of Haddonfield referred to as “the boogeyman.”
It was Michael Myers, the boogeyman of Haddonfield. He was the six year old boy who had murdered his sister fifteen years ago, and he was also the patient who had escaped from Smith’s Grove Sanitarium the night before the murders last year. Doctor Loomis was his psychiatrist; his psychiatrist who had been trying to warn the police officers about his patient, warning them that he’d come back to Haddonfield. He had no luck on his warnings; he was called off as crazy. The Haddonfield police department was all so sure that he surely wouldn’t come back to Haddonfield until he did.
After that night, besides all the trauma and fear I felt, I couldn’t help but also feel guilty. Guilty for the deaths of all the people I was closest with. The whole day I had thought Lynda and Ben were playing a prank on me. I thought they had been trying to scare me the whole time. But that was until it was too late.
Still, one year later, I still couldn’t help but think how I could’ve prevented this from happening. I constantly was beating myself up over it. I wasn’t the same person I used to be, and I knew I wouldn’t ever be that person again.
If my parents thought a psychiatrist would solve the problems, they’re wrong. Especially a psychiatrist that constantly tries to hinder me anyway from the truth. Doctor Graham is just like everybody else in the town. All I ever hear is how last Halloween was a one-time thing, and how there’s no reason for him to come back. She’d try to get me to understand the mechanic of a serial killer. She’d try to let me see how he killed a good number of people last year, and how that’s all a killer does.
“They don’t specifically focus on a specific person if they don’t have reason to,” she’d tell me. “And in your case, Kenzie, there is no reason at all for him to come back. None at all.”
Truth be told, I’d heard that a thousand times before. Still, it wouldn’t make me feel any more comfortable. It didn’t let me feel any less scared. I was still left with the nightmares, with the memories. Still left with what happened that Halloween night. It all would endlessly play in my mind like a broken record.
Forever.
And it was torture, to say the least.
