Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition by Nicholas

here?”
    Relieved just then from a feeling of mounting unease, Norm couldn’t think enough to summon an answer. He backed away from the garage door, trying to refocus on his original plan. A stack of red metal toolbox drawers towered between him and the other half of the garage, and he sidestepped to avoid its menacing build.
    It wept at him.
    Norm wanted nothing to do with that hallucination, until after his next few steps when he found himself face to face with yet another the figure he’d spotted at the service pumps outside.
    The shape glared down upon him through thick bandages wrapped around its face and head. It was garbed in no more than a generic hospital gown, soiled and weathered and torn. The arms at its sides were massive; limbs of tissue so hideously scarred that it was a wonder they weren’t wrapped in bandages also. His right hand gripped a long, steel rod.
    Norm had time enough to question the reality of the situation, and the shape allowed him time. Was this real?
    “Glen, is that you ?”
    With a sudden upward thrust of the shape’s arm, Norm’s surreal mental trip at once came to an end, and as the shape’s blow thrust him into an eternity even more surreal, his final thoughts drifted into a stifled hush:
    I don’t have to be stuck in this shithole no more.
    Norman Dale’s body now hung from the top of the steel rod like a flag, the toes of his shoes teetering above the cement floor. The rod had impaled him upwards through the spot beneath his jaw and above his throat, as far into his brain as to play peek-a-boo through his skull out the top of his head.
    The shape lowered the victim and, with the heel of one mud-caked bare foot, slid the carnage off the rod.
    “Norm, are you there? Did you hear me?” The shape turned.
    Glen slid out from the underbelly of a station wagon, looked up from beneath the front bumper. The shape stepped into view, towering above him. It raised the bloody rod for a moment long enough for Glen to let out a scream, then plunged it into his lower abdomen. It let go of the rod, stepped back in fascination as the service mechanic spasmed and writhed and grew still.
    It lifted its gaze to the tow truck resting at the far side of the station wagon. It turned, studied the lifeless body at its feet, then turned towards the other corpse, eyeing the coveralls the mechanics both wore, sizing them up.
    It was time to get busy.
                 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Seven
    After driving for a few miles off the interstate, surrounded by nothing but desolation as dust and brambles and tumbleweeds rolled in the warm breeze as he passed, Doctor Loomis came upon a single roadside gas station/cafe. As he pulled up to the unleaded fuel pumps and stepped out of the sedan, he discovered that the place was just as desolate and weatherworn as the miles of wasteland surrounding him. There didn’t appear to be a soul around, and Loomis at first suspected whoever was here were all inside, or his presence would summon someone, an attendant most likely, and everything would be fine.
    But everything wasn’t fine. He sensed it as soon as his shoes met the dusty asphalt.
    Nevertheless, he proceeded to fill the sedan’s tank up with gas. As he did, he surveyed the area. Still no one came out to assist him. No one came out for any reason.
    There was a vacant lot next door; nothing but a chainlink fence surrounding the same desert inside as there was outside. He expected there to be a dog of some sort within the boundaries of the fence, but as he gazed closer, his eyes momentarily blinded by the sun, he saw nothing.
    Behind him stood a three door mechanic’s garage, one door was open, disclosing a racked, weather—beaten blue station wagon, the series of rectangular windows on the other doors revealed nothing but darkness. Still, there was no movement save for the rustling of papers within the