Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition by Nicholas Page A

center garage, and the steady rap rap rap of what the doctor presumed to be a remote screen door on the other side, loosened by the wind.
    The gas pump nozzle clicked off; he was finished pumping gas. The meter read nine dollars, and the doctor counted the money within his wallet and drew out a ten. He then proceeded toward the open garage.
    Still, there was no one in sight.
    He halted. There was movement now, from behind the station wagon.
    “Hello,” he called out. He waited.
    There was no answer.
    He must have been seeing things within the garage; for as he carefully peered inside, he found that no one was there. The wind gently swept through the garage’s interior, rustling block and tackle chains hanging to his right on a wooden beam.
    “Hello?” he called out again, this time louder. Still not a soul.
    Cautiously, he stepped past the station wagon and into the shadows, eyes searching, finding an old, Plymouth Belvedere and a glass doorway at the end of a row of tool-lined shelving.
    He called out a third time. “I said, hello. Is there anyone here....?”
    His gaze went to the opening of the garage, out into the area of the pumps where his sedan rested. He turned, and suddenly his face knocked dead center into dangling human legs and feet. Frantically, Loomis fought blindly at whatever was before him, arms waving impulsively, until he stumbled back and beheld what was hanging before him.
    It was a body; nude, hanging among block and tackle chains, motionless---pale.
    Dear Jesus.
    He stared upon the corpse, himself motionless, stunned---disbelieving. There was silence again, silence save for the steady creaking of the wood beams from the body’s weight as it slowly rotated above. He turned. There, upon the floor, not far away from a rolling red tool chest of drawers, was another body, clothed in bloodied mechanic’s coveralls, sprawled as though tossed there in a discarded heap.
    Loomis began to regain his footing; he was shaking from the sudden shock. He quickly exited the garage and entered through the glass double doors of the cafe. A door chime announced his panicked entrance, and he wavered over to the edge of the counter, gasping. He found that the diner was just as deserted as it had appeared on the outside. There was a long line of empty booths and tables, and the counter was empty save for unfinished portions of breakfast on white plates.
    People had been there. But what happened to them? Well, that was something Loomis intensely feared.
    A Hank Williams tune was sounding forth from an old transistor radio behind the counter. Loomis moved forward toward its direction, quietly and heedfully.
    “Is anyone here?”
    It took another step for him to see the waitress, stretched out across the floor, obviously strangled, cold eyes staring thoughtlessly into nothingness.
    “God in heaven.”
    Loomis stepped back again, his feet faltering and causing him almost to stumble backwards, his hand brushing against the cash register at his side. The machine clamored, and this startled him even further, causing him to jump. His breath was heavy. His hand reached for his chest, his heart pounding rapidly, and he felt that at any time it would beat its way out of his body, striking the inner reaches of his chest cavity until it was free, finally to silence. Another thought: perhaps, at the slightest wrong turn, at any given moment, someone else would do it for him.
    Someone he knew.
    Someone he feared.
    Once, five years ago, a patient had become hysterical in a psychiatric ward and hurled himself at the doctor. He had no other choice than to use his cane in self defense. It had become a sort of impulse. He realized he had left his cane within the sedan. No matter.
    In his coat pocket was a gun, a nickel—plated, 9mm Smith and Wesson. He pulled it out. For what he was up against, what he feared was still there, perhaps in that very diner, he knew that this gun would prove just a useless as the cane. His eyes searched for