Джон Пассарелла - Halloween - The Official Movie Novelization

The hesitation was all the head start Karen needed.

She took a wider path around him to stay clear, but when she grabbed the lower section of the handrail, it snapped free and she nearly lost her balance. Though she recovered quickly, Michael was already lurching toward the stairs right behind her. As she ran up the steps, she felt his bloodied hand, with two fingers missing, swipe at her heel, unable to get a grip, but causing her to stumble and pitch forward. Her palm shot out, catching the edge of a tread to stop her fall. Then she shoved herself upright and continued to climb.

Halfway through the floor opening, Karen thought she’d made it to safety, but the stairs rumbled beneath her as Michael lunged forward. This time his intact right hand clamped tight around her ankle— and yanked!

Karen fell forward, her arms, head, and torso sprawled across the tile floor, while her legs remained below the shelter entrance. As Michael pulled on her ankle, tugging her inexorably down, her hands scrabbled for purchase, anything to slow her descent, but the smooth tile offered no resistance for her sweaty palms. In seconds, only her head and forearms remained above the kitchen floor. She braced her arms against the edges of the doorframe, wincing in pain from Michael’s powerful grip on her ankle.

Allyson slid forward on her knees and reached out. “Mom! Take my hand!”

With her left hand wrapped around her mother’s upper arm, and her right hand gripping her mother’s left, Allyson pulled with desperate strength. But it wasn’t enough. After a brief stalemate, Allyson faltered. Her knees slid forward, toward the opening, and her mother’s head began to dip below the level of the floor. Grimacing, Karen screamed in pain, tears in her eyes. She knew how this would end, and she refused to take her daughter down with her.

“No, baby, run!” Karen yelled.

Grunting with effort, Allyson said, “I’m not… gonna leave… you!”

But her fingers were slipping.

All Karen had to do was open her hand—

“Nobody’s going to run,” Laurie said.

She held one of the black-and-white security monitors she’d disconnected from the kitchen wall shelf, an old-fashioned CRT display about the size of a basketball.

“Duck!” Laurie told Karen.

Karen complied instantly, lowering her head between her outstretched arms.

Laurie hurled the CRT and, from the satisfying thud of the impact, hit Michael in the head with it, which was followed by another crash, as Michael fell to the bottom of the stairs for a second time. Suddenly, the pressure on Karen’s ankle was gone. Her foot dropped and caught against one of the wooden treads, and Allyson pulled with renewed strength. In a moment, Karen raced up the steps, free of the shelter.

In a flash, she turned to the askew kitchen island, reached under the counter’s edge and pushed a recessed button.

Shunnnk!

A horizontal security gate slammed into place across the opening in the floor—locking The Shape in the basement.

Seeing Allyson’s wide-eyed expression, Karen smiled and said, “It isn’t a cage, baby. It’s a trap.”

Laurie looked down through the thick bars of the locked security gate.

The Shape lay sprawled on the basement floor, unmoving—

—but breathing…

Wounded and exhausted, Laurie backed away from the gate and leaned against the counter, hand pressed to her head where the fire poker nearly split her skull open. Her shirt was soaked with her blood. The pain throbbing in her body had become an insistent drumbeat, impossible to ignore. And the last trace of adrenaline in her system had evaporated. She needed all her strength and concentration simply to stand without toppling over.

It’s not done yet , she told herself. He’s confined, that’s all. Not…

“I need to…”

“I got this, Mom,” Karen said. “Just like you taught me.”

Karen walked to the kitchen wall with a slight limp from her sore ankle, turned four wave handles to the open position. In the shelter below, four recessed natural gas faucets hissed, sounding unusually loud and powerful in the silent house.

After several seconds, Karen returned to the island beside Laurie, pulled open one of the drawers and removed a small box. “One last thing…”

“Let me,” Laurie said weakly.

She’d waited forty years for this moment. The least she could do was finish it.

Karen handed her the box.

Laurie’s hands were steady as she slid it open, took out a wooden match, and ran the head against the striking surface. She had enough strength left to focus on the final act. Leaning over the security gate, she saw Michael—lying on his back, one knee raised, breathing…

“Goodbye, Michael.”

And she dropped the lit match through the metal bars. The unlit end hit the edge of the third step, spun forward, twirling, and fell toward the floor until—

WHOOSH!

All three women, leaning over to witness the end, felt the concussive blast as flames engulfed the basement, consuming everything flammable within it. In seconds, the fire raced up the wooden stairs and begin to spread through the kitchen.

Michael will burn within my house , Laurie thought, with all the keepsakes and photos that have lingered throughout the years and, along with them, the memories that have sustained but also haunted us .

Allyson and Karen helped Laurie to the front door, one on each side of her, their arms under hers, wrapped around her back. On her own, she wouldn’t have had the strength to walk away from her own final trap. With them beside her, she thought she might just survive…

Getting down from the porch was harder than she anticipated, each step triggering a jarring burst of pain. More than once, a moan escaped her lips. But the frightening sound of the all-consuming fire, quickly rising to a roar, energized her, helped her focus on surviving the next few moments, and the next few after that…

The police cruiser that had drawn Ray out into the front yard stood next to her overturned trash cans, all four tires slashed. She caught a glimpse of the grisly scene within the car and looked away.

Karen stopped to pick up a bright yellow yo- yo lying in the brown grass. Laurie recalled Karen asking Ray in the back of the police car if he could untangle the knots for her before she took it back to the community center.

“Mom…?” Karen asked as a sob escaped Karen’s lips. “Ray—what happened…?”

“Oh, Karen,” Laurie said softly. “I’m so sorry…”

Laurie noticed silent tears streaming down Allyson’s cheeks.

As they crossed the yard, the heat from the fire shattered windows, and the porch erupted in flames. The burning roof creaked and groaned, and the twin sets of spotlights crashed through the charred wood, one side after the other, like mechanical eyes forever closed.

The three women continued walking toward the road. Even supported by her daughter and granddaughter, Laurie feared that if she stopped she’d lack the strength to move again. From a safe distance they turned back to watch the old farmhouse surrender to the inferno.

Laurie stared at the house, wondering how she felt about losing everything to the fire. But then it occurred to her that almost everything she’d lost had been saved or built in preparation for the cleansing flames. She couldn’t deny the fire its due.

More importantly, she had her daughter and granddaughter back in her life, for however long that life lasted. The fire had also freed her to be a mother again, and a grandmother, and nothing else precluded her from embracing those roles.

Wincing from a new, sharper bout of pain, Laurie reached down to her belt, where she’d slipped the kitchen knife she’d used to stab Michael before he fell into the basement. She withdrew the knife and handed it to Allyson.