Halloween IV: The Ultimate Edition Read Free Page A

farmhouse nearby, another row of skeletons looked on under the newly painted beams of the porch, almost in mock comparison to their comrades yards before them.
    Back on the country road, rain washed the asphalt in sheets before the headlights of the transport bus. Within the bus, two Smith’s Grove Medical personnel waited silently to reach their destination amidst emergency monitoring equipment and a space which would hold the gurney of the patient they awaited custody of. Heavy smoke filled the front section of the bus, smoke from the driver’s filtered cigarette, and the nearly-overweight security guard muttered something to nobody in particular before he let out a brief coughing fit which languished into a dreamless sleep. The driver suddenly felt it best for all concerned to turn on the radio, and found that as he did so nobody seemed to care either way. There were very few stations available to choose from, and he picked the one which emitted a familiar song, which he soon recognized as Mister Sandman by The Chordettes.
    So what , he figured. So I’m an oldies fan .
    And occasionally, between puffs, he mouthed a few of the words to himself. The ashes from the cigarette were tapped between each verse into a glass Magic Carpet Motel ashtray situated on the dashboard directly below a red and white sticker above the windshield which read THANK YOU FOR NOT SMOKING.
    And the bus drove on.
    It drove on through the pouring rain until the distant reaches of the headlight beams came across the gleam of the high security gates up ahead. The driver crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and flicked on his high beams for a moment’s time, which cut through to disclose a sign on the right:
    Ridgemont Federal Sanitarium
MAXIMUM SECURITY
     
    Authorized Personnel Only
     
    No Visitors
     
    All vehicles subject to search
     
    High beams remaining for the sake of a reasonably better view through the dimness, the driver made a right-hand turn into the driveway just past the sign and rolled the bus to a stop in front of the main gates. He waited as the gates slowly retracted, then proceeded to drive through as the guard beside him shifted in his seat and opened his eyes to the realization that they had finally arrived. He swished away accumulated smoke from his face with his hand.
    “Okay,” the driver announced. “Time to party.”
    He switched off the radio, which was now beginning to broadcast something which sounded like an old James Brown tune.
    Inside the sanitarium, there was a security guard seated within the confines of a large glass booth, a more bulky individual than the guard who remained within the bus outside. He gazed up at a fly buzzing around the lukewarm coffee within his I LOVE MY COCKER SPANIEL mug, the LOVE symbolized as a heart and the COCKER SPANIEL an undersized picture of a floppy-eared mutt. He gave his crew cut a quick scratch before attempting to ward off the fly with his hand, grabbing at it rather than giving it an offending wave. He had attempted to actually grab at it before, perhaps out of boredom or perhaps out of merely hoping to catch the insect one day. Regardless, the circumstances were evident. But he didn’t exactly hate his job, however boring it seemed. As a matter of fact, he favored his surroundings more than any other aspect of his work experience. It was most likely due to his father being an architect and his desire to follow in his footsteps, but he was deeply interested in how Ridgemont was actually a penitentiary which had been built in the late 1920’s. Fifty-year—old light fixtures hung above slowly rotating ceiling fans. Beams of painted wood stretched from wall to wall. Of course, it was no work of art. But the guard didn’t exactly like ART. He liked OLD. He liked
    NOSTALGIA.
    Anyway, nothing could truly say much for his job now that he thought about it; he was still known to all of his Friday night buddies at Larry’s Bar as the GUY WHO WORKS IN A LOONEY BIN.
    What the