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door on the other side. Hoffman walked over to the embankment and in dismay followed Loomis’ gaze down the slope to the overturned vehicle. Doctor Loomis appeared calm, sounded calm, but Hoffman noted there was a seriousness, a cast of despair within his eyes; always this despair.
    “Is that it?” asked Loomis to Hoffman.
    “Yes,” he answered regretfully. A state trooper approached them, and Hoffman turned to him. It was time to be serious, terribly serious, as was his fellow professional with the cane. But there was no need for panic. The circumstances were very simple: Michael Myers was dead . If not, he was laying seriously injured down there in the wreckage. He must believe that; to do otherwise would place himself at the same level as the overly negative, paranoid doctor beside him. Emotions aside, he asked the trooper, “Do you know when this happened?”
    “Sometime during the night. They probably lost the road in the storm. Went off the embankment. It happens.”
    Hoffman turned back to Loomis. Perhaps the good doctor would now realize what really happened here. “An accident,” he said plainly.
    Loomis started up, “Do you really think that ”
    “Why shouldn’t I?” Hoffman told him.
    “How many staff on the bus?” Loomis snapped.
    “Four plus Myers.”
    Loomis turned to the trooper immediately. The baldness of his forehead was streaming with sweat. “How many bodies have you found?”
    “Hard to tell,” the trooper answered. “They’re all pretty chewed up.”
    Determined, Loomis started down the embankment. The Ridgemont administrator called after him. “Loomis. It’s over. Leave it alone!”
    He threw his hands into the air in total frustration. The trooper beside him shook his head and gave a half amused sort of grin.
    “Oh, hell.” Hoffman went off down the embankment in turn.
    Loomis carefully approached the wreckage, not minding the filth and mud encasing his shoes as much as what he feared he would find, or, rather, what he would not find, up ahead. He scrutinized each piece of metal; studied every bit and portion of the accident as he passed. Finally, he reached the twisted metal doors and poked his head heedfully inside.
    Coming up on the rear, Hoffman in turn made his way to the twisted doors of the bus. He met Loomis’ dismal frown.
    “He’s not here,” Loomis proclaimed. “He’s gone. Dammit, he’s gone .”
    Hoffman felt a sudden sense of anguish; a sense of profound uneasiness. It was like waking up to what you thought was a nightmare only to soak up the realization that the terror was truly taking place. He called out to a trooper nearby. “Have you found any other bodies?”
    “Not yet,” was the response. “There’s a lot of ground to cover.”
    “You won’t find him,” Loomis insisted. “He did this. Now he’s escaped.”
    “You don’t know that,” Hoffman said. “Michael could have been thrown from the bus.”
    The trooper agreed, “I’ve seen bodies thrown fifty, sixty feet from a crash site.”
    Hoffman continued, “And even if by some miracle Michael is conscious, his muscles will be useless. The man’s been ten years flat on his back. Immobile. Give the troopers time to search.”
    Loomis wasn’t listening. He was preoccupied with something else, something on the ground, something nobody else seemed to notice. He needed a closer look to be sure, and, with the tip of his cane, he raised the metal object for a better inspection. The object was an earring, gold, or at least gold-plated, a small glimmering star hanging from the ring itself. Attached to this earring was something pale. A piece of flesh.
    A human earlobe.
    Loomis turned back to the other two. “You’re talking about him as if he were a human being. That part of him died years ago.”
    He dropped the object and immediately proceeded up the embankment, Hoffman calling after him.
    “ Now where are you going?”
    “To Haddonfield,” he yelled in return. “It’s a four hour