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announcement of the party proved therapeutic for most of the boys in the ward as they set to work industriously to create costumes and decorations. The costumes they chose were revealing of their deepest fantasies, and this was an unexpected bonus for the psychiatric staff who might otherwise have had to probe for months into their minds for the same material.
    In the last week before Halloween, Michael began to get restless and excited, edgy and irascible. Loomis was well aware of the psychiatric phenomenon known as the "anniversary syndrome,'' wherein mentally disturbed persons relive the events of the previous year's trauma. Michael seemed to be following this classic pattern, and on the evening of October 31, Loomis placed the staff on what he only half-jokingly called red alert. The children (the girl's ward had been allowed to join the boys for the occasion) were to be carefully observed, and Loomis wanted two staff members besides himself to do nothing else but watch Michael. Loomis needed not only an incident, but witnesses.
    The children were led into the little gymnasium, Where black and orange streamers had been festooned, and cutouts of witches and goblins, black cats and pumpkins made by the children had been taped to the walls. The children wore their costumes, and even the nurses and orderlies donned clever masks, hats, or costumes to join in the fun.
    Michael was dressed as a clown.
    After cake and soda, the games began. For obvious reasons, they were kept simple and non-threatening. But after a round of musical chairs, in which a sixteen-year-old girl named Sophie had beaten Michael out for the last chair (had she known about the boy's reputation, she'd have given it to him), Loomis leaned forward alertly, scrutinizing Michael. The stage had been set for something .
    The next game was ducking for apples. A huge vat had been borrowed from the kitchen, filled with water, and a dozen apples floated in it. The idea was for the children to pick an apple out of the water using just their teeth.
    After eight or nine children had gone, it was Sophie's turn. Michael stood third or fourth in line behind her. She leaned over the lip of the vat, struggling to keep her hands behind her back to resist the temptation to grab the apple.
    The lights went out.
    It was not uncommon for the lights to fail at Smith's Grove, especially on windy nights, when trees fell on power lines in rural areas. But it was not a windy night.
    Loomis had been prepared for anything but this. He leapt from his chair and ran in the pitch darkness for the spot where he thought the vat was. He bowled over several shrieking children and groped the last few steps until he collided with the platform on which the vat stood. At that moment the hospital's own emergency generators, which tripped on automatically when the main utility system failed, brought light back into the auditorium.
    Sophie lay face down beside the vat, drenched from the waist up. Loomis searched the room for Michael. He stood under a basketball backboard, at least ten steps away, smiling. Loomis looked at the boy's costume and hands: They were completely dry.
    With a nurse Loomis applied artificial respiration, and after a moment the girl brought up a large quantity of water, sputtering and gasping. The party was over. Loomis's trap had failed. But ultimately, Loomis won. For, on the day he was scheduled to drive up to the county seat to plead his case with Judge Christopher, he received a phone call from the bailiff of the juvenile court.
    The night before, Judge Christopher had had a massive coronary and died on the way to the hospital.
    Judge Christopher's successor was far less sympathetic to Michael Myers. He had only read about the case, and was convinced Michael was the brutal killer that the psychiatrist claimed. Loomis presented the new judge with a forty-five page paper describing Michael's personality and the incidents of the last year, and though there was still not a shred