The Devil Walks Among Us; Book l - Completed 4/21/22

Hunting the Shape

Mia tried laboring her breaths, to try and calm down and lower her heart rate despite the burning white-hot pain in her lower abdomen. Her body began to shake as the cold night air startled to settle in, telling her that it was either well-past or right at midnight. God, please help me.

Karen shook her leg impatiently as she and Allyson sat in the waiting room of the emergency room, watching as more people seemed to swarm in for minor injuries they've acquired on Halloween night - most of them still in their costumes. She frowned, looking down at her hands that she had just washed free of blood, crimson still staining the built-up callouses on her palms. She grit her jaw, anger building up that Michael killed her husband. Relieved that Michael was now dead, she had concluded that the only reason Michael killed Ray was in his pursuit of Mia, but she couldn't be mad at her mom for it as she was fighting for her life in the operating room, undergoing life-saving surgery. She was mad at Mia - mad that Mia had been coming to work every day while working alongside her, hell, even talking about the baby from time to time on their lunch breaks, not once mentioning Michael's name, even though it was never brought up as Karen had no suspicion of Mia housing Michael.

Allyson stood as patiently as she could in the hallway of the hospital, waiting for any news of her grandmother's advancement in the surgery. She sighed, looking down at the blood that stained her shirt, startled by the voice approaching her. "Allyson. Allyson. Deputy Kevin Graham. Can I speak with you?" He introduced.

She nodded hesitantly as she followed him down the hallway into a small waiting room, Deputy Graham waiting for her to feel comfortable enough to speak. "I was always told that I couldn't talk about Michael. I could never acknowledge the tragedy. It was as if my mother's biggest fear was that my grandmother was right and the Boogeyman was real."

*

Karen sat in another room being questioned by Sheriff Barker, whimpering as she explained what had happened. "For forty years, he was waiting to come and kill my mother. He found where she lived. He came to her house. She put us in his path. He murdered my husband. That's what happened."

She was eager to talk about how she could put the blame onto Mia, but she knew that telling Sheriff Barker about her would come with consequences. It wasn't like she had revealed she was housing Michael and would turn him in... She had been taken against her will by Tommy Doyle, used as bait to lure Michael into Laurie's trap, all while being manhandled while she began to go into early labor and possibly still be laying behind the dumpster Tommy put her behind until he got confirmation that Michael was dead so that he could threaten her life if she ever said anything.

*

"Well, how did Michael know? How did he know how to find your grandmother?" Deputy Graham continued to question Allyson.

She sighed, "I-I don't know. Maybe we made it too obvious. He killed his own doctor who was obsessed with my grandmother - obsessed with Michael's obsession over her. It was his doctor's obsession, not Michael's.

*

"But we got him. Shot him in the face, burned him alive so that he can't hurt anyone ever again." Karen continued to explain.

"So, tell me about Mia Harris."

Karen grimaced at her name, "What about her?"

"She works in the same program you do. I talked to her last year when Michael escaped and she confirmed that she was studying his case alongside Dr. Sartain. Do you know anything about this that we can add?"

She huffed, knowing she could either tell the truth and face trouble herself or continue to lie, knowing that possibly, Tommy would take care of her and the mess she was carrying. "No. I haven't talked to her in a couple of days. It's been about a week if I had to assume. We never really talked about Michael." She lied, relieved that Sheriff Barker took her word as he wrote notes on his pad.