The Child Behind Michael Myers

Haddonfield, 1963. Halloween is the loudest night of the year—bright masks, stitched costumes, candy lines at every porch. Inside the Myers house, it’s quiet. A father drinks. A mother hasn’t cooked in days. Michael asks for a costume. They laugh. Use what you’ve got.

In the shed he finds a broken mask, trims it to fit, wraps a torn sheet, and takes the only thing on the counter: a knife (object, not instruction). On the street, nobody cheers. A small boy in a crooked mask gets looked away from. Upstairs, his sister is dressing for a party, still mocking him. He stands in the doorway—mask on, hand tight. By morning, she is dead, and the boy who only wanted to belong is gone. What remains is the mask—and the  ...