#wishing he'd been friends with cool/alt guys like evan in high school

[hersweetrevenge]

firstly, ahhhhh this is everything to me !! secondly, i cannot even explain how excited to see this unfold, the amount of work you've put in is astounding and it absolutely shows, even just one chapter in !! 💗 thank you for writing and sharing !!

buckle up because i have some thoughts and cannot keep my mouth shut:

He falls down, and down, and down further than that. 

i love the coma dream. you totally capture the way that dreams can be really volatile and changeable, even if they feel very visceral. and pretty much everything that has gone wrong for corey is all summed up in this one dream.

Oh. I’m in the hospital, he thinks. He closes his eyes again. ... Corey drifts away on the morphine. 

it's always lines like this that get me !! i love this, him realising he's in the hospital and he's a least somewhat safe. i think it links really well to when nancy gives him more morphine -- it gives the sense of purgatory really well, like he's stuck in this place between death and rebirth for a while, not really with it.

Then he feels sick. Something bad happened to Ronald. 

ahhh you touched on it a little bit in Penpal, where corey doesn't know what he would of done about ronald if terry hadn't got there first, but i love the different angle you take in this piece, where he doesn't even remember what happened at first but he knows it was something bad. i think their relationship is definitely complicated and weird and strained, and i love seeing little insights about it woven into the story !!

Of course Momma didn’t make this spaghetti, he thinks. Momma’s dead... Motorcycle accident? No, that was Daddy.

ahh the moment he remembers that joan is dead but can't remember why or how, and the mention of his dad 😭 this whole sense of him being disconnected from himself after the fact works so well, and i can see it. i remember you've mentioned before that the stress/trauma/head injury combo contributed to him finally snapping and i love how this is playing out with that context in mind.

also, him relating really mundane things back to joan !! i hope this happens more, it feels so fitting to how everything revolved around her for so long.

The grief builds and builds until it feels like it’s smothering him... He is completely and utterly alone. 

ouchy 😭 this moment hits hard, seriously !! the point where he realises everything is gone. i love that there is this low point, where he isn't thinking about what to do or how to fix things, he just has this moment of absolutely wallowing because he has nothing left. make that boy suffer lol

did God love Corey Cunningham or hate him?

nancy is the real mvp here, i love her !! thinking about corey in the immediate aftermath of the accident is so intriguing to me. i love that she tries to be as unbiased as possible. corey needs someone who is just kind to him, no ulterior motives, no expectations. that's what i love about a lot of corey fanfiction, is the common idea of giving him someone who is there to be kind to him 💗

I wish I was like them, he thinks. Dead... A fitting end for a short, stupid life. 

ouchy, another hard hitter !! i feel like corey's suicidal tendencies are overlooked a lot, but it fits here so, so well !! nothing ever went his way, he feels doomed from the start and i can definitely see him thinking death would have been the answer. his last attempt at autonomy and still he wakes up to nothing. i think the desire to make an attempt again would wax and wane (a la novel canon), but it's interesting that you bring it up.

He remembers the time he spent in jail after the accident with Jeremy, viscerally. No way he would ever do that again

yes !! i love that you mention him being a jail after the accident !! it's something i've been wondering about (how long would he have been there? would he have been able to afford bail?) so it was interesting to see it crop up here !! i totally agree that corey would have a strong revulsion of the thought of being sent to prison, plus him thinking that is worse than being alive, which is already worse than if he'd just died.

And maybe they’ll have drugs, he thinks, the last of the painkillers from the hospital leaving his system.

ooh the way this got me thinking 👀 i am very excited to see if this is a recurring theme !! he is going to be struggling, with the physical pain and with coping with his new life, i wouldn't be surprised if he gained some sort of dependency for a while. that's a much darker path than if he just goes through a delayed rebellious phase of recreational experimentation like i think you've mentioned before lol

And just like that, Doug Mulaney’s disappearance and the murders of Tanner Mathis and Deborah Jennings go cold.

the joes sure are a duo lol it's a tricky situation to figure out, especially when there is evidence left behind and bodies still missing while corey kind of just gets away with it to a degree, but i think you're explanations work really well !! and i am so looking forward to how corey's paranoia about it plays out and effects this new life he's trying to make for himself.

ahh i could go on and on about this but to finish off, this was an amazing first chapter !! setting up so many ideas and weaving in enough information to hook me instantly. i'm so excited for the rest of this novel !!

Clean Again

survivor!Corey Cunningham x fem!Reader

After miraculously surviving the injuries he sustained on Halloween 2022 and narrowly avoiding arrest, Corey Cunningham lives in constant fear of being found out. He tries to keep his head down and be as invisible as possible but the first time he sees you, you see him too. Can he have a relationship with you without you really seeing ALL of him? What happens when you eventually catch a glimpse of his secret? Is love worth the risk?

new chapters posted every Thursday between 9 and 10 EST

Chapter 1: ESCAPE FROM HADDONFIELD read on AO3 | tumblr chapter index

general warnings for this fic - angst, fluff, eventual smut (MDNI), canon-typical violence, canon-typical gore contents/warnings for this chapter- gun violence, long hospitalization, prescription pain killers, wishing for death, description of a corpse, referenced past abuse (fuck you joan)

5,668 words

@rebel-blue @heartrot666 @wolvesandvampires @cordelium @toxicanonymity @multifandom--mess @hersweetrevenge @futurewife dm me or reply to this post to be added to my tag list 💕

Beep. Beep. Beep. Whoosh.

It’s pitch black. Corey can’t tell if his eyes are open or closed. He can’t hear anything except a distant beeping, punctuated by occasional whooshing. The sounds feel familiar, but he can’t figure out why. Then they fade away.

God it hurts! Everything hurts, pain like he’s never felt before. Can a person die from pain? Or is this pain what dying feels like? What being dead feels like? What Hell feels like? If he’s dead, and Hell is real, that’s certainly where he’s wound up. 

But now what’s this? A new sensation, like being swarmed by ants. And the ants eat him, all the way down to shiny, clean bones. Skeletonized. The places where he’s been reduced to bone no longer hurt. 

There are voices. Speaking in a language it seems wrong for him to hear. Something alien, or maybe something lost not long after we started walking upright. They’re warped, and warbling, like they’re being played at the wrong speed. There’s that beeping sound again. Laughter. It’s laughter, and they’re all laughing at him. 

Corey sits on the witness stand at his manslaughter trial. The gallery of the courtroom is full of people. But as he looks the crowd over he realizes it’s really all just one person. 

It’s Momma, 20 Mommas, only able to comfort him for a few minutes at time before she makes all his problems about herself. No one will ever love you like I do, and this is how you repay me? You’re killing me Corey! Is that what you want? To kill your mother?

It’s Laurie, 20 Lauries. Aiming revolvers at him. Do you wanna do it, or you want me to? She asks before unleashing a hail of bullets. They ricochet wildly around the courtroom, splintering the wood of the witness stand, releasing tiny explosions of drywall, shattering every lightbulb overhead. Riddling Corey’s body with holes, turning him into Swiss cheese. Then the dust settles and everything is normal again.

It’s Doug. 20 Dougs, guts spilling out of his stomach, throat gurgling and full of blood. You’ll be lucky if you make it back to the station. I oughta put you in the ground, you psycho son of a bitch! 

It’s Michael. No. 20 people wearing Michael’s mask, but none of them are Michael. One by one they reveal their true face. Corey’s face. Each one puts a finger up to his lips. Shhhh. Then he disappears. 

The Corey on the witness stand turns to the judge. It’s Jeremy, neck lolling, blood gushing from his split scalp. Answer the question, loser! Did you kill me on purpose or not!! He screams without moving his slack, dead mouth. Now the judge is Mrs. Allen, and she leans down to him, still screaming in Jeremy’s dead voice. You think you can just have fun with your friends!? You don’t have any friends, you ugly, white trash nerd!

A hole opens in the floor of the witness stand and Corey falls. He falls down, and down, and down further than that. 

He lands with a hard thump on the floor of the sewer. Pain radiates through his limbs and he gasps for air. Something crunches and squelches beneath him. He scrambles to his feet and looks at what he was laying on. His own corpse. Rotting and partially eaten, rats and insects swarming it. It’s wearing the silly scarecrow mask. 

He removes the mask from his own dead face. The inside is full of bugs. He shakes them onto the ground, then puts it on. As soon as it touches his face, he panics. His fingers skitter over the hard plastic surface, desperate to claw it off, but it’s stuck like it’s fused with his skin.  

Allyson pulls the mask off of him. He’s lying in a puddle of his own blood, and she’s hovering over him, holding his head in her hands. She thinks he’s dead. Her tears fall onto his face and slowly dissolve him until he’s nothing but a stain on the hardwood floor. 

Corey opens his eyes. He can’t see anything, but he knows his eyes are open.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Whoosh. 

Oh. I’m in the hospital, he thinks. He closes his eyes again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The morning of November 2nd has barely begun, but there is chaos brewing in the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. With Michael Myers turned into hamburger, things seemed like they would be calm for quite some time, and yesterday had been a great beginning. But this morning Joe Grillo and Joe Ross came to work with vengeance in their hearts. They corner Richard Wright as he fills the coffee pot with water from the cooler. 

“You collected a handprint from a glass door at the Mathis scene, right?” Grillo demands.

“Yes?” Richard replies in confusion.

“Did you run the prints?” Asks Ross. 

“No. It was a Michael Myers murder. We only collected the print because we didn’t realize it was him right away. Why would we run it?”

“Did you ever see Michael Myers before he was shredded, Dick?” Ross asks. 

“Big guy,” says Grillo. “Gigantic hands.”

“Okay…?” Richard says, still confused. 

“Handprint you collected at the Mathis scene looks kinda small to be Michael,” Grillo explains. 

“It could belong to Mathis, or the girl we found at the scene.” 

“Nope,” Grillo says. “Too small to be Michael, too big to be one of the victims. Could belong to a fourth person.”

“Could belong to Corey Cunningham,” Ross adds.

Richard takes a second to process this information. “Cunningham was a Myers victim too. He was barely clinging to life when we found him.”

“He got in Doug’s face at the diner on my birthday,” Grillo says. “Doug disappeared right after that. Seems suspicious, doesn’t it?”

“Seems like a coincidence,” Richard says. He moves to walk away but Joe Grillo and Joe Ross press in on him. Water sloshes out of the coffee carafe in Richard's hand.

“Oh yeah? Remind me who the victims were at the scene when you investigated,” prompts Ross.

 “Tanner Mathis and Deborah Jennings. So what?”

“Jennings worked at the Mathis clinic. Know who else worked there?” Grillo asks. “Allyson Nelson,” the Joes say in unison.

“Great police work,” Richard says sarcastically, trying again to walk away from the conversation. Joe Ross and Joe Grillo just tighten their press on him, until he can smell the unique reek of their combined breath. 

“Allyson was with Cunningham at the diner on my birthday,” Grillo growls.

“Joe, this town is fucking tiny. I’m sure everyone in the diner on your birthday was connected to each other and Michael Myers in some way. You’re grieving. We’re all grieving. But you can’t let that cloud your judgement. Now, if you’ll excuse me…” Richard finally manages to shoulder his way out from between the Joes and the water cooler. 

“Not everyone in the diner that night killed a kid!” Ross says after him. 

Richard turns on his heel. “Jeremy Allen’s death was an accident. Cunningham was acquitted.”

The Joes laugh mirthlessly. “Run the fucking prints, Dick.” Grillo says. 

“What’s going on here?” Asks Frank Hawkins as he comes into the break room. He hadn’t heard much, but his ears had pricked up at the name Cunningham. Frank numbered among the few in the Warren County Sheriff’s Department who had believed in Corey’s innocence from the beginning. He’d felt a pang of sadness when he’d seen the poor boy’s body crumpled in the foyer at Laurie’s house two nights ago, and he held a tiny kernel of hope that he would survive his injuries. 

“Just trying to make sure our police work is thorough and complete, Frank,” says Joe Ross.

“They wanna run the handprint from the Mathis scene,” Richard clarifies. 

“That was a Michael Myers murder, and Michael Myers is dead.”

“Michael Myers is. But Corey Cunningham isn’t,” Grillo says.

“Yet,” Ross adds darkly. 

“Why would it be Corey Cunningham’s handprint?” Frank doesn’t follow.

“They think he had something to do with Doug’s disappearance. Mathis and Jennings both worked with Allyson Nelson.” Richard rolls his eyes, something he’s found cause to do quite a lot of this morning. 

Frank doesn’t like this at all. He feels a kind of paternal care for Allyson, as Laurie’s granddaughter. He’s not sure what her relationship with Corey is, but he wants to protect her, protect both of them after they’ve been through so much.

“Michael Myers is responsible for Doug’s disappearance.” Frank says. “Let it rest. We all need to try to move on.”

“You can move on. I’m gonna run those fucking prints,” Joe Ross says.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Corey comes to his senses slowly, head unfogging a little bit every day. He struggles to make meaning out of the things happening around him, to remember why he’s in the hospital. It seems like something he should know. 

Today Corey feels the best he’s felt since he realized he was in the hospital. He’s still in pain, excruciating pain. He tries to move around but it feels like his body has forgotten how to. His muscles groan and his nerves tingle. His arms and legs are heavy and wooden. But his brain is churning. His thoughts are more than just smears.

The TV on the wall in the room is turned on. Through the blur without his glasses, he recognizes Judge Judy. Ron likes Judge Judy, he remembers. Then he feels sick. Something bad happened to Ronald. 

A nurse comes into the room. Corey can’t move his head, but he moves his eyes towards her. Her wavy brown hair is pulled into a ponytail.

“You’re awake! Welcome back to Earth!” She says to him as she putters around the room. “Are you hungry? I can have them deliver some solid food for your lunch now that you’re awake.” She checks his vitals and marks them in his chart.

“Yes, please,” Corey whispers raggedly. His voice is small and unfamiliar to him. 

“How’s your pain?” The nurse asks, vial and syringe in hand. He can’t find an answer. It’s awful, but it doesn’t feel like it’s happening to him. This stiff, immobile body isn’t attached to anything. Someone else is in pain in this hospital bed. He rolls his eyes around, trying to see the nurse better without rotating his head. “Well I’m gonna give you some morphine, okay? Right in your IV, and you’ll feel better in a flash.” She plunges the medicine into the line, and Corey feels it move slimily around in not-his veins. 

“Thank you, Allyson,” he croaks.

“My name’s not Allyson, hon.” She leans over him so he can see her better and taps her name tag. “I’m Nancy. I’m making sure the TV remote and the nurse call button are within your reach if you need them, okay?” He feels her press two rectangles of plastic into his right hand. Then she leaves and Corey drifts away on the morphine. 

He wakes up to someone else coming into the room. A blond boy in his late teens, pushing a tower full of trays. He removes one and brings it over to the bedside table. Corey rolls his eyes towards the boy and watches him uncover the food and adjust the height of the table. 

“Enjoy your lunch, Mr. Cunningham,” the boy says as he leaves the room.

Corey looks down at the food. A plate of spaghetti sits in the center of the tray. His stomach turns. Fucking spaghetti. Momma’s worst meal, he thinks. Still, he finds himself suddenly ravenous. He shovels the spaghetti into his mouth as quickly as he can with his heavy arms and frozen neck. It surprises him that it’s not disgusting. Of course Momma didn’t make this spaghetti, he thinks. Momma’s dead. He stops chewing mid-bite. 

He’s certain his mother’s dead, but he can’t remember why. How did she die? Motorcycle accident? No, that was Daddy. But then why can he picture her body, slouched and covered in blood? He feels like the answer is in his head, right there, in front of him, but he can’t quite reach it. After a moment trying, he gives up and goes back to eating. 

It’s later. Corey doesn’t know what time it is, or what day. Only that it must be evening and it must be a weekday, because it’s dark outside and Jeopardy! is on the TV. He hears voices outside his room, he thinks they’re saying his name. He gropes for the remote and hits the mute button when he finds it.

“Is that the Corey Cunningham in there?” A voice says.

“What do you mean?” Another replies. This one is sort of familiar.

“You don’t know about Corey Cunningham!?” The first voice hisses.

“Can’t say I do,” Nancy answers.

“Oh my god! I heard about his case on this podcast I listen to, Manslaughter Monday . He killed a kid he was babysitting in 2019. Threw him over the railing of the stairs from the third floor! The kid cracked his head wide open when he landed. And the fucking jury let him off! He claimed it was an accident and that the kid was pulling a prank on him when everything went wrong. I don’t buy it for a second.” The first voice giggles.

“Maybe you should listen to fewer podcasts,” Nancy sneers.

Corey hears two sets of feet retreating from his door and down the hall. 

Suddenly everything crashes in on him. Memories battering him in unrelenting waves. He remembers how he got hurt. He remembers the bad thing that happened to Ronald. He remembers how his mother died. And he remembers Allyson, cradling his head in her hands, certain he was dead. Ice runs through his veins as he realizes that Allyson is probably dead now too, because he woke Michael Myers up. He promised Allyson he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. But he had happened to her. 

Corey sobs, a massive, heaving sob. Sitting in the dark, the glow of the TV on him like a spotlight. The grief builds and builds until it feels like it’s smothering him. Squeezing his throat the way Michael had in the sewer. He screams, but no sound comes out except a faint and rattling rasp. The beeps on his heart monitor accelerate to break neck speed, but nobody comes to check on him. He is completely and utterly alone. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

While Joe Ross sends the bloody handprint from the glass at the Mathis crime scene through the computer, Joe Grillo calls Haddonfield Memorial Hospital. Grillo is transferred from department to department. No one seems to know what happened to Corey Cunningham on Halloween night. Of course not. HMH administration has always been a shit show. When his daughter was born, Grillo half expected them to give him the wrong baby. 

The handprint doesn’t go any better. Four of the fingers are smudged and one is only partial. The computer can’t read them. Ross has to make a special request for a human expert to analyze the prints. That only escalates things with Richard Wright and Frank Hawkins. 

“Frank needs to learn it’s time to retire,” one Joe complains to the other. 

“He’s only obstructing us because he wants to protect Laurie Strode. Well, fuck Laurie Strode!” The other Joe says.

Doug’s body still hasn’t been recovered. Why should they protect that old broad’s peace when their best friend is missing and it’s the Cunningham cunt’s fault? 

The two sides split the Sheriff's Department. Most of the men on the force agree with the Joes. Cunningham got off too easy after he killed Jeremy Allen and they hope he’s still alive so they can have their second chance to fry him. Metaphorically, thanks to Illinois doing away with the death penalty. But there are those who believe investigating the murders and Doug’s disappearance is a waste of resources now that Michael is finally gone for good. Even most of them don’t think Corey is particularly innocent. They just don’t want to deal with the whole mess any longer than they already have.

The tension around the station is palpable. Some deputies have refused to speak to those on the other side of the issue. Joe Ross’s own father Elvis has been short with him since all this started. He’s never said he thinks Joe should end the investigation, but he doesn’t have to. Just as Ross starts to worry that the Sheriff will call everything off, the prints come back from the human expert.

Joe Ross sits at his desk with the envelope in his hands. He taps his foot impatiently as he waits for Joe Grillo to show up. Finally, Ross sees him approaching. Before Grillo even gets all the way to his desk, Ross is unsealing the envelope. His gut is telling him the news is bad, and he wants to rip the bandaid off. Grillo arrives at his elbow just as he slides the report out.

Thumb and pointer finger inconclusive. Too smudged even for the county’s top expert to get anything from. Middle finger, ring finger, and partial pinky — positive identification. There it is, the thing that Ross has been hoping to read for weeks, but was convinced he’d never see. Suspect Name: Corey Cunningham. He turns to Grillo to celebrate just as the other Joe’s phone rings. 

“Grillo,” he answers gruffly, annoyed at the interruption. Ross strains to overhear the conversation, but only gets one side. “You did?… Okay, so where… Let me get something to write this down.” He gestures roughly to Ross who shoves a pen and a sticky pad into his hands. Ross watches as Grillo writes down an address a couple hours away from Haddonfield. 

“Is this it?” He mouths to Grillo, who waves him away as he finishes his phone call. “Is this it?” He repeats as Grillo hangs up.

“That’s it. He was airlifted. He was only at Haddonfield Memorial to get onto the helicopter and someone fucked up his records. I’m leaving right now to go see if that motherfucker is still alive.” The Joes high five in triumph as Grillo shrugs into his coat.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Nancy is sitting by herself at the nurse’s station organizing paperwork when a cop walks up. He’s not dressed like local police, his uniform is green. The patch on his bicep says Warren County. He smacks his badge on the counter and clears his throat.

“Yes?” She replies in a sour voice. 

“You got a Corey Cunningham as a patient in here?” The cop asks. 

“I don’t know, deputy, do you have a warrant?” Nancy attempts to match his posture and tone.

After Dottie, that vulture from maternity, had come to ask about Corey the other night, Nancy had gone home and done some research. She found the podcast and listened to it, despite her usual distaste for true crime bullshit. The storytelling was garbage and the hosts seemed to derive an obscene pleasure from the suffering of everyone involved, but it gave her a basic understanding of what happened. Afterwards, she found a YouTube channel that posted a video claiming to analyze the psychology of Corey’s police interview. It had been a long time since Nancy took psychology, but she knew most of the claims in the video were bogus, just like the podcast. She tuned most of the narration out, focusing on the footage of Corey. She couldn’t help but care for the boy in the interrogation video. He seemed so small and naive. Completely unprepared for the harsh reality of what happened to him. 

The arresting officer was a real piece of work too. Lying to Corey and making thinly veiled threats to his safety. If this is how he behaved when he knew the conversation was being recorded, she could only imagine how he treated suspects outside of the camera’s watchful eye. When Corey turned his frightened face towards the lens, Nancy felt like he was looking right into her eyes, begging for her help.

When the video ended she moved onto news stories, trying to find a less biased perspective. It proved difficult. His trial had to be moved to a different county because he had no hope for an impartial jury in his home jurisdiction. The town had a serial killer problem or something, and Corey’s accident had turned him into the villain they needed. It was sick. And that blabbermouth Dottie was probably telling everyone in the hospital that they had a real life murderer in their midst. 

That was when Nancy had first started caring for Corey, when he had just been transferred out of the ICU. She’d felt deeply disturbed while reading his chart, and absolutely astounded that he’d survived. Two gunshots, a stab wound, and a broken neck. Multiple large bruises and massive soft tissue damage, some of which was already old and healing. Mild concussion, also days old. Cuts, scrapes, friction burns. A nasty gash in his palm that looked like it had already been stitched closed once, with a bright red spider web of infection streaking from it. 

Was it lucky or unlucky that the knife had passed right between major veins and arteries? That it had just barely clipped his vocal folds? That two of his vertebrae had been fractured, but his spinal cord remained undamaged? Was it lucky or unlucky that, despite the infection already festering when he arrived at the hospital, all his wounds closed with ease, that he was spared sepsis and gangrene? After everything he’d been through, did God love Corey Cunningham or hate him?

“A warrant?” Grillo responds, sounding annoyed.

“Yes, sir. I can’t confirm or deny if someone is a patient without a warrant, it’s a breach of privacy.” 

“Can you get me someone who’s in charge around here?” He slaps his badge against the counter impatiently. 

“Sure I can, sir. But we’re really short staffed right now, so it would probably be hours before they would have time to speak to you. We’re busy saving lives.” Instead of ruining them, she wants to add. 

“Fine. A warrant.” Grillo says tersely. He smacks his badge on the counter one more time before turning away and heading towards the elevator. 

As soon as she hears the doors slide closed, Nancy pulls up Corey’s chart. She scans it quickly, trying to figure out how close to discharge ready she can get him, tonight. She can’t let the boy from the interrogation video go through that again. It would really be best for him to stay in the hospital for at least another week, but that is not a luxury he has. Corey Cunningham deserves a break, even if just a small one, and Nancy can give it to him if she acts right now.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Corey looks at the ceiling, noticing a cluster of dead bugs inside the light over his bed. I wish I was like them, he thinks. Dead. Turned to paper by time. Forgotten and inconsequential. A fitting end for a short, stupid life. 

There’s a small knock on his door, followed by the creak of hinges. Corey attempts to move his head to look, but mostly fails. In the very edge of his vision he sees Nurse Nancy entering. Her arms are full with some kind of bundle.

“How are we doing?” She asks. Corey can’t be bothered to respond. “I’m gonna sit you up, okay? I have something important to talk to you about.” 

The bed rumbles to life and folds Corey at the waist until he’s the most vertical he’s been in weeks. “What is it?” His hoarse whisper less jarring to him every time he speaks, getting used to the way he sounds now. 

“A cop came by just now, looking for you.” Nancy says gravely. Corey tenses up at this information and it sends pain radiating through him. He winces and Nancy looks at him with pity. “I know who you are. I know about the manslaughter case. They didn’t have a warrant so I couldn't tell them if you were a patient or not. They’re going to be back soon.” She puts her bundle down and stands with her hands on her hips.

“I have a plan,” she continues, “to get you out of here before they come back. You’re not ready to be discharged yet, but I think you have better odds out there on your own than inside a jail cell. It’s up to you if you want to stay or go.”

“What’s the plan?” He wheezes. He’d do anything in the world to avoid going to prison. He remembers the time he spent in jail after the accident with Jeremy, viscerally. No way he would ever do that again. He’s confident that now he could handle the guards and the other inmates much more effectively. But he had spent his whole life in a cage, under surveillance, suffocating. First Momma, then all of Haddonfield. Fuck that. He would rather die than spend another moment on lockdown, in a very literal way. The only thing worse than being alive would be prison.

“You’re going to ask me to discharge you against medical advice. I’m going to beg you to stay for just a couple more days, a couple more hours even, until the doctor can come look you over at least. You’re going to refuse.” She starts to unravel the bundle she brought with her.

“You were so insistent that I had to let you go. So I printed your chart and some care instructions…” She waves some papers around, “and brought you some warm clothes from the lost and found, since what you were wearing at admittance was destroyed.” One by one she holds up a pair of jeans, a t-shirt, a sweater, and a parka. “I just guessed your size.”

Corey listens carefully, amazed and confused at the lengths the nurse is willing to go to to help him. She knows about Jeremy but she must not know about everyone else. She would stick her neck out for a kid who caught a tough break, but certainly not for an honest to god, cold blooded killer.

“When I asked how you were getting home, if you had anyone to look after you, you refused to tell me. I did everything I could to keep you here, and everything I could to discharge you safely when you wouldn’t stay. What do you think of that?”

“I think you better discharge me, right now. I’m ready to go the fuck home, and I’m not waiting for the doctor.” He tries to muster an insistent tone. 

“That’s what I hoped to hear,” Nancy says with a smile. “I’ll be right back to remove your IV and all that.” She practically runs to the door.

Corey sits uncomfortably in the truck stop diner booth, chewing a piece of leathery bacon. It takes great effort to sit up straight, his muscles weakened so much by his hospital stay. If he can catch a ride with one of the truckers in the parking lot, hopefully they’ll let him lay in their bunk. And maybe they’ll have drugs, he thinks, the last of the painkillers from the hospital leaving his system. He doesn’t know where he’s going, or what he’ll do when he gets there. He just knows he needs to get the fuck out of Illinois as quickly as possible. 

Nurse Nancy had unhooked all the wires and pulled out all the tubes that helped Corey stay alive, then got him dressed. She brought him his work boots and his father’s ring, the only two things that hadn’t been cut off by medical personnel on Halloween. The only two things in the world left from his old life. Someone had already scrubbed the blood out of the crevices in the ring, destroying the evidence that Corey was not merely the victim of another tragic Halloween in Haddonfield. Then Nancy ordered him an Uber and gave him all the cash in her wallet. A total of $78.

He swallows the last sip of his chocolate milk, sludgy with undissolved syrup, then slides awkwardly out of the booth. He doesn’t leave a tip. He only has $65 left after the food itself. He stumbles on unfamiliar legs through the diner, past the coin operated showers, and outside. He scans every face he sees, looking for someone who feels right. Friendly, or else easy to intimidate. He spots a gangly young man who looks about his age, maybe younger, hopping down from the cab of his truck. Corey doesn’t know much about fashion, but he thinks this guy looks punk or something. Like the dudes in high school whose girlfriends all dyed their hair purple, who he had always wanted to be friends with. 

“Hey man,” Corey says to him, trying to sound casual. “Can I catch a ride with you?”

“Where are you trying to go?” The punk driver asks.

“Wherever you’re willing to take me.” Corey tries to shrug but it hurts too much.

The driver agrees to give him a ride. He says his name is Evan. Corey doesn’t offer a name. Evan tells him they’re hauling a load of cheese from Wisconsin southward to Georgia. Corey has to get out before Evan makes the cheese drop though, because he’s not supposed to have anyone else in the truck with him. 

Evan turns the volume on his cacophonous music down to talk. From his friendly chatter Corey deduces it’s sometime during the week between Christmas and New year. Holy shit, he was in the hospital a long time. In October he’d hoped he could kiss Allyson at midnight on New Year’s. He’d never done anything to celebrate, and they would be in a new town, starting their new lives together. Now Corey would be alone for the holiday. Starting a new life by himself, while he can only assume Allyson’s life is over. He looks out the window so Evan won’t see his grief.

As they barrel south, they pass through miles and miles of empty fields, waiting, dormant. The flatness of the plains gives way to hills and then mountains. The elevation changes make Corey’s ears pop, and the tight curves in the road jostle him from side to side. He doesn’t ask Evan if he can sleep in the bunk, or if he has any drugs, and Evan doesn’t offer. Not long after they exit the mountains, they enter the tangled web of Atlanta, the highways and interstates knotting around each other, ensnaring cars like thousands of insects. Then they emerge into central Georgia, and Corey sees the south as it’s represented in cartoons, tiny little nothing towns separated for miles by woods and family farms. 

Evan pilots the truck through endless decrepit historical downtowns with mostly empty storefronts. These places aren’t dissimilar to Haddonfield, slowly becoming more abandoned and rotten in the wake of Michael’s rampages. The familiarity is bittersweet. Corey wonders if these towns have their own boogeyman legends. He wonders if their boogeymen are real. A hard, dark part of him hopes they are. That these towns have all felt the wrath of the monsters they personally created. 

They come to a truck stop on the edge of a city. Even from here, just barely within the limits, Corey can tell it’s the biggest town they’ve seen in hours. Evan informs him that his destination is nearby, so this is where they must part. Corey thanks him for his kindness then slips out of the truck.

Late December in south Georgia is much warmer than in Illinois, and Corey starts sweating in his parka immediately. But he keeps it zipped, with the hood up, to obscure himself as much as possible. He shambles across a parking lot to a motel that looks like it was frozen in time 60 years ago. He spends all of his remaining money on a room for the night. The towels are scratchy, the bed frame is creaky, and there’s a mysterious stain on the carpet in the corner of his room. None of it matters. He peels off his parka and falls straight to sleep. 

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A few days after Corey’s escape, Nancy is once again seated alone at the nurse’s station when the cop comes in. This time he slams a warrant down on the counter. 

“Corey Cunningham,” is all the asshole says. Nancy takes the warrant from him and makes a big show of reading it. Grillo’s face starts to turn red. 

“Checked himself out against medical advice,” Nancy says, biting back a smile.

“Where the fuck did he go!” Grillo demands, half shouting.

“I need you to keep your voice down, deputy. This is a hospital. Patients don’t usually make a habit of telling me their plans after they leave, especially those who are adamant about leaving before their treatment is complete. I can give you his chart, but your guess about where he is is certainly better than mine.”

Nancy prepares the information requested in the warrant, feeling victorious. She smiles the rest of the day. Good luck, Corey Cunningham. She tries to think loud enough for him to hear her, wherever he is.

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When Grillo gets back from his second trip to the hospital, Ross can see all over his face that the news is bad. Fuck, is all he thinks. 

“He was there. I got his chart,” Grillo tells him

“That’s what we wanted?” Joe Ross says, confused.

“He was there. Past tense. He fucking checked himself out against medical advice! He’s in the fucking wind!” Grillo roars.

“Well, put out a fucking APB then!” Ross yells back. But he knows before he finishes his sentence that an APB won’t be happening. Nothing else will be happening, because here comes the Sheriff, striding towards his desk with a stern look on his face. And just like that, Doug Mulaney’s disappearance and the murders of Tanner Mathis and Deborah Jennings go cold.