Work Text:
“Why are we going to a stranger’s house for Halloween?” Dennis inquizided, glancing out his window at the dark trees as the car zoomed down the dirt road.
“Because! It’s fun!” Winnie replied, hopping in her seat, barely able to contain her excitement, “and I get to dress up! I love dressing up!” She gestured to her black dress. She thought it would be a fun idea for her to dress up as a vampire and for Dennis to dress up as a werewolf. He had on a ripped plaid shirt, Khaki shorts, two little grey wolf ears, a short fluffy tail, and some fuzzy wolf gloves. They had been driving for some time now, and the moon was steadily rising above the trees. Since there were so many of them, they had to ride in two different Hearses. The Dracula family and Winnie were in one, while the others had to squeeze into another one, with Griffin driving of course. The road was starting to narrow, and Dennis thought he saw something up ahead. Turns out he was right and there was a large metal gate with a stone archway and wall on both sides. A few torches were attached to the arch and were lit, flickering in the wind. There were also two stone gargoyles on both sides. And when they saw them pull up, they flew up and opened the gate for them to drive through. The road was now nicely paved and started to get a bit more jagged instead of being straight. Then the road started to curve and they went around a small roundabout and then pulled up to the front of a giant mansion. Words could not express how magnificent the building was. It was almost as large as the hotel, but it was wider and shorter. It looked to be three floors, and the front had giant granite steps leading up to two giant dark oak doors with two crappy Halloween wreaths and some Jack-o-lanterns sitting on the sides of the steps. Two lamps hung on both sides of the doors, and shrubbery was surrounding all sides of the house.
“WOAH!!” Dennis and Winnie both said in awe as they parked in front of the house.
“You guys get out and go ahead inside,” Johnny told everyone as they all started to get out, “I’ll go find a place to park the car.” They didn’t go inside quite yet, since they wanted to wait for their friends to arrive.
“It’s cold out here.” Ericka complained, starting to rub her hands up and down her arms in an attempt to keep herself warm.
“Did you bring a jacket?” Drac asked, looking up from his phone
“...No…” She mumbled, her teeth starting to chatter. He didn’t bring a jacket either, so he didn’t know what to do.
“We’re just...gonna head inside and wait there.” He said to everyone as he grabbed Ericka’s hand and led her inside, as if they cared. As soon as they closed the door behind themselves, their friends pulled up to the house.
“I didn’t know we were going to the white house.” Griffin joked, grinning at his own joke as everyone started to get out of the car. He felt a twinge of sadness when nobody laughed.
“So, should we head in?” Mavis asked as she saw Johnny sprinting towards them from the darkness, his breath billowing in the chilly air.
“YEAH! LET’S GO!!” Dennis squealed, rushing for the door and pushing it wide open, Winnie right behind him. His mouth gaped open when he saw the inside. It was packed with what looked like hundreds of people. Bright neon lights were flashing, the ground was covered in confetti, music was thrumming through the air, there were tables full of food, streamers strung all over the ceiling, and red plastic cups were scattered everywhere.
“COOL!!!!” Dennis and Winnie screamed, ready to take off into the crowd and start partying the night away, when Mavis grabbed their collars.
“I don’t want you two running off to who knows where!” She told them, causing them to sigh, “you could get lost!”
“Mooom! No we’re not!!” Dennis whined, pulling out of her grip as she let him and Winnie go. She gave them a skeptical glance and crossed her arms.
“Really?” She asked as he looked back up at her.
“Yeah!” Then he got an idea, “so let us prove it!”
“How?” She asked, curious on what her son would say.
“Leave us alone for the entire party! And once it’s over we’ll meet you back right here! To prove that we’re responsible enough to make our own choices!” Winnie nodded vigorously to help Dennis’s argument. Mavis looked around for a second, shut her eyes and took a breath. She opened them again, uncrossed her arms and bent down,
“Alright. Deal.” She agreed. Holding her hand out for him to shake it. He was surprised she agreed to it, but didn’t hesitate to shake her hand. She stood back up, “then I’ll guess that’s it. I only have one condition.” He froze on hearing ‘condition’, “you guys can’t separate, stay together.” Dennis sighed when hearing that, glad that it wasn’t a condition that could ruin his night.
“That’s a condition I accept.” He said in a professional manner. He and Winnie glanced at each other, then back at Mavis, who just did a small nod. They laughed and ran off into the crowd.
——————————
Mavis smiled and walked off to the side to meet with the others to see what they wanted to do since she didn’t have to watch Dennis for the rest of the night.
Dennis and Winnie didn’t know what to do first. Even though they didn’t want to get lost since, that would just humiliate the life out of Dennis, but they wanted to do something fun. So they decided to explore the house to see what they could find. They exited the party and walked down a hallway, the sounds from the party started to fade in the distance as they continued to pad through the long, empty hallways. They heard a noise coming from a nearby hallway, so they decided to check it out. They peaked around a corner and saw a shadowy figure slowly trudging down a far hallway. They couldn’t tell who it was, or what it was as it slowly continued to move. “Hello!” Dennis yelled, waving his hand in greeting. The figure turned its head to look at them, and it’s two glowing white eyes enlarged before it zipped around a corner at a surprising speed, startling Dennis and Winnie at its speed.
“...Maybe...We should head back.” Winnie suggested, ever so slowly starting to back up.
“Y-Yeah that sounds like a good idea.” Dennis whimpered, starting to back up as well, then booking it down a random hallway. With Winnie right on his tail. The problem was, they didn’t know which way to go or which way they had came. As they continued to desperately find a way back to the party, the lights quickly flickered a little bit, as a loud crack of thunder rumbled outside, and rain started to pound on the roof. “I SHOULD OF NEVER MADE THAT DEAL!” Dennis cried, sitting down against the wall and putting his face in his hands.
“Well we’re never going to find our way back if we give up!” Winnie said, holding out her paw for Dennis. He lifted his head, and did a small smile as he grabbed her paw and she helped him up. They continued heading through the hallways, peaking into random rooms as they went, hoping to find some clue as to if they were heading in the right direction. They then started to hear the faint sound of party music coming from a nearby hallway. Their relief started to flow as they ran to the sound. They busted open a door and saw they had made it back to the party. They felt so relieved that they almost felt lightheaded. They started looking around for Mavis, to apologize for being imbeciles. But they couldn’t find her anywhere, or any of their friends or family. They looked for a few more minutes, and started getting a terrible feeling as another rumble of thunder sounded from outside, and lightning illuminated through the windows for a split second.
“...Maybe they all went to the bathroom…” Dennis hopefully said.
“At the same time?” Winnie asked, causing Dennis to slouch.
“Well where else would they have gone?” He asked, “they wouldn’t just get up and leave without us!” As soon as he said that the lights flickered again, causing all of the guests to go quiet and stop dancing. Even the music had stopped. They all started to mumble and chatter amongst themselves. Then, the lights went completely out. All of the guests went completely silent, and when the lights slowly flickered on once again, they had all vanished. “W-What’s going on?” Dennis stuttered in fear, starting to become confused.
“I-I don’t know.” Winnie said in a quiet voice, as another roar of thunder clashed outside.
——————————
Then they heard a loud, feminine scream come from a hallway close by. Despite their unrelentless fear that was still buzzing throughout their bodies, they thought the scream sounded familiar, and It might have been someone in danger. So, they took a few steps closer to the door, and ran through it, chasing after the loud scream. They sharply turned a corner, but they did it so fast while not paying attention to their surroundings, they literally ran into someone knocking them all to the ground, as the person was running as well. They all quickly regained their footing and when Dennis and Winnie stood up, they saw who they had run into. It was Ericka. And she looked completely winded. “DENNIS!? WINNIE!?” She said, with an edge of fear in her voice, “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!? GO!! RUN!!” She started to run the opposite way and they started to quickly follow, but still had trouble keeping up with her extremely fast pace.
“What’s going on?!?” Dennis cried, still terribly confused on what was going on. Before Ericka could respond, a loud roar sounded from the hallway where she had run from. Dennis took a peak back, since the lights were starting to flicker again, he couldn’t get a good look at it, but there was something large, and mechanical running down the hallway after them. It didn’t look in any way human, and looked as if it had multiple long, skinny legs with pointed ends. It had the two glowing, white eyes as the figure in the hallway from before. But now, whatever if was, had grown tremendously bigger, and had multiple glowing white eyes and looked almost like a giant mechanical spider, gaining on them quickly. Dennis and Winnie couldn’t keep up this fast of a pace for so long, as so they started to fall behind. As they continued to run, They noticed that Ericka had stopped running, and was holding her ground.
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Winnie screeched, turning her head to see what would happen.
“KEEP RUNNING!” Ericka instructed them, starting to walk towards the giant monstrosity, “I’ll hold it off.” Dennis and Winnie continued to run, and as they made it to the end of the hallway, they heard a few audible yelps, and thunks as the spider effortlessly threw her into the walls and smashed her onto the floor. Since she was only human she didn’t stand much of a chance. She did put up quite a fight, but fate was inevitable as she was eventually knocked out and dragged away into the darkness. And Dennis and Winnie couldn’t do anything except watch in horror.
“...What do we do?” Winnie mewled, suddenly seeing the spider’s silhouette crawling down a nearby hallway and disappearing.
“We run.” Dennis said, grabbing her paw and sprinting in the opposite direction. They ran to a random door, and opened it. It was a very dimly lit staircase, with the single lightbulb flickering in the dark space, slightly swaying. They were second-guessing themselves and if they should actually go down into the basement, but they heard another roar from the spider, just around the corner. So they didn’t hesitate to book it down the stairs and shut the doors behind themselves. When they reached the bottom, Winnie felt the cold concrete sting her paws as she padded around the unfinished basement. At first they didn’t really think anything of it, it just looked like an unfinished basement with a few walls here and there, in sort of an open-ish maze. They walked around a little more, but froze when they heard the spider clambering down into the basement from another entrance. They hid around a corner and peaked around it to see what it was up to. It clanked over and once it was in sight, you could see something limp was in it’s jaws. You couldn’t exactly tell what, but it looked humanoid. The spider crawled over to an entrance to a room and went inside.
“Dennis let’s go!” Winnie whispered to him, grabbing his wrist and trying to walk away, when he didn’t budge, she was confused.
“Let’s check it out.” Dennis said to her, causing her to become even more confused.
“Are you out of your mind?!” Winnie yelped, but not too loud as to alert the spider of their presence. Dennis took a whiff of the air, smelling a metallic tinge.
“I smell blood,” Dennis commented, “someone could be hurt.”
“Well no kidding!” Winnie retorted, “but you can’t just waltz up to that thing! You saw what it did to Ericka! Imagine what it could do to you!”
“That’s why I want to help,” Dennis replied, starting towards the spider’s keep, “to keep it from continuing it’s-“ He stopped talking upon seeing the entrance to the room, not prepared for what was to come.
——————————
It was dark, with no lights inside. He crept in a little more and saw something on the floor up ahead. Winnie was a bit more hesitant than Dennis as she peaked into the spider’s den. She slowly walked inside, and once she felt safe, she sighed and caught up to Dennis. He had stopped walking, and was examining something on the floor. It looked like a half-dried smear of blood. He followed the trail around a corner and down a slimmer path that seemed to dip downward. “I really don’t think this is a good idea.” Winnie murmured quietly, trying to stay as quiet as possible.
“Well if you don’t want to help then stop following me!” Dennis snapped, spinning around to see Winnie’s wide eyes staring back at him. They had stopped walking in sort of a larger cave, sort of structure. It looked to be underground and made completely out of old, weathered stone, it looked naturally formed, or as if something huge had burrowed its way into the ground, and made a nest. Before Winnie could reply to Dennis’s remark, something wet dripped onto both of their heads. It was too thick and slimy to be water, as it dripped off of their head and onto the floor. They looked up and couldn’t quite tell what it was, but there was something hanging from the low ceiling. And if Dennis flew up a few feet he would be able to touch the bottom of the strange mass.
Then, out of nowhere, bright lights flashed on and Dennis got an eye full of the putrid nightmare that was in front of him. Even Winnie was speechless, frozen in place, words caught in her throat as her blood ran cold. There were hundreds of cocoons, lining the walls and outside of the ceiling. Not only were there bunches of innocent people, but all of their family and friends were all in cocoons on the far side of the den, all lined up next to each other, passed out, helpless and floating in the strange fluid inside the cocoons. The spider didn’t seem to notice them staring as it continued its way from the middle of the ceiling down onto the floor, and seemed to study the cocoons with their family members in them. It seemed to stop when it reached Drac’s cocoon, and lifted one of its long legs, and poked the tip into the cocoon. It dragged it downwards, slitting the cocoon allowing all of the slightly green fluid and Drac to pour out onto the floor.
He sputtered a cough and opened his eyes. He was lying on his stomach so when he lifted his head he saw Dennis and Winnie staring back, unable to move as they were paralyzed with undying fear. Before he could say anything to them, the spider stabbed him completely through the back with a leg and lifted him up to eye level. He didn’t bleed much but the fabric of his shirt around the wound started to become tainted red. The spider seemed to study him, before flinging him up into the air and swallowing his top half head first, eating everything from his hips up. The spider bit down so hard, it cut straight through him, causing his legs to fall to the floor, still twitching, blood pooling out onto the floor. It stabbed his legs and swallowed those as well, and then it noticed Dennis and Winnie still staring at it from afar. It made some sort of whirring noise and started to run over to them, blood dripping down from its sharp mandibles onto its legs. Dennis and Winnie finally had the strength to pick up their feet and run, despite their legs feeling extremely weak and like jello and they started to run up the inclined pathway. When they were about halfway up, the ground seemed to shift underneath them. And before they knew it the ground caved in underneath them and they were sent plummeting into darkness.
——————————
When they hit the ground, it was almost pitch dark, but as they stood up, eight glowing eyes had appeared to their left and were slowly advancing on them. They had nowhere to run, and no way out, so as they closed their eyes, they grasped each other's hands and braced for the worst. When the spider didn’t immediately pounce on them and eat them. But before they opened their eyes, they heard a chorus of voices all yelling, “GOT YA!!”
Dennis was the first to open his eyes. And when he saw all of his family and friends standing in front of him, unharmed, he was extremely confused. He nudged Winnie and she opened her eyes. “...What’s going on?” He asked suspiciously, “Did I die?”
“It was a PRANK!” Mavis told him, seeming super proud of herself for some reason.
“And damn, we scared you good!” Ericka complimented everyone.
“But what about the spider…?” Winnie asked as the spider walked up behind all of them. The head of the spider seemed to detach from the body and a small amount of steam hissed out from the new crack.
“That’s, my Great-Grandfather.” Ericka said as the spider’s head flipped out and Abraham’s head popped out.
“That’s me,” Abraham replied, tapping the spider’s neck, “I built it myself.”
“Then what happened to Papa Drac?” Dennis asked, starting to grasp onto the situation.
“I’m right here, Denisovich!” Drac’s voice called from inside the spider, as He zipped up and popped out of the spider and stood in front of it.
“...Why was there so much blood?” Dennis asked, and Winnie had a follow up question,
“And what about all of those other people?”
Drac waved his hand, summoning a wisp of purple magic, swirling in the palm of his hand, “Magic.” He shrugged as the dark room became hazy and they were all suddenly standing in the room where the party was being held.
“But...Why? Why did you guys do all of this?” Dennis asked.
“Actually, we’re not really sure either.” Mavis confessed, rubbing her nape as everyone murmured an agreement.
“So you planned all of this just to see me terrified out of my mind?” Dennis concluded.
“...Yeah pretty much.”
“But it’s also Halloween,” Winnie piped up, “so, I see it more as a haunted house attraction than a prank.”
“You could put it like that.” Mavis agreed. Eventually they headed out and went back to the hotel. A few hours after the incident Dennis saw Mavis looking at something on her phone. It was security footage from the cameras back in the house. There were cameras in all of the rooms and hallways. She was watching the scenario play out. When it was time for Ericka to run from the mechanical spider, she was standing in a dark room getting ready, Drac was also there to control the flickering of the lights, with the spider waiting just outside in the hallway. Just before she headed out to sprint down the hallway, Drac had pulled her into a tight embrace and kiss. They must have stayed that way for quite some time, since Mavis started to become visibly agitated and annoyed, as their making-out could have messed up the entire prank. “Come on guys...really?” She mumbled in a grumbly voice. They eventually broke apart and Ericka headed into the hallway. Mavis skipped around the footage until she came to the cocoon area. She paused the video and zoomed in on Dennis’s face, and started to chuckle. She screenshotted his terrified face and saved the photo, “that’s going on the Christmas card for sure.” She said to herself, not realizing Dennis was only a few feet away.
“Seriously?” He groaned, walking away to go and meet up with Winnie…