The Night After Hallowe'en (short story)

The Night After Hallowe'en was a special short story written by Mark B. Oliver for Halloween 2010.

Summary
What happens to all the monster masks, scary spiders, broomsticks and plastic skeletons that don't get sold before October 31st? The Doctor is about to find out as he faces a nightmarish threat to humanity.

Prologue
A young man named Justin is hiking alone and is lost on the cold night. He can find his way in the forest by the bright moonlight. He should have been back home several hours earlier, but had wandered off the trail and has had trouble getting out of the trees. He cannot see his compass well enough to use it. The wind picks up, but Justin realises it is not wind — it is a dark object flying above the trees, about to crash. Justin runs ahead to see if the pilot and passengers will need help. He reaches the clearing it landed in, but see no wreckage nor hears anything. He sits by a lake to call his mother on his mobile phone. A bony hand reaches from the water and grabs his ankle, dragging him into the lake. On the other end of the phone, his mother believes it a Hallowe'en prank.

Part one
Best friends and cousins Louie Rollins and Millie Peterson are leaving school, laughing and talking about the Hallowe'en party the night before. Riding home Louie's bike tyre goes flat. He enters a warehouse to see if anyone has a phone to call his mother. No one is there, just a lot of Hallowe'en paraphernalia made of authentic materials. He hears a scuffling noise, which then repeats itself, closer. A man crouches on a box. Louie asks him for help, but the man does not acknowledge him.

The man has peeling grey skin and blank eyes. Louie is tapped on the shoulder by the Eleventh Doctor, who motions for him to be quiet and follow him. When they are a safe distance from the man, the Doctor introduces himself. He has come to help Louie and "mankind in general". He gives Louie a mobile phone he got from Amy and Louie calls his mother. As the Doctor tries to walk Louie out of the warehouse to get him home, the grandfather clock began to tick loudly and the door shuts. The Doctor and Louie did not make it out the door in time. The Doctor tells Louie the man they saw had been dead for a few days and been animated like a puppet. Something runs over Louie's foot and they find the warehouse is infested with large spiders, which Louie had thought were just toys. One of the spiders had climbed the wall behind them, bared its fangs and jumped.

Part two
Out of the corner of his eye, the Doctor saw the spider behind them and pulls Louie to the ground as it jumps over them. He tells Louie to do exactly what he says, and then clears a path by emitting a high-pitched sound from his sonic screwdriver, which causes them to cower back. Free from the spiders, Louie wishes to see the man they had seen earlier. As they walk over to that spot, they fail to see a pair of glowing red eyes watching them. Louie sees that the man is no longer sitting on the box and rushes to open it, against the Doctor's warnings. He finds some kind of machinery inside. Behind them, the man pushes up in a wooden wheelchair. The creature that possesses him talks to the Doctor, revealing that he murdered Justin and is reanimating his corpse. Louie then catches the red eyes and notifies the Doctor. They see a crystal skull around the eyes, and the eyes shoot red beams at them, which they duck from. Louie then realises that the skull throbs with the beat of his heart. The creature is feeding off fear. After Louie calms down and slows his heart rate, the skull sends another burst of energy, which Louie deflects with the machinery. The skull shatters to the floor but the explosion had caused a fire, and the Doctor and Louie manage to escape, but the alien is engulfed by the flames. The warehouse explodes, and the Doctor decides to take Louie home.

Louie's mother had already met the Doctor earlier in the week. Outside at a Bonfire Night, the Doctor, Louie, and Millie witness an effigy of Guy Fawkes, as well as several others, come to life and advance towards the crowd.

Part three
The Doctor, Louie, and Millie run to the edge of the park. The Doctor rushes to his TARDIS, which was next to some trees, unlocks it, and ushers the cousins into the TARDIS. The Doctor, needing to know how widespread the problem is, tunes into a news report on the TARDIS scanner. The reporter says that Guy Fawkes dummies around the United Kingdom have been "seemingly coming alive", and that the Prime Minister is expected to make a statement. After unplugging a small device from the console, the Doctor lands the TARDIS opposite the burned warehouse, realising that he has been stupid all along and the alien has not died; it has only meant for them to believe so. As they look more closely at the warehouse, they are able to see through the perception filter to find that the warehouse is not damaged at all. Louie and Millie refuse to take refuge in the TARDIS, saying that the Doctor will need them if things become dangerous. They enter the warehouse, which holds a spherical craft, and meet the rejuvenated alien disguised as a healthy Justin. He is using fear to power his ship and its fusion engines, which if activated will atomise everything within a 20-mile radius. The Doctor gives the alien a chance, but it knocks his sonic screwdriver out of the way and jolts him with electricity. Louie dives at the alien's equipment with the Doctor's device and the figure begins to rapidly age and withers away. As Louie leads Millie into the TARDIS, the Doctor destroys the machinery. He tells Louie and Millie that the Guy Fawkes will not be animated due to the death of their animator, and the trio decide to return home to enjoy toffee apples.

Characters

 * Eleventh Doctor
 * Justin
 * Louie Rollins
 * Millie Peterson

Worldbuilding
to be added

Story notes
to be added

Continuity

 * The Doctor proclaims, "Why does no one ever listen to me?" He also said this in TV: The Eleventh Hour, when Amy entered Prisoner Zero's room despite his warnings.
 * While the Doctor's "swan[ning] off to goodness knows where", he has Amy's mobile phone to keep in touch with her while she and Rory are on a planet that's on a honeymoon. (TV: Death of the Doctor)