The Attic

2002 TMNT Halloween Special

By Kali Gargoyle

***

Raphael glanced through the TV listings, plotting out his evening. He was deciding between Halloween and Friday the 13^th when he felt the back of his neck prickling. He looked over his shoulders, expecting to see one of his brothers sneaking up behind him with a bucket of paint or something.

Satisfied that there was no one trying to sneak up behind him he turned back towards the TV.

"BOO!"

Raphael clutched the TV guide to his chest, feeling his heart pounding beneath it. "Don't DO that!"

Shadow giggled from behind a black cloth mask that obscured the bottom half of her face. "Do I make a good ninja, Uncle Raph?"

Raph looked her over. She was dressed all in black, from her hood down to her tiny tabi boots. A boken was strapped across her back and she carried a brightly colored candy bag that didn't quite go with the costume.

"You look great, kiddo," Raph smirked.

"Are you coming trick or treating with us?"

"Us?"

"Yeah, us." Mike walked in from the back tunnel trying to get a small red foam ball to stick on the end of his beak. Raph doubled over with laughter at the sight of his brother in bright baggy clothing and a rainbow wig. Shadow had to sit down next to Raph to keep from falling over she was laughing so hard.

Mike just grinned. "I knew you'd like it. You look great Shadow. Hey, your dad still here?"

Shadow shook her head, a few blonde curls coming loose from under her hood. "They just dropped me off, then he and April went to their party."

"Aww, I wanted to catch a glimpse of Cleopatra and her mummy."

Don entered the room from the front tunnel and looked down at the group. "Don't worry, I got pictures." He waved the disposable camera April had given him. "They want pictures of us and Shadow too. You going as a Mutant Turtle again, Raph?"

"Nah, he's going as a-"

Before Mike could finish what was sure to be an insult, the lights in the lair flickered, then dimmed.

"Have you been messing with the wiring again, Don?" Leo called from the kitchen.

"No!" Don yelled back, coming down the staircase. "Maybe a rat chewed through some of the wires..."

"Whoa!" Mike exclaimed. "Sewer fried rat! Zzzt!"

A throat was cleared somewhere behind Mike and he jumped. He grinned sheepishly at Splinter, who had entered the room just in time to hear Mike's comment. "Evenin' sensei."

"Good evening, Michaelangelo. Will you be leaving soon with Shadow?"

"Yes, sensei." Just as Mike went to grab Shadow's hand, they heard a heavy thump.

"Hey, Leo!" Raph called. "You fall?"

"No," Leo replied, walking into the main room.

"My mistake. But it sounded heavy and I figured-"

Don interrupted before the insult fight could ensue. "Sounded like it came from above us."

"Ooooooo......" Mike wiggled his fingers, making ghost noises. "Maybe it's a ghost in the attic."

"Attic?" Raph sneered. "We're in a sewer, we don't have an attic!"

After several minutes Raphael and the others found themselves standing under a trapdoor in the ceiling of one of their hallways.

"Well I'll be damned," Raph whistled as they stared up at the swinging rope pull. "We do have an attic."

"I don't remember it being here before," Leo said as he grabbed the rope. He glanced nervously at the others, to which Splinter and Don nodded, before pulling it down. Shadow half-hid behind Mike.

Leo was the first to climb up the stairs. He cautiously peeked in and looked around. It looked like a regular attic. There were a few boxes, some wooden, some cardboard, some items he couldn't recognize, an old cracked mirror, no windows, and spider webs. Lots and lots of spider webs.

He climbed up into the attic and took a better look around. "It doesn't look like anyone's been up here in ages."

The others climbed up after him and stood in a circle around the entrance and Shadow. Just because it didn't look like anyone was up here, doesn't mean they wasn't.

"This is bogus," Raph said after a few tense minutes. "Nothing's up here but some old..." A tapping sound cut him off.

"...Footsteps?" Mike croaked out. They heard the creaking of floorboards, and it was getting louder. Mike could hear his pulse pounding in his ears and his held Shadow behind him.

"Hey guys!"

They all jumped, weapons at the ready, towards the sound of the voice. Raph was the first to get to the person and get a good look at them.

"Damnit, Kali!"

Kali grinned as the other turtles lowered their weapons. "What's going on?"

"We heard noises up here," Don told her. "I guess it was just you."

"Oh."

Raph grudgingly shoved his sai back into his belt, then looked Kali over. She was wearing a tight red dress with thigh-high boots, accessorized with a set of red horns sticking out from her blonde hair, and a spade-tipped tail curling down behind her.

"So, Kali," he smirked. "Where's your costume?"

Kali shot him a mock glare. "Ha ha."

Leo rubbed the spot between his eyes where his headache was starting. "Kali, what are you doing down here?"

"You know, just looking through some things."

Shadow tugged impatiently on Mike's hand. "Can we go now?"

"Yeah, sure." But as he and Shadow turned to leave, the stairs suddenly pulled up by themselves and locked in place. "Hey!" He knelt down to open it back up again but it refused. "It won't budge! We're stuck!"

"Get away!" Raph yelled, storming over. "You just don't know how to do it." He started kicking at the door and when that didn't work, he started jumping on it.

"Raph!" Kali screeched. "You're gonna hurt yourself like that!"

Raph stopped jumping and stared at her. "I didn't know you cared."

Kali blushed. "I mean, you're gonna hurt the stairs. You probably broke them."

Don rolled his eyes and knelt down to examine the stairs. "Well, there's nothing I can see that would make the thing close automatically."

"That means someone closed it from down there," Leo said quietly.

"Someone is in the lair," Splinter agreed. "We must find a way out of here quickly."

Leo turned to Kali. "You've been looking around. See any other way out?"

Kali shook her head. Leo sighed. "All right then. Everyone spread out. Mike, keep Shadow with you."

Raph grabbed Kali's arm. "I ain't letting you outta my sight, you sneaky little-"

Mike let out a sharp laugh. "That's your best excuse yet, Raph."

Raph glared and pulled Kali off to the far corner. Leo, Don, Splinter, and Mike and Shadow all spread out in different directions to search as well. Once they were out of sight, the edges around the attic doorway pulsed with a deep red glow, accompanied by a hissing sound.

***

Even with all his training, Leonardo still couldn't avoid stirring up dust with every step, that's how thick the stuff was. One advantage, he could see if anyone had been walking around in here aside from them. He was following a set of prints much smaller than of his own that matched Kali's boots. He was following them backwards, maybe they'll lead him to another door. It wasn't that he didn't trust Kali, but this seemed like the sort of thing she would do just to torment them.

He thought he saw movement to his left and turned around with his blade swinging. He felt it sink into something solid.

He focused his eyes to see that his katana was caught in a dressing dummy. He growled under his breath and pulled his sword free.

A hissing sound caught Leo's attention. He was fully focused and ready until he felt something move over his foot. He felt his entire body go cold. He didn't even dare to look down. Once it left his foot he looked down and wished he hadn't.

A long, thin snake circled around his feet. It slithered around a few times before it suddenly bit down on its own tail. For a second, Leo thought it could be some sort of sign. The symbol of a snake eating its own tail was supposed to be...

His eyes suddenly went wide as the floor within the snake circle disappeared beneath his feet. He felt himself falling, saw the attic streaming upwards until there was nothing but blackness.

***

Donatello wasn't fairing much better than Leonardo. He was busy pushing cobwebs out of his path with his bo. He paused to try and clean the bo off when he felt something fall onto his shoulder. He hastily brushed it away without even seeing what it was. He looked around and saw a spider scurrying away over a box.

He let out his breath in an audible whoosh. He shuddered and ducked under another spiderweb. He made a mental note to come up here tomorrow with the vacuum and a few cans of Raid. He sidestepped an old ottoman and walked into another web. This one seemed to stretch from the ceiling to the floor.

He was pulling loose spider silk from his arm when his feet were pulled out from under him. He managed to avoid smashing his face into the floor by mere inches. He twisted to look behind him and he felt his throat tighten up.

The ottoman was tilted back, and under it was the biggest spider Don had ever seen. It had it be at least half his size! And it had him around the legs, pulling him under the ottoman with it.

"Frickin' stupid trapdoor spiders..." Don tried to reach out for anything but the only thing within reach was a trunk. He grabbed the handle and tried to pull himself from the spider's grasp. There was a scrapping sound as the trunk began moving. Don tried to climb over it and it tipped, jarring Don and causing him to loose his grip. The last thing he saw was the ottoman slamming back down on top of him.

***

Splinter had managed to find a wall, and was now following it. If there was a door or window, it was very likely to be along a wall.

He eventually came to a black chest with an 'X' drawn in the dust on the lid. He frowned. This had been his beginning point. He didn't think he had traveled far enough to have gone around the entire attic. But obviously, he had done so, but he hadn't passed any of the others, which he was sure he would have.

He heard hushed whispers ahead of him. A low voice and a higher one. His sensitive ears registered them as familiar, but he still couldn't tell exactly who they belonged to. Two voices, either Michaelangelo and Shadow, or Raphael and Kali. He moved forward, trying to get closer to the voices, trying to hear what they were saying. He was so focused on the voices that he didn't notice the chest until he bumped his shin.

He glared at the chest as he rubbed his leg. His eyes opened wide as he saw an 'X' mark on the lid. Confused, he looked behind him.

Impossible! He was back where he had started! He had moved only five feet, so he couldn't have circled the attic again, but neither was there another chest behind him.

He turned his back on the chest, and the voices, and walked back the way he came. Sure enough, a few seconds later he came across the marked chest again. The voices were closer than before and he could make out snippets of conversation.

Splinter walked determinably towards the voices. He ignored it every time the chest appeared in his path. Still, the voices got no closer, and then they stopped all together.

The ninth time he passed the chest he stopped and considered it. It was obviously important. He considered it to be a trap set by whomever had led them here, but a trap was better than walking in circles he supposed. He lifted the lid of the trunk and looked inside, prepared for the worst.

It was empty.

No, not entirely. There was a slip of paper at the very back. He grabbed the paper but couldn't lift it. Perhaps it was glued down...

Just as he let go the paper wrapped itself around his wrist and pulled Splinter into the chest. The lid snapped shut and the dust settled into the 'X', erasing it from sight.

***

"Mike, I'm scared."

Mike kept hold of Shadow's hand as they moved along slowly. "It's okay Shads, I'm here with ya."

Truth was, Mikey was beginning to feel a little nervous himself. He'd long since lost sight of the others, and he couldn't hear them moving around. That might have been a good thing, because he was so wound up that he would have jumped at the slightest sound.

He was holding Shadow's "safety light" out in front of him. The blinking orange light that was supposed to help him see her on the dark streets in her black costume wasn't really helping him see anything now. He felt Shadow tug on his hand again. "I wanna go home."

"Yeah, so do I," Mike whispered back. He was thinking about just going back to the stairway and waiting when he saw something. An orange flashing light. He looked from the light in his hand to the light in the distance. They blinked together.

Mike was disappointed that when he found the source of the blinking light it was only a mirror. And a warped mirror at that. He started making funny faces, the warps making them seem ten times more absurd and his rainbow hair twice as poofy.

"This sure is a weird mirror."

"You can say that aga- Shadow, where'd you go?" Mike looked at his sides, where he'd seen her last, but she wasn't there. He looked around frantically, hoping to catch sight of her. Not again. Damnit, every single time I take her out...

"Over here Uncle Mike!"

Mike looked back at the mirror and saw Shadow waving back at him. He turned and looked around but she wasn't there. His breathing started getting heavy as he turned back around. He gulped as he realized that the image of her was in front of his reflection. She'd have to be standing right in front of him for that to happen, and he could plainly see she wasn't there.

He placed his hands on the mirror. "Shadow. Honey, are you okay in there?"

The little girl nodded and placed her hands against Michaelangelo's. Funny thing was, that he could feel her hands against his, almost as if they were actually touching. When Shadow's hands came through the glass and curled around his, he froze.

"Come on, Mikey, it's okay, really."

Before he could say anything Mike was pulled forward into the mirror.

***

Kali was beginning to feel nervous. She was sweating and her dress was beginning to ride up on her. And to make matters worse, Raphael was being his usual self.

"Will you quit breathing down my neck?" Kali hissed.

"When you admit that this sick prank was all your idea," Raphael hissed back.

Kali sighed. "Then can I at least walk behind you? You're making me uncomfortable."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. Move." He gave her a quick shove forward at the small of her back. She stumbled forward and fell, crying out in pain.

"What's wrong now? Break a nail?"

Kali winced as she pulled herself up onto a cardboard box. "No, my bad ankle."

A concerned expression crossed Raphael's face, but only for a second. "Then you shouldn't have worn those stupid boots!"

"Well I didn't expect to be getting shoved around!"

They stared at each other for several minutes, neither one speaking. Kali finally ended the stare-off by poking a red-polished finger in Raph's face. "You need to stop being such a bastard!"

"And you need to stop using people for your own entertainment!"

Kali clenched her fists, then turned and stalked away.

"Fine!" Raph yelled after her. "Be a bitch! But if you get killed, don't come running to me!"

Raph headed in the opposite direction from Kali. "Stupid writer, thinks she can do anything. Needs another nice serving of revenge if you ask me."

A scream shattered his thoughts. A sudden chill went down his spine and he swore the temperature dropped. "Kali."

He turned and ran as fast as he could in the direction Kali had fled in. He skidded around the corner and was shocked to find himself looking at the exit of the attic. The open exit. He hurried down the stairs and looked around. Nothing in the hallway. Wait...

He heard footsteps, and he followed them. Whoever it was was going to be in serious trouble when he caught up to them. He headed towards the only source of noise, voices, but he was still too far away to...

"Boo."

***

"Hey, Raph, can you hear me?"

Raph shook his head. It was pounding. He opened his eyes and was met with the strangest sight... the living room ceiling.

"Hey, he's waking up!"

Raph groaned and pulled himself into a sitting position. He looked around at his family surrounding him, all except Kali, who he saw over on the couch, her leg propped up on the coffee table with an ice pack. "Wha-"

"Are you hurt, Raphael?" Splinter asked, cautiously checking his son over for injuries.

"Nah, 'm fine." He stood up with help from Donatello and glared over at Kali. "So, d'ya have fun?"

"Fun?" Kali repeated in a shocked tone. "I got hurt!" She gestured down to her ankle.

Raph sat down next to her as the others moved off to their own tasks. Mike grabbed Shadow's hand. "Come on, we can still get some trick or treating done."

"Just no haunted houses, okay?" Shadow replied in a small voice.

After they were gone, Raph turned to Kali. "You happy now, you traumatized the kid."

"You still think it was me."

"Yeah. Who else would it be?"

Kali sat back against the couch cushions as Raph turned on a Halloween night movie.

"Raph."

"What?"

"Happy Halloween."

"Shut up."

***

TMNT fan fiction