A list of those brought to Halloweentowne.


    On October 31, 2003, a motley collection of students and others gathered at a local movie theater for what they believed would be an entertaining night of horror movies.  The theater was running a special Halloween monster movie marathon and, with a cheap ticket price, had gathered a couple dozen people together to see the films.  After sitting through an annoying number of pre-movie advertisements, the projectionist finally pronounced the beginning.
    Among the audience was a young man named Bjorn, wearing a black hockey mask.  Unbeknownst to the others, one year ago that night he had undergone a horrific experience in the bowels of doom.  Upon his return to the real world, he brought with him a black hockey mask.  Over the past year, he had grown more and more attached to the mask, first wearing it in private, then in public, and then to the point where he would wear it for days at a time.
    In the projection booth, an evil-looking old guy with a lazy eye loaded a reel of darkest black film.  Bjorn looked up and immediately recognized the wrinkled face.  As the camera began, he cackled out at the audience in a raspy voice.
    The theater seemed to change around the audience.  Everything grew dark, and then the seats disappeared from beneath them.  They suddenly found themselves on a deserted highway in the middle of a dark forest.  Just beyond them was a large roadway sign reading, “Welcome to Halloweentowne”.
    The first reaction was a panic.  Bjorn, who had seen this sight before, immediately began screaming and shouting about how doomed everyone was.  He told everyone else, “We need to find Greg.”
    Hank Quartermain, the football captain, was quick to disagree.  “No, way, dude, we should stay right here and wait for someone to pick us up.”
    Mr. Welsh agreed, as did several others.  Donny Macintosh of Jack’s Spooky Ragtime Hullabaloo argued for heading into town and soon became entangled with Hank in an argument.  Finally, Mr. Jacobs silenced everyone and forcefully suggested that they split up.  A group followed the most-disturbed Bjorn, while the rest stayed right where they were.
    The player-characters went with Bjorn toward town, as did the band members of JSRH and Abe Jacobs.
    "Now, what, exactly, is going on here?" Abe asked Bjorn.
    Bjorn took a deep breath and began to explain everything that he had been told a year before.  He became so exasperated during the explanation that Abe made him stop and start making more sense several times.
    Melvin huffed.  "So we're supposed to start believing in fairy tales?"
    Bjorn glared.  "Fairy tales have happy endings.":
    "Who is this Greg fella?" Donny asked.
    "He's the only thing that's going to keep us alive," Bjorn said.  He told them of Greg's past and the obscene numbers of guns he had stored in his home for protection on this, the most terrifying, night of the year.
    As they talked, they walked a half-mile or so until they saw bright headlights coming down the road toward them.  Bjorn immediately ducked into the forest along side the road, followed by everyone else.
    The lights soon approached, and the car stopped.  It was a sweet red convertible, playing a loud techno song with three young gothic women inside.  They caught sight of several of the people hiding from them, and excitedly began calling out invitations to a party they were attending.
    Chaz, seeing the lovely ladies and hearing an open invitation, stepped out of the ditch and started talking with them.  They seemed nice and were very eager to get to the party, so Chaz decided to go with them.  Bjorn yelled something, but Chaz only heard the techno music and smiled as the car left the others behind.
    The car soon arrived back where the others had stayed.  Seeing another group of potential party-goers, the goth girls stopped again, and enthusiastically started calling out invitations.  Hank thought a party would take the weirdness off of the evening, so he decided to go with them, dragging Iris with him.  Iris told him that she did not want to go, and, after a bit of an argument, Hank told her that it was over between them.  (Heh, Iris didn’t really seem to care.)  Lara, who was never one to turn down a party, wanted to go too, and, at her behest, Kelly and Mary went too, despite misgivings.
    The convertible drove further out of town, packed with eight passengers and a great selection of incomprehensible techno songs.  They soon left the highway and drove a mile or so till they came to a small cluster of goths who were dancing around a bonfire.  The three goth girls led them out of the convertible and offered them drinks from a big punchbowl filled with soupy red liquid.  Hank, who was far from wary of drinks, took a red plastic cup and took a gulp of the liquid.  Immediately, he spewed it back up.
    “What is it?” Chaz asked.
    “It tastes like burning!” Hank spat.
    “It’s hard to get used to at first,” one of the goth girls said.  “Try some more.”
    Chaz cautiously took a sip and then spit the vicious liquid onto the ground.  It tasted like acid mixed with blood spiked with the vilest of seasonings.
    “Drink,” the goths commanded.  They gave plastic cups filled with the horrid stuff to the rest.
    Hank took another swig and kept it down.  Lara, too, drank the potion.  The rest could not bring themselves to taste it again.  Hank’s and Lara’s faces suddenly turned pale in the firelight and they stumbled off to the bonfire for some dancing.
    “Drink!” a goth girl shouted at Chaz.
    Thinking quickly, Chaz turned the cup up with his lips pressed around the edge, making it appear that he drank the concoction without actually having drunk it.  The goths watched him for a moment, expecting something to happen.
    “You didn’t drink it,” a goth girl sneered.
    Out of options, Chaz decided to tackle the girl with the keys and escape from the party.  Another girl caught him in midair with a swift punch to the stomach, while a third tackled him.  Kelly and Mary joined in the fray, pulling the goths off of him and fighting.  Kelly suddenly pushed one of the girls off of her and made a dash for the car.  Mary, seeing that Kelly had picked the pockets of the girl with the keys, hurriedly followed.  Chaz quickly kicked a goth off of his leg and worked himself free of the brawl.
    “Wait for me!” Chaz shouted desperately, running as quickly as he could.  He made a flying leap into the back seat of the convertible.  As soon as his body hit the seat, Kelly floored the accelerator and the car sped down the road toward the highway.
    As they sped away, they could see the goths behind them circling the fire and chanting wildly.  Soon the bonfire exploded toward the sky and formed into the head of a vicious dragon made of fire.  It charged toward them, snapping fiery jaws and catching up with the speeding convertible.  Chaz foraged through the back seat, looking for anything to use against the dragon.  After finding a folder of CDs (many of which were burned and had very strange markings on them), he finally came up with a bottle of H2OU water.  He flung it at the dragon with all his might.  The dragon’s heat melted the plastic and spilled the water, which immediately reacted with the dragon’s fire.  Injured, the dragon fell back and roared in terrifying pain.
    Kelly drove quickly down the highway, eager to get away from the dragon, the goths, and everything.  They soon found themselves back at the same spot where they had appeared, next to a sign that read “Welcome to Halloweentowne.”
    A very despondent Norman Welsh flagged them down, his suit in tatters and sweat and blood on his forehead.  He had his two children with him, both of whom were looking very frightened.
    “What happened?” Chaz asked.
    “Alligators!” Welsh shouted mournfully.  “Giant, giant alligators!  They chased everyone away… We just now circled back.  Let us in!”
    The three Welshes jumped into the convertible and urged Kelly to drive before the gators came back.  Not knowing what else to do, she sped away deeper into Halloweentowne.
    Meanwhile, the group walking toward town had had problems of its own.  After leaving the goth girls, they walked on a while longer, and then they met more headlights.  This time, they heard distinct engines and saw five separate headlights.  Bjorn again ducked into the ditch, followed by others.  Dr. Sofa, however, decided to try and flag down the drivers.
    As the motorcycles approached, the riders appeared to be black-leather-jacketed, greasy-haired, weapon-wielding hooligans from the 1950s.  The lead motorcyclist slammed Dr. Sofa with a chain, knocking him to the ground.  As he moved around to finish off the ‘square’, the others headed into the forest after the other ‘squares’.  A wild fight ensued, but the people from the real world pulled it off with whatever weapons they could muster.  Dr. Sofa wielded his knife-like letter opener, Cletus knocked out the eyes of a ruffian with his slingshot, George stabbed one with his pick, and Melvin pulled off some sweet Matrix-like action with his camera’s exceedingly bright flash.  Despite taking several wounds, the people took out the street gang and robbed them of their chains, baseball bat, and motorcycles (plus, Bjorn pulled a handgun off of one, then shot him to death with it).  When each ruffian was killed, his body disintegrated into sand, melting away the decades of torment they had given to the squares of Halloweentowne.  During the fray, the Abe and members of JSRH fled, and the players lost track of them.
    The six remaining people piled onto the five motorcycles and began to drive into town.  They had only just started when headlights from behind caught them, and they saw Chaz and the others in the convertible.  After quickly regrouping, Bjorn led the way to Greg’s house.
    They drove madly through the outer streets of Halloweentowne, wary of finding anything.  At last they came to the housing addition where Greg lived, and they sped down the street.  Greg’s house was at the end of the street, surrounded by an electrified fence and small turrets.  They stopped in front, and Bjorn kept everyone back from the defenses, just in case.  The house was dark and it appeared that no one had been there for some time.
    Bjorn had Kelly honk the horn of the convertible.  Nothing happened.
    Kelly honked again.  Again, nothing happened.
    “It looks like he’s not home,” said Kelly.
    Bjorn gasped in horror, but soon pulled himself together and decided to lead them to the only other person in the town he knew who could help them:  Father O’Malley.
    They again took to the streets, driving as quickly as they could, preferring speed to stealth.  Everything seemed to be going fine… until a giant bug leapt out of a large bush and tackled Bjorn off of his motorcycle.  The bug took the majority of the fall, but after the two combatants rolled for a bit, the bug had Bjorn pinned.  It hissed menacingly and readied its proboscis to stab into Bjorn’s neck and drain his life fluids.
    In a flash, Dr. Sofa and several others attacked the monster, attacking it with chains and their baseball bat.  The tough exoskeleton of the bug seemed to absorb most of the damage.  It spit two giant globs of acidic mucous, severely injuring Dr. Sofa and Cletus.  Kelly burst from the car and threw her jacket over the bug’s head to prevent it from seeing anyone to spit at it again.  Bjorn wrestled with his handgun and shot the bug, forming a large hole in its underbelly.
    Bjorn tried to shoot again, but found that the gun only clicked.  He had run out of ammunition at the most inopportune of times.
    With the others attacking it, the bug was quickly blinded and had two of its legs knocked off.  It finally jumped up into the air, leaving Bjorn on the ground.  It buzzed away, struggling to find a place with its blind eyes to lick its wounds.
    As soon as they could get onto their bikes again, they sped away from the scene.  Bjorn led them through the devastated streets of Halloweentowne until they finally came to Halloweentowne Cathedral.  Leaving their vehicles at the front gate, they hurried through the yard to the cathedral’s massive doors.
    Bjorn knocked loudly, and an eye slit opened.  A voice asked, “Who is it?”
    “We’re looking for Greg,” Bjorn told them.
    At the mention of Greg’s name, the Father shut the eye slit and hastily opened the door.  He ushered them inside and then slammed the door closed, locking it tightly.
    The Father shook his head.  “I’m afraid you won’t find Gregory here.  They’ve taken him.”
    “Taken him?” Melvin asked.  Several people huddled around the cathedral’s holy water, collecting as much of it as they could.
    “A few months ago,” Father O’Malley said.  “He was locked up in the insane asylum.”
    “We’re from the real world,” Bjorn told the Father.  “We need Greg’s weapons.”
    The Father nodded and hurried into his rectory.  After a quick minute of searching, he came back with a manila envelope.  “Gregory told me that some people might be coming, and I should aid them if I could.  Here are some things he told me to give you…”
    “But we need to get into his house!” Bjorn said, taking a list of rules for Halloweentowne and a list of monsters and giving them to the others.  “We need his guns!”
    Father O’Malley took some keys from his pocked and jingled them.  “I’ve got the keys.  Let’s--”
    There was suddenly an exceedingly loud knock on the doors to the cathedral.  The Father swallowed nervously and scuttled to the door.  He peaked through the eye slit, gasped, and then began running away from the door.
    “What is it?” Melvin asked.
    “Beatrice!” the Father said, dashing toward his rectory at the opposite end of the cathedral.
    The others looked at one another in puzzlement, and then the doors exploded inward with a deafening roar.  As the dust cleared, a sad-looking little girl in a pretty blue dress stepped into the cathedral.
    “Hello,” she said.
    The people from the real world began scurrying for their lives.  They followed the Father.
    “Why won’t you play with me?” the little girl asked sorrowfully.  She held her doll forward, and, very eerily, her eyes began glowing blue.  Immediately, explosions began ripping through the cathedral, tossing pews and shattering stained-glass windows.
    The people from the real world followed the Father in the garage next to the cathedral.  He leapt into the driver’s seat of his Rolls Royce, and everyone else dove into the car with him.  It was rather packed with thirteen people rammed into the car, but with a psycho little girl that blows things up following them, comfort wasn’t exactly their first thought.
    And suddenly the car refused to start (as it should is all good horror movies).  The Father cranked the engine, but it refused to turn over.  He whispered a prayer and continued to turn the key.  Beatrice followed them into the garage and sniffed.
    “Why are you going?” she asked pitifully, and then her eyes began to glow again.
    At the last possible second, the engine roared to life.  Father O’Malley slammed the car into gear and burst out of the garage through the door.  As they sped into the street, the garage blew up in a horrific explosion.  They quickly left the decimated cathedral behind.
    They again drove through the streets of Halloweentowne.  Father O’Malley explained to them how there had been several complaints lodged against Greg, and, upon inspection of his house, police had found an incredible cache of weaponry.  They had arrested Greg on numerous charges, and he ended up in the insane asylum raving about how they were all doomed the next Halloween.
    As they drove, they came upon a street that seemed completely safe, but lead to terrible doom.  The Rolls Royce suddenly stopped, almost as if it had hit something, but there was nothing in sight.  Dazed, a few of the people climbed out of the car to see what had happened.
    They quickly found a nearly invisible web that had been build between two buildings and straddled the street.  It stuck firmly to the car, freezing it in place.  Suddenly, they saw the creator of the web: and enormous hissing spider.  It shot out a mass of webbing from its spinnerets, binding Chaz.  Bjorn and Cletus hurried to his rescue, but quickly found themselves caught in the webbing as well.  The spider leapt upon Dr. Sofa and bit him at the shoulder.  With another bite, the spider separated the doctor from his arm.  He and others quickly fought against it, Kelly acting most bravely in jumping atop the spider and stabbing it in the back.  The spider bit George, and then was shot to death by a gun the Father had brought.
    After clearing the car from the web, they sped toward Greg’s house again.  Dr. Sofa was in terrible condition and, though they had stopped most of the bleeding, the spider venom was taking its toll.  George, too, was running a high fever because of the venom.
    They soon arrived at Greg’s house, where the Father deactivated the defense system via remote.  Leaving the Rolls Royce in the front, they scurried inside, closed the heavy, reinforced door behind him.  Taking a seat at Greg’s massive, multiple screen computer, Father O’Malley reactivated the defense system and set it on its highest setting.  Meanwhile, the others combed the house for weapons.
    Unfortunately, the police had cleansed the house of all illegal weaponry (which, for Greg, was most of it).  All that was left were a few handguns, knives, and some shuriken.  The only other place they could think of finding weaponry was a large safe off of the main room no one had cracked.
    “What’s the combination?” Bjorn asked Father O’Malley.
    The Father shook his head unknowingly.  “Gregory did not tell me everything.”
    “Then we need to go get Greg and open the safe,” Bjorn said.
    “First we need to take these guys to a hospital,” Kelly told him.  Dr. Sofa and George were quickly falling apart because of the spider’s venom.  Bjorn agreed, and they journeyed into Greg’s garage.  Inside was Greg’s impressively upgraded armored bank truck featuring on board computer.
    After a quick search, they found that Phillip Welsh was very adept at the computer.  Phillip swiftly found the nearest route to Halloweentowne General Hospital.
    “We’re staying here,” Mr. Welsh said, taking his son by the shoulder.  “Where it’s safe.”
    After a brief argument, Phillip went with the truck despite his father’s disapproval.  Mr. Welsh, Nancy, and Father O’Malley stayed behind at the house while the others drove toward the hospital.  Melvin was driving, with Phillip at his side at the computer, and Bjorn in the passenger side.  The rest were in the back, keeping the injured peoples alive.
    They drove as quickly as possible through the darkened streets of Halloweentowne.  Unexpectedly, there was a loud thump on top of the truck.  Something had landed atop the vehicle.  They heard a few stomping noises, and then a black-cloaked figure stuck its head
    Melvin shouted, “Hold on!” and stomped on the brake.  Immediately, everything was thrown forward, and Black Cloak was tossed into the street.  Melvin stamped on the accelerator, and the truck lurched forward at the cloaked figure.  Black Cloak tried to dodge, and was clipped on the side by the speeding armored truck.  He was bowled over and rolled into the sidewalk.
    Melvin spun the truck around and tried to hit him again.  This time, Black Cloak leaped into the air and landed atop the truck.  Bjorn opened his window and ducked out to take aim at the mass of cloaks.
    Black Cloak’s hand appeared and grabbed Bjorn’s mask.  As the mask was pulled away, Bjorn shrieked like a child who lost his security blanket.  Pained insanity ripped through his body, and he felt like his outer layer of skin had been removed.  Having captured a prized object, Black Cloak jumped off of the truck.
    Being completely freaked, Bjorn followed him with his gun at ready.  Melvin stopped the truck as Bjorn hurried out.  Kelly climbed into the front seat from the back.
    “I’ll go help him,” she told Melvin.  “Get to the hospital.”
    Bjorn searched eagerly for Black Cloak and found him disappearing onto a nearby roof up from a fire escape.  He hurried after the monster, determined to get back his mask and make Black Clock pay for the theft.  Kelly ran after him, trying to keep up with the nearly insane man.  Meanwhile, the armored truck sped away toward Halloweentowne General Hospital.
    “We’ll be right back!” Melvin promised.  Everyone shuddered at those famous last words.
    Bjorn climbed the fire escape like an animal.  As he reached the top, he found the cloaked figure sneaking toward the far edge.  A flurry of bullets from Bjorn’s gun later, Black Cloak was a crumpled mass of black material.  Bjorn hurried over to him, shot him a few more times to make sure he was dead, and then kicked him over to find the mask, which the monster had put over his face.  Bjorn smiled and picked up his precious mask.
    As he did, he found that the face underneath was his own.
    The shock of seeing himself behind the mask was the proverbial final straw.  Bjorn fell to the rooftop, lost his sanity, and curled into a sobbing fetal position hugging the mask.
    About the same time, the armored truck had arrived at the hospital.  It was surrounded by a massive horde of zombies, all trying to break into the building and eat their prey.  The people inside had barricaded every door and window on the first few floors and were throwing down needles, flaming objects, anything that would slow the unending onslaught of zombies.  Near the entrance to the emergency ward, some of the zombies were piling up bodies of their dead brethren to create a makeshift ramp with which to break into the hospital’s upper windows.
    “Smart zombies,” someone muttered.
    Melvin revved the engine of the truck and aimed for the ramp.  The truck slammed into the massive pile of zombies, throwing dead and undead bodies everywhere.
    “Steeee-rike!” Melvin yelled.
    Using the confusion to their advantage, the heroes backed the truck up to the entrance to the emergency ward.  Those inside the hospital opened their barricade to allow the others to enter.  They opened the back doors only long enough to sneak the injured inside.
    The arriving heroes were surprised to find the three members of Jack’s Spooky Ragtime Hullabaloo in the hospital.  They were all bandaged and had been helping defend the building.  Those in the truck left the injured people with the doctors of the hospital.  Donnie, Erin, and Frankie took their places in the truck.  Though they had only opened the doors as shortly as possible, the zombies attacked and had to be thrown back with a volley of light weapons fire.
    Chaz slammed the door shut and the zombie invasion halted.  Unfortunately, one had been able to get an arm inside, which was cleaved by the door, and a zombie hand was wriggling on the floor of the truck.  Chaz quickly stomped on the hand, and Erin tossed it out the window.
    The two groups quickly exchanged stories.  The JSRH band members had been separated from them in the fight with the motorcycle gang.  They walked the rest of the way into town through the forest and ran from monsters until they finally found refuge in the hospital.
    Melvin stamped the accelerator, and the truck sped away.  After running over a few more zombies, they decided to head back and find Bjorn and Kelly.  Phillip gave Melvin directions from the computer, and they hurried down the street.  Suddenly Mary screamed and pointed at the rearview mirror.
    A cluster of vampires had picked up their scent and were flying after them.  The denizens of the night flew several dozen feet above the ground with eerie stiff bodies. (These vampires were the same ones that had attacked the 1999 Halloween game.  These five were the only remaining ones.)  The armored truck was enough to stay ahead of them, but the vampires refused to give up the chase.
    Meanwhile, Bjorn was in a nightmare world of insanity.  He was hallucinating; dreaming black hockey masks were chasing him.  His nightmares finally grew dark and became a long tunnel.  At the end of the tunnel was the face of an angel calling his name.  Bjorn came back to his senses, and saw Kelly kneeling next to him, shaking his shoulder, and calling his name.
    “Come on, snap out of it!” Kelly told him.
    He gasped, blinked, and finally regained his sanity.  He smiled at Kelly, who was very glad to see him back in his mind.  The two left the rooftop together, and Bjorn left his mask behind forever.
    The two waited only a short minute before the armored truck pulled up.  Melvin stopped only long enough for them to jump in, and then sped away again.  The vampires were still pursuing them viciously.
    Bjorn suggested driving back to Greg’s house and finding help.  Phillip dialed the videophone on the computer, and Father O’Malley’s face quickly appeared on the screen.  They explained the situation, and the Father said he would arm the defenses.
    The truck dove through the streets and soon came back to the housing addition where Greg lived.  Melvin drove the truck into the driveway, bringing the vampires close.  As the five white-faced monsters flew in to tear apart the truck, Father O’Malley activated Greg’s sprinkler system.  Normal people don’t have holy water rigged to their sprinklers, but then Greg’s no normal person.  As the sprinklers sprayed water high into the air, the vampires screamed in pain and melted away.
    Now that they were safe, everyone decided to find Greg, and Bjorn suggested they find more weaponry on their way.  They drove the truck on a route prescribed by Phillip and the computer.  The truck soon pulled up in front of a gun store near Greg’s house.  The lights were on, but windows of the store were fogged and there was a lot of gunfire coming from inside.  Needless to say, they decided to drive to the next one.
    The second gun store was dark and looked quiet.  Melvin made an effective doorway by ramming the front of the store with the truck.  The gang was quick to pull every weapon and all the ammunition they could find, and they were quickly well armed.  They now had numerous rifles, handguns, and so forth.
    The next stop was Halloweentowne Sanitarium.  As they entered its ivy-covered gates, they drove past a sign that read, “Welcome to Halloweentowne Sanitarium, where if you’re sane, you’ll wish you weren’t.”
    Melvin drove through the empty parking lot and bashed in the front doors of the building.  Everyone leaped out, armed to the teeth.  The night receptionist sat behind her desk and watched in shock as they approached.  And she had thought this job was an easy one.
    “We’re here to get Greg,” Bjorn told the receptionist.
    She tried to stall a bit, but they were very forceful.  At last she told them that Greg was on the sixth floor.  Erin, Melvin, and Bjorn decided to go get him, and they took the receptionist with them.  They kept her at gunpoint and made certain she didn’t pull any funny business.  (Note: She had already triggered the silent alarm, but the police would not be coming on his terrifying night.)
    The elevator took them to the sixth floor, where they quickly captured the orderly as well.  He led them down the hallway to Greg’s padded cell and unlocked the door.  Inside, Greg was sleeping in a corner, wearing a very heavy straightjacket.  He woke up at the sound of the door.
    “Woah,” he said.
    “Get the straightjacket off of him,” Bjorn ordered.  The orderly obeyed, and Greg was freed.
    They left the orderly and secretary locked in Greg’s room, just to make sure.  Then they hurried down the stairs (they didn’t want to risk the elevator again, just in case).  Greg was very glad to be free and comfortable in his white sanitarium-pajamas.
    “Hey, my truck!” Greg said as they came into the destroyed entry room filled with gun-toting psychos and a bank truck.  “Are you guys from the real world?”
    As they talked, they loaded in the truck.  Melvin gave Greg the wheel, and drove away from the prison for the insane.
    “Yes,” Erin told Greg.  “We were in a theater, and this creepy old guy started the projector, and then we ended up here.”
    “I’m glad you came after me,” Greg snorted.  “I was getting mighty tired of being sedated all the time.  How’d you know to find me?”
    “I was here last year, so I knew we needed your guns,” Bjorn told him.
    Greg froze.  He panted a bit and then asked, “What do you mean you were here before?”
    Bjorn shrugged.
    “I’ve never heard of anyone coming back!” Greg shouted.  “Why, how…?”
    “I don’t know,” Bjorn said.
    “The old man!” Greg gasped.  “Why didn’t you kill the old man?!  You knew it was him!  You could have ended this thing forever!”
    “I didn’t have much of a chance,” Bjorn hissed.
    “Great,” Greg said, slumping back.  “Just great.”
    They rode silently for a while, then conversation started back up as they drove past the ghostly mansion that appeared the same year Greg came to Halloweentowne. 
    “Why don’t you just burn it down between Halloweens?” Melvin asked.
    “Don’t you think I’ve tried that?  The was the first thing I tried, and the tenth thing I tried, and the hundredth…” Greg moaned.  “First thing, when I had the money, I purchased that piece of property so I could do anything I wanted to the house.  I’ve done everything: trying to blow it up, burn it, have it torn down.  Nothing works.  Every time something stops me.  Freak rainstorms put out the fires, the charges on explosives immediately go bad, the city won’t let me hire a demolition team to tear it down since it’s historical property…”
    Greg paused, swallowed, and said, “Some… force is keeping me here.”
    The truck suddenly stopped.  They looked at Greg, who was staring nervously down the street.  A few blocks down, a lone figure with scraggly black hair and wearing a black trench coat was looking at the ground.
    Bjorn asked, “Can you get around him?”
    Greg nodded slowly, put the truck in reverse, and started a new path.
    “So, any idea what our monster is?” Chaz asked Greg.
    Greg sat forward in thought.  “Hmm… Well, while I was in the sanitarium, the orderlies were talking about the remodeling of the Old Wing of the asylum.  It was built back in the Twenties and got closed down after a bunch of expense cuts during the Depression.  Supposedly, the guy who was running it was so distraught about the cuts that he committed suicide.  The orderlies said a bunch of the remodeling people got spooked will working in the basement and refused to go back.”
    “You think that’s our monster?” Erin asked.
    “I’d bet on it,” Greg nodded.
    “Then let’s get the others back from the hospital and get rid of that place,” Donny said.
    The truck soon arrived back at the hospital, where a pitched battle was still going on against the zombies.  After a couple more rounds of zombie bowling and a whole bunch of bullet fire, the truck pulled up to the doors to the emergency ward.  Soon those who had been bitten by the spider were back in the truck.  The doctors had healed them quickly and easily with plenty of anti-venom, though they were all sporting a lot of bandages.
    They then hurried away from the emergency ward.  As they were pulling across the zombie-filled parking lot, however, a lone black figure suddenly appeared right in front of them.  Destruction had followed them.
    Greg tried to swerve, but Destruction caught the driver’s side of the front bumper of the truck with his left hand.  The truck stopped in Destruction’s powerful grip as if it had hit a brick wall.  Destruction stared at them with his eyeless gaze.
    Greg slammed the truck into reverse and jammed the accelerator down with Phillip’s shoe.  The tires squealed and rubbed violently against the pavement.  Though Greg did his best to wiggle the truck free, Destruction held the bumper tightly.  Before the others could begin firing, Greg warned them that trying to hurt him.
    “Then how do we stop him?” Chaz shouted of the din.
    “There was a prophecy by some back in the ‘80s,” Greg shouted back.  “But nobody remembers what it was!”
    (Note:  The prophecy had been given by the same mystic that was killed in the 2000 game.  That’ll teach ‘em to not rampantly kill people.)
    Amid the rampant cursing and screams, Destruction moved closer.  He tore off the driver’s door with his right arm.  Greg ducked out of the driver’s seat and hid in the back with the others.  Destruction was coming for them, and with zombies everywhere no one really wanted to leave the truck either.  So the guys began to improvise.
    Chaz threw a couple of bags of blood that they had gotten from the hospital at Destruction, followed by one of his holy water balloons.  They did not do any damage to him, but they did confuse him, slow him down, and make him messy.  Melvin then stepped forward with his fedora that had a press pass in it.  He reached out of the truck through the gaping hole where the driver’s door had been and placed the hat on Destruction’s head.
    Immediately, Destruction let go of the bumper and grabbed Melvin’s arm.  Melvin screamed in pain and braced himself.
    The others immediately looked out how to help, and Bjorn leaped forward to cut Melvin’s arm off at the elbow.  Melvin, now unarmed, thrashed and hit the steering wheel.  The wheel jerked enough so that the front bumper tore off of its bolts and freed the truck.
    The armored truck, still in reverse with the accelerator jammed down, spun wildly around the hospital parking lot.  Destruction went flying, still holding the torn-away bumper and half of Melvin’s arm.  Bjorn grabbed the wheel, unjammed the accelerator, and then drove out of the parking lot.  Meanwhile, the others worked to bandage Melvin’s arm and keep him from going into shock.
    Destruction threw down the bumper and arm (which was soon eaten by a zombie), and ran after them.  Bjorn yielded to Greg, who was very skilled at driving the tank-like truck.  Despite driving upwards of fifty miles per hour through city streets, the monster kept up after them.
    Things suddenly became worse when another monster appeared in front of them.  A black knight riding a black steed with red eyes was at the other end of the street.  As the truck approached, the knight lowered his lance and charged.  Destruction was still close behind.  Trapped between a rock and a hard place, the people inside the truck winced.
    Greg jerked the truck at the last possible moment.  The knight’s horse tried to move to a new attack position, but the truck had already passed.  Behind them, the knight collided with Destruction.   The two then battled one another, and Destruction soon obliterated the knight.  Fortunately, the truck and our heroes with it had escaped.
    Having made a pit stop at Greg’s to open his safe and pull out the remainder of his weapons, they all soon arrived back at Halloweentowne Sanitarium.  After parking the truck in the entry room again, they fanned out and found the entrance to the newly renovated Twenties Wing.  While Greg, Mary, Kirk, and Phillip stayed in the truck, George, Cletus, Dr. Sofa, Melvin, Bjorn, Chaz, Donny, Erin, Frankie, and Kelly (all armed with tons of weaponry and flashlights) entered the door marked “Employees Only.”
    They came to a long hallway next to a staircase, and they cautiously went down the stairs.  As they came to the basement floor, they passed a sign reading in art deco lettering, “Proper Identification Required Beyond This Point.”
    “I think a shotgun is proper identification,” Melvin quipped.
    They came to a dark, eerily silent anteroom filled with dusty art deco furniture.  At the far end of the room was a huge painting of the former director of the sanitarium, Dr. Julius Slayman.  He was a tall, stocky man with a large beard and thick glasses.
    Wary of everything, Chaz shot the painting with his shotgun.
    “It’s eyes were following me,” Chaz explained.
    As Chaz spoke, the painting’s small bullet holes began horrifically bleeding.  Everyone freaked and unloaded their weapons into the painting.  In a matter of seconds, all that was left was a several-inch-deep crater in the wall.
    They then left the entry hall through the only door.  Chaz kicked the door in, and Bjorn made sure to take it off its hinges so that nothing could lock them in.  They ventured in a little and found the next room to be a long hallway with pairs of doors facing one another for the length of it.
    Melvin found a light switch and clicked it, turning on ancient bulbs and lighting the hallway.  As the lights flickered on, a recording began playing.  It was slow at first with a deep and demonic voice.  Soon it sped up to normal speed, and the recording introduced itself as the voice of Dr. Slayman and welcomed them as if they were tourists.  It then proceeded to outline Slayman’s theories in psychology.  Everyone searched for a place to turn off the recording, but they could not find it.
    The first pair of doors read “Hydrotherapy” and “Electrotherapy.”  Dr. Sofa bravely kicked in the door to the Hydrotherapy room and they discovered a large water tank with a chair hanging above it on a small crane.  There were archaic Twenties-style controls along the wall and hoses throughout the room leading to the tank like veins to a black heart.
    Dr. Slayman’s voice then described his theories in “snapping” patients out of their insanity.  He was looking for a way to stimulate them enough to force the insane back to their senses.  He began with graphic, though scientific, descriptions of use of the Hydrotherapy room.
    “This guy’s sick,” Melvin hissed.  The others agreed.
    They then looked into the Electrotherapy room, which had something like an electric chair in the middle of it.  There were similar controls as in the Hydrotherapy room and multitudes of electric wires running toward the chair.
    The next pair of rooms were labeled “Seismotherapy” and “Pyrotherapy.”  The Seismotherapy room had chair set atop a complex hydraulics system that looked like it would shake someone apart.  The Pyrotherapy room had a chair surrounded by robotic arms and a rack of dozens of sizes of blowtorches.
    “Maybe we can use these torches,” Dr. Sofa said.  As he moved to touch one of them, a vision suddenly flashed in his mind.  He saw Dr. Slayman and several other doctors in Twenties attire manning the controls of the Pyrotherapy room.  A patient was strapped in the seat and had the various-sized blowtorches scorching his skin.  Screams filled the air and shook Dr. Sofa’s spirit.
    With a gasp, Dr. Sofa came back to reality with his hand back away from the blowtorches.  The others looked at him questioningly, and he described what he had seen to the others.  They decided that messing with the equipment was a bad idea.
    They went on to the next pair of rooms, labeled “Vibrotherapy” and “Audiotherapy.”  These rooms, too, were filled with torturous devices.  They walked on, completely passing by the rooms marked “Thermotherapy,” “Magnetotherapy”, “Videotherapy”, and “Olfactrotherapy.”  They then came to the end of the hallway, which led to another room down a step and to the side.
    Just before they could explore the room, there were shrieks behind him.  They suddenly realized Chaz was missing and hurried down toward the screams.  He was in the Pyrotherapy room, strapped in the chair with the automated fiery arms scorching his body.  Quickly freeing him and kicking the equipment aside, the others asked what happened.  Chaz, very shaken by the experience, said he did not exactly know.  Something had grabbed him.
    Needless to say, pretty much everyone was spooked by this time.  They ventured back to the far room and looked for some way to end the madness.  They found a square room with four doors leading off of it.  Three of the doors had labels: “Records”, “Dr. Slayman”, and “Observation”.
    They first went into Dr. Slayman’s office and ransacked the place.  It was full of dusty art deco furniture and had a few archaic psychology books on the shelves.  In the desk drawers, they found papers: a few notes, several diagnoses of patients, and terrifying drawings that had been made by patients.
    There were sudden shouts coming from the other rooms.  They all turned toward the door labeled “Observation,” and then ventured inside.  There was a narrow hallway next to cells lined with thick glass.  At the far end of the hallway was a small door.  The first cell was empty.  The second cell had a skeleton curled in the far corner.  The final cell had a live man in it.  He was extremely thin and old, and his beard looked like it had not been cut in decades.
    “You’ve got to help me,” he said.  “Get me out of here.  I’ve been trapped so long…”
    “Who are you?” Melvin asked.
    “…please, just kill me,” was all the man could say.  He moaned and pounded on the glass, which had fingernail scratches all over it.
    Taking pity on the man, Bjorn and Chaz went through the small door at the end of the hallway and went behind to the entrance of the cell.  He shouted, “Kill me!” again and again, and at last they shot him.  The man fell violently and blood splattered against the cell’s glass.
    After lying still for a moment, the old man whimpered.  “He… he won’t let me die…”
    “I should think not,” a voice said.  It was the same voice as the recording they had heard before.  Turning abruptly, they saw a tall, stocky man with a large beard and thick glasses.  “I still have experiments to perform.”
    “Dr. Slayer, I presume,” Donny said.
    “Indeed,” the man answered.
    They all began firing at the man, but their bullets passed through his ghostly body.
    “That won’t stop my experiments,” Slayer said.  “Nothing will!  Not even death.”
    Invisible hands suddenly grabbed Erin and pulled her from the group.  She screamed and kicked, but nothing could break the evil grip.  The hands dragged her out of the hallway back toward the experimentation rooms.
    The others hurried after her; Donny grabbed her leg, but was dragged along with her.  Chaz and Bjorn grabbed the old man and hurried out with him.  Dr. Slayer smiled academically.
    As invisible hands began to attack them all, they did their best to fight back against the infinite strength.  The asylum itself had become insane, and now wanted them.  Erin was dragged into the Electrotherapy room and strapped into place.  As Donny and Frankie fought against the straps, the others defended against the ghostly electrical wires.
    Several of them burst into the Pyrotherapy room and began setting off torches without directly touching them.
    Slayer looked at them in horror.  “What are you doing?!  My experiments!”
    The Pyrotherapy room soon became a huge fireball.  The asylum began to moan in pain and move on its foundation.  As the building began to burn, the invisible forces faded, and they were freed.  Everyone hurried out of the hallway and up the thrashing stairs.  They burst out of the Twenties Wing and hurried out of the gaping hole where the entrance had been.
    Greg had already moved the truck away from the writhing building.  From the safety of the sanitarium grounds, they watched as the building roared against the flames and Dr. Slayer and his experiments were put to an end.  The old man they rescued melted away into dust as his life of horrors finally ended.  At last, the building toppled and the monstrous Dr. Slayer was destroyed.

    The survivors of the evening suddenly found themselves in the deserted theater back in the real world that they had left hours ago.  They were all badly shaken, and many of them had not returned at all.  They then lived out the rest of their lives fearing every Halloween that passed.

Survivors:
George Phelps (severe wounds)
Cletus (badly injured)
Dr. Ed Sofa (psychologically disturbed, severe wounds, and lost arm)
Melvin Spunk Meyer (lost arm)
Bjorn (psychologically disturbed, badly injured)
Chaz (psychologically disturbed, badly injured)
James Tiberius Kirk (badly injured)
Abe Jacobs (badly injured)
Donny Macintosh (badly injured)
Erin Neville (badly injured)
Frankie Oppenheimer (badly injured)
Iris Rain
Kelly Tellin (badly injured)
Mary Vernon
Norman Welsh (psychologically disturbed)
Phillip Welsh
Nancy Welsh