The Nightmare Before Hallowe'en

"See you later!"

"See you!"

"Don't forget, we're meeting at Agasa-Hakase's to go trick-or-treating, okay?" Ayumi called as Shinichi and Haibara wandered off in a different direction from her, Genta and Mitsuhiko. "You promised!"

"Yeah, you owe us!" Mitsuhiko agreed, nodding sternly. Shinichi rolled his eyes.

"Fine," He called back, wishing that he hadn't promised to take the kids trick-or-treating with Ran. "A high-schooler going trick-or-treating?" he thought irritably. But somehow, ever since "Edogawa Conan" had had to "return to America" a month ago, the Shonen Tantei-Dan had for some reason decided to hold Kudo Shinichi accountable for his "cousin's" departure. "Which is sorta right…"

"There's no way out, Mori-chan would have reminded you anyway," Haibara said flatly. "Besides, I'm looking forward to it. I've never been trick-or-treating before…"

"What are you going as, anyway?" Shinichi grumbled. "A mad scientist?" Haibara grinned in a deeply disturbing way.

"Can't wait to see your costume, Holmes-san," she said, turning down the street to Hakase's. "Don't forget, six o'clock. You don't want to upset Ayumi-chan, do you?"

"Fine, fine," Shinichi said, trying to put as much distance as he could between himself and the evil woman.

"Don't forget to buy that candy Mori-chan asked for either," she called after him.

She was doing it on purpose, he knew it. She kept guilt-tripping him into going along with Ayumi's whims, due to the girl's distress over "Conan-kun" vanishing, which meant that Shinichi ended up still hanging out with grade-schoolers despite having been himself for a month now. Ran, unfortunately, thought it was hilarious, and was continually dragging him into babysitting the kids- like the trick-or-treating excursion. "Something tells me she's still not forgiven me for lying to her for two years…"

He didn't slow down even after he was away from Haibara- thankfully, he'd promised to drop by Ran's before going home, which meant he was left alone with the devil child for the minimum time necessary, plus there was the candy to buy. He stopped at a store to buy a couple of king-size bags, feeling a little guilty because he had nearly forgotten that he'd promised to do that. He picked up the candy and ran out of the store, though he didn't really have to run since he wasn't that late. But it was a cold October evening, and the light jog kept him warm. However, the faster he went, the sooner he'd get to the Agency and find out what had happened with the costume that he'd left at Ran's- they were going to change before picking up the kids, since Ran had insisted that they dress up too. To that end, he'd located a Deerstalker Cap and Inverness Cape, but he had a bad feeling that Ran may have replaced them, especially since she'd refused to tell him what HER costume was…

Go fast and have to change, or go slow and freeze? It was tough.

Still, it wasn't far between where he split with Haibara and the Agency. He slowed down, kicking at leaf tumbling lazily on the wind, before climbing the stairs.

"Ran? he called, peeking into the office. He frowned at the empty room. Since he'd gone to pick up the grade-schoolers and remind them of the arrangements, Ran should have gotten there a short while before he did, and she'd be in here saying hi to Occhan… For that matter, where was he? Was he out on a case? He was generally in the office otherwise…

"Ran?" he called as he climbed the stairs to the apartment. He shivered, but not from the cold. Something felt odd. Where was Ran?

"Ran …" he called again, entering the apartment. And tripped over somebody on the floor.

"What the-?!" he gasped, and choked as the breath froze in his throat. It returned shallow and fast, almost hyperventilating as he smelled a rank stench, felt something wet and sticky under his hands. He slowly raised them, staring in uncomprehending horror at the dark red stains. It was half-dry. The stains on the purple suit in front of him- he couldn't focus on the body within, he couldn't- were nearly black. Automatically, he slowly turned to survey the rest of the apartment. He first saw the phone hanging from its cradle, dangling from the curled wire connected the handset to the rest of the device. Lying next to it, her hand just beneath the dangling handset…

"No," he croaked, trying to stagger to his feet, only managing his knees as he crawled towards her. He couldn't stand upright. The world was too broken. There was no steady ground left. "Oh, Kami, no…"

He reached for her with trembling hands, trying to pull her into his lap. She wasn't cold yet, but she wasn't warm enough. He shook her slightly, numbly, but he could already see the half-dried stain seeping into the white angel's minidress, one of the wings in the back broken by the path of the bullet. He gasped for air, not crying- he was too frozen for that. His brain had shut down entirely. It couldn't be, it was all over, all done, all gone…

"Ran…" he whispered. "No… please no…"

"Ojousama? An officer is on their way. Ojousama? Ojousama?"

Shinichi stared uncomprehendingly at the phone as the tinny voice rattled out. An officer was coming? Too late, too late, too…

He heard sirens. A police car was stopping outside. He should go tell them something, but he couldn't move, he just couldn't…

"Mori-kun?" he faintly heard Megure-keibu's voice calling distantly from the bottom of the stairs. "Mori-kun, what's-" Suddenly, with a crack, he fell silent. Shinichi jerked upright, his breath catching, eyes widening in horror.

"Keibu!"

"Megure-keibu!"

"No," Shinichi gasped, staggering to his feet, Ran's weight sliding from his lap. "No! Get away!"

He ran down the stairs, drawn by two more cracks, two more silenced voices…

He leapt almost unseeingly over a brown heap at the bottom of the stairs, slipping slightly in the spreading red puddle underneath. There was nobody in the street-nobody alive. He could see a man's legs poking out from behind the car, and out of the corner of his eye he could see a woman slumped against the wall, a trail of red dripping down the wall where she had fallen…

And footsteps in the opposite alley.

Furious, terrified, filled with grief and anger, Shinichi unthinkingly gave chase. Didn't think how they'd done it, how they'd gotten away, how they'd tracked them down, why they didn't shoot him down here and now…

He just chased the fleeting black figure that led him down the back alleys, always just on the edge of sight. Like it was leading him.

He almost tripped over another body. He froze, staring down at the tiny thing that he had almost stepped on. It was dressed in a little green witches' dress, he realized numbly- at least, the patches that weren't stained red were green. Her hairband had a little spider on it instead of a flower. Next to her- was that a little Kid costume? Figures someone would make those. His brain wandered in little circles rather than comprehending the blood, the little bodies, the echoes of voices discussing costumes…

"They're getting away."

He began moving again in response to the little reminder that some part of his brain that still lived whispered out. At first he moved slowly, stepping carefully over the little witch, the little Kid, the unusually fat Jack Skellington, then went into a full-blown run. He'd lost the figure in black, but his feet automatically took him in the direction of his remaining fears.

The door of Agasa-Hakase's was unlocked. He staggered in, calling weakly for the professor. He froze when he saw the man slumped over at his desk, then laughed a little crazily. He must've just fallen asleep as his desk again, right? He'd gotten Haibara with that one once…

"Hakase… wake up…" he said weakly, shaking his shoulder. The computer chair shifted when he did, and Agasa-Hakase limply fell away, revealing the red stain on the desk beneath…

Someone laughed coldly behind him. He whipped around, staring in numb horror as Gin tossed Haibara's tiny, limp body onto the couch and stalked towards him.

"You thought you could defeat us, could you?" he said, cold anger simmering under his words. "Well, now you pay. But don't worry… you'll see them all again soon…" He raised his Beretta. Shinichi couldn't move, couldn't speak, just stared down the barrel of the gun. A cold fear burned over in his stomach, but it was wiped away by the numbness; he was going to die, but like Haibara had once warned him, they'd killed everyone else around him, and they'd killed them first…

Gin pressed the trigger. Pink silly string sprayed all over Shinichi's face.

He choked and sputtered, blowing silly string off of his lips. He stared as Gin grinned in an entirely odd way. He heard sniggering spill over into full-blown laughter behind him.

"Ultra-Trick!" The Shonen Tantei-Dan sang, Ayumi still wiping red liquid off of her face. Ran was trying not to laugh too hard, while Kogoro wasn't bothering.

"How…?" Shinichi gasped, feeling for the second time that day as if the world was crumbling around him, revealing some surreal funshouse mirror. "You were all… cold… no pulse…"

"That's what you get for not paying attention when you're watching "stupid American comic-book movies" with people," Haibara said dryly.

"But… the blood…?" Shinichi said, staring at the stains on his hands.

"We got it from that haunted house in the mall that you tore apart every year before I stopped making you come in with me," Ran giggled.

"We're really sorry, Shin-chan," Gin said, before pulling his face off and transpiring to be Yukiko. "But you're far too much like your father- far too analytical. You're a very difficult child to scare, you know…"

"So you all plotted against me?" Shinichi said, the fear and horror fading and being replaced.

"It's not very professional, but… your face when Yukiko-san sprayed you with the silly string…" Sato said, her serious expression fading when she broke down into giggles, leaning on a blushing Takagi for support.

"Yuusaku-kun was the evil mastermind, but for some reason he wouldn't join in," Agasa mused. Shinichi grinned evilly.

"Because he knows that I'm going to KILL YOU ALL!" He cried, grabbing the silly string gun from his mother and proceeding to liberally spray everybody in the room, despite their desperate attempts to escape.

…

Agasa-Hakase made some wonderful hidden cameras. Watching his son assault those around him with pink silly string, Yuusaku indulged in laughing his ass off. Then he collected all the little video files together and hit "send".

A while later, he got a reply.

Brilliant! Tantei-kun has some of the greatest expressions. I'll send you a free copy of the movie when we finish it ;)

…

Happy Hallowe'en, everybody… MUAHAHAHAHA…

I always wanted to realize Shinichi's ultimate fears, but I didn't feel cruel enough to make it real, so I too have hijacked a chapter of SetoJouFan's KaiShin oneshot collection "October", where the idea of making a horror movie is discussed by Kaito and Akako. (The first to do it was StargateNerd ;) )

I do not own Meitantei Conan or Magic Kaito- they are Aoyama-sensei's. Keep your black-magic copyright curses away from me. I don't own Jack Skellington either.