Chapter Text
Stan’s car screeched into a handicapped parking spot, bumping over the barrier at the end. The twins, Stan, Soos, and Doey climbed out to look at the building they’d arrived at.
“Here we are!” Stan said proudly. “The Summerween Superstore.”
The building was one of those spaces that is empty for most of the year, and only gets a business set up for seasonal things. The store’s sign was just a temporary banner, though the large bat prop on the roof was a nice touch. Despite it being summer, the store was surrounded by trees that were losing their leaves. The late-afternoon sunlight didn’t make the place look any less ominous.
“Wait, Summer what?” Dipper asked, scratching the side of his head.
“Summerween!” Stan repeated, pulling a calendar out of his pocket. “The people of this town love Halloween so much, they celebrate it twice a year. And wouldn’t you know it, it’s today!”
“Do you always carry that calendar in your pocket?” Dipper asked him, looking skeptical. Stan looked around shiftily.
“Yes.”
Mabel mirrored Dipper’s look.
“Summerween? Something about this feels unnatural.”
“There’s free candy!” Soos told the twins, and that was all it took to convince them. They grabbed a wheelbarrow and charged inside.
“To the costume aisle!”
Doey followed them inside as Soos started playing with an electronic candy bowl with a talking skull.
“Haha! This guy tells it like it is!”
“Sir!” An overworked employee pushing a handcart said. “Could you please stop pushing that.”
“Ma’am,” Soos told her. “Make these heads less hilarious, and you got yourself a deal.”
He pressed the hand again, and the employee sighed and went back to work.
“Ooh, can I do our new costume idea? Can I? Can I?”
“It’s a little short notice. Maybe we can ask Mabel for help?”
“Sure. It’s just the jacket and hat. We can cover the other stuff.”
“Great. Jack, you’re in control for this.”
“Yaaaay!!!!”
Doey was about to follow Dipper and Mabel to the costume aisle when Stan called him over, having picked up a large barrel of fake blood and said “boo” to a baby, making it cry.
“Hey, Doey! Give me a hand with these!”
“Sure, Grunkle Stan!”
Stan began to shove Summerween decorations into Doey’s body, bloating up his stomach into a large sphere. Meanwhile, Soos was now pressing multiple talking skulls at once and Dipper and Mabel crashed their wheelbarrow into a stack of jack-o-melons, destroying them and spilling onto the ground. The employee from before, now at the cash register, spoke into the store’s PA system.
“Have the police come and eject the Pines family from the store.”
“Not today!”
Stan threw down a smoke bomb to blind the cashier, and he and Soos raced out with several barrels of fake blood. Dipper and Mabel followed in the wheelbarrow, and Doey toddled after them, clutching his massive stomach.
As the family ran for their car, Mabel asked Stan, “You paid for this stuff, right?”
“Of course!”
Inside the store, the cashier stared at the “Stan Buck” Stan had used to pay. It was just a cut up piece of lined notebook paper with a drawing of Stan and some details to make it look like a dollar bill.
“I hate Summerween.” She muttered as Stan’s car knocked over a power line, crushing a large, inflatable jack-o-melon.
“Let’s move!”
As the car sped away, the cashier went to set the fake money aside when she noticed something else on the counter. It was a roll of money tied in a rubber band, with a childish drawing of a woman that she figured was supposed to be her and the large dough man who was part of the Pines family. Written above the drawing was the words Sorry ‘bout the mess!
She counted the money. It was enough to cover the stolen merchandise and, by happy coincidence, to replace the ruined inflatable and damaged jack-o-melons. She set the drawing down by the register and started putting the money inside, a smile on her face.
Maybe Summerween wasn’t so bad, after all.
---Line Break---
Back at the Mystery Shack, later in the evening, Doey pulled the last of the Summerween decorations out of his stomach and sighed.
“Grunkle Stan, I don’t mind helping out, but please ask before you do that next time. Carrying so much heavy stuff inside me is hard.”
“And I appreciate it, kid.” Stan told him. “Sorry you didn’t get a chance to pick out a costume.”
“It’s okay.” Doey reassured him. “I was gonna ask Mabel to help me make a costume anyway.”
Stan nodded and patted one of the barrels of fake blood.
“Good idea. I’m gonna set these decorations up.”
Doey made his way into the den, where Dipper and Mabel were talking, and Soos was sitting and eating candy, already dressed as a masked wrestler.
“I am so excited!” Mabel was saying.
Dipper agreed.
“We’re gonna have the best costumes, get the most candy…”
“And have the biggest stomachaches ever!” Doey chimed in, giving his plump belly a smack for emphasis, making it jiggle.
“Yeah!”
“Ha ha! Yeah!”
The siblings had a three-way high-five.
“Dude,” Soos spoke up. “I’ve never seen you guys so pumped.”
“Well, back at home,” Mabel explained. “Me and Dipper were kind of the kings of trick-or-treating.” She opened her Halloween scrapbook to show Soos the photos of her and Dipper wearing matching costumes year after year. “Twins in costumes- the people eat it up.”
“Of course,” Dipper chimed in. “We had to make space on the throne for Doey when he was adopted. He could become things that nobody could dress as normally. Like one year, he turned into Mr. Faceless from The Cranky Girl Who Did Chores in Spirit Town? That was Matthew’s choice of costume for the year.” He paused for a moment. “Mabel helped him with the details. She’s watched that movie eighty-two times.”
Mabel nodded. “The only reason he didn’t win the costume contest he entered was because he wasn’t the right color from the movie, and that wasn’t his fault.”
Doey chuckled.
“That was a fun one,” he admitted. “But this year it’s Jack’s turn to choose the costume, and I was actually hoping to get your help with some of the costume, Mabel.”
His sister beamed and nodded.
“Sure!”
“Well,” Soos said. “You dudes better be careful out there. It’s a night of ghouls and goblins, not to mention…” he set down his candy bowl, turned off the lights, and shined a flashlight under his face. “The Summerween Trickster.”
“The Summer what What-what?” Mabel asked confusedly.
“The Trickster goes door to door,” Soos continued. “So the legend goes, eating children who lack the Summerween spirit.”
“Well, you don’t have to worry about us.” Dipper pointed to Mabel, Doey, and himself. “We’ve got spirit to go around.”
He grabbed some candy from Soos’s bowl and ate it, only to choke. He grabbed some more as Soos turned the lights back on.
“Oh, what is this stuff? I’ve never even heard of these brands. Sand Pop? Gummy Chairs? Mr. Adequate Bar?”
“This is all cheapo loser candy!” Mabel complained.
“Are you really that surprised?” Doey asked them. “Have you met Stan? He went cheap on the candy so he could put more time and money into the scares. Besides, we’re gonna get the good stuff at the other houses.”
Soos grabbed another piece of candy out of the bowl.
“Quiet your discontent, children, lest the Trickster overhear.”
“Your cape is caught in your fly, Soos.” Dipper told him.
Soos ate the candy.
“Touche.”
Dipper tossed handfuls of the candy out the window into the trash can as Mabel led Doey upstairs to start work on his costume.
Unknown to any of them, something else was watching the candy get thrown out.
---Line Break---
Mabel led Doey up into the attic.
“You wanted to be N from Murder Drones, right?”
Jack’s head and torso emerged from Doey’s mouth.
“Yeah! He’s nice and funny.”
Mabel nodded thoughtfully.
“How much of the costume are you doing yourself?” She asked.
“Well, we can do all the detail work on his body ourselves, we just need the jacket and hat.”
“Okay!” Mabel grinned. “I can get those done quickly. Good thing Dipper and I found our costumes at the store.” She held up a pair of matching costumes, one peanut butter, the other jelly.
Setting the costumes down, she pulled out a tape measure.
“Gonna need some measurements.”
Jack retracted back into Doey’s body, and Doey began to shrink. He wasn’t entirely sure how he could grow and shrink in size, though if he got big enough, he had to start opening hollow spaces inside himself and spreading his dough thinner. But nobody could explain how he could compress so small, with the smallest he’d gotten being when he’d shapeshifted into a housecat.
His body shrank and compressed to about 5’-4”, his dough colors shifting into different patterns on different parts of his body. The holes that served as his usual eyes were replaced by patches of yellow dough, with more forming a hazard pattern along his wrists and boot-like feet. His legs lengthened as his body shortened, and his arms grew thinner. Blue dough stretched out from his head, forming into fluffy hair, with five more spots of dough appearing in it. A tail ending in a replica of a syringe made of yellow dough with a hardened red “stinger” sprouted from his waist.
“How do I look?”
Mabel grinned and grabbed some of her makeup, painting Doey’s body white and the majority of his head black, with silver in his “hair.” She also painted his tail and the missing sections of the hazard patterns black.
Doey picked up some penlights that he’d bought earlier and swallowed them, moving them within his body so that one was positioned behind each spot of yellow dough on his body before switching them on. One also was moved into his tail. He thinned the yellow dough enough for the glow of the lights to shine through.
“You look great!” Mabel told him. She grabbed some black fabric and started work on the coat and cap. “And I’ll be done with these soon.”
It looked like it was going to be a fun Summerween.
---Line Break---
Doey walked downstairs, now wearing a long black winter coat with a fur collar, yellow “MARKED FOR DISSASSEMBLY” armband, and cap with the winged skull badge that Mabel had made for him. He went outside to look at the decorations and was surprised to see Wendy and Robbie in Robbie’s van. Wendy looked up to see him.
“Oh, hey, Doey.”
“Hi, Wendy!”
While Doey’s default voice was the goofy deep one he normally spoke with, Jack, Matthew, and Kevin each had their own distinct voice that they spoke with if they felt like it, which they rarely did. Jack’s voice sounded remarkably similar to N’s voice actor.
“Whoa, your costume looks awesome, dude! How’d you get your colors to change? And the glowing lights? How are you doing that?”
“Mabel painted me with makeup to look right, and I swallowed some penlights for the glow! Cool, huh?”
“Totally!” Wendy agreed. “I’m guessing you’re going trick-or-treating? You’re Jack, right? The youngest?”
“Yeah, I’m Jack. Sorry, you usually talk to Matthew or Kevin.”
“It’s okay, man. Nice to officially meet you.” Wendy shook his hand.
Doey looked at Robbie’s van.
“Cool van! Do you solve mysteries in it?”
Robbie made a scoffing sound, but while he tried to hide it, his eyes suggested that he’d found the question funny.
“No, little dude. We don’t.” He took in Doey’s costume. “What are you even supposed to be?”
“I’m Serial Designation N, nice to meet you!” Jack quoted and did N’s salute.
“He’s from that web show, Robbie.” Wendy said. “Remember? Murder Drones?”
“Yeah,” Robbie admitted. “I couldn’t really get into it. The main character is kind of cool, though.”
“Yeah, Uzi’s pretty great.”
Wendy looked at Robbie for a moment. “Hey, once you’re done trick-or-treating, there’s this Summerween party going on at Tambry’s house. It starts at 9:00. I don’t know if you’d like it very much, but Matthew and Kevin might, and there might be a costume party.”
“Mind if I take this one, Jack?”
“Okay!”
Doey’s voice deepened back to normal.
“I appreciate the invite, Wendy, but this is kind of Jack’s night, so we’re gonna stick to the trick-or-treating. You two go enjoy the party for us!”
“No problem, dude.” Wendy grinned. “Have a fun Summerween!”
She and Robbie drove off.
“Ten bucks says that she’s told Dipper about the party and now he wants to go.”
“One, we all have the same money, so there’s no reason to take the bet.”
“No reason to not take the bet, either. It’s not like you’d lose any money.”
“Guys, can we please just focus on trick-or-treating? Please?”
“Yeah, sure, Jack. Sorry.”
“No problem, Jack. We can do that.”
Doey saw Candy and Grenda walking down the road towards the Mystery Shack. Candy was dressed like, well, a piece of candy. Grenda was dressed as a witch.
“Hi Candy! Hi Grenda!”
“Hey, Doey!” Grenda waved to him. “Whoa, awesome costume. You really look and sound like N!”
“How did you get the glow effect?” Candy asked.
Doey repeated his explanation to her, and led the two girls back to the Mystery Shack, where Mabel was waiting for them, now in costume. She took them to introduce them to Grunkle Stan, while Doey waited for Dipper.
“Oh, man, guys. Just wait until you see Dipper’s costume. It’s amazing!”
Dipper came down the stairs, still in his regular clothes.
“That is a very good Dipper costume.” Candy observed.
“What the hey-hey, bro-bro? Mabel asked. “Where’s your costume?”
“Look,” Dipper explained. “I can’t go trick-or-treating. I’m, uh, really sick.” He coughed unconvincingly. “Must have been that bad candy. You go on without me.”
“HA! I called it!”
“None of us took the bet, Kevin.”
“Fight through it, man!” Mabel barked. “Where’s your Summerween spirit?”
A knock at the door kept Dipper from answering. He opened it to was there.
“Trick or treat.”
The figure on the porch wore tattered, patchwork clothes and a wide-brimmed hat. His face was covered by a cute-looking jack-o-melon mask. And he was huge. As in, taller-than-Doey-in-his-default-form tall. He was hunched slightly to keep his face at a semi-normal height.
Dipper didn’t seem impressed.
“Dude, really?” He asked irritably. “You’re a little old for this, man. Sorry.”
“But wait, I’m- “
Dipper slammed the door in his face.
“Okay, that was uncalled for.”
“Am I the only one getting a bad feeling?”
“No. That guy was scary. Something was wrong with him.”
“Why’d you close the door?” Mabel asked Dipper.
“I told you, Mabel, I’m just not feeling it tonight.” He coughed unconvincingly again.
“I think a little trick-or-treating will make you feel better.” Mabel said knowingly.
“I’m not trick-or-treating.”
Another sound came from the door, this time a loud pounding. Dipper opened it again to see the same figure on the porch.
“Look, man, just go to another house!”
He slammed the door again.
“Dipper!” Mabel cried, aghast. “Where’s your Summerween hospitality?”
Candy and Grenda were looking at him sternly, but Doey was watching the door warily. That guy was seriously wrong.
The pounding on the door began again, even louder.
“I’m not getting that.”
“Well, I am!”
Mabel shoved Dipper away from the door and opened it.
“I apologize for my brother.” She told the man on the porch. “He came down with a case of the Grumpy Grumps.”
“SILENCE!” Snapped the figure, who stood up to his full, terrifying height and pointed at Mabel. “You have insulted me, and for this you must pay… with your lives!”
He leaned forward, the light from the doorway illuminating his mask.
“Ohh! What a cute little mask. You’re a funny guy, aren’t you?”
Doey was about to step forward and fight the guy when he stepped through the door into the house.
“Funny, am I?”
A little boy in a pirate costume walked up to the door with a jack-0-melon pail in hand.
“Twick-or-tweat! My name is Gorney!”
The man grabbed the kid in one hand, opened a massive mouth full of teeth, and swallowed the kid in one bite.
“AAH! Remember me!”
Dipper, Mabel, and Candy screamed. Grenda called the kid’s name. Doey put himself between them and the monster.
“There’s only one way for you to avoid his fate-“ the monster said. “I need a treat. If you collect five hundred pieces of candy and bring it to me before the last jack-o-melon goes out… I will let you live.”
“Five hundred treats in one night?” Dipper cried. “That’s impossible!”
“The choice is yours, children.” The monster said. “You must trick-or-treat… or die.”
The monster backed out through the door and leapt away, laughing sinisterly. They ran outside just in time to see him crawl, spiderlike, over the Shack’s roof.
“Oh my gosh, Mabel,” Dipper said. “Do you know what this means?”
“I do.” Mabel replied. “It means you have to come trick-or-treating! Yay!”
There was silence for a moment as everyone processed what had happened.
“Who was that guy?” Candy asked.
“It’s the legends Soos told us about.” Mabel explained. “It’s true!”
Grenda grabbed Dipper and began to shake him.
“What do we do, what do we do?”
Soos ran out onto the porch.
“What’s going on out here, dudes? I heard a ruckus.” He chuckled. “That’s a funny word- ruckus.”
“Soos,” Dipper started. “A monster is making us trick-or-treat, or else he’s gonna eat us.”
Candy pulled out her cell phone.
“I got a picture.”
Sure enough, she’d taken a picture of the monster at some point without it noticing.
“The Summerween Trickster!” Soos declared. “Oh, man, dude, you guys are in crazy bonkers trouble.”
“How are we gonna get that much candy in one night?” Dipper asked. “There’s no way!”
Mabel stood on top of a hay bale and clapped her hands for attention.
“Listen up, people!” She said. “Now, some might say that being cursed by a bloodthirsty holiday monster is a bad thing…”
“I wet myself.” Grenda admitted.
“But that monster messed with the wrong crew.” Mabel continued. “With Candy’s spirit, Grenda’s strength, Dipper’s brain, Doey’s shapeshifting, and… Soos, here… We’ll get five hundred pieces of candy and have fun doing it, too, even if it takes all night!”
They all (except Dipper) cheered.
“To the streets!”
“All night?” Dipper asked. “But- but I’m sick, remember?” He coughed.
“Dipper, what’s worse- “ Mabel asked. “Getting eaten by a horrifying monster, or going trick-or-treating with us?”
“Well…”
Mabel grabbed Dipper and dragged him off, and the others followed.
---Line Break---
Soos drove the kids into town for trick-or-treating.
The streets were filled with townspeople, young and old, going door to door in costumes.
The Corduroy family (sans Wendy) were dressed as Viking, charging into every house they could for candy.
Blubs and Durland had dressed as each other, which looked kind of silly, but they seemed to be having a great time.
The kids and Soos made their way down the street, looking for their first house to stop at.
“I don’t understand why we can’t just buy our candy and be done with it.” Dipper was saying, pushing the wheelbarrow for their candy.
“That sort of takes the fun out of “trick-or-treat or die.” Mabel told him.
“I’m trying to take the “die” out of “trick-or-treat or die.”
“It’s more fun this way.” Doey told him, before Matthew took over for a moment. “Besides, I think the Trickster would see buying the candy as cheating.”
They walked up to a house behind another group of trick-or-treaters who had just rung the doorbell. Lazy Susan came out, dressed as a ball of yarn, and all of her cats were wearing masks.
“Trick-or-Treat!”
“Well, aren’t you just the cutest!” Susan gushed. “And is everyone in costume? Oh, good! Wonderful!”
She opened a large bag of candy and poured generous amounts into everyone’s pillowcases. The kids left happily.
“Happy Summerween!”
Dipper, Mabel, Doey, Soos, Candy, and Grenda then stepped forward, holding out their pillowcases.
“Trick-or-Treat!”
“And is everybody in costume?” Susan asked again, looking at the kids’ costumes.
“Chimney sweep.” She pointed to Grenda.
“Elephant Man.” That one was Soos.
“Squeegee.” That was Candy.
“Ant farm.” That was Mabel.
Then she pointed at Doey, frowned for a moment, studied his costume more closely, and smiled.
“Cinnamon roll!”
“I guess that’s kind of accurate to N.”
“That’s true.”
“Oh, and what are you supposed to be?” Susan asked Dipper, who was still not in costume.
“Uh, actually, I’m not dressed up as anything.” He told her. “We-We’re kind of in a hurry here.”
Lazy Susan frowned and put her hands on her hips.
“Oh. I see.”
She reached into the candy bag and dropped a single piece each into their pillowcases.
“Enjoy!” She said cheerfully and slammed the door.
The kids checked their candy.
“One piece of black licorice?” Grenda asked.
“Circus peanut!” Candy cried. “This is loser candy!”
“Four pieces of candy!” Dipper complained. “This is gonna take forever.”
“We’ve gotta up our game, Dipper.” Mabel told him. “You gotta put on your costume.”
“I told you I’m not up to it, Mabel.” Dipper responded. He fake-coughed again.
“Oh, really?”
The Trickster had appeared on top of a flickering streetlight. The street was now uncomfortably empty.
The Trickster jumped down onto Soos’s shoulders as he trembled in fear and examined their meager candy haul.
“Hmm. I’ve seen better.”
He leapt off of Soos and over to a nearby rooftop, grabbing a jack-o-melon as he went.
“Tick tock.”
He blew out the jack-o-melon and leapt behind the house, out of sight.
Everybody looked at Dipper, who still looked unsure.
“Jack?”
“Do it.”
Jack switched with Kevin, who grabbed Dipper’s vest with one hand and pulled the flyer out of his pocket with the other.
“Mason,” he said, softly enough that only Dipper could hear him. He only used his brother’s real name if he was very angry. “We are in this situation because of you. Because you insulted the Trickster, because you wanted to look more grown up for Wendy. Now you’ve put Mabel, Candy, Grenda, and Soos’ lives in danger because of that, but you’re still more concerned with that party. So I’m going to give you a choice. Option 1: you put your costume on, and wear it all night, getting the five hundred pieces of candy for the Trickster, and saving everyone’s lives. Option 2: I kill the Trickster when he next shows his face, and you’re off the hook for the candy. But-“ he continued, cutting Dipper off when he tried to speak. “- I will tell Wendy what happened tonight. I will show her proof, and I will make it clear that you care more about impressing her when she’s already in a relationship than you do about your sister and friends’ lives. So, what will you choose?”
Dipper, his face pale, nodded.
---Line Break---
The group took a short break while Dipper got changed, then Mabel hyped them up.
“Introducing, for the first time in public… Ta-da! Peanut butter and jelly!”
The others “awwed” at the sight. Candy pulled out her phone and took a picture.
“I will make you Internet-famous!”
“Hey, erase that!” Dipper protested. He glanced at his watch. “Let’s just get this over with, okay?”
The others ran off, chanting “Over with! Over with!” Doey gave Dipper a small glare before Kevin gave control back to Jack.
“Hey, Dipper?” He said quietly to his brother. “I’m sorry ‘bout Kevin, but he’s not wrong. This is more important than Wendy.”
He ran off to trick-or-treat at another house while Dipper followed his sister.
They went to the next house, and Dipper rang the bell. He turned to Mabel.
“Do you really think this will make a difference?”
The door opened, and the biker that Mabel had befriended at the biker joint stepped out with a candy bowl in hand. Dipper and Mabel did a little dance, ending with “TWINS!”
The biker smiled and his eyes teared up. He emptied his bowl into Dipper and Mabel’s bag.
The group met back up with Soos at the wheelbarrow, each with a bag bulging with candy. They emptied it into the wheelbarrow and charged off again for more.
“Let’s get that candy, guys!”
As the night grew later and more and more people blew out their jack-o-melons, the group moved from house to house, raking in the candy. They all screamed and recoiled when Toby Determined came to the door, except for Doey.
“What a horrible mask!” Mabel cried.
“That’s just my face.” Toby said. “This is a mask.” He put on a mask and made a feeble monster sound. He actually looked better with it on.
They kept going, filling the wheelbarrow to the brim with candy.
“Four ninety-eight, four ninety-nine!” Mabel counted. “We did it!”
They all cheered.
“All we need is one more piece of candy.”
“And it’s only 8:30.” Dipper said, checking his watch. “Perfect timing!”
Mabel gave him a hug.
“Yeah, and your cough went away, too!”
‘Dude, I’m gonna go around and grab the truck.” Soos told them. “Soos, away!”
“Last one to the final house is a pair of wax lips!” Mabel challenged, and she, Candy, Grenda, and Doey charged off to be first to that house. Doey was feeling great. Soon the Trickster would be appeased, and they could trick-or-treat for some candy they could keep for themselves.
Of course, that’s when things went horribly wrong.
Doey was on his way back to Dipper with the other kids and the last piece of candy when he saw Robbie’s van drive away from Dipper, who was no longer in costume. The wheelbarrow of candy was also nowhere to be seen.
Mabel had seen it too.
“You’re going to a party?”
Doey grimaced. He’d been too excited about trick-or-treating to mention the party to Mabel, especially since he hadn’t been planning to go. He hadn’t thought about how she might have taken Dipper, her costume buddy since she was born, blowing her off to go to it.
Dipper fumbled for an explanation.
“well- Well, hey, I- Aah!”
Mabel threw the last piece of candy at him.
“That’s why you were acting so weird and trying to hurry us.” She accused him. “You’re not sick at all, so if it weren’t for this crazy monster, you were gonna ditch me… on our favorite holiday!”
Candy and Grenda gasped.
“What happened to the Dipper who used to love Halloween?” Mabel asked. She then looked around, and it registered what else was missing. “And where’s all the candy?!”
“Relax, relax.” Dipper said calmly. He moved over to a bush nearby. “I left it right here, behind this bush.”
He pushed aside the bush.
“Oh, no!”
Behind the bush was a ditch with a stream of water at the bottom. The candy had spilled out of the wheelbarrow and was sinking into the water, being pushed downstream. Mabel stared at Dipper in horror.
“What did you do?”
“Well, I- I- “ Dipper stammered.
“Uh… guys?” Grenda spoke up, getting their attention. They all turned to look back at the street.
The houses were dark. The trick-or-treaters were gone. All the jack-o-melons had gone out.
“Oh, no!” Mabel cried. “All the jack-o-melons are out!”
“Look!” Dipper pointed. At the end of the street, in the town dump, one last jack-o-melon burned faintly on a wrecked car. Old Man McGucket stood over it, clearly about to blow it out.
“Heh heh heh! Good night!”
He took a deep breath.
“Stop!”
The kids raced over to him, begging him not to blow out the candle. The overlapping voices must have confused McGucket, as he fumbled for an ear trumpet.
“WHAT?”
Dipper shouted. “DON’T BLOW OUT THAT CANDLE!”
There was a pause.
“I’m Old Man McGucket!”
Grenda knocked McGucket aside before he could blow out the candle, and he skittered off into the dump.
“Sorry!”
“Whoo, that was close.” Dipper said. They all breathed a sigh of relief…
…which blew out the candle.
“Uh oh.”
They all huddled together as the Trickster stepped out of the shadows into a flickering streetlight.
“Knock-knock.”
Grenda dropped the melon.
---Line Break---
The Trickster backed the children into the junkyard.
“So, children…” the Trickster asked. “where’s my candy?”
“I swear, we had all five hundred pieces!” Dipper told the Trickster. He pointed to the ditch. “Look, it’s down there somewhere. We can still get it!”
The others nodded silently.
The Trickster grew taller, his shadow eclipsing them all. His back burst out of his patchwork clothes.
“I’m afraid it’s too late! That was your last chance.”
Dipper threw the last piece of candy at the Trickster. It stuck to his chest before being sucked inside his body. Doey saw this, and his eyes widened. That looked familiar…
The Trickster laughed and began to slowly grow extra arms from his back.
“Go!” Dipper screamed. “Go, go, go!”
They ran around the Trickster towards the street but had only just reached it when the monster reached out and grabbed Dipper, Mabel, Candy, and Grenda in each of his four arms. A fifth arm reached out and grabbed Doey, lifting him into the air, laughing maniacally. He was about to grow in size and break the hand’s grip when Soos’s pickup truck came out of nowhere and slammed into the monster, blowing him apart into chunks. The kids dropped to the ground.
Grenda patted her body.
“We’re alive! Yeah!”
Soos’s truck screeched to a halt, and the handyman leaned out the window to look at the carnage.
“Whoa!”
“Soos!” Dipper cried as he and Mabel ran over to the truck.
“That wasn’t, like, a regular pedestrian, was it?” Soos asked, pointing to the chunks of the Trickster.
“It was the monster.” Mabel explained.
“Thanks, Soos.” Dipper told him. He sighed. “I’m just glad it’s over. Right?”
Mabel’s face had fallen, and she looked away from Dipper. Doey could tell that she was still upset at him.
They climbed into Soos’s truck. Dipper and Mabel sat up front with Soos while Doey sat in back with Candy and Grenda.
“Did everyone remember to put on their seatbelt?” Soos asked. There were several replies of “Yes.”
“Let’s go!”
As the truck drove off, Doey noticed Mabel rubbing a bruise on her elbow where she’d landed after Soos had rammed the Trickster. Dipper noticed it as well.
“Hey, are you okay?”
She didn’t look at him.
“There are probably some bandages back at the Shack.”
Still nothing.
Suddenly, Doey noticed pieces of the Trickster flying past the truck. Mabel saw them too. They looked back to see what was happening.
“Uh… guys?”
The Trickster reformed from a massive blob, still wearing his mask. He roared and leapt after the truck, landing on the roof. Soos swerved all over the road, trying to shake him off, eventually managing to scrape him off on a telephone pole.
The truck swerved into a parking lot, and Dipper screamed “Brakes, brakes, brakes!”
Soos hit the brakes, but it was too late, and the truck smashed straight into the front of the Summerween Superstore, crashing into some shelves.
Doey felt the seatbelt cut through his body, slicing him in two and sending his upper half flying through the windshield and splattering on the broken shelves.
The others climbed out of the wrecked truck. Dipper looked back to see the Trickster crawling like a giant spider towards the hole in the storefront.
“We have to hide!”
They ran off into the store as the Trickster ripped one of the doors off the truck. He peered at the inert lump of dough sitting in the backseat, then started searching the store.
Dipper watched the trickster scuttle by, then looked back at Mabel.
“It’s blocking the only exit.”
He grabbed her and pulled her to hide behind another shelf as the Trickster walked by again.
The two shuffled into an aisle where Candy, Grenda, and Soos were hiding.
“Everyone, stay quiet.” Dipper whisper shouted.
“Oh, now you’re worried about the monster!” Mabel muttered irritably. “I thought all you cared about was Wendy.”
Dipper frowned as he remembered what Kevin had said to him.
“Mabel, you know that’s not true.” He paused as the Trickster passed by again. “I just- I felt like I was getting a little too old to go trick-or-treating.”
“That’s exactly why we need to go trick-or-treating, Dipper.” Mabel told him. “We’re getting older. There’s not that many Halloweens left.” She turned away from him. “I guess I didn’t realize it was already our last one.”
The Trickster, unable to find its prey, roared angrily and kept searching.
“We have to escape.” Candy said to the others.
“What if it sees us?” Grenda asked.
“If only there was something we could use to cover our bodies and faces with…” Soos pondered. “You know, like a disguise of some kind.”
Dipper and Mabel looked at each other.
The twins dressed in Grim Reaper outfits, while Soos dressed as a gorilla. They paused like decorations whenever the monster passed by them. Candy and Grenda hid inside some T-shirts sitting on a rack.
Once the monster had moved to another part of the store, Dipper and Mabel hopped off one shelf and headed for the broken door. Candy and Grenda followed, donning Grim Reaper costumes of their own.
“This way!”
They were just at the door when things went wrong… again.
“Almost there!”
Dipper turned to look back at Soos, who had stopped at the display of talking skeleton heads.
“Soos!”
Soos looked at them.
“Stop!”
They ducked down by the counter. Mabel glared at Soos.
“Soos, don’t you dare!”
“Sorry, dude,” Soos apologized. “Today’s been way stressful. I need some levity.”
He reached out and pressed one of the skulls.
There was silence.
“Oh, thank goodness.” Mabel sighed. “It was out of batteries.” She looked at Soos again.
“Soos! No!”
Soos had grabbed a pack of batteries from a shelf and opened them, jamming them into the talking skull. He pressed it again.
“No matter the score, I’m always a-head!” The skull began to cackle, attracting the monster.
Soos laughed and slapped his knee.
“This cackling head is the voice of a generation!”
The Trickster came up behind him, opening his mouth wide. Soos hit the head to make it cackle one more time. The Trickster swallowed him in one gulp.
“Hey monster!”
The Trickster looked to where Dipper’s voice had come from, and the kids threw back their costumes to reveal prop weapons. They charged the creature, smacking its legs with the plastic blades. Grenda proved to be strong enough that she actually severed one of the Trickster’s hands with her plastic axe. As fragments of the monster landed on her face, she licked them up.
“Saltwater taffy? Gross!”
Dipper hit the monster’s leg again with his sword, getting some bits on his face as well.
“What are you- wait, it is!”
“You really haven’t figured it out yet?” The Trickster asked, taking advantage of their confusion to grab them all. “Don’t you recognize me?” He pulled off his mask. “Look at my face. Look closely.”
The monster’s true face came into the dim light. His features were made completely of candy. His eyes were peppermints, his lips licorice, and his teeth caramel corn. Dipper and Mabel gasped at the sight.
“Loser candy!” Mabel said in realization.
“That’s right.” The Trickster agreed. “Did you ever stop and think about the candy at the bottom of the bag that no one likes? Every year, the children of Gravity Falls throw away all of the rejected candy into the dump. So I seek revenge- revenge on the picky children who cast me aside. I am made of every tossed piece of black licorice, every discarded bar of old chocolate with, like, that white powder stuff on it. You know that stuff?”
“I hate that stuff!” Mabel said.
“No one would eat me!” cried the Trickster. He grinned evilly. “But now, I’m going to eat you- “
“CHOMP!”
The attack had come out of nowhere, and suddenly the Trickster was missing one of his legs and a large section of his body. Doey had reformed, back in his default form, and was glaring daggers at the Trickster while he swallowed the massive bite he’d taken out of his body.
The Trickster screamed in pain, then screamed even louder and dropped the kids as Soos burst from his chest, squealing like a pig and eating part of the Trickster’s body. He stopped squealing and looked down at the kids.
“’Sup, bro?”
The Trickster let out another long, drawn-out shriek of pain as jellybeans spilled from his mouth before collapsing to the ground. Soos looked over at the kids with another piece of the monster’s body in his hand.
“Dudes, you want some of this?”
“Well, it’s not like we haven’t eaten worse.”
“Yeah, and if we don’t eat him, he might piece himself together again and go back to attacking us.”
“Yeah! Candy! Candy! Let’s eat!”
Doey started eating more of the Trickster’s body while the other kids shook their heads.
The Trickster coughed and looked at them weakly.
“Wait. You actually think I taste good?”
“Uh, sure. You know.” Soos told him.
Doey shrugged.
“I wouldn’t say you tasted good, exactly, but I’ve had to eat worse before. You’re an 8/10.”
The Trickster sighed.
“All I’ve ever wanted is for someone to say that I was good.”
He began to cry and laugh, candy corns spilling onto the floor next to him.
“I’m so happy!”
Soos looked at him.
“The crying makes it a little weird, but…” He took another bite. “I guess I’m still eating.”
Doey felt something move in his stomach, and pulled Gorney, the little kid the Trickster had eaten, out of his mouth. Soos looked over at him.
“’Sup, Gorney?”
“I’ve been twamatized!”
Soos eventually stopped eating the Trickster’s body, and Doey finished it up. By the time he made it out to the parking lot, he was clutching a stomach so round and bulbous that it looked like he’d swallowed a compact car. He braced himself against the wall and belched deeply.
“OOOUUURP!”
“Oop! ‘Scuse me!”
“When we said we’d have the biggest stomachaches, this isn’t what I had in mind.”
“Yeah, but it’s worth it!”
“Hey, man. Are you okay?” Dipper asked as he walked out of the store.
“Yeah, I’m okay, Dipper.” Doey reassured him. “Just gotta digest all this.”
He hoisted his gut and stifled another belch.
“That’s good.” Dipper said. “You know, you and Soos eating the Trickster was probably the scariest thing I’ve seen this Summerween.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Second scariest was Stan trying to get into the girdle of his vampire costume.”
“That makes sense.”
The rest of the group put their costumes back on and started walking back to the Mystery Shack. Soos said he’d pick his truck up for repairs the next day. They dropped Gorney off at his house and moved on. By the time they made it back to the Mystery Shack, Doey had digested enough of the candy to look normal again. They walked into the den, where Stan was watching a horror movie.
“Hey, Stan.”
“Hi, Grunkle Stan.”
“Hello, Mr. Pines.”
Stan waved to them from his chair.
“How’s it hangin’?”
“Hey, Dipper.”
The group looked over to see Wendy carving a jack-o-melon at the table nearby.
“Wendy!” Dipper exclaimed in surprise.
“I didn’t see you at the party. Where were you?”
Dipper stammered for a second before getting his nerve back.
“I was trick-or-treating.” He said, putting an arm around Mabel’s shoulders and moving the both of them next to Doey. “With my siblings.”
“Yeah.” Mabel agreed.
“Mm. Party was lame, anyway. Jack would have hated it, but Kevin probably would have loved it. Robbie ate a lollipop stick first and had to go home sick.”
“Aw, now I wish we had gone!”
Dipper stifled a laugh, and Mabel groaned in disappointment.
“Aw, man. We went to every single house, and we didn’t even get to eat any candy!”
“Candy?” Stan repeated, pulling two stuffed pillowcases of candy out from behind his chair. “How’s that for candy!”
As the group settled in to watch the horror movie marathon and dumped the candy onto the floor to eat, the kids changed out of their costumes, and Dipper left the room for a moment. While he was gone, Doey reached up and found a pair of purple rabbit ears on his head. They must have gotten there when he’d pieced himself back together in the store.
He pulled them off and tossed them away.
Dipper came back into the room holding a bandage and Doey’s bowler hat. He handed the hat to Doey, then put the bandage on Mabel’s bruised elbow. Neither of them said anything, but Doey could tell they’d made up from earlier.
“You know, kids,” Stan said. “I’ve been thinking- at the end of the day, Summerween isn’t about candy, or costumes, or even scaring people. It’s a day when the whole family can get together in one place and celebrate what really matters- pure evil!”
Stan began to laugh maniacally, and the others joined in for a moment, before they all stopped abruptly to go back to watching the movie. There was no noise but the tv for a moment, then Soos spoke.
“Doey and I ate a man alive tonight.”
Everybody looked at him weirdly.