This one was written in response to Mag's "seasonal challenge". --DBK ***** A House of Horrors A TTR:TDF quick lunchbreak fiction ***** The Fifth Doctor stepped out of the building, his face ashen white. There was a faint tremble to his steps, which he tried very hard to hide. Adric was right, he thought incredulously. She _is_ insane. Completely and utterly insane. He was not surprised to find his Trakenite companion waiting for him beyond the final door. She greeted him with an expectant look on her face, obviously waiting to hear his opinions on the, err, project. "Well, Doctor?" she asked, "What did you think?" "That was... extraordinary." he said, still dazed, but with enough presence to realize he needed to say something positive to her. After all, the horrors he had seen in there could only have come from someone who was truly twisted, disturbed and unstable. Offhand, he didn't feel like giving her a reason to go any more psychotic than she obviously was. Behind him, the Sixth Doctor stumbled his way out of the house. He was being help along by Peri and Mel. All of them were visibly trembling. "I don't think I've ever been more frightened in my entire life..." he mumbled. "When those two popped in front of us in that corridor... I thought I was going to have a double heart-attack!" "I need a drink." a dazed Peri said. "So do I." Mel agreed. All three gave the young woman in brown a horrified glare as they passed. "Oh, good." she said, obviously relieved. "I was afraid I'd made it too tame. After all, as I understand it the object of this holiday is to scare people, and since we've all seen our share of monsters, corpses, and, um, vampires, I didn't think any of those would be frightful enough..." "You... certainly achieved your purpose." 5Doc shuddered. Tegan chose that moment to step up to the two. She looked toward the nondescript facade with some curiosity. "So," she asked her friend, "where is this Halloween project you've been working on?" The Trakenite pointed toward a doorway. "Just go through that doorway over there to start." "Um, Tegan..." 5Doc began hesitantly. "You might want to reconsider..." "Oh, come, Doctor!" the Australian said over her shoulder, as she headed for the indicated starting point. "After all we've been through, do you think there's _anything_ that can frighten us now?" ***** Tegan stepped through the doorway. The first room looked like the office of a high-ranking business executive. Beyond it the skyline of London was visible in the windows. Abruptly, a human male in a business suit appeared at the room's desk, and with a sickened start Tegan recognized him. "Improve your ratings," Michael Grade demanded, "Or I'll cancel the show!" "Oh my gawd." Tegan gasped, took a few steps backwards, then turned and fled the room and down the adjacent corridor. She hadn't gone very far when a man and a woman stepped out from the shadows in front of her. "Hi, we're Pip and Jane!" the two said, simultaneously, in a sweetly saccharin tone. "We're your script editors!" "No!! Please, no!!" From a speaker above, the first bars of the "Ballad of the Last Chance Saloon" could be heard warbling. "No... no, please not that!" She made it to the next room, which was a warehouse full of large film reels. A long line of BBC employees were busy standing in a line and handing reels from one to the next. At the far end of the room stood an incinerator, with fire stoked and a door open to the hell within. The employee closest to the incinerator was merrily throwing in the film reels he was handed. "Power of the Daleks" he said in passing, "No one will miss that!" 'Argh!! I must get out of here..." Now she ran straight into the next room. As she entered, a monstrous apparition appeared. It grew larger before her eyes, towering above in all of its terrible, bulky, Hawaiian-shirt clad evil. It smiled maniacally at her. "I am John Nathan Turner," the apparition thundered, "and I will be your producer FOREVER!! Bwahahahahahahaha!" Tegan couldn't help it now. She did the only thing a normal, rational person would do. She screamed. --DBK 30 October 1999