A/N: Okay, so it's getting closer to Halloween and I decided to create a story for this occasion. I was thinking maybe doing three like the Treehouse of Horror specials, but I'm not so sure... Just depends on if I have any inspiration. I do have one idea though, and it's based on an old fanfic on here where Bart and Lisa think they've uncovered something about their father. The story was about them uncovering something from Homer's past, the thing being that he was a murderer. It was posted here in 2003, I think. The story's title is Hack Man Homer, and you can find it in my Story Favorites (under the Simpsons category). Anyway, I hope you enjoy!
It was 9:30 PM in the Simpson household, and Homer was up watching TV and drinking a can of Buzz Cola.
"Homie," Marge said going downstairs, "aren't you going to come to bed?"
"Can't Marge." Homer said before taking a sip of cola, "I'm staying up till 3 AM to see if this so-called 'One-Man Hide And Seek' is real." He then smirked as he thought, Though I doubt it's even real. I mean, what object moves around on its own and appears in random places?
"Wait, did you say 3 AM?" Marge asked, looking a bit shocked.
"That's right." Homer said, setting the soda can down on the end table beside the couch before resting his hands behind his head, his eyes halfway closed and a smile on his face.
"The Devil's hour?"
"The what now?" Homer looked at Marge, a confused look on his face as he placed his hands on his lap.
"The Devil's hour." Marge repeated, "It's a time where weird stuff starts happening."
"Like stuffed animals moving on their own?" Homer asked, "You know, the kinds with arms and legs. Like dolls!"
"How do you know this stuff?!" Marge asked, feeling a bit concerned about her husband.
"I've seen videos. Online." Homer said with a shrug, "You have to carry holy water with you if you want to end the game." Homer crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes. "But the people who do that are wimps. I'd rather play the game without it, just to show what a real man is."
"Wait, they use holy water?" Marge asked.
"Actually it's just salt sprinkled in water." Homer corrected before closing his eyes and shaking his head, "It's supposed to get the demon out of the toy."
"Is the challenge safe?" Marge asked him, still concerned that her husband would want to do something at 3 AM.
"Oh, it's completely safe!" Homer said with a smile, "Trust me! I've seen people do videos of it online and they're still out there making videos!" Homer then blankly stared ahead as if he'd just remembered something disturbing. "...Except for one kid. The doll he was using jumped out, attacked and killed him." Marge gasped loudly out of pure shock, bringing her hand to her heart before Homer smiled and said after giggling, "Just kidding!"
Marge let out a murmur of disapproval as she then started heading for the stairs to go up to bed, leaving her husband to wait until 3 AM.
--
It was now 1 AM as Homer stayed sat on the couch, trying to keep his eyes open as they were beginning to close from tiredness.
Come on... He thought, Stay open! I don't wanna fall asleep now... Not until I've done the challenge!
He then decided to get up and walk to the kitchen to get a beer until he realized that he felt a little less tired as he walked. Instead of getting a beer like he originally planned, he decided to just pace the living room as he waited until 3 AM.
~1:30 AM~
Homer decided he was tired of walking around the living room and walked into the kitchen to get a beer. He cracked it open and took a drink from it before looking around.
I gotta find something to do until 3 AM... Homer thought, There's nothing good on TV.
Suddenly before Homer knew it he heard the voice of Krusty, and it sounded like it came from one of Bart's Krusty the Clown dolls.
"B-Bart?" Homer asked, turning towards the sound, "Is t-that you?"
He received no response as the room was just silent. At least until Krusty's voice was heard again coming from the living room.
As Homer quietly walked out into the living room, it was empty, all except for the couch.
As he looked towards it, he almost screamed but was quick to cover his mouth, muffling the scream.
Right in the middle of the couch was a Krusty doll, facing the TV. At least until Homer screamed, that is.
As Homer sighed from relief that he didn't scream and wake everyone up, the doll slowly turned its head towards him, and Homer wanted to panic and run up to his bedroom, but he remembered what he'd told Marge earlier.
Okay Homer, you can't chicken out now... Homer thought, It may have started early somehow without you doing the steps to start it, but you have to do this... You have to show how a real man does it: without quitting.
"What are you lookin' at?" The doll asked in Krusty's voice.
"Y-You..." Homer said, feeling a bit of fear, "You're moving and talking on your own, and I didn't even start the steps yet for One-Man Hide and Seek!"
"One-Man Hide and Seek, eh?" The clown doll asked, its voice becoming more demonic as it spoke. Homer gulped, wondering if this were real or if he was already drunk from the alcohol he was drinking. Or this was just a bad dream...
He'd hoped it was one of the last two, or both.
After receiving no response from Homer, the doll emitted a demonic-sounding Krusty laugh.
"What? You scared?" It taunted before doing its regular Krusty laugh two more times as if to mock him.
All feelings of fear left Homer and were replaced by feelings of rage towards the doll.
"Why you little--!" Homer shouted before quickly placing his beer on the end table, running up to the doll and strangling it, his hands wrapped around its neck tightly as he tried to strangle what seemed to be the life from the doll.
"Is that all you got, fat boy?" It teased in its demonic Krusty voice.
"Fat boy?!" Homer questioned in a rage, his grip becoming tighter around its neck, "I'll teach you to call me fat!!"
Suddenly the doll pretended to become lifeless, and upon noticing this Homer's grip around the toy's neck loosened as he breathed a sigh of relief before sitting down next to it and reaching over it to grab his can of beer.
That'll teach that clown to mess with me! Homer thought as he took a sip from his beer. In the afterlife! He added in his thoughts before letting out a quiet laugh.
The doll however didn't know what he was laughing at but didn't care as it snuck into the kitchen to look for something to attack Homer with.
A few minutes later, as Homer began to feel bored with what he was watching on TV, he turned the TV off and walked into the kitchen and threw his beer can away only to find the clown doll in the kitchen on the counter.
"What?!" Homer asked out of pure shock and fear, "I thought I killed you!"
"Think again, fatty!" The Krusty doll said, grabbing a knife from the knife block on the counter, "This party's just getting started!"
"D'oh!" Homer shouted in annoyance before trying to search around for something he could defend himself with, his movements frantic as he searched. The clown just started laughing demonically again at Homer's search for a weapon.
Suddenly Homer found a solution he could use against the Krusty doll, and knew that Flanders was a Christian.
He ran back into the living room, grabbing the phone from the end table as he dialed Ned's number.
"What's wrong, tubby?" The doll continued to taunt, knowing Homer got angry when his weight was teased after being strangled by him. "Too scared so you're calling the cops?" It added in a demonic voice.
"SHUT UP!!" Homer shouted at the doll before Flanders picked up.
"What is it, Homer?" Ned asked tiredly, having been woken up, "Did you have another nightmare?"
"No Flanders, it's more urgent." Homer said before whispering fearfully into the phone, "One of my son's dolls is possessed..."
"Homer, this is like the boy who cried wolf..." Ned said, upset by the fact that Homer woke him up, "First you're gonna tell me he's possessed, and then-"
Before Ned could finish he was interrupted by a demonic Krusty voice saying, "Get ready to die, big guy!" before laughing demonically at the rhyme it just made.
"I'll be right there!" Flanders said before hanging up, a serious look on his face. Nobody messed with his neighbor.
Meanwhile, Homer stepped backwards as the doll slowly made its way towards him, an evil - at least to him - grin on its face.
Suddenly Homer remembered what was used to end the game - that is if this counted as playing it - and darted past the possessed clown toy and into the kitchen.
I need salt! Where's the f*cking salt?! Homer thought, his mind racing with fear over what might happen to him as the clown toy slowly drew nearer, It has to be somewhere!
Suddenly he remembered where Marge kept the spices, and he raced to find the salt as the clown toy chose its target, aiming above Homer's heel as it raised the knife in the air.
"Aha!" Homer shouted as he grabbed the salt, looking at it with triumph as he swiftly turned around and showed the demented doll the salt shaker.
The possessed doll's body flinched as it was shown the salt before raising the knife again and saying demonically, "What are you gonna do with that, fats-"
Before it could finish, both the doll and Homer heard the front door slam open.
"Homer, I'm here!" Flanders called, walking in and shutting the door behind him.
"Ha! Flanders is here!" Homer said courageously, smirking at the doll as he quickly poured a glass of water from the kitchen faucet.
"And what's he going to do to help you?" The toy seemed to ask.
"He's going to help me get rid of you!" Homer said proudly, turning off the faucet and pouring the salt in the water.
"How?" The doll demanded as Ned followed their voices to the kitchen.
"Oh you'll see!" Homer said, half the salt from the salt shaker now in the glass of water, "You'll all see!"
"There's only one of me in here, you idiot!" The doll spat using Krusty's voice.
"Now, now, I know you're upset but-"
Before Homer could finish, Ned appeared in the open doorway of the kitchen, a Bible underneath one of his arms.
"Hey demon, nobody messes with Homer except me!" Ned shouted, holding the Bible out to the demonically possessed toy.
"Yeah? And what's a book going to do to stop me?" The clown toy mocked, still in its Krusty voice.
"Oh... Oops!" Flanders said as he looked at the book and realized that the front cover was facing him before turning it around to face the demon possessing the toy, "Here it is!"
"The Holy Bible?!" The toy said, now using its demonic Krusty voice, "No! Get that thing away from me!!"
As Flanders came closer to the toy, he nodded towards Homer before looking at the toy and saying, "The power and spirit of Christ compels you!"
As he yelled that, Homer dumped all the salt water on the toy, causing the demon inside it to scream from the burning sensation of the salt water - first starting with Krusty's voice before slowly becoming more demonic - before escaping the toy and going back where it had come from before possessing the toy, seemingly taking the doll with it as its face began slowly melting in a horrific fashion.
"Thanks Flanders!" Homer said after breathing a sigh of relief, "Didn't know that crazy Bible stuff would actually work!"
"Well it does if you truly believe!" Flanders said with a wink.
--
The next morning, Homer awoke to Bart screaming. Homer's tiredness went away as he quickly decided to check on his son to see if he's okay.
Quickly, Homer jumped out of bed and rushed downstairs to see Bart in the kitchen, appearing to be holding something in his hands, his back turned towards the entrance of the kitchen (which kept Homer from seeing the object in Bart's hands).
"What's wrong, boy?" Homer asked Bart as he entered the kitchen.
"Something happened to my Krusty doll!" Bart said, sounding as if he was going to cry, "It looks like its face melted somehow!"
Homer looked confused until Bart turned around to face him, the doll's face now in plain sight of Homer.
"Plus it feels a little damp as if water was poured over it..." Bart added, his eyes still on his beloved doll.
So that wasn't a dream? Homer thought to himself, It was real? Because it feels like it was a nightmare...
"Uh, well...don't think I'm crazy for saying this, but...last night at 1 AM, your toy became possessed by a demon." Homer explained, now realizing why he thought the ordeal was a nightmare: It was really late at night.
Bart looked at him as if he were crazy, and Homer had already expected it to happen. He knew his son wouldn't believe it. But what happened next shocked him...
"Cool!" Bart said, a big grin on his face, "I can't believe one of my things was actually possessed by a demon!"
Suddenly the doll spoke in Krusty's voice, saying, "Believe it, kid."
Both Homer and Bart looked at each other before shrugging.
"How about I get you a new one?" Homer asked his son, "It seems like that one's still possessed."
"Okay." Bart said before throwing his Krusty doll away, "I can live with that."
--
Later that night, Bart went to bed with his new Krusty doll. Before going to sleep he said, "Good night, Krusty."
"Good night... Bart." The doll said back, speaking normally but saying Bart's name in a demonic Krusty voice.
The scene cut to the outside of the Simpson house as Bart screamed.
A/N: I know I said that I wasn't sure if this was going to have three parts like Treehouse of Horror in the above author's note, but that was when I started to write this story earlier this month. I already had finished the story I decided would be the next part (which is called Past Meets Present) a day before I finished this one, and originally I was going to have Homer wait until 3 AM before ideas started coming to me. And yes, the Krusty doll was one of the ideas.
I think when I was trying to think of what could happen in the story, I remembered the evil Krusty doll from one Treehouse of Horror, where it attacked and tried to kill Homer. I think I was originally going to go with that idea, but I decided not to go with the switch being on the doll's back and decided that it could be possessed instead (possibly adding to the horror).
Another thing I was going to go with was Homer drinking more beer while in the kitchen, which is an idea that came to me as I was writing this, and it was an idea that came from one crossover story on here of The Simpsons and Child's Play (I haven't seen any of the Child's Play movies to be honest so I wouldn't call myself a fan of the series but I liked the fic), and for those who are curious it's where the Simpsons receive a box at their front door with a note warning about the doll, and Homer grows attached to it until it tries to get him to do something bad (I don't remember what it was) while he was at work.
So that's it for this story! I think I'll start adding numbers by the stuff I will talk about in my author's notes, like for example if I reference things I'll add a number in parenthesis and explain it in the author's note at the end (like I once saw in a Lorax fanfic I saw about a month or so ago).
So hopefully you enjoyed this anyway and I didn't bore you with this long author's note.