XP Woohoo! I finally got this finished. And it only took, hmm...about three weeks! :D

Right, so anyway, I'm hoping to include more of these little stories like I did for Attack of the Valentines but we'll see how that goes. It's like I've got plans but not always the drive to put 'em in action. So we'll see what happens...

Thanks go to my sister, because she spawned-I mean inspired most of this. n_n; Also, just because I can say it for once, the image I used for the cover of this story was made by yours truly and the uncropped version can be found on my deviantart page. It's a Halloween sky dawning over Iacon. :) Also, bonus points go to those that recognize where Prowl's partner's name comes from. Just another bit of seventies oddness thrown in there. :3 Hope you like!

...

Halloween Thrillers

1 – It Begins… – 1

The dark violet sky was streaked with orange as Prowl shuffled his way down the silent halls of Iacon. He was 'bone-weary' as his human friend Aria would say, although he knew the saying to be illogical given the fact that, unlike her, he had no bones to speak of.

But he was tired all the same. He'd been awake for the past three orbits straight and only a direct order (and outright threat) from Ratchet had convinced him to put an end to that record now.

Either way though, it was a good thing that crawling into bed didn't require a lot of processor activity, because right then, even Prowl didn't have much to speak of. His stare was vacant as he keyed open the door to his quarters and slouched inside in distinct un-Prowl like fashion. If he'd been any more awake, he would have felt glad that the twins weren't around to see him so out of it.

But he wasn't, so he didn't, and the silence reigned supreme as the black and white mech shuffled across the room and all but flopped onto the recharge berth. At this point, not even Ironhide's snoring a few doors down could keep him awake.

"Thank you Primus for silence…" Prowl barely managed to think as his optics slowly shut out the rest of the pre-dawn world.

…

…..

…kzzt-shhhaaaaaaa….

The static registered dimly at the very edge of Prowl's hearing, but his central computer didn't process the sound what with his worn out state. Instead he dozed, sinking farther away from consciousness as the white noise continued to play in the background. It was soon joined by something a bit more recognizable…

"Dude! Watch what ya press. I think we're broadcastin'."

"Well isn't that what we wanted?"

A snort. "Yeah, but only after we found the right track."

"Well then find it and put the dang thing on. I don't want to stick around for that friend o' yours to find us."

"Who? Prowler?" The first, more recognizable, voice asked quietly. "Nah, by now he's pro'lly out like a light. Ratchet finally got to him."

The other voice gave a little knowing, "Ah," as if that explained everything. "Well I still think the dude's got a screw loose somewhere."

The first voice did not protest, just laughed and muttered something that sounded an awful lot like, "Ya don' have ta tell me twice."

Prowl frowned in his sleep. "Some friend you are Jazz." He mumbled in his half-recharge as he twisted over to try and find a more comfortable position to sleep in. "I'm going to remember this the next time you ask me to cover for you."

He probably wouldn't remember this, the small part of his processor that never slept told him, but what was the point of having this dream if he couldn't talk back to his subconscious?

Transformers don't dream, that same anal part of his processor reminded him, they simply remember. This is just a section of memories getting jumbled up by a weary processor. Somewhere along the line this happened before and you're just remembering it again in a different order then it originally happened.

It was a perfectly logical, reasonable explanation and Prowl accepted it automatically because he liked logical, reasonable things. But truth be told, something still felt a little off.

The static went on shushing in the background, quietly smothering all other sounds. Occasionally a mutter or the sounds of a slight scuffle made it through the white noise, but Prowl's tired processor filed them neatly away in the back of his mind. They were unimportant. Hardly worth waking up over, especially when the sun wasn't even over the horizon line yet.

Prowl vented a relaxing sigh as he sank further and further into recharge, half formed memories rising to the surface of his idling mind as he went. Usually the memories that haunted him when he slept were darker – it had been that way even before the war when he'd been just another police officer in Kaon – but fortunately tonight was different.

He was back in his old office. The one smothered between all the other small cubes that filled up the Kaon offices. Here he was just another young, underpaid detective, scraping by on cheap energon and questionable tips. He was standing behind his desk, talking with one of the older officer's secretaries, a femme about his age with light blue armor with neon green accents.

Well, really she was talking to him. She was always coming over here to tell him something, or ask if he needed anything even though he knew she was already weighed down with all the paperwork her boss avoided by giving to her. Prowl had never understood why she kept offering, but his partner, a particularly annoying mech called Starsky, kept insisting it was because she was sweet on him.

Prowl always told him that made no sense whatsoever. Starsky always laughed and said, "I know."

"So Prowl," the femme Surestar was saying, "my friend heard about this band that's going to be playing at that place near Maccadam's in a few orbits and, well, I was just wondering…"

She trailed off. Prowl had never understood why some bots did that. It was like they were expecting you to finish the sentence for them, only how could he possibly know what she had been about to say?

His partner only laughed at him and shook his head whenever he asked this, but Prowl still knew he had a valid point.

Obviously Surestar expected him to say something. She kept glancing over at him shyly and blinking rather quickly when she saw that he was looking at her too.

Well of course he was looking at her, Prowl internally defended himself, they were having a – albeit one sided – conversation. Where was he supposed to look? At his desk?

Surestar was still waiting, so Prowl finally asked, "Do you have something in your optic?"

The femme's face abruptly fell and a sudden bout of snickering came from the general direction of his partner's desk. Prowl did what he always did when Starsky acted like…himself. He ignored him.

"Uh…no," Surestar mumbled, looking away now as if disappointed by what he'd said. "No I'm, I'm fine."

Prowl blinked at her once. "Good." He said. It wasn't like there was anything else to say that was acceptable in this situation.

….kzt! Shshh-zzck-shaaahhhh…

The sudden hush and burst of low level static immediately got Prowl's attention. He looked around to see what could have made the sound, but there was nothing around him that could.

"Did you hear that?" Prowl asked Surestar.

The femme looked confused. "Hear what?" She asked, tilting her oval head slightly.

Prowl listened for a cycle, but the sound didn't reappear. "Nothing." He said automatically. "I must have imagined it."

Starsky laughed where he had his feet propped up on his cluttered desk. "You? With an imagination? Now there's a strange thought if ever I heard one."

Prowl slanted him a look before going back to ignoring the other mech once more.

"Uh, anyway," Surestar spoke with a nervous smile and a quick look at Prowl before looking away again, "about the band-"

…The foulest stench is in the air…

Prowl's head snapped up again but he couldn't find the source of the ominous words.

He turned toward Surestar with shrewd optics. "Did you hear who said that?" He asked quickly.

Surestar blinked sweetly at him.

"The funk of forty thousand years." She told him.

Prowl blinked, a part of his processor waking up somewhat from the memory. Well she definitely hadn't said that.

"I'm sorry, what?" Prowl managed to ask as the memory dragged him under again.

Surestar's mouth was moving, but her mouth didn't match her words. Prowl noticed that her voice had suddenly become…oddly masculine now as well.

"Ya've gone too far!" Surestar said in her new voice. "Go back before he gives us away already!"

Prowl looked around to see who she might be talking to, but whoever it was answered before he'd scanned half the room. Prowl spun to find the source of the new voice was now coming from Starsky.

"Well maybe if you'd quit orderin' me around and help me for once we wouldn't have this problem in the first place!" Starsky snapped in a voice that wasn't his.

Prowl looked back and forth between the femme and his partner. "What's going on here? Who's doing this?" He demanded.

But no one came forward. It didn't even look like anyone else in the office even realized that something was wrong.

"Jus' gimme that already!" The voice coming from Surestar snapped as the femme coyly fidgeted in front of Prowl, smiling sweetly again.

Starsky laughed as his new voice added in obvious annoyance, "Not cool man."

"Yeah, yeah," the first voice muttered even though Surestar wasn't even speaking now, "hold on a klik. I think I found it."

Normal sound suddenly snapped back into place as the bizarre voices stopped talking and the white noise from before receded into the background.

"So, uh, anyway," Surestar said again, the exact same nervous smile on her face as before, "about the band-" she trailed off again.

Prowl blinked. The recharge memory must have reset itself now that the outward intrusion was gone.

"Yes, about that…" Prowl said, at a total lack for other words to fill in the sudden gap between him and the femme.

Surestar swayed slightly from side to side. "Well I was just wondering," she said softly, "that is, if you and I could, well, you know…"

Prowl blinked at her, almost unnerved by this sudden return to oblivious normalcy. "No, I'm afraid I don't." He told her truthfully.

Starsky snickered next to him.

Prowl felt his optics go flat. Now he knew that the memory was back on track.

"Well," Surestar said, voice getting softer as she went on, "all I meant was, not that you have to go mind you, but you and I could, um, perhaps, if you're not busy, go and see-"

"CAUSE THIS IS THRILLER!"

The sudden noise blasted from every speaker, every open comm. channel, every available mouth in his recharge-memory. The sound rolled out like a visible thing that crushed and crippled the vision of the old Kaon police office and all the bots Prowl remembered within it so that the memory was shoved to the side and reality abruptly put in its place.

Gravity suddenly lost meaning for the former police officer as he shot up out of his bunk, whacking his head into the low hanging ceiling above it as Ironhide instinctively fired off a couple of shots down the hall as the noise dragged him out of recharge as well.

Prowl hardly noticed as the abhorrent sound slammed out of the speakers peppered at regular intervals throughout the city and blasted into his auditory receptors with the force of a full frontal assault. He tried to block out the sound by pressing his hands against his auditors, but there was too much noise to block it all out.

Quickly, his processor separated the memory from the reality and he reviewed what he'd heard in his half-awake state. He scowled as all the strangeness he'd noted in his memory of Starsky and Surestar suddenly made much more sense.

"BLASTER!" He hollered out the culprits' identities. "JAZZ!"

Halfway across the building in the communications room, the two guilty mechs slapped a quick high five before darting out the door before Prowl could so much as get out of his room. They left the Michael Jackson song they'd stolen off Aria's iPod playing on the city's speakers. It was on a loop.

"Best idea. Ever." Jazz told Blaster with a grin that rivaled Sideswipe's on his best pranking day.

Blaster nodded and laughed as they ran. "Oh yeah!" He shouted back as annoyed bots began to poke their heads out of their rooms to see what the heck was going on now.

And thus the Halloween season began.