A/N: Ever since the success of 'Sherman of the Apes' I have decided to do another crossover story for the Halloween season. Originally this was going to be a cross between the Kung fu Panda franchise, and the Friday the 13th franchise, but ever since seeing the new 'Halloween' in theaters (you have got to see the new movie, it is so good, and without a doubt the one true sequel to the original), I decided to take a different direction, and have the shape himself arrive in Zootopia!
This takes place in the same universe as a series of 'Human in Zootopia' stories by a friend of mine named 'Elite Shade'. So please go show him some love and check out 'The Door' and it's sequel 'The Keyhole' (I highly recommend it, and it would help you understand this story better).
Also, a warning, there will be spoilers and references to the original 'Halloween' as well as the newest sequel from 2018. And now, without further ado, I give you... Howl-O-Ween! Enjoy!
The sound of thunder roaring loudly across the night sky caused a young boy, Eli Hopps to wake up from his sleep. He saw that he wasn't in his usual bed inside the house of his adopted mother and her boyfriend, he was back in his old room inside the 'New Paths, New Homes Orphanage'. He got out of bed and saw on his old nightstand that it read 3:15 AM on his digital alarm clock. He then stood up on his legs, and began to walk towards the door and opened it.
"Hello? Is anybody there?" he called out, hoping that somebody else was with him. Nobody responded, all the other kids and caretakers were asleep. Halloween decorations filled up the hallways, and there were a few lit jack-o-lanterns sitting on the bookshelves as well. Eli then walked over to the kitchen to see if anybody was there either, but there wasn't.
"Why am I back here? Where is everyone?" he whispered to himself. Usually the orphanage wasn't this quiet, it was full of rowdy kids who always got their kicks out of bullying and teasing him, sometimes even causing physical harm to him as well. Eli then heard footsteps coming from behind him and saw one of the caretakers in a rose-pink silk nightgown with some white fuzzy slippers on her feet. Eli then decided to get her attention.
"Can I get a glass of water please?" asked Eli. The caretaker turned around and revealed a bleeding cut on her face, going from the top of her upper lip, and across her nose until ending below her left eye. She walked over to Eli, mumbling as blood dripped from her nose and staining her nightgown.
"What happened? A-Are you alright?" he asked. She didn't answer him, and she began walking towards him while he took a few steps back out of fear. The caretaker then looked down at her nightgown to see the large bloody stain, as well as some blood that had gotten on her hands.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" she screamed loudly. Eli then began to feel his heart race and ran out the exit door that lead to the lunch-room. The caretaker then tripped on one of the chair legs and fell face first onto the floor. What Eli saw next was unexpected, a man walked out from the other entrance to the kitchen holding a knife with blood covering the blade. Eli recognized him, his black steel-toed boots, navy blue one-piece jumpsuit meant for mechanics, as well as a William Shatner mask painted white with messy dark brown hair.
"No! It can't be! It can't be! Not you!" Eli shouted. The man turned his head to face Eli but then looked down and saw the caretaker still lying on the ground in front of him. He walked over towards her and got down on one knee before raising his large kitchen knife above his head and began stabbing her in the back multiple times. Eli just screamed and ran away from the man before he could get a chance to come after him once he finished killing the caregiver.
"Help! Somebody help!" Eli shouted, but nobody was there to hear his cries. He then looked behind him to see the man chasing after him, but he walked instead of running. He just kept running until he saw a dead end and saw a door that lead to the boiler room. Eli then saw that the man was still following him, and decided to go down into the basement.
"Please just leave me alone!" Eli shouted, now with tears flowing down his cheeks. He then tripped and fell down the stairs until he made his way down to the bottom and hit his head on the concrete walls. The impact made Eli cry out in pain and put his hands on the back of his head. Eli then looked up and saw the man was standing at the very top of the stairway and staring down at him.
"Oh sweet cheese and crackers" Eli whimpered before getting back up and running down the hallway that lead to the boiler room. The entire hallway was illuminated with red lights instead of regular light-bulbs, and steam came out from a few pipes that were mounted to the walls. Eli then came across a door with the words 'Fire Exit' painted on the door with black spray paint, and he decided to go through it. The opening of the door triggered the fire alarms all throughout the building, especially the basement, but the further Eli ran away from the building, the quieter the alarms got.
"Somebody! Help me! Help! There's somebody after me!" he called out while running through the rain and towards the road. There were hardly any cars passing by, and all the houses were either empty, or their occupants were asleep. Eli then noticed that one of the house's lights were on, and began to run towards it across the wet asphalt street barefoot. Once he got up to the front door, he began banging on it rapidly.
"Please! Let me in! You gotta let me in! Please!" Eli begged. The door eventually opened to reveal an elderly woman wearing a dark red robe, and with curlers in her hair. Eli then launched himself over and hugged her, crying into her robe. The woman, although taken aback by this, hugged the boy back and tried to calm him down.
"Calm down, son, please. What's wrong? What's going on?" asked the woman. Eli then broke the hug and looked into her concerned eyes.
"T-There's a man! He's got a knife and h-he-he-he's trying to kill me!" Eli said, trying his best not to sob as he explained what was going on.
"Kill you?" she asked.
"Y-Yes. He killed one of the c-c-caretakers at the o-o-orphanage. He's wearing a jumpsuit, a-a-and a mask" Eli continued while nodding. She then took Eli over into the kitchen and sat him down at the dining table, which had a pumpkin, still in the process of being carved into a jack-o-lantern with a knife still sticking out of the area where the eye was being carved. The elderly lady then gave Eli a bath towel to wrap himself in, as well as a cup of hot chocolate to help calm him down.
"You just sit there and try off. I'm going to call the police, okay sweetie?" she told him. Eli nodded and watched as she walked out of the kitchen. After a short while of sipping on his cocoa, he saw her come back into the room with a cordless home phone in her hand.
"I just got off the phone with the cops. They're sending somebody over in just a few minutes" the lady told Eli. He then saw out of the shadows stepped the man, right behind her. Eli began to scream and point behind her. She looked and saw the man holding up his knife and then stabbed her, right where the shoulder met the neck.
"NOOOOOOO!" Eli shouted as the woman fell to the ground, dying and gasping. The man walked over to Eli and grabbed him by the hair before he forced the boy onto the tiled kitchen floor, causing his cocoa to spill next to the elderly woman's body, and the mug shattering to bits once it hit the floor. The man then grabbed the knife that was sticking out of the pumpkin and then put his foot on top of Eli's chest to prevent him from moving.
"No! No! Please! Let me go! Please!" Eli begged, but he then raised the knife above his head and lunged it right down towards Eli. Then, everything went black once he felt the knife go right through his chest.
Eli woke up screaming and thrashing. He was back in his old bed with his adopted parent's house in Zootopia. He thrashed as his blankets kept him restrained and hard to move. The door then opened and Eli's adopted mother, Judy Hopps, a rabbit, and her boyfriend, Nick Wilde, a fox barged into the room and grabbed Eli's hands to try and get him to calm down.
"Eli! Honey, honey, honey! Shh! It's alright!" said Judy, doing her best to calm the poor human boy down from whatever was scaring him so much.
"Eli, come on. Snap out of it, kid!" Nick added. Soon, Eli stopped screaming and opened his eyes up to see his adopted family comforting him. Eli was so scared that he pulled Judy and Nick towards his chest for a hug. Judy and Nick were both very surprised by this, Eli had bad dreams about his past often, but none were so bad he was actually thrashing and screaming and then hugging them when he woke up.
"Shh, shh, everything's alright Eli. Don't cry, sweetheart" Judy said in the softest motherly tone as she could muster.
"It's just a bad dream, buddy. Don't let it get to you" said Nick. Nick wasn't really Eli's father, but after a while, Eli grew to consider the ex con-mammal his father.
"I-It felt so real, mom. It was so scary" Eli sobbed, but was calming down slowly.
"Do you wanna talk about it honey?" asked Judy. Usually, Eli would say yes, but this time was different. What he just went through wasn't just a dream, it was something that haunted him. He wasn't sure he'd be able to talk to someone about it so late at night, and expect to go back to sleep after it scared him so badly.
"I'm not so sure" Eli said, letting the rabbit and fox go and turn his head away from them. Nick then placed his paw under Eli's chin and turned his head to face him.
"Kid, keeping these kinds of things bottled up just isn't good for you. Talking about it helps you feel better" Nick explained, trying to get Eli to open up to the both of them.
"I'll tell you but... b-but just not now. Can we please talk about this in the morning? I-If it's not too much trouble" asked Eli. Nick and Judy turned to each other and then nodded towards one another before turning back to their kit (as they referred to him as).
"Of course, baby. It's no trouble at all" Judy said, giving Eli a small kiss on the tip of his nose.
"We'll have some pancakes tomorrow morning and have a nice little talk. Sound good?" Nick offered. Eli nodded and yawned before he lied back down. Nick and Judy both tucked Eli back into bed and put his sheets back on the bed. The duo then exited Eli's room and shut the door behind them before walking back towards their own bedroom.
"I'm worried about Eli" said Judy to her significant other.
"I may be even more worried than you are, Carrots" said Nick as he opened the door to their bedroom and walked back in. Judy turned her head towards him.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"Usually, when dreams make someone scream and thrash like that, and get you to cry... that's not just some bad dream, Judy. That's some psychological crap, something that's really stuck with the poor kid, and affected him in the worst of ways" Nick said before he got back into his side of the bed and turned his head to watch Judy get back into bed with him.
"You really think it's that bad?" asked Judy.
"I used to have bad dreams like that after the incident with the Junior Ranger Scouts. It took a lot of therapy to get over it, and I don't wanna see Eli like that ever again. It reminds me too much of myself when I was his age, traumatized by something that the brain just can't seem to forget" Nick explained to her. Judy now felt bad, and even more worried for the well-being of her adopted human kit.
"Poor Eli" she whispered. Nick then pulled her in for a hug and nuzzled her cheek.
"We'll find out what's eating him and get to the bottom of it. I promise" he whispered into her ear before planting a kiss on top of her forehead and lying her head down on her pillow.
"Thank you, Nick. You're a good father" Judy whispered before closing her eyes. Nick then gave a warm smile and turned off the bedside lamp. He then lied down next to Judy and got one good last glimpse at her resting blissfully before shutting his own eyes and descending into a nice peaceful slumber.
Officer Grizolli, a Polar Bear working for the ZPD was working the late shift, and his partner was babysitting some kids for a family friend. He drove down the dark road and looked all over for a possible human that was said to have been sighted near the Vine and Tujunga area of the Rainforest District of Zootopia. Whenever a high energy surge was detected by techology provided to them by Zootopia General Electric, it usually meant that a human was nearby.
"No sign of them yet, but I'll keep looking" Grizolli said into his walkie-talkie.
"Very well. Once you find them, stay with them until emergency services arrive and then you can go home for the night" said the voice on the other end.
"Will do, sir" Grizolli replied. He then saw a house made entirely out of logs, like a cabin burning. The entire thing was set ablaze. The polar bear went wide-eyed at this and spoke into his walkie.
"Dispatch this is Grizolli! I have a burning house at Vine and Tujunga. Send fire and medical staff right away!" Grizolli shouted before running into the building and searching the entire area for anyone who may be trapped. The entire interior of the house was in flames, and it felt extremely hot inside. The polar bear then ran down the stairs and saw an unconscious man wearing a one-piece navy blue jumpsuit, black steel-toed boots, and an old white latex mask that looked very worn out and aged with dark brown hair. He also noticed that on the human's left hand, their pinkie and ring fingers were missing.
"Sir! Are you alright!?" he called down, but he did not respond to Grizolli's question. He then had no choice but to carry him out of the building over his shoulder and then exited the burning house before the entire thing collapsed to the ground. Grizolli then lied the man down on the ground and put his fingers underneath the mask next to his neck. Once he felt a pulse, he picked up his walkie again and spoke into it.
"Dispatch this is Grizolli" he said.
"Go for dispatch" the voice on the other end replied.
"The human that was reported was inside the burning house. He's unconscious, but he's got a pulse" explained the polar bear white still staring into the eyes of the mask the human wore.
"And what's the human's 10-45?" asked dispatch. 10-45 was police code for asking the condition of an injured animal/human.
"I'd say he's about 10-45B. He's missing two fingers from his left hand. It looks like somebody blew them off with a gun, and he's also got some gunshot wounds based on the holes in his attire, even a few stab-marks" Grizolli replied. 10-45B meant that the condition was serious.
"Alright, we're gonna send an ambulance over to pick him up. And we'll also send the ZFD to put out the fire. Is the human showing any form of response to you?" asked dispatch.
"I can't tell. He's wearing a mask" replied the polar bear.
"Alright, just let the paramedics take care of it. Just leave him as he is and somebody will be other there in a few short minutes" ordered the animal working dispatch. Before Grizolli could reply, the human's right hand grabbed him by the neck and began to choke him while heavy breathing sounds came from underneath the mask he wore.
(Start playing 'The Shape Returns' from the new Halloween score as you read this next part of the chapter)
"Ack! Pl-Please! I wanna h-help yo-you" Grizolli rasped. The man's grasp was so tight that he was crushing the polar bear's larynx, he didn't think anybody could be so strong. He then raised Grizolli high in the air while he was slowly standing up and began walking over towards a tall ironwood tree.
"P-Please" he whispered, he could barely talk. The man then threw him against the trunk of the tree and caused Grizolli to land on the ground. Before he could get away, the man grabbed Grizolli by the back of his head and began slamming it against the tree's trunk over and over until the bear stopped squirming and stopped moving entirely. He then let go of the body and it slumped down onto the grass, dead.
"Grizolli this is dispatch? Do you copy?" the dispatch animal asked. The man picked the radio and crushed it in his hand to pieces before walking up towards Grizolli's car and then got inside the driver's seat, shutting the door and locking it.
"Does anybody else have a 10-20 on Grizolli? He's not answering his radio" the dispatch animal's voice said coming from the car's dashboard radio. The man then grabbed onto the radio and yanked it off the dashboard with little to no effort, almost as if it was nothing, and tossed it out the window. The now trashed police radio landed right next to the deceased Grizolli's corpse. The man then rolled the car's driver door window up and then turned the keys and started the vehicle up entirely. The car then drove away from the fire and back towards the center of Zootopia itself.
A/N: There is our beginning to this new story! Now, it seems Eli has some sort of connection to Michael Myers, the man whom you just saw get pulled out of the burning house by Grizolli, and then killing his savior by hitting his head multiple times against an ironwood tree seemingly endlessly. Now, the Shape is about to make his way to the big city where anyone can be anything. More will come in the next update. Please review, thanks!