Chapter Two

The Doctor opened the door and tried not to laugh when he saw Alan standing there in full costume and makeup.

"Moo, old man," he said while Rose and Christopher, who were also in full costume and makeup, giggled. "How are things in the pasture this evening? I see you've transformed yourself into Poncy Puss."

"I wouldn't talk, Barmy Bull," the Doctor replied while Rose snickered.

"How very a-mooooooooo-sing, Puss Puss, now can we come in or do we have to go off in search of the barn?"

"No, come in but mind you don't squirt milk on my furniture," he said, pointing to the udders.

"I'll refrain from throwing milk all over your things," he said as they stepped inside. "So, is the Doc-ster around?"

"Yes, he's in the living room with the children and Rain and Marion."

"Marion? Ah, I see, Adam and Eve are joining us in the Garden of Eden?"

"No, Adam helped me put my makeup on while Eve had a cuppa and chatted with Rain."

"I see. And what is Doc's costume?"

"Doc will be going as Man with Silly Hat on Head," the Doctor replied.

"In other words, no costume," Alan said, sighing.

"Yes, but be fair, Brother. He's not a fan of Halloween. He's only here because Namid wanted him to go so don't give him a hard time about it, yeah?"

Alan nodded. Rose shut the door and took his hand while they followed him to the living room.

"Oh my God," Marion said at the sight of Alan's costume as Adam bent over laughing.

"Moo, everyone!" Alan said, raising a black gloved hand in greeting. "Behold, the costume that won first prize in Chicago many moons ago!"

"You look like a dork, Uncle Alan," Sokanon said.

She giggled when Alan put his face down next to her cheek, breathed hard on it while he pawed the ground and then made an angry moo as he butted her cheek with the top of his head.

"There," he said, leaning back up. "Tinkerbell is dead and this time not even clapping will save her."

He turned his attention to Doc and gazed at his hat.

"Mine!" he said, pointing to it.

"Oh no, I claimed it first," the Doctor replied smugly.

"Oh, what are you gonna do with it anyway?" Alan said.

"What are you gonna do with it?" the Doctor countered.

"Wear it which is more than you'll do!"

"You don't know that. I might find a use for it," the Doctor said. "Any rate it's mine. Sorry, old Milky Man, you lost out on this one."

Alan leaned down into Doc's ear.

"Name your price," he said in a loud whisper.

"No, Doc, don't cave in to him!" the Doctor said as everyone laughed.

"Um, you're forgetting that I'm here and I want it as well!" Adam said, raising his hand.

"Oh for the love of God, come on children, into the TARDIS until this pissing contest ends," she said to them.

"Alright, alright, we'll back off…for now," Alan said with a wink.

All of them hugged Adam and Marion and wished them a good night while they walked them to the door. Once they were gone, the Doctor looked at the others.

"Right, where to first?" he said, slapping his hands together.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Okay, so any ideas where to go?" the Doctor asked his family while the TARDIS flew through the vortex.

"I wanna go to a haunted house!" Christopher said.

"We will but don't you wanna go trick or treat first?" the Doctor asked him.

Christopher nodded.

"Let's go somewhere where it's warm or warmish since we have the TARDIS," Rose said.

"And your idea of warm or warmish would be…"

"The Bahamas?" Rose said while Rain laughed.

"Could go to Florida," Rain said shrugging.

"What about Arizona?" the Doctor asked.

"It's not too bad in October, low 60's," she said.

"So about 16 degrees Celsius then," Alan said. "Not too bad. At least it's not one hundred degrees below freezing.

The Doctor checked the monthly averages for Orlando.

"It's about the same in Orlando, however, I'm afraid to go to Orlando since a certain amusement park is there and we don't wanna spend the rest of the night going through you-know-where."

"Disneyworld!" Namid squealed.

"Yes, that!" the Doctor replied. "Although I'm sure the Disney Corporation would appreciate the fact that my daughters decided to dress up as their characters."

The children begged to go to Disneyworld and the Doctor held up his hand.

"We'll go there for Halloween another time. I don't feel like dealing with the crowds tonight. I have a time machine so we can go at any time of the year. Let's just set out to do what we planned to do and go trick-or-treating and go to the haunted house and fancy dress party, okay?"

"Can we go to a scary haunted house? Chaska asked.

"Yes, I have to find one first. The TARDIS can help with that," the Doctor replied.

"With real ghosts in it?"

The Doctor paused and stared at him.

"Um…I'm not sure about that. I thought we were going to one with simulated scares. I don't believe in ghosts to be honest so I'm not sure where we're gonna find a real haunted house."

Rose came up to him.

"There was that railway line in Omaha, the one with the ghost light we showed you."

"Ghost light?" Doc said.

Rose walked around to him.

"When Alan and Awinita and I were travelin' the US, we stopped off in Omaha and learned about this railway line that was supposedly haunted by this headless man that was searching for his head. There's this odd light that hovers over the line and it's supposed to be his lantern that he uses while he searches. We sat there and watched it and sure enough this weird light just floated over the line and kept vanishing and came back. Never did figure out what it was. Rain and the Doctor weren't with us at the time but we showed them the memory in the simulation room."

"Daddy, can we go see the ghost light?" Sokanon said.

"Yeah, I wanna go to that first before we trick or treat," Namid said.

The Doctor shrugged and looked at Doc.

"Brother, wanna go try to figure out the mystery of the ghost light?"

"Sure, I'm intrigued now. I wouldn't mind taking a dekko at this so-called ghost light," he said.

"Well, if we're gonna do that, children, then come and get your coats on because Omaha will be cold," Rain said,

"Yes and we are going Halloween night because I'm not about to go any other time with the way we look since I'm sure the Omahaians will section the loonies who are out sitting on their railway line dressed in bizarre costumes," the Doctor said as everyone followed Rain towards the back door.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

After grabbing a couple of old blankets and putting some sandwiches, little bottles of Coke, a few mugs and a thermos of hot tea into a picnic basket, the Doctor had the TARDIS search for the location of the train track. Once she found it, she landed in a field next to it. They walked up onto the tracks and saw several people were sitting on it about fifty feet away. To their relief, several of them had Halloween costumes on so no one questioned their bizarre getups as they walked up to the first empty space and laid the blankets down.

Alan sighed and put his arm around Rose when they sat down.

"Ah, this brings back memories, Starlight. Too bad Awinita is out partying with some of her sisters and friends, she'll be angry when she hears we came back here without her."

While they sat there, the Doctor reached into the picnic basket and passed out the sandwiches and soft drinks to the children. He poured several cups of tea from his bigger on the inside thermos. He handed those to the adults and put the milk and sugar down on the blanket so everyone could fix their tea the way they liked it. While they were doing that, the sun was going down behind them and a crisp night breeze blew their hair around. Chaska shoved his Spider-Man mask halfway up his face and ate the ham and cheese sandwich while he and Christopher talked to each other. Namid sat in between her two fathers while Sokanon sat by her mother. Namid glanced up at her father and Doc smiled tenderly when he felt her eyes studying him.

"You scared, Dada?" she said in a hushed voice.

"Nah, I eat ghost lights for breakfast," he replied.

"I eat toast and eggs."

She giggled when Doc tickled her briefly. He took a few sips of his tea before he set it down beside him on the blanket. He lay back on the blanket and gazed at the stars while he put his arms behind his head. Namid watched him for a moment and then did the same thing. Doc glanced at her and pointed to a constellation above them.

"That's Orion," he said, pointing.

"Where?"

"See those three stars lined up there?"

"Yeah."

"That's Orion's Belt. Orion's body is around those three stars."

"Oh."

"Now, over there is the Plough or Big Dipper," Doc said, pointing to another group of stars.

He glanced over and smiled when Sokanon walked over to him and lay down on his other side so she could see what he was pointing to. Doc pointed to Orion again for her benefit and then went back to pointing out the Big Dipper.

"Why do they call those stars Orion and those stars the Plough?" Sokanon asked him.

Well, people in ancient times named the stars after characters in their myths and legends," he said to her. "The Plough is also called Ursa Major or Big Bear and Orion was a legendary hunter."

"Where's Spider-Man at then?" Chaska asked, pointing up.

The other adults chuckled as Doc gave him an amused look.

"Spider-Man's swinging around on Earth," he replied.

"Although…" the Doctor said to him, "I s'pose you could find a group of stars and call that the constellation of Spider-Man if you like. If they could name stars after famous people and things, we can as well."

Chaska looked around and pointed to a cluster of stars off to the north.

"Okay, I name those stars Spider-Man," he said as everyone looked where he was pointing.

Christopher looked around and pointed to some stars up above him.

"I name those Captain Jack Sparrow," he said.

Namid pointed to some stars off to the west.

"Those two stars over there…I name them pee-pee and poo-poo."

The children giggled at that. Sokanon pointed to two more up over her head.

"Okay, I named those Ding-dong and Wee-wee," Sokanon said.

"Okay, children, keep the names clean," Rain said while the adults sniggered.

"I'm gonna name those stars Dartmore and Mong-mong, they're husband and wife," Alan said, pointing to some over his shoulder.

"I'm gonna name some Barmy, Off Your Trolley and Madder than a Hatter cause that's what ya all are," Rose said while they laughed.

Doc noticed Namid was snuggling up against him and closing her eyes.

"Love, you're not going to sleep are you?"

"No, I'm just resting a bit until Mister Ghostie comes," Namid replied.

Doc put a protective arm around her while she laid her head on his chest and closed her eyes. While she was doing that, Chaska and Christopher explored the area around them with a torch while Sokanon walked back over to Rain and Rose and sat down between them.

"Whoa, cool!"

The adults looked over and saw Chaska walking back to them with a rusted railroad spike in his hand.

"Mum, look. What is it?" Chaska asked as he and Christopher walked up to her.

"It's a spike. They drive it in beside the rails so they'll stay in place," Rain said, pointing to the rail on their right.

"Brilliant," Chaska said as they sat back down to examine it.

Just then someone let out a gasp and everyone' s attention was drawn to a spot about a hundred feet away.

"There it is!" Rose said as she pointed to the bluish light floating three feet above the tracks.

Doc tapped Namid on the shoulder and both of them sat up to take a look at it. Doc stared at it intently as it bobbed up and down and floated around the tracks.

"What the hell?" he murmured to himself.

He and the Doctor shared a look and the Doctor shrugged.

"I haven't the foggiest what it might be, Brother," he said to him. "It's not swamp gas or headlights, I know that much."

"Wow!" Namid said in a hushed voice. "A real ghost?"

"I don't know about that, Ya'nala, I'm not convinced it's a ghost but your other dad's right, definitely not car's headlights or swamp gas."

The light flew down the side of the hill and disappeared. By now, the Doctor noticed that several teens in front of them were drinking beer and whisky and a few of the tipsy ones were starting to get loud while they dared their friends to go find the light. The Doctor shook his head, wondering why humans could be so thick sometimes. He flinched when one of them threw his empty vodka bottle at the rail and it broke into several pieces on impact.

"Right, family, I think we should go elsewhere before someone lobs an empty bottle at us," the Doctor replied.

"But Daddy, I wanna see the ghost again," Sokanon said.

"Baby, we'll see and do more things but some of these people nearby are beginning to get drunk and I'd rather not be here if they're gonna throw bottles. Come on, we'll have fun elsewhere."

Sokanon nodded and all of them got up, gathered up their things and the Doctor used the torch to guide them back to the field and the TARDIS.