Phantasmagoric
The DiNozzos and McGees go to a Haunted Fun House for Halloween. October 2024.
Phantasmagoric - Of, relating to, or in the nature of an illusion; lacking reality.
"See Ima? I am big 'nuff to go in the fun house!" LJ stood next to the smiling ghost figure to show that he was indeed taller than the ghost.
Ziva smiled at her youngest, "So I see!" She ruffled his hair, "Who is going to be your buddy, then?" She looked over at the other kids. Anthony and Katie were holding hands; Ziva would have been surprised if either of the two had paired with anyone else. John and Rivka were also holding hands and waiting for Tony and Tim to purchase their entry bracelets.
"Beth and I are buddies," Tali called out to her mother. "LJ can come with us or he can buddy with an adult. We don't mind being a trio if you want LJ."
The little boy looked at the others thoughtfully, "I want… hmm… I want… ABBA! And Ima!"
"What about Abba?" Tony walked to his family with their admission bracelets in hand. "What did I do now?" he looked at Ziva and shrugged.
LJ tugged on his Abba's pants' leg, "My buddy, Abba!"
Tony ruffled the little boy's hair, "Okay with me. You can hold my hand to keep me out of trouble, deal?"
"Yup!" LJ turned to Ziva, "I keep Abba out of trouble!"
Ziva chuckled, "That is a big job… Do you think I should help you?"
"Uh-huh. Abba needs two people to keep him outta trouble," LJ grinned his best DiNozzo grin at both parents.
The other kids held out their arms for Tony to wrap the plastic bracelet around a wrist. Anthony was happy that his was orange. Tali thought it was cool that hers was purple.
"I wanna blue one," Rivka checked out the remaining bracelets in her father's hand. "Tali and Anthony got their favorite colors. It's not fair."
Tony held out the remaining bands; one green, one orange, two black, and one purple. "That's the colors; you have to choose one of these." The little girl pouted and shook her head. "It's Halloween colors, Riv. If they'd had a blue one, I would have got it for you," he tried again. Finally, she chose a black band and Tony fastened it to her wrist.
"Geeennnn!" LJ hopped from one foot to the other with excitement. He held out his arm for his Abba to attach the green bracelet; Ziva put the purple one on Beth and the black one on herself. After fastening LJ's band, he held out his arm for Ziva to wrap the last orange band around.
Dee rolled up, "We're ready to go. Anthony and Katie, and John and Riv are paired up. Ready?"
Ziva nodded, "Yes. LJ is buddying with Tony and me."
Tim led the group to the entrance to the fun house.
"How many in your group?" the young man at the doorway asked him. "We usually try to send people through in groups of ten to twelve."
"Eleven, one in a wheelchair," Tim replied.
The young man handed each of the adults a 'map' of the house. He pointed to an area that had a skull in the rectangle for the room, "When you get ready to exit the skeleton room, there will be a separate path for the wheelchair. It will be clearly marked on the floor. If you get disoriented, look at the floor. There is a line that basically paints a path through the house; follow it. Most of it is painted in glow-in-the-dark paint so you can see it easily. Any questions?"
John raised his hand, "What's the scariest room?"
"I don't know… none of them are really all that scary. But I did help set the whole thing up, so don't go by what I say," the young man opened the entry door for the family. "Have fun!"
The entryway was covered in red paint splatters; fake cobwebs hung from the ceiling and two large fake tarantulas clung to a wall. The floor arrows pointed the family to the first room on the twisted pathway through the house. Strings of orange, purple, green, and black beads hung over the doorway. Tony and Tim pulled the bead strings to either side so the others could pass through into the spider's den.
A huge animated black spider sat on a simulated web in the center of the room. An intricate web design that glowed a purple tint was on the floor. The glow-in-the-dark pathway followed along the segments of the spider web. Anthony and Katie were first in the line; as they passed the spider, it lunged towards them and its jaws moved as if it viewed the two children as prey. Katie let out a small shriek and clung to Anthony.
John laughed at his twin, and started to tease her, "Fraidy-cat, Katie-cat… It's just a mechanical spider…" He was cut off when something touched his leg and he jumped. Riv jumped back to avoid having John crash into her.
"Now who's the fraidy-cat?" Katie teased back.
"It grabbed my leg!" John rubbed his ankle as he watched Tali and Beth try to pass the giant arachnid.
Tali decided that she and Beth needed to run past the creature, so on the count of three, the girls took off running towards the others who had passed by the spider already. The spider's eyes moved as the two girls ran by, following their movement. Beth saw the eyes and got creeped out.
"It's watching us!" she tugged Tali's hand to move further away from the spider.
Tim and Dee decided to go across separately, but together. "I'll stay about two to three feet behind your chair," Tim strategized.
Dee nodded, "I'm going to roll backwards so I can keep an eye on it." She started moving with Tim following. The spider's eyes moved with Delilah. Its jaws opened and closed menacingly. She had almost made it across when the thing lunged at Tim and whatever had grabbed John also grabbed Tim's foot.
"Crap!" Tim ran past his wife to the group of kids on the other side. "It grabbed my foot!"
LJ looked up at his parents, "We are gonna be brave!"
"Works for me, kiddo… ready?" Tony and Ziva each took one of LJ's hands and the three started walking towards the giant spider.
Ziva was on the side closest to the spider; when she felt something touch her foot, she sped up. Tony tripped on something and looked over at his wife. With a nod, the parents swung LJ up in the air with their hands and ran to the others. LJ laughed as he 'flew' through the air with the help of Ima and Abba.
"All about getting you to focus on the spider's eyes and mouth while the things on the floor scare the daylights out of you," Tony reasoned. "Not so scary…"
Ziva bumped him in the side with her elbow, "So now you are the brave one after we have passed!"
Tony shrugged and grinned, "Guess so."
Tim reached for the doorknob to open the door to the next room; his hand touched something sticky and when he pulled it back, there were fake spider webs covering his fingers. He tried again and jumped back when his hand touched the realistic spider on the underside of the knob. Anthony and John peered at the fake spider.
"Wow, that's so cool. It looks real," Anthony pointed it out to the others.
John put his fingers on it, "Feels real too. That's kinda neat if you ask me. Can we look for one of these online, Dad?"
Dee shot Tim a look as he answered the boy, "We'll see. Remember that your mom doesn't particularly like spiders of any kind, real or fake."
Anthony opened the door and LJ ran into the next room before anyone else. He stopped in the middle of the first open area and turned around to look at the multiple reflections of himself.
"Dere's lots of mes!" he shouted out to the others. "One, two, free, fo', five, six, seben, eight, nine, ten, 'leven… Too many to count, Ima!"
The others followed him into the open area, lined with mirrors. Reflections of reflections were everywhere. The kids all thought it was neat the way the reflections reflected again and again to make the images seem infinite.
"The hall of mirrors," Ziva checked the house map they had been given. "This is one room that I think those lines and arrows on the floor will be very useful in getting out to the next room!"
Beth and Tali joined LJ in the center, or what seemed to be the center, of the open space. The kids watched all the images of themselves move in the mirrors as they moved. Beth suddenly stopped moving and grabbed at the back of Delilah's wheelchair as Dee moved near the kids.
"Aunt Dee, I think I'm gonna throw up…"
Delilah turned towards her niece, "Hold my chair and look at the floor; we'll move slowly towards the next part of this room. Maybe that will help."
"Okay…" the two started around the side of the mirrors to the next part of the hall of mirrors as the rest of the family watched the multiple reflections a bit more.
Anthony and Katie were the first two to follow into the next part; John and Riv were close behind with Tali.
"Hey, this side is really cool!" Tali called back to her parents, Uncle Tim, and LJ.
LJ looked at his Ima; Ziva nodded, and the little boy ran to where the others had gone around to the next part.
Tony and Ziva shared as smile as they heard a "Oh wow!" from their baby as they walked to the turn for the second part. Tim was already there, laughing at LJ and the other kids' antics with the concave and convex mirrors.
"Look at Abba's reflection," Tali pointed and giggled. "He's short and fat."
"Uncle Tim is tall and skinny," Rivka laughed at her uncle's reflection. "These mirrors are funny!"
John glanced at his mother's reflections, "Oh, how cool is that? Mom's wheels are different shapes and not circles in these mirrors."
Anthony walked towards and away from one of the convex mirrors, "Whoa… watch this… as I walk away, I get smaller and turn upside down; then I walk back and it flips to right-side up and bigger."
Tim smiled at the kids, "When we get home, I can explain the physics of these mirrors to you, if you want." Anthony, Tali, Rivka, Katie, and John all showed an interest in learning more about the mirrors as the family found the exit to the next room. "Some of it has to do with the shape and some with the curvature. The mirrors are spherical, parabolic, hyperbolic, and elliptical. The shape and concavity or convexity determine the location for the focal point. The position for the object reflected determines its orientation and size."
Tony tapped his brother on the shoulder, "Save the lecture class for home, McProfessor, and maybe even I will pay attention to the explanations."
The next room had distorted walls and tilted floors, with a separate path for Delilah's wheelchair clearly marked. Tim noted to the others that the room was called the vertigo room.
"What's ver… ver-tgo?" Katie asked the adults with a confused look on her face.
"A good thriller movie," Tony quipped. "No, seriously, kiddo, vertigo means the sensation or feeling that you, or the space around you, are spinning or moving."
"Oh. So we could get dizzy in here?"
"Yep, but you can hold my hand or onto your Mom's chair if you need an anchor," Tony replied to the almost seven-year-old.
Ziva added, "Remember also that you can look at the floor and follow the glow-in-the-dark line."
The family came to a three-way fork in the path through the room; one was labeled with the handicap symbol and the words 'easy path.' The middle fork's sign said, 'recommended path.' The final fork, on the left, bore the sign, 'challenge path.' Tim and Tony shared a look and nodded to each other.
"Why do I think the guys are going to try the challenge?" Dee commented to Ziva.
Ziva smirked, "Because they would not be our husbands if they did not! I will go with the children who want to try the middle path, and you can take those who want the least difficult path with you."
"Sounds like a plan to me," Delilah rolled towards the right fork with Beth, Rivka, and LJ.
Tali, Katie, and Ziva headed towards the middle path, while John and Anthony chose to follow their fathers to the challenge path.
The four males on the challenge path soon found out just how challenging it was. The floor shifted when they moved, undulating with each step. John and Anthony ran ahead of the adults, causing the floor to move even more. Tony looked over at Tim, who was struggling to keep his balance. He looked slightly green.
"Ah come on, Tim, you've been on ships; this is like being on deck," Tony noted. "My stint as agent afloat had rougher motions than this."
Tim gave his brother a pained look, "Yeah, but you don't get sea-sick…" He reached for a wall that was further away than it looked and fell on his knees.
Tony laughed, "You can always crawl out…" He started along the pathway, maintaining his balance as best he could. He could hear the boys giggling up ahead. He reached out a hand to the younger man and helped him to his feet. "Let's go see what the boys found that's so funny…"
"Yeah, sure…" Tim just wanted out of the room as soon as possible.
The pair rounded a partition and spotted Anthony and John bouncing on a trampoline-like surface. They were trying to touch some spiders and webs hanging from the ceiling. Tony joined the boys and managed to grab a spider. He handed it to Anthony, who inspected the fake arachnid and found a message on its underside with a number to take to the end of the fun house for a prize. Tony grabbed a second hanging critter and handed it to John.
"Thanks, Uncle Tony; the others are going to be jealous that we got prizes," John and Anthony peeled the messages off the spiders' bellies and put the spiders in a bin marked 'Put spiders here.'
Tim watched the three from the side of the space; he did not want to get on the bouncy surface at all. He glanced at the floor path and found a way around the trampoline-surface, meeting Tony and the two boys on the other side.
"Lead on, McSeaSick."
Tim sneered at Tony, "Gladly; the sooner I get out of this place, the better." He started down the next passageway and jumped back. Tony, Anthony, and John nearly ran into him.
"What the heck?" Tony tried to help the boys maintain balance. Tim was flailing his arms about his head and face.
"Da…arn spider webs," Tim sounded distressed. "I'm so out of here!" He turned towards the others and they could see the fake webs over his face and head. John snickered and prodded Anthony. Tim shot them a glare, but the boys continued to smirk.
Tony held back a laugh, "Better you then the rest of us, McWeb."
"Very funny, ha-ha, I forgot to laugh," Tim peeled some of the web from his face. "Let's find the end of this mess and soon." He spotted a sign that read, 'Exit this way' and ran towards it. He hit another flexible floor area and fell on his knees again. He crawled the rest of the way, rather quickly, and spotted the others from the family waiting in a small vestibule by a door to the next room. Ziva and Dee took one look at his face and burst out laughing.
"Not funny," he groused as the two women peeled fake spider web from his head and shoulders.
John and Anthony showed their spider notes to claim a prize to the other kids and told how they got them from the ceiling of the bouncy area. Ziva sidled over to her husband.
"I hope you are not going to be aching in the back later from getting those spiders for the boys," she spoke quietly so only Tony could hear.
Tony shrugged, "I can feel it already, but it was worth it for Anthony and John."
LJ showed the older boys the bat-shaped prize claim that Aunt Dee had found for him on their path through the area. He mentioned that Beth and Rivka had ghost-shaped prize tickets.
Tali and Katie held out their tombstone-like claim tickets, and Tali told the others how Ziva had climbed a section of the wiggly wall to retrieve them for the two girls.
"Ima was like a spider, Abba. It was cool to watch her climb," Tali added.
"Still my Ninja," Tony drew Ziva to him and kissed her cheek.
John looked at his sister's prize ticket, "Did you see that they all have numbers on them? I wonder if that means what prize we win?"
"I guess we shall see when we get to the end," Delilah replied. "Everyone has a prize ticket."
The next room was the skeleton room; there were plastic bones, skulls, and skeletons everywhere. Some of them were animated and moved as the family passed by. None of them was scared at all and LJ even yawned.
"Dis room is not scary," he commented to the others.
Riv agreed, "Yeah, it's kinda boring."
The final room was tagged 'the random fears room' on the map. The sign on the door warned that nearly everyone who passed through the room would probably face at least one of their fears before the exit.
"Yeah, right," Tim mumbled to Tony. "I already got my two biggies; seasickness and spider webs."
The first turn opened to a virtual snake pit on the floor with a small virtual bridge over the snakes. The virtual bridge was just wide enough for Dee's wheelchair; she hurried over and shuddered. Snakes were so not her thing.
Beth tugged at her Abba's shirt, "Abba, carry me, please?" She gave him her best puppy-eyes. Tony squatted down and the little girl climbed on his shoulders to be carried across the virtual bridge. "I'm not gonna look down at all, Abba. I hate snakes!"
"Okay, mini-ninja. On three, I'm gonna go…" He walked across quickly as Beth wrapped her arms around his head and looked over at Aunt Dee waiting for them.
Riv and John held hands as they crossed together. Riv was fascinated by the virtual snakes and the two children paused on the virtual bridge to watch the slippery critters. They were followed by Katie and Anthony who tried to avoid looking at the snakes. Tali, Tim, LJ, and Ziva crossed in a line to the other side. None of them were bothered by the virtual snakes.
The group walked around a turn and saw clown puppets along the sides of the next pathway. The last three to navigate the path were Tony, Ziva, and LJ. Some of the puppets moved and made weird noises. Neither Tony nor Ziva looked at the clown puppets; both kept moving towards the rest of the family. They were about two-thirds of the way there, when a large, black-clad clown clomped out at them.
"Hey!" a loud, deep mechanical voice yelled at the three as the seven-foot-tall clown moved closer; its boots making louder sounds on the floor.
Tony looked at the clown's face and shuddered; Ziva felt her heart pounding in her chest. The evil clown came closer to them. LJ let out a shriek, causing Tony to scoop up his little one and the parents then ran across the room with the evil clown clumping after them.
"Hey! It's just me," the clown called out to them.
"Damn clowns," Tony muttered to Ziva. "I hate clowns!"
Ziva ran with her husband, "I as well. Clowns are freaky if you ask me. RUN!"
They made it to the rest of the family as the clown came up behind them.
"It's just me," a voice they all recognized came from the evil clown. It was Abby dressed in mostly black with clown face make-up and painter's stilts to make her about 7 feet tall. "I didn't mean to scare you guys."
Ziva took a deep breath as LJ buried his face in Tony's shoulder, "Hello, Abby. We are not going to stick around since LJ is still terrified. We will see you later when the kids go Trick-or-treating."
"Okay!" she clomped off towards the room again. "Later."
Tony held LJ tightly as the group passed through the exit door, "Let's go get our prizes and forget about the frights from this room."
"I agree!" Ziva and Delilah said in unison. "Time for happier thoughts."
"And snacks!" Anthony added, knowing that soft drinks, popcorn, candy, and other goodies awaited them in the exit areas.
Katie waved her prize ticket, "Prizes too!"
The kids spied the prize-claim area and all seven ran over with tickets in hand, forgetting the scares of the final room. They discovered that the numbers on the tickets allowed each to pick from a specific group of prizes.
Tali and Riv chose music boxes; Tali's was shaped like a piano, with a large white skull stenciled on the top. Riv's had a skeleton ballerina on the wind-up part. Beth found a black cat wind-up toy, while Katie chose a Halloween-themed princess outfit for her fashion dolls.
Anthony searched through the prizes in his section, looking for the perfect one. When he found a glow-in-the-dark basketball, his DiNozzo grin said it all. John picked a battery-operated robot skeleton, and LJ fell in love with a plush lion in a skeleton costume. It was much smaller than his favorite lion, but he told Ziva it was his lion's baby sister.
"Well, other than getting the crap scared out of me by Abby's costume, I had fun," Tony mentioned to the other adults.
"I could have done without the virtual snake pit," Delilah added.
Tim shook his head, "I'm so over the spider webs and the moving floors. But it was fun overall and the kids enjoyed it."
Ziva agreed with Tony, "Minus the evil clown, I had fun. I could do without any clowns if we do this again." Tony reached over and intertwined his fingers with his wife's and gently squeezed her hand.
"And in a few hours, we get to have the kids on sugar-highs again from the trick-or-treat candy," Tony nodded over at the kids eating the iced cupcakes and other treats. "I am so glad we only have Halloween once a year!"
"Amen," chorused the other adults.