Tchaikovsky and the Curse of the Halloween Hound

Chapter 4

The kids continued getting candy at every house they stopped at and having a lot of fun together as they ran from house to house. 

Hoot happened to be flying over when he spotted the staff with the Recess gang and reported back to Warwick. 

The Buddies' owners were getting candy at another house. The pups and Scooby were waiting for the kids when they were approached by some strange pup in a ghost costume. 

"Um, hello there" Tchaikovsky greeted the pup, trying to not make this an awkward situation where they would just stand there and stare at each other in silence. 

"Thank goodness I found you guys" The pup in the ghost costume said to the Buddies and Tchaikovsky. 

"Yo, if you're looking for a pawtograph, I ain't in the mood" B-Dawg said a little nervously. 

"You'll have to excuse my brother, he gets a little loopy whenever he's had too many treats after eight" Wonder apologized, being a bit embarrassed. 

"I'm here to warn you about the Halloween Hound" The pup told the Buddies. 

"How did you know about that?" Rosebud asked while Tchaikovsky immediately recognized the pup's voice. 

The sheet to the ghost costume was then removed, revealing it to be Pip. 

Scooby screamed out of pure terror, hiding behind Tchaik and the others. "RHOST!!"

B-Dawg also screamed. "Ahhh! It's the Halloween Hound! I told you dawgs he'd come after us!" 

"No, I'm not-" Pip tried to tell them. 

"Run for it!" Tchaikovsky told his friends as he, the Buddies and Scooby ran off screaming. 

Pip put the ghost costume back on to disguise himself knowing that the people would freak out due to his real appearance and went after the pups. Tchaikovsky, the Buddies, and Scooby came around the corner and stopped running for a moment only to look back seeing Pip still following them. 

"Oh, come on!" Wonder groaned, annoyed but also scared now of Pip chasing them. 

"He's still after us!" Tchaikovsky warned his friends while he stood beside Wonder to keep her safe. 

"Yo, this ghost dawg doesn't give up!" B-Dawg panted heavily. 

"Rwhat do we do?" Scooby asked fearfully. 

"I know a place" Buddha spoke up. "If there's anyone who can help us with a paranormal problem, it's Zelda. Follow me"

The rest of the pups and Scooby looked at each other but didn't question the Buddhism pup and followed his lead. 

"Please, wait! I'm just trying to warn you guys" Pip told the puppies, trying to catch up with them. 

What they didn't know was that someone else was following them as the Halloween Hound and Belladonna came around the corner and watched the Buddies, Tchaikovsky, and Scooby run off. 

"That must be them" Belladonna said. 

"Indeed" The Hound agreed. 

They then saw Pip following after them in his ghost costume. 

"It looks like someone else is after those puppies too" The Hound said. 

The two demon dogs smirked evilly at each other before they followed after the puppies themselves. 

Meanwhile~

Kali and the Recess gang had finished collecting some more candy and soon came up to a plain old quiet house with no Halloween decorations or anything unlike the other houses in the neighborhood. This was apparently their next stop. 

"Well, remind me to never come trick-or-treating at 2332 Pine Lane again!" Vince said to his friends. 

"Talk about no Halloween spirit" Mikey commented on the dull looking house. 

"Hmm..." Kali titled her head while she looked at the old house, wondering about something. 

"2332 Pine Lane?" TJ repeated, hearing that address before and reached into his pocket for something. What he took out was a very old photo from the file he had borrowed for his history project and compared the two before gasping. 

"Hey! Guys, the boy from the story lived here" TJ realized. "This was Joseph's house"

"Well, go knock on the door, TJ" Spinelli suggested. "Maybe he still lives there"

"Guys, come on he'd be like a thousand years old or something" TJ told his friends. 

"Theoretically speaking, it may still be possible" Gretchen said. 

"And like they always say, nothing ventured, nothing gained" Gus added. 

TJ sighed, soon opening the gate and walked up with the others following behind him. Kali kept deeply pondering with her thoughts, having a strange feeling about this house and the connection it had to the story. 

TJ knocked on the door but no one answered. TJ shrugged his shoulders. "I guess nobody's home" 

The boy in the red baseball cap turned around to face his friends. "See, I told you guys. It's just a creepy old house with nobody in it"

Just then, an old man opened the door, coming up behind TJ which made the rest of the Recess gang gasp in fear except for Kali. 

"What?" TJ saw the gang's expressions suddenly change. 

"B-Behind you..." Vince gulped, pointing out shakily. 

"Oh, ha, ha. Good one, Vince" TJ rolled his eyes. "Like I'm gonna fall for..." 

But TJ then stopped noticing how his friends were all looking at him. 

"For reals?..." He asked them, now becoming nervous himself. 

The Recess gang nodded fearfully in silence to their leader before TJ turned around and yelped when he saw the old man standing before him. 

"Oh! Um... hello, sir... I..." TJ was unable to say anything as he couldn't get the words out. 

Kali quickly came up to him. "We're terribly sorry to disturb you, sir" She apologized to the old man before reaching into TJ's pocket to show him the old photo. "But we were just wondering if this boy still lives here?" She asked. 

"No," The old man replied. "This boy hasn't lived here in quite some time. What do you want?" He then asked the kids, looking grumpy. 

"Well, you see, I-I'm doing this school project on the... Curse of the Halloween Hound, an old Fernfield legend, a-and I... was just hoping to ask him some... questions..." TJ explained. 

"I'm sure if that boy wanted to talk about it, he would've a long time ago" The old man said with a huff. "Now go away!" He told the kids. 

"O-Okay..." TJ said, leaving with the others. "I'm sorry, sir..."

"Sorry for the intrusion" Kali frowned, feeling bad as she left with her friends. 

The old man then called out after noticing TJ's staff. "Hey, boy! Where'd you get that staff? Hand it over! That's very dangerous!" 

The Recess gang all screamed, running away out of fear as the old man chased after them but stopped at the gate to catch his breath while the kids got away. The Recess gang kept saying how creepy that guy was but Kali looked towards the man's house. She actually felt bad for the poor old man, feeling his loneliness and the adventure girl got the strangest sense that their was something familiar about him. She couldn't worry about it now though as she left to catch up with her friends. 

Elsewhere, Warwick was doing some investigating, wanting to know who was responsible for this supposed infestation. He stopped in front of Mr. Carroll's house, mistaking him for a sorcerer after seeing how all the children in costumes flocked up to his door. Hoot soon arrived informing his master that TJ had his staff. Now knowing where his staff was, Warwick would stop at nothing to get it back and ordered his owl assistant to show him where it was...