I do not own Gravity Falls.

Have a safe and spooktacular Halloween!

Scare Tactics

Idly running his fingers through his brown hair, making the strands stand on end, Dipper made his way down the hall and into the kitchen. His stomach gurgling in hunger, he cast a quick glance at the time displayed on the microwave. He reached for the handle of the refrigerator and yanked it open.

"Raagghh!"

Letting out a startled shriek, Dipper stumbled back several steps before slamming into the edge of the table. The loud, guttural roar immediately turned into raucous laughter as Stan unfurled himself from the empty interior of the fridge, removing his bloody green monster mask.

"Your face!" he cackled, holding his stomach. "It was almost as priceless as your girly scream!"

Heart thudding madly in his chest, Dipper managed to recover enough to send a fierce glare at his great-uncle. "I do not have a girly scream!" he protested.

"Right, it must have been the radio giving off that high pitch," quipped Stan.

"How long were you in there?" asked Dipper incredulously. "It's ten in the morning!"

"I dunno, maybe an hour?" Stan arched his back and stretched his arms over his head, trying to work out the kinks. "Any longer and I'd have been stuck in that position for days."

"So was I your target or were you just waiting for anyone to open the fridge?"

"Eh, I woulda scared the daylights out of anyone but I was hoping for you."

Dipper made a face. "Wish granted. You know Summerween isn't for another three days, right?"

"Yup. Not much time left to do some scarin'."

Clapping Dipper cheerfully on the back, Stan strode out of the kitchen, mask in hand and whistling a cheerful tune. The thirteen-year-old stared at the desolate state of the fridge, his stomach whining in protest at the lack of waffles and syrup.

"Grunkle Stan! Where did you put the food?!"

...

Shoving aside the beige shower curtain, Mabel stepped into the cool porcelain tub. Humming her favourite Sev'ral Times song she reached over and lifted the tub diverter valve before cranking the silver tap.

Thick, slimy bright red liquid spewed from the nozzle and splattered against the bottom of the tub, swirling crimson circles down the drain. It clung to her skin in globs. Eyes widening in fear, Mabel let out a scream and scrambled out of the tub, nearly getting tangled in the curtain as she did so. She grasped for her large, fluffy purple towel and wrapped it around herself before stumbling out the door and into the hallway, where she nearly collided with Ford.

"Mabel, Mabel it's fine! It's just a little joke!" soothed Ford, gently resting his hands on her shoulders to prevent her mad dash.

"What the heck is it?" she gasped. One hand clutching the towel to her body, she raised the other to gingerly run fingers through her hair. They got caught in the odd substance that was matted into her long brown strands, causing her to grimace.

"A little concoction of mine. I never thought simple drink powder would have much of an effect. It's just coloured water, after all. Not very shocking."

"Is my hair going to fall out?" asked Mabel anxiously. As smart as her great-uncle was, it took a few tries for any of his inventions and experiments to yield the required result. She did not need a side-effect of this junk to be hair loss.

"No, no, it's perfectly safe. It'll wash out."

Relieved at this, she reached out to shove at him lightly. "That was not funny!"

"I beg to differ," said Ford with a laugh. "For a moment I thought you were going to knock the door down."

"Geez, I thought—well, I don't really know what I was thinking. But I was freaked." Mabel stared down at the hardwood floor, where a puddle of murky red-stained water had gathered. "You're cleaning this up."

"We'll see."

Smirking, Ford tickled her chin before starting off for his bedroom. Huffing out a breath, Mabel shuffled back into the bathroom and checked the shower. The floor of the tub was covered in streaks of red, but the colour and consistency of the water had returned to normal.

"He's not going to clean this up. Dang it."

...

The twins quickly learned that Ford loved Summerween just as much as Stan did. It wasn't a surprise, for one who loved the supernatural and weird as much as he did would be delighted to live in a town that celebrated Halloween twice a year. Since Dipper and Mabel were self-proclaimed Halloween royalty, they were happy to have two great-uncles to share the holiday with.

The only problem was that Stan and Ford took every opportunity to scare people and that tended to be their niece and nephew, who were around pretty much twenty-four/seven. Dipper and Mabel tried to keep on their toes but kept getting caught off guard by fake spiders falling from the ceiling, holographic ghosts haunting their bedrooms at midnight and someone jumping out at them every time they walked into a room.

With two days left until Summerween, Dipper and Mabel were in the front yard of the Mystery Shack, arranging several plastic tombstones to resemble a graveyard. Mabel stuck a square-shaped one into the dirt, wiping the sweat from her brow.

"You know we have to get them back."

Dipper glanced at her, a few of the Halloween decorations tucked under his arm. "Clearly. But how? They're going to be expecting it."

Leaning against the hard material of the fake tombstone, Mabel pursed her lips in thought, idly straightening out her jack o'lantern sweater. "Then we're gonna have to be super unpredictable. There's no way we can let Summerween go by without scaring them back."

They continued with their work in thoughtful silence, each trying to work out a way to get revenge on their great-uncles without them foiling their plot. It was when Dipper stuck his last tombstone into the ground that an idea struck him.

"You know," he began, a slow smile curling across his lips, "they're expecting us to pull off a prank. What if we came up with a plan and asked someone to pull off our dirty work?"

Intrigued, Mabel said, "Deviously clever. But who would we enlist as our enactor?"

His smile turning into a full-out diabolical grin, Dipper replied, "The absolute last person Grunkle Stan would ever expect us to ask."

...

The Mystery Shack was transformed for Halloween, its roof covered in silvery spider webs, the sprawling yard covered with tombstones. There were zombie hands with frighteningly realistic rotting flesh, reeking a foul stench, sticking out of the soil. A fog machine was rigged up, thick grey smoke coating the grass and hiding it from sight, so that you had to stumble around to find your way.

Lights were rigged up to the roof of the porch to flash at random intervals to simulate lightning. Caution tape surrounded the building, guiding tourists towards the gift shop, where hidden mechanical vampires, werewolves and terrifying clowns were positioned to jump out of the shadows with high-pitched shrieks and roars.

The gift shop was nearly unrecognizable. Black curtains hung from the ceiling and the place was dark, only a few dim bulbs offering an eerie yellow glow. There were an assortment of coffins and old contamination barrels (which may or may not have been sterilized by Stan) that were set about. They, along with the curtains, turned the gift shop into a maze that made it difficult to see which direction you were heading.

Wendy's friends would be stationed in various positions throughout the store dressed as zombies, ready and willing to frighten any soul that stumbled upon their path. Wendy, Soos and Melody were dressed in individual, personal costumes, as they were manning the gift shop for the night.

Stan would be there on Summerween night to orchestrate the Haunted Shack. Though Ford planned to stay in the house for Summerween, he did not pass up the opportunity to scarify the Shack. Among his technological contributions were his holographic cubes that displayed transparent ghosts and a sprinkler system that dripped green and red slime at different intervals.

"I can't wait until the suckers start coming in," snickered Stan. He stared around the Shack with pride. "This will be one darn good Summerween."

"You don't suppose we've gone overboard, do you?" asked Ford, hands on his hips and his eyes roaming over the Halloween decorations.

"Of course not! You have to go all out these days. Kids are too desensitized."

"I was thinking more along the lines of seniors with medical conditions wandering in here and getting the life frightened out of them." He paused and grimaced. "Poor choice of words."

"You're a doctor, aren't you?"

"Not that kind of doctor. I know basic First-Aid and CPR, but I didn't go to medical school."

"Hey, that's all we need. Besides, if there are seniors who can't handle the frights then they shouldn't be stupid enough to come into a haunted house."

The lights suddenly zapped out, plunging the Shack into darkness. Startled for a brief moment, Stan quickly recovered and rolled his eyes. "Guess the runts are finally striking back."

"I thought they would be more creative than this," mused Ford.

"Nothin' wrong with the classics, if you know how to pull it off."

The two men made their way into the house, squinting through the darkness. "Kids!" called Stan. "Nice try, but no cigar!"

They stepped into the living room to see Dipper by the television, fiddling with the buttons. Mabel slouched on the couch, a pout on her lips. "We were just getting to the good part!" she whined.

"Hey, Grunkle Ford, I think something's wrong with the television," spoke Dipper, rocking back on his heels with a frustrated huff of air. "It just cut out on us."

"Very funny," said Ford in amusement. "You shouldn't play with the fuse box."

Eyebrow arching, Dipper exchanged a look with his sister. "I wasn't playing with the fuse box," he said slowly. "We were watching a movie."

"Getting into the Halloween spirit!" said Mabel, lifting up the case of the DVD. "Slasher Attacker is our favourite horror movie."

"Did the power go out?" Dipper asked in realization. "We were watching the movie in the dark, so when the TV went kaput, I thought it was just glitching."

Stan crossed his arms over his chest, eyeing the two suspiciously. "You mean to tell me you didn't cut the power?"

"Nope. We've been here the whole time," claimed Mabel.

"Uh-huh."

Not believing them, Stan made his way for the front door with Ford. Dipper and Mabel trailed behind them. They stepped out into the dark night, the shadows stretching around them. Ford stepped up to the fuse box and opened it, studying the contents.

"It all looks fine," he said in confusion, flipping a few breakers, but no light returned to the Shack. "There's no reason why we shouldn't have power."

"All right, what did you do?" demanded Stan, turning to look sternly at the two teens.

"We didn't do anything!" protested Dipper.

"I don't even know what must of these doohickeys do," added Mabel.

"Huh." Puzzled, Stan rubbed the back of his neck. "This is a problem if we can't fix this by tomorrow."

"I'll get my tools," declared Ford. closing the metal box. "There might just be a loose wire."

Bang! Crash!

The four jumped in surprise at the jarring noises that seemed to explode from inside the Shack. Stan raced back inside while Ford hastily ushered Dipper and Mabel in front of him to keep them in his sight. They stumbled into the pitch-black house, tripping over edges of furniture. They made it to the living room and froze.

Every single framed picture of the Pines family had been knocked off the wall and were now lying on the carpet, glass shards caught in the fabric. On the wall, where the pictures once hung, was a chilling message written in dark red.

I will have my revenge.

"Please tell me that's ketchup," squeaked Mabel.

Ford took in the scene, heart pounding in his chest. "Did you two have anything to do with this?" he asked sharply.

"No," insisted Dipper. "We didn't do it! How could we have? We were with you the whole time."

"Stan?"

"I didn't do any of this," said his brother grimly. He leaned closer to Ford and whispered, so the kids would not hear, "You don't think he's back?"

Coldness seeped into Ford's veins at the very idea. "It's impossible. He can't."

Stan tried to think of possible explanations for what was occurring. "Maybe it's Wendy and her friends trying to be funny," he muttered. He reached into the pocket of his suit pants and removed his cell phone. He kept alert to his surroundings as he dialled and waited for his employee to answer.

"Yo, Mr. Pines. You're not calling me in for a late-shift, are you?"

"No, I'm calling to see if you and your punk friends are trying to pull a Summerween gag on us. Some weird things have been going on."

"Nah, it's not us. We got busted for TP'ing the high school and my dad is gonna kill me if I get into more trouble."

"So you haven't been near the Shack in the last couple of hours?"

"Not since my shift ended."

"All right. Thanks."

When Stan hung up Dipper asked, "Was it Wendy?"

"No," replied Stan tensely. "I think we should wait outside until we figure this junk out."

"Look out!" Mabel suddenly shouted.

They all flung themselves to the floor, careful of the glass, as pots, pans, butter knives and spoons flew out of the kitchen, clattering against the walls, furniture and hardwood.

"I will have my revenge!" an echo-y, distorted voice thundered, so loud the building seemed to shake at its foundation. "I will have my revenge!"

"Run!" boomed Ford.

The four charged throughout the Shack, Dipper and Mabel running ahead of their great-uncles. They made it outside first, and when Stan and Ford burst out the front door and onto the porch, emotions heightened and adrenaline racing, a figure suddenly jumped out at them and screamed,

"Revenge!"

Shouting, Stan and Ford launched backwards and tripped over the wooden railing, landing in a heap on the grass. Dipper and Mabel finally dropped their façade and broke into laughter, clutching at their stomachs.

"Your faces!" howled Mabel, clinging to her brother for support. "Oh man, I was so worried I wouldn't be able to keep it together!"

"Revenge, revenge!" imitated Dipper, tears of mirth running down his cheeks.

Stan and Ford slowly collected themselves, getting to their feet and brushing the dirt from their clothes. Stan squinted through the darkness of the night and his jaw dropped at the figure who frightened them.

"Gideon?!"

"Little ol' me," the Southern boy confirmed with a cackle. "Didn't ya read my message? Ah had some revenge to get."

Stan stared dumbly for a moment, the pieces beginning to fall into place. He scowled fiercely and whirled on his heel to face his niece and nephew. "You!" he growled. "You said you had nothing to do with it!"

"No, we said we didn't do it," corrected Dipper with a wide smile. "And we didn't. We didn't do any of the stuff. We just planned it. Gideon is the one who pulled everything off."

"Oh, it was nothin'," said Gideon smugly. "Just some quick timin', a phone call to the electric company, some clear wires attached to kitchen supplies an' a hidden surround-sound system."

Ford clutched his chest, feeling his heart thud madly against his palm. "When did you orchestrate all this?" he asked incredulously.

"Yesterday," said Mabel with a triumphant smile. "We knew you wouldn't fall for any of this if we were missing, so we needed a third party."

"We chose Gideon because he's the last person Stan would expect to help us," added Dipper with a smirk. "It also helps that since you two aren't at each other's throats any more, you didn't automatically think of him as a suspect."

"Oh, I'm thinking of strangling him right now," growled Stan.

"We thought there was a possibility that this was Bill's doing," hissed Ford.

"That honestly wasn't our intention," said Dipper sheepishly. "Sorry about that. But not about the other stuff."

"Thanks for helping, Gideon," said Mabel cheerfully, slapping the boy on the shoulder.

"It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up," replied Gideon with a smug smile. "Messin' with Stanley is always a good time. See ya'll later."

He gave Stan a mocking finger wave before doing a more sincere one to Dipper and Mabel. He sauntered off, whistling a cheerful tune. Dipper and Mabel high-fived and grinned at their pale great-uncles.

"You shouldn't mess with the Kings of Halloween," informed Mabel.

"Come on, that was pretty good," cajoled Dipper.

"When I'm not so angry, I'll be impressed with what you pulled tonight," said Stan calmly. "You better believe we're going to get you back next year. But right now, you better run fast enough so I don't get my hands on you."

"Ah," agreed Ford ominously, smoothing out his red sweater. "I believe a dip in the pond will cool your egos."

"Uh...see you later!" said Mabel quickly.

She and Dipper raced off with their great-uncles hot on their heels. They sprinted down the dirt road and towards downtown, trying hard to keep their laughter contained and keep ahead of their pursuing relatives.

"No regrets!" hollered Mabel.

"Best Summerween ever!" cheered Dipper.