Chapter Text
As Len stood in the full-body mirror examining his costume, he added the finishing touch.. A shitty fish fin hood, buttoned underneath his chin. He spun around once, getting a glimpse of this year's Halloween costume he picked: a fish. He wasn't sure which one, but it was a fish, and it had scales, and was a blueish color. He quite enjoyed fish, as creatures. He thought they were cute and quite badass, powerful... He slipped on his crocs and headed out of the room.
"Rin, check out my costume for this year," Len said with pride, showing off his fish fit. It looked kind of fucking stupid. Rin got a good look at his costume.
"What kind of fish is it?" she asked. Len shrugged. Rin, too, was in full costume already, and she had been all day. She was wearing a bee costume, with an antenna headband and little wings on the back. It was kind of like a kigurumi, rather than some sort of dress.
"I've had this costume ready for months, Rin..." Len began. "And it's finally here.. the day I can wear it, and unleash my power upon the neighborhood. Ohohoho!" He burst into laughter, not unlike a rich smug anime girl. It sounded forced, though.
"Flower and the others are coming in a few minutes." Rin said, sitting down on a peeling leather chair and crossing her legs. Len went to sit next to her, in another shitty peeling chair. The TV was playing Ernest Scared Stupid. Rin swore she'd seen it a hundred and fifty times at this point. She hated it, she never liked it at all. None of the Ernest movies interested her... and they didn't even interest Len either, apparently, as he quickly grabbed the remote and started scrolling through the channels.
"Rin, look, they're putting on Mall Cop 2 in an hour on this channel." Len stated.
"Please, God, no." Rin shook her head, groaning. "At least something festive that isn't Ernest, please."
"Oh, shit." Len gasped. "Adam Sandler's Eight Crazy Nights. I love Adam Sandler, man." Len tried to put it on, but unfortunately, it was mislabeled, and was showing a movie called Adam Sandler's Extremely Ass instead. "Damn it.. Yeah, we got nothing."
"Bummer." Rin spoke. Meiko walked into the living room, holding a platter of pumpkin, ghost, and Dracula shaped cookies. She too was in costume: a generic yet cute witch outfit.
"Ohh, you guys look so cute in your little costumes!" Meiko doted as she set the platter on the coffee table. "Wait, Len, when did you get that fish one? I didn't buy it for you, did I?"
"Bought it back in March." Len smirked, grabbing a Dracula cookie. He examined it thoroughly, admiring Dracula's features... hearing his voice in the back of his head... and then taking a bite. It was quite good. "You never know when it'll be almost Halloween and you don't have a costume ready and you don't wanna be Mater from Cars again, y'know?"
"..You do know, actually." Rin said inbetween bites of a ghost cookie.
"Always prepared, huh." Meiko chuckled. She looked like she hadn't slept in so long. A knock sounded on the front door. Len jumped out of his seat, dropping the half-eaten Dracula cookie onto the hairy ass carpet floor and running towards it.
"Hi, Len." Flower waved. Fukase and Oliver were behind her, and each of them was dressed up for the night: Flower in a purple Pikmin kigurumi, Fukase as the Joker (weirdly high budget, he put way too much effort into his costume), and Oliver as some sort of zombie cat. It looked like Fukase had helped him with his makeup. It wasn't too gorey, just ashy with immense dark circles and fake blood and some green contour. Even from behind Fukase could sense Meiko doting on them too.
"Hey guys!!" Len greeted excitedly. "Rin, let's go, we're gonna go trick or treating now!!" Rin got out of her seat and went after them.
The door shut behind them and there it was.. Fukase's infamous shitty $5 car, that he had bought after one of his neighbors threw a firework at his poor, beloved clown car. He was distraught, but lucky to find a replacement vehicle for a cheap price. He wasn't broke, far from it, but he loved being cheap when he had the chance at least. The car was shit, but he didn't care. The radio was at least pretty high quality. "Get in, guys," Fukase motioned as he crawled into the driver's seat of his new car. Everyone got in their respective seats, buckling up.
"Where's Piko?" Rin asked.
"Ahh.. he couldn't make it." Fukase frowned as he started up the car, pure black stinky ass smoke emitting from the pipes or engine or whatever it is I don't know car lore. "Miki invited him to a haunted house and they hadn't seen each other in forever, and of course I had plans for this already, so I couldn't come along..." Fukase pulled out of the driveway, sighing. "We were gonna be Batjokes together, too.. My Batsy's separated from me.."
"Wait, why are we in the car?" Flower asked. "Couldn't we just walk around?"
"This neighborhood sucks ass for nights like these." Fukase explained, turning the radio on to Imagine Dragons' song Enemy playing at full blast. "We're going to a fancier one. We're gonna get some sick candy tonight, maybe some razorblades too."
"Last year all I got in my basket was rocks and saltines." Oliver said disappointedly.
"See, what he said," Fukase added. "And last year I didn't get anything except a singing dog plushie that farts and screams Crappy Holidays. Trust me, you guys don't wanna trick or treat in this neighborhood at all."
"What's going on here?" Rin asked. "When Len and I went we didn't get garbage. Last year we got giant swirly lollipops." Oliver's cat ears weren't even real, but they perked up at "giant swirly lollipop".
"Yeah! And a little container of fake blood. Not sure what that was about." Len added.
"Didn't we put it under a microscope and find out it was real?" Rin asked. Len did not respond. They did, indeed, find out the blood was real, and belonged to some dead US president. The guy who gave it to them was wicked fucking weird, too: some elderly fellow with a broken back and Gollum hair and a yellow morphsuit who kept giggling and turning red and speaking in a nerd emoji voice. Len drowned out that part of the memory, due to the time he accidentally dropped the vial and spilled it in his root beer immediately after they looked at it. He'd watched Twilight far too many times to allow something like that.
As Fukase drove his shitty bouncing car down the road, he and the others could see trick or treaters of all ages going down the sidewalk. Len spotted someone dressed as Pitbull, the famous rapper from real life, and almost yelled to stop the car before Rin stopped him. Flower saw a whole army of Among Us beans, Oliver saw a giant spider that he could not tell if it was a costume or real, Rin saw Pitbull again, Flower saw two kids dressed as Sonic and Eggman beating the shit out of each other and knocking each other's teeth out, blood on the ground as a kid dressed as Espio filmed them on his 3DS...
"See, what did I tell you? This neighborhood sucks." Fukase chuckled. "We all saw the spider, didn't we?"
"We did?" Len asked. "Wait, how far do we have to drive?"
"Just a couple more minutes." Fukase answered, turning up the volume of the radio, which was now playing what sounded like a cover of In The End by Linkin Park sung by cartoon hamsters. Len smiled as this song gave him fond, fond memories...
~~
Fukase stopped his car in front of a bright, pink sparkly house, covered in fake spiderwebs and real dead spiders. A ten foot Home Depot skeleton stood outside on the front yard, appearing to be grabbing it's crotch. Rin thought it was obscene.
"Well, we're here," Fukase beamed as he stumbled out of the car. "See? The houses are gorgeous around here. You know their candy's gonna be like, fifty fucking pounds." Len and the others followed him as he shut the car doors, pressing the same button six times in a row to lock the vehicle.
Len remembered to bring his trick or treat basket: a Walmart shopping bag. It smelled weird, and fucked up, but it was all he could find. Rin's basket, too, was a Walmart shopping bag, but of the fabric variety rather than plastic. Flower's, of course, was a Hot Topic bag, Oliver's was just an ordinary pumpkin one, and Fukase's was... a cardboard box. Well, better than his pockets. The pants he wore for his Joker costume had tiny, unusable pockets he could only fit a severed finger in anyway.
"Where even are we?" Flower asked, looking around for any sense of familiarity. Every house looked hundreds of years old and haunted, and was painted in obnoxiously bright colors. Crowds of children and adults and their weird pet dogs were walking the streets, and the street lights had clearly just been turned on as the sun was beginning to set. There were a lot of strange rain puddles on the sidewalks, but not the road. Who even knew if they were rain puddles, as Oliver sniffed one and it smelled like human spit.
"Beats me. But we're not getting any human blood vials this time, at least." Rin said, stepping onto the sidewalk. "I guess we're starting with the ten foot skeleton house." Oliver ran up to the front door of said house, and the rest followed after him. His hands slightly shaky, he knocked on the door, and immediately heard someone stomping and tumbling down the stairs and yelling.
After a minute, the door opened, and an unfamiliar woman in a stained Star Wars shirt holding a bowl of candy greeted them. Oliver held his basket up shyly, barely making eye contact. "..Trick or treat."
"Aww, your costume's so cute," the woman said as she grabbed a mysterious vial of red liquid and a nicely wrapped Dum-Dum lollipop and dropped them into his basket. Rin and Len went next, getting the same vial and lollipop, though in different flavors. Fukase and Flower went next.
"Aren't you two a little old for this?" the woman asked, bearing a forced teethy smile.
"No. I crave flesh." Flower replied monotonously, holding her Hot Topic bag out. "And I'm gonna get it if you say that one more time." The woman nervously handed her and Fukase red vials and lollipops, then slammed the door in their faces, very loudly locking it. They could hear her walking away from the door and screaming obscenities, kicking and breaking glass.
"The fuck was wrong with her?" Rin asked.
"Did you see the dead spiders all over the outside of her house?" Len laughed. "I don't think those are fake after seeing that. Also, what are these?" Len pulled out the mysterious red vial.
"Blood again." Rin sighed. She unscrewed the lid and dumped it on the ground, and Len did the same. "Like we want this shit."
"Yohioloid would love it." Oliver said. They went over to the next house: a pale yellow one, also covered in spiders. These ones were at least fake.
This time Flower and Fukase were up first, to avoid an incident like the previous house. Flower rung the doorbell, and waited patiently. Or as patient as she'd have to be anyway, as the door opened immediately. A man dressed as Gollum hunched over, holding a bowl of candy.
"Trick or treat." Fukase and Flower said in unison, Flower's voice much more monotone and Fukase clearly trying to do his best Joker impression.
"Ooh hoooo... Precious.." the man spoke, in a worse Gollum impression than any of them had ever heard before, even worse than Fukase's Joker voice. "Yes, yes.. we loveses your little outfitses, we dooo..." The guy spat as he grabbed some unlabeled chocolate bars, throwing them into everyone's baskets, somehow not missing. He then slammed the door in their faces before they could even try to thank them.
"Fukase, this neighborhood's even worse than ours." Flower sighed, examining the chocolate bars. Still no label. "You know he just gave us poison right now."
"Ah, well.. I haven't been here in a long time, so..." Fukase shrugged. "I didn't think they also had blood."
"Maybe don't just go to every house on the block, how about that?" Rin suggested. "Look, that one has a lot of people in front of it, and like, a huge bat thing. Let's go there." Fukase remembered Piko was in his Batman costume getting shit thrown at him in a corn maze right about now, and sighed. At least they'd be home around the same time, hopefully.
The scooby doo gang went over to the house, with the big bat thing in front. They had Christmas lights strung upon their roof, for whatever reason, but it was pretty so nobody really gave a shit. The giant bat creature was, in fact, in front. It had a big toothy mouth and strange feathers, and some small child was plucking each feather off it, one by one. "Norbert, stop it!!" his mother, dressed as Fiona from Shrek, cried out. The child, of course, was Donkey, and his father was Shrek. Len wondered what their favorite movie was... probably Ernest Scared Stupid.
Right in front of them was an old, probably in his early to mid sixties, bald man with painted on hair (you could see it on his ears) and a vampire costume, getting candy from whomever the owner of the household was. As the door shut and he walked down the steps, he yelled, "This shit ain't nothing to me man, I'll fucking kill you you stupid son of a bitch."
"Dude... that guy was really hot." Len whispered to Rin as her face contorted into a grimace.
"When are you gonna be normal?" she groaned. Rin rang the doorbell, and the door opened immediately once again. This time, a high schooler in an alien onesie greeted them.
"..Rin and Len?" they asked. Shit. They forgot they were mildly famous.
"Yeah, happy Halloween bro." Len held his basket out. "Fukase, Flower, and Oliver are here, too."
"Ah.. I don't know who they are." the alien nervously laughed, as they grabbed handfuls of candy and dropped them into each Vocaloid's basket. "But you guys... you guys like, saved my life. Len, your cover of All the Small Things changed me and improved me as a person. I don't wanna dissect my teacher and replace her organs with fingernail clippings anymore."
"I think I'm gonna die." Oliver muttered to himself, for no reason in particular.
"That's really great," Rin chuckled, incredibly nervously. "Um, we hope your Halloween goes well."
"Thank you so much.. Rin and Len." the alien giggled hysterically. "Man, two celebrities in a row, technically three. This is awesome." Just after saying that, they slammed the door into their faces. Just like everyone else did that night.
"Man, what the fuck is wrong with people here?" Rin mumbled. "None of these people know how to shut a door right, everyone's a freak, I think we just found like, a future serial killer." Len wasn't listening, as he was still rotating that old bald guy with the painted on hair and Dracula costume in his brain. "Len, come on, are you listening?"
"Oh, yeah.." Len stuttered. They walked down the steps and went over to whichever house seemed most interesting and least likely to be the home of some freak, but were interrupted by a stranger.
"Halt, where do you think you're all going?!" the person yelled, taking off their hood to reveal they were an elderly woman... or, at least, a young woman wearing a shitty rubber mask of a grandma, not unlike the "old man" from the old Six Flags commercials Len adored back in the day.
"If I'm being honest, we haven't got a clue." Fukase shrugged. "Who are you? Your mask looks fuckin weird."
"You must be careful, in this here town..." the grandma warned. "Down the street, very close from where we are right here, right now... there is a big, cursed mansion, ouuuhh..."
"Can we go?" Oliver asked.
"ABSOLUTELY not, little one.." the grandma put her hand on her face.. then screamed in pain, collapsing to her knees. Fukase looked down at her, concerned, as he watched blood drop down from the eye-hole in her mask to the cold, hard ground. "There are... there has been a record... Every time any group of people enters that house.... oh, God, it's happening..." She screamed in pain once again, now on her hands and knees.
"Should we call a doctor?" Rin asked.
"No worries," Flower said, adjusting the sleeves of her Pikmin kigurumi. "I've been to medical school... Now, I don't have a license, but I can see what her deal is. She slapped the woman on her back, very hard, seven times in a row, and the woman coughed up a strange, slimy black blob.
"Ohh, much better, thank you.. what is your name.."
"Just call me Flower."
"Flower! Yes, such a gorgeous name for a gorgeous young fellow." the grandma spoke, coming back to her senses and getting up off her hands and knees. "Thank you, oh so very much. Yes, where was I..."
"What happens when people enter that mansion?" Rin asked, hand on her hip, sparkle on style.
"Oh, yes!" The grandma clapped her hands. "Well, I forgot. But it's nothing good, I tell ya... Oouuuhh.." She put her hood back on, and seemingly disappeared into the shadows.
"What a fucking weirdo." Rin sighed. "Nobody here is normal. I think it's rubbing off on Len, too."
"And why do you say that?" Len asked, still thinking about the old bald Dracula man.
"I can fuckin' smell your thoughts from here, you freak." Rin tried to stifle back a laugh.
"Alright, that's enough, kids." Fukase said, clapping his hands again. "So, we all heard what the lady said, right? We gotta go down to that mansion." Oliver looked excited.
"Wait, for real?" Len asked. "Won't we like.. die?"
"Well we all know everyone in this part of town is batshit insane," Fukase began, "so clearly she was just spouting made up shit, right? Plus, she did forget what happens to groups of people who enter that house..."
"Eh, that's the whole point of Halloween, guys." Flower added. "Piko's at a haunted house, too, isn't he? Maybe you'll meet him there."
"See? She agrees with me," Fukase said. "Come on guys. We're going. And look how excited Oliver is, he can't stop grinning." Oliver was, for once, actually excited.
Len sighed. "Rin? We going?"
"Might as well." Rin said, her arms crossed. "What's the worst that could happen? The skeleton pops out? There probably won't even be anything there except cobwebs and some shitty animatronic clown."
"God, I hope there is a clown." Fukase grinned. "Alright, guys. We'll know it when we see it, come on!!"
~~
END OF CHAPTER 1