You'd arrived at 11:00 at night, October 31st. While you can't remember what exactly they made you eat (your chocolate hunch is starting to wane by now) you know they can't have asked you to have dinner at that hour.

You don't know what time it is right now. The only clock in the house—rabbit-shaped, of course—moves way too quickly to be correct. All the curtains are closed as you walk through the dim parlor. The furniture is faded, scratched, and the cushions have lost their spring. Most heinously, the wallpaper is the most tacky floral pattern you've seen in your life.

You glance at your feet and your brow knits. The floor isn't much better: a tangle of bright purple hexagons that almost makes your head ache. It's like the house is trying to clash with itself. Though given its residents, you shouldn't be surprised.

You feel relieved, in fact. You're out of the cellar.

The rabbit has invited you to dinner. At this point, you couldn't care less if it kills you.

You can't tell where the light is coming from, though it's certainly not daylight. Daylight isn't this yellow, this nauseating. This haunting. You suppose that for a household "business" that revolves around Halloween, that would be a perk, but you don't suspect it's intentional. These things must be creepy by nature.

Or by design. You did see those eyes beneath the pumpkin rabbit's face.

"Hi!"

You yelp and jump at a loud voice to your right. A giant five-foot clown doll is bouncing on its wooden clogs beside you with an eager smile and wide, dark eyes. It looks to be made of porcelain, with bushes of red yarn for a wig and a frilly suit striped yellow, purple and blue. It stares at you, its shoulders heaving while it bounces, like a panting dog. You stare back, immobilized. Terror catches in your throat. Your arms are frozen, clutched defensively to your chest, your feet rooted to the ground, your heart pounding against your ribs.

Silence. The clown does nothing, save for the bouncing—after a long pause, it takes a shallow breath and blurts,

"I'm Billy!"

Still with that wide smile. Its voice is garbled, like it's speaking with a mouthful of water. Its beady white pupils ricochet around, taking every little detail of you in. The way it moves, bounces in place, sucks in labored breaths gives you the feeling that it has trouble speaking, let alone speaking normally.

It doesn't seem to realize you're afraid. It doesn't seem to realize much, other than that you've been here before. It must not be often that guests last more than one night at this house.

Despite everything, you feel a pang of sympathy for this huge doll. Or whatever it is.

You lower your guard just slightly. Billy, the clown, is just one of the rabbit's "friends." Could he really do you much harm?

"You won't hurt me," you say firmly after a moment. Your hands are clenched into fists at your sides. Your thumbs dig into the hem of your shirt. You take a small step back as you wait for Billy's response. He bounces a bit more before saying clumsily,

"Won't keep today!"

You blink. Your gaze flickers up at the door at the end of the parlor.

The front door.

Run.

You look back into Billy's black eyes. He's faltered, just a bit. You hold back a wince. You looked for too long.

"Don't need to keep," Billy says, low and pleading. His clogged, uneven voice manages to crack your heart; it almost sounds like he's holding back tears. He slowly shakes his head.

"Don't need to. Pumpka said so. Please, don't make me."

You blink again, and your head aches.

It's nighttime. It's nearly pitch black.

You're standing, drowsy and frightened, in the parlor. Your throat is raw, your senses dulled, your eyes fighting to stay open.

Billy is drawn up to full height, blocking the front door.

You wince and hold your head. It's about to split in half.

You open your eyes.

The parlor is lit a nauseating yellow. Billy is right in front of you. His flimsy gloved hands are folded, his mouth pulled in an unnatural frown. His eyes read worry. You swallow back a curse and let go of your head, standing up straight.

"I'm okay," you mutter. The corner of your mouth twists in regret; how have you lost it this quickly? Telling a doll that it doesn't need to worry about you?

You take a glance down the dark hall on your left. The one that leads to the dining room.

You're not in the mood to get apprehended by a porcelain clown. Dinner it is.

The doorframe is crooked, you realize as you approach it. You run a cautious hand over the cracked casing and peer into the hall. The walls are a dull magenta with framed photos hanging askew every couple of feet, the ceiling tilted, the walls seeming to close in the farther down they go like you're looking into a funhouse mirror. Everything is still and lifeless—at least the parlor, creepy and dollhouse-like as it is, gave the impression that someone could have lived there. Looking into this hall, it seems even the soft drone of the heaters or Billy's labored breaths have quieted. You swallow and try to pop your ears; nothing.

You take a tentative step into the hallway. A small part of you had expected something to jump out of the shadows and attack you, but of course, nothing does. You shake your head at yourself, pursing your lips in embarrassment. The rabbit doesn't seem like it would play those sorts of games—of course, who are you to say what that thing would or wouldn't do?

It's easier, you admit, to pretend like you have a clue of what's going on than accept the fact that you're fucked. You'll hold onto any sense of imaginary control you can find.

You power through the dark hall with your heart in your throat until you see a faint warm light. You do not look behind you.

There's another empty doorway at the end of the hall. The room before you—the dining room, you assume—is cramped as all hell: it can't be more than seven feet on each side, a small circular wooden table in the middle arranged with three blue linen placemats. The walls are the same peach-yellow floral pattern as the parlor, though it's difficult to tell at first—a humble five-armed chandelier hangs above the table, its ebbing light so dim that the roses on the wallpaper look more brown than red. The carpet below your feet is now a dark green. You'll take that over the hexagonal mess in the main rooms any day.

The rabbit and the sheep are sitting across from each other, eerily still and upright like mannequins. The sheep looks no more real than her "friend," with spindly, rusted hands folded at her place on the table, dark faux fleece in a mane framing her gaunt gray face, her ears lying stiff and flat in the air. Two ram's horns poke out at her chin from beneath the fleece, and her skinny neck is of the same rusted metal as her hands.

She's staring at the rabbit, her mouth pulled in what must be an affectionate smile, and the rabbit stares back, a fork and knife at the ready. Both are silent. You wonder if they've even heard you walk in the room.

Your question is quickly answered when the pumpkin rabbit's head snaps in your direction with a crack.

You flinch and stop in your tracks. The rabbit's empty eyes bore into you, its toothy grin unflinching, and the room is colder. Pricks of nausea wash over your face and neck. You'd hoped it would look smaller sitting down; you see now you were wrong as it looms over the table, its inflexible ears nearly reaching the chandelier, silverware starting to bend in its monstrous grip.

The rabbit puts its fork down and gestures formally to the seat facing you—the only one of the three left.

"We were wondering what had taken you so long."

Your shoulders tense at its low, relaxed drawl. You have yet to get used to that voice; it feels as if the rabbit's very presence were slithering through your ears, hovering over your head, waiting to strike like a viper. The irony isn't lost on you, but you can't find it in yourself to laugh.

"Please," the rabbit says with a cock of its head when you don't respond. "Sit down."

It is not a request.

Once you've broken out of your terrified trance, you slowly make your way around the sheep's side of the table. Unfamiliar territory, perhaps, but you'd rather take a gamble with her than get closer to that rabbit. You pull out the small wooden chair between them and sit down.

The bowl at your placemat is full of candy.

Wrapped, store-bought Halloween candy poured into a soup bowl.

Your mouth hangs open. The prickles of fear are gone, giving way to utter confusion.

"This is candy."

It falls out of your mouth before you've had the chance to think—regrettable—but to be fair, the rabbit can't kill you now for making a simple observation. You slowly raise a hand to cover your mouth as the rabbit leans closer, and brushes the edge of the bowl with its steely hand as if to tempt you.

"It's very delicious. Doesn't everybody like candy?"

"I certainly do," the sheep chimes in on the tail of the rabbit's sentence as if she can't contain herself. Her voice is warm, but odd—there's a fuzzy quality to it, and the words don't fit neatly together, as if they've been chopped up and rearranged in her mouth. You suspect she has a voice box; maybe some kind of rudimentary speech program running treadmills in her mechanical brain. If the rabbit isn't a robot, this one at least has to be.

"It's always a joy to see all those children on Halloween, with their big happy faces and big bags of candy." The sheep lifts her chin jerkily as if recalling a fond memory. Her spoon is dipped into her own bowl of candy; you don't expect it to move from there this entire dinner.

"Aren't we all children, deep inside?" The rabbit lowers its head until you're face-to-face, its voice quieter, almost intimate. You draw your arms in and keep your gaze locked on your bowl, the hair on your neck shooting up. The rabbit runs a claw along the bowl's edge to turn it clockwise.

"Go on. I'm sure you've been very hungry, little bunny."

Maybe you would have started eating by now without the thing breathing down your goddamn neck. Through your fear, you hadn't felt it before, but you realize now that you're starving: your stomach is twisting into itself, a hollow nausea settled just below your ribs, your mouth that had been desert-dry before now watering at the bowl before you. Candy doesn't sound like the worst thing to destroy your body with.

Your gaze flits to the left. The sheep is looking at you expectantly with absent, glassy eyes. You've been given a spoon, a fork and a knife—do they want you to eat the pieces whole, wrapper and all, like chunks of potato in a soup? Should you even do what they expect, at the expense of looking insane? Some part of you fears coming off as impolite. Not because these things could decide to kill you at any moment—okay, maybe partly—but because this "dinner" doesn't need to be more strained than it already is. They at least owe you a couple moments of peace.

You pick out a mini Milky Way from the bowl and gingerly unwrap it. The crinkling of the wrapper cuts through the silence, thunder in your ears. You steal a glance back at the rabbit—it hasn't taken its empty eyes off of you.

You break the piece of candy in half with unsteady thumbs. No hidden razor blades.

You raise one half to your nose. No foul odor. No bitter almond.

Safe. Arguably.

After fifteen seconds, you pop it into your mouth and crank out a silent, jumbled prayer. The chocolate goes down like a hairball. You try not to recoil.

You're not dead yet.

"How do you like it?"

The rabbit's voice sounds a bit gravelly now, bordering impatience. You pinch the other half between your thumb and forefinger, tempted to put it back. Your throat is still sore. You can't just keep eating.

But fuck. You're so hungry.

"It's nice," you muster before eating the other half. The chocolate sticks in your throat until it's gone raw again and you try to swallow down as much as you can. Would it have killed them to give you a glass of water as well?

"Thank you," you say under your breath, and fold your hands tepidly at the table.

A minute passes. Then two.

Then your stomach growls.

Loudly.

You cringe at the sound, the linen at your place bunched in your sweaty hands. You could feel it, to add insult to injury.

The rabbit doesn't move an inch.

"You must want more," it says eventually.

"I'm all right," you say on the tail of its words, your voice breaking. You clear your throat. Even that hurts. "I—I think I'm done. Thank you."

"A healthy appetite for a young bunny," the sheep comments—causing you to jolt in your seat—and you get the feeling she doesn't quite understand what's happening around her. The rabbit cocks its head and sits upright again, prodding idly at its own fork with a claw.

"You must wait for us to finish, then, before you leave," it says quietly. "It's only polite."

You give a tiny nod. Of course, you nearly say, but bite your tongue. You're getting overzealous.

You wait. Neither of the animals eat a bite. Neither of them raise a utensil—neither of them even move for the next five minutes.

Somewhere in the room, you swear you can hear faint breathing.