oh no my harddrive is haunted and this halloween story appeared on it! Now i must share it with everyone or be forever cursed. Oh nooooo

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The thirty first day of the tenth month had arrived again at last. A thin smear of fog coated the streets, the sound of children’s screams ringing out across town. The sky was growing dark, but it was not quite the witching hour yet. The night was still young. Which was just as well, because Betty still wasn’t happy with her costume yet.

The bunny girl stood in front of her bedroom’s full-length mirror, twisting and turning, examining her small frame from every angle. It’s not that the costume was bad. It wasn’t. But was it the best costume ever? It certainly didn’t feel like it, but darn it that’s what Betty wanted. When it came to Halloween costumes, she didn’t do half-measures. Especially after being told that there was a competition taking place down at the local hall. The snowy-furred lagomorph was not a competitive sort by nature-in fact she had forgotten to ask what the prize actually was when her friend Simone had told her about it, s. The prize wasn’t important, really. This was Halloween, after all. It was all about being given a platform to perform, to be creative, to wow people. As a budding professional magician, that was the greatest pleasure in life. Nothing beat the thrill of a successful performance.

And speaking of magic, Betty’s particular brand of body magic gave her something of an edge over her would-be competitors. She had spent the day trying out all sorts of costume ideas, exploiting her ability to take her own body apart harmlessly. Her first idea was to go as a headless horsebunny, minus the horse obviously-she did know a horse, but Heather was on holiday with her sister, which was a shame. As for the costume itself, it didn’t survive the first inspection. Although she had looked cool holding her head in her hand with her black cape, with an evil-looking pumpkin balanced on what was left of her necks stump, Betty had eventually dismissed the idea as too obvious. Besides, she had went as one a few years ago anyway. She needed something more original.

Next she had considered going as a skeleton, which involved taking off all of her skin and squishy parts until only bone was left looking into a mirror. It was simple but effective, certainly far scarier than the people going around in plastic masks and painted shirts. It turns out real skeletons on their own are pretty freaky to look at, with their big empty eye sockets. This detail proved something of a sticking point, actually, as Betty thought she looked silly keeping her eyes in the sockets, but without them she couldn’t really see unless she wanted to lug her eyes around in her hands. Besides, she couldn’t help but feel rather naked as a skeleton, and her hands kept moving to cover up parts that weren’t there anymore.

That left her on her current outfit, which she had climbed into after reassembling herself. Betty frowned at her reflection. She was wearing a long white lab coat covered in artfully placed chemical stains, which could also been seen in her dark pants and tattered shirt. She was wearing a pair of thick goggle, and there was a pattern of stitches going across her forehead-fake, of course. She didn’t need stitches to put herself back together, thankfully. The brain she was carrying in a mason jar, however, was very much real. It was floating in an eerie green liquid, which was in fact the result of Betty buying some cheap glow sticks and pouring the contents inside the jar. Her friends had always said that her magical ideas had an element of “mad scientist” about them. Well, this seemed a fitting outfit then.

So why wasn’t she satisfied? It was creepy, it had cool details and it showed off her magic. Did she just have impossible standards? The frustrated bunny let a groan escape from her throat as she pondered how she could improve her outfit. What was missing? What could take it to the next level? What would really sell the “mad” part of “mad scientist”? As she stood there thinking it over, fate threw her a bone. The doorbell rang.

“Ah, shoot, is that Babs already?” said Betty aloud, looking around for a way to tell the time. She scrambled over to her alarm clock. It was half seven in the evening. Betty didn’t like to swear, but she strongly considered it here, eventually settling for a sharp cry of “shoot!”. Too much time had been spent indecisively choosing what to wear, and now her neighbour and friend Babs was here to start their walk to the hall! Betty scrambled down the stairs, jar tucked into her chest, as she went to answer the door.

Babs stood in the porch and flashed her usual toothy grin when the door opened. She was about the same height as Betty, which is to say not very tall at all, but was a little curvier and a little thicker around the waist. Most of her grey-furred face was hidden by her costume-she was dressed up like a WW1 era fighter pilot, complete with bomber jacket, aviator helmet and goggles, and a long white scarf that was begging for a gust of wind to come along so it could flap behind her dramatically.

“Alright, babe!” said the bat, giggling and moving forward to give her friend a friendly hug, before stopping when she saw what she was carrying. “Is that yours?”

“Hehehe, er, yup!” answered Betty, silently sweating as she studied her friends outfit. It was pretty cool actually. This was Babs first Halloween with her since moving into the neighborhood, and she had tuned out to have a flair for it. The bubbly bat had sewn little patches into the jacket-flags, made up regiments, and a few cartoon bats for good measure. She even had a big silly moustache stuck onto her lip, serving to accentuate her cute little fangs.

“That jar is boss” said Babs, crouching down and looking in at it. “I wish I could do magic…”

“Oh, your costume’s plenty good without magic, Babs!”

“Aww thanks love.” Blushed the bat, giving her friend a careful hug. Babs was one of the warmest most contact-friendly people Betty knew, which the bunny girl had always found to be extremely endearing. In her books, it was hard to hate a natural hugger like that. In the early days of their friendship there had been a few communication problems –Babs was a native of Liverpool and had a thick Scouse accent. But Babs had a directness and openness that went beyond words, so even if you only picked up a few of the words, it was usually easy to tell what she meant. A year in the states had ironed out most of the more esoteric slang and phrases at least, although she still peppered her speech with the odd bit of slang.

“Right, let’s go and meet up with Simone first, she says she’ll be ready in ten so that works out well.” Said Babs. She stood up, before frowning a little. “Y’alright, Betty? You look a bit down by your standards.”

“Uh, no! I’m fine! Party, woooo!” said Betty, fist pumping half-heartedly, which never looks good. Seeing that she had failed to convince her friend that she was running at 100%, the bunny took her goggles off of her eyes and sighed.

“Sorry, sorry, I just.. I feel like I could have made a better costume than this, is all.” She said, pulling at the front of her lab coat with a hangdog expression. “It just feels like something’s missing, you know? What do you think?” Babs cocked her head, taking her own goggles off before leaning forward and squinting hard, ears twitching.

“Hmm…I still think it’s good…” she said, slowly. “But I see what you mean, like. I’ve seen mad doctors before.”

“I know, right? I thought this would make it stand out more at least.” Said Betty, jiggling her brain jar and going cross eyed for a brief moment, before shaking her head. The two of them stood on the porch in the cold evening air, now caught up in their own little thought bubbles as they attempted to give Betty’s costume a little more chutzpah.

“What if you were also something else. Like..a vampire doctor?” suggested Babs. “Then you’re not only playing god and building monsters ‘n stuff, but then your gonna suck some blood afterwards as well. So it’s twice as bad, like.” Betty considered this, and the more she thought the bigger her grin got. She hadn’t considered doing what was essentially a crossover costume. Her eyes suddenly locked in on her friends toothy mouth. It took Babs a few seconds to notice that the wannabe magician was now staring hard at her, a slightly manic grin on her face.

“Baaaaabs…” she said, eyes sparkling with ideas. “You know how much I wanted to win that contest, right? Well…you could really help me out right now. If you let me… borrow a few things.”

“You mean you wanna be a mad scientist fighter pilot? Bit weird, innit.” Said Babs, puzzled. Betty kept staring at her, and soon Babs clicked onto what her magician friend was asking. Truth be told, Betty was not expecting her to accept, at least straight away. But to her delight, she saw the grey bat return her grin.

“Eeee! You liked my vampire idea!” she said.

“Hehehe, yup! Now, this might feel a little weird…” Betty flexed her hands and held it up in front of of Bab face. Doing her magic on herself was mostly pretty straightforward, but doing it on other people needed a little more concentration. If she did this right, she should be able to just pluck some of those fangs painlessly out and then replace her own corresponding teeth with them. If she did this wrong, she might leave the British bat without any teeth at all. Betty elected not to tell her this, just in case it put any silly, panicky thoughts in her sweet head. It didn’t matter anyway, she’d do this right.

Sticking a tongue out as she concentrated, Betty carefully took hold of one of the big fangs sticking out of the mouth before her. She couldn’t help but close her eyes as she gave it a sharp tug. There was a wet tearing sound, like a band-aid being whipped off. That didn’t sound good. Betty opened her eyes and examined her prize. She was indeed holding a nice big fan. Unfortunately, not only was it still attached to the rest of her teeth, but also to her mouth. The whole thing had come off like it was a sticker, leaving a blank, grey space on Bab’s face where it had once been.

“Oh no, I’m so sorry!” said Betty, immediately trying to stick it back on again. But for some reason it wouldn’t take, the mouth just fluttering off every time. Betty was still only an amateur after all. Mortified, she tried to see how her friend was taking it. Wide eyed, the bat was gingerly touching the space where her mouth should be. The look in her eyes quickly shifted from shock to excitement.

“This is boss!” said the mouth, which surprised Betty so much she nearly dropped it. “It feels proper weird, but it’s cool. Did you mean to take the whole thing off?”

“N-uh, yes! Yes I did. It will look better.” Said Betty, laughing nervously. Seeing no other option, she repeated the procedure on herself, grabbing hold of a tooth and giving the same sharp yank in the same way (it must have been in how she had flicked her wrist at the last minute. Her magic was very particular in that way). Now she was holding two mouths in her hands. She could see what Babs meant by it feeling weird. It was like she had her mouth closed and open at the same time. Both mouths were opening and closing around her fingers, moving as if to prove they still existed. She could even feel two tongues licking her intruding digits.

Betty took a deep breath and hoped this worked. She placed the bat’s toothy, 2-D mouth roughly where she thought it should go and pressed in hard, holding it there. This time she felt it take. She opened her new mouth a few time, running a tongue around her new fangs.

“Ooh, sharp.” She said, putting on her widest grin. “How do I look?” Babs was silent, although she did give her a big thumbs up. Oh, that’s right, thought Betty. Her mouth was now her mouth, at least for the time being. Betty’s old mouth had went still and strangely limp. Once again she tried sticking it onto her friends face, but it just didn’t seem to want to work. Doing this sort of thing on other people really was a whole different ball game. After 30 seconds of fruitless pressing, Babs batted her hand away and shrugged in a “oh well”” kind of way. She pulled her white scarf over her face to cover the absent mouth.

“Well, that’s a start. Although…well, I don’t want to be greedy…” Betty scratched her head, a little ashamed that she was asking so much of her friend. But there was something else she could make use of…

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Simone was not a natural lover of Halloween. If left to her own devices, she probably wouldn’t even bother getting dressed for it at all. Costumes could be expensive if you wanted them to look good, plus there was the time commitment towards assembling it in the first place. The only reason she ever bothered, and why she was currently inspecting herself in the hallway, was because of her friends. She knew that Betty in particular loved the holiday, and that not putting at least some effort into it would potentially upset her, considering the lengths she herself would go to. Simone considered herself a tough, mature goat, but the threat of a sad looking Betty was a powerful and reliable weapon against her defences.

So here she was, dressed in an old white dress she had bought on the cheap along with a tall, bushy wig that she had applied rough white streaks to, up along the sides. Simone had even taken the time to paint on stitch marks around her neck. She probably wasn’t going to be winning any prizes, but by her standards, she thought she made a pretty good Bride of Frankenstein. Simone was gently brushing the sides of the wig and making sure it was all nice and balanced on top of her head when the doorbell rang.

“Oh, perfect timing. Just a second!” she called, making her way down the hallway and opening the door, where a be-fanged figure grinned up at her, her arms spread up in such a way that the webbing of her wings were visible. “Oh hey Babs, nice costume, kind of a mad scientist thing going on-wait, Babs?”

But it wasn’t Babs at all, unless she had someone turned into a bunny since they had last seen each other. No, that was definitely Betty’s face. And given that she was carrying a very realistic looking brain around in a jar, it was a safe bet to assume that it also belonged to Betty. It would sound mad to most people to say that you could recognize your friends brain from a fake one, but that was being friends with Betty for you. Simone had to laugh at being fooled so easily, and did so, shaking her head and throwing her hand up.

“Hah! You got me, Betty.” She said. “I thought you were Babs! Those are some fancy fake fangs you got there. So what are you, a vampire doctor or something?”

“Yup! Well, for now.” Said the Bunny, with a subtle smile. Simone went to ask what she meant by this when she seen the real Babs standing just behind her friend. She was standing there looking strangely awkward, a white scarf covering her mouth and an old-timey fighter pilot helmet covering pretty much the rest of her head, save for her ears sticking out of the top. Then it registered what was so awkward-she had no arms.
“Babs! You’re…” Simone suddenly realized what was going on. You don’t make friends with a magician like Betty for years without being able to spot the signs of what Simone called “shenanigans.” She turned around and frowned at Betty, staring at the wings which she had mistakenly assumed to be clever props. She realized now that those wings were actually sticking out of Betty’s back, leaving her magical friend’s actual arms dangling in their usual place. This meant that she in effect had four arms, although the bat-arms seemed to be on permanent “dramatic spread wings” duty. Betty put the hands holding the brain jar behind her back innocently, still smiling but looking a little bashful.

“Betty, did you steal Babs parts to make your costume better?” asked Simone.

“No, of course not!” replied Betty. “I borrowed them! She wanted to help, right Babs?” Simone turned her head to Babs, who was nodding enthusiastically, her expression unreadable behind her costume but clearly not distressed. The empty sleeves of her bomber jacket waved around in the air as she moved.

“Well, I guess that’s ok if she really wanted to help.” Said Simone, who was not generally a fan of shenanigans but accepted them as a consequence of her friendship with Betty.

“I think it’s made her outfit cooler as well.” Said Betty, walking over to the now armless bat. “She can say she was a fighter pilot that got into a crash, haha!”

“Heh, like the English Patient?” said Simone, who then watched as her reference sailed clean over the heads of both of her friends. “Hmm, nevermind. But yeah, I can see your point. Well, we are ready to go then?” Making sure her wig was set nice and straight on her head, Simone closed the door behind her and started to walk down her driveway. She got to the end and looked back to see that neither of them had moved. Betty had that bashful look on her face again.

“Actually, I was kinda wondering something.” She began. She seemed to be staring at the costumed goat.

“Oh? What’s wrong, Betty? Can I do something-“ a light bulb lit up in Simone’s head. “Ooooh. I see. You want to borrow something of mine, too, huh?”

“Maybe?” Smiled Betty, blushing. “Just something small! It’s just, I can’t see your horns under your wig, so if no one’s going to notice anyway…” she trailed off. Simone reached a hand up and pressed into the thick wig. Betty was right-no one could see her horns like this. She looked down again and could tell that the bunny girl was dying to add them to her costume. She’d probably be begging the whole night.

“You…do know that vampires don’t have horns, right?” asked Simone.

“Well, yeah. But how cool would it look? I’d be like some super weird demon!” replied Betty, bouncing at the mere thought. Seeing this, Simone made up her mind. She reached up and took her wig off, holding it in her hands, before leaning down so that Betty could better reach the desired parts.

“Just don’t do anything silly.” She said, half-serious.

“Oh, of course not!” said Betty, reaching up and grabbing a horn in each hand. “What’s the worst that could happen?” She gave the horns a tug, and heard a popping sound. Something occurred to her. “Oh, I guess I messed up a little earlier, actually, so I guess if I did this wrong I’d end up taking the whole top of your…head..off..”

“What?!” cried Simone, hands flying to the top of her head. Her panicked fingers sunk into something warm and squishy, and immediately her thoughts went very cloudy, like she had cotton candy in her head. “What this?” she said, a little thickly. Her friend was holding something in her hands. It was brown and fuzzy on the outside, but red and smooth on the inside. She wondered what it was. For some reason she found it pretty funny.

Betty, meanwhile, silently cursed herself. Why was she so bad at this today? And now Simone had gone and derped herself. While Betty had gotten used to having her brain handled ages ago, this was probably the goat’s first time, and she had practically flattened the poor organ in her haste. Oh well, hopefuly she snapped out of it by the time they got to the party. Betty inspected the piece of skull she was holding, then shrugged. Might as well make the most of it now that she had it.

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“You get a reply yet, Matt?”

“Nah, nothing. Wonder what the hold-up is?”

“Hmph.” Leaning against a lamp post, Sasha reached one of her large paws down and into pockets of her jacket, producing a packet of cigarettes. She brought it up to her mouth, having to extract her intended target out with her teeth, on account of her currently only having one hand in full use.

“Kind of a pain in the ass, this.” She said, raising her other hand. It was currently hidden behind a large hook, which she waved in front of her friend’s face.

“Oh, but I worked so hard making that for you!” whined her companion, in a muffled tone from behind the hockey mask he was wearing. He was a moth, although it was hard to tell for a variety of reasons. His insectoid face was hidden behind his mask, and his wings were tucked under an ugly boiler suit that was part of his Slasher Movie outfit. If it wasn’t for the antenna sticking out the top of his mask, it would be impossible to tell exactly what he was.

Right now the two of them were waiting for the rest of their friends to arrive, which by Sasha’s calculations was meant to have been around five minutes ago. She took another drag of her cigarette and exhaled hard, watching the smoke blow off into the thin mist that had settled over the streets.

“Not like Simone to be behind schedule.” She said, still watching the smoke fade out of view.

“Oh, do I detect a hint of anxiety in the big bad wolf pirate’s tone?”

“No. You don’t.” Her voice was icy, and if you didn’t know her it might even have seemed threatening. Matt just laughed.

“Methinks you protest too much. It is Halloween, after all. Maybe something spooky happened…” He waved his hands around in front of the wolf’s face, or at least as close as he could get to her face-she was much taller than he was. The one eye that wasn’t covered by an eyepatch continued to stare straight ahead, but he continued undeterred. His voiced raised into a high tenor singsong. “It’s close to midnight, and something evil’s lurking in the dark…”

“Stop that. You know I have opinions on the 80’s.”

“Yeah, terribad opinions. How can anyone hate Thriller?” Sasha offered no response to Matt’s challenge, apparently deciding that this debate was beneath her. She stared off into the mist, puffing away, steadily creating her own personal smokescreen. Then her ears, sticking out of the comically oversized pirate hat she had been roped into wearing, twitched.

“I hear footsteps.” She announced, standing up to her full size.

“Oh, nice. It’s probably the girls, then.”

“Hmm…” The large arctic wolf squinted. She could see a couple of silhouettes emerging, but to her eyes none of the seemed to match the profiles of her tardy friends.

“You see that?” said Matt, who had also spotted the newcomers. He spoke in a quiet whisper, his earlier confidence gone. “Look at the one on the right. Arms flopping about like they’ve got no bones!”

“I see it.”

“And that one, on the other side! Look at how she’s walking, shuffling around like that. That’s either a very impressive zombie walk, or, you know, an actual zombie.”

“Or a drunk.”

“Or that, or that.” The two of them continued to squint. The sound of a faint giggling could be heard. “And look at the middle one! Four arms AND a pair of wings?! And those look like horns. What’s that even meant to be, a demon?”

“I don’t know. It’s rather small for a demon.”

“Hang on, is it holding hands with the zombie?” asked Matt. He pulled his mask up and rubbed at his eyes, before shaking his fuzzy head. “Oh, I can’t take this. I’m going to go say something. If you hear a girly scream then assume the worse. Make sure to tell my wife I love her.”

“You do not have a wife-“

“Hello! Is that you, Betty?” yelled Matt at the approaching figures. There was an eerie silence, the giggling that had been echoing around suddenly ceasing. Then, an unexpected reply:

“I want caaaandyyy.”

“…Er…pardon?”

“Shh, Simone, we’ll get candy soon.” Came another voice, as the demonic figure in the centre coddled her zombie friend, who Matt quickly realized was 1) wearing a dress, and 2) called Simone. He let out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding in, wiping sweat from his white brow.

“Told you it was them.” He said to Sasha, who simply snorted a laugh. “Hey girls, it’s us! Matt and Sasha! Come see our costumes!” At last, Simone and her friends emerged from the mists. The “demon” turned out to be Betty, carrying some sort of jar around in her hands, and the noodle-arms belonged to Babs-it turned out to be the sleeves of her jacket. Simone herself seemed rather…out of it. She kept fiddling with the wig she was wearing for some reason.

“You all look very strange.” Said Sasha, calmly. Matt noticed that the top of Babs head was brown rather than white like the rest of her fur. Between that and the horns, he had a pretty good idea what had happened.

“Well, it’s Halloween, of course we look strange!” chirruped Betty. “You guys look pretty strange too. In a good way!”

“Halloween or not, I’m pretty sure Babs has arms, normally.”

“OK, so, funny story…” Betty explained what had happened thus far, at least as well as she could. Matt thought he was taking it all rather well until, in an attempt to demonstrate her story, Betty lifted off Simone’s wig. A bright pink and rather dented looking brain was revealed, sending Matt fluttering backwards.

“Woah, yikes, that’s rather full-on. No wonder she’s not herself today.” He said, and even Sasha raised an eyebrow as she stared at the exposed mass of neurons. Betty herself seemed unconcerned though, and she was an expert on this sort of thing, so neither of them felt like Simone was in any danger.

“She should be fine once her brain springs back into shape. Besides, I think it works well with her costume.” Shrugged Betty. At the word “costume,” she immediately began eyeing up the moth and the wolf, grinning slyly. “Speaking of, think I could add to my own outfit? Come on, it’ll be fun!”

“Hah, good luck getting Sasha to agree to that-“

“What did you have in mind?” asked Sasha, her head to one side as she stared down at the bunny/bat/goat hybrid. Matt’s neck nearly broke as his head swiveled over in surprise.

“Huh?! Did you say that just to contradict me?” he asked, clearly shocked. “Ah, so this is what betrayal feels like…”

“Stop being dramatic. I’m just curious.”

“Heee, cheers, babe!” said Betty, before covering her fanged mouth. “Er, I mean, thanks. Sorry, got Babs’s mouth in. She speaks weird English.”
“She is literally English.”

“I know, it’s weird, right? Anyway, here’s what I had in mind…”

The bunny craned her neck and whispered into the wolf’s big ear. Sasha listened stoically, betraying no opinion or emotion, simply letting Betty speak. At one point, Matt did notice her unpatched eye look over at him, before returning to a neutral position. Eventually Sasha stood up.

“Yes. This sounds more interesting than a normal Halloween party.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“If he agrees as well.” She said, nodding her head towards her moth friend. Matt’s large black eye blinked as he processed that.

“Me?”

“Yes. You. It will be very funny.”

“Why does that sentence fill me with such dread?” he muttered. He looked around at four expectant faces. Well, three really. Simone was staring at her hands and giggling. But still.

“Fine, fine.” He said, throwing his hands up. “But really, Betty, this seems like it’s going to get out of hand. You’re already a mad scientist vampire demon thing. You can’t just be every costume at once.”

“Why not? Can you think of a good reason? I’ll stop if you do”

“You…er…” Matt scratched behind his antenna as he tried to articulate exactly why you couldn’t just be everything at once. It seemed almost like cheating to him. As he pondered this, Betty closed the distance between them and smiled, the whites of her shiny new teeth almost shining in the dark.

“Too late!"

The last thing Matt seen before everything went horribly black was a hand, speeding right towards his eyes.

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Down at the local town dance hall, the annual Halloween costume party was in full swing. Streamers and banners decorated the walls and the ceilings, alongside little posters of skeletons, ghosts, vampires and so on. In the corner of the hall, a rather plump, bored looking young ram in facepaint and a red wig had set up his DJ kit, and was supplying thematically appropriate pop songs. There was a decent turn out this year for such a small town, with people of all shapes and sizes gamely dancing away. Sat at a table a facing the doors sat three figures, also in costume.
“Oh, I can’t make up my mind.” Said an elderly looking gecko, peering out of her large spectacles towards the crowd. “I’ve seen so many good costumes, I can’t possibly pick one.” She was wearing a witches hat with an old, deep purple dress, and there was a broomstick leaning against the end of her side of the table.

“Yes, it seems the standards have been raised this year.” Nodded a younger, sterner looking Labrador male, who had decided to come dressed as a literal judge, complete with a toy hammer for a gavel. “I feel a little under dressed, to be honest.” He added, getting a few polite laughs from his fellow judges. “What do you think, Margaret?”

“Well I think the young man in the robot outfit has done a fine job.” Said Margaret, pointing to a happy young otter kid dressed in a cardboard mech outfit. “I think we should reward effort most of all.” She adjusted the horned helmet that lay on top of her head, the thick, teal coloured tentacle that made up her “hair” gently squirming around. There weren’t many squids seen in these parts, but folks had gotten used to her odd appearance after a while. Besides, it was widely accepted that Margaret was the best baker in town. When she offers to make pumpkin pie for the winner, people pay attention.

“I’ve not seen that rabbit girl anywhere here today.” Said the Labrador, who was scanning the room again with his eyes. “Not like her to miss out. She won last year, didn’t she?” He turned to the gecko in the witches hat. “Have you seen her, Gem?”

“Now that you mention it…no, I haven’t.” said Gem. “But my eyesight’s not what it used to be, you know.” She added, smiling.

The upbeat dance song that had been playing came to an end, and the DJ looked over to the judges, silently asking if they had made a decision. The three of them looked over at Margaret, then after a show of nodding they stood up.

“Well, it’s time, everyone!” announced the Labrador judge. He banged his “gavel” on the table in front of him with mock gravitas, which made the assembled Halloween goers laugh. He was well liked and respected in the community, even if he had picked up a reputation for being the ultimate rules lawyer. It made him a good leader for local events like this, at least. “First of all we’d like to than you all for coming, and we’re pleased to announce that we’ve raised-“

The doors to the hall flew open. There was no burst of thunder, which was a shame, but more than one person would later swear blind that there had been, along with a wicked flash of lightning. Memories are so easily influenced, after all. In the event, there was a brief confused silence, although the DJ did have enough presence of mind to include a comedy record scratch noise. Then someone walked in. Or rather, something walked in.

“What on earth?!”

Standing in the doorway was a creature with 8 limbs, all clearly belonging to different species. It had both fore and hind legs-not quite like a centaur, but something vaguely approximating it. The back legs, which had burst out of a pair of dark, tattered pants, were visibly larger than the ones at the front, although they both shared a similar white coloured fur. A long, bushy tail of grey and white hues waved frantically behind her. The arms, at least the ones connected to the shoulders, had clawed paws similar to those found on wolves, and dangled down past the knees, holding a jar full of green liquid and what looked very much like a brain floating around inside. Sticking out of the back of a dirty white lab coat were a smaller pair of grey bat arms, complete with wings.

The thing’ head, was an equally bizarre mismatch of parts. There was a long white muzzle with sharp, vampiric teeth sticking out of it. The eyes were black and shiney, looking positively alien as they rotated eerily around in their sockets. The flourish on top of its brown-furred scalp was threefold- in between a pair of swiveling ears was a pair of sharp, thick horns, which were themselves flanking two long antennae. Those twitched visibly as if feeling out some unseen force. All in all, no one had ever seen anything quite like it, and there were a few screams and wails from the party goers. The creature started to laugh-not in the deep, tortured tones people were expecting, but in a much lighter and higher register.
“Happy Halloween!” it said.

“Wait a minute, that…that sounded rather like that Betty girl!” said Gem, incredulously. “Although my hearing isn’t what it used to be, you know…”

“No, that’s impossible. It looks nothing like her” said the Labrador judge.

“Good!” said the creature, clearly delighted at the reaction it was getting. “But it is me, Mr O’Halloran. I babysat for your kids when you were on vacation last summer, remember? I taught them card tricks!”

“That…yes, you did. They’re getting rather good at them now, actually.” Said Larry. “Huh. So, I take it this is your costume this year? Very impressive…are you ok?” Betty, or at least the creature she was “dressed” as, was staring at Margaret, who had been to shocked to say anything thus far. She realised that she was the subject of this stare, and whimpered as the Betty monster marched towards her, a hungry look in her eye.

“Margaret, right? Nice to meet you!” said Betty, offering one of her obviously too large hands. Her eyes drifted to a plate of gingerbread cookies, shaped like ghosts. “Oooh, is that some scran, doll? Belter!”

“I’m…pardon?” said Magaret, as Betty smacked her own wayward mouth and giggled.

“Oh, sorry. Not using my usual mouth today.”

“…Pardon?!”

As this was happening, her other friends streamed into the hall, almost unnoticed with everyone watching what was unfolding at the judges table. Simone was at least showing signs of recovery, shaking her head and blinking like she was recovering from a particularly bad hangover. Babs immediately went straight for the table full of sweets and punch, grabbing a handful of treats before awkwardly realising that she had no mouth.

“What’s going on?” asked Matt, his hand on Sasha’s shoulder as she slowly made her way into the hall.

“She is talking to the squid lady who makes good pies.” Replied Sasha. She had just enough stump left that she could maneuver her way inside. In fact even in her current reduced state she was just as tall as Matt was, something she took quite a lot of private enjoyment out of.

“She has your nose, right?”

“Yes.”

“But not your mouth?”

“No.”

“Hahaha. I bet you look ridiculous.”

“What a shame you will never see it.” Matt groaned, shaking his eyeless head.

“What I would give…hey wait a minute. Doesn’t she have your ears as well?”

“Yes.” Replied Sasha, in perfect deadpan. Matt raised an eyebrow, a skill completely unaffected by his lack of actual eyes.

“Then-“

“I learned to read lips when I was a child. My mother taught me.”

“You kept that quiet.”

“Lip reading is always quiet.”

“Hah. Well, she definitely owes us big time after this-wait what’s happening now?!” There had been an audible gasp from the crowd, and the blind moth whipped his head back and forth, trying to figure out the cause.

“Betty has added the squid lady’s tentacles to the back of her head.” Announced Sasha, calmly.

“Oh boy. Ok, just mingle and pretend we don’t know her.”

“Hey, how do I look now, everyone?” said Betty to the room, in a tone of voice that was audibly drunk on attention. “Make sure to tell my friend Matt! The moth!”

“Nevermind.” Muttered Matt, miserably, pulling his hockey mask down in a late attempt to remain anonymous. “I’m away to the punch bowl, hopefully someone’s spiked it with alcohol and I can forget about all this.”

“Please don’t mention alcohol.” Said Simone, appearing from the side. Her brain was still exposed, her wig ditched-apparently the feeling of it on her brain was too unpleasant in her current condition. “You have to admit though…Betty’s costume is pretty cool.”

“You look proud.” Observed Sasha, smiling.

“Maybe. I’m still mad, but…well, look at her. She’s having so much fun!” said the goat, putting her hands to her face. It was true, Betty was laughing and giggling like a schoolgirl, and it seemed like the rest of the room was coming round to her. Even Margaret, having seen how harmless Betty’s intentions were, was chuckling at how silly those tentacles look on a rabbit/goat/bat/wolf/moth’s head. Eventually, Larry banged his gavel on the table to regain order.

“Well, after that, shall we say, unexpected interruption” he began, to whoops and cheers from the crowd and Betty’s friends, “I think we’re definitely ready to announce that the winner of this year’s contest IS…”

==========================================================================================

“Man, I can’t believe that after all that you didn’t even win!” said Matt, throwing his hands into the cool night air. “And on such a stupid technicality as well!”

It was late now, and the troupe of friends were making their way home. To some of the friend’s surprise, Betty was still in reasonably high spirits. She was still in her monster form, holding her brain jar with her wolf-hands as she walked down the dark roads. The bunny monster smiled at her friend’s comment.

“Hey, that otter kid’s costume was adorable. And I guess my costume wasn’t technically a costume…but hey, everyone thought it was cool right?”

“It was pretty cool.” Admitted Sasha, waddling along beside her. Betty looked down at the amputated wolf.

“Uh, I can carry you if you want, you know. I have a spare pair of hands.” She said, waving her bat hands.

“No, thank you. I can manage.”

“I’m sure not carrying you.” Added Matt. “I hope someone took a photo of you at least…”

“Hey, actually, speaking of carrying things…” said Simone, who was now fully recovered and wearing her wig again. “I have to ask, Betty: what’s that green stuff in the jar?”

“Oh, I broke open a bunch of rave sticks. See, it’s glowing in the dark!” True enough, the goop was glowing a bright, sickly green, almost like a torch. Matt and Babs, noticing this, immediately moved close to the light display, curiously touching the glass and staring at it.

“Uh, that stuff is probably super bad for your brain.” Said Simone. “You felt anything odd?” Betty stroked her chin with her two free hands.

“Hmm…actually, come to think of it, my magic’s not been at 100% today.” She admitted. “I guess that might be why. Uh, my bad. Hehe.” Everyone around her groaned with the exception of Babs, because she was physically incapable of doing so. Still, Betty kept on smiling. She would now need to go home and rinse her brain out before returning her friends parts, as well as that squid lady’s tentacles. This was one of those things where her friends would each claim that she “owed them one”, and Betty could accept that in the name of Halloween Excellence. And now she had a very high bar to clear for next time. Speaking of which…

“So, about next year.” She said, eyes gleaming. “You know how the Hydra had all those heads, like? Well, I have this awesome idea…”