“What has become of this holiday?” the figure said, very slow, looking down onto the seaside manor’s courtyard from where he stood, at the very top of the tower.
“Are you in one of your moods again?” said another figure, which seemed to float alongside the first, much larger shadow. Unlike the first, this one had neither arms, nor legs, but moved along on fishy, fin-like appendages where arms might have been, and a long, flanged tail. 
The bigger, bipedal figure smiled, a strange sight, for he had a small, subtly curved beak in place of a mouth, and said, “I always am, aren’t I, today? On Halloween?” 
The fish figure rolled its large, inkblot eyes, “you always do the same thing. Draw a crowd, lure them into a house, then scare them senseless. These mortals are young, children even. They scatter like sand, and you never even show yourself to them. Why the same thing every year?”
“Why change perfection?” the tall figure said, casting his bleach white wings wide to catch the light of the full moon, “but I’m open minded. How would you run the night?”
“Show them just how very and helpless they all are, that scares more than ghosts and skeletons, I’d say. Give me a feather, and I’ll show you.”
Cars had been pulling up all evening. The manor, a fair hundred paces from the nearest house of the suburbs, was a seaside colonial construction with a built in light house. For the first time in two centuries, the great yellowish beam was burning out over the misty rocks. It was drawing a crowd, obviously. Thus far there were seven people whom the two figures, high in the steeple light house, backlit by the spinning flame could see.
“What has become of this holiday?” the big figure said with a slight incline of the head, “I hope you know what you’re doing,” and plucked a long strand of dander from behind his neck, then tied it around one of the fins of the flying fish with what looked like a dragon’s head. “Remember our agreement, Rakka. Ten years, it’s been six.”
“I’ll make you a wager,” Rakka said, “If I can break them all tonight, we call it three years. You’ve never gotten them all, never.”
“Rakkamaru,” the big shadow laughed, “if you can beat me, I’ll not only do that, I’ll take you out trick or treeting.”
***
Two more cars had driven up and parked across the street from the great towering manor, one of them was a cold black sedan, a rental, the other, a blue and white police cruiser. The occupants of both vehicles stepped out at once, one of them was a squirrel, female, her long bushy tail held high above the glossy suit, as black as her car, and immediately started towards the long corroded and dysfunctional wrought iron gates, behind which seven people could be counted of all shapes and sizes. The other, coming from the police cruiser, was approximately twenty two years old, looked very agitated, and was wearing a standard blue officer’s uniform over his red and black fur, though he was lacking the glock 38 at his waist, and radio at his belt that made the squirrel question his validity. 
“Hey, listen lady. No chance you’re getting in there. I’ve got enough of a mess to deal with without you getting in my way,” the officer said, clearly getting even more cross with the situation by the minute.
The squirrel spoke, turning to face him, with an accent reminiscent of the Northern British Isles, “Identify yourself, officer.”
The fox raised an eyebrow, “Officer Deadly, I’m here to take control of…” he clearly meant to continue, but the squirrel cut him off, laughing into the arm of her suit.
“Officer Deadly? Tell me you’re joking,” she replied, then turned to continue on through the iron bars, which she pushed open, the lock having stopped working a century earlier, “Gemma Polson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and you’re not here to take control of anything. I am, you’re here to do what I say. Now stop that man before he causes any more damage.”Gemma had flashed her badge fold, there could be no mistaking it. She was a fed, alright.
Mumbling something about needing to be born in this country to be a fed, Deadly began bullying his way through the six or seven people who were crowding around two raccoons wearing track pants and hoodies, the bigger of them, grey striped all over, was repeatedly kicking the solid ash door, trying to break in.
“Oh shit. Dex, it’s the fuzz,” the smaller raccoon said, this one, for some odd reason, had purple stripes. Dexter, the bigger raccoon, turned to face him.
“Say something that stupid again, and it’s you who I’ll bash the door with,” Dexter had a serious, dominant demeanor, and Argi, the smaller purple one of the same species, immediately backed down from the challenge.
“Oh, okay…”
“Hey, you kids. Get away from that door,” Officer Deadly said, he roughly pushed aside a small child who couldn’t have been older than eight. The little bear whom he had pushed, Ryan, toddled indignantly in pants that were too big for him, and went down hard in the dust. Deadly went on. 
Dexter crossed his arms expectantly, Argi trying, and failing, to copy the aggressive pose as the police officer mounted the stone porch in front of the big double doors.
“Alright, alright. Fun’s over, everyone. Nothing to see here, some vandals broke into the lighthouse and lit the torch. Turn around, and return to your homes. Everything is under control,” Deadly would have continued, but he gradually had become aware of the many smiles and snickers of the crowd as his meticulously practiced speech moved on, then of the quiet hissing noise from behind him. He turned on a dime just as it stopped to see little Ryan who, despite his size, was a full nineteen years old. He had a red spray can in his right hand, and had snuck up behind the officer as he gave his speech, smirking spitefully up at the fox, who, not knowing what had been sprayed onto his backside, was trying his best to look cold and unsatisfied: cop face #1.
Eight of the nine people started to laugh hysterically, the red paint glistening against the distant streetlights. Even Agent Gemma was laughing as she approached.
“You little prick. What did he do?” Deadly raged, doubling the amount of camaraderie.
“It says, insert coins here, on your arse,” she said in a smug demeanor. The state policeman struck her as arrogant; it would do him well to have some fun had at his expense. Gemma reached the top of the steps. “I’m going up there to turn the light off. I don’t know about all of you, but I’d rather sleep tonight than not. Follow me inside or don’t. I frankly don’t care. You there,” she pointed to Dexter and Argi, “how about a little less staring and a little more kicking. The door’s not going to open itself.”
“No need,” little Ryan said, who had been working the lock with a screwdriver and hairpin the whole time, “I got it.” He did, in fact, have it. The last tumbler clicked, and the whole thing slid open outward with a bone chilling creak. 
“Thank you, little guy,” Gemma said to Ryan, sarcastically, and strode inside the dank, cobweb infested interior. It was extremely dark inside, a hundred years of grit caked the floors, and the windows, making even the full, glistening bounty of moonlight make visible only a long rectangle of light from the door. Undeterred, the squirrel took a few steps inward; Ryan was a few seconds behind. 
The little bear threw off his backpack and pulled out a flashlight, Gemma did the same from her purse, and the two turned to gesture for people to follow. What Gemma had intended as an order for Officer Deadly to get his red furry ass inside was taken as a general invitation, and, slowly, the other seven people gravitated into the double doors, forcing Deadly ahead of them. 
Dexter, confident, strode in first, leaving pawprints in the dust as he glanced around, trying to look unimpressed. Slowly but surely, everyone else trickled in. 
“I heard this place was haunted,” one of them said, Alex, a todd in his early twenties who was sporting curiously dyed fur of blue, orange and white, to another fox, with whom he shared only species. He was giggly, clearly trying to impress the other fox, who was night to his day. 
Orion, who had, in both his fur, and choice of clothing, about all of the joy and color of a gothic funeral, replied, as cold as his taste in color would have suggested, “haunted,” Alex waited for him to reply, but he simply let the word hang there, and started to climb the foot flattened cobblestones up to the door.
Hell, this guy belongs here! Alex thought with a giggle, looking over the monochrome, monotonous clothing that he was wearing, reminiscent of some form of cultic Goth’s idea of high fashion sweat pants and a T-shirt, despite the fact that it was only just over freezing. The two stepped inside and looked around. The police officer and the black suited squirrel were arguing in the corner, Ryan, the bear with the growth disorder, was busy searching through old mohagany furniture for valuables to loot, and had spray-painted, Ryan was here, on a mirror that might have come from imperial China. Alex didn’t care about that, he was just here for the excitement. He loved haunted houses. Orion, on the other hand, simply enjoyed the scenery. Very erie, it fit his tastes perfectly.
Behind the two of them came another pair, one cat, who, against all precedent, seemed to have lime green fur across his entire body, ear tip to tail tip, and was walking with the only person in the group whom he knew: Rerim, a brown corgi wearing a red blazer, his signature garment, and a light blue T-shirt underneath. It didn’t match, and his self-consciousness was quite evident, but nobody seemed to care, so he trotted on up the steps, and into the big, square front room of the manor. 
      “What the hell were you thinking, letting them all in here? This is trespassing. I don’t know things work at your fancy Bureau, but in this state, this is trespassing. End of story, now help me get all these kids out of here,” Officer Deadly said to Gemma, who was perfectly ignoring him as she glanced around the room.
“We’re the first people who’ve been in here for a while now. Whoever turned on that lamp up top probably came in through the back, or in a window. Anyway, they know we’re here now. Alright people, listen up,” Gemma said, raising her voice so that all could hear, “since you’re all so bloody keen on getting in here, this is where the ride ends. Stay here and make sure nobody sneaks out the front door, and don’t break anything. I don’t know how old this stuff is, but if you break it, you’re paying for it. That means you, squirt,” she grabbed a glass vase from Ryan, who was clumsily trying to spin it on one finger.
Ryan grumbled indignantly, “go to hell, I’m going  searching,” he said, and wandered over to the room’s left hand staircase, “who’s coming with me?” 
“Hey, I said…” Gemma started, but Ryan had already gone, “bollocks… Come back here!” she darted off after the little bear, up the stairs, then turned, “somebody come with me!”
The whole group glanced around, then, slowly and shyly, Rerim edged forwards, “uh, do you have a gun?” he said, feebly. Gemma rolled her eyes and started up the stairs again, her colt 44 in a thigh holster, “H-hey! Wait for me!” he shouted, and ran up the steps after her.
“Good riddance,” Deadly said, rolling his eyes, “both of them. Goddamn feds, getting their fingers in everyone else’s business. H-hey! Where are you going?” he said at Dexter and Argi, who, like Ryan, had thought to scavenge for jewelry or whatever could be found. Finding nothing, the two raccoons had followed their natural instincts down the right hand corridor. Deme, the green cat had noticed them slinking off, and overheard their conversation. Most of all, he thought that Dexter looked really, really cool, and that was a huge improvement of sitting alone in a dim, hazy mansion on Halloween with a clearly incompetent police officer. 
Deadly didn’t pursue them, they had shut the door behind them and barred it. It was only the three foxes left, Officer Deadly, colorful Alex, and dim, shady Orion, “shit, you two aren’t going to go gallivanting around this place, too, are you?” he said, half expecting them to do just that. Alex had produced a small handheld gaming console, and was trying transparently to impress the black and white fox with it. The officer sighed, “well, I guess we can’t mess this situation up much more than it already is. Let’s see if we can find a way up to the steeple, but no funny business. Are you todds even listening to me?”