KB: 67, Rooms: 20, Objects: 154, Tasks: 542, Events: 1, Characters: 4

Introduction

"Tonight," declares Mother, "is going to be the best damn Halloween ever! It's going to rock! It's going to roll! It's going to be the Halloween everyone talks about for ever and ever and ever!"

You and your sister - dressed as a short, fat scarecrow and a wasp respectively - just nod numbly. Mother comes up with these strange notions from time to time and has the tendency to drag you and Lisa into them for 'your own good'. Protesting is pointless. As is running away. And pretending you've suddenly died of a freak heart attack.

"Now," says Mother, her eyes wide with the kind of fervour uselessly reserved for religious fanatics and school teachers, "go on and get some trick or treating done!"

Earlier you tried to raise the protest that you weren't very well. Unfortunately Mother didn't listen (she has selective deafness for whenever somebody tries to tell her something she doesn't want to hear) and so you and Lisa - the short, fat scarecrow and the wasp - have to go trick or treating. And not just ordinary trick or treating. Oh no.

For you live on Murder Drive.

You're not quite sure where the name originated from but the brutal and bloodthirsty killings of half the street residents a few years back might have had something to do with it. Of course, you didn't live on Murder Drive then - you lived on a quaint little thoroughfare called Pleasant Avenue - but you heard of the killings all the same as they made headlines nationwide. Maybe even worldwide. It was the talk of the school and many were the times when your friends tried to get you to venture near Murder Drive and see if you could find a corpse or two.

But, eventually, things died down as they are wont to do. You put Murder Drive out of your mind.

Until one day when Mother was looking through the property pages in the local paper and said out loud, "oh, this one looks nice. Should be worth £389,000 but they've knocked it down to £11.50. Hmmm. Doesn't say why. How strange. Oh, and it's on Murder Drive."

Right from the moment you heard those fateful words, you just knew what was going to happen. Sure enough, several weeks later you moved into Murder Drive: there was you protesting that you were all going to wind up dead, Lisa asking about the funny red stains which seemed to discolour the pavement at random intervals, Father complaining under the weight of eighteen separate suitcases, and Mother exclaiming: "Ah, this looks lovely! And there's that nice institute just on the other side of the road. That'll make for some eye-catching paintings."

The 'institute' in question turns out to be The Redrum Institute for the Criminally Demented. It's right next door to the school.

"Looks... lovely," you say, then do your best attempt at fainting...

Several months pass by during which time you get to know your neighbours: there's Mad Old Gubbins who limps around the street all day taking swipes at everyone he comes across with a steel-capped walking stick; there's Mrs Thumpp who is referred to as either 'Thumpp the Kids' or 'Ouch!' due to her tendency to try and thump her neighbours to death; then there's Professor Squick whose house is dark and secluded and from which foul smells seem to emanate through the day and night; then there's...

And so on. None of your neighbours are normal. There was a normal family living just down the street a while back but they mysteriously disappeared. It was the same night the police pulled some bodies out of the local river.

So here you are. On Halloween Night. About to go trick or treating on a street populated by mad, dangerous and highly demented people who have a severe dislike for anyone likely to ring their doorbell or come banging on their doors. Something tells you that tonight is going to be a night to remember...