Your girlfriend will scare you to death.

It is 21:12 on Halloween, and the apartment smells of pumpkin soup and candle wax.

Rin kissed you at the door an hour ago, jingling her keys. "Going to my parents' for a bit," she said. "They want to see me in the cat costume. I'll be back in forty minutes. Don't eat all the candy." She winked. You laughed. She has been strange all week. Quiet, bright-eyed, humming a Tetris tune and hiding her phone when you walked in. You assumed it was a gift.

You are on the sofa with a controller in your hand and a bowl of mini-chocolates on your knee. The game is paused. The TV glows blue. You check the clock: 21:52.

Forty minutes exactly.

The lights go out.

Not a flicker. A clean, total silence of light, and the TV dies a half-second later, and the fridge stops humming, and the whole apartment holds its breath. Through the window, a streetlight paints a weak orange rectangle on the floor. Your phone says 21:52. No signal.

A floorboard creaks in the hall.

Slowly, you stand. The bowl tips and chocolates hiss across the rug. "Rin?" you say. "This isn't funny."

Water starts to run somewhere. Not a tap. A steady, heavy pour, like the tub filling. It is in the bathroom, and the bathroom door has been shut since this afternoon.

Another creak. Closer. Then something drags, slow and soft, along the wall of the hallway, like fingernails on wallpaper.

At the edge of your vision, in the dark doorway to the bedroom, a shape stands. Tall. Taller than Rin. Still. When you turn your head, it isn't there. When you look away, it is again.

Your phone buzzes in your hand. A message, lit white in the dark:

Rin: "Just parked outside, be up in 2 min ❤️"

You look at the message. You look at the hallway.

Behind you, quietly, in the bedroom, someone laughs. A low, wet, delighted little laugh that is almost, almost, hers.

It is 20:05 on Halloween, and Rin is standing in the doorway.

She has been standing there for five minutes. You noticed her out of the corner of your eye when you were halfway through a level. You didn't turn your head. She does this sometimes. She likes to lurk and let you notice her first, and then she laughs and says "Boo," and you say you saw her ten minutes ago.

But she hasn't laughed.

You glance up. She is perfectly still in the frame of the bedroom door, in a big dark T-shirt, bare feet on the wooden floor. The hallway light behind her makes a halo of her short hair. Her eyes are very large, very red, and glow faintly from under her bangs. She isn't smiling. She is looking at you.

Not at the TV. At you. Without blinking.

You tell yourself it's a bit. You pause the game. You say, light, "What's up, Rin?" No answer. The clock on the wall ticks. In the kitchen, the refrigerator hums, then clicks off.

Five minutes pass. You watch her out of the side of your eye, and she doesn't move. Her chest, you realize, isn't moving either.

You say her name louder. You say the pet name you use only when you are alone. Nothing. Her head tilts, slowly, one degree, like a doll being turned by a hand you can't see.

You put the controller down and stand up.

She moves.

In one smooth motion she turns and bolts into the dark of the bedroom. The door slams. Every light in the apartment dies at once: the TV, the lamp, the hallway bulb, the glow from the router. Your phone screen goes black. There is only the faint orange smear of the street through the window.

A closet door creaks open. A drawer slides. And from somewhere in the walls, thin and sweet, you hear her voice, singing a child's rhyme you have never heard her sing.

"One for the door, two for the floor..."

A giggle. A scrape. A soft, wet footstep.

"...three for the one who won't look."

It is 19:30 on Halloween, and you are dressed as a mime.

White face paint, black beret, suspenders, a striped shirt and white gloves. You look ridiculous, and you love it. On the sofa lies your phone, with a countdown for the neighborhood party: forty minutes. Rin said she would go as a clown. A matching pair, she said. Mime and clown. She went into the bathroom an hour ago with a duffel bag and a cheerful "Don't peek!"

You have been sitting in the living room for sixty minutes.

At first you heard her humming. Then the hum stopped. Then the tap ran for a while and turned off. Then silence. Nothing but the TV's quiet murmur and the fan in the bathroom ticking over like a metronome.

You get up and knock.

"Rin? Ten minutes, remember?" You say it laughing. "Rin?"

No answer.

You knock harder. You call her pet name. You put your ear to the door and hear nothing: no water, no zipper, no breath. You try the handle. It is locked from the inside.

Your smile fades under the paint.

"Rin, I'm coming in on three."

You back up. You count. On three, you throw your shoulder into the door, and the cheap lock cracks like a bone and the door bursts inward.

The bathroom is empty.

The duffel bag lies open on the floor. The mirror is fogged, and on it, written with a finger, in a wobbly red that looks like lipstick or something else:

"TOO LATE"

The light in the hall behind you clicks off.

Something scrapes on the floorboards, a long slow metallic drag, like a blade pulled along a skirting board. You fumble your phone's flashlight on, and the beam swings across the corridor.

She is at the end of it.

A figure in a ragged white coverall, stained brown and dark red from collar to hem. A clown's wig, matted, pressed down over a face white as chalk, and under it, two red eyes, glowing, wide, wet. Her smile is painted past her cheeks, ragged, dripping. In one gloved hand she holds a long kitchen knife, and the light runs down the blade.

She tilts her head. The knife rises slowly, like a conductor's baton.

She doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to.

It is 19:10 on Halloween, and you are making dinner.

Pasta water boils on the stove. Garlic crackles in the pan. A candle burns on the windowsill, and the little pumpkin lantern grins from the counter. Rin said she would be back around seven with the decorations. She is late, and you are not worried, because Rin is always late.

The front door opens.

You don't turn around. "In the kitchen!" you call. "I made the carbonara you like."

She doesn't answer. Her bare feet pad down the hall, slow and even. You hear her stop behind you, and then you feel it: a presence at your shoulder, cold, silent, close enough that you can smell rain and wet leaves.

You turn.

Rin stands there in the dim kitchen light with a wide, lazy smile. She is in her dark T-shirt, hair damp, red eyes glowing faintly. She isn't carrying any bags. She doesn't say hello. She doesn't hug you. She looks past you, at the knife block on the counter.

She reaches out and draws the big chef's knife.

You say her name. She hums, softly, a small tune you almost recognize.

She turns the blade in the light and slowly, deliberately, drags it across her palm.

Blood wells up, dark and bright, and drips on the tiles in thick red beads. She raises her hand, looks at it like a painter looking at paint, and licks the blood from her wrist, slow, from base to fingertips. Her eyes never leave yours.

Her smile gets wider.

You laugh, a little breathless. "Okay. Okay, very funny. Rin, put it down. That's a good one."

She tilts her head.

Then the knife leaves her hand.

It slices past your ear and buries itself in the cupboard door with a thud that you feel in your teeth. Your hair stirs. The handle quivers. You haven't breathed.

She is already holding another.

"Run," she whispers.

It is 23:58 on Halloween, and the lights come on.

They come on all at once, warm and yellow and ordinary, and the apartment is just an apartment again. Your heart is hammering. Your shirt is soaked. You are sitting on the floor with your back against the sofa, and in your hand is a kitchen towel you are holding to a scrape on your forearm.

Rin is standing in the center of the living room with her arms thrown wide, grinning from ear to ear.

"SURPRISE!" she shouts.

She is in her dark oversized T-shirt, with short hair tousled, red lenses in her eyes, a streak of fake blood on her cheek. She is holding up her phone, with the camera light on. A tiny speaker in the corner is playing a recorded laugh track. A little paper sign on the wall says, in her handwriting: GOTCHA, 4 YEARS OF YAWNING.

"Six months!" she crows. "Six months of planning! The fog machine, the speakers in the vents, the timer on the breaker! Did you see the water? That was a hose in the neighbor's bathroom, I paid him in cookies! Oh my God, your face!"

She laughs. You laugh, because it is over, because she is Rin, because your legs have turned to water and the relief floods you. She sinks down beside you and throws her arms around your neck.

"Tell me you screamed," she begs. "Tell me you screamed at least once."

You open your mouth to answer.

Your phone rings.

It lights up on the coffee table. A photo you know by heart: Rin, in a straw hat, squinting in the sun. Her name underneath. RIN.

It rings. It rings.

In your arms, the girl laughs and doesn't notice. She looks at the phone and her smile slides, very slowly, from happiness to something thoughtful and still. She looks at you. She tilts her head one degree.

"Aren't you going to answer?" she says, softly.

You pick it up. You press the screen. You hold it to your ear.

"Hey!" says Rin's voice, bright and tired and slightly hoarse, with traffic behind it. "Sorry, I'm late, my mom made me stay for dinner. I'm in the car now. Ten more minutes, okay? Is everything all right? Why are you breathing like that?"

In your other ear, from inches away, the girl on the floor says nothing.

She is still smiling. She has not blinked.