Halloween was known by many as a joyous holiday wrapped in an ironic theme of horror. Vampires, werewolves, mummies, ghosts and many other monsters of folklore and popular culture were celebrated in abundance on this day. Little children would dress up as these creatures of myth and venture from door to door in an effort to acquire candy from their generous neighbours. Once their pouches or pockets were full, they would retreat to their homes and consume more sugar than they were physically made to handle, much to the exasperation of their parents.

Not that any of this mattered to the Cullens. Living alone in an extravagant house that was in the middle of a forest that was in itself in if not next to what one might call "an inconsequential town", even those who actively sought them out were more likely to die of thirst before finding them without a guide. On the flip side, even though they looked younger than they actually were, they still didn't look young enough to go trick or treating (a fact that continued to dampen Alice's cheerful spirits year after year in spite of the fact that the Cullens were wealthy enough to just buy enough candy to make even vampires go on a sugar high).

With this to take into consideration, the Cullens opted to celebrate Halloween in a different manner. Every all hallows' eve, they would gather in front of the TV and watch horror movie after horror movie until the breaking of dawn. It was a sort of tradition that evolved in the household so everyone was a bit reluctant to leave in the middle of the marathon. It also helped that Alice could use her future seeing to check whether a movie would be good or bad before they played it so they only watched the good films.

The current film was a vampire movie that Emmett had elected for them to watch just for the sake of irony. Now, while Alice could alert them to a film's potentially poor quality, she could also not alert them for the sake of good giggles and sometimes to give Emmett a bit more than he bargained for. As such, Alice was currently enjoying her family's varied expressions ranging from confusion to disgust.

"Whoa, that was... cheesy..." Emmett managed to say.

Edward rubbed his forehead. "You'd think a horror movie wouldn't have such stupid romantic melodrama..."

"Don't go up there, you idiots!" Rosalie shouted.

"Does anyone remember where the monster was?" asked Jasper.

"I know where it's going to be," remarked Edward.

Alice was the only one smiling at the movie, rocking side to side like a finger flicking a switch on and off.

Carlise decided to take his eyes off the movie to focus on his energetic daughter. "You know what's going to happen next?"

"Uhuh," she responded, biting her bottom lip like she was waiting for someone to fall into a trap door she made in the forest.

Rosalie turned to look at Alice. "Why do you even wa—"

"Because I want to spend time with the family," Alice interrupted. "Halloween movie night is only once a year, you know, and this is..."

Everyone looked at Alice with concern as she stopped speaking. Her eyes stopped focusing on anything in the room, meaning she was either distracted by a very confusing thought (unlikely), paralysed by food poisoning (even more unlikely) or she was experiencing a vision (plausible).

"There are three men in the forest," Alice said finally as her attention returned to the present.

"Oh, good. Nothing urgent," said Edward as he looked back at the TV.

"They have guns."

Everyone groaned. Being vegetarian vampires (in a sense so loose it could be used as a bungee cord), the last thing the Cullen family wanted was for the wildlife in the forest to be shot to death, leaving them without a reliable source of blood. Every time Alice had a vision of such an inconvenience, someone had to drop whatever they were doing and go take care of it.

Fortunately, all anyone was doing right now was watching a bad horror movie.

"I'll take care of it," decided Edward as he stood up.

Rosalie stood up in turn. "No, I'll..."

By the time she got halfway into her sentence, the door leading outside was already swinging back and forth on its hinges.

Jasper made a 'hm' sound. "He is unbelievably fast, isn't he?"

Emmett sniggered.

Esme chuckled. "Boys will be boys."

Edward calmly walked through the forest and looked this way and that for the hunters. Now, he could have just used his super speed, strength reflexes and senses in tandem and just get the hunters out of the forest in mere moments. He just didn't want to; he wanted to delay his return to that movie as long as possible. That and he also couldn't let humans know about vampires through careless use of their powers. That was also important.

So Edward walked under the canopies of the forest's trees. He kept his senses open and, sure enough, he could hear and smell the hunters with such clarity that he could tell exactly where they were like they were on radar. As it turned out, they were around the next corner.

The vampire rounded the corner and the three hunters immediately shined their flashlights on him. It was a good thing that a vampire's ultra super sight wasn't so sensitive, otherwise he'd have been blinded. Unfortunately, he now had other problems to deal with. The three men — all tall, bald to short-haired, wearing suitable hunting clothing and carrying rifles — had surrounded him from three sides. Not that this was a real problem, mind you; Edward could have just suplexed them six feet into the dirt. However, because he didn't want to show the world that he was a vampire, he restrained himself. It wasn't easy, though; when you're surrounded by three men with annoying chuckles that thought they had one over you, not even 108 years of immortal vampire aging could build a skin thick enough to stop the agitation.

One of the men, wearing a plaid jacket of red and black, sniggered as he walked up to Edward with as much swagger as he could summon. "Well, I have to say I didn't expect to see anyone else out here in the woods. What's a pretty kid like you doing out here in the big scary forest?"

The three men had him in a triangle. All of them kept their flashlights pointed at him. As much as he just wanted to grab their flashlights and crush them in his hands, he had to hold himself back. "Just wanted to let you know that these woods are really dangerous. I suggest — very seriously suggest, by the way — that you leave. Preferably right now," Edward warned.

The hunters got a good guffaw from that. The red hunter, shaking his head, stepped right into Edward's personal space. "Kid, lemme tell you something. There is nothing in these woods that can scare us. Not you, either."

Unable to help himself, Edward rolled his eyes. "I'm not kidding, you know. There are all sorts of things in here that can tear you apart."

One of other hunters, wearing a white shirt with a denim blue vest, scoffed. "What, like a deer?" He, along with the third hunter, stepped closer and boxed Edward in even further.

"Trust me, deer are the least of your concerns."

The red hunter tsked and shook his head. "Boy, it's sweet of you to worry about us. But, the thing is, we're not exactly easy to handle. Oh, by the way, don't take this the wrong way but, when you say things like that, it... makes it sound like you're calling us weak. People can get offended by that, y'know." With that, the red hunter pushed against Edward's shoulder.

... Okay, no.

One thing humans often forgot was that, while they were indeed frightening creatures compared to regular wildlife, vampires were in a completely different league altogether. Sure, humans were capable of designing very powerful and dangerous weapons — indeed, it's partly due to this that the vampires hide their presence from the world — but, if you were to stroll right up to a vampire on an average night and insult them, they wouldn't need any of those multi-million dollar pieces of military hardware to throw your sorry little non-sparkling hide so far and fast that you'd be mistaken for a shooting star. They often just didn't because they wanted to fit in but it was entirely possible for something to be the straw that breaks the super-strong vampire's back.

This was that straw.

Using both hands and his supernatural might, Edward pushed upwards against the red hunter's shoulders and launched the moron into a tree. The other two hunters, understandably shocked, quickly turned their lights on their friend who promptly fell from the tree face-first onto the ground.

Edward turned around to the other hunters. He could smell urine from both of them as they quickly stepped back and aimed their guns. The roars of fired bullets were very loud but all the small bits of steel could do were make pretty little 'ding' sounds as they bounced harmlessly off his rock solid vampire body (aw yeah). Even though the hunters had stopped firing, the vampire took it upon himself to use his speed to grab the guns from them and return to where he was in a mere instant. Once they had realised the guns were in his hands rather than theirs, he crunched the guns in his fists and dropped them onto the ground.

Edward cleared his throat and dusted his hands just for the sake of it. "Look, I am not having the best of nights. My sister decided to have our family watch a very stupid horror movie for Halloween and now you're annoying me. If you don't leave with your friend and forget about everything here, I am going to break more things. You will be among those things. Understand?"

"Run!" shouted the blue hunter as he and the third hunter ran into the woods away from both Edward and the red-clad hunter.

"I didn't know X-Men existed!" cried the third hunter.

"Shut up about your stupid comics!"

Edward sighed. "They didn't even pick up their friend."

With the freedom to use his super speed, Edward dropped off the red hunter outside the forest and returned home in no time at all. Hopefully, the others had gotten bored of that movie by that point and moved on to something good. However, he wasn't expecting Alice to be standing out the front with her hands behind her back and her face set into a smile that made him almost regret taking the speedy route home. She was cheerful and she was humming and those two rarely meant anything good when they came from her.

Nevertheless, Edward decided to confront the problem rather than hide under a cliff and hope it went away. He walked up to Alice in a casual manner like he wasn't dreading whatever the gears in her head were pumping out. "Hey, what's up?" he greeted her with as approached.

When she saw him, her eyes lit up in that usual mischievous way of hers that almost made his legs freeze over. "Hey Edward, how'd it go?"

Edward decided that it would be smart to leave out the bits of him pushing a guy into a tree and getting his friends to run off in terror. "It went well."

"I know," she responded with a smirk. "I saw."

He really should have seen that coming. Now she was going to tell Carlisle that he snapped for a bit unless he gave her money. Edward really didn't want Carlisle to know because... well, actually, the consequences wouldn't be all that dire. Still, Carlisle would be mildly disappointed and it wouldn't really be nice to disappoint him on Halloween. Sighing, he pulled out his wallet. "How much?"

"Two hundred."

Such a large demand really burnt his toast but he complied without hesitation. He did scowl, though, so he revolted in some way. "This is blackmail."

"I know." With that stupid smile plastered on her face, she skipped her way inside. "By the way, we're watching The Shining now."

"Joy," drawled Edward as he walked into the house again.