If there was one thing RJ always praised himself for, it was being able to bounce back from the worst situations.

Seeing what happened to that poor raccoon definitely shook him, he couldn't deny that. I mean, who wouldn't be after seeing that? RJ however knew he could move on easily, and despite these random thoughts of this door, this odd feeling carpet, and that song that gave him chills for some reason, he pushed past all of them to put on his signature cocky attitude that endeared him to the gang on the first day.

Man he needed therapy.

"Alright gang, gather around!"

According to the digital clock they got from one of their older heists (courtesy of resident supplier-of-good-ideas Heather), it was 12:59 at night. Their human mark would logically be sound asleep by now, especially considering that tomorrow was Tuesday. RJ did his math, or as close to it as he could, and he knew living in Camelot Estates was not exactly cheap. Sure, he might've added a bit too many zeroes at the end of his random equation, but that didn't change that humans spent an obscene amount of money to get fined for trivial things.

"Alright, based on the recon we've done on the new neighbor, they should be asleep by now, and usually wake up at around seven to go to work as a mortician." RJ started. "Magician?!" Hammy spoke up. "Are they gonna do magic tricks?!"

"Mortician, Hammy." Heather replied, before quickly adding on. "By the way, what even is a mortician?"

"A mortician is someone who preserves…dead bodies." RJ replied, his voice trailing off at the last bit.

Man, this day gets better and better.

The others somewhat shifted uncomfortably, but RJ could tell it was more because of the subject matter, and not because of the incident that happened earlier. RJ could tell by the way everyone looked away, all except for Verne. Verne was just giving RJ a look of sympathy, but it was one that wasn't obvious. RJ was grateful for that, because that meant everyone could focus.

"Anyways!" RJ blurted out. "Let's go over the plan." He would roll out a map of the house, and place a bunch of the classic Monopoly pieces on the map. Of course, he was the car. He was always the car.

"Now, our mark today is the Hawthorne residence, one human inside, and as mentioned, is asleep around this time and wakes at seven, so we got about six hours to grab everything we can and move." RJ spoke. "Lou, Penny, Tiger, you're our muscle as always, you know what to do." He would gesture to the two porcupines and the cat as he said that. "Verne, Ozzie, and kids, you're on pantry duty." He gestured at Verne, the larger opossum, and the small porcupine kids as he said that. "Heather, Hammy , and Stella, you're on fridge duty."

"What about you RJ?" Verne spoke up. "For today's heist, since this is a new owner, I'd think I'll keep watch, look around, get to know him a bit." He replied. "Plus, it'll give me time to pick up anything extra, like movies, batteries…"

"More time, 'cause it's 1:30 right now and that means we don't have time." Stella spoke, and immediately the group would look over at the digital alarm to see that yes, somehow RJ had managed to talk for a good thirty minutes. How that was even possible was anyone's guess, but there was no time to think about that. They had to get to work.

Upon arriving at the house, everyone immediately got to work on their sections. It was how they usually performed. RJ's attention first turned to the fridge group, and he watched as Heather, Hammy, and Stella got to work. Fridge duty would involve whoever was working it start at the top of the fridge and work their way down, more often than not switching it up in order to warm up a bit. It slowed them down a bit, but RJ would rather deal with a bit less food than having one of the family freeze to death-

Stop thinking about it, just stop.

He then turned his attention to the pantry crew in Verne and the. Pantry crew was much easier to deal with, considering they didn't have to deal with the cold. What they did have to deal with however was checking for anything they couldn't eat. It turned out that a lot of the Camelot Estates residents kept things the gang couldn't really have. Something like chocolate was something RJ couldn't have, which thankfully he found out before meeting the gang, otherwise it would've led to Stella being dethroned.

Oh, and he likely would die-

Stop. Thinking. About. It.

He finally turned his attention to the muscle. Their job was to just get the food in the wagon. More often than not, he would have Hammy help out with this, since he found Hammy to have really good organizational skills, but Hammy wanted to do a bit more, so he allowed him to work on the fridge with Heather and Stella. They'd at least be able to keep him in check. Regardless, he watched as food made its way to them, and that called for RJ to do his exploring.

Reaching into his pack to check the "special" list, which was more requests for stuff not relating to food. There were batteries as requested by Heather, some movies for movie night requested by other members of the gang (with the only exception being anything horror related, they didn't want a repeat of when they watched Buzzsaw and Hammy and the kids were there), and some tools for woodworking as requested by Lou.

As RJ stepped into the living room, he took note of a door off to the side. He knew it wasn't the front door due to the lack of windows, so he had to assume this was the basement. Strange, he didn't recall there being a basement in any other house in Camelot Estates. However, he did know that some residents requested different layouts for whatever reason. Maybe it was to stand out, which seemed to go against the whole idea of the look of the suburbs, in that everything looked the same.

Regardless, he had a feeling he could find some tools and maybe even some batteries down there. Plus, it seemed easy enough. He was no stranger to opening doors…

So why was he so hesitant to open it?

RJ had no idea why, but there was something in the back of his mind that was telling him to not open that door. It couldn't have involved the raccoon from earlier, it just couldn't have. He thought for a moment, and then he remembered what he thought about instead of the raccoon.

The window opening, the carpet beneath his feet, the basement door, the song that gave him chills for some reason…

Why was this on his mind? They didn't even go through the window, and this basement door was pretty much indistinguishable from any other regular door he's seen in his life that wasn't a front or back door. As he thought as to a reason for his, he had his feet dig into the rough feeling carpet-

Carpet, why was the carpet rough?

RJ couldn't help but let out a little gasp as he felt how odd the carpet felt. No one heard him, likely because everyone was so busy, but now RJ was starting to worry. There was the basement door that unnerved him for some reason, and now this odd feeling carpet. Something wasn't right, just what was going on?

"RJ, did you find anything yet?" He heard the voice of one of the porcupines call out to him. He recognized it as Penny's, and much to his relief, hearing her calmed him down a bit. "Nothing yet." RJ replied, before quickly stepping off the carpet, and making his way back over to the gang.

"How we looking so far?" RJ asked. "We're good, we're just helping out with the pantry." He heard Heather speak up, and he looked up to see her standing on the counter. "Fridge done already?" RJ asked. "Yeah, surprisingly there wasn't much in there." Heather replied.

"What about the freezer, did you check that?" RJ asked. "You know we need ice cream."

"Trust me, we checked, but all we found were these steaks of some kind."

Hearing that, RJ gave Heather a confused look. "Steaks?" RJ asked. "Yeah, but they were in these bags or something, nothing that looks like it came from the store or something along those lines." Heather replied.

"You know, farmer's markets exist."

"I know that, but even still, I can't say I've seen anything like it before."

RJ would pause upon hearing this. Okay, this was new. This wasn't like what he was thinking about with the door and the rug, this was something different. He was in such deep thought that he didn't notice that Heather had gone to the freezer and lifted up some weirdly shaped meat that didn't even look like a steak, and the mystery meat itself was around the size of her, just a little smaller.

Who exactly owned this house?

"Well, I'm going to go back to see if I can find those batteries." RJ spoke, and quickly left to go back to his search. Upon reentering the living room, RJ made sure to move around the carpet, just to avoid having to step on it. The carpet, the door, and now the mystery meat. Sure, they banned horror movies, but that was no reason for this heist to feel like they just stepped into one.

Noticing the stairs that led upstairs, RJ breathed a sigh of relief. He slowly ascended the stairs, and while it wasn't the best idea, RJ just couldn't stay in this room. He just needed to get out of the living room without worrying the others, and the others just needed to get the food and get out. The pantry was being worked on by everyone else, so it likely wouldn't take long, and the less time they spent in this house the better.

At the top of the stairs, RJ let out a sigh of relief. This seemed relatively normal for a top floor. A few doors that likely led to spare rooms or a bathroom, nothing really that out of the ordinary. As he calmed down, he could hear the faint sound of snoring coming from the door next to him.

The owner of the house was sound asleep, that's good. Not only that, from the time it took for him to get upstairs, the others likely would be done by now, and they could leave and never come back. It was perfect, and RJ turned to head back downstairs, when he suddenly heard this oddly whimsical sounding melody. He stopped for a moment, wondering just where exactly that noise was coming from.

"Put your head on my shoulder…"

Oh no.

The moment RJ heard that line, he froze in fear. He felt his heart beating in his ears, and upon looking down at his arms, he watched as his fur stood on end.

That was the song that played, RJ thought, and that could only mean one thing.

He's in the suburbs.

Welp.