The last thing Finn heard before the whirring began was the Bunny giggling, and the wet, rhythmic squish of its carrot chewing through steel, flesh, and bone.

It took one hop forward. Then another.

Finn looked at Maya. She was crying. He took out his lighter.

The Bunny sat on the roof, one blade-paw cleaning its remaining ear. It looked up at the stars, sighed a tiny, velveteen sigh, and whispered to no one:

A genetically modified, escaped lab specimen—part plush toy, part chainsaw—hijacks a remote mountain gas station on prom night, forcing a group of stranded teens to confront the difference between what is cute and what is hungry.

Then it spoke. Not in a voice. In a vibration that rearranged their teeth.

The freezer door peeled open like a sardine can. And in the doorway, silhouetted against the burning gas station, stood the Bunny. Its fur was now soaking red. Its good eye reflected the fire. And in its blade-paws, it held Derek’s severed head like a snow globe.

The gas station was called “Last Hop,” and it sat like a rusty tin can at the base of Switchback Ridge. Inside, a single fluorescent tube buzzed over a rack of beef jerky and a cooler of flat soda.

“Transformer blew,” Derek said, voice too loud.

They ran. Casey tripped over a fuel hose. The Bunny was on her in a blur of rotten cotton and spinning steel. It didn’t kill her. It unraveled her. A single, precise slice up the back of her gown, and then it began to pull. Not flesh. Threads . As if she were a doll. She screamed until her mouth became a zipper.

“What the hell is that?” Derek whispered.

It was 11:47 PM. Prom night had curdled.

The first swing took the door off the gas station. The second took Derek’s phone—and his thumb. He didn’t scream. He just stared at the wet, clean stump where his digit used to be, then collapsed.

No one heard the engine at first. Not a car engine. Something smaller. Higher pitched. A whirring, like a sewing machine being fed barbed wire.