I performed a thorough search of the house. I even went into the living room, thinking maybe if I was in time, or if they appeared hanging by the neck maybe I could save them and to prepare for such an occurrence, I had retrieved my Gerber multi-tool from my backpack and extricated the blade in case of wayward friends suddenly appearing with a hangman's noose around their neck.

I performed a thorough search of the house. I even went into the living room, thinking maybe if I was in time, or if they appeared hanging by the neck maybe I could save them and to prepare for such an occurrence, I had retrieved my Gerber multi-tool from my backpack and extricated the blade in case of wayward friends suddenly appearing with a hangman's noose around their neck.

I wanted to go home. I didn't want to be in the house, alone, my friends gone, with all these fucking birds.

Up and down the stairs I went. I yelled for them, calling. I'd decided they were playing a prank so I went back to the bedroom and sat looking at the campaign notes, pretending to be cool as a cucumber in case they popped back into the room saying "Surprise!"

But no such occurrence happened.

I took stock of the situation, pulling out a notebook and making a list of things I knew.

A: I was alone in the house.

Something I never liked being in the most generous of circumstances, but here in this house on this night, alone in the dark with the wind blowing...and from the look of the sky it looked like a real storm brewing. I hated being alone.

Hated

Being

Alone

B: No trace of Arny and Dean.

I looked at our footprints...and they were just my footprints now. I didn't see the flashlights I'd brought them, and the player sheets for Gar Hammon and Kiri were still in my backpack and looked like they hadn't been played...

C: I hadn't searched the attic

D: As far as I could tell, there was nothing remarkable about the house in the slightest. Except for the mirror.

E: There was that attic...

F: And birds.

I stared at my list. The alone thing wasn't something I could do anything about at the moment. I didn't want to call the cops...because I didn't know how to explain the fact that I had two missing friends, and only one set of footprints leading to the house. I also didn't want to *leave* the house for fear the night of Old Mother Hubbard's death was repeating itself and somehow my friends would reappear with new neckties.

I really really tried to find a trace of Arny or Dean. I searched the hole Arny had crapped in...the bums dried old excrement was down there but I could see no trace of anything new. No footprints, no character sheets, no discarded flannel shirt, no hairs, nothing to show that I had arrived at this damn house with anyone other than good old me, myself, and I. I even pulled out my cellphone and stared at my contacts list, over and over again I searched but their phone numbers were no longer lodged in it's tiny memory banks...even my cellphone had forgotten my two best friends. For the life of me, I could not remember their actual phone numbers...and at first I was startled at this, but then I realized it could have been natural because I didn't really remember *anyones* cellphone number once I had entered them into the list.

The rain started. I could hear it hitting the roof. I could smell the moisture in the air, the smell of damp earth. I closed my eyes, inhaling deeply the aroma of rain and that faint tang of lavender sachet...

The attic. Yes, we'd come back to that one.

The mirror. I stood and stared into it's surface. I made faced at it, and everything reflected perfectly and in sync. I touched it slightly, and it didn't shimmer or burble, or suck my finger into it's silvered surface to the mirrorworld beyond my imagination to comprehend.

The birds....ugh, there were dozens of them. I didn't really recognize the breed...they were, you know, birds. Brown and small feathered bodies. They were strangely silent in the house, and there were a LOT of them..more than I think would have entered the house naturally over the years. I'd seen a thing on the nature channel a few years back that said to watch birds to see where and what they eat for a general idea of where and what *I* could eat when I was lost and alone in the forest. I tried to watch one bird, it was up in the corner sitting on a decorative molding that arched up into the darkness. The bird's eyes reddened at the glint of my flashlight...and it sat...and sat...and sat...and when I stood it fluttered away to mix with the other dozen birds in the house...and I gave up trying to pin one down.

The attic...damn.

I went back to the mirror. The rain was causing the moisture level in the room to rise. The mirror was fogging slightly as a result...and...

As I peered closer, I breathed onto the mirror.

Drawn, perfectly rendered in it's surface...was the demon with the giant pecker that Arny and Dean had created a few hours earlier.

"Arny!!! Deaannn!!" I yelled again, my impetus renewed.

I ran around the house, down the stairs, into the living room. "Arnyyy, Deannn!!!"

I shone my flashlight up into the rafters hoping against hope that maybe they were there, maybe they had been released by...whatever it was...or were back from wherever they went.

Nothing. Running back into the kitchen, I yelled again, then into the dining room, down the hallway, into the foyer, and up the stairs. The birds were the only things disturbed by my continual running and again I wondered...where had they come from?

Enough. The Attic.

The stairs to the attic folded down from an entry in the top level hallway. I pulled it down and shone my light up into the arid darkness above.

"It's just a fucking room," I said. "Who the fuck cares if you accidentally got locked in the attic when you were a kid? It can't happen here, there's no lock on the door, there's no way you can get stuck up there."

My heart was pounding as I slowly mounted the stairs, my mind still remembering the time as a 12 year old little boy I had stupidly crawled up into the crawlspace above our house playing hide-n-seek and the ceiling entry had accidentally slid sideways sealing me for hours in the hot darkness. My dad had found me, dusty and crying. I'd clung to him as he pulled me down from the crawlspace, not wanting to ever let go.

"Arnyyyy, Deannn."

My voice got softer and softer as I ascended the stairs. I poked my head above ceiling level and shone my flashlight into the darkness, letting it play around on the covered shapes.

The rain pelted the roof, and I could see many areas that were leaking. I knew it wouldn't be safe going in there, knew I could easily fall through the ceiling and at least part of the area was above the Living room where the drop would be a killer.

My body shaking in fear, I slowly walked into the attic, hunched over to clear my head of the slanted roof. The "floor" beneath me was wet in some places, and I carefully tried to step on wooden slats spreading my weight as evenly as I could. Some steps created alarming snaps and creaks as I walked further and further into the darkness...my beam playing along the surface of the floor.

"Arrnnyyy, Deannnn." I said, my voice barely above a harsh whisper in fright.

The sachet smell was much stronger up here, and I realized some of the covered shapes must have held clothes belonging to the Dearly Departed. I didn't really want to lift any of the coversheets, but I angled my light around each on carefully, hoping against hope that maybe my friends were still playing some kind of elaborate prank.

I could see the far wall of the attic. Furniture sat silently in this part of the room, all of it covered in dusty white sheets. I coughed after bumping into an overstuffed chair that created a cloud of dust to float over me.

"Arnyyy," I played my light along the back wall...to some more covered furniture..."Dea..."

I never finished that word as the name of my friend died on my lips...

Because...in the far corner of the attic...

One of the pieces of "furniture" appeared to be moving.