One November First morning the mailman knocked on her door to deliver a package, and the door opened to reveal Mother Hubbard, dangling naked from a rope in the middle of her living room. She hadn't written any kind of suicide note, and the police had noted that it would have been impossible for her to stand on anything that high up. The case remained open, even to this day, as they could not ascertain how anyone could have hung a rope from a fifteen foot high beam.

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Author's note: This is my first attempt at a submission. Just a warning...there will be homophobic slurs, foul language, references to excrement, bad jokes, puns, sexual situations, Homo-erotic themes, horrific elements, blood, gore, lapses in judgment, poor budgeting techniques and more stuff that will probably offend someone somewhere. If these types of themes bug you or trigger unwanted feelings or emotions, then please move on to the next story...ye have been waarrned.

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One Dark and Stormy Night
Chapter One
 
 
Dean Buckhold answered the door wearing jeans, steel-toed hiking boots and a tattered red-checked flannel shirt unbuttoned over a dirty t-shirt that might have been white at one point in time. "So we're really fucking gonna do this?"

I grinned. Me and Arnold Severence stood in the light of the entry way. "Yeah, we're really gonna do it."

"Unless you chicken out!" Arny piped in.

Dean motioned for us to enter. Shutting the door, he looked at Arny. "I ain't chickening out you pillow-munching butt-pirate."

I sighed. Ever since Arnold came out of the closet, Dean had been picking on him.

"At least I'm out of the closet," Arny said with a smile. "You still haven't come out, Darling? Be sure to let us know when you do."

"God I fucking hate it when you talk like that." Dean said, plopping down on a battered tan sofa in front of his television set. "You never talked like such a fucking fairy when you weren't sucking cocks."

Arny continued to smile, his eyes dancing in the dimly lit room. "And you weren't such a HEATHEN BASTARD, either!"

I could tell this was going no-where so I chose that moment to butt in. "Alright you two, take it easy. We're all friends here, so shut the fuck up and lets go to Old Mother Hubbard's."

"I still can't believe we're really going to do this." Dean said, reaching for a large metal flashlight that had been standing on the nearby coffee table. "Old Mother Hubbard is going scare the homo right out of you, Arny."

Arny laughed at that, and the tension in the room eased. "Let's go before hot-pants here get's too scared to move."

We stood up. I shouldered the backpack I always wore. I'd re-stocked it with everything we might need for our overnight excursion.

"What the fuck do you have for us tonight anyway, Steven?" Dean said as we left the house and walked down the darkened street. The wind was beginning to blow and the oak trees raised skeletal arms against a bright moon. The sun had long set on the sleepy town of Sedona Arizona, and we made our way up the lane.

"Oh, A little of this, a little of that," I said.

I could almost hear Dean's eyeballs rolling in his head. "You know, ever since we were in boy scouts in the fifth grade, you been carrying that fucking pack. Don't you think now that your thirty you can let go of the scout motto 'be prepared."

"Hey fucktard, this backpack has gotten all THREE of us out of many a jam, and you KNOW it."

Arny laughed. "You remember that time in the Grand Canyon and the whole rest of the troop ran out of tp? Jeezus, steven, how many do you have in there anyway?"

I chucked. "Just two rolls. I figure that will get us through."

Both of my friends laughed out loud.

"Well, they aren't very BIG rolls."

"Fuck, I don't think I'm gonna have to take a shit all night!" Dean said, a little too loudly as we walked into the deepening darkness.

After that we walked quietly, each left to our own thoughts as we drew nearer to what had always been known to be a haunted house. I began to shiver a little; I'd worn a fleece light jacket, but the wind bit at the exposed areas of my neck and wrists, causing a chill to run up my spine. Well, in actuality, I don't know if it was really the cold, or if I was scared witless for what we were about to do.

Brenda Hubbard had lived at the top of Oak street, in an enormous house in the older neighborhood of Sedona. She'd been a crystal-cruncher...what we in Sedona called people who came to the area for the more "spiritual" side of the community. Sedona was a nexus of spiritual type folks who were "Drawn" to the natural apex or whatever the fuck they were within the boundaries of the town. Mrs. Hubbard had been divorced and owned a small store near Telaquepaque, a ritzy fashion shopping place in the heart of Sedona. She sold crystals of all shapes and sizes for many many years, and no one had ever known her to take a lover, or have any kind of companion whatsoever.

We had trick-or-treated at the house when we were kids, and Mrs. Hubbard had answered the door wearing little more than a light yellow dress with her gray hair pulled back into a severe braid. I'd never known her to have any color at all in her hair, always grey, and her skin was wrinkled and sun-darkened by her long hours hunting for crystals in the canyons around the area. She had a broken voice, scratchy, as if she needed to cough, and always welcomed us by name no matter what costume we happened to be wearing.

Then one November First morning the mailman knocked on her door to deliver a package, and the door opened to reveal Mother Hubbard, dangling naked from a rope in the middle of her living room. She hadn't written any kind of suicide note, and the police had noted that it would have been impossible for her to stand on anything that high up. The case remained open, even to this day, as they could not ascertain how anyone could have hung a rope from a fifteen foot high beam.

The house stood empty ever since. Oh, it had been ravaged by scavengers of both the rodent and human varieties. The yard had gone to weed, the trees grown wild...but no one had ever shown up to claim the house, and for some reason the city had failed to reclaim it, so it had stood empty all these years...and of course, the stories grew.

"Jesus, fuck, I'm shivering." Dean said, as he pulled his flannel shirt tighter around him.

"I think you're scared," Arny said, in a high tight whisper.

"I'll admit I'm scared," I whispered back, looking at the distant house looming in the distance.

"The stories ain't true, we know that," Dean said.

I laughed. "Yeah? So how the hell did she die with her feet dangling ten feet off the ground with no ladder in sight?"

Arny nodded. "I'm scared too."

"Fucking pussies, the both of ya." Dean mumbled, but I knew he was scared too.

"So what's our plan?" Arny whispered, as we drew nearer to the house. The trick-or-treaters had long departed this area of the neighborhood, and the house stood silent sentinel against the looming grey rock of the nearby cliffs.

"We break in, and find a place to camp for the night in one of the bedrooms," I whispered back.

"Why the fuck are you two retards whispering?" Dean said in a too loud voice.

Arny and I both shushed him as we walked up the long gravel driveway. "Because, you dumbass," I said, hissing into the darkness. "We are still breaking and entering!"

Arny giggled slightly, and I hit him on the shoulder. His eyes were bright and he had a grin on his face so his white teeth could be seen very clearly. I hadn't seen him this happy since...well...in a long time.

Dean shook his head, and walked up the path, shoulders rolling. Arny and I both followed behind.

Dean was a large man, six feet four inches and weighed over two hundred and seventy pounds. He'd never been "Fat" per se, just very large with wide wrists and huge shoulders. He strode up the driveway, and into the back yard, pulling aside long strands of grass and weeds that had grown well over our heads. We made it to the back door, and Dean tried the knob.

"Locked," he said in a loud voice.

"Shh!" Arny and I both chorused.

"You got anything in your magic pack to open this bitch?" Dean said to me.

I nodded and unslung my pack. I'd known the doors would probably be locked and the windows long boarded up. I'd gone to several locksmiths shops in preparation and had found a smith's key, something that looked like a folding pocket knife, but had many steel picks for various sizes of locks. I'd also researched when the house had been built, and had practiced on an old antique lock I'd found in a thrift store so I knew I could open the lock without any trouble once I knew the pattern of the tumblers.

I took out the smith's key and peered down at the lock. I inserted a pic into the lock to feel for the tumblers. It took me two or three tries to find the right pic, but within a few minutes I had the unlocked the door.

"Bout fucking time," Dean said as he tried to open the door. The knob turned easily, but the door was jammed tight against the wood, probably from years of moisture forcing the wood to swell against the jam.

Dean leaned against the door, hard, trying to force it open, but it wouldn't budge.

"Fuck, I am not going to be stopped..." Dean heaved on the door, "by any" he heaved again, throwing his shoulder against it. "Fucking...." He kicked his booted foot against it and it began to budge.

"Door!" He threw himself into the door, and it finally opened about 6 inches.

"There's sand on the bottom!" I said, still whispering, though God knows why.

In the darkness I could see the door had jammed against the sand that had piled in around the joints and on the floor. I reached in with my fingers, and tried to push some of the sand away. I could feel stickers and broken glass as I scooted as much sand as I could away from the door. Dean pushed after each time I swept my fingers under the door jam, each time opening it a little wider until we could slip through.

"Think we should shut it?" I said after we had entered, whispering.

"Fuck no." Dean said in a loud voice. "Some fucking ghost wants to butt-rape me and I'm going through that door with our without you guys."

Arny tittered at that, his eyes still very wide in the darkness. Dean turned on his flashlight and we strode into the darknened hallway.

"So where are the fucking bedrooms?" Dean said, after we'd gone a few paces.

"Upstairs," I said, pointing.

"How the fuck you know they upstairs?" Dean said.

I took off my pack and reached into the pouch and pulled out three floor plans, handing them each one.

"See here? This back door is the servants entry. This hallway connects to the kitchen at the end there, and the dining room beyond. On the other side of the kitchen is the entry way and living room where Old Mother Hubbard dangled her last dance. Beyond the living room is the parlor and the stairs are on the far side. Upstairs there's four bedrooms, and the attic.

"Least there's no fucking basement for shit to come out of," Dean said.

"Steven, can I have my flashlight now?" Arny said in a nervous voice.

I handed him a black rubber flashlight, and took out my own.

"OLD MOTHERRRR HUBBBARRRD!!!" Dean called loudly striding down the hallway into the kitchen.

Arny tittered again, and I noticed he was pressing himself up tight to Dean, who didn't seem to mind one bit.

"Well, I guess we can talk in normal voices, " I said in a low tone. "If there's any ghosts here, they would be gone by now."

"You can't really believe all that shit, right Steven? I mean, how hard is it really going to fucking be to stay a night in the dump?"

I nodded as we entered the kitchen.

All the appliances had been taken away, leaving gaps and holes in the wall where rodent droppings lay on the tattered wooden floor. In one hole, some enterprising bum, or bums, had created a latrine and the stench of aged piss and shit wafted up to us as we peered down into the darkness.

"Guess we found a place we can defecate our excrement." Arny said in a high voice. I noticed he was gripping Dean's arm tightly, unconsciously, and Dean seemed oblivious to the action.

"Yeah, let's make this the latrine," Dean said. "Okay by you, Steven?"

I nodded in the darkness. "Yeah, I don't care." I reached into my backpack and pulled out a roll of toilet paper, and set it on the nearby counter.

"Groovy," Dean said as he left the kitchen and entered the dining room.

The house opened up here, but all the windows had been boarded up long ago. I raised my flashlight up to the ceiling and traced the beams. A couple of birds, disturbed by my lights, fluttered among the rafters and we all chuckled as we were startled by the sudden sound.

"Almost pissed my pants with that one," Dean said, and Arny tittered in response.

We followed the dining room and passed into the entry way, peering into the living room beyond.

"Think we should go in there?" I said, whispering again for some reason.

"Fuck no," Dean whispered beside me, and Arny crammed tight against the both of us.

We walked up the stairs, each step creaking loudly at our unaccustomed weight. The smell of dust, cedar, and shit mixed gently with another sweeter scent...one I couldn't identify. Almost like perfume.

"Sachet," Arny said as if reading my mind. "I smell Lavender sachet."

"Figures you'd know what the fuck it was, butt-pirate," Dean said in a low voice.

"My grandmother used to wear lavender sachet, asshole." Arny said, releasing Dean's arm as if suddenly realizing who he'd been hanging onto.

Dean rolled his eyes and shook his head, and we continued up the creaking stairs.

Upstairs, the rooms were arranged in a square with the bathroom midway between two doors, and the opening to the attic midway between the other two doors.

"Which one should we go into?" Arny said in a tight whisper.

Dean walked down the hallway..."Eany" he pounded the first door. "Meany" pounded the second door, "Miny" pounded the third door, then strolled to the last door around the square. "MOE" and he turned the knob suddenly, and opened the door with a flourish.

Arny gave a little scream as the door opened and birds fluttered out into our faces. My heart pounded in my ears and I could see spots before my eyes as I suddenly realized what they were. I laughed in response to my scare, and my friends laughed with me.

We entered a bare room. A mirror hung on the far wall. From the light of my flashlight I could see yellow walls with a flower patterned wallpaper that had given to mold around the seams.

We all walked around the room, each of us carefully avoiding looking into the mirror.

"It figures of all the fucking bedrooms in this house, you'd choose the one room with a mirror," I said in my normal voice.

"Want to go pick another one?" Dean said.

I glanced at Arny, remembering my fright of the birds fluttering out of the darkness and into our faces. "Nah."

"You know what I want to know?" Arny said, flashing his light on the floor of the room, then up to the ceiling where the triangular windows had been boarded up.

"What's that, ass-muncher?" Dean said.

"I want to know how those birds got in here."

At that we all scanned the room with our flashlights. I could not see any holes in the ceiling, or in the sides near the top of the room, and there didn't appear to be any bird droppings on the floor, although there were plenty of rodent droppings, and it looked like in one corner the roof had leaked as a dark stain had spread tendril fingers down from the ceiling, along the walls, and onto the floor.

"That is kind of strange," I said, still looking.

"Who gives a flying fuck?" Dean said. "I say we stay fucking put, right fucking here. We stay the night, and in the morning, we'll be able to see their roost, if that suits you two."

I nodded, and lowered my pack to the floor.

"So now what?" Dean said, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and pulling out a cigarette.

"Must you do that in here?" Arny said in a dismissive tone.

"Fuck yeah, I must."

Arny shook his head, and waved his hands in front of his face even though Dean had yet to actually light up. "You know, Dean, someday you're going to be in a bar, and people are going to be bragging about how long they've been smoking. The first guy will say, since I was 12, and the second guy will say since I was 8...and then they'll get to YOU, and YOU'LL have to tell them...since I was THIRTY. Who the hell STARTS to smoke when they are THIRTY YEARS OLD??"

I laughed loudly as Dean blatantly lit a cigarette and puffed on it, blowing a stream of smoke into Arny's face.

"Well, at least I'll only have been SMOKING since I was thirty. At least I didn't up and say, 'Hey everyone, I'm a butt pirate! After watching that fucking Cowboy movie. "

"Hey, that was a brilliant film," Arny said in a soft voice.

Which was all true. After watching "The Movie" Arny associated so strongly with the characters that he went home and told his wife and kids that he was really and truly homosexual and had been for a long time. Then he came over to my house and lived with me for the next three years. I'd never actually known him to take a lover, but his speech pattern gradually shifted to a more effeminate style and he began holding himself much different, dressing different...hell...it didn't bother me any, to each his own.

"Aren't you going to at least offer us one?" Arny said, glaring at Dean and the cigarette he was holding.

Dean blinked. "You guys don't smoke."

He took out the pack and offered it to me first, and I shook my head, frowning. Arny took a cigarette from the packet, sliding it out real slow, kind of like a girl would, then holding it between his knuckles pointed straight up at the ceiling. Then he placed it between his lips and fluttered his eyelashes at Dean leaning toward him, who promptly dug out the lighter and tossed it to him.

Arny gasped in mock indignation, but lit his own cigarette somehow making the entire act a flamboyant effeminate affair.

Dean looked at me. "So?"

"So what?"

"So let's get to playing, meathead."

I laughed. "Okay, okay. Let me get everything out."

As I pulled out the compendium and my Dungeon Master score sheets, notes, and script I'd prepared for the evening, Dean chatted.

"I been looking forward to this all week. We haven't played D&D since Graduation Night, You guys remember that campaign?"

I rolled my eyes. "Remember it, I still have all the sheets."

"You're shitting me!" Dean said. "Let me see them!"

I shook my head. "I didn't bring them *with* me tonight, but I still have them in my campaign book."

"Aww, man. That was the best ever!"

I chuckled. "Well, I've aged some, and I've published some, so you two are in for a treat tonight. I've been working on this for weeks."

Dean rubbed his hands together. Both of my friends eyes were lit up like jack-o-lanterns in anticipation of the night's fun.

***

We didn't need to roll up characters. I had a dozen character sheets from a variety of past campaigns, and I selected the two I thought would benefit my friends the most.

"Kiri FastLucious and Gar Hammon", I said handing my two freinds their sheets.

Dean laughed. "Kiri! It's been too long darlin'!" He grabbed the character sheet and placed it in front of him. Arny took Gar Hammon, grinning, his effeminate gestures briefly forgotten.

"Gar wanted to fuck Kiri in the worst way," Arny said, staring down at the sheet.

"And Kiri would have none of Gar's dark good looks. She's a tough bitch, you can't just jump in the hay with her, you twit."

I took out the dice and we began our campaign.

I'd set up a small portable card table and we all sat on the floor and crowded around it. I had brought a small electric lantern with spare batteries. We had spent many a night in various places in our campaigns, but the crowning achievement was to spend a night in Old Mother Hubbard's House. We'd never been brave enough to do it as kids, so when Dean had called us a month ago to invite us, we both jumped at the chance.

As the campaign started, I could hear the wind beginning to blow. The nearby towering oaks creaked and we could hear loose ceiling tiles flapping up and down as the breeze intensified.

The first couple of hours passed uneventfully, but as night drew closer to midnight, we all felt the chill of the house deepen.

"Fuck, I'm getting cold," Dean said after getting Kiri out of a particularly nasty combat scene with a couple of Orcs.

"Warm your hands on the lantern," Arny said and laughed. He had nearly dropped all his effeminate charms over the past couple of hours, and it was almost like old times.

"Should have brought a heavier jacket, I s'pose." Dean said, standing up.

We all stood, stretching after being hunched over in our intense campaign. "This is fucking great, Steven, you always know how to keep us entertained. I think I could play one of your campaigns non-stop for a month and not get fucking bored."

"Me too!" Arny said.

"Thanks guys. It's nice to know we can still be old farts and able to share a good campaign. Is always better when you have good players."

Dean stepped over to the mirror, standing sideways to it, and gazing into it's silvered and dusty surface. "You guys think it's strange for the mirror to still be here after all these years? I mean, it's not even cracked or broken."

I shrugged at that, walking over to stand next to him.

Arny licked a finger and drew a happy face in the dust.

Dean modified the happy face into a demon with a giant pecker.

"You fucktard," Arny said, laughing at the line drawing on the mirror.

Something about the image bothered me, like we were desecrating something rare, so I pulled a car shammy out of my backpack and wiped off the rest of the dust.

"Jesus fucking Christ, Steven."

"What?"

Dean shook his head. "Only you would have a proper tool in your fucking bag to clean a 50 year old mirror. I bet that thing hasn't been cleaned in decades."

"I like to be prepared," I said, trying to steam the surface of the mirror a little with my breath to get rid of some streaks. The shammy squeaked as I pressed harder on the surface.

"There," I said, stepping back to admire my handiwork. "Clean."

Dean rolled his eyes. We all gazed into the perfectly mirrored surface.

"It is strange," Arny said as we stared.

I nodded. It was almost hypnotic. The room was perfectly reflected in the surface of the mirror; the small card table, the electric lantern, my GM screen, the dice, the rafters...all of it. And us of course, standing, Dean the tallest, then me, then Arny...three in a row in front of a mirror in a haunted house.

"This is the part where the ghost of Old Mother Hubbard comes back from the dead to snatch our living souls to hell." Dean grinned as he spoke.

"No, it's the part where we notice something in the mirror that's not quite right...not reflected as it should be," I said in response.

I could feel chills rolling up and down my back as we continued to stare.

"Nope," Arny said. "It's just a stupid mirror. I have to go to the restroom."

Dean and I both laughed at that. "You know where it is," I said.

"Someone go with me?"

"You're kidding, right?" Dean said. "You're a grown man, Arny, no matter what."

I was taken a little aback at that. For once Dean did not come back with a homophobic slur.

"I know, but it's dark and I'll have trouble holding the flashlight." He looked at me in the mirror. "Please, Steven?"

For once Dean didn't argue. "Go ahead. I'll just peek at your GM sheets while you're gone."

I chuckled, this was an age old joke. "You know you won't."

Dean rolled his eyes. "Go on already, hurry up. Kiri is wasting her time in that tavern trying to seduce a warrior into revealing the location of the dungeon."

We all laughed in response as Arny and I headed out of the room and down the stairs.

We made it to the kitchen with little problem, the both of us carefully avoiding looking into the living room where the woman had died. Arny squatted over the hole and did his business, while I shone my flashlight around the rest of the kitchen looking at what was left.

There was very little left in the house of any value at all. All the appliances were gone, all the cupboards had been smashed, or the doors were removed and hanging askew. Dust hung thick in the air with spider webs attached to the few remaining areas. A thick layer of sand coated the floor, and I could see our footsteps from when we had entered.

"Ummm...Steven?"

"Hm?"

Didn't you leave a roll here?"

"Yeah it's on the cabinet to your left."

A pause as I looked into some other cupboards. Roaches, crickets, beetles and other bugs skittered away from the light.

"Steven?"

"Hm?"

"It's not here."

I blinked. "Of course it is...you must have knocked it onto the floor."

"I don't think I did. And it's not in the hole...I can't find it anywhere."

I moved my flashlight to where Arny was still somewhat squatting over the hole in the floor. I let it play on the cabinets and over the floorboards, and even down into the hole where Arny had recently conducted his business.

"That is weird," I said.

"What can I use?"

I shook my head. Okay, no one would have been prepared for this eventuality, I'd left my pack back in the room. "I have another roll in my pack. I'll go get it."

"Okay, hurry." Arny's voice sounded high and kind of thin. I knew he was a little scared, he didn't like horror movies, or scary carnival rides. We'd had to convince him to do this.

I jogged through the house and pounded up the stairs. I ran to the room and over to my pack where I pulled out another roll of TP.

I stood up. "Arny lost the Tp..." my voice trailed off as I realized I was alone. "Dean?" I said in a loud voice."

My little table still stood where we'd left it, my GM screen, the dice, the papers, all of it. The mirror glimmered in the reflected light of my flashlight, but Dean was no where to be found.

"Cut the crap asshole, where are you?"

I waited for an answer, and received none.

"God, you are such a fucktard."

I ran back out of the room and down the stairs. I tripped on the last one and nearly fell on my face, but was able to turn at the last moment and my shoulder took the brunt of the fall.

"Oww, fuck!" I said loudly, rubbing my shoulder.

I got up and brushed myself off, then walked through the hallway and through the kitchen.

I approached the place where the hole was in the floor. I could see my footprints in the dust where I'd been here previously, and the other roll of toilet paper sat in the exact same spot I'd put it when we'd walked in. I shone my flashlight around the area, and down...into the unsoiled pit where Arny had conducted his business.

It was empty--sans excrement. And so was the room.

My friends were gone.

I was alone.

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To Be Continued...