Uberween

What a party!  What a night!  But now it was time to make their way home.

They were a little tipsy, and they had no ride. The ones who had brought them had left and stranded them. Michael Myers, their friend who had costumed in a simple William Shatner mask, had decided to leave with Norman Bates, taking the car to go to a hotel on the coast, and meet with Norman's mother. Their other friend, Freddy Krueger, complained of nightmares, and left with Lizzie Borden for Elm Street.

There was nothing left to do but to contact Uber via their smart phone, and arrange for a pick up.

Twenty minutes later, their Uber ride arrived.

It was not what they were expecting.  A horse drawn wagon, with the back filled with hay bales.  The driver was a hunchbacked man, the hump raising dramatically up on the left shoulder, and his eyes were as large and round and as bugged out as any eyes they had ever seen. "Surely, you can't be serious!", he said to the driver.

"I am serious," the driver huffed.  "It's Halloween! We're booked up, and this is the best you're going to get.  Unless you want to wait here in the dark until the dawn sweeps away this ghoulish night."  Reluctantly, the man and woman got into the back of the wagon.  The driver looked back at them, looking grim, eyes bugging out even impossibly further,  "And stop calling me Shirley!"

They tried hard to settle in.  "Where to?" the driver asked.

"Didn't our text make that clear?", he asked.

"What text?"

"The one that called  you here."

"Oh, yes.  That one.  Pardon me, boy!  Was that the Okefenokee ChooChoo Germano Duplexes?"

"Yes, that's right.  Can you get us there?"

"Of course, master."

Master?  What a peculiar man!  They heard the crack of a huge whip, and the loudest horse whinny they had ever heard, and  with a start they were off.  They would have slid off had they not held on to the wooden side rails.

It was hard to get comfortable with the hay bales.  She smiled at him and said, "Would you like a roll in the hay?"

"What?  Now?  Are you crazy?"

She frowned.  "Sorry.  it was just a thought.  I had hoped you'd be a little bit more fun and adventurous."

"Well, I am.  I'm not just not an exhibitionist.  I won't do anything where he could see us."  He pointed up to the driver, and noticed that his hump was now on his right shoulder.  "Wait a minute!" he called out to him.  "Wasn't your hump on your left shoulder?"

The driver looked back, insulted.  "What hump?"

They drove on, and started to go down a dirt road, heavily wooded on both sides. "What is this?  How are we getting home?  I've never seen this road before!" he asked.

"It's a shortcut.  It'll take you right there."

This was too much for the man.  "I don't think..." and then was interrupted by terrible howling.  "Oh, my god! What is that?"

"Listen!," the driver urged, his ear cocked to the sound.  "Listen!  Can you hear them?  The children of the Knight!"

"Oh, no!," the woman shrieked.  "Vampires!"

The driver laughed, a strange gurgling sound.  "Vampires?  No, not vampires.  They are children of the Knight.  You know!  Bobby Knight, the basketball coach."

Tall young men in Indiana basketball uniforms went racing around the hay wagon, running in desperation. The man and woman heard something whooshing towards them, and ducked just as a metal chair went sailing past their heads.

A young girl in a red cloak came up to the front of the wagon and asked, "Excuse me, good sir.  Do you know the way to Granny Goodkind's house?"  The driver pointed a bony finger to the west, and she curtsied and skipped off, only to be followed seconds later by a huge black shadow.  The driver got out a primitive wooden horn and started playing Peter and the Wolf.

Then he changed his tune to the Jaws theme.  They heard a knocking on the side of the wagon.  "W-who is it?" the woman fearfully asked.

A soft, quiet voice answered.  "Candygram."

"I don't believe you!' she huffed.

There was a slight hesitation, and then the voice gently came back.  "Land shark."

It's nasty muzzle and teeth began to appear over the top of the wagon side, and the man instinctively tossed a hay bale at it, knocking it from the wagon.  They could hear it in the distance.  "Oy!  Sometimes it don't pay to get up!"

And the woods began to clear, and the woman noticed the home she was raised in.  Her mother was waving at her from the porch.  "It's Mama!," she shouted.  "But how can that be?  She's  been dead five years!"

The driver turned and answered. "It's where we're at, Mum.  The gasses from the nearby swamp create strange time warps, and you can find yourself lost in another time and place."

She started to move to get off the wagon.  "I must see her!"

He held her back. "Damn it, Janet!  Let's not do the time warp now!"

A few minutes later, the driver came to a stop.  "All right, you wild party goers.  This is your stop."

Brad looked out and saw an old, crumbly mansion.  "This isn't our duplex!  What's going on?  Take us home."

The driver shrugged, his hump now dead center.  "Sorry, mate.  This is where you get off tonight."  He swirled a lever and the trailer of the hay wagon lifted up, dumping it's contents, including Brad and Janet. The wagon took off so fast, it almost seemed to vanish.

They opened the creaky gate, went through the front yard, which was a cemetery filled with tombstones and strange, creepy vines.  They came up to a door with a large gremlin head for a door knocker.  "My!," Brad exclaimed.  "What large knockers!"

Janet gave him a swaggered look, and an uplifted eyebrow.  "Oh, no, you did-ant!  We are not even gonna go there.  You had your chance in the wagon!"

He brought the knocker down, and heard a large bellowing sound, as if Vikings were being called to raid a village.  The door creepered open.

There was a large, tall man, the tallest they had ever seen.  He had the palest, craggiest face they had ever seen.  He said, incredibly slowly, in deep dark tones, "Yooooooouuuuu rangggg?"

"Don't stand on ceremony, Lurch!," a voice from inside spoke.  "Bring our guests inside!"

He grumbled and stood aside to let them him.  The foyer and central room was like a madhouse.  Strange stuffed creatures were mounted on the wall.  A hand coming out of a box waved at them.  A bald man had a lit light bulb in his mouth.  There was a man of modest height, wearing a fancy dinner jacket, and he had a fine dark mustache, and a big stogie in his mouth.  "Welcome!"  he greeted them.  "So glad you could finally make it."

"You - you were expecting us?" stuttered Brad.

"Of course!"  He came up and shook their hands expansively.  "Why, it just wouldn't be Halloween without you!"

"P-please sir, "whispered Janet, barely able to get her voice out.  "We're grateful for the hospitality, but when can we go home?"

"Not until Wednesday..."

"WEDNESDAY!" they reverberated together.  That was four days from now!

"Not until Wednesday shows up!"  A young girl started to descend the staircase, looking very somber, dressed in a black Victorian dress.  "And there she is now!  Wednesday, my child!"

He turned back to them.  "And I am Gomez.  Over there is Fester."  Fester took out his bulb and waved, and then lit it up again.  "You've met, Lurch, of course."  Lurch nodded, grumbling.  "And Thing."  They looked at a box but saw nothing.  "Ah, sometimes, he's shy."

Gomez turned to a nearby door. "Enough introductions!  Time for the party!  Come into the parlor!"

He opened the door and it was a room even creepier than the last.  A woman, dressed in a black gown that clung to her and ran past her feet (did she even have feet?), was mounted to a stretching rack, one of many torture devices scattered through out the parlor.  "Morticia!  Get down off there!  It's time for our guest to have the fun!"

Morticia came down and glided towards them.  "Of course, Gomez dear!  I see Uncle Uber has brought us something new to play with!"

Brad and Janet looked at each other with horror.  "Let's get out of here!" screamed Brad, his hair standing straight up.

They turned to run, but Lurch held Janet, and a hand from the box reached out and held Brad firmly by the arm.

It was ooky.

It was spooky.

It was the Uber family.

Ba da da dum!

Snap! Snap!