The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe

by Poblocki, Dan

  David was gone. Shoved out of Gabe’s mind somehow. He was alone with the Hunter now, in the dungeon he’d invented, in a peculiar darkness that only he knew.

  “Wake up,” Gabe said to himself. He slapped his own cheek. Hard. It stung the same way it would have if he’d been conscious and aware. Panicked, Gabe worried that if his body felt pain here, maybe it could die here too.

  The Hunter stepped toward him. In the slight glow of its eyes, Gabe noticed its lips part. A grin. “I found you,” a voice rumbled so deeply, the sound was like a quake, like continents shifting. Gabe collapsed, every inch of himself aching. He struggled to lift his head and stare into the eyes of the massive thing that had once been a boy named Mason Arngrim. “Let’s play.”

  “N-no,” Gabe said, forcing his sore jaw to move. “I want you to leave us alone.”

  The creature’s mouth spread wider. The Hunter chuckled, then reached across its broad torso for the bow and arrows strapped at its shoulder, placed the arrow’s notch against the string, pulled the bow taut until it squealed, then directed it at Gabe’s forehead.

  “WAKE! UP!” Gabe screamed.

  THE SHADOWS WAVERED. The room went all staticlike. The world shifted, flickered, changed channels.

  Gabe lay on his side at the bottom of the well, his eyes open, conscious. Away from the Hunter. Away from Mason and the question that David had assured him was coming: yes or no?

  He gasped, then choked and ended up coughing for several seconds. His body no longer throbbed in agony like it had in the dungeon. Now he could pinpoint the pain. His elbow. His shoulder. He touched his forehead. His fingers located a tender lump above his right eye. He imagined he looked like a corpse. But he was alive. He would heal.

  A tunnel of stone and dirt rose up in a cylindrical shape. A hint of pale light passed through the thick web of roots near the opening at the top. Dawn had arrived. He’d spent the night down here.

  Gabe thought of his family. They must be sick with worry. But that was a good thing. It meant they were looking for him. Any moment now, they’d peer down at him. Call his out his name. Tell him they love him and assure him that in no time he’d be safe and sound. And once he was in their arms, the scolding would begin. He would welcome it. He couldn’t wait for his mother and father to yell at him.

  He sat up. Felt around. The ground was damp. He imagined the skeletons layered beneath him, but the thought of dead bodies was only slightly terrifying. Right now, he needed to be sure that there was another living boy in this pit. His friend. Seth Hopper.

  Gabe touched damp cloth only inches away. He clutched a pair of soaked jeans. Inside, Seth’s leg felt warm. Rising awkwardly to his knees, Gabe leaned forward. In the faint light, Seth’s face appeared to be scraped up, covered in mud and filth. His eyes were closed. Gabe placed a hand on his chest. A heartbeat! He yelped with relief. “Hey! Seth! Wake up.” He rubbed at Seth’s sternum, trying to rouse him. “Seth,” he said again louder. “Can you hear me?” Seth’s lips parted, and he released a soft moan. “We’re okay. We had an accident. We fell. Someone’s coming to help.”

  Seth’s eyelids fluttered open. He looked directly at Gabe. “Gabe?” he mumbled. Then his eyes grew wide. “Where is he?” he whispered a bit more clearly. “Did we find the body?”

  Then Gabe remembered. Seth didn’t yet know that his brother was dead. Should he tell him now or wait until they were aboveground? What if he was wrong? What if none of the vision had been real? “Yes,” he answered. “He’s here.” It was just vague enough to be true.

  “Good,” Seth said. “Then we won.”

  Gabe felt his throat closing. If he looked at Seth any longer, he’d start crying. And this was no time to cry. He struggled to stand in the narrow space, trying not to step on anything fragile. “We haven’t won anything ’til we’re outta here,” Gabe said, glancing upward.

  “I don’t know if I can get up,” said Seth.

  “Then just stay where you are.” Gabe called out for help, his voice resounding for several seconds afterward. “Someone must have heard that,” he said. He tried again. And again. Seth lay at his feet and merely listened. After several minutes, Gabe grew tired. He slumped against the wall. A sharp edge of rock poked into his back, and he flinched.

  The light continued to grow from above. The stone walls were black and slick with slime and moss. Some parts were cracked and crumbling. The base of the well was littered with fallen rocks and leaves and a few other obscured things Gabe didn’t care to think about. The space was tight, but not tight enough for Gabe to reach out and touch both sides.

  Scaling the wall would be difficult but maybe not impossible. He’d been pretty good at the rope climb in gym class last year. If he could find stones that stuck out from the wall like the one he’d just leaned against, he might be able to reach the root system above. From there, he was almost certain he could drag himself to freedom.

  He felt for the sharp rock by his shoulder, then carefully, he pushed on it, adding more and more weight, testing its bearing. The stone shifted, slipped out, and crashed onto the floor, just missing Seth’s hand.

  Seth flinched, turning his body away, but he had barely moved before crying out in agony.

  “Sorry!” Gabe said. “I thought I might—” Some of the other rocks slid out too, hitting the ground. Thud, thud, thud. “There goes that idea.”

  “I hear something,” said Seth.

  “It was me,” said Gabe, indicating the rocky mess at his feet.

  “No. Something else. Someone’s coming.”

  Gabe listened. Sure enough, footsteps crunched through the forest above. He nearly called out again, but Seth grabbed his ankle. When he looked down, Seth shook his head. And when the voice shouted out to them, Gabe felt numb. “Hello down there,” Mason said with a chuckle.

  “G-GET OUT OF HERE,” Seth stammered, staring up at the well’s mouth. Gabe crouched low and shushed him.

  A wind rustled impossibly into the shaft, whipping leaves and dirt into a blinding frenzy, carrying with it laughter, delight, the frightening sound of decided ignorance. Then it stopped. Sticks and stones rained down on the two shuddering boys.

  “Get out of here?” The voice was now close by, at the bottom of the well. Strangely, it did not echo. “That’s your answer?” Gabe searched every shadow for movement, but saw only the stillness of the black stone. “That’s not something a winner would say. And that’s what you are, right, Wraithen? A winner?” Seth grunted. Angry that he could not move. Could not fight. “We won,” said Mason, mimicking Seth. “Your words, Cousin.” His laughter died, and he added. “I disagree though. We are only just beginning. Don’t you think so, Meatpie?”

  “N-no,” Gabe said, remembering David’s warning, wondering now if no was the only answer safe to give.

  “What I think I have here,” said Mason, “are a couple of losers. Losers at school. Losers with your little friends. Losers at living. ‘Get out of here’?” He chuckled again. “If you want to win, you have to keep playing the game.”

  “Say no, Seth,” Gabe whispered. “Tell him no.”

  “Ah-ah,” said Mason. “No cheating. Everyone gets to decide for himself. Those are the rules.”

  “There are no rules,” said Gabe, “and you know it. Even if there were, you’d probably break them anyway.”

  “Who told you that?” Mason asked, sounding amused. “Was it David?”

  Gabe held his breath. Seth glanced up at him, confused.

  “David told you about me breaking rules? Oh, I’m sure I interrupted some sort of private conversation back in your quaint little dungeon.”

  “What’s he talking about?” Seth whispered.

  “Oh, that’s right,” said Mason. “Wraithen’s dead brother came to rescue Meatpie but didn’t invite Wraithen to join.”

  “David’s dead?” Seth’s voice was high-pitched and shaky.

  “And while you were sleeping, dear boy,” Mason’s voice dripped with venom, “your br
other’s ghost paid your friend a visit. They shared secrets. And why do you think that was?”

  “It’s not like that,” Gabe blurted out. “Mason’s twisting the truth.”

  “Doesn’t he love his little brother?”

  “David’s dead?” Seth repeated. He managed to prop himself up against the stones at his back.

  “I had some sort of…vision,” said Gabe. “A dream. In it, I saw the past. David fell down here. Mason tricked him, made sure he never got back out. I was going to tell you about it, I swear.”

  Seth dug his fingers into the dirt beneath him, as if searching for bones. “I don’t understand.” He squeezed his eyes shut.

  Laughter swirled around them, growing louder like a lasso tightening.

  “I don’t either,” said Gabe. “In my dream, David told me that you were too far away. He said that Mason would come for us. That he’d ask us to join him. To play the game. He made me promise to say no. You too, Seth. If we don’t, Mason will kill us. He’ll be the Hunter, and we’ll be the Robber Princes. Like, forever.”

  “When you put it like that, who would say yes?” Mason chortled. “No, no. David had it wrong. What I’m offering is much more than that. An opportunity to start over. Think about it.” Mason sounded like an excited little boy. A Peter Pan. Unable to grow up. “It only hurts a little. For that small price, you two can be royalty. Heroes. When you’re in Howler’s Notch, you’ll live in castles as big as you can imagine! You’ll be free! No one will call you names. No one will threaten you. Or hit you. Or lock you away. Or burn everything you’ve ever loved…Well, no one besides me, of course. Hee hee. We’ll be worthy foes. Cats and mice. Hunters and hunted. Just like before. Some days you’ll win. Other days…I’ll eat you for supper.” His voice lowered. The Hunter’s growl momentarily enveloped them, tasted their skin with a rough tongue. “But the important thing is,” Mason went on, a boy again, “we can be friends. True friends. Admit it. Haven’t the past few months been the most exciting of your life?”

  “No,” said Gabe. “It hasn’t been fun. It’s been scary. You’ve hurt people. Lots of people, in lots of different ways. You know, after my grandmother told me your story, I felt bad for you. Horrible, in fact.” He spoke to the air, as if that was what Mason was made of. “Because of what you’d been through, I didn’t even mind so much that you chopped off that rooster’s head.” Gabe shuddered. “But you can’t do this to us. To anyone.” His voice shook as it rose. “You obviously haven’t known what it’s like to feel human for a very long time, but that still doesn’t make you a monster, so stop acting like one. This isn’t a game. We aren’t your puppets.” He slapped the rock wall, making an exclamation point. “You have to let us go! We said no!”

  The well was silent. No sounds. Not even the ones they’d heard earlier—the birds chirping, a trickle of water, the breeze through the faraway branches of the crooked tree. Gabe released a deep breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.

  Mason was gone.

  “Wait,” said Seth. Wide-eyed, Gabe stared down at his friend. When he tried to speak, nothing came out. He shook his head, begging Seth to stop talking, but Seth wasn’t looking at him. With his eyes closed, he added, “I want to see my brother again.” His tears welled, then rolled slowly down his cheeks. “So yes, Mason. I’ll come with you.”

  The whole world seemed to sigh. Gabe felt the blood drain from his face. He reached for the wall. The stones were trembling. The earth began to shake. Gabe stared at Seth and shook his head.

  “What did you do?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” Seth whispered, then opened his eyes.

  A great cracking sound erupted several feet above. Gabe watched as one huge stone slowly crept out from its ancient bed, rocking back and forth, back and forth. Farther and farther away from the wall. He imagined Mason’s hands wrapped around it, pulling as hard as he could.

  “David!” Gabe called out helplessly. “Don’t let him do this!”

  But the stone continued to move. And the pieces of the wall surrounding it began to follow. Several smaller rocks tumbled out, spilling onto Seth’s face below. Gabe knelt beside him, struggling to pull him away from the spot where the wall was caving in. He grabbed at Seth’s sweatshirt, but it slipped through his fingers. Seth seemed to be stuck in the mud and the leaves. Or maybe something else was holding him in place, something rising up from below, something with rotting skin and yellowed, split fingernails.

  Another crack rang out. Gabe glanced up. An avalanche of rock poured down. He leapt forward, covering Seth’s body with his own. He felt warm. Safe. Protected. But Seth squirmed, tried to cry out, his voice muffled by Gabe’s torn coat.

  Gabe didn’t notice. He didn’t care. For one brief moment, before the darkness behind his eyelids turned entirely to white, he realized something that made him wish he could laugh. Mason had been right. It only hurt a little.

  IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED, a chill settled upon Slade. Those who woke before sunrise were greeted with lawns glazed in silver. Frost had come late this year. The leaves had begun to fall in earnest. By the end of the week, there would be few trees left able to hold on to their colorful, precarious gems. Yet, the ground itself still contained some of the warmth of the previous season.

  The men who worked at Evergreen Cemetery were pleased about this. It was easier to dig holes.

  Mazzy Lerman had never been to a funeral. Her grandfather had passed away when she was a baby, but that didn’t really count. She remembered nothing of it. The Wednesday morning after Halloween, she stood with a large group at the side of a deep hole in Evergreen Cemetery. The air was brisk, the sky was perfectly clear. A priest was speaking, but Mazzy wasn’t paying attention. She couldn’t stop thinking that at any moment she’d wake up. Or the movie would end. Or she’d reach the last page in a book she’d been reading and find the final words: The End. Then she’d put the book back on the shelf, and call her friends and ask if they wanted to hang out. But this story just kept going and going all around her. And now they were putting a boy in the ground.

  Returning from the emergency room that night, Mazzy and her mother found their phone ringing as soon as they had stepped into the house. Judging by the look on her mother’s face when she answered, Mazzy could tell immediately that something even worse had happened. “I haven’t seen them,” Mrs. Lerman said to the person on the other end of the line. “We just got home….” Mazzy reluctantly took the receiver. A voice on the other end introduced himself. A police officer. He asked if she’d seen Gabriel Ashe or Seth Hopper. “Not for a few hours. Not since we left the high school.” He asked if she had any idea where they might be. Mazzy calmly answered, “The woods.” She glanced at her mother, who glared back at her. She thought about everything the boys had shared with her, the game, their story, the Hunter, as well as the conclusion they’d reached about the need to find Mason Arngrim’s body. Then it struck her. “There’s a crooked tree,” she added. “I’m not sure where exactly. I think they might have been searching for some sort of pile of rocks around there.”

  At Evergreen, she wiped wetness from her cheeks, then dried her palms on her black pants. Her mother tapped her shoulder, then shook her head. Inappropriate, she mouthed. Mazzy sighed, crossed her arms. Most of the other congregants were crying too, holding tissues, dabbing at their eyes. Across the way, Felicia stood with her parents. Her face was bone dry, apparently made of stone. Malcolm and Ingrid were beside her.

  Felicia flicked her gaze toward Mazzy. The girls stared at each other expressionlessly, unwilling to concede to a display of emotion. To do so might hint at blame. Or guilt.

  The Ashes were at the head of the casket, beside the priest. Gabe’s parents stood frozen, staring into the hole in the ground, as if under a spell. His grandmother cradled Miri, who squirmed, unaware of the meaning of this gathering. Mazzy wished she might catch their attention, but she knew to do so would be to risk losing her already paper-thin composure.

&
nbsp; Someone shifted to the side and revealed Seth Hopper standing several feet back. When he glimpsed Mazzy looking at him, he quickly ducked away again. So he’d finally gotten out of the hospital. Mrs. Hopper was beside him. She looked better than the last time Mazzy’d seen her—she stood up straight and the dark circles around her eyes had diminished.

  People were saying that the Hoppers were holding a service for David tomorrow afternoon.

  Mason Arngrim wouldn’t be buried until the following weekend, a cost the town council decided to absorb since he had no immediate family. Mazzy could only pray that the hauntings, or whatever they’d been, were over for now. She’d feel a lot better once they put Mason in the ground. Properly this time. Whatever that meant.

  THE LAST FEW DAYS OF NOVEMBER were disappearing like magic.

  Sharon Hopper, as if having recently stumbled out of a thick fog, scoured the grime from her kitchen and bathroom and emptied the rest of her house of the clutter. Several times, as if in halfhearted apology, she commented to her son that she could not believe she’d allowed it to get so bad.

  For Thanksgiving, she’d cooked an enormous turkey for the two of them, but Seth barely ate any of it. Later, he had a difficult time remembering the holiday at all. In fact, the weeks after Halloween were a blur. There’d been doctors’ appointments. Crutches. Casts. Braces. Physical therapy. And pain. Lots and lots of pain. School for the time being was out of the question.

  Though it was agonizing for Sharon to imagine what both of her sons had been through—were going through still—learning David’s fate was like a salve that stung as it healed.