For a moment, the hall was quiet, then they groaned together and rolled away from one another. Everyone managed to climb to his or her feet, hearts and minds still racing.
“Is he gone?” Mazzy asked, peering back down the dark hallway. The double doors were fifty yards behind them.
“I can’t see,” said Gabe.
“He’s hiding,” said Seth. “We need to keep going.”
Felicia shook the bars of the accordion gate. The contraption rattled but didn’t give.
“Wanna try and keep it down?” Seth whispered.
“We’re locked in,” Felicia said, not acknowledging him. Her voice wavered at a high pitch, panicked and very un-Maleficent-like.
“Can we climb it?” Mazzy asked.
“There’s only a few inches at the top,” said Gabe. “There’s got to be another way around.”
“Wh-what’s going on here?” Felicia asked, her brain finally catching up to reality. “Who’s chasing us?”
“Long story,” said Seth. The sneer in his voice was unmistakable. “We’ll be sure to tell you at lunch on Monday, you know, if there’s room at your table.”
The double doors slammed open down the hall, smashing against the walls with such force it sounded as though they’d been ripped from their hinges.
GABE BURNED WITH FEAR AND ANGER. He spun toward the gate, trying to see beyond the inky blackness and the fuzzy spots that danced in his vision. This was Seth’s fault. He’d taunted the Hunter, dared him to show up. To battle. To play the game. And now the beast, or Mason, or whatever, was coming.
The light of the lobby was unreachable by about the same length as what they’d just run. Surely the crowd there would hear them.
Felicia grappled the bars again. “Help!” she screamed. “Someone! Please!” The rest joined in, shouting until their voices were raw. But no response came. “Can’t they hear us?”
Mazzy glanced over her shoulder and whispered, “The sounds of the haunted house must be blocking us out.”
A new growling stirred from the darkness behind them. Gabe turned quietly with the others toward the thing in the shadows. An obscure mass in the center of the hall was slightly distinguishable from the rest of the darkness, moving forward, shifting like the silhouette Gabe had seen at the edge of the woods by Temple House. Here, it was only a blur, a blob, but its rumbling voice gave it a new shape.
“Mason!” Gabe called out. “Stop! We’re not playing anymore.”
The mass grew as it slunk closer. The group pressed against the gate, keeping their eyes focused on the thing. The growl rumbled louder and a foul aroma drifted toward them—mold and mildew and freshly exhumed earth.
“On the count of three,” Gabe whispered, “everyone push as hard as you can.” The others tensed. He counted aloud and then, together, the group slammed their backs against the cage.
It held fast.
“Again!” Gabe said.
The thing was running now, its claws slipping and sliding on the tile, trying to catch a crack, a groove, anything to push itself forward faster.
“One. Two. Three!”
An earsplitting squeal and a jolt rocked the group as a piece of metal gave way.
“Here!” Seth shouted.
Gabe turned to find Seth already pushing Felicia through a small gap between the gate and the wall. “Go!” Seth ushered Mazzy through next, then grabbed Gabe’s shoulder and shoved him forward.
When Gabe turned around, an enormous darkness rose up behind Seth. Two arms extended from the shadow, reaching for Seth as he raised his foot to step into the opening. Gabe took hold of Seth’s hand and pulled as something swiped through the space where he’d stood. Seth’s sword clattered to the floor.
A large, dark shape slammed against the cage, but it bounced away before Gabe was able to get a good look. The gap they’d created was clearly too small for the thing to fit through.
“Come on,” said Mazzy, waving them farther down the hall, toward the light of the lobby.
“There’s another gate,” said Felicia.
The growling continued from the other side of the cage.
“We smashed through this one,” said Gabe. “We’ll do it again.”
“But what if this was just good luck? What if we get stuck?”
“What other choice do we have?” Mazzy asked.
“There’s gotta be another way through,” said Seth. He pointed to the hall that branched off to their left, then stepped quickly into its shadows.
“Are you sure?” Gabe asked, following hesitantly. The thing rattled the gate and released a howl of frustration. He realized then that he didn’t care if Seth was sure or not.
AFTER A BRIEF SPRINT, Seth stopped short. He clutched at a doorknob on his left. When he pulled the door open, the smell of chlorine nearly overpowered them. The four stumbled down a small corridor and into a yawning space.
Allowing their eyes to adjust yet again, they found themselves standing by the deep end of an indoor pool. Tall windows allowed light from streetlamps outside to filter in. The water was only steps away.
“Careful,” said Mazzy. “Floor’s slippery.” She and Seth crept toward the shallow end on the other side of the room. But Felicia seized up, clutching at Gabe’s elbow.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” she said.
“We can apologize later.” He pulled his arm from Felicia’s grip. “When we’re safe. Okay?”
The door in the corridor behind them crashed open, and a large figure darted out. Gabe froze as the figure plowed into Felicia. She screamed and plunged into the water.
Even after she slipped below the surface, her voice continued to echo around the room.
“Felicia!” Mazzy shouted, racing several steps back to the deep end of the pool and kneeling at the edge. The boys crouched beside her, trying to peer through the pitch-black below.
“I can’t see anything,” said Seth.
Mazzy took a deep breath, then leaned forward into the water. With a splash, she too disappeared.
Gabe instinctively scooted away from the pool. He peered at Seth. “I can’t swim.”
Seth stood and quickly released the Velcro that was holding his centurion armor in place. The plastic pieces rattled to the tiled floor. “Look for a light switch,” he said. Then he jumped, pencil-diving feetfirst into the deep end of the pool.
Gabe stood and tried to catch his breath. He glanced around the room, looking for anything that resembled a switch. But the shadows erased all detail. He turned back toward the corridor where they’d come in and slid his hand along the walls on either side of the doorway. His palm scraped across a metallic knob, and a moment later the water came alive with illumination. He skidded back to the side of the pool to find a dark mass twisting and turning at the bottom. It reminded him of Felicia’s party.
The shape began to rise, finding form as the diffuse light from the pool wall struck it, pale legs and arms moving frantically, struggling against the bulk of the water. Three heads burst through the surface a few feet from the wall. Gabe dropped to his knees and held out his hand. “Here!” he called.
Mazzy and Seth climbed out, dragging Felicia behind them, but another dark shape remained at the bottom of the pool—the thing that had chased them. Was this what a revenant looked like? Gabe stared for several seconds, until he was sure it was still. Dead. Then cold laughter rang out from the other side of the room, near the shallow end of the pool.
Glancing up, Gabe saw a thin silhouette standing at the edge of the water, a person made of shadow. The other night, he’d heard the same harsh chuckle ring out from the darkness beside his bed, right before someone had torn away his blanket. “Mason?” he whispered. “Is that you?” The thin silhouette seemed to feed upon the surrounding shadows, gathering up the darkness and swelling into a new, bigger shape. For a moment, it resembled a broad-shouldered man: tall, thick, impenetrable. Then, in a blink, the shape faded away, blending into the far wall, taking the laughter with
it.
Gabe turned to find the others sprawled out on the ground beside him. Felicia was sobbing. Mazzy stared, wide-eyed, at the ceiling. Seth sat up and scooted toward him. “It was Mason?” he whispered. Gabe nodded. “Is he still here?”
“I-I’m not sure. I don’t think so.” He glanced at the blackish blot that was now drifting around the bottom of the pool on a slowly whirling current. “What’s that thing?”
“I don’t know. It was wrapped around Felicia. It felt like skin. Or fur. Mazzy and I had to untangle her.”
“Fur?” Gabe shook his head. Pins and needles pressed painfully into his legs where he knelt. “What kind of fur?”
Mazzy groaned as she too struggled to sit. She rested her hand on Felicia’s forehead. Felicia flinched but finally stopped crying. She leaned toward Mazzy, wrapping her arms around her waist. “I’m pretty sure it was your dad’s puppet,” Mazzy said after a moment, stroking Felicia’s sopping hair. “Milton.” Gabe hadn’t imagined he could feel worse, but this news had done the trick. “By the time we reached the suit, it was as empty and lifeless as the night we found it lying in the hallway at your house.”
SOON AFTER THE FOUR STUMBLED into the lobby, wet and panicked and in obvious distress, the school’s administrators turned on the gymnasium lights, effectively shutting down the haunted house for the night. Several teachers stationed at the event took care of Felicia, who needed the most attention, until the paramedics arrived.
Later, Gabe, Seth, and Mazzy answered questions from a long stream of adults. Of course, after the group shared their story, the officers and others merely gifted them with skeptical stares before turning and whispering to one another.
Gabe purposely neglected to mention the silhouette of the boy at the shallow end to the police. But now he mentioned it again to his friends. “Did you guys see him?” Gabe asked. “The boy by the side of the pool.”
“I saw something,” Seth answered. “Couldn’t tell what it was though.”
“A boy?” Mazzy asked. “What boy? Who?”
A couple cops walked through the lobby carrying the soaking rag that was Milton Monster. By the front doors, they zipped the suit into a large plastic evidence bag and delivered it to a squad car waiting just outside.
Gabe felt a knot in his stomach. “When you guys were all safe on deck, when Milton was at the bottom of the pool, I saw someone else in the room with us.” He described what he’d seen, the way the silhouette had changed shape, expanding before fading away, the harsh laughter that had echoed across the rippling water.
“I heard that too,” Mazzy said. “It was Mason?”
Gabe nodded emphatically. He had no doubt.
“I asked him to come and play,” said Seth, looking mortified. He covered his face with his hands and mumbled through his fingers, “So he did.”
“He’d have shown up anyway,” said Gabe. “If not tonight, then soon. We haven’t set foot in Howler’s Notch for weeks now, but that hasn’t stopped him from visiting us.”
“How do we keep him from coming back again?” Mazzy asked. She’d collected the Olmstead and Ashe book from the pool deck. Now she handed it over to Gabe. “Is there something in here that tells you how to destroy an angry spirit?”
“Revenant,” Seth corrected.
Gabe clutched the book to his chest. The cover was damp and for a moment he felt bad that it would probably be crinkled when it dried. “Olmstead does mention that you can quiet a restless spirit by burying its remains in, what was it called…consecrated ground?”
“Like a cemetery,” said Mazzy.
“Yeah. Or if the spirit’s body is already buried in a cemetery, people believe that if you dig up the grave and destroy the bones, you send the spirit away.”
“Great,” said Seth. “Then all we’ve got to do is locate Mason’s grave and burn whatever’s left of him. Easy!”
“Easy?” Mazzy answered. “You’re suggesting that grave robbing is easy? Please don’t tell me you have any experience with that sort of thing.”
“Doesn’t matter whether grave robbing is easy or not,” said Gabe. “Mason disappeared over fifty years ago. Remember? My grandmother said she was sure that Mason never left town. If she’s right, and he’s still here in Slade, Mason’s resting place must be unmarked.” He shook his head. “It’s going to be impossible to find.”
“Not impossible,” said Mazzy. “Just…tricky. It’ll take some time is all.”
“That’s exactly what we don’t have,” said Gabe. “We don’t know what else Mason has in mind. I mean, it’s Halloween. According to Nathaniel Olmstead, tonight is the one night of the year that the restless dead are at their strongest. I wouldn’t be surprised if our little revenant showed up again, next time with more success.”
“Success?” Mazzy asked.
“David said the Hunter wanted us dead,” said Seth.
“Oh,” she whispered.
“But why?” Gabe asked. “What would Mason gain from…” The end of the thought stuck in his throat. “From killing us?”
“Simple,” said Seth, his voice hollow. “If we die, he wins the game.”
WHEN THE AMBULANCE ARRIVED, Mazzy rode with Felicia’s parents to the hospital. She promised that she’d check in with the boys later, to let them know about Felicia’s condition.
As the ambulance left, a voice called from near the school’s entrance. “Gabriel!” Gabe turned to find his grandmother walking briskly toward him. “Oh, thank goodness,” she said. The look on her face made him feel like he might faint, and when she grabbed him and hugged him close, he nearly did. “I was looking all over for you.”
“But I told you I’d be here. And I have my cell….” Gabe caught a glimpse out the lobby windows. Night had fallen over Slade, the sunset long past. He hadn’t realized how long he and his friends had been here. He yanked his phone from his pocket to check the time and saw that the battery had died.
Elyse glanced around, noticed the solemnity of the crowd, the gathering of cops and medics who were filling out paperwork. The front doors swung open and flashing red and white lights streaked into the lobby. “What’s going on?” she asked.
Gabe flinched. He’d imagined that somehow his grandmother had learned about what had happened to him and his friends, and that was why she’d hugged him so hard. But now he realized that she must have come looking for him for a different reason. “Felicia almost drowned,” Gabe answered. He quickly added, “They say she’ll be okay, but they took her away in an ambulance.”
His grandmother covered her mouth in shock. She closed her eyes. Sighed. “Awful night,” she said. Then she added with a whisper, to herself, “A curse to suffer nights like these.” Then, as if struck by a jolt of electricity, she opened her eyes and looked at Gabe with such pity, it frightened him.
“If you didn’t know what happened here, why did you come?” Gabe asked, trying to control his rising panic. He felt Seth move in close beside him as if to protect him from whatever news his grandmother might deliver. Elyse stared at him, holding inside what seemed like a hurricane of emotion, then she clasped his shoulders with her long fingers. Her grip felt like Death itself had taken hold of him, was toying with him, as the Hunter had been doing for the past few months. “Please tell me what’s wrong.”
“It’s your baby sister,” said Elyse. “Miri is missing.”
Gabe was suddenly glad that she was clutching his shoulders, otherwise, he might have collapsed.
Elyse offered Seth a ride home. On the way, Gabe and Seth sat in silence while Elyse explained what had happened.
Earlier in the evening, Dolores had left Miri in her high chair to answer the doorbell. Groups of trick-or-treaters had been arriving sporadically all afternoon. But when she got there, she found the stoop empty except for a few scattered leaves. Returning to the kitchen, Dolores discovered the high chair vacant as well. Miri had only just started crawling; there was no way she could have gotten down on her own. Glen was coming home late f
rom a meeting in Boston, so Dolores and Elyse searched Temple House on their own. Almost ten minutes had gone by before Dolores was worried enough to call the police. Now, hours later, according to Elyse, Dolores was inconsolable.
As his grandmother turned a sharp curve, heading up into the hills west of the schools, Gabe was seized by a thought more terrible than any other. He blinked, remembering what had happened to Vincent Price, his science teacher’s rat. If Mason was imitating the habits of the monster he’d invented, then Miri was in bigger trouble than anyone knew.
SEVERAL MINUTES LATER, the Cadillac turned onto the Hoppers’ long gravel driveway. Gabe felt helpless as the car slowed to a halt, stopping between the cottage and the old barn across the way. He knew that once Seth had gone, he’d be left alone with the reality of his missing sister.
“Thank you for the ride, Mrs. Ashe.” Seth opened the car door. He paused, as if searching for just the right thing to say. “Gabe, will you call me if anything changes?”
If he replied, Gabe knew he’d burst into tears. Instead, he merely nodded.
Elyse craned her neck over the steering wheel, peering out into the meadow. “Something’s burning.” She was right. As soon as Seth had cracked the door, an unmistakable aroma had drifted into the car. It brought Gabe back to his old neighborhood, standing on the sidewalk, watching flames devour his house across the street.
He clutched the door handle and squeezed, trying to force himself back to reality. The nightmares that had terrorized his sleep over the summer nipped at the edges of his vision. The fire demon. Arms made of flickering light and melting plastic reached out for him. He pressed himself backward, into the seat.
“My mom’s probably started a fire in the fireplace,” said Seth, stepping outside. “Weird.” He flinched. “It’s been a while since she’s done that. I didn’t even think we had any firewood….” He trailed off, staring into the distance.
The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe Page 17