The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe (15 page)

“I LIED ABOUT THE BOY in the bathroom,” Seth began, “the one who I said sold me those M-80s. There was no boy. I just went in there because
Slayhool
seemed like a cooler place than where I actually got them. I’m sorry.” Gabe crossed his arms, waiting for a straight answer. “They belonged to my brother.”

“David gave them to you?”

“Not exactly. I took them from his bedroom this past summer. He’d hidden them in his dresser. I’m not sure where
he
got them, but I guess that doesn’t really matter. He used them to play the Hunter’s game. In fact, the little bombs were how David introduced me to the Hunter in the first place.”

One afternoon a few years earlier, when David was still around, Seth was in his bedroom reading when he heard a blast outside so loud it rattled the house. Looking out the window, Seth thought he noticed someone moving up the hill between the dense expanse of trees. Slipping his shoes on, he snuck outside.

In the woods, he heard voices. He followed them until he found his brother crouched in front of one of the old stone walls, whispering to himself as he struggled with a pack of matches.

When David turned to find Seth approaching from down the hill, he groaned. Piles of explosives lay on the ground. Seth was quite adept with a match, having had a short stint as an altar boy the year prior. He managed quickly to get a flame from the flint. David was so impressed that he forgot to tell him to throw the
hissing object over the wall. As sparks slowly ate at the fuse, he knocked the M80 out of Seth’s hand. It fell to the ground between them. David pushed Seth back just as the explosive erupted with a deafening crack, knocking David against the stone wall with such force that the largest rock tumbled from the top and fell to the other side. When he stood and lifted his shirt, a bruise had already started to form. He begged Seth not to say a word to their mother, and Seth, sensing opportunity, granted his brother’s wish but only on the condition that David tell him what he’d been doing out here and whom he’d been talking to. Reluctantly, David agreed. It had been a game of imagination, enchantments, and monsters, set in a magical world. A world in which a boy could believe that he was strong. Powerful. Beloved. A world that was different in every way from the one where people thought of the Hoppers as a group of backwoods weirdos.

Seth insisted on joining the game. To his surprise, David agreed. Happily.

The brothers were separated in age by five years, and though they’d always been civil, they’d never been especially close. Their father’s purchase of a horse years earlier had been the catalyst that had first made them
realize
each other. The horse had become the brothers’ shared responsibility. A second binding had occurred when their father had walked out. The third was when their mother crumbled, and the fourth, almost an afterthought, was when she sold the mare to pay a pile of bills.

None of these events had been a particularly positive experience. But then, there was the game. A game that belonged only to them, an escape from what had come before. Older brothers were supposed to be strong, knowledgeable, just out of reach. When David had decided to let him in, Seth finally understood that his older brother lived as lonely a life as his own. Oddly, this became the strongest binding of all.

The first order of business was for Seth to invent a character, to choose a new name and a new personality. Wraithen of Haliath was born. For the rest of the summer, the brothers fought the Hunter, rescuing captured children from his clutches. In the game, they invented ways to master their abilities. David explained that being “Robber” Princes came with the responsibility to constantly “level up.” The way they did this was to steal magical objects from secret places. David had created a map. Many of these talismans were hidden in an abandoned “castle” across the forest of Howler’s Notch.

The first night that David led Seth up to Temple House, Seth had no idea what his brother had planned. When the two approached Mrs. Ashe’s backdoor, Seth began to understand. By the time David had worked the lock open, Seth was too nervous to say anything, fearing that the reclusive owner of the house might awaken and find them. Silently, Seth followed David into the dark house. Moving through the shadows, he wondered how David had discovered the nerve to break in. Surely this was not his first time in the house.

David disappeared through a nearby doorway. Inside, Seth discovered what looked like some sort of library. A bright moon threw blue light onto the floor. It reflected up at the odd objects and books packed onto the shelves. Seth barely had time to look around before he saw David snatch something small off a nearby mantelpiece and shove it in his pocket. He nodded for Seth to take something too. Without thought, Seth grabbed the nearest knickknack, a carved turquoise scarab, and clutched it in his palm all the way home.

By the time September rolled in, they had little time to continue playing. David was finding freshman year at Slade High School to be profoundly difficult. He frequently withdrew into his bedroom and ignored Seth’s requests to venture together into the
world of Howler’s Notch. Seth worried that the progress they’d made over the summer would be lost. He missed playing the game, but more, he missed his brother.

Whenever they did play, David seemed distracted. By January, David flat-out refused to play with Seth at all. Seth didn’t believe him when he said it was because of the cold temperature outdoors.

One night, after a month of Seth’s pestering, David finally agreed to talk about what was on his mind. He explained that the game was dangerous, much more than Seth could ever understand. Seth pressed him further, wondering if it was something he’d done. “I know you won’t believe me,” his brother answered, his expression flat and humorless. “You might even laugh, but I don’t care. We can’t do this anymore.” Seth waited as David paused for a long time. “The Hunter is real. And he wants us dead.”

David was right. Seth laughed. He laughed until he cried.

“THE HUNTER IS REAL?” Gabe asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that,” said Seth. “He believed that somehow he’d raised something up from the woods behind my house. Behind your house too.”

“But that’s crazy.”
Right?
he wondered.

“I thought so too. My brother was definitely acting crazy. He grew more and more paranoid. He told my mom that he was sure someone was following him home from school. She thought he meant that kids were picking on him. She tried to get help from the school, from the guidance counselors, but David refused to talk to anyone about what was really bothering him. Eventually, he started asking my mom if we could move. Begging her. He said he couldn’t live here anymore.”

“That’s…really scary.”

“It’s why, when he disappeared that summer, the police concluded that he’d run away, that he’d located my dad and went off to be with him. I think David was scared that if me or Mom knew where he was, the Hunter would find him.”

Gabe sat on the edge of the mattress, unaware that his jaw was hanging open until his tongue felt gritty against the top of his mouth. “Do you think that’s what happened to him?” he managed to say.

“I wanted more than anything to believe that David just left,” said Seth. “And I did believe. Mostly. For a while, it seemed like the only explanation. Then you moved in up the hill.”

Gabe flinched. “What do I have to do with any of this?”

“Well, when David went away, I’d stopped playing the Hunter’s game. But, when you mentioned losing all your video games and comics and everything in the fire, I thought you might be interested to join in. Even after you came up with that ridiculous name for yourself. For your kingdom. Meatpie? Chicken Guts?” Seth smiled sadly. “I didn’t even mind. I missed my brother, and I wanted to play again.”

That last sentence was like a punch to Gabe’s stomach. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a sibling. He thought of Miri, safe with his family just up the hill. What would his parents do if she disappeared—not merely died, which would have been a nightmare in itself, but just went poof! Gone! There was something much more horrific in not knowing when or if you’d ever be reunited. At least a death was final. No coming back from that.

“After you and I started playing the game again, strange things started happening,” Seth said. “Even before school began again, I knew people blamed me for what happened at Felicia’s pool party.” Seth trembled. “If I’d denied it, no one would have listened.” His voice shook as he went on. “I’m really sorry I showed up at your house that night and said that stuff about the Hunter coming for you. I didn’t mean anything by it. I was upset. It was like, in that moment, I wished for bad things to happen. I never thought the wish would come true.”

“You believe in wishes?” Gabe asked.

“I don’t know what to believe. But I’m starting to wonder if David was right to run away. Maybe there
is
something out there in the woods. Something evil. Something that does want us dead.”

Gabe’s throat gurgled reflexively. “The Hunter?”

Seth nodded slightly, as if embarrassed to admit it.

“If something
is
hunting us,” said Gabe, “how do we stop it?”

“I guess we start by warning your friends.”

Gabe felt warm. He knew what Felicia’s response would be. For a moment, he wondered which was scarier—the threat of the Hunter or of spending life as Puppet Boy. At this point, it seemed as though there was no escape from either.

LATER, GABE LAY IN BED trying desperately to turn off his brain.

Seth had seemed truly frightened about the Hunter’s next attack. In all the storytelling, Gabe had forgotten to mention how angry Felicia was, and after Seth’s warning to all of them, it felt like an especially selfish mistake.

A floorboard squeaked. Gabe opened his eyes and saw only darkness. But he knew he was not alone. He felt someone watching him. Gabe listened to the quiet, too frightened to move.

Wind whistled at the window. The wooden frame creaked. It sounded like the noise that had roused him. Maybe what he’d heard had been outside.

His imagination was getting the better of him. He let out a loud sigh, determined to put the fear away. He pulled his blanket up to his chin and closed his eyes again, hoping that this time, he’d get to sleep. A moment later, someone ripped the comforter away.

Gabe screamed. He didn’t even have time to grab at the blanket before it slipped over the foot of his bed. Scrambling up the mattress, he pressed himself against the headboard.

The shadows were a clotted blur. Silence coated the room. Dressed only in a T-shirt and shorts, Gabe shivered at the sudden cold. Seth’s tale flashed through his mind. David’s alleged statement blared like a siren.
The Hunter is real. And he wants us dead.

A guttural rumble came from somewhere near the end of the bed. Pins stabbed at Gabe’s cold skin. As the sound continued, growing louder, Gabe realized it was laughter. He’d heard it before, echoing from inside the Milton suit.

The floor squeaked again. The thing at the end of his bed was coming closer. Gabe couldn’t catch his breath to call out for his parents. He bit at his lip hard, hoping this was a nightmare from which he could awaken, but his mouth filled with the coppery taste of blood, and he knew this was no dream.

Panicked, he swung out at the shadows, but met only emptiness. He readied himself to leap out of bed and dash for the door. But he imagined black claws darting from hidden places, splitting both the fabric of his shirt and his thin skin underneath. He could only cover his mouth and hold his breath, hoping the monster was as blind as he was.

Then the muddled pattern of his quilt appeared, hovering beside his bed, as if held out, Gabe assumed, by the visitor. He fumbled for the nightstand lamp. Orange light blinded him momentarily. A blurred shape stood only a few feet away. It raised up the blanket. With his pupils dilated, Gabe hadn’t made out details, but he’d seen enough to realize that the shape didn’t seem distorted or monstrous. The shape had been Gabe’s height, with a slight frame. For a moment, he felt relief. “H-hello?” Gabe sputtered.

Then the intruder growled, tossing the blankets at Gabe’s head with such force, he almost fell off the opposite side of the bed. He scrambled to snatch the blanket away from his face, but the fabric was heavy. Tangled. He whined, expecting at any second to feel a chomp of razorlike teeth. But then the bedroom door opened and slammed shut with a resounding echo.

Gabe pulled off the quilt. He was alone. Footsteps came down the hall. The doorknob turned, and as the door began to open, he felt darkness seeping in from the edges of his vision.

“Gabriel?” It was his mother’s voice. “What’s going on in here?” By the time she’d stepped fully into his room, Gabe had fallen against the brass rail above his pillow, knocked his head hard, and, for the first time in his life, passed out.

“It was a nightmare,” said Glen, handing Gabe a glass of warm milk. Dolores sat beside him at the small table in the kitchen, rubbing his back. Elyse stood in the doorway, dressed in her silk robe, arms crossed over her chest, her face like stone. He’d woken everyone except Miri. “Sometimes dreams can feel real.”

Gabe nodded sheepishly, but only to appear agreeable. It hadn’t been a dream. How could he make his parents understand? Someone had been in his room. Someone had laughed at him. Someone who’d been no taller or broader than any of Gabe’s classmates. He could tell them that he’d accidentally raised some sort of dark entity from the woods. Then a different idea crept into Gabe’s mind: What if the visitor had been an ordinary boy? Seth had admitted earlier that evening that David had taught him how to pick the locks of Temple House.
No. It couldn’t be….

With a burning sensation in his stomach, Gabe sipped at the soothing milk, wondering if he should tell his parents about the Hopper brothers’ nighttime escapades, about the objects the two had stolen from his grandmother’s library. Surely, his parents would call the police. Would they arrest Seth this time? Lock him away? And what if they didn’t? If Seth was in fact still the problem, what might he try next? For half a second, Gabe actually thought,
Wait ’til Seth hears about this!
Immediately afterward, he realized he needed to talk to Mazzy as soon as possible.

Upstairs, he said good night to his parents again, assuring them that he’d be fine now, even though he felt anything but.

Passing his sister’s bedroom, he heard a noise just inside. He pressed his ear against the door. The noise came again—a
high, surprised squeal, followed by a ripple of Miri’s contagious laughter.

Yanking open the door, Gabe found Miri standing by herself, grasping the bars of the crib, her face illuminated softly from below by a
Sesame Street
nightlight. He’d half expected to confront a large shadowy figure standing over her crib, claws raised, mouth open a crack, noxious liquid drooling out onto the mattress. The baby glanced at Gabe, but went right back to staring at the nothingness that hung over her, as if she could see something that Gabe could not. She giggled again and pointed at the space above her as if to say,
Look, Gabriel! A visitor!