Free Tales from the Haunted Mansion Vol. 1: The Fearsome Foursome by Amicus Arcane

sensible plan.
    The girls formed a circle. It would be rock, paper, scissors to decide who the unlucky whacker would be. But Willa interrupted the round almost before it began. “Stop!” She took the skillet from Cassidy’s hand. “It has to be me. Chubs was my responsibility. I have to do it.” Now here’s the thing: the others loved Willa; they cared for her like a sister. But when it came to taking on an undead critter in the middle of the night…
Please allow us to unzip the tent for you on your way out.
    And that is exactly what happened. Willa took a deep breath. “I’ll try to draw him out. As soon as you hear me say the coast is clear, make a run for the house.” The girls nodded. Kayla unzipped the tent. Willa lifted the skillet and, with all nine and a half toes leading the charge, ventured off into the wilds of her yard.
    Zip-zap-zip!
The tent was zippered up in what had to be record time.
    Willa slowly made her way around the perimeter of the tent. She didn’t know what she would do if she ran into Chubs. But splattering his brains with the skillet was never really an option. Besides, she wouldn’t have to. He’d still be Chubs. Larger. Hungrier. His overall demeanor much more
Night of the Living Dead
ish, but he’d still be her little Chubsy-wubsy bear. She could reason with him. Offer him a s’more. If worse came to worst, the rest of her toe.
    “How you doing out there?” whispered Kayla from inside before the others shushed her.
    Willa couldn’t afford to give away her position, so she said nada. She was just about there. Her heart raced as she crept around a corner of the tent to see…
    three-pronged gardening claws shoved into the dirt. It was one of her mom’s tools. And next to that, Willa saw her dad’s shop light propped up on the lawn, a tiny cutout of a guinea pig taped to the bulb, making the oversize silhouette on the canvas wall.
    Willa was starting to get the picture. It was a prank, of course. It had to be. A zombie guinea pig wasn’t real. The very idea of it was nuts. About as nutty as a witch-bone.
    “You can come out now!” she announced to the others.
    “Did you whack it? I didn’t hear any
whackage
.”
    But there was nothing to whack. There was only—
    “GRRRRrrrrrrrr!”
    As soon as Willa let her guard down, a furry beast screeched out of the darkness, lunging for her neck! It was too big to be Chubs. But maybe the witch-bone made things bigger after it brought them back. The reason didn’t much matter. All that mattered were the vampire fangs about to tear a chunk out of Willa’s throat!
    She dropped to the ground and rolled, trying to shake loose the dead-alive thing. “Chubs, stop, it’s me!” Up close, Willa clearly saw the green glow of its pointy teeth and the syrupy goop matted to its brown fur.
Grrrrrrr!
And the sales tag attached to its ear.
    WHAT?
    Willa stopped struggling and sat up straight. Why on earth would an undead guinea pig need a bar code? Unless…
    In the same moment, she knew the thing in her hands wasn’t Chubs or any other such creature. It was a stuffed animal, refitted with plastic vampire fangs and fake blood. It had performed its attack by “flying” on a fishing line, an old special effects trick.
    The culprit was laughing behind a tree. It was Billy, holding a fishing pole, his tiny sound effect gizmo attached to the rod. He was smiling from ear to ear. “Got ya!”
    Willa vaulted to her feet. This time, he had gone too far. But not as far as Willa would go when she got hold of him. Billy would be dead. Deader than Chubs. “You little jerk! When I catch you…”
    But Billy looked more confused than afraid. “What? You didn’t think that was chill?”
    By then, the girls had marched out of the tent, forming a united front behind Willa. “No, I didn’t think it was
chill
. And I don’t think Dad will think it’s so chill when he finds out you were using his new fishing pole. And I don’t think Mom will think it’s