Free The Haunting of Gabriel Ashe by Dan Poblocki

will come for you….
    Gabe was about to call out for Malcolm, when laughter echoed just on the other side of the door. “Gabe?” spoke a female voice. “Was that you? I’m sorry!”
    A warm sensation flooded his face. Standing on the stoop, Felicia and Ingrid smiled. Mazzy was beside them, watching him guiltily.
    A hand fell on his shoulder, and Gabe turned to find Malcolm winking at him.
    “Surprise!” they all said at once.

“WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING HERE?” Gabe asked, confused.
    “We were feeling left out,” said Felicia, stepping past him into the foyer. “So we asked Ingrid’s older sister to drop us off.”
    “You don’t mind,” said Ingrid, following Felicia into the house, “do you?”
    “Hi, Gabe,” said Mazzy, smiling sheepishly. “They talked me into it,” she added quietly so no one else could hear. Gabe sighed, then stepped aside, allowing her to pass as well. His parents would not be happy about this.
    Malcolm led the group back toward the living room. “Keep your voices down,” he said. “We just got his little sister to fall asleep.”
    “In a mansion this big,” said Felicia, glancing through doorways along the way, “do we really need to worry about that? She’s probably in another wing! Am I right, Gabe?”
    Gabe shrugged. “She’s just upstairs,” he said, trying to downplay the grandiosity of the house.
    Felicia paused in the living room doorway, waiting for the rest of them to catch up. “You don’t seem very happy that we came.”
    “Oh,” said Gabe. “N-no. I’m really happy. I just…didn’t expect it. Me and Malcolm already ate all the pizza.”
    “We don’t care about pizza,” said Ingrid. “We just wanted to see your cool house.”
    “And you ,” said Mazzy, throwing a warning look at the other girls. “We wanted to see you too, Gabe.”
    Gabe couldn’t help but smile.
    “What about me?” Malcolm asked, looking hurt. “Didn’t you want to see me?”
    “Get over yourself, Malc,” Felicia said, chuckling. She headed toward the sound of hungry zombies and plopped herself down on the wide leather couch. “So…what are we watching?”

    After the movie ended, they were all giddy with fright. In the basement, the ancient boiler clicked on, and the house seemed to shudder. The group huddled closer together on the couch. Gabe and Mazzy bumped knees. He quickly fumbled to move away. Despite feeling guilty for having them here without permission, Gabe was glad that they’d come.
    Felicia stood. “Okay, Gabe. Time for a tour.”
    “A tour of what?” Gabe asked, happy for a distraction.
    “Dummy!” said Ingrid. “We want to see your house. Every nook and cranny.”
    “Oh,” said Gabe, rising and brushing himself off. This was the second time Ingrid had brought up the house. Doubt flickered briefly through his mind. Was this the reason they’d wanted to be friends with him in the first place? To see where his famous grandmother lived? To take a peek inside?
    “Okay,” he said, swallowing the lump that had risen in his throat. His father’s puppets were upstairs, off-limits. “But—but be quiet. I don’t wanna wake up Miri.”
    They started in his grandmother’s library. The group was mesmerized by the strange treasures that filled the bookshelves. Malcolm pawed at Nathaniel Olmstead’s books, the ones that Elyse had drawn covers for. “Oh my gosh, I love these!” he said. Felicia and Ingrid squealed at some of the more grotesque specimens on the shelves: luminescent beetles framed in shadow boxes,a baby doll made of cracked leather, a taxidermy snake half-coiled in mid-spring, with jaws wide open.
    Mazzy, however, stood at the window that overlooked the backyard and the woods beyond. “See something?” Gabe asked, stepping beside her. Looking out at the darkness, he remembered the figure he’d seen out there a couple months earlier.
    The Hunter will come for you….
    Mazzy shook her head. “I thought so, but no. Just the darkness