Hide and Seek

by Jack Ketchum

  Steve came back into the room with beers for all of us. Kim chugged hers greedily.

  > *

  "I'm going to need another of these before we get started." Steven belched. "Just remember there's no indoor plumbing. You'll have to use the outhouse." "Thanks, I'll use the lawn."

  Once we start, the woods and the lawn will be out of bounds,

  She refused the beer Steve offered her. I took mine and popped the tab. She was staring at me. I knew what she wanted. "Okay, okay," I told her.

  I reached into the bag.

  The first tug told me it was too light. I pulled it out all the way.

  About one foot long. I let it dangle. Casey reached for the last one.

  Four feet, like the others.

  "Dan's it."

  I made myself look glum. "Sure. Screw the local kid."

  "I'll take that beer now," said Casey.

  Steve handed it to her and she shook it and then popped the tab. Suds went flying all across the hall. Plenty of it landed on Kim's yellow blouse just above the line of overalls.

  "Shit! What do you want him to do, smell me out?"

  "Sorry"

  "Jeez Case!"

  "You get good ideas, and you get bad ones. Sorry."

  She wasn't really angry, though. We sat quietly sipping our drinks.

  Kim finished hers quickly and went to the kitchen for another. She returned and said, "Hey, lights out. Remember the rules, huh?"

  Steven didn't like it. "We can't even finish our beers?"

  "A little."

  "One problem," I said. "You haven't given me the ropes yet."

  "And I haven't finished my damn beer."

  "Okay," said Casey. "Lights on again."

  She set her flashlight down on the floor with the beam running across it into the kitchen and dug into the book bag. She pulled out another four-foot length of rope. Steve handed me his and Kim gave me hers. I looped them all together and loosened my belt a couple of notches and pushed them through the belt in front so they wouldn't get snagged in the dark.

  ACKKETCHUM

  "Who gets the flashlights?"

  Casey thought about it. "I guess we can leave them here on the table with the beer and stuff. That's the best way to make sure nobody cheats and uses one."

  "You take "em," said Kim. "Put them in the book bag. We trust you. I might be tempted to steal one."

  "I'm not sure trust me."p>

  Steven shrugged. "It's your game, Case. You willing to cheat yourself?"

  "I guess not."

  "Then take them. I finished my beer, by the way."

  "Lights out, then." They were all ready to go. I could have used another drink.

  Casey turned the world dark again.

  I felt her hand thrust its fingers between mine, twining them, exerting a gentle pressure. Her body shifted next to me, and I put my arm around her waist. She turned and there we were for a moment, necking in the dark.

  The first kiss was warm and sweet, the second more playful. She nipped at my bottom lip and I could feel her own lips turn into a smile.

  "Good luck

  "Good luck to you, sport."

  "You really think it's crazy?"

  "No more than usual."

  "I like you Clan Thomas. Even if you do have two first names."

  "Fond of you too, Case."

  Kim whispered, "You ready?"

  I took a deep breath, inhaling Casey's scent as she moved away from me.

  Fora moment the three of them shifted in a pack, a human shell game.

  There were ropes dangling against my leg. It was batty. I closed my eyes.

  "Ready."

  I started counting.

  I listened to the footsteps clatter on the hardwood floor. Someone went upstairs. Maybe two people did, or one person moving double-time to confuse me. I couldn't be sure. Somebody

  moved softly into the kitchen. And I remembered from my childhood how hard it was to follow the sound of footfalls through the drone of your own voice counting, echoing inside you.

  Twenty-nine. Thirty.

  All at once I had the maddening urge to giggle. I resisted it.

  Forty. Forty-one.

  I felt a tightening in my bladder that wasn't entirely beer.

  Upstairs I heard shifting, scraping.

  I remembered the softness of the kiss, the playful biting.

  I kept counting.

  ' I

  SEVOfTF

  The darkness went molecular on me, filled with spots of light.

  I squinted my eyes shut. They wanted to open. My face muscles wouldn't let them. A dim widening amber color began to burn at the core of my vision.

  I was a whole lot better at this, I thought, as a kid.

  I was leaning on the windowpane, dizzy as a fresh-water sailor.

  "Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred."

  I opened my eyes.

  I was wildly out of focus, blinking out toward the high grass and trees. And then I did focus.

  Out there in the grass, something blinked back at me.

  I jumped.

  It was as though I'd been leaning on a hot plate Neck, arms, back and shoulders jerked back involuntarily. My arms slammed shut like traps.

  My mouth made a little wet popping sound as the jaw dropped open.

  It was unexpected as a cobra in the upstairs bathroom. The brain takes a clout from the nervous system. And it's a moment before you start working again, before the gears mesh, and you can see what you saw.

  I looked again.

  Two eyes, not twenty feet away. Unmistakable. Shifting and glowing in the moonlight.

  I saw them clearly for a moment, and then they dropped away, lower into the dense grass, and disappeared. I kept watching. Seconds later I saw a line of movement through the grass and followed it for about ten feet or so before that disappeared too. It was moving in the direction of the trees. Roughly, toward the car.

  Whatever it was, I knew it wasn't human. The eyes had been too small and spaced too closely together.

  So what was it, then? Raccoon? Possum?

  Dog?

  Please, no dogs, I thought.

  A pussycat would be nice.

  It was gone, though. And I had this damn fool game to play. I decided tentatively on raccoon. Then I realized I'd forgotten something.

  "Coming!" I yelled. "Here I come."

  I omitted the traditional "ready or not." You could only go so far.

  I reviewed what little I'd heard. One or maybe two of them were upstairs. One had gone into the kitchen. Off the kitchen there was a back door and the door to the cellar, so whoever had gone that way could have used either one of them. I did not relish exploring either the cellar or the woodshed without benefit of flashlight, so I hoped whoever had gone that way would feel the same. If it was Casey, I was probably in trouble. But I decided to leave that possibility for last.

  I had to go slowly. Halfway up it got very dark, then brighter as I approached the landing. There was a window in the door leading out to the widow's walk, and a beam of moonlight shining through. It was the only illumination.

  Where to hide?

  I knew where I'd go.

  I'd take the widow's walk.

  Not because it was a particularly good place to hide it wasn't but because it was nice out there. The most accommodating place the house had to offer. So, if I wasn't too heavily into the game in the first place, at least I'd have a good easy spot to sit it out.

  I'll wondered if any of the others would think that way.

  Sure. Steven would.

  '

  He was sitting just outside the door, sipping a beer. He glanced at me and smiled.

  "Have some?"

  I squatted down beside him. "Don't mind if I do."

  "Nice and easy, right?"

  "Very easy." I tasted the beer. It was half-empty.

  "Good."

  "I didn't think you were into this much."

  "Well, the idea's better
in principle than it is in execution. Who wants to spend half an hour under a dusty old bed or something?"

  "Casey might."

  He snorted. "Casey would.

  He looked up at the sky. "This is not bad, though."

  "Not at all." I handed him back the beer. "I'm supposed to tie

  y U ""Yeah."

  "It feels ... pretty dumb."

  "Of course it does. How did you think it was going to feel? Hell, Clan , you're all grown-up now."

  "Yeah."

  "You'd better do it, though." He sighed. "Who knows. Maybe the girls are really getting a kick out of this. Maybe they like dust." He looked up at the sky again. "It shouldn't be too bad out here."

  "Or too nervous-making." He slugged down the rest of the beer and glanced back over his shoulder. "Everything's strange back down that way."

  There was no point in telling him what I'd seen on the lawn. No sense worrying the guy. No animal was going to bother him out here unless it sprouted wings.

  I took two of the nylon cords off my belt and he pressed his wrists together obligingly. I ran two loops around them and two between them and knotted it off. Then I tied his feet together just above the ankles. If he wanted to, I guessed he'd be able to untie his legs easily enough. I didn't care. With a little luck it would be over soon anyhow.

  IDE AND SEEK

  "Not too tight, is it?"

  "No, it's fine. Do me a favor, though?"

  "What's that."

  "Play this smart, Clan. If you find everybody as fast as you found me it's going to be over in five minutes-and you know Casey. She'll want another round. So if it looks that easy, play it a little stupid, will you?" I nodded. "I'll give you a hint, though. Kim's up here somewhere."

  "Any ideas?"

  "Not really. I just heard her follow me up the stairs. I think she got rid of her shoes on the landing, because then I couldn't hear her

  anymore." <
  "Don't mention it. And I mean that literally. Kim would kill me."

  "Don't worry."

  "Casey too."

  "Jesus, Steve."

  "Okay, okay."

  I walked out and closed the door behind me. First I tried the empty room, though I didn't think that very likely. Steve would have heard her if she'd come that far. Besides, there was nowhere to go but the closet.

  I was right. It was empty.

  I walked down the hall, my footsteps sounding very big to me. For once my habits paid off. I was staring down ahead of me. And there were her sneakers right by the landing, off to one side. I'd walked right by them before while my eyes were adjusting to the light. I picked them up. So she was barefoot now.

  I heard two sets of sounds just then. One set came from below, from the first floor or the cellar. A voice. And then something metallic, like something falling. Casey. Probably stumbling over something or other.

  The other sound was nearer. A scuffling in the master bedroom. It could have been Kim, and then again it could have been mice. I opened the door quietly and looked inside.

  Something was different.

  I couldn't figure what at first, but something. I listened. The sounds had stopped.

  With windows to the front and back the light was pretty good here. I walked in. I still couldn't figure what it was that bothered me about the room. I walked over to the box spring and looked behind the frame, even though you couldn't have hidden a bag of groceries back there. I was looking for what bothered me.

  Then I saw it. The ceramic table lamp, sitting on the floor. It had a shade now. Some droopy kind of thing. There had been no shade

  Kim's beer-stained blouse.

  I think I smelled it before I recognized it. I lifted it off the works. Very cute, Kim, I thought. I bet you look just dandy in your overalls.

  I walked to the closet and opened the door, fully expecting to see her crouching there. There was a scuttling in the darkness near the floorboards. Just the mouse again, only this time he'd brought a friend. They froze, waiting for me to do something.

  I did.

  I took Kim's overalls off the wire hanger.

  I couldn't help laughing. Somewhere there was a naked woman running around in socks and panties. Leaving me a trail to follow. It

  seemed that Kim was making up her own game. ,. ^.... Meantime I was piling up quite a wardrobe.

  I shut the door and left the mice to whatever they were up to in there, and walked out into the hall. There was only one room left, so that had to be it. If Steven was right about her being upstairs, this was where I'd find her.

  A pair of socks were draped over the inside doorknob. I added them to my collection.

  "Okay, Kim," I said.

  I listened. Heard nothing.

  There were a number of options. The closet, obviously. Under or behind the night table. Under the bed. Under the bunched up throw rug.

  The rug looked just as it did before. I lifted it anyway and was glad I did.

  In the moonlight Kim's panties looked to be a very light shade of blue.

  I listened again. The room was silent. I walked to the closet and flung open the door. Wire hangers rattled at me like budget wind chimes.

  I closed it again. I got on my hands and knees and peered under the bed. That was empty too, except for thick gray waves of dust. There was nobody under the dresser and no way to fit in behind it. So where the hell was she?

  There was nothing left in the room.

  Steven's either wrong or she got by me, I thought. Damn.

  I heard a rattling sound behind me. The distance was odd. It sounded muted, like it was here in the room with me but not here, exactly. A shadow fell across me. I whirled around.

  It was the second time I'd jumped tonight. And much worse than the first one. Much worse.

  She was framed in the corner of the window from the waist up, at an angle, right shoulder low and right arm dangling limp at her side. She seemed to sway, brushed by the wind. Her head lolled off to the right, thrown slightly back. Her mouth was open and her eyes stared blankly into the room.

  The stocking cut deep into the flesh of her neck. It ran taut behind her head to some point out of sight.

  I felt a jolt inside me that was somewhere between adrenaline and heart attack. Then suddenly I was at the window, flinging it up and open.

  I reached for her, touched cool flesh.

  She smiled.

  "Gotcha," she said.

  I looked down. She was standing on top of the woodshed. On tiptoe.

  The end of the stocking was in her left hand. Both the outstretched arm and the end of the stocking had been out of my line of vision. She laughed and let the stocking fall, twirled it like a scarf, bumped at me like a stripper.

  I could easily have wrung her neck.

  '

  I settled for verbal abuse. It got pretty creative. All she did was laugh. It was slightly hysterical sounding. I think she'd half scared herself out there-it was that kind of laughter. Finally I ran out of things to call her so I helped her back inside.

  "I ought to leave you out there, you know that?"

  "Poor Clan."

  ^B

  "I ought to tie you up and leave you there."

  "You wouldn't do that. It's chilly."

  I looked at her breasts. The nipples were tightly puckered. "I can see that. I suppose you'll want your clothes back too."

  "Please?"

  "Why not."

  I handed them over. All except the panties. "These I'm keeping

  I watched her dress. In the moonlight it was an extremely pretty body.

  "You scared the shit out of me," I told her. By now, though, I could say it calmly.

  "Sorry."

  "Sorry my ass. You loved it."

  "I did."

  "How do you feel about bondage?"

  "I love bondage!"