Hide & Seek

by Jakayla Toney

  The cards were handed out.

  Blank.

  Boy, was I tired. I hoped Abby got here real soon because this time, Tate gave me a real hard look.

  "Light's off. Begin!"

  Chapter 21: Mrs. Crawler

  I hid in the kitchen, the living room, and the laundry room, but someone was still following me. Every time I stepped forward, another step followed behind me. Somehow, I got the guts to look behind me. I faced a silhouette. It wasn't much bigger than me. The person stepped closer to me then grabbed my hand.

  It was Caleb. At least, I thought that it was. He started tugging on my hand, wanting me to follow him somewhere. I followed him. We walked upstairs to the second floor. I was afraid and also concerned. No one was walking around. I heard no other footsteps.

  We finally approached Caleb's room, where the moonlight from the moon exposed two dead bodies in front of me. Tate and my father. I turned to Caleb. He killed our father. Caleb then held up a screw driver and faced me. The screw driver dripped blood.

  "I found a dead body!" someone yelled from behind me.

  It was my mother.

  The lights came on. As I looked at Caleb, his sinister look made me realize something. If Violet's ashes mixed up and she became someone else, that meant that everyone here was not who they were supposed to be.

  ***

  Caleb was the murderer. He killed two people. It was time for the cards to be passed out again. Once again, I was the murderer. The lights went out. I stood in place while everyone scrambled around, but I kept my eyes on one person. Caleb.

  I followed him as he walked into the living room. He saw me walking behind him and didn't seem to care. We walked in circles in the living room until he hid behind a curtain. I approached him slowly, pulled back the curtain revealing no one other than Violet. Well, Violet's body.

  She smiled at me then crouched down on the floor. Her hand moved toward her mouth and she yanked the strings off.

  "Want to know how I died?" she asked through bleeding lips.

  Although I wanted to know, there was a countdown in my mind. Only eight seconds. Seven. Six. Five.

  I raised my axe in the air then apologized.

  "I didn't," she said before I struck her in her chest. Blood splash onto me.

  Before I moved away from the curtain, I saw a car pull in. Stepping out was Abby and her parents. Behind them were cops. They made it! I reached for my phone and called her. The phone rang and she answered but before I could answer, I was yanked onto the floor, but I grabbed the phone.

  "Calling during the game!? That's cheating. We're not done," Mr. Harmon said.

  He reached for the axe and raised it into the air. "Boy, did I really want you to win. Just so I could kill you and then you'd be mine forever to torture."

  "So the game was just bullshit? No one was going to win?" someone said, stepping into the room. It was Mrs. Harmon.

  He looked at her and smiled. "Of course not." He then turned to me. "It's just for fun."

  Suddenly the lights came on and in the room were others.

  The little girl from my dream.

  The girl who crawled on the walls was above Mr. Harmon.

  My mother.

  All of them looked so much scarier. Why were they turning like this? So sinister. Was Mr. Harmon making them this way?

  "I can't let you keep doing this," Mrs. Harmon said.

  Mr. Harmon laughed and dropped the axe. "So, this was your plan? Contact the cops, bring-" he pointed up "-them here. And what? Kill me?"

  "You can stop this. What are you trying to prove? You've done this for too long," Mrs. Harmon said.

  He laughed again. "Darling, don't act like you wasn't a part of this."

  "I had no choice," she said.

  "And what? You have one now?" he asked.

  "No. I don't," she said.

  Mr. Harmon moved out his hand to face her direction. "You're damn right."

  He then moved his hand upward, where it faced the girl on the ceiling. She fell to the floor then her body slid into Mrs. Harmon's. Their bodies stuck together and both of them shook rapidly. Sounds of agony formed deep in their throat. It sounded like a broken record playing backwards.

  The arms and legs on both their bodies started to stretch and their bodies formed into one. Once the trembling stopped, their bodies, now together, rose on all four legs: their arms attached to the legs and heads stuck together.

  "Lights off! Begin," Mr. Harmon said.

  Chapter 22: When Paintings Come to Life

  Once the lights were off, I ran upstairs. The thing on all four was after me but often crashed into stuff. By the time I was on the fourth floor, the thing was on the second, still crashing into things.

  I went into Mr. Harmon's art room. I turned on my phone's flashlight. Something was wrong. Violet, or the woman who was in Violet's body, wasn't killed by Mr. Harmon. It didn't make any sense.

  Downstairs, I heard the cops yelling and Abby calling after me. They weren't going to get in. Not unless I somehow stopped Mr. Harmon.

  I shined the light around the room and noticed something. Every single painting was different. There were paintings of Tate, Jasper, Violet, the crawling woman, Caroline, Caleb. Normal pictures of them. Then there were paintings of them... dead. A picture beside the window was of me. It was normal. As I was lifting it, another picture from behind fell. I picked it up.

  As I view the painting, my heart stopped. My body started to shake, and I wanted to collapse right then and there. The painting was a picture of a clown holding me, passed out in his left hand. And in the other hand was an actual beating heart.

  I put my hand to my heart to feel for a beat. This whole time, I thought my heart was beating when I was scared and it wasn't. There was no beat now. Only the beating of my heart on the picture. He already had me.

  I started looking around at every other painting.

  I saw a picture of Caleb with devil horns on his head. Another picture of Mrs. Harmon standing in fire. More paintings of the players in the fire, even Jasper. Mr. Harmon's painting was what was making them so sinister. This was his way of torturing them, of controlling them, and there was only one say to stop it.

  I had an idea. I slowly opened the front door and peeked out of it. My neck was grabbed forcefully. I couldn't see who it was but it ripped off its stitches and started yelling at me.

  "Don't leave me! Don't leave me!" it said in my mother's voice.

  I kicked her away and made my way toward the staircase. I fumbled down the stairs. Waiting for me on the third floor was Mrs. Harmon's new body. It hissed at me and made its way toward me. I did my best to avoid it, then made my way past it. It scrambled all around the stairway, but luckily, I got off that floor and headed down the second and first.

  I still heard Abby outside and the police trying to get in. I heard one of them even yell out that they were going to need backup.

  When I got inside the kitchen, I pulled out my phone and called Abby. I pulled out my stitches, and it hurt like hell for someone who was dead. I realized I would feel pain forever unless I stopped Mr. Harmon-which is what I planned to do.

  Abby answered. "Get away from the house. I'm so sorry," I told her.

  My lips trembled as I spoke. I turned off my phone. I turned on the stove up high and the microwave then picked up a lighter that was near the sink. I was sure Mrs. Harmon left it out for me. She knew it'd come to this.

  Using the lighter, I turned to the table and set it on fire, then the chairs and the cabinets.

  I ran out of the kitchen before I heard something behind me. When I looked, I saw a body crawling towards me. It was skinless and almost bald.

  Mr. Harmon was painting. Whenever the lights go off, he disappears. But where too? And why the hell did he draw this stuff?

  I ran out and headed upstairs with the lighter. Once on the third floor, I looked to my left and saw the girl in my dreams holding my axe.

  She walked closer to me an
d held the axe up high then struck something in front of me, something that I didn't see. The strike to Mrs. Harmon's head splattered black blood over my face. I quickly ran upstairs while the thing attacked the girl in my dreams and torn her limb from limb.

  Once on the fourth floor, I opened the art room once again and got the lighter ready. Sitting at the desk was Mr. Harmon. He had a long piece of paper in front of him and was sketching rapidly.

  He started to talk fast. "How do you feel about a shadow man? I'm more into vampires and skeletons but let's switch things up a bit."

  His body changed into a gigantic shadow with two bright eyes reaching for me.

  "As for you, since you're so smart, I thought you'd like a challenge," he said, his voice airy and deep.

  He showed me a picture of myself with the clown. Something was attached to my eye in the painting. Mr. Harmon showed me a mirror and after one look at myself, I knew this was going to be very painful if I didn't stop him soon.

  Mr. Harmon didn't just paint. He was painting a story. A sick story. Only I didn't know how it was going to end.

  Chapter 23: Abby

  There were two explosions down stairs. As much as I wanted to escape this hell hole, I couldn't. I was trapped until someone came to rescue me. So that's what I waited for.

  Mr. Harmon stared at me. I kept my eyes open as long as I could. He smiled.

  "What do you want from me?" I asked. My eyes were watering now and I couldn't keep them open much longer. I blinked. My eyelids went over the needles so smoothly, and I felt the pain as I slowly lifted my eyelids up. Blood started to drip down my face. "What's the whole point of this?"

  His shadow body formed into his regular body. "So my art work can live," he said, reaching for a book on the book shelf. "Ever heard of a book called Beyond the Beyond?"

  I kept silent.

  He opened the book, turning through the pages. "Imagine," he started, "a book that unlocks the dark mysterious of the world. That unlocks so much power."

  It wasn't making any sense to me. "That doesn't make any sense to me!" I yelled mostly from the pain I endured with my eyes.

  He chuckled. "People like me don't have to make sense."

  By people like him, he clearly meant psychos.

  "Emily, sometimes power comes with a price. Sometimes ,we can't pay that price, so we make sacrifices," he continued.

  I groaned from the pain of blinking. The pain just got worse and worse.

  "When I found this book, I didn't imagine I'd have to sacrifice my father. He was the first. Bless him. His heart and soul went to the book exchange for power. Great power. I could talk to the dead. I took it a step farther. I sacrificed my mother and was able to shape shift. It wasn't really about the art, Emily. I wanted you guys to join me in my incredible world."

  "You left your own daughter in your parent's house. You didn't want anyone to join you," I said.

  "She chose not to," he said.

  "Seems like a lot of people chose not to," I said.

  "Try to understand that I'm doing what's best for everyone. Don't you understand that we don't have to live to live? Get me?" he asked.

  "The paintings? Hide and Seek? What's the point?" I asked.

  "So I never forget those who have given me the power of the beyond. More like honoring them." He laughed. "In some way."

  "A sick way," I said.

  "And the hide and seek wasn't my idea. I had a little help with that." He pointed behind the curtain and the little girl from my dreams revealed her face, only this time, she looked very familiar to me.

  She started to grow to my size and her features began to change. She looked at the ground at first. She slowly smiled as she gazed ever so happily at me. There's no way the girl with the slashes and gashes on her body was Abby. It couldn't be.

  Abby nodded her head. "Why aren't you bragging about how good you are at hide and seek now?" she asked with a sinister smile.

  Chapter 24: Decision

  Abby faced Mr. Harmon. "I brought my dad, my mom, and a few cops. They're all dead a ready to be sacrificed."

  "Good job, dear," Mr. Harmon praised.

  "Will I get powers like you now? Making paint come to life! That's so epic," she said.

  "Of course," he said.

  "Abby what are you doing? You were supposed to help me!" I yelled.

  "Oh, yeah. I never mentioned the real reason you stopped hanging out with Violet years ago," Abby said. "Mr. Harmon got my mom pregnant. She didn't know that she was pregnant by him. He kidnapped me and my mother found out but didn't press charges. My mom told your mom, but that's before we met. What my mother didn't know is that I gave my soul to the beyond."

  "That's right. She was my first and she sacrificed her life to be with daddy," she said.

  "Too bad Violet was too much of a wimp," Abby said.

  "Don't call people names." He waved a finger. "Even though, it's true."

  "What? Then how come you look so young?" I asked him. Everything was still confusing.

  "The book gave him that," Abby said. "The book gave us so much, don't you see that Emily? I could live among the dead and do so much more. I mean, not as much as Dad." She rolled her eyes.

  "So, that's what this is about? After everything, you think I'd just join you?" I asked, looking at Mr. Harmon. "Join? Then what?"

  Abby stepped in front of him. "You don't have to do it for him, just for me. At first, I was a bit mad that you thought you were better than me at hide and seek then. It was about revenge really. I thought-" she placed her hand on the needles on my eyes then they fell off. I blinked normally about a hundred times "-you could join me; imagine the people we can bring here. Imagine the power! Imagine what's beyond! There's so much more than just to live." She pointed to her father. "It's right in that book."

  Suddenly the room was full of the 15 players who played hide and seek along with the cops, and Abby's parents. My parents, Caleb, Jasper, Violet, all of them. I looked at every single one of them.

  "You have a choice, Emily. Be like us! Be like us and let's rescue humanity and show them what living truly is," Abby said.

  Mr. Harmon nodded. "Maybe this seems like a horror story, Emily. But horror stories can have happy endings."

  The flames got closer to us. So close, I could feel the heat. Mr. Harmon was right. Not all horror stories end badly. They don't have to.

  "What happens to those who don't join you?" I asked. "I'm just curious."

  "Of course you are," Abby said. "They become the real monsters. The book doesn't like those who deny the offer. Those who don't commit to their sacrifice, suffer! Forever."

  "You can convince all of them to join us." Mr. Harmon said. "They'll listen to you. You could be with your parents forever!"

  There was another explosion. This time, the walls in front and behind us blew off. We watched as the house burned, flames reaching toward us next.

  "Emily, you can have your happy ending. Don't let your story end in horror. Pledge your loyalty to the book and you can be just like us." He stood beside me with his hand on my shoulder. The flames were so close to us. Abby walked up to my other side and placed her hand on my shoulder.

  Be like them and guide people to their doom. I couldn't believe that I was about to make my upcoming decision. I mean, they were right. Horror stories don't have to end badly.

  Chapter 25: Savior

  I could see Mrs. Harmon shaking her head from the side as I thought. I couldn't trust her. She called Abby here in the first place.

  I placed my hand around Mr. Harmon. He looked down at me and smile. We looked at each other, his hand on my shoulder, his other hand holding the book. I smiled at the both of them and reached for the book. I felt the book. It was so alive. I felt the weight of power it held. So much... power.

  I held the book and nodded to it. "I pledge my loyalty." I then ran forward and jumped off the remaining part of the floor. I heard Mr. Harmon and Abby screaming, 'no!'

  The book opened and
closed as I fell. When I hit the floor, it was like it came to life and tried to escape the tight grip I had on it. I heard so many screams, so many moans, even some sounds I'd never heard before in my life. I held on as tight as I could as the flames surrounded us. The book began to catch fire and the screams got louder by the second.