Short Stories

Hide and Seek

"Fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty!"

Hide and Seek was a favourite with the kids. Two weeks of non-stop rain meant mud, mud and more mud. Meg already knew where the kids were. They always used the same hiding place. And the twins liked to hide together, she found. Since she had adopted the children almost three weeks earlier, Meg had noticed their confidence had boosted dramatically. She had managed it with lots of praise, love and games. Mostly, she thought, hide and seek.

"Where could they be?" Meg said convincingly as the twins giggled from somewhere on the second floor. She climbed the stairs slowly, hoping to build the suspense for the children. She walked down the hall and peeked into their room. "I will never be able to find them," Meg said as she dropped to the floor and pulled back the sheets, looking at the dusty space under the bed, making a note to get the hoover up here. 

"Maybe not," she said, getting up off the floor, dusting her knees off and going over to the wardrobe. "How about... Here!" Meg swung open the heavy wooden doors, speaking only to the empty interior of the large wardrobe. They're making me work for it this time, she thought. She wondered where the children could be, thinking of all the places in the house big enough for two five-year-olds to hide. "There can't be that many," Meg mumbled, thinking out loud. She knew they would be too afraid to go down to the basement without her, but she made a mental note to check down there if she had exhausted all of her other options. 

As Meg came back up the wooden stairs from the basement, she began to get worried. Where could they be? She went and checked the front and back doors. Both were locked. A giggle sounded from somewhere on the second floor. 

"Come out now, kids. I give up. You've won." Meg waited, listening for the footsteps of her children running down the stairs. All she heard was the giggles of the young twins, this time sounding as though they were coming from the kitchen. funny, she thought, I hadn't heard them come down. Checking behind the door as she walked into the kitchen, she looked around for the children, checking all the lower cabinets. They weren't there. 

Meg looked for the children in every room in the house, in every available space - even those she knew  were too small - for a second time. They were nowhere to be found. She couldn't hear them moving or giggling either. "Andrew, you and your sister come out now, please." Meg leaned against the wall and listened. She heard nothing from either child. 

Suddenly, she heard the heavy footsteps of the children running across the landing upstairs. Meg ran up the stairs two at a time, hoping to find the twins at either end of the landing. She reached the top step and stopped, breathing heavily. Looking down to one end, and then the other, near the children's bedroom, she wondered how they could be so fast. 

"Alicia, Andrew, if you come out now, I'll make you some hot chocolate." Mischievous giggles came from downstairs. She turned around. The front door slammed back against the wall. Meg ran back downstairs, and down the hall to the open front door. She was sure she had locked the front door, and checked it again to make sure it was locked. She had locked it, hadn't she? Meg stood on the porch, looking around for the children. 

"Andrew! Alicia!" Meg shouted through the sheets of rain in desperation. She waited, looking around the large garden at the swing set and slide, neither of which were being used. The children's giggles came from the shed. Meg ran through the mud and rain to the shed. The doors were locked. She looked through the murky windows into the darkness of the shed. Checking the back of the shed, in case there was a gap big enough for the children, she stopped and looked around the garden one last time. Nothing moved. 

Meg ran back into the house, trailing muddy footprints down the hall, and searched for her mobile phone. It was in the study, under sheets of paper, now littered across the furniture and the floor of the small room.

Just five minutes after she had ended the call to the police, there was a knock at the door. It was still wide open, and a police officer poked his head around as Meg came out of the kitchen. 

"My children are missing. I can't find them anywhere." 

Meg felt like one hundred officers passed through her house in the next ten minutes. They searched the house and garden themselves, and then informed her they were widening the search to the surrounding houses and streets. There was nothing she could do, and Meg felt useless. Three weeks I've had these children, she thought, and I've already lost them. 

One of the officers who stayed at the house suggested she call the children's home she had adopted the twins from, to ask if they have any information that would help. She frantically scrolled through the list of contacts she had acquired over the years. She finally came to the number for the children's home and dialled the number, waiting for somebody to answer.

Meg had a lengthy conversation with a woman working at the children's home, hoping to find out if the twins often did this, and if there is anywhere they would have went. She was put on hold for, she thought, way too long. 

Meg paced the house searching everywhere for what seemed like the millionth time, and becoming increasingly frustrated with the woman on the other end of the phone. She couldn't find any record of the twins ever living at the home, never mind Meg adopting them. 

It had been four days since Meg had last seen her children. Father Joseph had visited to show support, which Meg was grateful for. She had been to church every Sunday as far back as she can remember, before she had her children. She wanted to give them some time to become adjusted to living with her before taking them to church. 

Meg showed Father Joseph a photo of her children. The colour from his face drained as he realised something. He stood up abruptly and made to leave. Meg was confused, and asked if he was okay.

"I've seen these children before. Thirty years ago. I exorcised a young couple's house after they started causing serious trouble. You should be glad they're gone, and hope they don't come back."