Hide

“Hide,” My mother told four-year-old me sternly. “Hide, and I’ll find you.” I giggled and ran into the house to find a hiding place as my mother began counting. I hid under the coffee table, trying to stay perfectly still as she announced, “Ready or not, here I come!” I heard her footsteps approach softly, and she stooped under the table with one swift motion to come eye-to-eye with me. I didn’t know how, but she always knew exactly where I hid.

    A few years passed, and I got better at hide and seek. The rules… changed as well:

1.     Hide well

2.     Under no circumstances give up your hiding place.

As a seven-year-old, I was resourceful. I found out how to climb and hide well. I placed my back against the wall of my closet, shut the door, and pinned my feet against the door so that I could climb up to the top shelf and tuck myself behind blankets.

She’ll never find me. I thought to myself smugly. I heard rustling on the other side of the door, which told me she was in my room. I laid perfectly still. I heard my bedroom door shift; I wondered if she left my room. I wiggled slowly so that I wouldn’t make a sound to see if I could see any movement through the spacing of the door brackets. A small amount of light passed through. I didn’t see any movement or light fluttering, making me believe I was in the clear.

I went to lay back under the spare blankets when something tickled my nose. I couldn’t hold it in. I tried to muffle the sound by burying my face in the blanket as the sneeze erupted from my sinuses. In the blink of an eye, the door flew open. My mother stood there looking wild and angry.

“Why would you give away your hiding place?” She glared at me.

“I didn’t mean to,” Tears formed in my eyes from seeing her disappointment in me, “I couldn’t stop it…”

“Get down. Do it again.”

The years went on well into my teens, and we still played the “game,” though I wondered why we still played. I’m now seventeen, just starting my senior year in high school- and doing my best to stay away from home as long as possible. I mentioned to her last week while we were in the kitchen that she should consider therapy, which earned a very angry remark from her. But as I left, I could have sworn she whispered out the window, “Because he’s coming.” I asked her who she was talking about, and she waved me off, saying I misunderstood her, and went back to the dishes. I tried to run away a few times, but like her game, she always found me.

I sighed as I walked home. The sky was grey, with rain clouds rolling over, but I wasn’t far. I reached my house in a matter of minutes and walked through the front door. My mother was rummaging through drawers like she was ransacking the place until her head popped up, and her eyes met mine.

“Hide.”

“Do we have to do this n-“ I started.

“NOW!” she roared, her tone almost feral and desperate, making me jump back, “He’s coming. No matter what happens, do not let him find you!”

“Who is coming?” I said as my voice raised an octave.

“Your father.” My jaw dropped as shock overcame me. She never mentioned my father. The only piece of information she allowed me was, “He is out of our lives now, and that’s what matters,” but now…

“Why now?” I asked.

“No questions. Do not come out for any sound, whatever you hear… no matter what I say. Now hide.” I quickly turned and went toward the hall that led to the kitchen and the hallway to my room. I had no idea where I was going to hide, so I paused in the kitchen entry and peered over to the basement door.

It was ajar.

The basement door had never been unlocked before. I quickly decided to head down there. I grabbed my phone from my jeans pocket and flipped the flashlight on, descending the stairs as quietly as possible. I had thought over the years my father must have been a scary, abusive person to make my mother go hiding like she did. This must have been the reason for the ridiculous hide-and-seek games. I peered around the dark basement. It was damp and hot even though it was fifty degrees outside. The room was packed with boxes. I walked over to a few and peered inside. Lots were old clothes that smelled dirty and rancid. It's almost like there was a flood down here, and the clothes were never washed after. I peered into another box but stopped. I heard footsteps above my head in the living room. I paused for a moment before a loud boom sounded overhead, making the ceiling shake, and I ran to the next set of boxes, coming upon an empty one. I dove in and flipped it around me, so the opening was at my feet, and the top looked sealed.

I heard voices screaming, and then a fight must have broken out. The furniture's tumble and glass-breaking sounds sent a cold chill over me. Was he here to kill us? After a few moments of listening to the fight, there was silence- and then the sound of a gun popped through the air four times. I shrank myself, trying to become as small as possible. Heavy footsteps walked across the floor; I heard something heavy dragging along behind them.

The door to the basement suddenly opened, and I put a hand over my mouth and nose to keep from making any sounds. I carefully peeped out of the handle of the box just as a large object came barreling down the steps with a sickening thud at the bottom. I tightly shut my eyes as slow footsteps followed after it.

“You shouldn’t have come,” my mother said in a wild, sing-songy voice. My eyes popped open. She's alive! So, my father must be-

“Oh, sweet child of mine?” She yodeled up the stairs. Her presence was all wrong. She gave off an aura that resembled that of a mad beast than my mother. The light from the kitchen illuminated her body. She was covered in crimson, her eyes wide and wild, and she was… smiling. She was enjoying this.

“Come out, my darling,” She crooned. And I remembered what she said, “No matter what I say.” I pinched my lips together as I watched her. She lifted her head in the air and sniffed. Her head cocked to the side as she looked over at the boxes and grinned. She strode over, merely feet from me, and thrust her hand into the box beside me with the smelly clothes. She seemed to dig around before standing back to admire a doll. She hugged the doll to her chest and returned up the stairs, humming an old lullaby.

What the heck do I do now? There was no way out except up those stairs.

The box was cramped, barely big enough to fit my trembling body, and the air inside was suffocatingly still. My pulse thudded in my ears as I crouched, knees pulled tightly to my chest, hidden among the forgotten clutter of the basement. The dim light from the kitchen door cast eerie shadows over the room, flickering as though it, too, was afraid.

At the foot of the stairs lay the body. I couldn’t bear to look, but the sickening thud from earlier still echoed in my mind. The familiar figure crumpled and still had been too much to process. But it wasn’t my mother who had fallen. No, my mother was still upstairs—my mother, who wasn’t acting like herself.

I could hear her moving through the house with slow, deliberate footsteps. The sounds were too mechanical, too… cold. It was as though my mother had been replaced by something else, something wearing her face, her voice.

“I know you’re down here,” my mother’s voice called, but it was wrong—too sweet, too calm.

I pinched my lips tightly together and covered my mouth, stifling the ragged breaths that threatened to give me away. My heart hammered in my chest as I strained to hear the shuffling above.

The top basement step creaked.

Heavy, unnatural footsteps descended the stairs, one by one. Thud. Thud. Thud.

My mother—or whatever had taken her place—was searching for me, and it was only a matter of time before I was found.

“Come out, come out, sweetheart. The game is done.” She swiftly swatted at a box on the far end of the basement in one swift motion. It sounded like a knife went through.

“I told you not to wear that lotion,” she jeered. I can smeeeell you!”

I clenched my hands into tight fists, unsure of how this would play out. Her footsteps grew closer.

Closer.

Closer.

She stood in front of my box now, and I caught a glimpse of her hands. She wasn’t holding a knife; she was the knife. Her nails extended like long daggers from her fingertips, thick, brown, and curved like a raptor claw. I braced myself to run as she kicked the box just above my head. I sprang from my hiding place and bolted for the stares, but I slipped on a pool of crimson on the floor and fell. I tried to scramble to my feet, but she was already there. Her shin collided with my side, knocking me a few feet to my right. I used my feet to push myself further from her while I held my side until my back touched something warm and lifeless: the body. I nearly screamed, but it was caught in my chest as I fumbled and tried to make any sound.

“Mom,” I begged.

“mom, mom, mom.” She clapped her hands in glee. “This is your fault. You didn’t follow the rules.” She lifted her hand, preparing to lash out at me, when two bullets rang through the room. The sound echoed loudly off the bricks, making me flinch and cover my ears. I looked up and watched in slow motion as my mother fell to the ground with two marks on her forehead. I looked up to see two figures in black attire quickly march down the stairs. The younger one checks for the man's pulse on the floor, and the other appears in front of me, checking me over. He froze and peered at my arm once he found what he was searching for. Confused, I looked down at my birthmark; it looked like a large mole with multiple tiny freckles surrounding it.

“She has the mark,” the man in front of me announced. We found her.” I tensed but relaxed as he peered at me with tears in his eyes. “I have been looking for you for so long.”

“What… who…” I couldn’t figure out how to begin.

“Yes,” He smiled sadly, “I’m sure you are quite confused. We are the demon hunters of Darkmoor. That thing behind me is called a wendigo. A wendigo starts as a human with cannibalistic behavior, and then with time and more feeds it has, it transforms into a ghoulish creature.”

The younger of the two men walked over to the boxes and started dumping them. The clothes topped out, but other things did, too—heavier things that clunked on the floor, and my eyes went wide—bones. The young man walked over and picked up the doll that my mother held earlier, holding it up as if it were confirmation of something.

“This wendigo had a family,” The man in front of me continued, “But the transformation is tricky, and many lose themselves when the monster takes over. In this case, she ate her husband and child.” I gasped and stared at the doll in horror.

“After returning to her human self, she realized what she had done. The new reality drove her to madness. She couldn’t cope with the idea that she had lost her toddler. So, she took another, she took you.” Realization dawned on me: she wasn’t my mother. I had family out there. All those hide-and-seek games were training. She was training me to hide from the people trying to save me.

“Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically, watching me mentally connect the dots. “Yes, that’s right; she took you from us.”

“Us?” I repeated, “are you… I mean...”

“Yes,” he stood and held his hand out to me. I’m your father. Now, let's go home.” I took his hand hesitantly and stood. I didn’t see any reason to argue or stay there, so I followed them to a dark SUV parked in front of the house. A little down the road, I looked back one last time to see two dark figures standing on the front porch, watching us with glowing red eyes as we drove away.