“You’re not that easy to find.”

 Oliver took his brother’s hand and stood up, his knees wobbly. He had been crouching inside the tiny locker for ten minutes until Caleb, his brother, accidently bumped into it, which made Oliver let out a yelp.

Hide-and-Seek was a childish game, but apparently their garden had been expanded, giving them more places to hide. So Oliver, Caleb, and their neighbors, Isaac and Marcus decided to explore the new space by playing Hide-and-Seek.

“Isaac’s the winner,” Marcus said. He raised his chin and shouted, “ISAAC! YOU WON! COME OUT!”

Except the sound of the wind rustling through the trees, they heard nothing.  They waited, but Isaac didn’t appear.

They shouted together, and waited for a longer time, but still Isaac didn’t come out of his hiding spot.

“He’s trying to prank us,” Oliver said. “Maybe he slept.”

Caleb’s eyes widened. “Oh no…we need to find him. His mom’s really strict.”

“So?”

“She told us to send him home by 7. And it’s… Marcus, what’s the time?”

“6: 47,” Marcus replied.

They all dispersed and tried to find Isaac; Caleb throwing the empty boxes from the corners here and there in a panic as he frantically searched for Isaac. Minutes passed, and Oliver was sure they’d covered each and every corner and hiding spot in the garden, yet no sign of Isaac.

They heard Mr. Kai, their neighbor, whistling as he sat inside a taxi. “Sir!” Marcus called out. “Have you seen our friend Isaac?”

Mr. Kai lowered his window, frowned at us and then shook his head. He then pointed at the right, where it was Isaac’s house. So Marcus decided to go Isaac’s home to check whether if he was hiding there, and Caleb and Oliver began to search the front gate of the garden.

“Maybe we could ask that house,” Caleb said, pointing to a small bungalow next to the garden. As they approached it, a foul stench hit their nose, as if something was rotting inside the house. Oliver held back with his nose covered as Caleb rang the doorbell. No answer.

“I give up,” Caleb sighed, and he turned to leave when he tripped over a shoe.

It was Isaac’s shoe.

Oliver frowned as he stared at the house. “Okay, I’ve never been inside Isaac’s house, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t that close to this garden. What’s with the smell?”

Caleb aggressively knocked on the door and it gave a loud creak; it had been open this whole time.

Caleb opened the door further. Oliver peeked inside, but there wasn’t much to see; a dark room, with a spiral staircase and a bunch of dirty cupboards. Spider-webs and dust littered on the floor. The only source of light was the afternoon sunlight pouring through a small window on the left wall.

Caleb shouted, “ISAAC!” which echoed through the empty room, sending shivers down Oliver’s spine. They both went inside, closing the door behind them. Oliver began to walk towards the left corner to see where the odor was coming from. He froze, the blood draining from his face.

“What is it?” Caleb asked.

Oliver point a quivering finger at the left corner. There lay the rotting corpses of young teens, blood oozing from their mouths. Among them was Isaac, eyes shut, wounded and his shirt soaked in blood.

Caleb’s face had gone white, his lips trembling, unable to speak. He turned away, shaking his head in disbelief.

“We’re in a murderer’s house,” Oliver realized and turned to leave, but then he heard the sound of a car parking. He grabbed Caleb’s hand and dragged him behind one of the dirty cupboards. They heard the door handle turn and a bunch of footsteps echoing through the room. Oliver stood on his tiptoes and peeked above the cupboard to see who was it. His heart stopped. He almost let out a yelp but Caleb clasped his mouth with his hand and pulled him down.

Oliver was paralyzed in shock. It was Mr. Kai and Marcus.

“Where’s Isaac, sir?” the brothers heard Marcus speaking. “You’d said he was hiding here. Also where’s the smell coming from?”

He’d obviously not seen the corpses literally right behind him rotting in the left corner. Oliver stood on his toes and peeked again. He saw Mr. Kai smirking, swiftly taking a sharp knife from his sleeve, which was stained with blood. Marcus yelped in alarm, taking several steps back until his back hit the wall. Mr. Kai approached him slowly and ominously, not losing eye contact with him. Marcus whimpered.

Oliver’s legs were hurting but as he tried to balance himself, he found himself tumbling down with the cupboard as it crashed down on the floor, exposing the brothers’ hiding spot.

Everyone froze.

Seconds passed, and nobody talked. Oliver could feel the tension rising by every heartbeat, several negative thoughts filling his mind on how they could be dead meat in a few seconds.

Caleb broke the tension. He grabbed Oliver’s hand and dashed to the staircase. Instinctively, Mr. Kai threw the knife towards Caleb, who ducked just in time. The knife sailed through his head, through the railing and down to the floor with a clang.

Oliver frantically gestured at Marcus to run away before he ran up the staircase with Caleb. He didn’t look back, because he knew that Mr. Kai was chasing them up.

They hadn’t even reached the first floor when Caleb said, “Jump.”

“Dude, what-?”

But Caleb had already thrown his legs over the railing and dropped down. Thankfully, he was a gymnast, so he landed on his feet gracefully.

But Oliver wasn’t a gymnast. He knew for a fact that if he jumped from this height, after a few minutes his parents would have to show up in the hospital.

Mr. Kai was almost catching up to him.

Caleb spread out his arms. “I’ll catch you,” he promised. “JUMP!”

It was only a matter of few seconds.

Oliver hoisted himself on the railing, his knees almost knocking into each other, balanced himself, closed his eyes and let the gravity pull him towards his death.

“You know you didn’t have to be that dramatic, right?”

 Oliver opened his eyes as Caleb set him down on his legs. His knees buckled but Caleb caught him again. “Dude, no time. RUN!”

Oliver looked at the corpses. “But-”

Caleb took Oliver’s hand and dragged him to the exit where they bumped into Marcus, who’d brought the police with him.

***

“So… do we play another game of Hide-?” Marcus said.

“Okay, but no hiding in people’s houses,” Oliver said.

“You both, we’re at a funeral,” Caleb hissed. “At least have some respect.”

The three of them looked at Mr. Kai’s house, which was locked for the police’s investigation, and then at the teens’ corpses. They couldn’t play Hide-And-Seek without being reminded of Isaac’s dead body.