Hide and Seek

Chapter 21: 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. I couldn't believe he was alive. I thought Jasper had killed him. At least, I believed 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 screwdriver and faced me. The screwdriver 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. It looked nothing like him. His veins showed through his face. He looked like he was turning into a monster. He looked evil.

***

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. 

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. As far as I knew, she was dead. That gave me a reason not to hesitate.

"I didn't die. My soul was stolen, and now, he'll take yours. This is not a game. This is him getting ready to ruin your life, just like he did mine." she said before I struck her in her chest. 

The axe fell to the floor, striking nothing but air. Violet was gone.

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."

"You will not kill her like you killed our daughter, Jason Harmon!" someone said, stepping into the room. It was Mrs. Harmon.

He looked at her and smiled. "Of course not." He then turned to me. "I won't kill her. Unless she wants to join us."

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

The little girl from my dream. The girl who crawled on the walls at Violet's house was now 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 these things!" Mrs. Harmon said.

Mr. Harmon laughed. "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, lowering her head. "Snap out of it, Jason. Please. We need to stop this. Don't let this book keep doing this to us."

He laughed again. "Darling, don't act like you wasn't a part of this now. Don't play hero just because you found out I killed Violet."

"I had no choice," she said. "The book is controlling us, but fighting back. You can too," she pleaded.

"So, now what? You think that you can just leave now?" he asked.

"No. I don't," she admitted.

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 backward.

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.