The Hello everyone and welcome back to one

2001 ghost stories and tales of the macabre. Today a game of hide-and-seek

gone too far into the world of terror. This is Smee by AM Burrage.

No, said Jackson, with the deprecatory smile. I'm sorry, I don't want to upset your game. I shan't be doing that because you'll

have plenty without me, but I'm not playing any games of hide and seek.

It was Christmas Eve, and we were a party of 14 with just a proper leavening of youth.

We had dined well.

It was the season for childish games, and we were all in the mood for playing them.

All that is, except Jackson. When somebody suggested hide and seek, there was rapturous and almost unanimous

approval. He was the one dissension voice. It was not like Jackson to spoil sport or refused to do as others wanted.

Somebody asked him if he were feeling seedy.

No, he answered, I feel perfectly fit, thanks.

But, he added with a smile which softened without

retracting the flat refusal. I'm not a plain hide-and-seek. One of us

asked him why not? he hesitated for some seconds before replying

I sometimes go and stay at a house where a girl was killed through playing hide and seek in the dark

She didn't know the house very well. There was a servant staircase with the door to it. When she was pursued she opened the door and

jumped into what she must have thought was one of the bedrooms, and she broke her neck at the bottom of the stairs.

We all looked concerned, and Mrs. Fernley said,

How awful! And you were there when it happened?

Jackson shook his head very gravely.

No, he said, but I was there when something else happened.

...