Board Thread:Writer's Showcase/@comment-6822927-20190327190649

A while ago, I wrote a little something called Come Find Me, a story inspired by stories my uncle used to tell me as a kid. It was fairly short, so I decided to revisit it and expand upon it, making some changes as well. Here it is. ===

“I'm hiding - come find me!”

When five-year-old George Saint heard that through the dream fog that had so pleasantly enraptured his young mind, his eyes snapped open. He was groggy and his brain felt all muddled but he could still understand what he had just heard. As he lay in bed, underneath his Buzz Lightyear blanket, he clutched it against himself tighter and tried to ignore it. Maybe he had just imagined something talking in that strangely girlish, high-pitched voice. There surely wasn’t anything in his room to be scared of. Only his bed, toys, his clothes and everything else which belonged to him, like the old deer skull his uncle gave him, the one with the big grin full of missing teeth.

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

George had pulled the covers over his head and curled into a ball within a second. He had closed his eyes tightly because if he couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see him. And if it couldn’t see him, he wouldn’t be taken away. That’s the conclusion his still-developing mind had reached. It still hadn’t decided what was speaking, however. How high were the odds it was a ghost girl in a white gown covered in blood with stringy black hair like he had seen in so many movies that mother grounded him for watching? After all, that was something that wasn’t real and never would be.

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

If there's one thing George had learned, three times meant this was no coincidence. He didn’t know what a coincidence was, but father had explained that it was the same thing happening over and over the same way. At least, that was the best he could remember. George barely opened his eyes instead, and gently pulled the covers away. He fully expected for something to grab the blanket and rip it off him, screaming in his face then biting it off. He pressed his hand against it to prevent such an event.

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

As he slowly pushed the blanket off, his small body tight with fear of maybe a vampire or werewolf, he still kept a hand covering his eyes. When nothing grabbed his throat with thin, spindly fingers attached to rotting hands, he slowly looked out through his fingers, taking slow and deep breaths. Oh, how he wished for a nightlight. He’d been most sincere about not needing one when mother and father asked him. But the full moon was streaming in through his windows, so it wasn’t all bad. Everything looked fine and dandy. The windows were latched firmly, keeping out the whistling night air but letting him see all the bright twinkling stars and the moon which was so kindly lighting up his room. His toys were on their shelves, shoes by the door-

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

And now that he was getting used to the voice, it wasn't as scary as it used to be. It was just repeating one phrase after all. What's so scary about that? Nothing had happened to him either, so maybe this was just something silly. He didn’t know where the voice was coming from, though. Only that it had to be in this room. So, obviously, he had to find it.

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

George got out of bed. His small, bare feet softly tread across the carpet as he clutched the sleeve of his Woody pajama shirt against his palm. First, he looked under his bed, and found only a few missing socks  When he got back, he found himself face to face with the grinning deer skull on his bedside dresser. The empty eye sockets stared into him with a joking malevolence, like one of those clowns who often used too much make-up for their outfit and ended up with smiles which were too big. George didn’t like clowns who did that. Of course, the skull wasn’t a clown but its smile was still too big.

“I’m hiding - come find me!”

George turned around, now certain that the voice was coming from his closet. He kept his school uniforms in there so they wouldn’t get lost or left on the floor. It had a white door covered in Superman and Spiderman stickers, his favorite superheroes. He’d made sure they were on that door because then the monsters in his closet would be too scared to come out. But he hadn’t thought about what would happen if they had decided to keep him up for most of the night by making stupid sounds. Should he get his parents?

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

No. They were probably asleep. George didn't need to bother them! He was a big boy! And big boys were brave. They didn’t need their parents to deal with silly little things in the night like a girlish voice which kept saying the same thing over and over. Clenching his hands into small fists, George carefully began tiptoeing across the soft carpet.

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

George stopped, taking in a small breath of air. Then he made sure his feet were flat on the ground. No more walking on tiptoes, only scaredy cats did that. He wouldn’t walk on his tiptoes. No, he just had to march straight from his bed to the closet door, which he did with gusto. He was breathing in and out, slow and steady, easy-peasy lemon squeezy.

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

Thinking about it, George decided it was a little girl's voice. Why else would it be so girly? But there was something strange about it. Something just a tiny bit weird which made it nothing like a person’s voice. It sounded like they were talking through a wet clothe.

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

George slowly raised his hand to grasp the closet doorknob but stopped. What if the owner of the voice wasn't a little girl but something pretending to be a little girl? Perhaps it could be some big hairy man with big hairy hands and feet, sharp pointy fangs and sharp pointy claws. Yes, he’d heard stories of men like that, men who enjoyed snatching little boys like him and dragging them off to their underground holes in the woods, cooking them alive in a stew. Or what if it wasn’t a hairy man but a witch with a crooked nose and wrinkled fingers who cooked children in a pie?

"I'm hiding - come find me!"

There was only one way to find out. His parents weren’t here to help him nor did he need them to, as he reminded himself again. He was a very brave boy who sometimes stayed up late with his father watching scary movies and had wandered off into the woods by himself many times. He wouldn’t admit it was scary, so why should this be? He gripped the doorknob and pulled it open.

"I'm hiding - come find me!" said a voice muffled by a pile of clothes. George began systematically digging through them until he found it - the thing which had woken him up. It was a Hiding Harry doll, a plastic monkey wearing a blue shirt and smiling in a way which George thought looked like it wanted to eat a booger. Picking up Harry, he turned him off without further ado. So it had been something silly after all, not a monster which hides in the closet or under the bed.

But then he remembered something. Something his parents always made sure he did before going to bed. A very important part of his bedtime routine.

He had turned all his toys off before going to bed, and he hadn’t put Harry in the closet.

"I'm hiding," said a deep, echoing voice from behind him which he did not recognize, "come find me, George." 