The five of us always played hide and go seek on the investment properties Ana Maria’s parents bought. They knew about our game and we’d done it a million times; in the evening, on sunny days, while it stormed, or even in the dark of the night. The ones in the dark were always the funnest. The houses would be pitch black while we crept around the unknown houses searching for hiding places with nothing except the one flashlight each person got to take.

So when we show up to the house we don’t think much of it. A typical two story home with a wrap-around porch. The house had faded to a dull yellowing white. As if the building had once been pristine white, but yellowed deeply only to fade into pastel again.

Each of us gets out a flashlight as the world dims with the last of the setting sun. Ana Maria pulls out the house key as we establish the roles of hiders and seeker. Juan walks back onto the street curb and sits down facing away from the house. Ana Maria finishes unlocking the two deadbolts and the knob. She motions for Vera, Tay, and I to follow her inside; and we do.

The entrance of the house is just one long hallway. At the end of the hallway lies a staircase with the steps facing us. Five different entrances lie between the front door and the stairs. Two archways to the left and three doors to the right. The first archway to the left showed a living room area. Adjoined with the living room area lies a bar counter and a kitchen. The first door to the right are french doors. Vera throws them open to reveal a study with a large fireplace and mantle. The middle door is a bathroom complete with a tub, shower curtain, and a closet. Each of these rooms contains dusty, worn furniture. The second archway is just another entrance into the conjoined kitchen-living room area. The third door on the right is a laundry room, but unlike the other rooms it is void of furniture.

Ana Maria turns to me once we reach the stairs, “Isn’t it exciting Lin?” she squeals, squeezing down on my arm.

I smile down at her, “yeah this is the first one in a while to have furniture. Means more options.”

Ana Maria wholeheartedly agrees with me before clicking on her flashlight and rushing up the stairs. Tay follows after her, warning her to watch out for broken floorboards since the house is older than the others we’ve been in lately.

I intend to follow up after them until I feel Vera tug on the hem of my shirt.

I turn back and follow her extended arm to the end of her finger where she’s pointing to a door inside the laundry room. I pause and then look back at her.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

She keeps her eyes on the door before giving me her attention.

“I swear I saw someone there peeking in,” She replies uncertain of herself.

“Wait, like, as in, Juan is cheating?” I ask feeling annoyed at the prospect of it.

Vera shakes her head, “No...just that--”

She pauses and purses her lips before turning to face me, “It was someone with long black hair, I could tell. Juan has a buzzcut there’s no way I could be wrong.”

I stare at her a bit, trying to understand why she wants to scare me so bad.

“C’mon,” I scoff teasingly, “You might have just been seeing things.”

She puts her head down and her shoulders droop.

“You’re probably right,” She replies.

Vera brushes past me and up the stairs. I look back at the door one more time before clamoring up the steps after the three of them.

At the top of the stairs is an open area that could have once held a couch or just a decorative table. The top floor entrance splits off on two sides opposite the stairs. Two bedrooms to the left with an adjoined bathroom between. There is no door from the bathroom directly to the stairs. It can only be reached through the bedrooms. The two rooms have metal frames and no mattresses. A dresser sits in one of them and a vanity in the other. The opposite side of the stairs has two doors. The first one is a closet empty except for one shelf of towels. The last door is an entrance to a master bedroom. The walkway on the second floor wraps all the way around, allowing us to travel in an endless loop from one door to another.

Each of us start to move around on our own to find our hiding places as the darkness settles in. Vera heads back to the first floor with Ana Maria. I choose the bedroom the farthest from the staircase. My strategy in these games always involved picking the room farthest from the seeker’s starting point. It doesn’t always work but I do win majority of the time.

The twin bed frame creaks as I place a hand against it. I look to the drawers and notice the last row of drawers has a flat surface to lay across if I take out the drawers.

My phone rings as the timer alerts her to the 5 minute layout period ending. Now there’s only sixty seconds to hide.

I pull the front of the drawer off from the rest of it and rush into the bathroom to hide them in the tub behind the shower curtain. I lay myself down in the bottom row and carefully fit the drawer pieces into place in order for it to look as if they are filled with nothing but drawers.

I hear the door open and the all too familiar: “ready or not here I come!”

I accidentally drop the wood and it slaps against the wooden floor loudly. I curse myself as I hear Juan rushing up the stairs. I fit the last false drawer front in place as his footsteps get closer.

“Bet I can guess who--”

Juan’s voice gets cut off. He starts choking and I wonder if this is some dirty trick to get be out of my hiding spot until he starts wheezing.

“Ready or not here I come. Ready or not here I come.” the voice of a girl repeats. She sounds squeaky and excited.

I lay there frozen in horror. As I listen to Juan choking and wheezing on air he can’t get.

A thump lands heavily on the floor and I hear whoever is here with us shuffle away.

“I’m it. I’m it. I’m it. I’m coming. Ready or not. I’m coming.”

My body starts to shake and just as the false drawer is falling over I see it, the gangly green of someone’s foot. Tears burn my eyes as I watch the wooden slab fall over in slow motion.

Then comes the gasp and running footsteps. The creepy green girl pivots and chases after her.

“You guys we need to get out of here,” Tay screeches, “She killed Juan! She killed Juan”

Tay’s voice drowned out the sound of the board falling over. I climb out of the space as quickly as possible.

Juan’s face and mine are millimeters apart as I roll out of the drawers. His eyes wide and empty. The wet drool on his face and the red welt against his neck leave me scooting back and banging into the drawer again. I get up in a rush to get away from my dead friend.

Tay’s still screaming, and I put my focus on getting to her, except I stay back. I peek out at her from the doorway. Her body lies at the bottom of the staircase, thrown down or she slipped. Though the former seems more likely as the creepy girl jumps from one step to the next to get to Tay.

“Tagged you,” She whispers, giggling. She jumps from the last step onto Tay’s body, bouncing as if it were a blow-up castle. That is not a girl. That is a demon.

I hold back the sob building in my throat. The girl tilts her head slightly, to look up the second floor. I press back, out of sight, into the wall of the bedroom and quietly scooting away.

“I know you’re there, missy.” she shouts but it comes out warped and demonic.

I let out an undignified shudder, but a scraping and falling sound echos downstairs.

On instinct I rush back to look out the doorway. The demon girl runs away from Tay’s body toward the front of the house. I catch a glimpse of her smile as she runs off.

I can’t help it as I rush down the stairs at the sound of Ana Maria’s voice.

“No, don’t touch me. Get back.” She spits fiercely.

I make it to the bottom of the stairs gagging as I see Tay’s body twisted and misshapen up close. Her face frozen mid-scream. Her mouth too wide, like her jaw had been dislocated in the fall.

I step past her in flinches, trying not to disturb her body. I focus instead on Ana Maria’s voice so I remember I can save at least one friend.

Once I’m past her I try to break into a run, but another body collides with mine and pulls me into the archway that leads to the kitchen. I panic, thinking it’s the demon. A hand over my mouth prevents me from screaming. I twist my body to see the person and it’s Vera. Her eyes are wide and wet with tears. She shakes her head at me.

I know exactly what it means as we listen to the voices from the front living room.

“Little chimney sweeper fell down.”

“No--stop, please!”

“Now I’m gonna put out the fire. You’re such a good hider.”

Ana Maria lets out a blood-curdling scream as we hear the squelching and then the sound of metal dropping to the floor.

Vera and I stare at each other with matching expressions of horror. Ana Maria is a gymnast. She always picks tricky hiding places. She’d hidden inside the chimney and probably fell from her spot during all the chaos.

Oh god, she probably got stuck in some weird position and--

I don’t have time to finish the thought. Vera presses her hand into me as the sounds screams quiet down.

“I caught you.”

Something grates and slides like sandpaper.

Ana Maria stuck in the chimney.

Vera points to the laundry room. The back door is open. I look back to nod at her.

But it’s not just Vera. Over her shoulder is the face of the creepy girl. Her eyes a slimy white and her pupils too large for her head. The stringy quality of her hair. The green hue of her disgustingly swollen skin.

“Found you,” She howls.

I feel my face contort into horror and Vera realizes it too.

Vera screams and I run for the door.

I don’t know what happens to her exactly, but I heard something squish. When I turned around for one last look I watch my friend have her eyes poked inside her head by a demon.

My ears ring and every step feels too heavy.

The wind whips violently around me in the dark. An automatic back porch light comes on as I rush for the fence to jump it. I leap for it and get half my body over the fence when I feel her yanking on my leg.

Nails that feel more like claws dig into my calf. I lose my strength and fall back into the yard.

I turn around and she’s towering over me.

“Please, no,” I beg, “Please, you won--”

Her face presses close to mine and I smell what death is on her breath. I see hell and all my vices reflected back at me in her irises.

“You win,” she tells me with a large grin.

In the moment it takes me to blink, she’s gone.

I sit frozen on the grass unable to move for a long time. When Ana Maria’s parents show up, I hear them before I see them. The sounds of horror and distress, like howling animals.

By the time they get to me I wish I had died.