The Death Game She Made Us Play on New Year's Eve

During the New Year holiday, Grandma Calloway—who'd been bedridden for months—suddenly rallied. Color flooded back into her cheeks, and she insisted, with more energy than any of us had seen in weeks, that the whole family play hide-and-seek together.

We all went along with it. Of course we did. We wanted to make her happy, to let her enjoy herself while she still could. But Grandma was adamant about one thing: she wanted to be "it." The one who hunted.

"Heh heh... found you."

Every time her raspy voice echoed through the house, it was followed by a relative's piercing scream.

My little brother River Abbott and I thought it was thrilling. We exchanged an excited glance, grinning at each other in the dark.

But we'd been crammed inside the rice bin in the kitchen for so long that our eyelids were starting to droop, and still Grandma hadn't found us.

"Maybe the rice bin is too hard to find," I whispered. "Should we move somewhere else?"

I was just lifting the lid, ready to climb out with River, when a voice I couldn't quite place—yet somehow deeply familiar—rang out in the empty kitchen.

"The Kitchen God is standing watch tonight. That filthy thing out there doesn't dare come in here."

"You two foolish children, get back in that rice bin and stay hidden!"

——

Aunt Lorraine Calloway was the first one Grandma found. She'd been hiding in the east room.

Then Uncle Neil Preston, in the west room.

But after each of their screams, the house—which had been so warm and noisy just minutes ago—went dead silent.

River started squirming toward the edge of the bin. "Hope Abbott, there's a whole house full of people out there. How come it's so quiet?"

River and I had a mother and a father, technically. But they'd dumped us at Grandma's house in the countryside like we were orphans, and none of our relatives wanted anything to do with us.

Only Grandma loved us. Truly loved us.

Whenever she got her hands on anything good to eat, she'd hide it away in the back of the cupboard—let it rot before she'd touch a bite herself—saving every last morsel for the two of us.

So even if that voice in the kitchen wasn't just my imagination, I refused to believe Grandma would ever hurt us.

Out in the courtyard, Grandma's voice ground through the air again, low and grating, like a millstone turning.

"Five more. Just five more to go."

"Grandma's been searching so hard. Where are you all hiding?"

Bridget Calloway's sweet voice rang out from somewhere in the house. "Grandma! I'll come out on my own so you don't have to tire yourself!"

Grandma let out a strange, croaking laugh at the sight of Bridget walking out to show her devotion.

"Good girl."

The next instant, Bridget released a scream so shrill and agonized it didn't sound human.

"You're not Grandma!"

River and I stared at each other, wide-eyed with terror.

This was the old woman who had raised us since we were babies. If she wasn't Grandma, then who was she?

We clung to each other in the darkness of the bin. River's small body trembled against mine.

"Hope, Bridget went out on her own. Grandma didn't even catch her. So why did she scream like that?"

My mind was a tangle of static. I couldn't form a single coherent thought. Then that mysterious voice spoke again, answering River's question for me.

"You two are lucky you have more fortune than sense. You climbed into this bin right when that thing started hunting for substitutes."

"The Kitchen God is on duty tonight. That filthy creature won't dare set foot in the kitchen. And the five grains are sacred things of heaven and earth—a natural barrier that purifies and wards off evil."

"As long as you stay inside this rice bin, she won't be able to smell you. Not for a while."

This time, even River heard it clearly.

"Hope, who's talking?"

I clamped my hand over his mouth and pulled him back down into a crouch inside the bin.

But his foot slipped, and he landed hard on the bottom with a dull thud that echoed off the ceramic walls.

The sound of slippers shuffling across the ground drifted closer. Closer. My heart hammered so violently I could feel it in my throat.

Grandma's face appeared at the kitchen window. She peered in at us and let out a low, rattling laugh.

"Found you."

I slapped both hands over our mouths—one on mine, one on River's—and shoved our screams back down our throats.

Silence. Absolute, suffocating silence.

Then Grandma let out a long, disappointed sigh.

"Oh. Just a mouse."

Before River and I could even exhale, something heavy slammed into the ground outside.