Hide and Seek by Jack Ketchum

around in there-but I didn't. I couldn't. We'd both said a lot to each other just the night before. It wasn't a great time to start lying.
     
    "Okay. No, I don't think there is. But I want you to know... there
    As limp as wilted lettuce.
     
    Casey smiled. "See? Just as I said. The possibility makes it all the nicer. It was a good try, Clan. Don't worry. If the cops show, we'll cover for you."
     
    "Great."
     
    How she meant to do that I didn't know. Only that she'd read me like a book. And knowing her, I couldn't entirely put it past her. Maybe she had some disappearing act for me in that green bag she was holding in her lap-holding very tightly. I wondered what was in there besides the army shirt. It looked bulky.
     
    I kept kicking myself. Maybe I'd played it badly. Maybe if I'd told them sooner.
     
    We were off to do something dumb again.
     
    Maybe we'd done things just as stupid before but about this one I had a very bad feeling. I could have said forget it, take me home. I could have said I'd wait in the car. I considered both things, then rejected them. It wasn't that I was proving anything, that I was worried about Casey's reaction. I'd have lost a few points. But she'd have gotten over it.
     
    The problem wasn't that. The problem was that without me it would be the three of them alone there. She'd do it anyway. And the way Kim was giggling beside me again and the way Steve was driving they'd go along no matter what I did. The three of those clowns alone in there.
     
    That thought bothered me.
     
    If anything went wrong I wanted to be inside. I didn't want to depend on Kim and Steve to keep her safe and healthy. Nor did I trust her to take care of herself particularly. She was smart and she was strong, but she took chances. Bad chances. I worried about her.
     
    And there was another thing. Something that now, today, I'm pretty ashamed to admit to.
     

You see, there was this idiot voice inside me, already creepy-crawling through a dark house in the middle of the night. The voice snickered.
    It was very cute, very wised-up and cynical.
     
    Besides, it said, you never know.
     
    It could be fun.
     

I knew of a safe place to put the car, off a narrow access road through the woods about a quarter of a mile from the house. Nobody would notice it there, at least not till early morning. By then we'd be gone.
     
    Even with the moonlight it was dark. It was one of the few places around where the trees grew tall and spread wide, covering the sky, black pine and birch and poplar. We parked beneath a stand of white birch. When we cut the headlights the trees seemed to carry a glow as though we'd irradiated them with light.
     
    Beyond that it was black.
     
    You could already hear the sea. A distant rumbling. There was no wind. The trees were still. Just the dry scrape of crickets and the faraway tumble and boom of ocean.
     
    "Clan, you know this road, right?"
     
    "Sure, Case."
     
    "Any surprises?"
     
    "Shouldn't be. No big storms this season."
     
    "Then douse the flashlights."
     
    "Why?" There was a tinge of whine to Steven's voice I didn't care for.
     
    "Try it."
     
    I knew what she was after. There we were in the dark, with the smell of damp earth and overheated car around us, listening to the mix of strident arid scrapings and liquid thunder.
     

"See?"
     
    "Spooky," said Kim.
     
    "That's it."
     
    For a while we just stood and listened, and then Steve said, "I guess that's what we're here for," and the tone of it was more relaxed, and I liked it better. I suppose it's a problem, being rich and spoiled.
    Even if you grow up pretty decent the only things you have to fall back on are the old, obnoxious habits, and they never make you look like much. In times of stress they come flying back at you like ghosts of squalling children.
     
    We started off down the road, me in the lead, the two girls together behind me and Steve bringing up the rear.
     
    The road was rough and pitted, strewn with rocks and