Mysterious Mondays: A. M. Burrage's "Smee"

From Bibliophilopolis.

The Halloween theme this week is fear of the dark.  The short story I have chosen to represent this fear is a classic entitled "Smee", written by A. M. Burrage, a British author now best known for his ghost fiction.  "Smee" begins with the narrator declaring at a Christmas Eve party that he never plays the game of hide-and-seek.  When pressed by the others at the party for the reason, he recounts the tale of the last time he played a variation of the game called, not surprisingly, Smee.  In this version of the game, only one person, chosen at random and undisclosed to the rest, is selected as Smee.  The lights are turned off and Smee hides.  Everyone else must find Smee in the dark and hide with this person until the last player has found them.  The narrator then goes on to tell his audience that the last time he played the game, not all of the players were who they seemed to be.  Reading this tale will guarantee that you will never play hide-and-seek again unless all the lights in the house are blazing brightly!  You can read this spooky tale here, or listen to an excellent audio version from YouTube: