It is 3 October. There are 28 days until Halloween.

I used to work at the circulation desk in a public library. It was a great job to stumble upon new books and music. One day, someone returned an audio book with an interesting cover. It was a close up of a pair of eyes. The picture had the grainy quality of a blown-up photograph. It wasn’t quite black-and-white because there was just the suggestion of blue in the color of those eyes. The light and shadow dappling the face gave it a quality of a Maya Deren film. It seemed to be a collection of ghost stories spooky poems. I recognized some of the names. Intrigued, I quickly checked it in and just as quickly checked it out to myself.

On my day off, I listened to it. I didn’t get very far, because the first story pinned me to my chair. It was by A.M. Burrage, and it was called “Smee.” I’d never heard of either Burrage or his tale. Twenty minutes or so later, and, along with a cold shiver up my spine and gooseflesh on my arms, I felt that A.M. Burrage was a writer that I must know more about.

“Smee” is an example of the “Christmas Ghost Story” that was once so popular in England during the 19th century. It has a simple story-within-a-story construction: a group of friends prepare to play a post-dinner game of hide-and-seek on Christmas Eve. One of the party, Jackson, refuses to play. In turn, Jackson tells the group (and the reader) his tale of why he chooses to play the spoil-sport.

It seems that Jackson had a bad experience some years before at another friend’s house playing a similar game:

‘I wonder if any of you have played a game called “Smee”. It’s a great improvement on the ordinary game of hide-and-seek. The name derives from the ungrammatical colloquialism, “It’s me.” You might care to play if you’re going to play a game of that sort. Let me tell you the rules.

‘Every player is presented with a sheet of paper. All the sheets are blank except one, on which is written “Smee”. Nobody knows who is “Smee” except “Smee” himself—or herself, as the case may be. The lights are then turned out and “Smee” slips from the room and goes off to hide, and after an interval the other players go off in search, without knowing whom they are actually in search of. One player meeting another challenges with the word “Smee” and the other player, if not the one concerned, answers “Smee”. 

‘The real “Smee” makes no answer when challenged, and the second player remains quietly by him. Presently they will be discovered by a third player, who, having challenged and received no answer, will link up with the first two. This goes on until all the players have formed a chain, and the last to join is marked down for a forfeit.’

A simple game, no? Burrage uses the rules of the game – the dark house, the silence, the solitude – to chilling effect. “Smee” has a wonderful ending that, although you see it coming, is still powerful enough to elicit a shudder. Along the way, there are many moments where Jackson and his fellow players rub up against the uncanny and outré. One moment, in fact, on a staircase, involving the accidental (?) miscount of the number of players in the game made the bottom fall out of my stomach. It was described so matter-of-factly that it hit me between the eyes before I knew what had happened.

You can find a copy of “Smee” here. Don’t have the time to sit down and read it? There is a terrific audio reading by the folks at HorrorBabble, and the old South African radio program Beyond Midnight produced a great “modern” version in 1968.