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“ Ninety- eight, ninety- nine, one hundred”.

Hide and go seek was the order of the evening. It had been raining for four days now, with no sign of stopping. Catherine knew where the kids were. They always hid in the same spot. Twins always stuck together. “Where could they be?” She tiptoed down the hall towards their bedroom. “Goodness I’ll never find them… maybe here!” as she dropped to the floor and pulled the covers back. “Err… guess not” she murmured searching the empty space under the bed. Nothing in the bathroom, nothing in the spare bedroom… she knew they were too scared to venture into the basement but decided to check just incase.

“I’m going to find you,” she sang, as she noisily stamped her way down the stairs of the basement. With a six-year-old boy and girl the only silence she experienced was when they were sleeping. The house seemed too quiet now.

“Ollie! Emily! Ok you win! Olly olly oxen free”, she shouted with more urgency. “Ok if you come out we’ll have pizza and ice cream for dinner and you can stay up late”. Still nothing. A minute passed and panic set in. “Ollie Micheal Gregory!! You and your sister come out this instant!!!”

Catherine heard movement above her and she sprinted upstairs.

The front door was wide open and there were muddy prints in the hallway that lead to the kitchen. “Oh God please let them be safe”, Catherine thought as she followed the trail. As she got to the kitchen she noticed something strange, the mixture of dead silence and the coldness, she knew something was wrong. As she pushed open the kitchen door, she almost collapsed in shock with the scene that greeted her. The kitchen was upside down. Blood covered everything; the doors off the presses were barely hanging on by the hinges. “Wwwhat… why”, whimpered Catherine. “This can’t be real”, she thought. “I’ll wake up now and the kids will jump out from under their bed, they like to scare me”. But this wasn’t a dream. Suddenly she heard a low groan coming from over beside the back door. As she slowly walked over to the source of the noise, she fell in a heap on the floor and started to cry. Staring back at her was her husband Daniel. He didn’t look like himself though. He was covered in blood and his eyes; he looked like a wild animal.