100 Ghost Stories Counting Down To Halloween 2024. #87. The Four Game.

 In a group, there are those committed to the game.

This game had to do with corners. Rather than play in some private room or a tight space, the group played the game in a bar with many witnesses, not at midnight but during the working man's hour, eight at night. The old speakeasy still retained its nostalgia, where the walls were lined with barber chairs. Behind the bar was the hundred-year-old mirror shined to an almost otherworldly perfection. With the jukebox turned off, the patrons sat silently with their drinks in front of them, watching the group of four play the corner game. The four went from corner to corner, counting the number of people in their group out loud and then giving their names. The numbers and the names never changed but while heading toward the fourth corner, someone in the group of four pointed out a fifth corner. This is where the tension in the room rose significantly, not just by feeling but by a strange decibel that lingered in the air. It was because the patrons, too, witnessed a fifth corner suddenly appear in a four-cornered room. 

"What do we do, now?" Someone in the group asked. 

"Continue the game," One patron exclaimed. "We wanna see what happens."

The rest of the patrons vocally supported that suggestion and watched with anticipation as the four, with great hesitation, walked toward the fifth corner. When they arrived at the fifth corner, they counted the number of people in their group out loud, then, in the middle of giving their names, their voices muted out, and they were gone. Every patron in the bar stared blankly into space for a second, blinked once or twice, and couldn't remember what they were doing a second ago. They shook it off and continued their evening, complaining to the bartender to turn the music back on. The four stood behind a transparent wall, pounding on it, yelling and screaming to get the bartender's or anyone's attention, but no one knew they were there. That's when the four realized that they weren't alone; there were other people there, too, but along with them were things in the shadows. Things scraping and crawling, gurgling mucus in the chest, accompanied by a foul odor. 

"RUN!" Someone from the other group screamed.

"Run?" One of the four replied.

"ANYWHERE!" The other group replied.

So they ran along the wall that looked into the bar. Soon, they ran past someone's bedroom, a school, an office, a church, and a basement. They did run, but in running, they were picked off one by one by these things until nothing of the four remained. The Four Game began when one of these things came through the fifth corner one night while the bartender closed the establishment. They assure him they will spare his life if he spreads the word about the corner game to bring them food (people), and they promised him immortality and riches.  The bartender ensures that the game is played at eight in the evening because the locals believe the numbers four and eight are bad luck. 

The bartender has been immortal and rich since 1932.