Fear Files: Hide and Seek
Christopher Edge
Walker Books

Based on the Darkive (a secret database filled with testimony recovered from survivors of inexplicable phenomena), this story is really going to get your adrenalin pumping. From the outset readers discover that this is to be a Level 4 Rated File ie it’s in the ‘Beyond Fear’ category.

Sol and Adam (from whose viewpoint the story is told) are spending the weekend on a camping trip. Adam is not at all happy with things having expected some degree of luxury and has ended up in a muddy field.

After a restless night, they go exploring and come upon an abandoned ghost town where, against Sol’s wishes, they find themselves involved in a really scary game of hide and seek with rules they don’t know. Soon Adam is desperately searching for his friend among weird statues, uniform clad children and the eerie voice of the “Itter” filling his consciousness. Even so, he must find Sol and get out before the Itter finds him. Seemingly though there’s no end to this game but is it a dream, some sort of trick, Adam’s imagination or a horrific reality?

Full of suspense, this is truly gripping reading with a mix of witness accounts, interviewer notes and black and white illustrations, though I definitely wouldn’t recommend this to the faint-hearted or as a pre bedtime read.