Bobby buries himself in the closet and puts his Hansel bear between him in the door. Mother won’t find him—won’t take him away.  

“Where are you, Bob?” she calls. 

He closes his eyes to make himself invisible, but the door slides open, she grabs his legs, and out he goes. 

“It’s time to go to Grandma’s, you plump kid.” 

Now bound in his car seat, whimpering, Bobby sees the fetid river, the deadened wood, and the approaching bread-colored, pock-marked house with striped poles and the billowing chimney of Grandma’s monstrous oven. His sister never came back. Why should he? 

(This flash fiction is part of Loren Eaton’s shared storytelling for 2021. Go there to read more 100-word, Christmastime, ghost stories.)