The Final Hide-and-Seek

When Landon Corwin was seven, he and his sister Ellie Corwin were playing hide-and-seek when an earthquake struck. Rescuers searched for three days without finding where Ellie had hidden, and his parents never forgave him. Now, nearly five years later, they visit the rubble where she died, carrying a suitcase of her belongings to burn so her spirit can rest.

His mother, in her grief, shoves Landon into that suitcase and latches it shut, forgetting the combination lock. Trapped and inverted as his father loads it into the car, he listens while his parents speak of a family of three and of the medium's words, never knowing he is inside.

As the air grows stale and his consciousness slips, Landon wonders whether they will open the suitcase and find not Ellie's things, but him.