Smee: A Christmas Ghost Story

A game of hide and seek takes a paranormal turn. 

In the spirit of the old Victorian tradition of telling ghost stories around the holidays, I present to you, a modern-day retelling of A.M Burrage's ghost story, "Smee"'

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Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by Kaelyn Moore.

SOURCES

Smee, by A.M. Burrage

TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to heart starts pounding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I’m your host, Kaelyn Moore

This is a community for the darkly curious, and I just want to let you guys know I have been indulging in my dark curiosity lately for you all. Over thanksgiving I visited Galveston Texas, one of the most haunted places in America. 

In the 1800s it was a huge port city full of wealthy people, industry, casinos, you name it. But a devastating hurricane in 1900 wiped out half of the city’s population. It was so bad, they couldn't find all of the people who died in the storm so they just, rebuilt everything. 

Some people say that the whole city is built on a graveyard, and that those who died in the storm are all around, restlessly haunting the current inhabitants. Well, I did some digging while I was down there and I’m excited to share with you the history and ghost stories of the place in an upcoming patreon episode.

Also, I may have visited the most requested haunted city. So many of you guys have been asking me to visit this one place, and I did. I toured the cemeteries. I drank at the haunted bars, I walked the streets and talked to locals.all for an episode im planning for early next year  If you have any guesses as to which place I’m talking about, you can write your guess underneath the instagram post I’m putting up for this episode, thats @ heart starts pounding on instagram. 

And speaking of ghosts, I have what I think will be a really fun episode for you guys today. I want to talk about ghosts, and what they have to do with Christmas time, and then I’m going to tell you a classic ghost story.

Have you ever heard that song “It’s The Most Wonderful time of the year”. I’m sure you have, it’s everywhere during the holiday season. The most popular version was sung by Andy Williams in 1963. The song is only 60 years old, but that is ancient in terms of staying on the charts. In 2020, 57 years after it came out, it was still number 5 on the billboard hot 100 singles chart in the USA during christmas time. The song has massive staying power.

But this song also has one very strange line that not only baffles people today, but was confusing to listeners when it came out. 

There’ll be parties for hosting, Marshmallows for toasting, And caroling out in the snow There’ll be scary ghost stories, And tales of the glories of, Christmases long, long ago

Ok, 4 of those 5 things are classic christmastime activities. I get the caroling and parties for hosting. But what is this about scary ghost stories?

It’s easy to shrug off that line and think that maybe andy just needed a 5 syllable activity to fit that part of the song so he came up with something random. But what he’s actually hinting at, is a hundreds of years old christmas time tradition.

Telling ghost stories at christmas pre dates the industrial revolution and  comes from England, at least, as far as we can tell. During the winter months, there wasn’t much for family members to do at night besides gather near the fire to stay warm. So they took to storytelling for entertainment. 

The ghost stories came along because well, it was a fitting time of year for them. It was dark, and dreary. A lot of Christmas traditions stemmed from the pagan ritual of Yule, a time when the veil between the living and the dead was supposed to be it’s thinnest. The relics of those traditions remained, and people in the UK in the victorian era figured ghosts could walk among us at that time. 

So, heart starts pounding community, I want to start a new tradition for us. Each holiday season, I’m going to tell you a classic ghost story. Even if you don’t celebrate christmas, maybe you can relate to the dark and dreary feeling that comes with the winter months, a time thats begging to be paired with a scary story.

We’re going to take a quick break, and when we get back, I’m going to tell you a modern day version of AM. Burrage’s ghost story, SMEE.

A few years ago, I came home from college for Christmas break and got together with some old high school friends. Coming home was always a strange feeling. I’d spent so long dreaming of leaving my small town and everyone in it, but then I would come back and see these people who’d watched me grow up, who knew me–like really knew me. And for a second, it didn’t feel like a place I needed to escape from.

But maybe that was the two glasses of red wine I had talking. There was a party going on upstairs, but just like high school, my three best friends and i had found our way down into Colleen’s parent’s wine cellar.

“We should play hide and seek,” Katrina said, pouring another glass of wine.

“Seriously?” Colleen asked

“Why not? We used to play all the time.”

“When we were twelve.”

“I don’t think I’ve played since you disappeared with Matt Bouchard for half an hour.” I laughed 

“It was like five minutes and I told you we got lost.’

“That was the last time I played, too.”

“It was probably the last time we all played.” Abriana was reading the labels on the wines, clearly not into the idea

“Not me,” said Colleen. We waited for her to tell us more, but she just swirled the wine around her glass. Looking into it as if lost in thought.

“So…when did you play?” Abriana asked.

“I don’t know if I want to talk about it.”

“Oh come on, you wouldn’t have said anything if you didn’t want to talk about it.” 

“Yeah, tell us.”

Colleen waited for the wine in her glass to go still and then she raised it to her lips and took a long drink.

“I was a freshman. And I played at this old house off campus, but someone died there.”

“While you were playing?” Katrina asked

“No, years ago.”

“What happened?”

“Well, the game is called Smee, but it’s basically the same thing. Or the same idea anyway. See, you tear up a bunch of sheets of paper and all of them are blank except one, and on that one is written ‘SMEE’,  which stands for It’s me. So everyone draws a slip and then you turn out all the lights, and the person who drew ‘SMEE’ sneaks away and hides. Then everyone else goes their separate ways and tries to find them. Whenever you come across someone in the dark you’re supposed to say “Smee?” And if they say it back, they’re not it. But if they don’t say anything, they’re SMEE and you hide with them. The last person to find SMEE loses. We played it that night and I think I saw something I shouldnt have”

“Basically, you pick a piece of paper and try to find the person who has the smee one.” Abriana summarized.

“Exactly.”

“How did they die?” I asked.

“I really don’t know if I want to talk about it.”

“Here,” I said. I grabbed the bottle of wine and filled Colleen’s glass until it was almost overflowing. “This might help.”

She gave a little smirk, appreciating the gesture. “He broke his neck.”

The cellar door slammed shut and the old lights swung on their chains from the ceiling. We all jumped. Everyone except Colleen.

“It’s just the draft. Whenever they open the garage door it does that.” She took another drink.

“It was fifteen years ago, and they were having a party in that house and they decided to play Smee. It was late, probably everyone was drunk, and there’s this door you’re not supposed to use. It’s an old house, and the door goes to this set of stairs that’s just straight down to the cellar and pitch black. So, anyway, a young guy is there, doesn’t know the house, he’s Smee, and he runs out trying to find a place to hide–can’t find a good place, and he’s running out of time, so he open this door and jumps inside and well…They found him at the bottom of the stairs.”

“Jesus.” abriana groaned

“So, what happened when you played?” I asked.

“I don’t want to freak you guys out.”

Maybe it was because we were at a party and she didn’t think it was the best time. But eventually, she did finally tell us, which is why now, I’m going to tell you exactly what Colleen told us that night in the cellar, in her words.

Freshman year, my best friend Megan had a crush on this guy Tim. And the week before finals Tim was throwing this dinner with some of his housemates. It was going to be small, but Megan didn’t want to go alone because she didn’t know anyone else and didn’t want to look desperate, so she brought me. I guess the idea was that we’d roll through as if we were coming from something else, but i think everyone knew that we were just there so megan could talk to tim. 

Anyways, Tim lived with four other people in this ancient three story house off campus that was for honors students. It used to be owned by a family who like, invented synthetic silk in the 1800s or something. It was probably beautiful back then. It has these huge columns on the front with a big porch on the first and second stories, and inside it’s all original hardwood floors and there’s old gas lamps that were converted into electric lights. I imagine all sorts of interesting people used to come to dinner parties at the house but when I went it was just four pretentious pseudo intellectual college dudes living there. The floors were scuffed, the furniture was sparse, and mostly plastic. The house had definitely seen better days.

So, the dinner is at 8, but like I said Megan doesn’t want to seem desperate so we get there at 8:30. Only thing is, it’s a dinner, like, they had a catering company bring food, so we were actually late. Everyone was waiting on us, so the second we get there, we go straight into this huge dining room with one of those long wooden tables and a big fireplace at one end of the room. I wish I had a sec to see some more of the house, but we just sit down and start dinner, which is fine because I was starving.

I also thought we’d have a chance to meet everyone else at the party but, Tim kind of cannibalized the whole dinner with whatever out of pocket takes he had developed that week. Bitcoin is making a comeback, social media is fascist, whatever. There were twelve of us there. I didn’t know everyone, but I recognized everyone except this one guy. He was cute in a sort of my dad is a senator but I’m mad about it, way. Preppy with an edge, If that makes sense. but I didn’t know his name, and he didn’t talk much during dinner which given the nonsense Tim and crew were spouting kind of made him even more attractive.

Eventually we’re wrapping up dinner and I think ok, I can go home and crawl into bed and watch law and order, and maybe ask Megan about the Senator’s son, when someone says, ‘hey, we should play a game.’ People threw out ideas, mostly turning the dinner table into a beer pong table  but Ryan, one of the housemates, says ‘why don’t we play Smee?’ 

I’d never heard of it, but when he explained it–just like I explained it to you–I was like, well, no I’ll go home and watch law and order. But Megan gave me this doe eyed, pleasseee can we just stay for this look, so whatever, the things we do for our friends.

Ryan grabbed paper and tore up 12 slips, one for each person. Then he wrote SMEE on one of them and tossed them all into a hat. We each went up and took one, and thank god, mine was blank. Once we’d all drawn, we sat in a circle while Ryan went around the rest of the house and turned out all the lights. It seemed like it took him forever, remember I hadn’t seen most of the house, but I could tell it was probably even bigger than I imagined based on how long it took him to get to each room. when he finally came back he turned out the lantern lights in the dining room.

It was nearly pitch black. The only light at all was the red coals of the fire and those were nearly dead.

“Ok,” Ryan said, so Smee will get up and go hide and after a minute or two I’ll ring this bell. and then we’ll all go try and find them.

“Oh, and be careful,” Ryan added. ‘Some kid died here a while back playing this game.”

“Wait, what?” one girl asked.

“No, no, I mean, yeah,” Tim said, “But we keep that door locked. He fell down the stairs. It was a long time ago. Just don’t jump through any doors you don’t know what’s on the other side of.”

We waited, and after a few seconds, I heard one person get up and push through a door and then footsteps slowly receding.

I’d thought my eyes would adjust, but turns out there wasn’t any light to adjust to. As the last footstep faded, I had no idea where Smee had gone. I thought about Tim’s last words about jumping through unknown doors and realized I didn’t know where any doors in this house led.This room and the bathroom in the hallway were the only parts of the house I’d seen. The house felt colder now, too, and I could hear the wind whipping outside as the temperature dropped. Soon, Ryan rang the bell and since I had no idea where I was going, I just followed a pair of footsteps. 

They went out into the hall that had the bathroom and back behind the grand staircase leading to the second floor. There was a hallway that ran perpendicular in the back, and they turned left. The footsteps disappeared on the carpet, but I followed the general direction. When I reached the corner, I saw a window at the end of the hall. It was mostly covered by shrubs scraping against the glass, but there was a little bit of moonlight that leaked in. Enough that I could walk to it without stumbling.

The hall turned right, toward the back of the house. There was a door at the end that looked cracked open. I could hear people running around, back down the hall from where I’d come, and across the creaking floorboards above me. But Smee was probably sitting in place somewhere, maybe behind this door. I walked down the hall towards it.

It was cracked only a an inch. I could feel cold air coming around it. I put my hand on it to push it open. 

“Smee!” Someone whisper shouted just to my right.

I jumped and hit the door hard with my hand as I did. It flew open, and I realized I was lucky to have not lurched forward. Just on the other side was the steepest set of stairs I’d ever seen.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. How did you open that?” the voice said–it was Tim, unfortunately.

“It was open, that’s why I came over here in the first place. I thought Smee might be there.”

“No, no that’s the door we keep locked.” Tim pulled the door closed and fiddled with the old handle. 

“One of the guys probably used it to take out the trash again. I’ll block it with something.”

I left Tim to his corner and went on looking for Smee, more confidently now that I knew which door led to almost certain death. I could hear the floors creaking above me, so I figured Smee must be upstairs. I went back around to the staircase and walked up to the second floor. muffled laughter echoed from the far end of the hall to the right. There was more moonlight here through the windows at either end, and I could see the stairwell leading to the third floor where I’d heard the noises.

I walked to it and looked up and whispered SMEE. 8 eyes blinked back at me, not saying anything, so I went and joined them on the stairs. One by one everyone else found us, until finally Tim walked by.

“Tim, I think you lost,” a voice called out.

“Yeah, I had to keep Megan’s friend from breaking her neck. I told you stop using those stairs to take out the trash.”

“Was the door open again?’ Ryan asked.

“Yeah, is everyone really here?”

Tim took out his phone and turned on the flashlight and shined it up the stairs.

“One, two three, four” He started counting us one by one until. “Twelve, thirteen”

“Tim there’s only 12 of us, learn to count buddy…” ryan rolled his eyes.

“No wait hold on, one, two” he tried counting again, this time shining the light directly into each of our eyes as he made sure we were properly accounted for.

“Twelve. Wait, I didn’t count myself. Thirteen.”

I couldn’t see all that well, but I felt everyone start to look around. Where was he getting 13 from.

Ryan couldn’t take it, he got up and turned on the lights. He counted everyone out loud, pointing to himself and Tim as he counted 11, 12. “See there’s all 12 of us now. Also you lost that round.”

Everyone got up to restart the game except Megan who was sitting on the second to top step. She was looking around with a confused expression.

“Meg, you good?” I asked

“What? Oh, Yea,” she said, shaking herself out of her trance. “I just could have sworn there was someone sitting on the top step.”

“I thought you were sitting on the top step,” one of the girls said.

“No, someone came after me and sat there.”

It was quiet for a moment. Quiet enough to hear the tree branches whipping against the windows of the house. The kind of quiet where you can hear everything, even things that aren’t there. 

“Well, round 2,” Tim said,”That one wasn’t really fair for me.” And suddenly it was as if everything was fine again. Megan stood up and we all headed back to the dining room. 

We regrouped and pulled slips of paper. I said a silent prayer once again to NOT be SMEE. I didn’t want to go find a secret hiding spot in the house to not be caught. I was starting to get a weird feeling about the house. 

But my prayers went unanswered. I pulled the SMEE slip of paper and, my face must have given me away. I was not a very good  smee. When the lights went out I got up and went to hide, thinking I’d retrace my last path and find some good spot in the back of the house, but instead I somehow got lost and went in a big circle, practically running into Bryce–a third housemate. We sat down in the middle of the hallway which meant we were found in about two minutes by almost everyone. Everyone except Megan. She showed up five minutes later, and definitely got dragged by some of the guys for being last. as everyone headed back for round 3, she pulled me to the side.

“Are you ok?” I asked. She was super pale, and I thought maybe she’d just had too much to drink which would help explain why it had taken her so long to find us.

“Something weird happened,” she said.

“Like, with someone here?”

“No, no, no, I mean, so you were Smee, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Dude what the hell? Ok, so the bell rings, and I go into the kitchen because, well, I wanted water, but anyway, I see the door to the pantry is open, and I’m like, ok, that’s not a bad place for SMEE to hide. So I go over to it and kind of push it open, and I reach around thinking I found you–and I feel a hand, so I say ‘Smee?’ and there’s no answer. So I’m like, ok, I must be the first one. I slide in and I pull the door closed, and I wait. And I keep waiting and then I start feeling weird, like, I don’t know how to explain it. Just…creepy, so I’m like whatever, no one’s coming, I lean back against the wall and accidentally flip on the light, and there’s no one there.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, there’s no one in the pantry. I’m just standing with a bunch of plastic bags. But I felt a hand.”

“You probably felt a cucumber.” I said, really struggling to figure out what it could have been 

“No, I’m serious. What do you think?”

“I think you’ve had a lot to drink. Why don’t we just leave?” Please, i thought to myself. Lets just go.

“No, I don’t want to be lame and leave early. It doesn’t matter.”

I followed her back into the dining room where everyone was gathered around the dead fire. It was obvious no one really wanted to play anymore, but there’s always that one guy who can’t read the room and in this case that guy was Tim. 

“Ok, someone tear up some more sheets, and I’ll pour shots.”

I just wanted to go. I couldn’t really have said why, it was just that feeling you get when something in your brain or your body or your soul is saying ‘go.’ I could have left alone. Put on my coat and walked through the freezing cold back to my dorm, but it’s not really the part of town a girl should walk through alone at midnight. I wish I would have.

Megan didn’t care. She was helping Tim pour shots while one of the other housemates dutifully tore up slips of paper.

I didn’t do my shot. But Neither did the Senator’s son. That was the first time we made eye contact, everyone tipped their heads back to drink, and I caught him pouring his cheap vodka out on the coals. He gave me a half smile which was more warmth than I’d seen him give anyone else that night. I poured mine out in to a dead plant beside me and watched as he made the motion of zipping his lips together. Our little secret. 

I drew a blank slip, the lights went off again, and we started all over. People stomped around the house, trying to be caught. I was tired of my usual downstairs loop, so I went upstairs. All the way up past where we’d ended the first game, up to the third floor. There were two rooms on either end with closed doors and in the middle a large open space like a study. The walls were lined with bookshelves and the back windows were covered with thick dark, curtains that hung over black shades. So thick hardly any light came through from the street.

I walked toward the curtains, hoping to peek outside and see how bad the storm had gotten, but as I reached to grab it, I felt my knee hit something solid. I looked down and in the crack of moonlight, I could see two black loafers peeking out from behind the curtain.

I recognized them, or thought I did. The sleek black shoes of the Senator’s son. I thought I could even smell the faint scent of smoke from the fire downstairs coming from his clothes.

“Smee?” I asked.

Nothing. I felt for the break in the curtain, and slipped underneath it. It was pitch black. I could feel the Senator’s son’s cold hand just beside mine.

“Hey sober buddy,” I joked. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Colleen, megan’s friend. What’s your name, Smee?”

“Thomas Wakefield.” he said so softly I hardly heard him

That sounded about right to me. A vacation in the Hampton’s kind of name. The Wakefield estate had a nice ring. 

I think I asked him if he went to school here, but he didn’t respond. I don’t remember him saying anything else at all. He was technically playing the game correctly. Smee isn’t supposed to say anything ever, but this was round three or four, and i dont know, I thought we shared a moment downstairs. But maybe I was wrong.

And then it just started feeling creepy. Standing that still next to someone, and not saying a word. And cold. For some reason it was freezing under that curtain. All of the warmth he had shown me downstairs was gone, and I just wanted out. I made sure my shoes were sticking out from the curtain enough for someone to see, and gave a little shiver from the cold that would make the curtains move and finally I heard ‘Smee?”

Neither of us said anything, and a moment later I was joined by my favorite person in the world. Tim. 

“Who is it? Megan?” Tim said.

“No, Megan’s friend.”

“Oh, are you Smee, Megan’s friend?”

“No, the other side of me.” I felt Tim’s hands reach across me and feel the senator’s son’s forearms.

“Oh, another dude. Boring. You want a drink?” he said pulling a flask from his pocket.

I passed. We stood there and made small talk, gradually louder and louder waiting to be found, and finally Ryan bounded up the stairs. “Hey, anyone up here? Tim? Colleen?!”

Tim stepped out from behind the curtain.

“You’re supposed to say Smee?” Tim said.

Ryan flipped on the lights. 

“Why would I say Smee, when I am Smee?” Ryan responded.

“What do you mean you’re Smee? He’s smee,” I said, as I pulled the curtain back.

But there was no one there. It was just Tim and me. We looked at each other, knowing exactly what the other was thinking and both started screaming, ripping at the curtains to find the guy we were sitting besides, but there was no one there.

“Whatever, come on, everyone’s waiting,’ Ryan said running back downstairs.

We followed him down and back into the dining hall where the fire had been rekindled and the lantern lights turned back on. 

“I found them behind a curtain,” Ryan said smiling as he entered.

I could feel the glare from Megan across the room. She was already throwing on her coat.

“We were with him,” I said, pointing at the senator’s son. “He was smee. Or at least he acted like he was when I got up there.”

“Me? I was downstairs this round.” 

“Yeah, he was the first to find me,” Ryan said.

“Well, there was someone there,” Tim was still breathless.

Megan marched past us toward the front door.

“Meg, I’m telling you there was someone there. He even told me his name.”

“What was it?” she said, accusing me with her eyes.

“Thomas something.” I’d forgotten the full name because of the adrenaline. My brain was not working.

Megan kept going toward the door, not beliving me, but Ryan froze.

“Wakefield?” he asked.

“Yeah, that was it. Thomas Wakefield, and he was wearing shoes just like your friend over there.”

Megan opened the front door just a bit, but the wind ripped it out of her hands and a gust of cold air shot into the house, put out the rekindled fire in the fireplace. 

Tim and Ryan both turned a pale shade of white.

“Who is Thomas Wakefield?” the senator’s son asked.

Ryan finally managed to speak. “Thomas Wakefield was the kid is who broke his neck.”

Long music fade out

That was a modern day retelling of  SMEE, written by AM Burrage nearly 100 years ago.

So now, when you listen to The Most Wonderful Time of The Year, you’ll understand the line about ghost stories a little bit more. 

But There’s actually more to the story about why an american song from the 60’s included a line about an English tradition from 100 years prior. And it has to do with a christmas ghost story you’re probably more familiar with. 

Charles Dickins’ A Christmas Carol was so widely popular that it became at hit in America, and stayed popular for decades afterwards. The story of a man named scrooge who was moved by the ghost of Christmas Past to become a better man really resonated with American audiences. It would have been popular when the writers of the song were growing up, which is probably the reason they thought to include it.

Christmas ghost story-telling eventually faded as a tradition as electricity became mainstream and people didn’t have to huddle by a fire all winter. But also, in America, our obsession with ghosts and the macabre started taking shape around a holiday that Scottish and Irish Immigrants were bringing over. Halloween. Had halloween not become a mainstream holiday, we may watch scary movies at Christmas. Kind of wild to think about. 

So this holiday season, gather your family around the fire, and tell them the scariest ghost story you’ve ever heard. I promise, they’ll love it. If they’re like, why are you doing this, tell them I told you its important to uphold this 150 year old tradition. They’ll come around.

This has been Heart Starts Pounding, written and produced by me, Kaelyn Moore. Sound design and mix by Peach Tree Sound. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grayson Jernigan, the team at WME, and Ben Jaffe.

Special thanks to all of my new patrons, you will be thanked by name in the monthly newsletter. And a note on that, did you know we have a newsletter. Once a month I share my thoughts, updates, and recommendations of spooky and macabre things. You can sign up for the newsletter as well as send a scary story or episode request by checking out our website, Heart Starts Pounding. Com. Until next time, stay curious.