Kyle Teaser – Children at the Window

He slipped around me and into the bathroom just to our left, leaving me in between the bathroom and my bedroom. A few seconds later, he popped back out with my makeup compact in his hand. I raised my eyebrows at him, but he only shook his head at me.

 

Kyle slipped around me and crouched to the floor. I realized then what he was doing. He opened the compact and angled the mirror underneath the door. I leaned over him as he played with the angles. I caught fragments of images; my ceiling, the corner of the dresser, and then a flash of something black. It happened so quickly I had no idea what I saw but it made my heart drum hard in my chest.

I knew Kyle had seen it too because his body tensed for a fraction of a second. I leaned into him as he leaned toward the mirror – both of us desperate to see what was going on. Again, fragments of my room came into view and then we heard the shuffling of feet, inches from the door. We froze. Fear gripped me as I wondered if whoever it was would open the door while we were both crouched on the floor, vulnerable to an attack.

 

Kyle and I watched my door handle, waiting for it to turn, but there was nothing. It wasn’t until I looked back down at the mirror that I realized what the black object was from. The mirror rested in Kyle’s hand, at just the right angle. We both looked down at the mirror at the same time to see solid black eyes staring back at us — using the mirror to their advantage as well.

Chapter 1 – Children at the Window

Chapter 1 (unedited)
The gun jolts in my hand, or as Dan would say, the ‘kick’. In the time it takes for me to blink the firing pin moves forward, crushing and igniting the primer in the cartridge base. At this point my eyes have not even completely closed.
When the primer ignites the gunpowder I’m in between heartbeats, my blood is not pumping any faster from the decision I made because my brain has yet to receive the information needed to do this. Gas pressure forces the bullet out of the chamber, its course already determined by the decision I already made half a heartbeat earlier. A decision my brain has not completely processed yet. A decision that I don’t know that I ever will completely process because the events leading up to that are too unreal for anyone to believe, even me who had been through it.
The bullet shell bumps my arm as it leaves the chamber and leaves a slight singe but I don’t notice it. By the time I open my eyes from the reflexive blink the bullet has already left the chamber, made its predetermined course, and impacted the target, a ten-year old child.
Yes, the asshole was a demon child, but he looked like any other kid – he looked like my kid, aside from the solid black eyes.
I watched him drop to the floor. It didn’t happen like you’d expect, not like it does in the movies. There was no grace to it, no faint-like spell.
I never imagined I would be firing a bullet through a child’s head. But that’s the thing with demons – their disguises are meant to cause hesitation. As he collapsed into a heap, his right leg bent awkwardly and his head bouncing off the concrete floor with a thud that could be felt in my legs, I knew how screwed I was.

RELEASE DATE: October 2018