IT(Jenise Kunter) (Note that the author was 15 years old when she wrote this story.)


They're after me. Honest. They're right there, in the corner of the room. Their eyes are as cold as night, but nobody can see them. Their voices are as hard as stone, but nobody can hear it. Their touch is chilling, but nobody can feel it. Nobody but me.

Maybe I should rewind a little, just so you know what's going on. A couple weeks ago a family had come to live beside mine. Nothing new, the house had renters come and go like birds in migration. New family, new season, and I only gave them a couple months before they packed up and scurried as far from here as possible.

They seemed normal, and had actually looked normal from my view. I'd stare down at them every morning as they went out to work, or school or where ever it is they go. I'd frequently wished I could meet them, but now I don't remember why.

I had a good reason, I tell you, to leave my home that day. They seemed normal at first, but then there was this figure in the window...one of such unbearable ghastlyness that it made me want to vomit. It's not the first time I've seen such a horror, but it just seems that there comes one with every tenant. I had to be rid of it. So I had climbed through the window of the home, and slithered across the floor as the serpent across the earth. I crawled up the stairs like a gator crawled mud hills. I worked my way to where I believed the window's occupant would be, opened the door, and walked right in. You wouldn't be able to hear me even if you tried; I'm so good at being silent.

I was at the bed of the horror, knife in one hand. I raise my arm just as the thing's eyes open. They're awfully warm for a wrinkled figure like it is. Skin so young, but all wrinkled...it was unbearable. It made me itch all over! I raised my knife, and just as I brought it down, the horror screeched, but then I silenced it. I'm good at that.

I hadn't really wanted to kill anything, but the creature was just so horrible. As I returned to my room tonight, I see it in my corner. Right over there, in the left one...no, wrong left, you imbecile, the other left! Yes...don't you see it? It's hair all crinkled up from squirming in the night. The chest is covered in blood. The skin everywhere on it is unwrinkling...it's getting smoother and smoother until I truly see what it was--a boy. It was a boy, the horror itself. But not just any boy. My son. With those pretty purple eyes...my son, what have I done?

No, the horror could never be my boy. Never my boy. But it will not let me be! It's there every day! I can't get away, leave me alone!

But it's not my boy this time, tonight. it's not even a boy. With sculptured cheeks and a toothy and devilish grin, it's a girl. Not just a girl, but the girl. The girl from my book...the girl who's come for me. No, I won't go! I will not go! Help me, you fool! Can't you see she'll kill me? Do you not see where she is? She's got the very blade I'd used against her. The exact blade. I search for another, but she's got them all. Why has she got them all? Why is she after me? I'd done nothing to her. I had just taken away the horror for the window. I'd done nothing to her.

Why won't you help me! Stop watching me die! Help me! She's coming! Won't you help me? Why won't you help me? What have I done to you? She's right in front of me. She's on your foot, fool, move her! Get her away! I don't want to see her any more! Girl, be gone, you are not wanted here!

But she's not a girl. She's changing again. Not again, oh, no. Please, help me, will you? She-it's become some sort of weird figure. It's cloaked, I can't see it. It's in the-wait, no, that's my boy! My boy's in the corner...and there...there's the girl...and...oh, help me...won't you help me? They're after me, honest! Don't you believe me? They're on me now. Their touch is as cold as night. I can't breathe...why can't I breathe, I...

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