This photo creeps me OUT, but it's also fascinating. The...

This photo creeps me OUT, but it's also fascinating.  

The next time you look at a little kid and think they're weak, just remember—those little guys have TEETH!  HUGE, pointy teeth, with extra sharp razor blade teeth waiting in the wings.

Then cower in fear.

Okay, you want to know something funny?  I just remembered this.

Back in high school (yes, we're climbing into the Way Back Machine, hold onto your hats), there was a writing competition by the Literary Guild, or Literary Society, or Literary Club, or something like that.  I wasn't a member, only because I was too damned busy running the yearbook and other diversions.

Anyway, they had a contest.  I submitted a story.  I have absolutely no recollection what that story was about, but it won.  They even gave me a decent cash prize.  I think it was $50 or something, which ain't too shabby for a kid in rural Indiana in the early 90s.

The Literary Club was preparing some kind of publication, perhaps a journal…?  Anyway, they lost my story, so they asked me if I could rewrite it.  Yep, this was in the olden days, children, before we typed everything out and had saved copies.  They'd lost my only copy of this hand-written masterpiece, and they were deeply remorseful.

I replied honestly—I didn't have the heart to rewrite it.  I just couldn't.  I guess it was too demoralizing for the 17 y.o. emo-when-emo-wasn't-cool version of Red.

So, I offered a compromise.  I would write them a *new* story for their journal.

And I did.  I wrote a horror story, instead.  Again, I don't remember a thing about that first story, only that it wasn't horror.  Don't get me wrong, I can do light and fluffy!  It's just not my favorite, and perhaps this story I'm telling you now reveals why I write the kind of fiction I do.  

There was a boy.  (Isn't there always a boy?)  He was a complete jackass.  I understand he grew up to be a deadbeat "dad," among other things, so I'm assuming he still is one.  Anyway, I digress.

I was waiting for that jackass to check in at the military recruiting office.  I don't know if they were just going ahead and giving him a physical, or what, but he was in there a VERY long time.

I guess that long, frustrating wait really poisoned my mood (that, along with the jackass), so I wrote a story about a little boy who went completely crazy and slaughtered his family with a large kitchen knife.  I think I made that kid about 6 years old.

Never heard from the Literary Club again.

Kids, I think, are inherently dangerous.  They shout threats that they mean with all their hearts, and the silent thoughts they bear inside their minds are often deadly.  Especially the revenge plans.  I challenge you to meet any killer who ruthlessly slays others, who doesn't have the heart of an abused child.  I mean that.

And, hey, even the nice ones are hiding all those TEETH.  Think about it.

HEY, speaking of winning contests, enter mine while you still have time.