Meddling Kids

by Edgar Cantero

“No book is dangerous in and of itself, you know. But historically, reading a book in the wrong way has led to terrible consequences.

“So this is a witch’s house?” she said. She checked the spiraling ornaments of the porch lamps and the handrail, the silent wooden wind chime, the withered Christmas wreath on the door. “Looks like the place of an old lady who never got married.” “That’s Puritan for ‘witch,’ ” Nate said, and he knocked again.

“Can I help you?” she said, with the exact tone of someone whose next line is going to be Yes, I heard of this Jesus Christ guy, but I’m not voting for him.

The carpeted stairs to the second floor stared down at them like Old West bank clerks would at very loud, untidy robbers.

“FUCK THIS,” Andy spat at the intended end of the chapter, pulling out the flare gun from her pocket and shooting into the dark.

A single, bile-coughing wheezer was standing in the coal room where they arrived, its back turned to the end of the slide. It heard the girls crash-landing into the coal pile behind, scrambled to face them, and had its head blown into subatomic matter, thus starting and ending its overall contribution to the story in one paragraph.

But they didn’t really see it, the same way one can be in New York and not see New York. Because you can only see New York in satellite pictures.