Home by Ben Young

Author:Ben Young [Young, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: anonymous
Published: 2024-03-22T00:00:00+00:00

Myrtle Kills

The enormous yellow school bus lumbered and groaned its way up the street, around the corner and growing smaller (but still loud), and Myrtle emerged from her hiding place behind the bus stop. She watched the back of the bus, a cold weight inside her chest as it pulled beyond her view, pining for a chance to be closer to those small silhouettes inside and imagining their cheerful melodic voices.

Row after row of living dolls.

“The driver on the bus says, ‘Move on back,’” she sang to herself. “‘Move on back.’” Her little Rosita was on that bus somewhere, and the only way she kept herself from giving chase was a firm reminder that her shortest path to reunion lay inside the house across the street. She would see Rosita tonight if this all went as planned.

“‘Move on back,’” she sang once more.

She looked side to side to ensure she was alone, not registering that she had too little experience at this and would likely not have noticed if someone was twenty feet away and pointing a camera at her. She patted the small leather folio in her coat pocket containing the loaded hypodermic needle.

As she walked toward the house where Rosita was being held, she reflected on how Lloyd had generously, meticulously listed instructions for her. He had thought of everything and Myrtle was grateful for his timely arrival. Without his help, she was now convinced she would have failed and found herself in prison with no means of ever seeing her child again.

My guardian angel, she thought.

Birds chirped nearby, and the sun was cresting behind the homes down the street. She had divine guidance.

It was a fine day to kill a demon.

The dewy grass rustled mutely beneath her feet as she rounded the house through the side yard. The back door was unlocked, just as Lloyd had said it would be. She entered the house to find herself in a modest and clean kitchen, dishwasher humming to her left, otherwise quiet.

If Lloyd’s guesses had all been correct, and she’d no reason to think otherwise, the creature would be in its nest upstairs, sleeping and in its most vulnerable state. Having shuttled its precious cargo off to school (per Lloyd, this was only a temporary measure to keep up appearances while it continued to gain strength), it would have let its guard down and perhaps even retaken a semblance of its truer form.

The home was old, like most buildings in this part of town, and so the stairs creaked. Myrtle took her time—feeling a small comfort because she’d been here before and this time there was daylight to help her see—hoping the beast was distracted enough to give her time for action.

At the crest of the stairs, she paused, listening. She heard a noise, muffled as if coming from behind a closed door. It sounded like a creak mixed with cloth moving, coming from her right, the opposite direction from the room where Rosita had been sleeping last night.

Afraid

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