Word: Kinchin

kinchin

\ kin-chin \  , noun;

1. a child.

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             It was a calm, quiet night, and Matt had just sat down to watch TV.  He had just had a long day at work and had come home to an empty house and ate a simple dinner, and he was quite ready to turn his brain off with some mindless TV shows.

                Before he could so much as pick up the remote though, he heard a knock at the door.  He groaned as the soft thuds entered his ear.  He was very tempted to simply ignore it and hope whoever it was went away.  As the person at the door knocked again though, he figured it might be someone important, and he would have to answer it to find out.

                He got up off the couch and shuffled over to the door.  Opening it, he looked out to see who it was.  He scanned his front porch to find the person, but nobody was there.  He called out to see who would answer, but no response came.  He looked down to see if he had gotten a package, whether from a late night currier of some kind, or neighborhood kids on a pranking spree.

                Standing at his front door was a child.  It was a small child that looked to be about five or six.  Matt couldn’t tell if it was a boy of a girl, as its hair was cropped short in the front, and hung down to its neck in the back.  The child’s clothes gave no indication of gender either, as it was dressed in a formless black shirt and equally formless pants.  The child looked up at Matt with blank, emotionless black eyes.  He didn’t want to admit it, but the kid’s stare creeped him out a bit. 

                “Can I help you?”  Matt said, trying to be polite.  The child didn’t answer.  It simply looked up at him and blinked slowly.

                “Where are your mom and dad?  Do they know you’re here?”  He asked.  No response.  The child simply looked up at him with that cold, blank expression.  A pit formed in Matt’s stomach, there was something unnerving about that kid.

                “Look, kid, I don’t have anything for you.  Why don’t you go home?  I’m sure your parents are worried, ok?”  He said.  The child didn’t move.  Matt figured the kid may have been playing some kind of joke on him and simply shut the door, thinking that the child would leave eventually. 

                As he went back over to the couch, he found he was no longer in the mood to watch TV.  He was tired from his long day, so he opted to go to bed early.  He went wearily up to his bedroom and got himself ready.  Before he got into bed though, a nagging feeling tugged at his mind.  He looked out the window overlooking the front door.  The child was still standing there, unmoving.  It slowly turned its small head up to look at him.  For some reason, a chill ran down his spine as the child looked at him.  He opened the door and leaned his head out the window.

                “Look kid, I mean it!  Go home!”  He shouted before closing the window.  He didn’t even want to know if the kid actually listened to him, and simply crawled into bed. 

                His sleep was restless, interrupted by dreams of the child and it’s big, black eyes.  He tossed and turned in his bed, waking up in a cold sweat numerous times during the night.  He did his best to get some rest, but to no avail.  All too soon, the light of morning crept into his room, forcing him to crawl out of bed and get ready for another day at work.

                His morning routine was done at a snail’s pace due to lack of sleep, and he considered calling in sick.  But, he put up with it and, by using nearly a full pot of coffee, managed to get himself cleaned up and awake enough to get through the day.  He just hoped he wouldn’t have to deal with the child again. 

                Matt slowly opened the door and immediately shut it again.  The child was still standing there, apparently not having moved during the night.  He didn’t want to deal with it anymore, but he would have to if he wanted to go to work.  He opened the door and looked at the child, who stared back with it’s cold black eyes.

                “Look kid.  I’m going to work now, and I think it would be best if you’re not here when I get back, ok?  Your mom and dad are probably not too happy with you right now, and I don’t think you want to get in trouble because of this, do you?”  He said.  The only response he got was the child’s slow, steady blinking.  He sighed and shuffled out past the kid, giving it as wide a berth as he could.

                The day crawled by.  Not only was he too tired to work well no matter how much caffeine he put into his body, he was still thinking about the child.  That kid would simply not leave his mind.  That empty stare and blank expression was getting under his skin in a big way.  Somehow though, he managed to get through the day without any major incidents.  All the way home, he prayed that the child wouldn’t be there when he got back.  It was.

                Matt was practically trembling when he saw the small form of the child still standing at his front door.  As soon as he pulled into the driveway, the child slowly turned to look at him as he made his way to the front door.  Matt did his best to ignore the child as he entered his house.  He was breathing heavily all the time, and his body was covered in a small layer of cold sweat. 

                Almost as soon as he got inside, he heard the same knocking on his door that he had the previous day.  His hands shook as he opened it to find the child standing there looking up at him.  Matt didn’t know what to do.

                “What do you want kid?  Just tell me what you want and leave.  Do you want some candy?  How about a cookie?  If I get you a cookie, will you go home?”  No response.  Matt figured it was worth a shot.  He ran to find a cookie.  He managed to pull out some cheap chocolate chip cookies he had gotten weeks ago and never found a use for.  He pulled out a few and ran to the door.

                “Here, take it and go.”  He said, holding a cookie out to the child.  It looked at the offered cookie, blinked once, and returned to looking at Matt.  He cried in frustration, dropped the cookies at the child’s feet and slammed the door.  He soon heard the child knocking on the door again, but he ignored it to the best of his abilities.

                The next day, the child was still there, the cookies still at its feet.  For weeks, in fact, the child stood there.  Matt could almost feel its stares, even when he couldn’t actually see the kid.  It simply wouldn’t leave him alone.  Whenever Matt was home, the child would knock on the door periodically.  Matt had tried everything to get the child to leave.  He had even offered to let the child in, but not even that worked, nothing did.  The child was always there.

                Not even leaving his house brought any solace.  He could feel the child’s eyes, even across town.  And he always knew that when he got home, the child would be there, waiting for him.  The image of the child haunted him, not letting him get even a single moment of relaxation.  Finally, after two weeks, he had enough.  He had to get rid of that kid.

                At first he tried calling around the neighborhood to find out who was missing a child, but there were no responses.  He tried putting the kid’s picture on the internet, but that got him nowhere.  No matter how hard he tried, nobody claimed the kid.  Finally, he decided to take matters into his own hands.

                He was sitting, waiting for the knock.  It came, and he sprung into action.  Matt threw open the door, and simply picked the kid up.  He stuffed it into his car and drove.  He drove for hours without stopping until he was well outside of town.  When he thought he was far enough away, he took the kid and led it out of the car, out to the nearest place he could find.  He simply left the child there for whoever cared.  As he drove home, he couldn’t help but laugh.  He was finally rid of the child, he could finally get some rest. 

                Once home, with the child no longer there, he felt as if a great weight had been lifted from him.  He put his feet up and began to relax.  Suddenly, a series of small knocks on the door echoed through the house.

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There's a movie in here somewhere.  You know, one of those old school psychological horror films or something like that.  I mean, think of how many movies that have been based almost entirely around creepy kids, then think of this story.  It's an almost perfect fit, right?