The Living Daylights

The Living Daylights

Kyri shuffled her way through the leaf-muffled sidewalks, thinking her own thoughts and content to do so. She stopped under an oak tree to take a deep breath of crisp autumn air. That’s when she heard it. The sound of heavier footfalls behind her.

She said loudly, without turning.

“Show yourself, whoever you are!” The footfalls stopped at once.

Nodding her pigtailed head in satisfaction, she began to walk forward again, humming her favorite tune” Halloween is a wonderful time.” She stopped briefly and listened. Now she could hear two separate sets of footfalls behind her.

Nimbly, Kyri zipped over to a huge tree and hid behind it. She waited until the following footfalls came even with the tree. Then, she popped out with a menacing growl followed by a question.

“Are you trying to scare me?”

Despite the fact there seemed to be no one there, she heard squeals and shrieks. Surprised, Kyri said:

“Who or what are you?”

Two flames slowly appeared in front of her.

“We’re Living Daylights. We are practicing scaring,” fizzed one in a snappy voice.

“Yes, we’ve never done it before, so we have to practice,” crackled the second one.

Kyri began to giggle. The two flames flared red.

“You’ll have to do much better than creepy footsteps from behind.”

Without further ado she began to give them lessons in scaring. Before long, she was pleased with the results.

“Do me a favor, you two. Go a couple of blocks over when you start scaring tonight. I couldn’t be scared because I tutored you today.”

The two dancing flames nodded. They snapped out so suddenly, Kyri had to keep herself from jumping in fright. With a sigh, she resumed her walk home to the abandoned house she’d haunted since her passing.