Sitting.

I enjoyed this a lot -- the narrator's voice pulls you through effortlessly, especially once the story gets going. I think the opening could use a little bit of cleaning up -- the 8 fingers bit seems to contradict the160 and the fact that he's eight, not 2. You might even consider starting the story with section 2: "I'd been eight fingers old when I was first asked it..."

I love the babysitters -- they're so vivid and sick. Bookending the story with descriptions of them works really well. I was also impressed by the scene in which the narrator beats Bob to a bloody pulp. It escalates very naturally. We couldn't see him, but we could *feel* it. Excellent.

Two questions: Why can the narrator suddenly "talk to pretty girls?" Has he been changed by therapy, or did beating Bob half to death help him break out of his shell? Is he still at above average intelligence? Second, the final lines were vague and undermine the intensity of the story. It might work to end the whole thing on "cinnamon," but you could also expand what you have and make those final lines a little weightier.

Great work!

Scary and sickening really. Decent writing, almost seemed like a fever dream, things moving quickly and then as they say in the classics "Shit got real". Intensity is the word I'm looking for and this delivered, for such a black hearted story it could've ended on a more ambigious or darker note...BUT this was good.

this was well structured with good characters, dialogue and a very interesting horror concept. I really enjoyed it.

The kid has synesthesia, but this rarely comes up. Either work it in everywhere to add some interesting emotive element or remove it.

you might want to add a bit more about the kids emotive reaction to the world. It might be good if hes just dumb or complacent, but when angered he throws Hulk-like tantrums.

Dude- you can really write. I'm not completely convinced that this is horror--more like dark drama. Would maybe be horror if you really ramped up the scene with the tied up children, or show a series of scenes. Not that it matters. It's a good story and I enjoyed reading it.

Although I found the writing excellent and engaging, a couple of times I wondered if the writing could be tightened a bit. I'll give three examples:

howling at the moon, dreaming about landing one more blow, craving the killing of him

Could be tightened to something like: "howling, dreaming about landing one more blow, craving the kill."

in the back of my nasal passages tickled the smell of hot asphalt

Sentence structure is backwards: "the smell of hot asphalt ticked the back of my nasal passages"

Hard to see details, but I could see that he was hunched and swollen.

Could be simply: "Hard to see details, but he was hunched and swollen."

The only reason I'm focusing on these details is because I feel like you have something really good here and pretty much all it needs a good, detail-oriented polish.

Thanks for sharing this.

You've got really strong writing skills and the beginning caught my attention immediately.

I had a hard time with your plot. It felt like there was a lot of exposition without there being a solid plot in place, something that could be remedied if the piece could be longer or if some details are cut out and the remaining bits expanded upon. 

I also couldn't identify the monster. Is it the boy? The girls? Something more abstract and elusive? Others pointed out that this is more dark drama than horror, and I'm inclined to agree. 

Now that I've read your introduction I see that this may be an opening to something larger, which I can definitely see. I don't know that I buy it as a short story. 

Your title doesn't do it justice (it refers more to the girls, when I felt it was the narrator's story). What about 160? Just a thought.

There's this child killer movie from the 80's called Bloody Birthday that, to me, read like a prequel to this because in that movie, the most manipulative child, and subsequently the only character to get away, is the blonde girl and I could totally see her winding up as a murderous babysitter. I'm pretty sure that's unintentional, but it made the read extra fun for me because of that. Otherwise, I think your idea is a little too ambitious to be a short story, as the idea that you have for the monster is a little too abstract to work in something this short. It needs to be expanded upon, and I think it would work fantastically if it was because you're a very good writer and the skeleton of a great story is there, but it feels like you're skimming an awesome novel when reading this. Not a negative, I just want more. Thumbs up.