Hey Ragnar,

Nice creepy story! Very original monster. Loved the description. And totally creepy kid.I enjoyed how you flipped the horror trope of the victim doing something they shouldn't tot one where the victim had been trying to do the right thing. I don't have much in ways of suggestion for improvement, I think this Is a pretty solid story. You could consider trying it in first person, which I think you could do easily without much editing, just adding more of her thoughts perhaps, but it's not necessary. O you could consider adding a mirror so she sees herself as stone at the end... And you could describe that. But those are just ideas, personally I think it's fine as is. My favorite bit is  how the child definitely acts and explain things the way a child would. O h and I love that we had sympathy for the kid at first that he was being targeted and then later we find out he is the one hunting. Great pacing on the reveal there!

Hope this helps, thanks for writing,

Wil

And I'll never do a good deed again. Seriously. This is a great story. I loved it. Structure, pacing, dialogue, characters... All really well done. And the monster is brilliant - original and beautifully described. And, last but not least, I loved the way you subtly worked in the amount of time that's passed with the characters using that house, e.g., Nintendo, Die Hard, Wesley Walker, etc. Well... assuming I read that right.

Great job. 

I found the boy much creepier than the monster here. He was very believable and I enjoyed the mixture of empathy/cockiness/nonchalance he displayed.

They way you progress the story through the opening and closing of the woman's eyes was a great touch, I could feel the darkness coming and going along with her. 

The only thing I didn't like, and this is a small detail, was the paragraph in which the boy explains what happened at the mall. It felt a bit forced somehow and pulled me out of the piece for a moment when I was otherwise rapt. 

The Wesley Walker poster was a nice detail.

Well done!