“They say children are our future—but what if that future is damned?”From the shadowy realms first glimpsed in Beneath the Veil, Martin Kearns returns with a chilling collection of stories that explore the darkest echoes of youth. In Kinder, innocence is an illusion, and the monsters don’t always live under the bed—sometimes, they’re the ones tucking you in.A high school girl follows invisible tendrils cast by a soul-hunting demon. A centaur delivers brutal justice to a father who’s failed his child. A man’s buried memories awaken—and they remember him in return. Each story peels back the fragile skin of adolescence to reveal something ancient, hungry, and unrelentingly cruel.These are the children of Lilith. These are the lessons she’s loosed upon the world.Terrifying, lyrical, and deeply unsettling, Kinder is a descent into the nightmare playground where broken families, forgotten sins, and the horrors of growing up collide.”