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                There

was a little girl named Maggie and she had the worst luck of anyone I know. She

was an orphan; a withdrawn, skinny little thing that never seemed to eat or

drink. Despite this, she seemed to thrive. It was uncanny; and it was

terrifying.                She was always quiet, this

Maggie. Ever since she saw her mother murdered by her father, she had withdrawn

into her own little world. She was apt to block everything else out. She would

walk through a swarm of bees without the slightest inclination to note that

they were there.  Danger seemed to be

nothing of consequence to her.                She

went through several foster homes before everyone sort of gave up on her. She's

wasn't bad. She also wasn't any particular trouble. It was almost like she wasn't...

anything at all.  It seemed that whatever

soul that had inhabited her body had fled into the shadows.                 Her

only real fault, whether in the home or at the orphanage, was her habit of

wandering. She always came back to wherever she was living at the time, as

unerring as a homing pigeon.  But she could

be gone for days. When she returned, she might, just might have the slightest

touch of a smile on her face. But she never said where she had been.                 I

happened to know her, or at least of her, so when I ran across her one evening

as she walked down the street, I couldn't help but follow her from a distance. I

had gotten a glimpse of her as she passed under a streetlight. Knowing a bit of

her story, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to follow her. It was

stupid, but it was so strong I could do nothing but comply.As I found out, she had incredible endurance.

I had much longer legs, but she managed to keep going tirelessly, sometimes

forcing me to find shortcuts to keep pace with her. Her movements seemed to

have no purpose. She would walk down a street, then turn down an alley before

coming out at a park, where she walked right past the playground and carried on

to the next street.                Some of

these areas were nice, and others not so nice. She even made her way into a

semi-abandoned factory district. It was eerie in that there was no possible

reason for her to be wandering here. It was full of rust, broken windows and moonlit

shadows.                 It was

out of one of these shadows that a dark form peeled itself from the greater darkness.

He stood in front of her in a menacing fashion. She stopped, but her body

hardly tensed up. I wanted to shout but my voice remained locked in my throat.

I couldn't clearly hear the conversation from where I was, just the evil

gibberish the man was spouting. When she didn't respond, he grabbed her and

dragged her into an open doorway. The door clanged shut, the reverberations echoing

around the derelict buildings. A few pigeons flew into the air, startled by the

noise. Then silence returned.                I found

that I could move, wondering at what evil held me motionless. I had to save

this girl! Bounding for the door, I found it latched or jammed. No matter how

hard I tried, it wouldn't open. I searched for other ways in, but outside of

climbing the sharp metal sides and braving the shattered glass, there was

nothing. And to be truthful, I'm not as brave as that.                 But I

did have my cell phone! I pulled it out and dialed 911. But when I put it to my

ear, the line was dead. So was the whole phone! I had pulled it off the charger

just this morning! I was getting really creeped out. I could either run for the

police station, which considering I was already tired out, wasn't much of a

choice, or I could continue to try and find a way in. I wasn't stupid. I knew what

was going on in there. Maggie's wandering had finally gotten the best of her.

She was now paying the price.                I

finally gave up after a half an hour of trying to force my way in. For a

building as decrepit as this one was, I would have thought breaking in would

have been easier. I moved across the way, sitting in the shadows of a fire escape

and waited. I don't know what I was waiting for, but I waited. The minutes

ticked by inexorably, made worse by the strained silence.                 Then,

out of the darkness there rose a shrill scream. It was high pitched and filled

with terror. I had no idea why it came so late in what had to be a horrible

rape, but there it was. Every single hair on the back of my neck rose up in

fear of that sound. It wasn't normal, not by any means. I found it difficult to

imagine it coming out of her little body.                I ran

over to the door again and yanked with all my might. It swung open so readily

that I nearly dislocated my should doing it. It slammed against the wall and

split off of its top hinge. I wanted to bolt up the stairs, but my legs moved

like they were running through water. I dragged them up the corroded stair one

foot at a time. I reached the top and looked around. The bank of broken windows

was letting in the moonlight, illuminating the inside, and at the same time

creating a myriad of shadows.                 My eyes

finally focused on movement. From the size, it was obviously Maggie. I couldn't

see well, but if she was alive I needed to do something for her. Still, my feet

felt like lead. I plodded on, my shoes scraping the floor, disrupting little

swirls of dust and debris. When I made it to where she was, I stopped. Not of

my own volition, but because what I was seeing didn't register.                 She was

naked. I had figured that was going to be the case. So was the man who had

assaulted her. His throat had been ripped out, and his chest was covered in

claw marks. I'll not speak of his belly and lower.  I could see this clearly in the moonlight.

What I couldn't comprehend was what had saved her from his evil ministrations.

I glanced around, terrified that I might be next.                That

was when I noticed her ears. And her arms. Her ears were pointy and covered

with the same dark hair as her arms. As I watched, the nails were shrinking

down to thin human ones. The sharp black spikes that  I had just seen dissolved

like fog in sunlight.                Maggie

looked up at me and smiled. "Hello Mr. Peterson. What brings you here?"                I had

so many things I want to say, things I wanted to ask, but the words slipped out

of my brain and ran as a puddle into my sub-consciousness. She smiled, showing

blood around her mouth and teeth.                Since I

didn't respond, she finished licking herself clean of blood, like some sort of

feral animal. She contorted herself into positions that made me hurt just watching

her. I was nearly disgusted when she got between her legs and cleaned herself

up. It was with morbid fascination that I watched her as her leg twitched in

time to her tongue. It was exciting and horrifying at the same time. She was just

ten years old!                She

finished and stood up, gathering her clothes and putting them on. She walked

around the body of the newly deceased. "Another one gone. I'll have to move out

of the city at this rate."                "A-a-a-a-another

what?" I stammered.                 "Speaking

now are we? The spell doesn't last long." She grinned in a way I had never seen

her do before.                "To

answer your question, this is Robert Murdock. If the name doesn't ring a bell,

he's a known rapist. Been in jail three times. Now I've saved the system a

little headache." Then she grinned. "Maybe not."                I

caught what she meant. She had murdered, or rather eliminated, this menace to

society. But I fell to the floor when I realized the importance of what I had

witnessed.                 "You!"                She

smiled innocently; now back to a completely normal girl. "Me what?"                "You're

the one who has been murdering all of those criminals?"                She did

an experimental skip, like she was discovering what it was like to be a girl

again. "Yes, it was me. I need to eat from time to time. What better way than

killing two birds with one stone?" When I didn't reply, she continued. " I have

needs like anyone else, maybe even a little stronger. Don't let my age fool

you."                She may

have had a point. My brain wasn't working well enough to process all of this.  I was also growing concerned with the way she

was looking at me. I was no criminal. A few parking tickets maybe, but that was

it. I hardly felt that warranted me being her next meal. She must have been

psychic on top of everything else.                "Nah, I

wouldn't kill you, even now that you know my secret. I mean, who would believe

you? In fact, you might just implicate yourself in the murders if you come

forward."                "So what

do you want?"                She was

straight forward. "A home. Nobody would ever understand who and what I am

unless they've seen it for themselves, and of course, I could never allow that.

But you have seen me at my best. I'll just bet that if you asked for custody of

me, the paperwork would fly off the desk faster than you could blink.                I found

myself blinking uncontrollably. "Stop messing with my head!"                She

smiled again. "Oh, come on Mr. Peterson. You live all alone, without even any

pets. You could adopt me and then you'd have company and I'd have a place where

I know I would always be. The town loses its bad element and you gain a

daughter."                "But I don't

want a daughter!"                Her

smiled turned wicked. "Good. I don't want another father. So lover it is!"                I

choked back a response. I don't know if it was something she did, or that fact

that I wasn't as honorable as I had thought. Her offer was seeping into my

conscience and I was having a hard time finding it repugnant.                 "I'll

give it a try..."                She

smiled again, showing, for the moment, sharp fangs."I promise you I'll make it worth

your while!"