I slipped on the wet sidewalk and cried. Why had daddy screamed at me? I didn't do anything wrong...

"Little girl, are you alright?"

I looked up. A man in his early forties stared down at me. He was pale as the moon, his eyes...round and dark as the swampy lake at night.

I gasped. But I didn't feel too scared. Maybe a small fright, but I still felt peace. I sniffled.

"Daddy got mad at me...I don't know what I did wrong. He started screaming, and then smacked me hard on the face."

The man continued to look at her with no expression on his face. His reached down and touched her cheek lightly. It was red, red as blood. He suddenly looked hungry.

He smiled.

"Why don't I take you home. Everything will be alright." He held my hand softly and stood me up. I smiled back and walked along with him into the fog that engulfed us like fire.

The early morning news said that a little girl had died two hours later after she had been beaten up. She hadn't died from the beatings. Her throat was slit across with a sharp knife.

Her father and mother had died in the same way. Their throats were sliced open. Police think that the father might have killed the child and the mother and then himself to escape from the guilt. But there was no sign of a knife that had been used to kill them.

Two old ladies were watching the news and felt grief for the girl and her mother. They only felt scorn and hate toward the father.

Then one of the old ladies said, "Isn't it strange that they died, with their throats slit?"

"How is that strange?"

"Well you see, a friend of mine told me that a man had killed himself with a knife just two days ago. He said that the poor fellow had been discouraged with his life. He had no money, his wife deserted him and his children had died of leukiemia. Before he died, he left a note saying that he would kill anyone that was suffering through life as he was. It was only too bad that he wouldn't have the chance to do so now. He was a depressed man, all confused. Isn't it lucky though that he now doesn't have the chance to do what he wanted to do?"

" Yes it is. The poor fellow. What did he look like?"

"Well, he was described as a man in his early middle age, pale as death as if no sun ever got through to him and his eyes dark as the swampy lake in the night..."