---

Kristi Johnson was running away from home. She'd been running away all afternoon. She'd only gotten three blocks from her house.

She was toting a backpack and a lunchbox and was determined to not go back to her foster parents' house ever again. This time she was going to escape and see the world. Of course, the world was far less inviting when it got dark. And it was dark. The last of the sun's light was barely touching the western sky.

The streetlights came on and the small town began to glow in the nighttime of fall. It was Friday night, and everyone was at the football game over at the high school. Everyone but her baby-sitter who was sleeping in a chair with the TV on at Kristi's house.

She continued past the library and the post office, the fire station and the only restaurant in town. Finally she reached the gas station at the edge of town.

Several of the local high school dropouts were sitting on the trunks and hoods of their cars in the parking lot, drinking making lots of noise. Kristi soon recognized them as a group of guys who called themselves the Reapers. Kristi knew they were probably too drunk to notice her, and walked by them, trying not to look directly at any of them.

Suddenly one of them got off the hood of the car he'd been sitting on and lurched towards her, laughing all the while.

"What do we have here boys? Why, it's a little school girl! Look, she's got her backpack and her lunchbox. The only thing I can't figure out is where she thinks she's going on a Friday night!"

They all laughed at her, leaving their seats and forming a semi-circle around her that grew smaller even as she tried to back away from them all. She didn't like the looks of this situation one bit. Every one of these boys towered over her, and they looked ominous walking towards her in their dark clothes, like evil things descending on her.

The one closest to her on the right reached out and tugged on her ponytail.
"I'll bet she came to hang out with us, what do you guys think?" he asked the others, smirking at her attempts to smack his hand away from her.

"Na, I think she came here to get an education, since she knows the school can't give her one."

"That's good, cause we have special curriculums for young girls around here, got the ideas for them off the internet," one of them said as he reached out to grab her arm.

Then they all stopped, hearing the slap of tennis shoes against the pavement behind them. Collectively as a group they all turned around to look at the other person who'd entered their territory unannounced and uninvited. But when they looked, there was no one there.

They soon turned their attention back to Kristi when an ice cold breeze suddenly blew up, chilling them all to the bone and causing fallen leaves to swirl up around them. ominously.

Each and every one of them felt uneasy, but couldn't explain why. Even Kristi could feel a pang of fresh fear travel through her and strike her heart. Something was out there in the darkness, she knew it. And it scared her far more than any of these teenaged boys did.

The Reapers were fidgeting, all of them appeared to be ill, gray faced like they'd just seen a ghost.

"Let's get out of here guys, I'm bored," one of them volunteered weakly.

The rest agreed quickly and they left her there alone as they half ran to their cars, taking off for places that were better lit than the shady parking lot.

Kristi ran to the door of the gas station and quickly got inside the old building. She let out a sigh of relief upon seeing a teenage girl behind the counter chewing bubble gum and reading a magazine while leaning against the counter.

Kristi decided she'd had enough of running away for one night. She was standing by the glass-paned door and as she looked outside she wondered if she should try to brave the darkness and go home. Then again, she looked around the safety of the gas station and wondered if she should just call her baby-sitter take the consequences of having run away.

When she looked back out at the parking lot after her second of indecision he was there, just outside the door, having appeared without warning. She hadn't seen him walk up and she gasped from the shock.

She stared up at him, backing away from the door. He effortlessly pulled it open and entered the store. His presence caused the clerk to look up from her magazine. She'd felt it rather than heard when he came in, which was unusual because there was a bell that was supposed to ring whenever the door opened or closed.

Kristi followed him as he walked past her and through the aisles. His movements were so graceful he appeared to glide over the floor. He was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her nine years on Earth, and by far the most awe inspiring. Being in the same room as him was comparable to seeing a world champion boxer after he's just won his title, only it came naturally to this man. It didn't take earth-shattering achievement for him to turn heads.

He seemed to sense her and turned on her suddenly, making eye contact with her and when she looked him straight in the eye she saw images of incredible terrors in her mind's eye, and they kept coming like a stream that she couldn't shut off no matter how she tried. For a second she was lost in his stare, but then he released her and passed her by as he walked to the counter.

Kristi blinked several times. What was that? How had he been able to show her those things? Reminded her...of some of those things? Those horrors from her own past...