No dolls, no frilly lace dresses growing up, noexperience with boys, and no sense of myself as a female. The idea thatthey are beautiful and would be ...others some day is entrenched in themat an early age. I had none of that. As I looked over at my reflection,to see the girl that I had come to look like; I both loved her, andhated her. I felt guilty loving her, because she was everything Iwasn't, and could do those things that were forbidden to the old me. Onthe other hand, I hated her because. Now, in retrospect, Roger realized that she'd just been using him to keep her grades high enough so she could stay on the volleyball team. But at the time, it had been nice to have a girl interested in him. And then, one Tuesday night, she asked if he could come over and help her study for a math test on Wednesday. She'd more than insinuated that she'd be grateful. Roger had agreed, and with butterflies in his stomach, he trudged to Shelly's house.Shelly's parents were gone. It was just. It had killed three already and its attacks were getting more brutal with each repetition. He had to stop it. Too many times it had gotten away from him. To many cities had seen its evil. This city would be it's last. He would catch it and end it.It hid in the shadows, watching, waiting. It's hunger growing. It's jaws ached to rend, to tear. It's claws clenched and relaxed, longing to feel the flesh, the warm soft flesh, it's tongue slid across it's lips in anticipation as it spied the animal. Finally, everyone was hot and tired, and they called it a day. Jake dressed and caught a shuttle for the hour-long drive to Springfield to board an American Airlines flight home while everyone else went out to dinner.Randy was waiting for him when his flight arrived. They drove straight to the lake house. Jake grabbed a couple bottles of water from the refrigerator and walked out to Jesse and Wyatt’s observation post. When he sat down with them, he saw that he needn’t have bothered. They had a.