Today was cloudy and gloomy, the trees were losing their leaves, and the sun kept making feeble attempts at peeking through the gray clouds to no avail. It has been drizzling this whole morning so the ground was moist, adding to the depressive weather.

"And so he comes back inside the house and guess what he's holding?" Stacy Wilington's chipper voice cut through the gloom like a knife.

"What was it?" The women around me asked eagerly.

What a bunch of fake bitches, I thought.

"His shotgun!" Stacy exclaimed dramatically, "He told me that he thought a coyote was outside but I was like 'Darling, we don't even have coyotes in these parts. Don't be ashamed to admit that you were sleepwalking!' " She snorted with amusement.

The women laughed, and I joined them so I could blend in.

"Can I go to the bathroom, Mommy?" Camilla asked as she ran up to me.

I looked at the park restrooms that stood about a 100 feet away from where we were standing.

"Sure honey. Just don't be gone too long. You have five minutes," I said, kissing the top of her head.

"Thank you Mommy!" Camilla beamed at me and ran towards the restrooms. I watched her walk in and close the door, then turned towards the other mothers with a smile.

5 minutes had passed and Camilla still hasn't emerged from there. I started to get nervous, but I decided to wait for another minute. When I still didn't see my daughter, I excused myself from the group and walked off towards the restroom door through which I had seen Camilla enter.

"Camilla?" I asked, knocking on the concrete door, "Honey? Are you in there? I told you five minutes and that's it."

Only silence reached my ears as I strained to hear something. Anything.

"Baby? Stop playing around and answer me." I said, terror rising in my voice as the silence continued. "Camy??" I yelled.

My commotion attracted the rest of the parents as they started to approach, asking what's going on. I banged on the door, yelling for my daughter, my beloved and precious daughter, to please answer me. Then suddenly, the sound I most dreaded to hear resounded through the door.

A muffled scream reached my ears, causing my panicked terror to rise exponentially. I began to force myself against the door, adrenaline giving me strength which caused the door to shake and rumble from the impacts.

"Hey, move away from the door, Laura!" yelled out David Wilington, Stacy's husband and sheriff of the town, as he tried to tear me away from the door through which the screams were no longer muffled but rang out loud and clear through the chilly air. I heard the other children cry out in fear as their parents attempted to console them.

Suddenly the screams stopped as suddenly as they had begun. My heart stopped in my chest as I strained to hear at least one sound. Even the children ceased their cries.

Shaking off my frozen moment, I acted. David's involvement only further fueled my rage as I pushed him away with enough force to knock him off his feet. But my previous assaults on the door didn't go to waste as I charged at the door once again and it flung open. I almost fell on my face but a hand grabbed my arm and I looked back surprised to see David holding me back, even after I had pushed him.

I shook off his grip and scowled at him before abruptly returning my attention inside the restroom. It was a single room, and pitch dark except for the daylight that provided a faded light inside the room, illuminating the horror that lay in the middle.

It was the mutilated body of a man. His head had been torn off and lay 2 feet away from the body in a pool of dark red blood, its eyes staring wide open with the look of horror still frozen on its face. A couple of ribs with flesh still attached to them lay scattered throughout the room. The man's intestines had been ripped out and strewn in a pile on the bloody, gaping abdomen. The throat had been visibly ripped out, the esophagus laying nearby on the ice cold tiles.

"Camilla?" I whispered, my heart pounding in my ears as I looked around for my daughter, who was nowhere to be found.

I finally turned to look at David, whose mouth was partially opened in a look of terror. He obviously had never seen such a ghastly sight in all his years of being the sheriff of this stupid fucking town.

Nobody else had entered or peeked into the bathroom, apparently too scared to do so. Cowards, I thought.

"Camilla?" I whispered again, this time a little bit louder.

I suddenly felt a drop of warm liquid drip on my cheek. I raised my hand and wiped it off with my finger to check what it was.

It was blood. Dark red blood. I rubbed it between my fingers, my pounding heart threatening to escape my chest.

"Look up, Mommy." I heard my daughter's all too familiar whisper reach my ears. I froze, my body becoming paralyzed and unable to move. I heard David gasp in terror as the restroom door suddenly slammed shut. He ran to the door to open it, but it was locked. He turned towards me with pure horror in his eyes as they darted from the mutilated body back to me. Both of us could hear the people from outside yelling and banging on the door

"What the fuck is going on??" He yelled, his voice trembling with fear.

"Mooommmmyyyyyy." The well known voice of my daughter reached my ears again, but this time I heard it coming from above me. One glance at David confirmed to me that I was the only one who heard it.

I slowly glanced up and my breath caught in my throat as I saw my daughter, but not the one that I know in regular life. Terrifying chills spread through my body as my fingernails dug themselves into my cargo pants.

Camilla was pressed against the ceiling, her body covered in fresh blood and her face wearing the look of a demonic creature. Her lips were spread in a wide grin from ear to ear, showing her two rows of blackened shark teeth. A piece of liver was hanging from one of her teeth that were also stained with black gooey liquid drooling from her mouth. She tilted her head to the right, her bloody smile spreading even wider as she pressed her finger to her mouth as a sign for me to keep quiet.

"Camilla... No.." I said quietly.

"What?" David asked, taking a step towards me as I continued to look up at my daughter on the ceiling, a maniacal look on her face.

He must have seen the direction of my gaze because I heard him say "What the fucking
he-!"

And those were his last words as Camilla leaped from the ceiling and landed on his shoulders with her feet lodged onto them. I watched as she tore his head off with one swift movement, a colossal amount of blood spurting from his decapitated body. She leapt off him as he collapsed on the ground, his body twitching while blood continued to pour from his gaping neck. She threw away his head, but not before scooping out his brains and devouring them.

"What the fuck, Camilla?? How could you do this?" I yelled in a lowered voice with horror and anger.

"I'm sorry Mommy," she said, looking up at me with an almost innocent face and smiling, her shark teeth replaced with normal human ones, "I was hungry."

"Did you at least save me the best piece?" I asked irritatingly, as I was the one who would have to cover up my daughter's stupidity.

"Yes Mommy," Camilla answered, sticking her hand into David's chest and ripping it back out, holding his still beating heart that pounded against my hand as I took it from her. I felt my previously satiated hunger rise again as I sank my teeth into the bloody deliciousness, the warm liquid squirting into my mouth. I briefly closed my eyes, moaning as I savored the tenderness of the no longer beating heart. I sighed contently, swallowing the last of the blood.

"Now clean this mess up."