~*~Chapter Eight : Who I Really Am~*~

One night as Marty slept peacefully in her bed, she awakened to find a strange, deathly-white figure hovering over her bed. She gasped in fear as he reached out to her with his cold, pasty-white hands. "Who are you... and what are you doing in my bedroom?" she demanded.

He blew his cold breath over her body as her blankets were swept away. She was left nearly nude in just her pale, thin nightgown. Her nipples grew hard as a cool breeze settled over her exposed flesh. Who was he? And why was he staring at her so lustfully?

"Todd!" Marty called out in fear.

"So, you are my son's little girlfriend?" spoke the apparition.

"You look so young and tasty. You know I wanna fuck you. I love to fuck young, innocent girls," he stated. "I fuck them brutally until they die!"

Marty let out a shrill scream because she knew who this ghost was standing over her bed. She suddenly recognized him from those frightening pictures in the book she had gotten from the library. He was Peter Manning, Todd's father. He was the monstrous pedophile who had killed Todd's mother and all those innocent children in the basement.

Marty started to cry. "Please don't - don't hurt me," she begged.

Suddenly Todd appeared at the end of the bed. "Marty, I won't let him hurt you," Todd spoke. "Tell him to go away. Scream it at him... and he'll disappear."

Marty looked from Todd to the frightening image of his father. He was leering at her as though she were a juicy steak he longed to devour. "Go away! I hate you!" Marty spat at him. In a matter of moments, Peter Manning's disgusting face had faded into nothingness. Marty was all alone with Todd.

"Are you okay, baby? Did he hurt you?" Todd asked as he came around to the side of the bed and took her into his embrace. She held him tightly as she wet his flesh with her tears.

"How can I feel you, Todd... if you are ghost?" she whispered to him as she pressed her face against his chest.

"You can feel me because we are connected. You're mine, Marty. I love you... and I will never let anyone hurt you," he swore.

"You saved me from your father," she said as she trembled in his arms. "You have a good side... that's who you REALLY are. You'd never hurt anyone... on purpose. You're not just the monster everyone made you out to be. You're not just your dark side."

"Can you love me? Even with my dark side?" he asked. "Marty, I've hurt people. I did terrible things for my father. Not because I wanted to... but because he forced me. I am not such a wonderful guy. There's a demon lurking inside me... and sometimes he does bad things..."

"I am a sum of my good deeds as well as my bad ones. Please baby, say you can love me despite of it all," Todd pleaded.

"I love you, Todd... and I think we are worth it... but what future could we really have? We can't be together. You're a ghost... and I - I am alive," she reminded. "I am flesh and blood."

With a sad expression on his face, Todd began to fade. "It's hopeless," she heard him whisper. Then in the space of a heartbeat, Todd was gone.