[ WP ] A woman stops in a dark alley to pet a cat , but the cat runs away , scared , as a man approaches the woman . After a brief confrontation the man runs away too , screaming .

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 The can rolled over causing several bottles to tumble from the rotting bag of trash.The calico scrambled back in surprise and fear, his right ear, notched and torn, twitched back and to the side seeking danger. The black stains under its eyes testimony to the fact that he was a stray. With no further bottles spilling down on it, the cat edged forward to finish its meager meal. A sound in the mouth of the alley set the cat to yowling, a low rumble in its chest. The hair on its back stood on end following the agitated arch of its spine. 
 
 `` Shoo,'' the woman whispered through her black silky veil. The cat's irritation vanished as it sped away, sensing something no human could ever detect. The woman was otherworldly and dangerous -- terribly dangerous. 
 
 She twirled the black parasol resting on her satin-covered shoulder, stepped around the scattered bottles with her zippered knee-high brown leather boots, and watched as the man in black padded down the alley. She raised a scented kerchief to her noise and mopped away the moistness. 
 
 `` Your money or your life.'' The man rasped, pulling a long slender blade from his sleeve. She giggled, then teetered, and then laughed a rich throaty sound. The man hesitated. `` Your money or your life.'' He repeated. She was still laughing when he thrust the knife into her chest. She kept laughing and mopped at the brown syrupy blood spilling out from around the blade. She held it up before his confused eyes and jammed the bloody finger in his open mouth. The effect was immediate. 
 
 He fell back, staggering and yelling in protest, denying something that could n't be. He slapped at his head screaming -- NO! NO! NO! He tore at his skin with his nails, ripping bloody gobbets of pale skin from the fatty parts of his cheeks. The he froze, quivering in pain and mounting fear and looked up into the face of the woman he'd stabbed. She pulled back her veil... and he screamed. He bounced off the alley walls and glancing backwards at the woman who was n't a woman and fled into the street. He did n't see the truck, and even if he had, he still would have run in front of it. 
 
 She raised her hand to her veil intending to lower it when the door to the back of the kitchen suddenly opened. The boy standing in the door, froze catching sight of her face and raised the cross around his neck to his lips. He knew her. She was...
