Have yourself a black smoky little Christmas

A crisp snow had fallen on London, and Hampstead was blanketed in white. The village centre, that preserves its character as more than just another part of London, was beautiful in the early morning light, and the Christmas morning meant that the streets were empty.
Apart from one person. Sally Fairbairn, aged fifteen, was out walking her dog. She was enjoying the snowy morning, not a care in the world. The dog was sniffing happily. She turned into Hampstead churchyard, a semi-wild place, and somewhere she really shouldn't have gone alone.
It was then that Sally felt the oppressive presence. She turned to face a terrifying figure. The man was drunk, if not worse, and he was a vagrant, his intentions all too obvious. Sally was no match for his strength. He grabbed her and tore her coat open. She tried to scream, but no sound came.
Then the vagrant screamed. He let go of Sally and fell to the ground, cursing and clutching his bleeding leg.
Behind him was revealed a figure that, though smaller than that of the vagrant, was even more terrifying. It was the size and shape of a little girl, about thirteen, but black and smoky, with twin glowing red eyes its only discernible features. The body was transparent and indistinct, like some sort of phantom. One hand seemed to be holding some sort of dagger.
It faced the red-haired teenager, silent, apparently startled to see her.
"Th.. the Outsider?" Sally asked, fearful, yet relieved at what the Outsider had done to help her. The Outsider might look sinister, but...
She moved towards the black smoky figure and held out a hand impulsively.
"You're a girl, aren't you? I'm Sally Fairbairn..."
"I... I know," The Outsider said with some difficulty. "I know who you are..."
"Last year someone put some presents without a name on around our tree," Sally said. "We found them after you stopped some burglars robbing us. Was it you?"
The Outsider was silent.
"So it was you! And you came back this year, because I saw those new presents there! That's why you're here!"
Again the Outsider said nothing.
"That's a Katar you're holding, isn't it? An Indian thrusting dagger. My uncle showed me one before he was killed in India. I thought my cousin Emily was killed then as well, but you're Emily, aren't you?"
The Outsider's eyes widened in shock.
"How did you know?"
"The things you bought us last year. You're still Emily. Come on home with me! You can have Christmas with us!"
"I can't. I'm a creepy black smoky thing..."
"I bought you something."
The Outsider took Sally's hand.
"Okay. I'll come back with you..."
Sally's dad brought Emily home that night. I've never seen her so happy in my life. She had so many presents, and she was very, very sleepy. Emily had had the first family Christmas since her parents were murdered, and she deserved it.

Horror in Hampstead - 2.

Child-molester Guy Winstead stared in abject terror at the weird black smoky form of the Outsider
"I..." he stammered. This wasn't the girl he'd contacted! "Where's Stephanie?"
"Silly!" the Outsider giggled. "You sent me a picture of you the way you looked years ago. I returned the favour,"
"No! You... You... You look..."
"That was me three years ago, Winstead, before I was transformed into The Outsider. Now this is me!"
Winstead looked down at the photograph of the happy, laughing, pretty redhead, then up at the Outsider's terrifying form. She was small, but she was inhuman, terrible, a dark avenger. EVen her tone was dark and dangerous.
"You abuse little girls, Guy Winstead. You're responsible for two suicides, one of a girl aged thirteen, one of a girl aged sixteen who'd lived with what you did to her for two years before it became too much for her."
"I..."
"Hannah Fairbairn was my cousin, Winstead. You destroyed her. And now I'm going to destroy you. Oh, I ought to introduce myself. You see, like you I used a false name on the chatroom. My name's Emily Fairbairn."
"But you're dead!"
"Am I? Look at me, Guy Winstead. LOOK AT ME!"
Winstead gibbered with fear. Emily laughed.
"What's the matter, Winstead, afraid of a little girl? I'm only thirteen. I thought you liked little girls like me! Or do you only like them when they're helpless in your control, when you can abuse them, hurt them, destroy them?"
He turned to run, but her crossbow-bolt caught him in the back of his right knee, and he fell to the ground screaming in agony. Terrified, he looked up as the Outsider moved forward over the grass.
"What's the matter? You can't face it like a man?" She tore off his tie and began to fashion it into a noose.
"Hannah hanged herself with her school tie. Now you're going to write a full confession and I'll hang you."
"I won't write..."
"Then I'll just hang you."
Gibbering with fear, Winstead wrote, while Emily formed the noose.
The next morning the police found Winstead's corpse hanging from a tree. They had been tipped off by the voice of a little girl on the telephone.

Horror in Hampstead -1

Guy Winstead liked little girls. And not in a nice way. He befriended them in internet chatrooms and lured them out to meet him so that he could abuse them. Yet he was also cunning. No-one knew that he, a respectable city businessman, was a secret child-abuser. He thought he was safe, that he was too clever for the police. A dozen little girls were afraid of him, and of other men. They'd lost their innocence early, and some were too terrified to leave the house. But Guy Winstead didn't care. He was happy, and that was all that mattered to the callous and evil man.
He had been speaking to the little girl called Stephanie for two months on the internet, and he had won her trust. He'd sent her a picture of him as a boy, and she'd sent a picture back. He looked at it. It showed a pretty girl with flame-red hair, a girl of about ten, barefoot, in a garden in India. She had just come back from there, her parents were missionaries. He'd pretended his father was a vicar, and she'd opened her heart to him.
Now he was waiting for her on ampstead Heath as the night fell, waiting to take her and abuse her.
Guy let the night fall as he fantasised about what he would do to this trusting little daughter of missionaries. He closed his eyes and laughed to himself as he dreamed up the most revolting thoughts. All of them involved the redheaded girl in the snapshot he held - and all of them would have got him sent to prison if he'd acted them out.

"Is Timmy Henderson around here?"
The abuser opened his eyes at the sound of the little girl's voice speaking the false name he'd given on the chatroom. It came from behind him.
"Yes," he turned.
The smile dropped from his face at once. What he faced was not the pretty redhead he had expected to see, but a weird black smoky figure the size and shape of a little girl. Its only discernable features were two red eyes that blazed like live coals in a black smoky face.
"Hello Guy Winstead," The Outsider said. " I am the Outsider, and this evening you're going to die"

They Tried to Steal Christmas!

It had all seemed so easy. Watch the house until the family had gone to the school Nativity Play, then move in and strip it. All the gifts, everything that could be sold. They'd joked about it. The big old house in Hampstead was a perfect target in this fog.
Only it hadn't been. The door had yielded easily, and the three burglars had moved through the house to a living-room lit by the glittering lights of a beautiful tree. The family had been rich, but the house and its contents were practically the only remains of that wealth left. The thieves did not care. It was just another job to them. They didn't care about four young children and an orphan of eleven who was staying with the family. The thieves did not care that they were going to ruin the Christmas of a few caring people.
"Easy as..." one began. He did not finish, for suddenly all the lights went out.
"Hey! Get a Torch!"
"You don't need a torch."
The three men turned as they heard the voice of a little girl. They expected to see a child in her pyjamas. Instead they saw two glowing red lights.
Eyes. Glowing red eyes.
A torch was turned on. It struck the person in the doorway and passed through the swirling black smoke of her body. The three men screamed in terror.
"Oh my... what is it?"
"It's a ghost!"
"That's it!" the dark figure laughed. "Run! Run as fast as you want, you can't escape me!"
One man went for a gun. The Outsider moved, and the man yelled. Looking down he saw a crossbow bolt sticking from his arm.
"We know you're in there! This is the police!"
The robbers fled, terrified, into the night, and the Outsider faded from view. The thieves spent the rest of the night confessing to the police.
"The Outsider," one constable mused. "I wonder why she's here?"
"Who knows?" the other replied.
Neither could have known the significance of the name displayed on the slip of paper by the bell. It was 'Fairbairn'.
And no-one noticed the extra presents under the tree until Christmas Day. They were just what the family wanted, but there was no giver's name on the gift tags.
And on the mantelpiece the picture of a pretty red-headed little girl looked down at the family who though she was dead.
I found the Outsider crying that night.

The Murder at Midnight

Keith Narford glanced up at the clock in his office and laughed nervously. Eleven fifty-five. Then he looked down at the desk and at the note that lay there. Printed on the note in neat capitals were the words, 'YOU WILL DIE AT MIDNIGHT'.

He had recieved the note in the mail that morning, but it had all begun a week ago. Keith Narford, people-smuggler, had been in his office when the telephone rang. He picked it up.
"Keith Narford, because of you ten people died in the back of a lorry a week ago. You will pay." The voice suprised him, it was the voice of a young girl.
"What is this? I won't confess to anything..."
"You won't need to. I know. And that is why you will die in a week's time, at midnight."
Then the 'phone went dead. Keith Narford stared at the 'phone, then he shrugged it off. Probably some cop trying to scare him into a confession. Well, Keith Narford didn't scare. He put down the telephone and went on with his work, work relating to his ostensible respectable road haulage business.
By the following morning he had forgotten all about the threatening message. When the telephone rang he did not expect the same voice to come through the wires:
"You will join the many you have killed at midnight in six days."
"Who are you?" He remembered. "What do you want?"
"To kill you, Keith Narford."
"What the...?"
"Yes, Keith Narford. You have killed many people. Remember that truck from Belgium? The one with the faulty refrigeration unit? The one that poisoned twelve people, two men, three women and seven children? They paid you all the money they had for a better life in this country. Instead you killed them. Killed them by putting them inside that truck. Don't deny it, I know. And I'm not the police."
The line went dead again. Narford reeled in horror. A death threat! Someone was going to kill him!
Think, he said to himself. You've got nearly a week to prepare, to get away.
No. He decided he could not flee the country. The police were already suspicious of his activities, and flight would confirm their suspicions. Anyway, the killer might follow him. So what COULD he do?
Make the office secure. Alarms, armoured doors, bullet-proof blass. Every possible entrance to the room would be made secure. He'd be safe!

And so, a week after that first 'phone call, Keith Narford watched the clock tick towards midnight. He looked at the armoured door, the bulletproof glass, the evidence on the ceiling of where that had been armoured. There was no way in.
"I've done it!" he cried as the minute hand of the clock ticked towards midnight.
"No."
Keith Narford stared in horror as something materialised in his office. It was under five feet tall, black and smoky, and the only discernable features on its face were two glowing red eyes.
"No!" Narford screamed, jumping to his feet, pulling a gun from his desk. "What are you?"
"I am the Outsider. I avenge crimes which the police cannot touch. I know your secrets, andI know that you deserve to die, so I shall kill you."
She raised one arm. Narford was rooted to the spot in terror. He heard something, then he looked down. A crossbow bolt stuck out of his chest.
Then Keith Narford fell to the floor, dead.

They found his body in the morning. Sealed inside a bomb-proof room, locked from the inside. It took the police four hours to get inside.

How do I know? Well, the Outsider came in late this morning. She'd been inside the room from the minute Narford entered it, invisible. And she left when the police opened the door.

Urban Legend?

I got this e-mail in my inbox this morning:

Dear Sophie.

The most scary thing happened to me on Friday night while I was walking home. I'd been out with some friends to see 'Casino Royale', and I couldn't get a cab home, so I was walking. I know that's always wrong for a girl on her own, and I'm NEVER going to do it again, not after what happened.
I tried to take a shortcut I know, and that was a mistake. In a dark, deserted alley I realised I was being followed by a man. I walked faster, but so did he. I ended up running, and he was running after me. I was so scared that I must have taken a wrong turning, because I ended up at the end of a blind alley, with no way to escape. The man was still after me. I tried to get past him, but he grabbed me and pulled a knife.
"You don't want to get killed, do you?" he asked me. I didn't. He then said he wanted to rape me, and if I tried to escape I'd die.
I was terrified, but there was nothing I could do about it. He was so strong!
He was going to rape me, and I couldn't do anything about it.
"Stop!"
It was a little girl's voice, and I was afraid he'd kill her. But when I looked it wasn't an ordinary little girl. It was like a smoky outline, black with glowing red eyes that seemed to burn like fire. The rapist let go of me and stared at the ghost. I just ran.
I went straight to the police. They found the rapist still in the alleyway, with his own knife in his heart.
Now here's the really weird bit. In Victorian times a little girl was raped and murdered in that alleyway. I think it was her ghost that saved me from the same fate.

I know what you think. But you ask the police. There was a CCTV camera at the entrance to that alley, and no-one except me and the rapist ever went in at the time.

Your friend Abbie


[Girl in Grey comments: Usually I throw out stories like these, but I know this one's real. Why? Emily confirmed it for me. Yes, Emily Fairbairn, alias The Outsider, was responsible. She's in my shower right now, so I got the information first hand.
The business with the little girl in the Victorian era is just a coincidence. And I'm sure Abbie would have found another explanation if there hadn't been a murder story connected with the alley.]

London's 'Phantom Hitch-hiker'

The phantom hitch-hiker is an old urban legend, and Frank Paston knew that. So when the East End Gangster saw a shadowy figure in the back of his car, he was more than a little surprised. He was even more surprised when the figure slipped into the front passenger seat and looked at him with glowing red eyes.

"I know what you did," the phantom, a transparent, black smoke-like figure, told him. It spoke in a quiet voice, the voice of a little girl.

Paston stared in horror at the awful thing.

"No!" he cried. "I was so careful! It was the perfect crime!"

"But I know. And I came back. Why did you do it?"

By this time Paston was making a gibbering noise, and threatening to lose control of his bladder. Like a lot of gangsters and crooks, he was a coward alone and without a gun. Not that he didn't have a gun with him, he just thought it wouldn't work on the ghost.

Phantom hitch-hikers he could deal with, but this was far more personal.

"I'll tell the police!" he cried. "I'll confess! I'll even tell them where I hid the bodies! Just leave me alone!"

"Drive to the police station, then."

Paston drove to the police station, and there the awful ghost faded from sight. The terrified crook spent all night confessing, first the the murder of a journalist and her young daughter back in 2001, and then to every other crime he could remember being involved in. He yelled about the ghost, but of course no-one believed him.

I was in the kitchen when the Outsider entered the locked flat and flopped on the sofa. Scruff greeted her with a friendly 'hi'.

"Who's there?" I called.

"It's Emily! She came in through the keyhole!"

I left the supper for a moment and went into the living-room where Scruff and Emily were.

"What are you doing in this part of London?" I asked.

"Dealing with a crook. I got in his car and said 'I know what you did.' He started confessing to a murder, and turned himself in."

"How did you know about the murder?" Scruff asked. Emily (alias the Outsider) laughed.

"I didn't. But I knew he was a criminal and so 'I know what you did' would trigger his guilty conscience on something."

Emily's wonderful. Of course, her being black and smoky with glowing red eyes all the time is tough, but her 'phantom hitch-hiker' routine is brilliant.

But she's no ghost. Her appetite disproves that!