Free Vampire Manifesto by Rashaad Bell Page A

kid, he was at the party, really cute kid, young though, he did like some, I don’t know, Marine Corps, James Bond with the kung-fu grip type move on him and snatched the gun out the dudes hand and shot him in the leg.”
    “ Wait a minute; he shot him in the leg?” She was completely stunned. “Like for real-for real, shot him in the leg?”
    I rolled my eyes. “No Abigail, for play-play. Of course for real.”
    “ That’s insane!”
    “ I know, shits crazy right? The gun is still in the trunk of the car.”
    Abigail shook her head in disbelief. “Right now?”
    “ Yea.”
    “ Oh that’s madness. This whole thing is madness.” Abigail commented. “Wait, where was this guy at, the James Bond dude? When we showed up, you were alone.”
    “ Yeah, see, this is where it gets creepy.” I began.
    “ You mean there’s more? Oh, I should have made some popcorn for this.”
    That made me laugh. Abigail always said things that made me laugh at the most inappropriate times. Thank goodness for the little things.
    I leaned closer, regardless of the fact that we were already sitting directly next to each other. “He wouldn’t even tell me his name, I mean, I asked him, but he got all douchebaggy on me. But get this, when he left, he just like, up and disappeared.”
    Abigail squinted her eyes. “What do you mean by disappeared? He bounced?”
    “ No, he disappeared. Like, I don’t know, dude just vanished. Star Trek style. Beam me up Scotty.”
    “ You sure he didn’t just bounce, Madison?” I could tell she doubted me and honestly why wouldn’t she? I almost got shot to death over a car that isn’t even mine and here I am talking about the Incredible Vanishing Man.
    “ You don’t believe me.” It wasn’t a question, more like me verbalizing the statement, giving it credence and validity.
    Abigail stared at me, the wheels in her mind turning. I could almost see it in her eyes; see her mind working it out, digesting everything, letting the pieces fall together in their proper place.
    She didn’t speak for a while, gazing intently at me without blinking. “Yeah.” She said finally, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, I believe you.”
    “ I’m telling you Abby, after everything that happened, after the whole ordeal, that moment frightened me the most. Everything else I could handle, the gun, the carjacking, that’s just life you know, shit happens, I can process that. But when that guy just, dematerialized in front of me, people don’t do that, people just don’t vanish into thin air.”
    “ Before my Grandmother died, she told me this story.” Abigail stated.
    “ Uh, random, but okay.”
    “ Just listen Madison.” Abigail interjected. “She told me and this was on her death bed at the hospital the night she died mind you. She told me when she was young, a little girl, maybe eight or nine, she was out playing in the woods with her friend, this little black girl. The girls mom was like, I don’t know, their cook or the maid or something. Anyway, Grandma is old, like, really old, so this is back in the day in the Deep South, before civil rights and Martin Luther King, it’s before all that.”
    “ Well they were out playing and they came across this guy. Black dude, Klan got to him she figured, cause he was all strung up to a tree by his neck, dead. Well, they got to screaming, my Grandma and her friend, when the men who did it, the men who killed that black guy, there were about six of them, well they were still close and heard all the yelling and came running over.”
    “ They were gonna kill them both, that much she knew for sure, cause they were talking about it amongst themselves. Gonna kill her friend just cause she was black, you know, cause that’s just how they rolled and they was gonna kill my Grandma cause she seen them, could put faces with names, that sorta thing.”
    “ Well they strung up her little friend. Right there in front of her, hung her up to the tree right next to the dead