Free Vampire Manifesto by Rashaad Bell Page B

guy. She watched her friend die and there was nothing she could do about it. When it was her turn, they put a black bag over her head, said since she was white; they could do that much for her.”
    “ She said what happened next was hard for her to say, cause it happened so quick and with the bag over her head she couldn’t see what was going on, but she said there was a lot of screaming and then nothing but silence.”
    “ Someone pulled the bag off her head and it was a young boy, just a little older than her, maybe thirteen at most. She said he was very pretty, but strong, kind of a dick though. He grabbed her hand and told her to close her eyes and not open them. So that’s what she did and he led her away, all the way back to her doorstep.”
    “ But at the moment he took that bag off her head, she said she saw everything, everything around her. She said they were all dead, every one of the men. Blood was everywhere, a massacre and she was so scared because she knew it had to have been the boy; there was nobody else around but the two of them. She didn’t know how he did it, but he killed them all. A thirteen year old boy killed six grown men, ripped them apart she said.”
    “ While he was leading her back home, he told her that he was in the woods, that, that’s where he lived, but he had gone out hunting that day for deer and heard them screaming. He said he ran towards the noise, but was too far away to save her friend and he apologized for not being able to get there in time and save her life.”
    “ Now Grandma described him fully to me that night and she claimed from that point, from the moment she met him, she would still see him every once in a while, every couple of years or so, just watching her from a distance. Just another face in the crowd, until she recognized him and he would just disappear and she wouldn’t see him again, not for another five or six years or so.
    “ She said he never aged though. Regardless of how many years passed, he always looked the same, just like he did when they first met in the woods all those years ago. Now Grandma was pretty doped up by then, cancer just ate through her body, so you couldn’t really trust if what she was saying was her or the morphine anymore, but she told me this and I just let her talk, cause she liked it when I listened and when she was done, she was done and she went to sleep and I had to piss really bad.”
    “ So I left her there, went to the restroom, stopped at the snack machine, got some chips and what not and came back to tell her I was leaving. So the closer I got to the room, I could hear her voice you know, she was awake again, talking to someone. I figured it was just a night nurse checking in on her or maybe the Doctor.
    “ I got to the room and by her bed was this little kid. He was holding her hand and they were talking about something, the boy was speaking so low I could barely hear him, but tears were coming down her eyes, yet she didn’t really look sad, you know. Well this boy looked up at me and just smiled. Freaked me the hell out when he did and then he just, I don’t know, evaporated is what I wanna say.”
    “ Grandma was dead before I entered the room, but she looked, peaceful. At ease. Thing is though, I've seen that boy, that same kid who was standing next to my dead grandmothers bedside, three times in the past eight years and he’s just as my grandmother described him when she was a child. I’ve seen him three times, just for a moment mind you and he still hasn’t aged a day. And he always evaporates, star trek style, just like you said your boy did.”
    “ I don’t know if he’s a ghost, or maybe both me and my Grandma are just crazy, but I believe you. When you say you were saved by a person who vanished afterwards, I believe you, cause it’s not the first time I’ve heard that kind of story from someone I trust before.”
    There was silence between us. I wasn’t really sure what to say, it was just so