Vampire Manifesto (10 page)

Ethan put the car in park. My Ethan. My beautiful Ethan with the emerald treasure chest eyes. How could someone be so beautiful? It was more than that though, something deep rooted that was impossible to explain, yet remained evident nonetheless.

Even as he opened the car and helped me out the back seat, a part of me was glad he wasn’t there with the gunman. He would have tried to do something, tried to save me, tried to prevent...everything. More than likely he would have just ended up getting hurt.

He is only human.

I hugged him in the parking lot, refusing to let go. I felt safe in his arms, like nothing could harm me as long as he was around. I breathed in his scent, smiling inwardly. He really did smell like oranges.

I loved it.

I could hear Abigail and Aiden talking in the background. Their voices were muted; it was difficult to make anything out. I had buried myself in Ethan’s embrace; everything else was just static cling, the entirety of the world second in my mind. This was important. This moment right now. I couldn’t envision it more clearly, more perfectly.

The bullshit that made the world go round was irrelevant, superficial. Once you were able to make that connection, able to pierce through to the heart of it, everything else made perfect sense. The past is irreversible. The future was paradox, always present, yet never promised. There was only the moment. The Right Now. There was nothing else.

It was all so strange, the closeness that I felt with Ethan. Even though we had just met, it was like our souls had become intertwined, as if in another place, another lifetime ago we had been the dearest of confidants, only just now having the luxury of reconnecting all over again.

“
Where do you live Ethan? I’ll drive you home.” Abigail volunteered. She was concerned, I could tell she didn’t want to leave me alone, that she wanted to stay with me. There was a reason she was my best friend.

“
It’s okay, I’m good.” Ethan replied. “I’m not that far from here actually. I can walk it.”

I frowned. “Really? You live down the street from me?”

“
Well, it’s really more like, down the street, up the block and around the corner.” He responded whimsically. “But it’s all good.”

“
That sounds like too far to walk to me.” Abigail countered.

“
It’s nothing I haven’t done before.” He answered. “Besides, it’s late, I should be heading back.”

He kissed me softly. “That is if you’re okay? I could stay a little while longer if you like; wait till you fall asleep before I go.”

I wanted him to stay. I wanted to fall asleep in his arms, but I was just being selfish. It really was late and I didn’t want him walking home by himself at all, let alone heading out even further into the early morning.

“
No, it’s okay.” I grumbled. “You’ve already been inducted into enough of my madness for one night. Will I see you tomorrow?”

“
Sooner than you think.” He responded. “We’ll talk more then.”

He kissed me on the forehead once, backed away and disappeared into the night. No goodbyes, no waiting for a response, just a quick little back pedal out the driveway and a brisk walk down the street.

I watched him for a minute and when I couldn’t see him any longer I made my way towards the door where Abigail and Aiden were waiting patiently.

We went inside and I locked the door behind us setting the alarm. I had never done that before, actually taking the time to punch in the code for the house alarm. I never thought we needed it here and Mom was always yelling at me for not using it. To me, it was just a waste of time, yet time has a way changing everything.

Abigail turned to Aiden. “Hey, can you give us a sec?”

“
Uh, yeah, sure.” He answered warily.

I could tell he wanted to talk, but there seemed to be something going on between them, their own personal language expressed with eyes alone. Unspoken dialogue. They were so good at it, there were times I could swear they were having whole conversations without having to speak a word.

“
If you need me lil sis, just holla.” Aiden hugged me, then jetted up the steps, taking them two at a time, until he was out of eyeshot.

I slumped down on the couch, Abigail following after, sitting next to me.

“
Alright, so what’s going on, what happened?” I could see how sincere she was. It was welcoming to be around her. Abigail was anything but fake and it was easy to see why my brother was in love with her.

“
Someone tried to steal the car.” I sighed.

“
What?” Abigail was astonished.

“
Yeah.” I continued. “They had a gun and everything.”

“
Oh my God, are you okay?” She grabbed my hand, still in shock.

“
I’m fine now, I guess. There was some 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 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.”