C.O.T.V.H. (Book 2): Judgment by Dustin J. Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

you?”
    "No.  It wasn't quite that simple.  He wanted a, uh . . . he wanted a companion.  If you know what I mean . . . he uh, well I’ll just tell you.  He was into young men.  Young black men.”
    “Oh,”  Jake said, his eyes growing large.
    “I found out later that I was the sixth one he'd attempted to turn."
    "So what happened?  How did you escape?"
    "The day after I arrived he tied me up in his basement.  I tried to fight him off but he was just too damn strong.  I’d gotten pretty lean and mean working my uncle's farm and surviving on the road since, but this man, who was at least in his sixties, laid me out cold with one punch.  I don’t have to tell you Jake, when I woke up to find those ropes tightly wound around my wrists I was terrified.  I can tell you without hesitating that I’ve never been so scared in my entire life, and since then I've served two tours in Nam and faced down more bloodsuckers than I can recollect.  But nothing and I mean nothing compares to the day I was locked in a basement with a Maker."
    Billy paused his story taking a long swig of iced tea, the ice clinked against the glass as he emptied it.  "Ahhhh.  So anyway, the thing I remember most was that he talked all the damn time!  Kept going on and on about immortality and drinking blood, about loneliness, and longing to love and be loved.  Said he wanted me to be just like him.  A gift he called it.  Said we could live together forever.
    “At the time I just assumed he was as crazy as a bed bug.  All day long, he droned on about how crazy the world had gotten, how he missed the feel of the sun on his face. Every so often he would walk over and hold my face with his ice cold hands and beg me to stay with him."
    "What did you say?" Jake interrupted.
    "What could I say?  I didn’t want to get raped or murdered by this psychopath!  I told him exactly what he wanted to hear!  I told him I would do whatever he wanted as long as he didn’t hurt me.  He burst into tears and began dancing around, clapping his hands, giggling like a schoolgirl.  Literally giggling . . . I can still hear it in my head.   Creepiest damn thing that I have ever seen!”  Billy closed his eyes shaking his head.
    After a few moments of silence he finally spoke.  “Not long after that he left.  Promised he'd bring me back something special.  ‘My first real meal’ he called it.
    “The second that basement door closed I started working on the ropes binding my wrists.  There was no way in hell I was going to let that creep do whatever it was he had in mind to do.  I thought all his talk of immortality was just that, talk.  I had no clue what he really was.  So I worked and strained until my wrists were sticky and slick with my own blood.  By morning I'd gotten completely out of the ropes, my wrists looked like hamburger, but I was free.  I made it to the top of the stairs when I heard him moving around upstairs.  I stood there with my ear pressed against the door, my heart pounding, and sweat dripping down my face like rain.”  Billy paused and began rubbing his wrists, almost as if he was reliving the fear.
    Jake was about to say something when Billy suddenly cleared his throat and continued.  "He got all the way to the door and was actually turning the knob when the first shot rang out.  Then another, and another; I heard him screaming and crying, begging for his life.  Then I heard a loud thud and the screams stopped.  The door opened and two men were pointing guns at me.  One of those men was a very young Cort Bishop. The other was your Great Grandfather Roland Bishop.  Cort was screaming at me like a mad man!" Billy laughed.  "I remember thinking to myself, great, out of the frying pan into the fire!
    “So these two crazy white fellas, armed to the teeth with enough firepower and ammunition to rob every bank in the state of Oklahoma, drag me outside past the headless body of Mr. Burrows and right into the morning