So recently I've been reading Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqviswritten in 2004. I'd watched the film and loved it, not the tacky American remake however., so I decided to give the book ago when I picked it up on the cheap. It's about a little boy called Oskar who meets a young girl called Eli, but not all is what it seems. It has vampires in. I like vampires. That's a statement I don't feel needs dressing up or even justifying. It stands the test of time itself like a mountain in a sea of sand. Don't ask me what that means, it means I need to get more sleep which is surprisingly hard when you spend half your free time talking about ghosts. Maybe I need a saner hobby.
Anyway the book is very different from the film, so much darker than I could ever imagine. Kinda in a good way but I'm not 100% yet. It's definitely worth a read I always feel characters are so much more developed in books and much more rounded and believable. In films I sometimes think that the characters act so one dimensional they're poorly revised doppelgangers. Either way it took less than a chapter before I was rooting for Oskar.
The reason I'm telling you this oddly long story is not so I can pretend it's allegorical for something but because it brings me onto something I read a while ago and loved kind of on the same topic.
It was written by Brian Bethel, a current columnist for the Abilene News, in the 90's about an experience he had many years ago. I liked how it could be both amateurish and professional at the same time and was a story that I've heard told many a time in many a format, but I like this one.
One evening Brian was sat in his car outside his local theatre when he noticed two young children, aout 11 or 12 approaching his drivers side door. He rolled down his window expecting them to ask for money or something, but before any words came out he was gripped by a heart wrenching pounding fear that he couldn't explain.
The boy spoke.
He told Brian how they wanted to see the movie but they'd left their money at home, and asked if he could quickly run them there to pick it up. Brian tried not to look at them, somehow sensing that something was not right about the situation, before he noticed that the last showing of the film had already begun. The little boy asked again, imploring for a ride, we're only kids we don't have a gun please. As Brian finally locked eyes with the boy he noticed that both the kids eyes were jet black.
Rolling up his window he started to set off, his shaky hands missing the gears as the little boy called out 'we can't come in unless you say it's okay! Let us in!'.
Brian rushed home as fast as he dared and wrote about the experience the very same night. His story about children appearing with jet black eyes was the first of many, but possibly not the first. For who knows how many times the story has been told, how many people those children have visited...
