The Traveling Vampire Show

the vehicles were gone.

Stryker’s gang no longer directed traffic or roamed the field. They were over here, now, sneaking through the darkness. I couldn’t see them very well—not with so many headlights aimed into the cage, not with the darkness and falling rain.

They wore black clothes and they’d switched off their flashlights. They looked like human shadows. I almost couldn’t see them at all. They were easier to see when I didn’t look straight at them.

They were all around us, crouching and skulking under the bleachers on both sides, kneeling in the darkness near the bus and truck.

“Here,” Lee said.

I turned. She held an arrow. The first few inches of it were dripping blood. I glanced at Valeria’s eye socket and almost gagged.

“Catch.” Lee tossed the arrow to me.

I snagged it out of the air.

“They’re all around us,” I said.

“I noticed.”

She reached for the arrow that had gone through Valeria’s nipple, so I turned away again.

I held out the bloody arrow that she’d just handed me, hoping the rain would wash it clean. Its shaft was so thin that not many raindrops landed on it. Each time one hit, I saw a tiny explosion of pink.

“This one’s really stuck,” Lee said.

“Maybe just leave it?”

“Huh-uh.” Lee stood up, planted a bare foot on Valeria’s ribcage—directly between the breasts—bent down and grabbed the arrow with her right hand. She started to tug at it. I turned away again.

Off in the distance, someone raced past the front of the truck, sprinting through its headbeams. I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or woman, but it held a long, thin shaft in one hand.

A spear?

My skin prickled.

“Oh, jeez,” I murmured.

“You’d better give me a hand here,” Lee said.

I didn’t want to. More than that, though, I didn’t want to disappoint her. I guess I would’ve done anything she asked. So I handed the bow and arrow to her, then put a foot on Valeria’s chest, just as she had done. Only three or four inches of the arrow protruded—enough room for just one hand.

I wiped my right hand on my jeans (which were also wet), then grabbed the arrow around its feathers, being careful to stay away from what remained of Valeria’s nipple. Squeezing the shaft, I gave it a hard pull. A quick slip and my hand flew off it.

“Damn,” Lee said. “Give it another try, okay? If we end up one arrow short…”

“I’ll get it,” I said.

And I meant it. I wasn’t going to let Lee think I was weak or chicken. “Get me a rag,” I said. Not waiting for it, I cupped Valeria’s breast with my left hand, my thumb hooked around the arrow. Her breast felt slippery and cool. I pushed, mashing it, sliding it down the shaft until there was room on the arrow for both my hands to fit.

Lee muttered, “Oh jeez.” Then she gave me my shirt.

Released, Valeria’s breast swelled upward, climbing the arrow.

Though my shirt was wet, it took some of the slipperiness off my hands. I used it to dry the protruding shaft. Keeping the shirt around my hands, I once again compressed Valeria’s breast to make space for two hands on the arrow. Then I clutched the shaft with both hands, put most of my weight on her chest, and pulled with every ounce of my strength. The shirt, I think, gave me the extra friction that was needed.

I felt a force under my shoe as if Valeria were trying to sit up, but my weight kept her down.

The arrowhead, embedded in God-knows-what, suddenly let go. I glimpsed her breast stretching upward, pulled into the shape of a tall cone. Then the arrow leaped out like Excaliber, flinging blood. I held it high in both hands as I stumbled backward.

I slammed into Lee. She grunted, but stayed up. So did I.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Guess so.”

“Good work.”

“You too,” I said, knowing that she must’ve thrown herself in my way on purpose to stop me from falling.

We stood there, back to back. The quiver was in the way, but I could feel Lee’s rear end against mine.

Under the bleachers in front of me, a shape flitted across the headlights of the hearse. It was hunched low and carrying a spear.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“They’ve got us pretty much surrounded,” Lee said. “But they’re staying back. So far.”

“What’re they waiting for?”

“No idea. Maybe they’re just afraid of catching an arrow.”

“I’ll get the last one,” I said, feeling very powerful and brave now that I had retrieved the breast arrow.

“Better leave it,” Lee said.

“Huh?”

“Just in case.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Because it’s the one in her heart?”

“She’s probably not a vampire, but… I don’t know, everything’s so crazy. I don’t know what to make out of all this, but… I’d hate to be locked in this cage if she suddenly comes to life.”

“You and me both,” I said.

“I know she won’t, but… I don’t want to stake my life on it.”

“That arrow’s probably broken anyway,” I said. “It went all the way through her and she fell on it.”

“Might’ve just buried itself in the dirt. But let’s leave it. For now, anyway.”

“Okay.”

“If we start to run out.

…if we last that long, I thought.

“…I’ll try to get it out of her later.”

Chapter Sixty-one

“I’ll make you a deal!” Stryker shouted.

Lee whirled, drawing back the bowstring.

I saw a dark shape hunkered by the front door of the bus.

“That him?” Lee asked.

“Not sure.”

Lee called out, “What sort of deal?”

“We’ll let you and the kids live if…”

Her arrow flew, hissing through the rain.

“Fuck!” Stryker yelled.

The arrow must’ve come close, but it missed him. Lee shook her head, then turned and handed the bow to me. “You’d better do the shooting.”

As I got ready with the arrow I’d plucked from Valeria, Stryker shouted, “Don’t do that again or I’ll have you writhing on lances, screaming your lungs out. ”

Lee yelled, “Chuck you, Farley!”

“Just listen to my offer! Do you want to die in that cage? Do you want the kids to die?”

Kids? He meant me, of course, but who else? Rusty and Slim? Bitsy?