The Traveling Vampire Show

either of you.”

“If you wanta do something for me,” I said, “how about once in a while using underarm deodorant?”

Slim laughed and winced.

“Screw you, man! If anybody stinks around here, it’s you.”

“Nobody stinks,” said Slim, the peacekeeper.

I checked underneath my bloody shirt again. Rusty looked under his, too. We both studied Slim’s back for a while.

“Bleeding’s stopped,” I announced.

“Good deal,” said Slim.

“But it’ll probably start up again if you move around too much. You’d better just lay there for a while.”

“Not like we’re going anyplace anyhow,” Rusty said.

I stood up, stepped to the front of the roof and leaned forward to see over the top of the sign. The dog, already staring up at me, bared its teeth and rumbled a growl. “Get outa here!” I shouted.

It leaped at me. I flinched and my heart lurched, but I held my position as the dog hit the wall about four feet up and tried to scramble higher. It worked its legs furiously, claws scratching at the old wood for a second or two. Then it fell, tumbled onto its side, flipped over and regained its feet and barked at me.

I muttered, “Up yours, bow-wow.” Then I turned away.

Rusty, sitting cross-legged beside Slim, gave me a worried look. “What’re we gonna do?” he asked.

“Stay right here,” I told him. “At least for now. Give Slim’s wounds a chance to dry up a little more. When we’re ready to go, we’ll figure out something about the dog.”

“Maybe it’ll be gone by then,” Slim said.

“That’s a good one,” Rusty said.

“God, I’m being nice to it and the thing tries to rip my face off.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “being nice doesn’t work.”

“You can say that again.”

“Sometimes, being nice…”

“Okay, okay,” Rusty said.

I sat down beside Slim and turned my hands over. They were rust-colored and sticky. I wiped them on the legs of my jeans, but not much came off.

Rusty looked at his hands, too. They were as stained as mine. Frowning slightly, he brought his right hand close to his face. He stared at it for a few seconds, then raised his eyebrows and licked his palm.

“Oh, that’s cute.”

Lying on her stomach with her face toward me, Slim couldn’t see Rusty. Rather than twisting around and maybe reopening some of her cuts, she asked me, “What’s he doing?”

“Licking your blood off his hand,” I explained.

He did it again. Smiling, he said, “Not bad.”

“Grade-A blood, buddy,” Slim informed him.

“I can tell.” He sucked his red-stained forefinger. “Maybe those vampires’ve got something. Tasty stuff. Try some, Dwighty.”

I shook my head. “No thanks.”

“Scared?”

“I’ve got no problem with Slim’s blood.”

“As well you shouldn’t,” Slim pointed out.

“But I just got done swinging a filthy damn cur around by its tail.”

“Weenie,” Rusty said, grinning and lapping at his hand.

“Speaking of which,” I said, “what’ve you been touching lately?”

Things dawned on him. He put his tongue back into his mouth and frowned at his hand. Looking a little sick, he shrugged his husky bare shoulders and said, “No big deal.”

A smile on what I could see of her face, Slim said, “I’m sure Rusty must’ve washed his hands after going to the bathroom.”

“I didn’t piss on ’em, if that’s what you mean.” Then he managed to blurt out, “Not much, anyway,” before he burst into laughter.

Slim and I broke up, too, but she stopped laughing almost at once—either it hurt or she was afraid the rough movements might start her bleeding again.

After a minute or two of silence, Rusty asked Slim, “Want me to lick your back clean?”

“God no!”

“Christ, Rusty,” I said.

“What’s the big deal?” he asked me. “I’m just offering to clean her up a little.”

“With spit,” Slim said. “No thanks.”

“Get a grip,” I told him.

Meeting my eyes, he said, “You can do it, too. You want to, don’t you?”

No!”

In fact, I did. Blood or no blood, the idea of sliding my tongue over the hot, smooth skin of Slim’s back took my breath away and made my heart pound fast. Under the layers of my jeans and swimming trunks, I got hard.

But nobody knew it but me.

“You’re out of your gourd,” I said. “I’m not licking her and neither are you.”

“What’ll it hurt?” Rusty asked.

“Forget it,” Slim told him.

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I was just trying to help.”

“Sure,” I said.

“’Cause you know what? If we don’t clean all that blood off Slim’s back, it’s gonna draw the vampire like a magnet.”

“What?” I gasped, amazed.

“Points for originality,” Slim said.

“You think it won’t?” Rusty asked.

“I think there’s no such things as vampires,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Rusty. “But what if we’re wrong? What if this Valeria is one? All this blood’s gonna bring her to us like chum brings sharks.”

Though I didn’t believe in vampires, I felt slightly nervous hearing him say those things. Because you never really know.

Do you?

Really?

Most of us tell ourselves we don’t believe in that sort of stuff, but maybe that’s because we’re afraid to think they might exist. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, aliens from outer space, black magic, the devil, hell… maybe even God.

If they do exist, they might get us.

So we say they don’t.

“That’s such bull,” I said.

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” said Rusty.

“Probably it is,” Slim threw in.

So I said, “If Valeria is a vampire, which she isn’t… A, she’s not even here yet. And B, even if she gets here, she can’t do squat to us till after dark. And we’ll be long gone by then.”

“Think so?” Rusty asked.

“I know so.”

Sure I did.