The Traveling Vampire Show

“We’ve been looking all over for you,” I said.

“I’ve been right here.” She stopped and turned toward us. “A long time,” she added.

“How long?” I asked.

She shrugged. “More than an hour, I bet.”

“Why?” Rusty asked.

She gave him a peeved look. “We were supposed to wait for Dwight.”

“I know, I know.”

“Some of us do what we say we’ll do.”

“You didn’t exactly stay put either,” he told her.

“No, I didn’t. But I came here so I could meet him.” To me, she said, “I figured if you came back with a car, you’d have to slow down for the turn and I’d have a chance to run out and stop you.”

“I did come back in a car,” I said.

Her head jumped forward, eyes going wide, mouth dropping open—a look of total, dumb surprise. “Huh?”

“In Lee’s pickup.”

“When?”

“I don’t know. Around noon, I guess. Twelve, twelve-thirty, something like that.”

With a few minor changes in her face and posture, she looked intelligent again, but perplexed. “That must’ve been right after I took off,” she said.

“Should’ve stayed,” Rusty told her.

“You’ve got to be kidding. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough after what I saw.”

“What?” I asked.

“The way they killed the dog.”

“They killed the dog?”

Chapter Nineteen

Good for them,” Rusty said.

Slim frowned at him. “Why don’t you shut up?”

“What crawled up your ass and…”

“Rusty!” I snapped.

“What’d I do?”

Eyes on Rusty, Slim said, “I didn’t really appreciate getting left up there.”

“You should’ve come with me.”

“We were supposed to wait for Dwight.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Yeah, but,” she mimicked him. “Yeah-but, yeah-but you turned yellow and ran away and left me up there.” To me, she said, “You should’ve seen him freak out. Nothing was even there yet. We just heard cars coming through the woods, and he goes ape like it’s the end of the goddamn world. And then this hearse drives onto the field. That did it, the hearse. He goes, ‘Oh, shit! It’s a hearse! We gotta get outa here!’ I told him to calm down. I mean, big deal. A hearse. It’s just part of the vampire show. It’s part of what we went there to see, you know? It was probably Valeria’s hearse. I thought he wanted to see Valeria. But huh-uh, all he wants is to vamoos.”

“You were scared, too,” Rusty said.

“Yeah, a little. But I didn’t run away.”

“Duh. Yes you did.”

“Later.”

“You should’ve left when I did. Don’t go calling me a chicken. I just had the foresight to haul my ass out of there sooner than you.”

“I planned to stick it out.” To me again, she said, “I told Rusty we should just relax and lie down flat so they wouldn’t see us.”

“They would’ve seen us. The minute someone climbed the bleachers. By then, we might not’ve been able to get away.”

“So he said, ‘You wanta stay, stay. I’m gonna get while the gettin’s good.’ ”

I could hear Rusty say it.

“Of course, my shoes and shirt were down on the ground. My shirt was no big deal, but I didn’t want to leave my shoes behind.”

“But you did,” Rusty pointed out.

“Yeah, that’s for sure. After they did that to the dog, I stopped worrying about my feet. I grabbed both your shirts and jumped off the back of the shack and ran like hell for the woods.”

“What did they do to the dog?” I asked.

“Right off, it went running toward the hearse, barking like a maniac.”

“I saw that,” Rusty said.

“Yeah, and then you took off.” Turning her eyes to me, she said, “I got down flat on my stomach and looked around the end of the sign. The hearse was coming straight toward me. It had a bus coming along behind it. Like a school bus, only black.”

“I’ve seen it,” I said.

“When you drove out with Lee?” Slim asked.

“Yeah.”

“So what all did you see?”

“The hearse, the bus, that big truck that looked like a moving van, a bunch of people unloading stuff.”

“Wait’ll you hear,” Rusty said.

“Hear what?”

“He’s got…”

“Hey!” I blasted him. “I’ll tell her. But I’d like to hear about the dog first, okay?”

“Okay, okay.” To Slim, he said, “What’d they do, run it over?”

“Let her tell it.”

“So sorry.” He smirked at Slim, “Proceed.”

“Okay, so the dog ran straight for the hearse, barking its butt off. I thought it’d jump out of the way at the last second, but it didn’t. What it did, it stopped in front of the hearse and planted its feet in the dirt and sort of hunched down and barked like a madman. So then the hearse stops. I’m thinking these are decent people who don’t want to run over a dog. Boy, was I wrong. What happens next, the bus drives up behind the hearse and stops and its door opens. And these people come pouring out. Like maybe fifteen of them, and they’re all dressed in black and carrying spears.”

“Spears?” I blurted.

“Spears. Big long ones. Like maybe six feet long, with steel tips.”

“You’re shitting us,” Rusty muttered.

“Yeah, I wish.”

“What did these people look like?” I asked.

“Jungle bunnies?” Rusty asked.

I winced. Ever since Slim had read To Kill a Mockingbird, she’d gone on the warpath if anyone used that sort of language.

She glared at Rusty.

“You know.” He smiled. “The spears.”