The Traveling Vampire Show

I could stay like this, I thought. Nobody’ll ever know.

But I knew I didn’t dare.

In my bedroom, I shut the door and turned on the light. I unbuttoned Rusty’s shirt, took it off, turned toward my bed and gave his shirt a toss.

On the pillow of my bed was a yellow rose.

My stomach dropped.

I leaped to my open closet, pulled a clean shirt off a hanger, then snatched Rusty’s shirt off the bed and ran to the door. I jerked it open.

“Slim!” I shouted.

“Yeah?” Her voice sounded far away. “What is it?”

I slapped the light switch. As darkness collapsed all around me, I raced down the hallway to the top of the stairs and then I ran down the stairs.

Slim was standing in the gloom of the kitchen, the grocery sack in her hand. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Somebody’s been here.” Holding the two shirts in my left hand, I grabbed Slim’s arm with my right. I hurried to the back door, pulling her.

I felt a little better the moment we were outside, but I didn’t actually feel safe until we’d reached the sidewalk out front. When we came to the end of the block, we stopped. I tried to put on my shirt, but it wasn’t easy with Rusty’s shirt in one hand.

“I’ll hold it,” Slim said.

I gave Rusty’s shirt to her, and put on my own.

“So what happened?” she asked.

“I went to my bedroom to change shirts,” I explained. “When I looked at my bed, there was a rose on the pillow. A yellow rose.”

The left side of Slim’s upper lip lifted, baring some teeth. “Like one of my mom’s yellow roses?”

“Yeah.”

“Ooo.”

“It was just lying there on my pillow.”

“Everything else was okay?”

“Far as I could tell. But I didn’t exactly hang around to find out.”

Or put on underwear, I thought. But Slim didn’t need to know that.

“I was afraid they might still be in the house. And I thought about you being alone in the kitchen.” I finished buttoning my shirt. Then I took Rusty’s shirt from Slim. “Figured I’d take this back to him.”

She nodded.

We stepped off the curb and crossed the street.

“Are we still going to your place?” I asked.

“We have to,” she said. “Then we’ve got to go to your house again. If we don’t take care of the beer, you’ll get the shaft from your parents.”

“Guess we never should’ve drunk it in the first place.”

She smiled at me. “Can’t say I regret it.”

“This is a lot of trouble to go through.”

“The cover-up’s the price you pay for doing the crime.”

I laughed. “Did you just think that up?”

“I think so.”

“Good one.”

She slipped her hand into mine. We walked side by side through the quiet evening.

Chapter Thirty-two

When we came to Slim’s house, she set the grocery sack down on the stoop and crouched in front of the door.

“The tape looks okay,” she said. “Stay here. I’ll check the back door before we go in.”

I waited. A couple of minutes later, Slim opened the front door from inside.

“Entre,” she said.

The sack in one hand, Rusty’s shirt in the other, I stepped over the threshold.

Slim shut the door and locked it. “If anyone came in while we were gone,” she said, “they didn’t use the doors.”

“I guess that’s good news,” I said.

She seemed amused. “Vampires, of course, can turn into bats or wolves… or even a mist. You go turning into mist, you can get in just about anywhere.”

“It’s not dark yet,” I pointed out.

She smiled. “Not technically. Of course, if we want to get picky about it, vampires can’t enter anyplace without an invitation.”

“That is good news.”

“But people can.”

“Not so good.”

“I want to brush my teeth. Why don’t you put that stuff down and come upstairs with me? You can stand guard. Just in case.”

“Okay.”

We went upstairs together. She turned on the bathroom light, then said, “I’ll be out in a minute,” and shut the door.

She didn’t lock it, or I would’ve heard the ping.

It was good to know that she trusted me.

Standing outside the door, I heard water start to run.

Night hadn’t yet fallen, but the hallway was almost dark. I thought about taking a walk to the other end for a quick look into the bedrooms. But I wanted to stay close to Slim. And I really didn’t want to see the bedrooms: what if they weren’t the same as when we’d left?

What if someone was hiding in one of them? Hiding in silence, waiting for us….

It didn’t seem likely. If I’d had to put money on it, I would’ve wagered that nobody was in either of the rooms, nobody was in the entire house except me and Slim.

Still, I felt chills crawling up my back as I stared into the gloom at the end of the hallway.

I wished Slim would hurry up.

Finally, she shut the water off. I expected the door to open, but it didn’t.

Then I heard a steady splashing sound.

Oh.

Not wanting Slim to come out and wonder if I’d been listening to her, I walked away from the door. The sound diminished. Though I could still hear her, I stopped a few strides down the hall.

And stared toward the two bedrooms.

Nobody’s here, I told myself. They were here before, but then they left and went to my house.

And to Rusty’s? I wondered. He’d been at Janks Field the same as us.

I heard the toilet flush.

Soon after that, the bathroom door opened, light spilling into the hallway.

“Dwight?”

“I’m here.” I hurried to the door.

Slim looked a little worried. “Where’d you go?”