The Traveling Vampire Show

“Crap!” Slim cried out.

Startled, I leaned past Rusty and looked at Slim. Her head was turned away, her short hair blowing. Just as I noticed the engine noises growing louder, the dark shape of the Cadillac filled her side window. It was no more than three feet away, in the lane for oncoming traffic.

So far, there was no oncoming traffic.

The big car stayed beside us. Its windows were rolled up. I tried to see through them, but couldn’t.

Slowly, the front passenger window began to lower.

“Watch out!” I yelled.

Slim hit the brakes. We were thrown forward in our seats and the Cadillac burst ahead. It zoomed up the road for a few seconds, then cut back into our lane.

Its brake lights came on, bright red in the darkness.

“Oh, shit,” Rusty muttered.

“Shit is right,” Slim said.

We stopped dead in our lane.

The Cadillac, about fifty yards ahead of us, also seemed to be stopped.

Its red brake lights went out.

Slim shut off our headlights and darkness slammed down on us.

At the rear of the Cadillac, white lights came on.

“Back-up lights,” I muttered.

They began moving slowly toward us.

“Here it comes,” Slim whispered.

“I don’t feel so good,” Rusty said.

“What’ll we do?” I asked.

Nobody said anything.

The car continued to back up. About ten feet in front of us, it stopped. All its lights went dark. It sat there.

And sat there.

“If anyone else comes along...” I said.

“We’ll see their headlights,” Slim said. “I’ll get us out of the way.”

“Speaking of which,” said Rusty, “where is everyone?”

“Still at the movies,” Slim explained.

“That’s where we oughta be,” I said. “We wouldn’t be in this fix if we’d stayed for the whole thing.”

“Parents,” Rusty muttered as if it were a curse word.

Slim chuckled softly, then added, “I guess we’ll have the last laugh if we end up getting killed.”

“We’ll be all right,” I said. “They obviously aren’t gonna ram us, or they would’ve done it by now. The thing is...” I wasn’t sure how to say it.

“What?” Slim asked.

“If someone gets out of the car...”

She leaned forward and looked at me. “Someone gets out and tries to come for us on foot, he’ll have to deal with Chief Pontiac.”

“Gonna run him over?” Rusty asked.

“If he needs it.”

We waited.

The Cadillac sat in front of us, dark, its doors shut.

Slim looked at her wristwatch. “I know his game,” she said. “He’s trying to make us late.”

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Quarter till twelve.”

“We can still make it.”

“Not if we keep sitting here.”

“If we’re late,” I said, “my Dad’s gonna kill me.”

That got a pretty good laugh from Slim and Rusty.

Then Slim said softly as if speaking to herself, “Let’s just see what happens,” and stepped on the gas. As we