The Traveling Vampire Show

“Yeah, thanks. I took care of them.”

“Huh?”

“You know, the knife. I was sort of waiting for them when they climbed down the back of the stands. Did away with them.”

“You did away with them?”

“Yeah. Sent them south. Deep south.”

“Jeez,” Lee said.

I said, “Holy shit.”

“As Mike Hammer says, ‘It was easy.’ ”

“So you killed them?” I asked, hardly believing it.

“Yeah. Some others, too. I sort of snuck up on anybody I found and cut their throats. A couple of them saw me coming, but I think they figured I was with the Show because of the black shirt.”

“The morons,” I said.

“I was trying to find Rusty,” she said.

“Any luck?” Lee asked.

I think we both knew what the answer would be.

“No. I don’t know where they took him. I searched the truck. It’s where they keep the cage and stuff when they’re on the road, I guess. Nobody was in it, though. Just the driver. He was in the cab. I took care of him before I searched the back. Then I didn’t get a chance to search the bus or the back of the hearse. Just about the time I got to the hearse, I looked over at the cage and saw they were moving in on you guys. So all I did was kill the driver and come to the rescue.”

“Mighty good job of it,” Lee said.

“Thanks. I just wish...” She shook her head. “I wanted to find Rusty.” As she said that about Rusty, her voice cracked. “I don’t want to leave him behind.”

I put my hand on Slim’s thigh. The leg of her cut-off jeans was warm and damp. “Wanta go back?” I asked her.

“I don’t know. I think maybe.” She must’ve taken her foot off the gas pedal; the engine quieted and we slowed down. “What about you?” she asked.

I hated the idea of going back to Janks Field. We’d been lucky to get out of there alive, and the chances of finding Rusty alive were slim.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go back and find him.”

“What the hell,” Lee said. “In for a penny...”

“ ‘And gentlemen in England now a-bed,’ ” quoted Slim, “ ‘shall think themselves accursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap....’ ”

“You bet,” Lee said.

Slim stopped the hearse. She shifted to reverse, started speeding backward, then twisted toward me in her seat to look back over her shoulder. “Damn!” She slammed on the brakes.

I looked over my shoulder. The window behind the front seat was shrouded with a curtain.

Slim glanced at the side mirrors. “I can’t drive backward without a rearview mirror.”

“Guess you’ll have to turn around,” I said.

“Too narrow.”

“Maybe go on to the highway,” Lee suggested. “Easy enough to turn....”

From behind us came a thud as if someone riding in back—in the coffin area—had stomped on the floor or dropped something.

Slim looked over her shoulder at the glass just behind our heads. “Rusty!” she called.

Lee was already throwing her door open.

As Lee leaped out, Slim shut off the engine and plucked the key from the ignition. Then she flung her door open.

I scurried out Lee’s side.

Lee was first to reach the rear of the hearse. She was trying to open its door, but not having any luck. “I think it’s locked,” she said.

“I’ve got the keys,” Slim said. She picked one and tried to put it into the lock hole. Her hand was shaking so badly that she couldn’t get it in for a while. When she finally poked its tip into the slot, it wouldn’t go in any farther. Wrong key. So she pulled it out and tried another. Again, she had trouble because she was trembling so badly. Then it went in.

She turned the key and worked the door handle. The door unlatched. She stepped back, pulling it toward herself, swinging it wide open.

The night, until then fresh and sweet with the aromas of a rain-soaked forest, suddenly went foul. The stench made me hold my breath. Lee clapped a hand across her mouth. Slim stepped around the open door, her lips