The Traveling Vampire Show

“Sick,” Rusty said.

“Finally, they stepped back to let someone through. The dog was down on its side. Its tongue was hanging out and it was panting for air, and it was just covered with blood. It was sort of trying to get up.” Slim’s voice broke. She shook her head and looked away from us.

Rusty looked as if he might throw up.

With both hands, Slim wiped sweat away from her eyes. Some tears, too, I think. Then she took another deep breath and said, “The guy they let through, he got down on one knee and shoved his spear....” Breathing hard, she shook her head. Then as if in a race to get her story done, she blurted, “He picked it up off the ground with his spear and ran with it to the back of the hearse and somebody’d already opened the door back there and he shoved the dog in like food on the end of a stick and...” She paused to take a few quick breaths, then went on. “He pulled the spear back a second later, and the dog wasn’t on it anymore. It was like somebody in the hearse ... I don’t know. ”

Rusty and I both stared at her.

Head down, she kept wiping her face with both hands. It took her a long time to calm down. Then she said, “After that, that’s when I figured it was time to go.”

We were silent for a while longer. Then I said, “God almighty.”

After more silence, Rusty said, “So you think somebody in the hearse ate the dog?”

She shrugged her shiny, tanned shoulder. “I don’t know,” she muttered.

“Or drank its blood,” I suggested.

“Valeria is supposed to be a vampire,” Rusty reminded us.

“I don’t know who was in the hearse,” Slim said.

“Maybe nobody,” I said. “Maybe they just put the dog in there to get it out of sight.”

“I don’t know,” Slim muttered. “Anyway, that’s what happened. And I thought if they got their hands on me ... I might get it like the dog. So I turned around and belly-crawled to the back of the roof and jumped down and ran like hell.”

“Did they see you?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe not. I didn’t hear any shouts. No one came after me. I don’t think so, anyway. When I got into the woods, I kept changing directions to throw them off. Just in case someone was after me. Then I hid for a while.”

“Where’d you hide?” Rusty asked.

She shrugged again. “Under some old tree. It had fallen over and there was a space between it and the ground. I just barely fit in.”

“How long do you think you stayed in there?” I asked.

“Seemed like ages.” She shrugged again. “Maybe half an hour, I don’t know.”

“I bet that’s where you were when Lee and I were at Janks Field.”

“Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Did you hear anyone calling your name?”

She shook her head.

“I called out for you and Rusty.”

“When was that?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe around twelve-thirty, I guess. Twelve-fifteen, twelve-thirty, something like that.”

Slim frowned as if thinking about it, and shook her head again. “I must’ve been somewhere in the woods.”

“You weren’t on the roof.”

Surprise on her face, she said, “You looked?”

“Yeah. I went over and jumped up and ...”

“Went over to the shack?”

“Yeah.”

“What about all those people?”

“They weren’t paying much attention to us. Julian had gone into the bus ...”

“Who’s that?”

“Julian Stryker. He’s the owner of the show.”

Looking surprised but not at all pleased, Slim said, “You met the owner?”

I nodded.

“What’d he look like?”

“I can see this coming,” Rusty said.