The Traveling Vampire Show

Rusty’s mouth fell open. He looked as if I’d punched him again. “Shit,” he said. “We can’t not go!”

“I’m not going,” Slim said. “No way.”

He turned to me. “I wanta see the show, man! Don’t you? I mean, Valerie! If we don’t go tonight, we’ll never see her. You wanta see her, don’t you?”

“It might not be such a good idea,” I said.

“It’d be a lousy idea,” Slim said. “I’m sure not going anywhere near those people again, and I don’t think you guys should, either. They’re a bunch of sickos.”

“Just because they killed that stupid dog? Hey, Dwight tried to jump on the damn thing. Is he a sicko, too?”

“It’s different.”

“Dog would’ve been just as dead. Except he missed. He sure as hell planned to land on it.”

She glanced at me, shook her head, and said to Rusty, “You know good and well it was different. Stop being a creep, okay?”

“I just don’t wanta get rooked outa the show,” he said. “I don’t care what they did to that stupid dog. Look how it messed you up. It deserved what it got.”

“Didn’t deserve that.” Slim looked from Rusty to me and said, “Anyway, let’s get out of here. I want to go home and get cleaned up.”

Home.

I remembered what we’d done there.

It all rushed in: sneaking into her bedroom, looking at her things, Rusty fooling with her mother’s bra, and the awful accident with the vase and how we’d left the mess behind. A nasty flood of heat flashed through my body.

Rusty cast me a warning glance.

And suddenly an idea popped into my head. Trying to keep my relief from showing, I frowned and said, “Maybe we’d better go over to Lee’s house first and tell her about what happened. See what she thinks.”

Rusty looked pained. “She hears what they did, man, she isn’t gonna take us.”

I gaped at him, astonished that he didn’t realize a trip to Lee’s house would save us from going to Slim’s. The mess in her mother’s room was sure to be discovered sooner or later, but I preferred later. The longer we could put it off, the better.

“She shouldn’t take us,” Slim said. “None of us should go to that show.”

“Anyway,” I said, “we have to tell Lee what happened.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do. Otherwise, she’ll be waiting for us.” To Slim, I explained, “We’re supposed to be at her house at 10:30 tonight.” To Rusty, I said, “We can’t just not show up when she’s expecting us.”

“So we do show up. I’ve got no problem with that.”

“I think we’d better tell her now,” I said.

Slim nodded in agreement.

“Besides,” I said, “her house is closer than Slim’s. We can stop there first and borrow some bandages.”

Rusty opened his mouth as if all set to argue. Before any words came out, however, a light of understanding filled his eyes.

He got it.

He got something anyway.

“Good point,” he said. “Bandages. Lee must have bandages. Everyone has bandages. Okay. Let’s go there first.”

“Okay by me,” Slim said.

Not saying a word, I raised one foot off the ground and pulled off my sneaker.

“What’re you doing?” Slim asked.

“Giving you my shoes.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

I smiled at her and shrugged and pulled off my other sneaker. Holding them both toward her, I said, “I insist.”

“Hey, no. C’mon. I can’t wear your shoes.”

“Sure you can.”

“If she doesn’t want to wear ’em ...”

I gave Rusty a look that shut his mouth.

“Put them on,” I told Slim. “Please.”