The Traveling Vampire Show

Chapter Twenty-one

As we entered the outskirts of town, I remembered about Bitsy. She hadn’t followed us, after all, probably so hurt by my betrayal that she’d gone back to her bedroom and cried. I once again felt rotten about ditching her… on top of everything else I felt rotten about.

God, it’s hard not to feel rotten.

I should’ve felt wonderful because we’d found Slim alive and well.

But I didn’t. And I felt cheated because I had to feel lousy about Bitsy and about what we’d done in Slim’s house and about slugging Rusty and about the poor damn dog getting speared and about God-only-knows what else.

On top of all that, it looked as if we wouldn’t even get to see the Traveling Vampire Show.

Things could’ve been worse, though; at least we weren’t on our way to Slim’s house.

When we came to Lee’s block, I saw her pickup truck in the driveway.

“She’s home,” I said.

“How about if we don’t tell her about the dog?” Rusty suggested, looking over his shoulder at us with a pained expression on his face. “Please? She doesn’t have to know everything, does she?”

“She has to know about that,” Slim said.

“We’re not going, anyway,” I pointed out. “So why not tell her?”

Rusty stopped walking, turned around and raised his open hands to halt us. “Hold it up,” he said.

We stopped.

“What if we change our minds?” he asked. “It’s a long time between now and midnight. Maybe we’ll wanta go after all, but we won’t be able to if we’ve already spilled the beans to Lee.”

Looking mildly amused, Slim said, “Oh, you think sometime between now and midnight it’ll turn out that they didn’t gang-stab the dog.”

Gang-stab? Slim sometimes got creative with her language.

“I just mean, you know, maybe we’ll decide to go anyway. Do we really wanta miss the Vampire Show on account of a stupid dog?”

“It isn’t because of the dog,” Slim said. “It’s because what they did to it was heinous. These are heinous people.”

Rusty looked annoyed.

“Abominable,” I explained. “Shockingly evil.”

He glanced at me. “I know what it means. I’m not stupid, you know.”

“I know.”

“Anyway, it’s not like they’ll do anything horrible tonight. They wouldn’t dare.” Eyes on Slim, he said, “I bet they wouldn’t even’ve done that to the dog if they’d known you were watching. They sure aren’t gonna pull stuff like that in front of an audience.”

“Wouldn’t think so,” I said.

“They’d have the cops all over ’em.”

Slim shook her head. “I don’t plan to find out.” Not waiting for any more arguments from Rusty, she stepped past him. He turned to follow her, and I took up the rear.

“Just because you don’t want to see the show,” he said to Slim’s back, “have you gotta ruin it for the rest of us?”

“Leave her alone,” I said.

We cut across Lee’s front lawn. After two miles of walking mostly on pavement, the soft, dry grass felt good under my bare feet. When we reached the porch, I took over the lead and trotted up the wooden stairs. The screen door was shut, but I could see through it. The main door was open. Instead of ringing the doorbell or knocking, I called out. “Lee? It’s Dwight. Are you here?”

“Come on in.” Her voice sounded as if it came from somewhere deep in the house.

I opened the screen door and we all stepped into the foyer. The stone floor felt cool but hard.

The living room was just to our left. Lee’s voice hadn’t come from over there, but I looked for her anyway. She didn’t seem to be there. At least I couldn’t see her.

Though all the curtains were open, the afternoon was so gloomy that not much light made it through the windows. The room looked the way it might look at dusk if nobody’d turned on any lamps.

“I’ll be right in,” Lee called.

“Okay.” I realized she might assume I was alone. Just to play it safe, I let her know, “Slim and Rusty are here, too.”

“Good deal.”

“Hi, Mrs. Thompson!” Slim called.

“Hi, Slim.”

“Hello again,” Rusty called.

“Hello, Rusty.” After a small pause, Lee added, “Sit down and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be in in a minute.”

Rusty suddenly announced, “If this isn’t a good time for you, we can leave.”

“No, it’s fine. Don’t go away. I’m almost done.”

“Nice try,” Slim whispered.

Rusty grinned, then walked into the living room and plopped down on the sofa.

Slim glanced at the bottoms of her shoes—my shoes—then entered the living room.

“Take a load off,” Rusty told her.

She looked around at the furniture, then shook her head. “Think I’ll stand. I’m a mess.”

I checked the bottoms of my feet. They felt sore from the hike. They were dirty and even had a couple of dark smudges that made me suspect I’d stepped in a couple of oil drips. I didn’t see any blood or cuts, though, so I took the socks out of my pocket and put them on. Then I walked into the living room. The carpet felt good and soft.

I wanted to sit down, but it didn’t seem right to leave Slim standing by herself.

After a couple of minutes, Lee came in. “Sorry about that,” she said. “I was mopping the kitchen floor.”

She looked as if she’d been mopping a floor: some hair drooped across her forehead, her skin gleamed with sweat, the sleeves of her big blue shirt were rolled halfway up her forearms and her feet were bare. The front of the shirt was tied together just below her breasts. She wore small, white shorts. Like her shirt, the shorts looked like what she’d had on when she drove me to Janks Field.

To Slim, she said, “I understand you had some dog trouble this morning.”

“Just a bit. Thanks for going out to rescue me.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Rusty added.

“Sorry we missed you,” Lee said. Concern coming into her eyes, she said to Slim, “I thought you went home afterward.”

Slim looked puzzled.

“You aren’t cleaned up and it looks like you’re wearing someone else’s shirt and sneakers.”

“I haven’t been home,” Slim said.

Lee gave Rusty a glance.

He seemed to blush, cringe and shrug all at the same time.

“It turns out Slim stayed behind,” I explained. “At Janks Field. Rusty left, but she stayed for a while. Rusty told us a little fib when he said they’d left together. We went back and found her.”

“Where were you?” Lee asked her.

“I ran off and hid in the woods,” Slim said. “I guess that’s how I missed you.”

“That was a long time ago.”

Slim shrugged. “I just stayed hidden. I didn’t want to walk all the way home because I’d lost my shirt and shoes. Besides, Dwight was supposed to show up.” She smiled at me. “And he did.”

“We both did,” Rusty pointed out.

To Lee, I said, “We figured maybe we could borrow some bandages from you.”

She turned to Slim. “All right if I take a look?”

“Sure.” Slim unbuttoned her shirt, took it off, then turned around.

At the sight of her back, Lee pursed her lips.

“Most of that’s from broken glass,” I explained.

“You’d better come with me, Slim. We’ll get you cleaned up and bandaged.”

Looking a little embarrassed, Slim nodded.

“You guys wait here,” Lee told us. “We won’t be long.”

We watched Slim and Lee leave the room. A couple of minutes later, water came on and rushed through the pipes.

Rusty met my eyes. “Sounds like somebody’s taking a bath,” he whispered.

“Or a shower.”

“Who do you think it is?”

“Who do you think?”

A smile spreading across his cherubic face, Rusty said, “Wanta find out?” He started to rise from the sofa.

“Stay put,” I said.

He stood up. “I know we can’t look. As if they’d leave the door open. But maybe we can hear something.”

“Forget it.”

“Come on, man.”

“Don’t you think we’ve screwed up enough for one day?”

Looking disappointed in me, he said, “You’re such a chicken.”

“If you say so.”

“Come on. It’ll be cool.”

“No. ”

“I tell you what. You wait here where it’s nice and safe and I’ll go listen.”

“No you won’t.”

He lifted his eyebrows. In a quiet, taunting voice, he said, “Slim’s probably nude in there, you know.”

“Knock it off.”

“Maybe Lee, too. Maybe she got in the shower with Slim to help wash her back.”

I saw it in my mind. Rusty was obviously seeing it in his mind, too, and I didn’t like that. I stepped up close to him—so close that our stomach’s touched—and looked him in the eyes.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered. “Forget it. Never mind.” He backed away and sank onto the sofa.

After a while, I calmed down. I walked to the other side of the room and sat in an armchair.

We both sat in silence.

Rusty was careful not to look at me.

The water kept rushing through the pipes.