The Traveling Vampire Show

Chapter Six

Leaping, I grabbed the edge of the roof. Rusty and Slim caught me by the wrists and hauled me up so fast I felt weightless. An instant later, the dog slammed against the wall.

I sprawled on the tarpaper, gasping for air, my heart whamming.

While I tried to recover, Slim sat cross-legged beside me and patted my chest and said things like, “Wow,” and “You saved my life,” and “You were a wildman” and so on, all of which made me feel pretty good.

While that went on, Rusty stood near the edge of the roof, leaning over the big wooden BEER—SNACKS—SOUVENIRS sign to keep an eye on the dog. He said, “It’s still down there” and “I don’t think it’s even damaged from all that,” and “How the shit are we gonna get outa here?” And so on.

After a couple of minutes, I sat up and looked at Slim. There were scratches on her face, shoulders, chest, arms and on the backs of her hands. She even had claw marks on the top of her right breast, running down to the edge of her bikini top. Those weren’t bleeding, though. A lot of her scratches hadn’t gone in deeply enough to draw blood—but some had.

“It really got you,” I said.

“At least it didn’t bite me. Thanks to you.”

Looking over his shoulder, Rusty said, “You’ll still have to get rabies shots.” He sounded almost pleased by the idea.

“Screw that,” Slim said.

“You will,” Rusty insisted.

“You want to take a look at my back?” Slim asked me.

I crawled around behind her and winced. Her back, bare to the waist except for the tied strings of her bikini, was dirty and running with blood from her fall on the ground. In at least five places, bits of broken glass were still embedded in her skin.

“Oh, man,” I muttered.

Rusty came around for a look and said, “Good going.”

“I try my best,” said Slim, smiling.

I started picking the pieces of glass out of her.

“You’re gonna need a tetanus shot, too,” Rusty told her.

“No way,” Slim said.

“Besides,” I said, “she had a tetanus shot last year after that moron stabbed her.”

“That’s right,” Slim said.

“And one shot lasts like five or ten years,” I added.

“Couldn’t hurt to get another,” Rusty said. “Just to be on the safe side. And the rabies shots.”

After I pulled the pieces of glass out of Slim’s back, she was still bleeding. “You’d better lie down,” I told her.

She stretched out flat on the roof, turned her head sideways and folded her arms under her face.

Her back looked as if it had been painted bright red. Blood was leaking from ten or twelve slits and gashes. Nowhere, however, was it gushing out.

“Does it hurt much?” I asked.

“I’ve felt better. But I’ve felt a lot worse, too.”

“I’ll bet,” I said. I’d seen Slim get injured plenty of times and heard about other stuff—like some of the things her father liked to do to her. Today’s cuts and scratches seemed pretty minor compared to a lot of that.

“You’re gonna need stitches,” Rusty informed her. “A lot of stitches.”

“He’s probably right,” I said.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“Long as the bleeding stops,” I said, and started to unbutton my shirt.

“Unless infection sets in,” said Rusty.

“You’re sure the life of the goddamn party,” Slim muttered.

“Just being realistic.”

“Why don’t you make yourself useful,” I said, “and hop down and go get a doctor.”

“Very funny.”

I took off my shirt, folded it a couple of times to make a pad, and pressed it gently against several of Slim’s cuts. The blood soaked through it, turning the checkered fabric red.

“Your mom’s gonna kill you,” Rusty said.

“It’s an emergency.” Where the blood on my shirt seemed worst, I pressed down firmly. Slim stiffened under my hands.

Rusty bent over us and watched for a while. Then he took off his own shirt, folded it, knelt on the other side of Slim and worked on her other cuts.

“Applying pressure should make the bleeding stop,” I ex-gained.

“I know that,” Rusty said. “You weren’t the only Boy Scout around here.”

“The only one with a first aid merit badge.”

“Screw you.”

“Two Boy Scouts,” Slim said, “and no first aid kit. Very prepared.”

“We used to be Scouts,” Rusty explained.

“Used to be prepared.”

“Next time,” I said, “we’ll make sure and bring some bandiges along.”

“The hell with that,” said Slim. “Bring guns.”

Rusty and I laughed at that one.

After about five minutes, most of the bleeding seemed to be over. We kept pressing down on the cuts for a while, anyway.

Then Rusty looked at me and asked, “You were kidding when you said that about going for a doctor, right?”

“What do you think?” I said.

“Just wanted to make sure. I mean, I figured you must be kidding, you know? ’Cause I would’ve done it if I had to. I nean, if Slim really had to have a doctor. Like if it was life or death, I would’ve jumped on down and done it. dog or no dog.”

It seemed like a strange thing for him to say.

Strange and sort of nice.

Slim said, “Thanks, Rusty.”

“Yeah, well. It’s just the truth, that’s all. I mean, I’d do anything for you. For either of you.”

“If you wanta do something for me,” I said, “how about once in a while using underarm deodorant?”

Slim laughed and winced.

“Screw you, man! If anybody stinks around here, it’s you.”

“Nobody stinks,” said Slim, the peacekeeper.

I checked underneath my bloody shirt again. Rusty looked under his, too. We both studied Slim’s back for a while.

“Bleeding’s stopped,” I announced.

“Good deal,” said Slim.

“But it’ll probably start up again if you move around too much. You’d better just lay there for a while.”

“Not like we’re going anyplace anyhow,” Rusty said.

I stood up, stepped to the front of the roof and leaned forward to see over the top of the sign. The dog, already staring up at me, bared its teeth and rumbled a growl. “Get outa here!” I shouted.

It leaped at me. I flinched and my heart lurched, but I held my position as the dog hit the wall about four feet up and tried to scramble higher. It worked its legs furiously, claws scratching at the old wood for a second or two. Then it fell, tumbled onto its side, flipped over and regained its feet and barked at me.

I muttered, “Up yours, bow-wow.” Then I turned away.

Rusty, sitting cross-legged beside Slim, gave me a worried look. “What’re we gonna do?” he asked.

“Stay right here,” I told him. “At least for now. Give Slim’s wounds a chance to dry up a little more. When we’re ready to go, we’ll figure out something about the dog.”

“Maybe it’ll be gone by then,” Slim said.

“That’s a good one,” Rusty said.

“God, I’m being nice to it and the thing tries to rip my face off.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “being nice doesn’t work.”

“You can say that again.”

“Sometimes, being nice…”

“Okay, okay,” Rusty said.

I sat down beside Slim and turned my hands over. They were rust-colored and sticky. I wiped them on the legs of my jeans, but not much came off.

Rusty looked at his hands, too. They were as stained as mine. Frowning slightly, he brought his right hand close to his face. He stared at it for a few seconds, then raised his eyebrows and licked his palm.

“Oh, that’s cute.”

Lying on her stomach with her face toward me, Slim couldn’t see Rusty. Rather than twisting around and maybe reopening some of her cuts, she asked me, “What’s he doing?”

“Licking your blood off his hand,” I explained.

He did it again. Smiling, he said, “Not bad.”

“Grade-A blood, buddy,” Slim informed him.

“I can tell.” He sucked his red-stained forefinger. “Maybe those vampires’ve got something. Tasty stuff. Try some, Dwighty.”

I shook my head. “No thanks.”

“Scared?”

“I’ve got no problem with Slim’s blood.”

“As well you shouldn’t,” Slim pointed out.

“But I just got done swinging a filthy damn cur around by its tail.”

“Weenie,” Rusty said, grinning and lapping at his hand.

“Speaking of which,” I said, “what’ve you been touching lately?”

Things dawned on him. He put his tongue back into his mouth and frowned at his hand. Looking a little sick, he shrugged his husky bare shoulders and said, “No big deal.”

A smile on what I could see of her face, Slim said, “I’m sure Rusty must’ve washed his hands after going to the bathroom.”

“I didn’t piss on ’em, if that’s what you mean.” Then he managed to blurt out, “Not much, anyway,” before he burst into laughter.

Slim and I broke up, too, but she stopped laughing almost at once—either it hurt or she was afraid the rough movements might start her bleeding again.

After a minute or two of silence, Rusty asked Slim, “Want me to lick your back clean?”

“God no!”

“Christ, Rusty,” I said.

“What’s the big deal?” he asked me. “I’m just offering to clean her up a little.”

“With spit,” Slim said. “No thanks.”

“Get a grip,” I told him.

Meeting my eyes, he said, “You can do it, too. You want to, don’t you?”

No!”

In fact, I did. Blood or no blood, the idea of sliding my tongue over the hot, smooth skin of Slim’s back took my breath away and made my heart pound fast. Under the layers of my jeans and swimming trunks, I got hard.

But nobody knew it but me.

“You’re out of your gourd,” I said. “I’m not licking her and neither are you.”

“What’ll it hurt?” Rusty asked.

“Forget it,” Slim told him.

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I was just trying to help.”

“Sure,” I said.

“’Cause you know what? If we don’t clean all that blood off Slim’s back, it’s gonna draw the vampire like a magnet.”

“What?” I gasped, amazed.

“Points for originality,” Slim said.

“You think it won’t?” Rusty asked.

“I think there’s no such things as vampires,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Rusty. “But what if we’re wrong? What if this Valeria is one? All this blood’s gonna bring her to us like chum brings sharks.”

Though I didn’t believe in vampires, I felt slightly nervous hearing him say those things. Because you never really know.

Do you?

Really?

Most of us tell ourselves we don’t believe in that sort of stuff, but maybe that’s because we’re afraid to think they might exist. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, aliens from outer space, black magic, the devil, hell… maybe even God.

If they do exist, they might get us.

So we say they don’t.

“That’s such bull,” I said.

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” said Rusty.

“Probably it is,” Slim threw in.

So I said, “If Valeria is a vampire, which she isn’t… A, she’s not even here yet. And B, even if she gets here, she can’t do squat to us till after dark. And we’ll be long gone by then.”

“Think so?” Rusty asked.

“I know so.”

Sure I did.