The Traveling Vampire Show (16 page)

“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.”

“I don’t know.”

“If it hadn’t been for your shoes, I would’ve gotten chomped by the dog.”

“Glad to help.”

“I’m the one who threw ’em,” Rusty reminded us.

“You did a good job,” I told him.

“Saved your butt.”

“I know. You both did.”

“Yeah, well, remember that when you wanta rook me outa Valeria.”

“Sure.” To Slim, I said, “I want you to wear them. Please.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

With a look of embarrassed but grateful surrender, she nodded and said, “All right.” Then she took the sneakers from my hands, turned away and walked over to the remains of an old, fallen-down tree. She sat on its trunk, facing us, and set both sneakers beside her. While Rusty and I stood there and watched, she brought up one foot, crossed it over her knee, and removed the shirt that she’d been using to protect it. The bottom of her bare foot looked filthy. I glimpsed some blood on it before she put my sneaker on.

“Are your feet okay?” I asked.

“A few little nicks. No big deal.” She let the shirt fall to the ground, then brought up her other foot.

When she had both my shoes on, she stood up. “Feels much better,” she said. Then she crouched and plucked our shirts off the ground. Holding them out in front of her, she shook her head. “These are really wrecked, guys. I’m sorry.”

They were not only covered with dirt and blood, but torn in a few places.

“Want them?” she asked.

Rusty shook his head.

“We can throw them away when we get to town,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’ll carry ’em.”

She was about to give them to me when Rusty asked her, “Don’t you want to wear one?”

“Thanks anyway. They’re filthy. You want me to get infected?”

“You can’t walk back to town looking like that. Everybody’s gonna wonder how you got all wrecked up.”

I nodded. “You’d better wear a shirt.”

She frowned at the shirts in her hands. “I’d rather let people see me....”

“You can borrow mine,” Rusty said. He started to unfasten the buttons of the shirt he was wearing.

Shaking her head, Slim said, “It’ll get blood on it. I’ve wrecked enough shirts for one day.”

“I insist,” Rusty said.

“No, really....”

“You can wear Dwight’s shoes....”

“Okay.”

He pulled his shirt off.

“Thanks,” Slim said. She handed the two ruined shirts to me, then stepped closer to Rusty. “You’d better put it on me, though.” She turned her back to him.

He gave me a strange smile—somehow smug and embarrassed at the same time—then slipped the shirt up Slim’s arms and eased it onto her shoulders. “There you go,” he told her.

Turning to face us, she fastened a couple of the middle buttons. “Thanks, guys,” she said.

The shirt was way too large for her. It drooped over her shoulders. The sleeves reached down to her elbows. The single pocket hung below the rise of her left breast. The tails were so long that they completely hid her cut-off jeans.

She looked so cute it hurt to look at her.

I wished I could put my arms around her and hold her and never let go.

Instead of giving it a try, I just stood there, staring at her and feeling like I almost wanted to cry.

I don’t know what it was about Slim.

I’d seen Lee a few hours earlier wearing my brother’s big old work shirt. Even though it fit Lee pretty much the same way as Rusty’s shirt fit Slim, even though Lee was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, the sight of her hadn’t made me feel like my heart might break.

Maybe because Lee wasn’t cute.

Slim was cute; Lee was spectacular.

I loved both of them. They both had ways of making me ache for them. But different ways. And different sorts of aches. In different places.

“What’s wrong?” Slim asked me.

“Nothing.”

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go,” Rusty said. He led the way, Slim walking behind him.

I followed, staying a few paces behind Slim, watching her.

With only my socks between my feet and the forest floor, I felt pokes and jabs with every step. I didn’t mind, though. I was glad that my own feet, not Slim’s, were the ones being hurt.

When we reached the pavement of Route 3, I said, “Wait up.”

They stopped walking. I checked the bottoms of my socks. They had picked up some dirt and debris, but they weren’t really damaged yet.

“Want your shoes back?” Slim asked.

“Nope. I’m fine.” I pulled off my socks, stuffed them into the pockets of my jeans and then we all resumed our hike back to town.

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.