Richard Laymon - The Traveling Vampire Show

Though I wished she hadn’t used our real names, I smiled and held out my hand. Julian let go of Lee’s hand and shook mine. His fingers felt warm and dry.

After releasing my hand, he faced Lee and asked, “Are you aware of what happens in our show?”

“Not really.”

He performed a mock-embarrassed cringe and shrug. “Well, there’s always a certain amount of blood-letting. Generally, quite a lot. In fact, it can get very gory. It looks worse than it is, but it can be shocking for people who aren’t used to it.”

“I see,” Lee said, nodding slightly, a concerned look on her face.

“Also, clothing often gets torn in the heat of battle. It’s not unusual for private parts to… become exposed.”

Lee broke out a smile. “Sounds more interesting all the time. ”

Julian chuckled softly. “Well, I just want you to understand why we try to keep kids away from the show.”

“I’m almost eighteen,” I said, almost telling the truth.

“How old are you?” Julian asked me.

“Seventeen.” I blushed as I said it. I hate lying.

“And your friends?”

“They’re both seventeen, too,” I said, and blushed even hotter because Slim, though sixteen like me and Rusty, looked more like fourteen.

I’m sure Julian knew I was lying. But he turned to Lee anyway, and said, “I might be able to make an exception for them if they’ll be accompanied by an adult.”

“Oh, I’d be coming with them,” she said.

“Then I suppose it’ll be all right.”

“Oh, that’s wonderful. Thank you, Julian. Let me get my purse.” She ducked into her truck and snatched her purse off the seat.

This has to be some kind of fake-out, I thought. She’s not really going to buy tickets.

Standing beside me again, she asked Julian, “How much will that be for four tickets?”

“They’re ten dollars each.”

“So forty dollars,” she said. She hung the purse from her shoulder, reached in and took out her wallet. Head down, she flipped through the bills.

I caught Julian staring at the front of her shirt.

He has the hots for her, I realized. That’s why he’s breaking the rules.

“Shoot,” Lee muttered. “I don’t seem to have forty in cash.”

So that’s it, I thought. She never did plan to buy any tickets. I felt relieved, but also a little disappointed.

But then she said, “You wouldn’t happen to take checks, would you?”

“From you,” said Julian, “of course.”

So she hauled out her checkbook and a ballpoint pen. With a smile at me, she nudged my arm. I realized what she wanted, so I turned around and bent over slightly. She braced the checkbook against my back and began to write.

Pausing, she asked, “Who should I make it out to?”

“Julian Stryker,” he said. “That’s Stryker with a y.”

“Not to The Traveling Vampire Show?” she asked.

“To me. That’s fine.”

“You won’t get in trouble?”

“I shouldn’t think so. I’m the owner.”

“Ah.”

She stopped writing on my back. Straightening up, I watched her rip the check out of the book.

Her home address was printed on it, of course.

She handed it to Julian.

He held it open in front of him, studied it for a few moments, then slipped it into a pocket of his shiny black shirt. He patted it there and smiled at Lee. “If it bounces, of course, we’ll require your blood.”

She grinned. “Of course.”

“Let me get your tickets,” he said. He turned away and walked briskly toward the open front door of the bus. Like the hearse, the bus’s windows were draped on the inside with red curtains.

I waited for Julian to vanish inside. Then I whispered to Lee, “That check has your address on it. Now he knows where you live.”

“No big deal,” she said. “While he’s gone, why don’t you take a look at the roof?”

I scowled toward the snack stand. It was only about twenty feet away, and none of the workers seemed to be watching us any longer. So I walked over to it, jumped, caught hold of an edge of the roof and pulled myself up.

Slim and Rusty were gone.

They’d left behind nothing, not even my shirt.

I dropped to the ground. No sign of Julian yet. I strolled back to Lee and reported, “They aren’t there.”

“Probably ran off when they saw what was coming.”

“But what’d they do about the dog?”

Lee shook her head, shrugged, then smiled at Julian as he came out of the bus. In a quiet voice, she said to me, “They’re probably on their way home.”

“Sure hope so,” I muttered.

“Four tickets for tonight’s performance,” Julian said, raising the tickets and smiling as he came toward us. With each stride, his black hair shook, his glossy shirt fluttered, and he jingled. The silvery, musical jingling sounded almost like Christmas bells, but not quite.

They sounded more like spurs.

I looked down at his boots. Sure enough, he wore a pair of spurs with big, silver rowels.

Had he been wearing them all along? Maybe, but I don’t think so. Maybe he’d put them on while he was in the bus.

If so, why?

Why would he wear spurs at all?

I glanced around just to make sure there wasn’t a horse nearby, and didn’t see one. Of course, you could’ve fit half a dozen Clydesdales inside the truck and nobody’d be the wiser.

But I doubted there were any horses at all. More than likely, Julian wore the spurs as fashion accessories to his costume.

Maybe part of him longed to be Paladin.

The jingling went silent when he halted in front of Lee. He presented the tickets to her.

“Thank you so much, Julian,” she said.

“My pleasure. We don’t have reserved seating, so come early.” His smile flashed. “And stay late. After the show, I’ll introduce you to Valeria. You, your brother and his friends.” He cast his smile in my direction.

“That might be nice,” Lee said. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I threw in.

“The pleasure is mine,” he said to Lee. “I’ll look forward to seeing you tonight. All of you.”

She blushed and said, “All four of us.”

“Isn’t that what I said?”

“Guess so.” Nodding, she said, “Thanks again.” Then she turned away and climbed into her truck. I hurried around to the other side and hopped into the passenger seat.

As she backed up, Julian walked away.

She swung the truck around and we started bouncing our way across Janks Field.

“You didn’t have to buy tickets,” I said.

“You want to see the show, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah. I guess so. But Mom and Dad are never gonna let me.”

“Maybe not.” She tossed me a smile tinted with mischief. “If they know about it.”

“Anyway, what about Slim and Rusty?”

“We’ve got four tickets and Danny’s out of town. All four of us can go, just like I told Julian.”

Holding back a groan, I muttered, “I don’t know. I just hope they turn up. They were supposed to wait for me.”

“I’m sure they’re all right.”

As Lee steered us into the shadows of the dirt road, she said, “If I’d been up on that roof, I would’ve jumped down and run for the woods… probably before the Show even pulled into sight. A truck like that, it’d make a lot of noise coming through the woods.”

“The bus, too,” I added.

“They must’ve heard the engines in plenty of time to get away.”

“But what about the dog?” I asked. She shook her head. “Maybe it was gone by then.”

“What if it wasn’t?”

“Might’ve been distracted by the new arrivals.”