Richard Laymon - The Traveling Vampire Show

“Where is she?” Bitsy asked.

I shrugged.

“She had to stay home and do the laundry,” Rusty said.

Bitsy’s eyes stayed on me. Clearly, she didn’t believe Rusty’s explanation. She wanted to hear it from me.

“Why don’t you go ahead and get us the shirts?” I said, a gentleness in my voice that surprised me. “Just two shirts. We’ll wait in the backyard, okay? And I’ll tell you about Slim.”

“Okay.”

When Bitsy shoved open the door, the noise of the bridge ladies swelled. The door swung shut, coming half-open again on our side and fanning in a few gray rags of smoke.

Rusty muttered, “Shit.”

Then he cut off another thick slab of Velveeta cheese, folded the end of the wrapper, and returned the cheese to the refrigerator. While he still held the door open, he asked, “Another dog?”

I shook my head.

He shut the door. Both of us holding what was left of our wieners and cheese, we hurried outside and down the stairs to the backyard. Over near a comer of the house, we stopped to wait for Bitsy and finish eating.

“Jush wha’ we nee’,” Rusty muttered, his words mushy from a mouthful of partly-chewed lunch.

“Don’t worry about it,” I said.

He swallowed and said, “Why’d you have to go and tell her about Janks Field? ”

I shrugged. “I have a hard time lying sometimes.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Sorry. But look, she’ll be all right.”

“Easy for you to say, she isn’t your sister.”

The screen door swung open. Bitsy rushed out and bounded down the stairs. Her hands were empty. I figured something must’ve gone wrong. As she hurried toward us, though, I saw that the front of her T-shirt bulged more than usual.

“Got ’em,” she said. Stopping in front of us, Bitsy patted her bulge. Her T-shirt was so thin I could see the wrinkled bunch of fabric underneath it.

Rusty put out his hand and snapped his fingers. “Give,” he said.

Fixing her eyes on me, Bitsy asked, “Where’s Slim, really? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

“You have to promise not to tell,” I said.

Rusty groaned.

“I promise.”

“She’ll tell.”

“No, I won’t.” She raised her right hand. “I swear.”

“First time something doesn’t go her way….”

She threw a glare at him. “I will not.”

I said, “We’re going to look for Slim right now. She was still at Janks Field last time we saw her. So that’s where we’re going.”

“How come you went off without her?”

I gave Rusty a look, then faced Bitsy and said, “She wanted to stay behind.”

“How come?”

“To look at some stuff,” I said. “Anyway, we have to get back and find her.”

Bobbing her head slightly as if she now understood, Bitsy reached with both hands under the bottom of her T-shirt and dragged out a couple of shirts. They were both wrinkled, but looked clean.

“This one’s for you,” she said, and handed me a checkered, short-sleeved shirt.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re welcome.”

“And this one’s for you.”

The shirt she held out toward Rusty had nothing wrong with it that I could see, but he snatched it from her grip and muttered, “Thanks a lot.”

Turning again to me, she said, “Are you sure Slim doesn’t need a shirt, too?”

“Nah,” I said. “She has ours.”

“What happened to hers?”

“The dog got it,” I said.

“I thought you said it wrecked your shirts.”

“Indirectly,” I said.

“Huh?” Bitsy asked.

“Shit on a stick,” Rusty said, “why not just blab everything?”

Holding the stub of my wiener in my mouth, I put on the shirt.

“I’m coming with,” said Bitsy.

“The hell you are!” Rusty blurted.

“She’s my friend, too.”

“You’re not coming.”

Glaring at her brother, Bitsy said, “If you don’t let me come, I’m gonna tell.”

Rusty’s eyes flashed at me. “See?” Then he shoved the rest of his wiener into his mouth.

Bitsy turned to me. “You don’t mind me coming, do you?”

Here was my big chance to redeem myself with Rusty and ruin Bitsy’s day… or week, or month. I didn’t want to do it. But I wasn’t crazy about having her tag along with us, either. “It’s fine with me,” I said.

She gave Rusty a glance of triumph.

“The only thing is,” I said, “it might be dangerous.”

“That’s okay.”

“I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I don’t mind.”

“Do you mind if you get us hurt?” Rusty asked her.

“I’m not gonna do that.”

“Oh, yeah? What if we get chased and you’re too slow and we have to run back to rescue your fat ass and like Dwight gets killed all because of you? ”

“Quit it, Rusty,” I said.

A stubborn look in her eyes, Bitsy told him, “You just don’t want me to come. But it’s okay with Dwight. He said so.”

She looked at me for confirmation.

“Sure,” I said. “If you really want to, you can. But we are going to Janks Field. No telling what might happen. There’s the dog, and…”

“I’m not scared.”

“You oughta be, you little twat.”

“Rusty!”

She turned on him. “I’m gonna tell!”

“Go ahead. See if I care.” To me, he said, “Damn it, Dwight, we can’t take her to Janks Field. She’s my sister. What if something does happen to her?”

“We’ll make sure she’s all right,” I told him. To Bitsy, I said, “Are you really sure you want to come? It’s not just dangerous, it’s a long walk. Five or six miles,” I added, exaggerating slightly.

“Is not,” she said.

“Round trip.”

“I can walk that far.”

“Sure you can,” Rusty muttered.

“I’m coming,” Bitsy said. “Right, Dwight?”

“If you really want to,” I told her.

“I do.”

“One thing, though. You can’t come with us barefoot. It’s a long walk and Janks Field has all sorts of broken glass and stuff….”

“Spiders and snakes,” Rusty added.

“You have to put some shoes on,” I told her.

An eager look in her eyes, she said, “Wait right here.” Then she swung around and trotted to the back stairs. She hustled up them, pulled open the screen door and entered the kitchen. The door banged shut.

Rusty and I looked at each other.

I nodded.

We split.

Ran like hell around the corner of the garage, cut across the neighbor’s yard, made it to the sidewalk and didn’t stop running till we reached Route 3. Panting and drenched with sweat, we stopped by the side of the pavement. I walked in slow circles while Rusty bent over and held his knees.

When he had his breath back, he straightened up and grinned at me and shook his head. “Good man,” he said.

“Yeah, well.”

He patted me on the back, and we walked up Route 3. On both sides of us, the woods were tall and thick. Though the sunless afternoon made the road ahead of us look gloomy, in there among the trees there was hardly any light at all.

After a while, Rusty said, “Bet she never thought you’d ditch her.”

“I know.”

“That’s why it worked.”

“Yeah.”

He patted me on the back some more. “I can’t believe you did that to her.”

I glowered at him.

“Just kidding, man. It was brilliant.”

“I didn’t want to hurt her feelings.”

“Blew that one.”

“If she’d just listened to reason…”

“Ha!”

“I tried to talk her out of coming.”