Richard Laymon - The Traveling Vampire Show

“Even if they did, they don’t know where I live.”

“They might.”

“They have ways,” Rusty said from the ground.

“Bull.”

“Magic ways.”

“Yeah, right.”

Rusty sniffed a couple of times, then took his hand away from his face. All around his mouth, he was smeared with blood. He looked as if he’d been eating someone raw. Smiling, he said, “Maybe they put the dog on your scent.”

“It’s dead.”

“They put its ghost on you.”

Slim looked uneasy for a moment. Then she smiled and said, “Good one.”

“Maybe you should be the writer,” I told him.

“Slim can write ’em. I’ll be the idea man.”

“Anyway,” Slim said, “they can’t possibly know where I live.”

“What if they’re watching us right now,” I asked, “and they follow you home?”

She almost smirked, but not quite. Instead, she turned her head and looked over her shoulder.

“Maybe they’re already at your house,” Rusty added, kidding around.

“Yeah, right.”

“Anything’s possible,” he said.

“Anything is not possible.”

“What if they’re waiting for you?”

I looked down at Rusty, impressed and a little annoyed. He’d just given a whole new meaning to the mess Slim would find in her mother’s room. Now, instead of wondering about the mystery of it, she might figure the gang from Janks Field had paid a visit to her house.

“I’ll take my chances,” she told Rusty. “See you guys later.” Again, she turned away.

Again, I said, “No, wait.” Then I looked down at Rusty. “Get up. If she’s going, we’re going with her.” To Slim, I said, “Is that okay?”

“Okay by me.”

“How’s the nose?” I asked Rusty.

“Hurts.”

“Is it still bleeding?”

He sniffed a couple of times. “I donno. Maybe not.”

“Come on. We’re going with Slim.”

As we climbed the porch stairs, my stomach started to feel funny. Not indigestion funny, scared funny. I was nervous about Slim finding the spilled perfume and broken glass in her mother’s room, but it wasn’t just that. Dumb as it may seem, I half believed that Julian or some of his gang might be hiding in the house.

Because of Rusty’s remarks.

Sometimes people say stuff that doesn’t make any sense, but it gets to you anyway. This was one of those times.

I knew Slim’s house was empty, but the fear wouldn’t go away.

It didn’t help matters, watching her open the screen door and front door without unlocking either of them.

Anybody might be in her house.

When I started to follow Slim through the doors, Rusty grabbed my arm. I frowned back at him.

“Maybe we should wait out here,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Her mother’s not home.”

In the foyer, Slim turned around. “You’re coming over tonight, aren’t you? So what’s the difference?”

“I thought tonight we’d sneak in the back way,” Rusty explained. “We don’t want your neighbors seeing us, do we?”

She made a face to show us what she thought of nosy neighbors. “If they don’t like it, they can lump it.”

“You’re only gonna be a minute, right?” Rusty asked. “Why don’t we just wait out here for you?”

“Don’t you want to come in and wash up?” she asked him.

“Nah, I’m fine.”

“You’re a bloody mess,” she said.

“That’s okay.”

“I think we should go in with her,” I said, still worried for no good reason that she might have intruders.

Slim nodded. “Yeah, come on.”

Leering at her, Rusty said, “If we come in, can we go upstairs?” Before she could answer, he added, “We’ve never seen your bedroom.”

Her eyebrows lifted.

Rusty nudged me. “You’d like to see her bedroom, wouldn’t you?”

Scowling, I shook my head.

“How about it?” he asked Slim. “Do we get to see your bedroom?”

“In your dreams.” She whirled around and hurried toward the stairway. As she trotted up, she looked over her shoulder. “In or out, I don’t care. But stay downstairs.”

When she was gone, Rusty grinned at me.

“You jerk,” I whispered. “What’re you trying to pull?”

“Just playing it safe, you know? We don’t wanta be around when she finds the surprise in her mom’s room, do we?”

“I guess not.”

“Outa sight, outa mind.”

“Sure.”

“No matter what, we act dumb.”

“Right.”

I hated the whole idea of being dishonest with Slim, but we’d already deceived her. If we tried to tell the truth now, we’d look like jerks.

Expecting Slim to shout at any moment, I gazed at the top of the stairs. So did Rusty. We stood side by side, watching and listening. Quiet sounds came from the second floor: footsteps, the creaking of a board, soft skids and bumps that might’ve been drawers opening and shutting.

Rusty leaned toward me. “She hasn’t noticed it yet.”

“Guess not.”

“Maybe she won’t.”

Nodding, I whispered, “The smell might’ve dissipated.”

He turned his head and frowned at me.

“Spread out and faded away,” I explained.

“I know that. I’m not stupid.”

“Hey, guys,” Slim called. “You want to come up here a minute?” She sounded a little worried.

We glanced at each other. Rusty looked like a school kid ordered to the principal’s office.

“Oh, man,” he murmured.

I ran to the stairs and raced up them two at a time, Rusty pounding along behind me. At the top of the stairs, I knew I would see Slim down the hallway, standing in front of her mother’s bedroom.

She wasn’t there.

The hallway was empty.

“Slim?”

“Over here.” Her voice had come from the left—the direction of both the bedrooms.

Heart thumping hard and fast, I hurried down the hallway, certain to find Slim inside her mother’s bedroom.

The two doors were on opposite sides of the hallway.

As I neared them, I smelled the sweetness of the spilled perfume. Maybe the scent had dissipated, but it certainly hadn’t vanished.

I turned toward the mother’s door.

“Dwight?”

I spun around. Slim was in her own room. I hurried to her door and got there just before Rusty. We both stopped and gazed in.

Slim was standing beside her bed, a nervous look on her face. She was barefoot. She still wore Lee’s red shorts, but she’d taken off the shirts and put on her own bikini top. The powder-blue one, a favorite of mine. The matching bottoms looked as if they been tossed onto her bed along with the two shirts she’d taken off.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

In a small voice as if she feared being overheard, she said, “Somebody’s been in my room.”

I shriveled inside. Before I could say anything, Rusty asked, “What do you mean?”

She turned sideways, raised a long, tanned arm and pointed a finger at her pillow.

On top of it lay a paperback book, wet and chewed and torn. Though the book looked as if it had been mauled by a vicious dog, its cover was intact enough for me to read the title.

Dracula.

My breath knocked out, I looked at Rusty. He looked at me. Then we both shook our heads.

Slim still had her eyes on the wreckage of Dracula, so I took a fast look at the paperbacks on her headboard. They were lined up neatly, just the same as when I’d seen them earlier. Then, however, Dracula had been among them.

“How the hell did that happen?” Rusty asked.

I almost blurted out, “I didn’t do it,” but I caught myself in time.