Richard Laymon: The Traveling Vampire Show

After that, no more boxing matches at Janks Field.

No more “special events” at all, duds or otherwise.

The stadium became known as Fargus’s Folly.

Fargus vanished.

Though the “night games” were over, the huge, bright stadium lights continued to remain on from sunset till dawn to deter lovers, orgies and sacrifices.

And the grandstands and arena remained in place.

The Traveling Vampire Show would be the first official event to take place in Janks Field in almost two years—since the night of the parking disaster.

I suddenly wondered if it was official. Had somebody taken over Fargus’s old job and actually booked such a bizarre event?

Didn’t seem likely.

As far as I knew, the county had abandoned Janks Field. Except for paying the electric bills, they wanted nothing at all to do with the scene of all that mayhem.

I doubted that they would even allow a show to take place there-much less one featuring a “vampire.”

Unless maybe some palms got greased.

That’s how carnies got their permits, I’d heard. Just bribed the right people and nobody gave them trouble. A show like this would probably operate the same way.

Or maybe they hadn’t bothered.

Maybe they’d just shown up.

I must’ve let out a moan or something.

“What is it?” Slim asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“What’s a show like this doing at Janks Field?” I asked.

Looking puzzled, Rusty said, “Why do you care?”

“I just think it’s weird.”

“It’s a great place for a vampire show,” Slim said.

“That’s for sure,” said Rusty.

“But how did they even know about it?”

Grinning, Rusty said, “Hey, maybe Valeria’s been here before. Know what I mean?” He chuckled. “Maybe she’s done some prime sucking in these parts. Might even be the one who put some of those old stiffs in Janks Field.”

“And she likes to come back for old time’s sake,” Slim added.

“But don’t you think it’s odd?” I persisted. “Nobody just stumbles onto a place like Janks Field.”

“Well, if you trip in a snake hole…”

Rusty laughed.

“I mean it,” I said.

“Seriously?” Slim asked. “Somebody came out in advance to set things up. Don’t you think so? And he probably asked around in town and found out about the place. That’s all. No big mystery.”

“I still think it’s weird,” I said.

“Weird is what you want,” said Slim, “when you run a Traveling Vampire Show.”

“I guess so.”

“The only thing that really counts,” Rusty said, “is that they’re here.”

But they weren’t.

Or didn’t seem to be.

We followed Slim out of the forest. The dirt road vanished and we found ourselves standing at the edge of Janks Field.

Way off to the right across the dry, gray plain stood the snack stand and bleachers. Overlooking them, gray against the gray sky, were the panels of stadium lights.

We saw no cars, no trucks, no vans.

We saw no people.

We saw no vampires.

We started walking across the field.

“Guess we beat ’em here,” Slim said, her voice hushed.

“Looks that way,” said Rusty. He also spoke softly, the way you might talk late at night sneaking through a graveyard. He looked at his wristwatch. “It’s only ten-thirty.”

“Still,” I said, “you’d think they’d be here by now. Don’t they have to set up for the show?”

“Who knows?” Rusty said.

“How do we know someone isn’t here?” Slim asked, a look on her face as if she might be kidding around.

“I don’t see anyone,” Rusty said.

“Let’s just be ready to beat it,” I said.

They glanced at me so I would know they got both meanings. Usually, such a remark would inspire some wisecracks. Not this time, though.

“If anything happens,” Slim said, “we stay together.”

Rusty and I nodded.

We walked slowly, expecting trouble. You always expected trouble at Janks Field, but you never knew what it might be or where it might come from.

The place was creepy enough just because it looked so desolate and because a lot of very bad stuff had happened there. Bad things still happened. Every time I went to Janks Field with Rusty and Slim, we ran into trouble. We’d been scared witless, had accidents, gotten ourselves banged up, bit, stung and chased by various forms of wildlife (human and otherwise).

Janks Field was just that way.

So we expected trouble. We wanted to see it coming, but we didn’t know where to look.

We tried to look everywhere: at the grandstands ahead of us, at the mouth of the dirt road behind us, at the gloomy borders of the forest that surrounded the whole field, and at the gray, dusty ground.

We especially kept watch on the ground. Not because so many people had been found buried in it over the years, but because of its physical dangers. Though fairly flat and level, it was scattered with rocks and broken glass and holes.

The rocks were treacherous like icebergs. Just a small, sharp comer might be sticking up, but if your foot hits it, you find out that most of it is buried. The rock stays put and you go down.

You don’t want to go down in Janks Field. (Forget the double-meaning.) If you go down, you’ll come up in much worse shape.

Even if you’re lucky enough to escape bites from spiders or snakes, you’ll probably land on jutting rocks and broken glass.

The field was carpeted with the smashed remains of bottles from countless solo drinking bouts, trysts, wild parties, orgies, satanic festivities and what have you. The pieces were hard to see on gray days like this, but whenever the sun was out, the sparkle and glare of the broken bottles was almost blinding.

Of course, you never walked barefoot on Janks Field. And you dreaded a fall.

But falls were almost impossible to avoid. If you didn’t trip on a jutting rock, you would probably stumble in a hole. There were snake holes, gopher holes, spider holes, shallow depressions from old graves, and even shovel holes. Though all the corpses had supposedly been removed back in 1954, fresh, open holes kept turning up. God knows why. But every time we explored Janks Field, we discovered a couple of new ones.

Those are some of the reasons we watched the ground ahead of our feet.

We also watched the more distant ground to make sure we weren’t about to get jumped. That sort of thing had happened to us a few times before in Janks Field. If it was going to happen again, we wanted to see it coming and haul ass.

Our heads swung from side to side as we made our way toward the stadium. Each of us, every so often, walked sideways and backward.

It was rough on the nerves.

And it suddenly got rougher when Slim, nodding her head to the left, said, “Here comes a dog.”

Rusty and I looked.

Rusty said, “Oh, shit.”

This was no Lassie, no Rin Tin Tin, no Lady or the Tramp. This was a knee-high bony yellow cur skulking toward us with an awkward sideways gait, its head low and its tail drooping.

“I don’t like the looks of this one,” I said.

Rusty said, “Shit” again.

“No collar,” I pointed out.

“Gosh,” Rusty said, full of sarcasm. “You think it might be a stray?”

“Up yours,” I told him.

“At least it isn’t foaming at the mouth,” said Slim, who always looked on the bright side.

“What’ll we do?” I asked.

“Ignore it and keep walking,” Slim said. “Maybe it’s just out here to enjoy a lovely stroll.”

“My ass,” Rusty said.

“That’s what it’s here to enjoy,” I pointed out.