Richard Laymon - The Traveling Vampire Show

As I jerked the dog away from her, I saw her scratches, her blood. That may be what did it.

Somehow I found myself swinging the dog by its tail. I was hanging on with both hands, spinning in circles. At first, the dog curled around and snapped at me. Its teeth couldn’t quite reach me, though.

Pretty soon, it stopped trying and just howled as I twirled around and around and around.

While I swung the dog, Slim got to her feet.

I caught glimpses of her as I spun.

She was there, gone, there, gone…

Then she was on the move toward the snack stand. Closer. Closer. Around I went again and glimpsed her leaping. Around again and Rusty was pulling her up by one arm. Next time around, I glimpsed the faded seat of her cut-off jeans. Then I saw her standing on the roof beside Rusty.

Around and around I went. Glimpse after glimpse, I saw them shoulder to shoulder up there, staring down at me.

I saw them again. Again. They looked stunned and worried.

I was awfully dizzy by then and my arms were getting tired. I thought maybe I’d better end things soon—maybe by slamming the canine into a wall of the snack stand. So I started working my way in that direction.

Rusty yelled, “Don’t bring it here!”

“Just let it go!” Slim called.

So I did.

Waiting until it was pointed away from the snack stand, I released its tail. The weight suddenly gone, I stumbled sideways, trying to stay on my feet.

I didn’t see the dog at first, but its howl climbed an octave or two.

Then, still staggering, I spotted it. Ears laid back, legs kicking, it flew headfirst, rolling through the air as if being turned on an invisible spit.

Far out across Janks Field, it slammed the ground. Its howl ended with a cry of pain, and the dog vanished in a rising cloud of dust.

Slim’s voice came from behind me. She said, “My God, Dwight.”

And Rusty said, “Jesus H. Christ on a rubber crutch.”

Then, growling like a pissed-off grizzly bear, the dog came racing out of the dust cloud.

Rusty yelled, “Shit!”

Slim yelled, “Run!”

I squealed a wordless outcry of disbelief and panic and sprinted for the shack.

Leaping, I grabbed the edge of the roof. Rusty and Slim caught me by the wrists and hauled me up so fast I felt weightless. An instant later, the dog slammed against the wall.

I sprawled on the tarpaper, gasping for air, my heart whamming.

While I tried to recover, Slim sat cross-legged beside me and patted my chest and said things like, “Wow,” and “You saved my life,” and “You were a wildman” and so on, all of which made me feel pretty good.

While that went on, Rusty stood near the edge of the roof, leaning over the big wooden BEER—SNACKS—SOUVENIRS sign to keep an eye on the dog. He said, “It’s still down there” and “I don’t think it’s even damaged from all that,” and “How the shit are we gonna get outa here?” And so on.

After a couple of minutes, I sat up and looked at Slim. There were scratches on her face, shoulders, chest, arms and on the backs of her hands. She even had claw marks on the top of her right breast, running down to the edge of her bikini top. Those weren’t bleeding, though. A lot of her scratches hadn’t gone in deeply enough to draw blood—but some had.

“It really got you,” I said.

“At least it didn’t bite me. Thanks to you.”

Looking over his shoulder, Rusty said, “You’ll still have to get rabies shots.” He sounded almost pleased by the idea.

“Screw that,” Slim said.

“You will,” Rusty insisted.

“You want to take a look at my back?” Slim asked me.

I crawled around behind her and winced. Her back, bare to the waist except for the tied strings of her bikini, was dirty and running with blood from her fall on the ground. In at least five places, bits of broken glass were still embedded in her skin.

“Oh, man,” I muttered.

Rusty came around for a look and said, “Good going.”

“I try my best,” said Slim, smiling.

I started picking the pieces of glass out of her.

“You’re gonna need a tetanus shot, too,” Rusty told her.

“No way,” Slim said.

“Besides,” I said, “she had a tetanus shot last year after that moron stabbed her.”

“That’s right,” Slim said.

“And one shot lasts like five or ten years,” I added.

“Couldn’t hurt to get another,” Rusty said. “Just to be on the safe side. And the rabies shots.”

After I pulled the pieces of glass out of Slim’s back, she was still bleeding. “You’d better lie down,” I told her.

She stretched out flat on the roof, turned her head sideways and folded her arms under her face.

Her back looked as if it had been painted bright red. Blood was leaking from ten or twelve slits and gashes. Nowhere, however, was it gushing out.

“Does it hurt much?” I asked.

“I’ve felt better. But I’ve felt a lot worse, too.”

“I’ll bet,” I said. I’d seen Slim get injured plenty of times and heard about other stuff—like some of the things her father liked to do to her. Today’s cuts and scratches seemed pretty minor compared to a lot of that.

“You’re gonna need stitches,” Rusty informed her. “A lot of stitches.”

“He’s probably right,” I said.

“I’ll be fine,” she said.

“Long as the bleeding stops,” I said, and started to unbutton my shirt.

“Unless infection sets in,” said Rusty.

“You’re sure the life of the goddamn party,” Slim muttered.

“Just being realistic.”

“Why don’t you make yourself useful,” I said, “and hop down and go get a doctor.”

“Very funny.”

I took off my shirt, folded it a couple of times to make a pad, and pressed it gently against several of Slim’s cuts. The blood soaked through it, turning the checkered fabric red.

“Your mom’s gonna kill you,” Rusty said.

“It’s an emergency.” Where the blood on my shirt seemed worst, I pressed down firmly. Slim stiffened under my hands.

Rusty bent over us and watched for a while. Then he took off his own shirt, folded it, knelt on the other side of Slim and worked on her other cuts.

“Applying pressure should make the bleeding stop,” I ex-gained.

“I know that,” Rusty said. “You weren’t the only Boy Scout around here.”

“The only one with a first aid merit badge.”

“Screw you.”

“Two Boy Scouts,” Slim said, “and no first aid kit. Very prepared.”

“We used to be Scouts,” Rusty explained.

“Used to be prepared.”

“Next time,” I said, “we’ll make sure and bring some bandiges along.”

“The hell with that,” said Slim. “Bring guns.”

Rusty and I laughed at that one.

After about five minutes, most of the bleeding seemed to be over. We kept pressing down on the cuts for a while, anyway.

Then Rusty looked at me and asked, “You were kidding when you said that about going for a doctor, right?”

“What do you think?” I said.

“Just wanted to make sure. I mean, I figured you must be kidding, you know? ’Cause I would’ve done it if I had to. I nean, if Slim really had to have a doctor. Like if it was life or death, I would’ve jumped on down and done it. dog or no dog.”

It seemed like a strange thing for him to say.

Strange and sort of nice.

Slim said, “Thanks, Rusty.”

“Yeah, well. It’s just the truth, that’s all. I mean, I’d do anything for you. For either of you.”

“If you wanta do something for me,” I said, “how about once in a while using underarm deodorant?”