The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,101

school’s unofficial mascot. Blue and Slick Paley’s youngest spray-painted him silver and now they’ve both got Saturday school for the rest of the year.”

Just saying it out loud sounded absurd. She imagined it becoming a funny family story next year.

“Will the dog be okay?” James Harris asked.

“They say he will,” she said. “But how do you clean spray paint off a dog?”

“I just bought a new CD changer,” James Harris said. “I’ll ask Blue over to help me hook it up. If it comes up, I’ll ask him what happened and let you know what he says.”

“Would you?” Patricia asked. “I’d be grateful.”

“It’s good talking this way again,” James said. “Would you like to come over for some coffee? We can catch up.”

She almost said yes because her first instinct in every situation was to be agreeable, but she smelled something clean and cool and medical and it took her out of her bright, sunny kitchen for a moment and suddenly it was four years ago and the garage door was open and she could smell the plastic incontinence pads they used for Miss Mary. For a moment she felt like the woman she had been all those years ago, a woman who didn’t have to constantly apologize for everything, and she said, “No, thank you. I have to finish cleaning out the kitchen cabinets.”

“Another day, then,” he said, and she wondered if he’d heard the change in her voice.

They hung up and Patricia looked at the locked garage room door. She smelled the carpet shampoo she used to use in Miss Mary’s room, and the pine-scented Lysol Mrs. Greene sprayed after Miss Mary had an accident. Any minute she expected to see the door swing open and Mrs. Greene come up the steps in her white pants and blouse, a balled-up bundle of sheets in her arms.

She made herself stand up and walk to the door, the smell of Miss Mary’s room getting stronger with every step. She took the key off the hook by the door and watched her hand float out on the end of her arm and insert the key into the deadbolt. She twisted and the door popped open and it swung wide and the garage room stood empty. She smelled nothing but cool air and dust.

Patricia locked the door and decided to clean all the newspapers off the sun porch and then finish the kitchen cabinets. She walked through the dining room, where Ragtag lay sunbathing, twitching one ear as she passed. On the sun porch, light bounced off newspapers and glossy magazine covers, dazzling her. She picked up the papers Carter had left on the ottoman and walked back through the dining room to the kitchen. As she stepped into the den, a voice behind the dining room door said:

patricia

She turned. No one was there. And then, through the crack along the hinges of the dining room door, she saw a staring blue eye crowned by gray hair, and then nothing but the yellow wall behind the door.

Patricia stood for a moment, skin crawling, shoulders twitching. She felt a muscle tremble in one cheek. There was nothing there. She’d had some kind of olfactory hallucination and it made her believe she’d heard Miss Mary’s voice. That was all.

Ragtag sat up, eyes focused on the open dining room door. Patricia put the papers in the garbage and made herself walk back through the dining room to the sun porch.

She picked up copies of Redbook and Ladies’ Home Journal and Time and hesitated briefly, then walked back through the dining room to the den. As she passed the open dining room door again, Miss Mary whispered from behind it:

patricia

Her breath stopped in her throat. Her knuckles cramped around the magazines. She could not move. She felt Miss Mary’s eyes boring into the back of her neck. She felt Miss Mary standing behind the dining room door, staring madly through the crack, and then came a torrent of whispers.

he’s coming for the children, he’s taken the child, he’s taken my grandchild, he’s come for my grandchild, the nightwalking man, hoyt pickens suckles on the babies, on the sweet fat