The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,116

inside her ear now, and its wings were fluttering delicately against the top of her ear canal, and she felt it crush its body into her ear.

“Patricia!” James Harris shouted, and something moved violently, and crashed over, and she almost screamed but she held on, and the roach forced its way deeper into her ear, three quarters in, its legs scrabbling deeper, and soon she wouldn’t be able to get it out, and James Harris kicked over furniture, and she felt the blankets move.

Then loud stomps moved away from her, and she heard the springs moan, and the roach fluttered its wings, trying to force itself deeper, but it was jammed, and she felt like it was fluttering its front legs against the side of her brain, and she knew James Harris was only pretending to go down, and then there was a bang and the floor jumped, and silence, and she knew he was waiting for her.

She got her left hand ready to catch the back legs of the roach before it disappeared into her ear, and she listened, waiting to hear James Harris give himself away, but then, far away, deep down inside the house she heard a door slam.

Patricia scrambled out from under the pile of clothes, feeling mouse droppings shower from her body, tearing at her ear, and she couldn’t catch the roach, and it panicked and squirmed, pushing its way into her ear, and she grabbed her soft tissue all around it, and crumpled her ear closed. Something crunched and popped and warm fluid oozed deep inside her ear canal, and she pulled out the mangled corpse of the roach, and scraped the hot gunk out with her little finger.

Spiders crawled from her hair onto her neck. She slapped at them, praying they weren’t black widows.

Finally, she stopped. She looked at the pile of old clothes and knew that even if he came back, there was no way she could make herself go under them again.

She watched the louvers get dimmer on the side of the attic facing the back of the house, and get brighter behind the louvers facing the harbor, and then the light turned rose, then red, then orange, and then it was gone. She began to shiver. How was she going to get out? What if he stayed in the house all night? What if he came back up after she’d fallen asleep? What if Carter called home? Did Blue and Korey know where she was?

She checked her watch. 6:11. Her thoughts chased themselves around and around inside her head as the sun went down and the heat leached out of the attic. She felt thirsty, hungry, scared, and filthy. Eventually she put her feet back under the moldering pile of clothes to keep them warm.

Occasionally, she dropped off to sleep and would wake up with a jerk of her head that made her neck snap. She listened for James Harris, shivered uncontrollably, and stopped looking at her watch because she’d think an hour had passed and each time discovered it had only been five minutes.

She wondered what had happened to Slick, and she wondered why he had come back early, and why he had risked going out in daylight, and inside her cold, gummy head, these thoughts went slower and slower and melted together and suddenly she knew it was Slick.

Slick had told him she was here. That was why Slick hadn’t come. She had called James Harris in Florida because her Christian values couldn’t stand to bend the rules, and Patricia had found something, she’d found the something, she’d found Francine, but Slick didn’t care about that, she didn’t care that Patricia had told her James Harris was dangerous, she just cared about her precious, lilywhite soul.

She looked at her watch. 10:31. She’d been up here for seven hours. She had at least that many more to go. Why had Slick betrayed her? They were supposed to be friends. But Patricia realized she was on her own again.

It took a few minutes to identify the noise beneath her, coming through the floor, repeating itself again and again. Patricia wiped her nose and listened, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Then it stopped.

“What?!?” James Harris yelled. Even