The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,122

a crack in one of the display cabinets. Nothing. She crept down the front hall’s thick runner and pushed open the door to the back addition. People started screaming.

Every muscle in Patricia’s body snapped into action. Her hands flew up to protect her face. She opened her mouth to scream. Then the screaming dissolved into laughter and she looked past her hands and saw Leland, LJ, their oldest, Greer, and Tiger sitting around the long dinner table halfway across the room, their backs to her, all laughing. Greer was the only one facing Patricia.

She caught sight of Patricia and stopped laughing. LJ and Tiger spun around.

“Ohmygosh,” Greer said. “How’d you get in?”

A Monopoly board sat in the middle of the table. Slick wasn’t there.

“Patricia?” Leland said, standing, genuinely baffled, trying to smile.

“Don’t get up,” she said. “Slick called and I thought she was home.”

“She’s upstairs,” Leland said.

“I’ll just pop right up,” Patricia said. “Keep playing.”

She left the room before they could say anything and went up the carpeted stairs fast. In the upstairs hall she didn’t have a clue which way to go. The door to the master bedroom sat ajar. The bedroom light was off but the master bathroom light was on. Patricia walked in.

“Slick?” she called softly.

The shower curtain rattled and Patricia looked down and saw Slick lying in the tub, her lipstick smeared, her mascara running down her face in trails, her hair sticking out in clumps. Her skirt had been torn and she only wore one dangling sand dollar earring.

Everything between them evaporated and Patricia knelt by the bathtub.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I didn’t make a sound,” Slick rasped, eyes wide with panic.

Her mouth moved soundlessly, straining to form words. Her hands opened and closed.

“Slick?” Patricia repeated. “What happened?”

“I didn’t…,” Slick began, then licked her lips and tried again. “I didn’t make a sound.”

“We need to call the ambulance,” Patricia said, standing up. “I’ll go get Leland.”

“I…,” Slick said, and it trailed off to a whisper. “I didn’t…”

Patricia walked to the bathroom door and heard hollow flailing in the tub behind her, and then Slick rasped, “No!”

Patricia turned around. Slick gripped the edge of the tub with both hands, knuckles white, shaking her head, her single sand dollar earring flopping from side to side.

“They can’t know,” she said.

“You’re hurt,” Patricia said.

“They can’t know,” Slick repeated.

“Slick!” Leland called from downstairs. “Everything all right?”

Slick locked eyes with Patricia and slowly shook her head back and forth. Patricia eased out into the bedroom, eyes still on Slick.

“We’re fine,” she called back.

“Slick?” Leland said, and from his voice Patricia could tell he was coming up the stairs.

Slick shook her head harder. Patricia held out one hand, then raced to the hall and headed off Leland at the top of the stairs.

“What’s happening?” he asked, stopping two steps below her.

“She’s ill,” Patricia said. “I’ll sit with her and make sure she’s okay. She didn’t want to break up your party.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Leland said. “You didn’t need to come all this way. We’re right downstairs.”

He tried to take a step but Patricia moved to block him.

“Leland,” she said, smiling. “Slick wants you to have fun with the children tonight. It’s important to her that they have…Christian associations with Halloween. Let me handle this.”

“I want to see how she is,” he said, sliding one hand up the banister, letting her know he was going to go right through her if necessary.

“Leland.” She dropped her voice low. “It’s a female problem.”

She wasn’t sure what a female problem meant to Leland, but his body sagged.

“All right,” he said. “But if she’s really not well, you’ll tell me?”

“Of course,” Patricia said. “Go back to the kids.”

He turned and went back downstairs. She waited until he passed into the addition, and then sprinted back to