The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,125

tell him where they were,” Slick said. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. My pride. My stupid, stupid pride.”

“It’s not your fault,” Patricia said.

“I thought I could do this alone,” Slick said. “I thought I was stronger than him. But none of us are.”

The tips of Slick’s bangs were wet with sweat. Her cheeks shook. She inhaled sharply.

“Where does it hurt?” Patricia asked.

“My privates,” Slick said.

Patricia lifted the duvet. There was a dark stain on the robe over Slick’s groin.

“We need to get you to a hospital,” Patricia said.

“He’ll kill them if I tell,” Slick said.

“Slick…,” Patricia began.

“He’ll kill them,” Slick said. “Please. He will.”

“We don’t know what he did to you,” Patricia said.

“If I’m still bleeding in the morning, I’ll go,” Slick said. “But I can’t call an ambulance. What if he’s outside watching? What if he’s waiting to see what I do? Please, Patricia, don’t let him hurt my babies.”

Patricia went and got a warm washcloth and cleaned Slick as best she could, found some pads beneath the sink, and helped her into a nightgown. Downstairs, she took Leland aside.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is she okay?”

“She’s having bad cramps,” Patricia said. “But she says she’ll be fine tomorrow. You may want to sleep in the guest room, though. She needs some privacy.”

Leland put a hand on Patricia’s shoulder and looked into her eyes.

“I’m sorry I bit your head off earlier,” he said. “But I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to Slick.”

Outside, it was still and dark. The candle on the porch had burned out and all the Creekside trick-or-treaters must have long since gone home. Patricia walked briskly around the side of the house and threw Slick’s underwear, robe, and ruined clothes into the trash, stuffing them all the way down under the bags. Then she ran to the Volvo and locked all the doors behind her. Slick was right. He might still be outside.

Once she had the car moving she felt safer and the anger rose up inside her, making her skin feel too tight. Her movements felt rushed and hurried. She couldn’t contain herself. She needed to be somewhere else.

She needed to see James Harris.

She wanted to stand in front of him and accuse him of what he’d done. It was the only place to be that felt like it made any sense to her right now. She drove carefully through Creekside, using all her self-control to make wide circles around the few remaining trick-or-treaters, and then she was on Johnnie Dodds and she put the pedal to the floor.

In the Old Village she slowed again. The streets were almost empty. Burned-out jack-o’-lanterns sat on front porches. A cold wind whistled through her Volvo’s air-conditioning vents. She stopped at the corner of Pitt and McCants. The Cantwells’ front yard was empty, all its lights dark. As she turned toward James Harris’s house the wind set the corpses hanging from their trees twisting, following her, reaching for her with their bandaged arms as she drove past.

The massive, malignant lump of James Harris’s house loomed on her left, and Patricia thought about his dark attic with its suitcase containing the lonely corpse of Francine. She thought about the wild, hunted look in Slick’s eyes. She remembered what Slick had hissed:

If he did this to me, what’s he going to do to you?

She needed to know where her children were, right that minute. The overwhelming need to know they were safe flooded her body and sent her flying home.

She pulled into the driveway and ran to the front door. One jack-o’-lantern had burned out and someone had smashed the other one against their front steps. She slipped in its slime as she raced up her porch steps. She opened the door and ran to the sun porch. Korey wasn’t there. She raced upstairs and threw open Korey’s bedroom door.

“What?” Korey shouted from where she sat, cross-legged on her bed, hunched over a copy of SPIN.

She was safe. Patricia didn’t say a