The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,37

She went up and knocked gently on Korey’s door while pushing it open. The lights were out and the room was dark, which confused Patricia. Why on earth was Korey asleep so early? The hall light spilled across Korey’s bed. It was empty.

“Korey?” Patricia said into the darkness.

“Mom,” Korey said from the shadows by her closet, her voice low and even. “There’s someone on the roof.”

Cold water flooded Patricia’s veins. She stepped out of the hall light and into Korey’s bedroom, standing to one side of the door.

“Where?” she whispered.

“Over the garage,” Korey whispered back.

The two of them stood like that for a long moment until Patricia realized she was the only adult in the house, which meant she had to do something. She forced her legs to carry her to the window.

“Don’t let him see you,” Korey said.

Patricia made herself stand right in front of the window, expecting to see the dark shape of a man outlined against the night sky, but she only saw the sharp, black line of the roof’s edge with thrashing bamboo behind it. She jumped when she heard Korey’s voice beside her.

“I saw him,” Korey said. “I promise.”

“He’s not there now,” Patricia said.

She walked to the door and flipped on the overhead light. They both stood, dazzled, while their eyes adjusted. The first thing she saw was a half-empty bowl of old cereal on the windowsill, the milk and corn flakes dried into concrete. She’d asked Korey not to leave food in her room, but her daughter looked scared and vulnerable and Patricia decided not to say anything.

“There’s going to be a storm,” Patricia said. “But I’ll leave your door open and the hall light on so your father remembers to say good night when he comes home.”

She pulled Korey’s comforter back. “Do you want to read your book?”

Her eye caught the top of the blue plastic milk crate Korey used for a bedside table. A copy of ’Salem’s Lot by Stephen King lay on top of a stack of Sassy magazines. Suddenly it all made sense.

Korey saw her see the book. “I didn’t make it up,” she said.

“I don’t think you did,” Patricia said.

Disarmed by Patricia’s refusal to argue, Korey got into bed and Patricia left the bedside lamp on, turned off the overhead light, and left the door open. In his bedroom, Blue was already in bed, covers pulled up.

“Good night, Blue,” Patricia called to him across his dark room.

“There’s a man in the backyard,” Blue said.

“It’s the wind,” she said, picking her way between the clothes and action figures on his floor. “It makes the house sound scary. Do you want me to leave the light on?”

“He climbed up on the roof,” Blue said, and right at that moment Patricia heard a footstep directly overhead.

It wasn’t a limb falling or a branch scraping. It wasn’t the wind making the house creak. Just a few feet over her head came a deliberate, quiet thump.

Her blood stopped in its veins. Her head craned back so far she put a crick in her neck. The silence hummed. Then another quiet thump, this time between her and Blue. Someone was walking on the roof.

“Blue,” Patricia said. “Come.”

He flew out of bed and grabbed her around the waist. She walked them in a straight line, stepping on his books and action figures. Plastic men snapped beneath their feet as they rushed to his bedroom door.

“Korey,” she said, quiet and urgent from the hall. “Come on.”

Korey flowed out of her bed and ran to the other side of her mother, and Patricia herded them both down the front stairs and sat them on the bottom step.

“I need you to wait here,” Patricia whispered. “I’ll check the doors.”

She walked quickly through the dark downstairs den to the back door and turned the deadbolt, expecting to see the shadowy shape of a man through the door right before he smashed through the glass and yanked her out into the wild night. She