The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,40

roof and they would have gotten us if he hadn’t come,” Blue said.

“Then I’m glad he was here,” Carter said, and turned to Patricia. “Did you really have to call out the national guard? Christ, Patty, the neighbors are going to think I’m a wife beater or something.”

“Hoyt,” Miss Mary said from her bed.

“Okay, Mom,” Carter said. “It’s been a long night. I think we all just need to calm down.”

Patricia didn’t know if she would ever feel calm again.

CHAPTER 11

After they put Blue and Korey to bed, Patricia told Carter everything.

“I’m not saying it was your imagination,” he said when she’d finished. “But you’re always keyed up after your meetings. Those are morbid books y’all read.”

“I want an alarm system,” she told him.

“How would that have helped?” he asked. “Listen, I promise for the next little while I’ll make sure I’m home before dark.”

“I want an alarm system,” she repeated.

“Before we go to all that trouble and expense, let’s see how you feel after the next few weeks.”

She stood up from the end of the bed.

“I’m going to check on Miss Mary,” she told him, and left the room.

She checked the deadbolts on the front, back, and sun porch doors, leaving the lights on behind her, then went to Miss Mary’s room. The room was lit by the orange glow of Miss Mary’s night-light. She moved softly in case Miss Mary was asleep, then saw the night-light reflecting off her open eyes.

“Miss Mary?” Patricia asked. Miss Mary’s eyes cut sideways at her. “Are you awake?”

The sheet moved and Miss Mary’s claw struggled out, then ran out of energy and flopped down on her chest without getting where it was going.

“I’m.” Miss Mary wetted her lips. “I’m.”

Patricia stepped to the bed railing. She knew what Miss Mary meant.

“It’s all right,” she said.

The two women stayed like that for a long quiet moment, listening to the hot wind press on the windows behind the drawn curtains.

“Who’s Hoyt Pickens?” Patricia asked, not expecting a reply.

“He killed my daddy,” Miss Mary said.

That took the air out of Patricia’s lungs. She’d never heard that name before. Besides which, Miss Mary usually forgot about the people who floated to the surface of her mind seconds after she’d spoken their names. Patricia had never heard her link the person and their importance together.

“Why do you say that?” she asked softly.

“I have a picture of Hoyt Pickens,” Miss Mary rasped. “In his ice cream suit.”

Her ragged voice made Patricia’s scarred ear itch. The wind tried to open the hidden windows, rattled the glass, looked for a way in. Miss Mary’s hand found some more energy and slithered across the blankets toward Patricia, who reached down and took the smooth, cold hand in her own.

“How did he know your father?” she asked.

“Before supper, the men and my daddy used to sit on the back porch passing a jar,” Miss Mary said. “Us children had our supper early and played in the front yard, then we saw a man in a suit the color of vanilla ice cream come up the road. He turned into our yard and the men hid their jar because drinking was against the law. This man walked up to my daddy and said his name was Hoyt Pickens and he asked if my daddy knew where he could get himself some rabbit spit. That’s what they called my daddy’s corn whiskey, because it could make a rabbit spit in a bulldog’s eye. He said he’d been on the Cincinnati train and his throat was dusty and it’d be worth two bits to him to wet it. Mr. Lukens brought out the jar and Hoyt Pickens tasted it. He said he’d been from Chicago to Miami and that was the best corn liquor he ever had.”

Patricia didn’t breathe. It had been years since Miss Mary had put this many sentences together.

“That night Mama and Daddy argued. Hoyt Pickens wanted to buy some of Daddy’s rabbit spit and sell