The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,48

to squirm under, and their high-pitched screeches made her eardrums throb.

She squatted on top of the toilet lid in the tiny, hot bathroom, feeling the water beneath the lid boiling with rats as steam filled the bathroom, and after a while she couldn’t hear Miss Mary’s shrieks through the door anymore.

* * *

—

They sang “Happy Birthday” to Grace around 10:30 p.m., and then the party began to break up. Patricia suggested they stroll down to Alhambra Hall, just to get some fresh air, but Carter said he had to go in early so they went right home.

“What’s that smell?” Carter asked as they opened the front door and stepped inside.

The house smelled so strongly of wild animals and urine that Patricia’s eyes began to water. Even though she’d left the mushroom lamp on the hall table turned on, it was dark. She flipped the light switch and saw the mushroom lamp lying in pieces across the floor.

The smell got stronger in the den, the floor dotted with brown pellets and puddles of urine. The sofa was shredded, the curtains hung in tatters. Her first thought was that vandals had broken in. She and Carter walked fast for the garage room and stopped short in the doorway.

A giant had picked up the room and shaken it hard: chairs turned over, tables on their sides, medicine bottles scattered among dead rats, their corpses dotting the carpet. And in the middle of all this wreckage, Mrs. Greene knelt over Miss Mary, caked in blood, clothes torn to rags. She raised her head from the old woman’s lips and pressed down hard on her chest, performing perfect CPR compressions, and then she saw them and cried out in a cracked and terrible voice, “The ambulance is on its way.”

CHAPTER 13

Three of Miss Mary’s fingers had been stripped to the bone. She would need reconstructive surgery to rebuild her lips. They weren’t sure about her nose. They thought they could save her left eye.

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” Carter said, nodding rapidly. “But Mom’ll be okay?”

“After we stabilize her she’ll need several surgeries,” the doctor said. “But at her age you may want to consider whether that’s even wise. After that, with extensive rehab and physical therapy she should be able to return to her normal life, in a limited fashion.”

“Good, good,” Carter said, still nodding. “Good.”

The doctor left and Patricia tried to take Carter’s hand and reconnect him to reality.

“Carter,” she said. “Do you want to sit down?”

“I’m good,” he said, pulling his hand away and running it over his face. “You should go get some rest. It’s been a long night.”

“Carter,” she said.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I think I’ll actually go by my office and catch up on some work. I’ll see Mom when they bring her out of surgery.”

Patricia gave up and drove home a couple of hours before dawn. When she pulled into the driveway her headlights swept across the yard and the shadows seethed and scattered, fading back into the dark bushes: hundreds and hundreds of rats. Patricia sat in her car for a minute, lights on bright, then got out and ran for the front door.

* * *

—

Dead rats littered the den. There were even more in the garage room. She didn’t know what to do. Bury them? Put them in the trash? Call Animal Control? She knew what to do if too many people showed up for supper, or if someone arrived early for a party, but what did you do when rats attacked your mother-in-law? Who told you how to cope with that?

She decided to start with the garage room. Her heart contracted painfully when she saw Ragtag’s limp corpse stretched in the middle of the carpet. Poor dog, she thought as she bent over to pick him up.

He opened one eye and his tail thumped feebly against the carpet.

Patricia wrapped him in an old beach towel and drove to the vet’s office at twenty-six miles per hour. She was waiting when he showed up to unlock his office door.

“He’ll live,” Dr. Grouse said. “But it won’t be inexpensive.”