The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,55

all the good it did. Says Sean was found by a big live oak back in the deep woods where someone had picked him up and mashed his face against the bark and scraped it right down to the skull. They couldn’t have an open casket at Sean’s funeral.”

Patricia realized she wasn’t breathing. She carefully let out the air in her lungs.

“That had to be in the papers,” she said.

“It was,” Mrs. Greene said. “The police called it ‘drug-related’ because Sean had been in that kind of trouble before. But no one out here thinks it was and that’s why everyone’s real skittish about strangers. Before he stepped in front of that truck, Orville Reed told his mother he was talking to a white man in the woods, but she thought maybe he was talking about one of his cartoons. No one thinks that after what happened to Sean. Sometimes other children say they see a white man standing at the edge of the woods, waving to them. Some people wake up and say they see a pale man staring in through their window screens, but that can’t be true because the last one to say that was Becky Washington and she lives up on the second floor. How’d a man get up there?”

Patricia thought about the hand vanishing over the edge of the sun porch overhang, the footsteps on the roof over Blue’s room, and she felt her stomach contract.

“What do you think it is?” she asked.

Mrs. Greene settled back in her chair.

“I say it’s a man. One who drives a van and used to live in Texas. I even got his license plate number.”

Kitty and Patricia looked at each other and then at her.

“You got his license plate number?” Kitty asked.

“I keep a pad by the front window,” Mrs. Greene said. “If I see a car driving around I don’t know, I write down the license plate number in case something happens and the police need it later for evidence. Well, last week, I heard an engine buzzing late one night. I got up and saw it turning, leaving Six Mile, heading back for the state road, but it was a white van and before it turned off I got most of its license plate number.”

She put her hands on the arms of her chair, pulled herself up, and limped to a little table by the front door. She picked up a spiral notebook and opened it, scanning the pages, then she limped back to Patricia, turned the notebook around, and presented it to her.

Texas, it read. - - X 13S.

“That’s all I had time to write,” Mrs. Greene said. “It was turning when I caught it. But I know it was a Texas plate.”

“Did you tell the police?” Patricia asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mrs. Greene said. “And they said thank you very much and we’ll call if we have any further questions but I guess they didn’t because I never got a call. So you can understand why people out here don’t have much patience with strangers. Especially white ones. Especially now with Destiny Taylor.”

“Who’s Destiny Taylor?” Kitty asked before Patricia could.

“Her mother goes to my church,” Mrs. Greene said. “She came to me one day after services and wanted me to see her little girl.”

“Why?” Patricia asked.

“People know I’m in the medical field,” Mrs. Greene said. “They’re always trying to get free advice. Now, Wanda Taylor doesn’t work, just takes a government check, and I can’t abide lazy people, but she’s my cousin’s best friend’s sister, so I said I’d look at her little girl. She’s nine years old and sleeping all hours of the day. Not eating, real lethargic, barely drinking water and this weather is hot. I asked Wanda if Destiny’s going into the woods, and she says she doesn’t know, but sometimes she’ll find twigs and leaves in her shoes at night, so she reckons maybe.”

“How long has this been going on?” Patricia asked.

“She says about two weeks,” Mrs. Greene said.

“What did you tell her?” Patricia asked.

“I told her she needed to get her little girl