The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,64

the trees stopped and she stepped onto a dirt road. It wasn’t very wide but the sandy soil was loose and she realized someone must be building something nearby because of the big tread marks pressed into its surface. She flashed the light in one direction and saw the little road disappearing into a dark tunnel of trees. She flashed the light in the other direction and saw the chrome grille of James Harris’s white van.

She snapped off her light and stepped back into the pines, stumbling over a stump. He could’ve seen her. She’d snapped her light off in time, but she realized that he could’ve seen her beam bobbing through the trees as she approached, and then she’d stood there like a dummy looking the other way before shining her light at the van. She wanted to run but made herself hold still instead. The van didn’t move.

It wasn’t fifty feet away. She could walk over and touch it. She needed to walk over and touch it. She needed to know if he was inside.

She walked toward it, her shoes sinking into the sand, making no sound, her stomach churning. She waited for the headlights to scream on and pin her down, the engine to roar to life and run her over. The van’s grille and windshield swam from side to side in her vision, bouncing up and down, getting closer, and then she was there. She realized that inside was darker than outside so she ducked down, knees popping, to make sure he didn’t see her head outlined through his windshield against the night sky.

She put out one hand to steady herself. The curve of the hood felt cool. She wondered if the police were at Wanda’s trailer yet. She wanted to go back. Didn’t drug dealers have guns, and knives, and all kinds of weapons? She imagined Blue in the back of the van and knew she had to look. Destiny Taylor wasn’t her child but she was still a child.

Patricia slowly rose, knees cracking, and leaned forward until the edges of her hands touched the cold windshield, and she cupped them around her eyes and peered inside. Beyond the thin crescent rim of the steering wheel it was pitch-dark. She narrowed her eyes until the muscles in them ached, but she couldn’t see a thing.

Then she realized he wasn’t in the van. He was still in the woods with Destiny, or he’d finished with her and was on his way back. Before he got there she could look inside quickly and see if there were any clues, any clothes from that other child, anything that belonged to Francine. She had seconds.

She walked to the back of the van, wrapped her hand around the door handle, and pulled. Then she raised her flashlight and turned it on.

A man’s back bent over something on the floor, his rear end and the soles of his work boots turned toward her, and then his back reared up, and he turned into the flashlight’s beam and she saw James Harris. But there was something wrong with the lower half of his face. Something black, shiny, and chitinous like a cockroach’s leg, stuck several inches out of his mouth. His jaws hung open, stupefied, as he blinked blearily in the light, but otherwise his body didn’t move as this long insectoid appendage slowly withdrew into his mouth, and when it had retreated fully, he closed his lips and she saw that his chin and cheeks and the tip of his nose were coated in slick, wet blood.

Beneath him, a young black girl lay sprawled on the floor, long orange T-shirt pushed up to her stomach, legs akimbo, an ugly dark purple mark on the inside of one thigh, oily with fluids.

James Harris slapped the palm of one hand against the metal side of the van and the vehicle shook from side to side as he hauled himself to his feet. He squinted and Patricia realized her flashlight had blinded him. He took an unsteady, lurching step toward her. She froze, not knowing what to do, and then he took another step, rocking the van more, and she realized there was only three feet between them. The little girl moaned and squirmed like she was asleep, whimpering like Ragtag in his dreams.