The Traveling Vampire Show

In fact, I did. Blood or no blood, the idea of sliding my tongue over the hot, smooth skin of Slim’s back took my breath away and made my heart pound fast. Under the layers of my jeans and swimming trunks, I got hard.

But nobody knew it but me.

“You’re out of your gourd,” I said. “I’m not licking her and neither are you.”

“What’ll it hurt?” Rusty asked.

“Forget it,” Slim told him.

“Okay, okay. Jeez. I was just trying to help.”

“Sure,” I said.

“’Cause you know what? If we don’t clean all that blood off Slim’s back, it’s gonna draw the vampire like a magnet.”

“What?” I gasped, amazed.

“Points for originality,” Slim said.

“You think it won’t?” Rusty asked.

“I think there’s no such things as vampires,” I said.

“Me, too,” said Rusty. “But what if we’re wrong? What if this Valeria is one? All this blood’s gonna bring her to us like chum brings sharks.”

Though I didn’t believe in vampires, I felt slightly nervous hearing him say those things. Because you never really know.

Do you?

Really?

Most of us tell ourselves we don’t believe in that sort of stuff, but maybe that’s because we’re afraid to think they might exist. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, aliens from outer space, black magic, the devil, hell… maybe even God.

If they do exist, they might get us.

So we say they don’t.

“That’s such bull,” I said.

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn’t,” said Rusty.

“Probably it is,” Slim threw in.

So I said, “If Valeria is a vampire, which she isn’t… A, she’s not even here yet. And B, even if she gets here, she can’t do squat to us till after dark. And we’ll be long gone by then.”

“Think so?” Rusty asked.

“I know so.”

Sure I did.

Chapter Seven

I eased myself down on my back. The tarpaper felt grainy against my bare skin, but at least it wasn’t scorching hot the way it might’ve been on a sunny day.

“What’re you doing?” Rusty asked.

“What does it look like?”

“We’ve gotta get out of here.”

I shut my eyes, folded my hands across my belly, and said, “What’s the big hurry?”

“You wanta get caught up here when they show up?”

Slim asked, “Why not? We came to see Valeria, didn’t we?”

“To get a look at her—not to get caught at it.”

“I’d rather get caught at that,” Slim said, “than get my butt chewed by Old Yeller.”

Rusty was silent for a while. Then he said with sort of a whine in his voice, “We can’t just stay up here.”

“It isn’t just the dog,” I told him. “The longer we wait, the less Slim’ll bleed on the way home.”

“But they’re gonna show up.”

“Maybe they’ll have bandages,” Slim said.

“Very funny.”

“Let’s give it an hour,” I suggested.

“If we’re real quiet,” Slim said, “maybe the dog’ll go away.”

“Sure it will,” Rusty muttered.

Then I heard some scuffing sounds. Turning my head, I opened my eyes. On the other side of Slim, Rusty was lying down. He let out a loud sigh.

The way we were all stretched out reminded me of the diving raft at Donner’s Cove. Whenever we swam at the Cove, we always ended up flopping for a while on the old, white-painted platform. We’d be in our swimsuits, out of breath, dripping and cold from the river. Soon, the sun would warm us. But we wouldn’t get up. You felt like you never wanted to get up, it was so nice out there. The raft was rocking softly. You could hear the quiet lapping of the water against it, and the buzz of distant motorboats and all the usual bird sounds. You could feel the soft heat of the sun on one side, the hard slick painted boards on the other. And you had your best friends lying down beside you. Especially Slim in one of her bikinis, her skin golden and dripping.

Too bad we weren’t on the diving raft at the Cove. Too bad we were stranded, instead, on the scratchy tarpaper roof of the BEER—SNACKS—SOUVENIRS shack. Not surrounded by chilly water but by the wasteland of Janks Field. Not waves lapping peacefully at the platform, but the damn dog growling and barking and every so often hurling itself at the shack.

This just wasn’t the same.

Not quite. The raft was paradise and this was the pits. And even if the dog should magically vanish, I knew Slim would start bleeding all over the place the minute we hit the ground.

She’d already lost a fair amount of blood.

She would lose a lot more on the way home.

What if she lost too much?

I turned my head. Blinking sweat out of my eyes, I looked at Slim. Her eyes were shut. Her face was cushioned on her crossed arms. It was speckled with tiny drops of sweat, and dribbles were running here and there. Her short hair, the color of bronze, was wet and coiled and clinging to her temple and forehead. She was marked from temple to jaw by three thin red stratches.

I found myself wanting to kiss those scratches.

And maybe also kiss the tiny soft curls of down above the left comer of her mouth.

While I was thinking about it, she opened her eyes. She blinked a few times, then raised her eyebrows. “Time to go?” she asked.

“Hasn’t been an hour!” Rusty protested from the other side of Slim.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said.