The Traveling Vampire Show

“Maybe,” I muttered. I supposed Lee was right about missing them one way or another. It was sure possible. “But I’ve got a feeling they’re still out here,” I told her. “I feel like something went wrong, you know? I mean, Slim already had all those cuts. What if she passed out? Or what if the dog attacked them? Or maybe Rusty broke his leg jumping off the shack. Or maybe they were captured by those people who run the vampire show. I thought they were a pretty creepy bunch. No telling what they might do if they caught someone like Slim.”

Lee didn’t smirk or laugh at me. She looked concerned. “You’re right,” she said. “Any of that stuff might’ve happened. Or something else, just as bad, that you haven’t thought of.” A smile crept in. “Though I think you’ve covered the bases fairly well.”

I almost smiled, myself.

“The deal is,” she continued, “they’re probably somewhere in town by now—more than likely at your house, because they’d be needing to let you know what happened and your house would be about the best place to find you.”

Nodding, I said, “I guess that’s where they might go if they’re okay.”

“So let’s look there first.”

“Okay.”

“If we don’t find them at your place, we’ll keep looking till we do find them. That sound good to you?”

“Sounds fine.”

So then she pulled out onto Route 3, turned right, and headed for town. “We might even pass them along the way,” she said.

We didn’t.

The first thing I noticed as we approached my house was the empty driveway. It puzzled me for a moment. Mom should’ve been back from the grocery store. Apparently, she’d had other errands to run.

A lot of errands, I hoped.

With a little luck, maybe she and Dad would never have to find out about any of this.

“Look who’s here,” Lee said.

Her words gave me a moment of pure joy, but it faded when I saw Rusty leaning back against an elm tree in the front yard, shirtless, his arms crossed.

No Slim.

Rusty looked carefree, though. He smiled and waved as we pulled up to the curb. On his feet were the sneakers that he’d thrown at the dog. I took that for a good sign.

But why wasn’t Slim with him?

Feeling squirmy inside, I climbed out of the truck. Lee got out, too. As we walked toward Rusty, he asked me, “Where you been?”

“Out to Janks Field,” I said. “Where’s Slim?”

“She went home.”

“Is she all right?”

“Fine. Except for, you know, the cuts.” He smiled at Lee. “Hi, Mrs. Thompson.”

“Hi, Rusty.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Nothing much.”

“You were supposed to wait for me.”

“Yeah, well. We did. And then we thought we heard you coming… a car, you know? You were supposed to come back with a car, so we figured it must be you. Only what came out of the woods was a hearse. Man, I nearly….” With a smile at Lee, he said, “It scared the heck out of us. I mean, a hearse? Give me a break. So we figured it wasn’t Dwight coming to the rescue.” Looking at me, he added, “Where would you get a hearse, right?” To Lee, he said, “Then a big black bus came out of the woods, and that’s when we figured it must be the Vampire Show. So we beat it. We jumped down behind the shack and ran into the woods.” He shrugged his meaty, freckled shoulders. “That’s about it. When we got back into town, we split up. Slim went to her place and I came here so I could tell you what’d happened.”

“What about the dog?” I asked.

“Last I saw of that little… mutt… it was running toward the hearse like a madman, barking its tail off.”

“So it didn’t chase you guys?”

He shook his head. “Nope. We got off scot-free.”

All my worries had been for nothing. That’s usually how it is with worrying. More often than not, we get ourselves all in a sweat over something that might happen, then everything turns out just fine.

“What about Slim’s cuts?” I asked. “Did they bleed much on the way home?”

“Nope. They were fine.”

“They didn’t reopen?”

“Huh-uh.”

From what he said, I might just as well have stayed on the roof with them. It would’ve saved a lot of wear and tear on my nerves.

“Where did our shirts end up?” I asked.

“Slim has ‘em. They’re ruined anyway. She wore ’em home.”

“Where’d her T-shirt end up?”

“Still on the ground, I guess. Did you see it when you were there?”

I shook my head. I hadn’t seen Slim’s T-shirt or any sign of the dog or the sneakers….

“Wait,” I said.

He suddenly looked worried.

“How’d you get your sneakers back?” I asked.

“Huh?”

“What’d you do, run halfway across Janks Field when the hearse and bus were already there and… ?”

“Heck no. We jumped off the back of the shack.”

“Then how’d you get your shoes?”

“My shoes?” He looked down at his sneakered feet. “Oh!” He gave out a laugh and shook his head as if relieved. “You thought I threw my shoes at the dog!”

“I saw you throw them.”

“Not my shoes. Those were Slim’s.”

“Slim’s shoes?”

“Sure.”

“Jeez, man. Why didn’t you throw your own?”

“It was her idea.”

“Real nice.”

“Don’t blame me, she tossed me hers and told me to throw ’em, so I did.”

“So then she had to go through the woods and all the way home barefoot?”