The Traveling Vampire Show

Chapter Twenty

Slim stared at me. She looked a little stunned. “You’re kidding,” she said.

“They cost her forty bucks,” I said.

“But nobody under eighteen’s allowed.”

“Julian made an exception for us.”

“He’s got the hots for Lee,” Rusty explained.

Slim’s upper lip lifted slightly. Eyes turning toward Rusty, she said, “Maybe that’s why. Or maybe he did see us. Me, anyway. If he saw me running away—if any of them did—he might figure I watched them kill the dog. Maybe he wants to get me.”

A touch of scorn in his voice, Rusty said, “Why would he want to get you?”

“To stop me from telling what I saw.”

I could think of other reasons he might want Slim. They made me feel cold and tight inside. I decided not to mention them.

A grin on his face, Rusty said, “Maybe he wants to stick a spear up your ass.”

“Real funny,” Slim muttered.

I punched him. My fist smacked his soft upper arm through the sleeve of his shirt.

Face going red, he gasped, “Ah!” and grabbed his arm and gazed at me with shocked, accusing eyes. As I watched, his eyes filled with tears. “Real nice,” he said.

I turned to Slim. She looked as if she wished I hadn’t hit him, but she didn’t seem angry at me. More as if she thought the punch had probably not been the most terrific idea.

Though tears shimmered in Rusty’s eyes, he wasn’t exactly crying. They weren’t streaming down his face or anything. Frowning at me, he rubbed his arm.

“I didn’t hit you that hard,” I said.

“Hard enough. It hurt, man.”

“You shouldn’t have said what you did.”

“I was just being funny.”

“You weren’t being funny,” Slim assured him. “And you wouldn’t be making cracks like that if you’d watched them with the dog.”

“Sorry,” he muttered, still rubbing his arm.

“And as a matter of fact,” Slim said, “that guy really might want to stick a spear up my ass. Or up yours. Anyone who’ll do a thing like that to a dog… he wouldn’t think twice about doing it to a person.”

“Maybe we’d better forget about going to the show tonight,” I said.

Rusty’s mouth fell open. He looked as if I’d punched him again. “Shit,” he said. “We can’t not go!”

“I’m not going,” Slim said. “No way.”

He turned to me. “I wanta see the show, man! Don’t you? I mean, Valerie! If we don’t go tonight, we’ll never see her. You wanta see her, don’t you?”

“It might not be such a good idea,” I said.

“It’d be a lousy idea,” Slim said. “I’m sure not going anywhere near those people again, and I don’t think you guys should, either. They’re a bunch of sickos.”

“Just because they killed that stupid dog? Hey, Dwight tried to jump on the damn thing. Is he a sicko, too?”

“It’s different.”

“Dog would’ve been just as dead. Except he missed. He sure as hell planned to land on it.”

She glanced at me, shook her head, and said to Rusty, “You know good and well it was different. Stop being a creep, okay?”

“I just don’t wanta get rooked outa the show,” he said. “I don’t care what they did to that stupid dog. Look how it messed you up. It deserved what it got.”

“Didn’t deserve that.” Slim looked from Rusty to me and said, “Anyway, let’s get out of here. I want to go home and get cleaned up.”

Home.

I remembered what we’d done there.

It all rushed in: sneaking into her bedroom, looking at her things, Rusty fooling with her mother’s bra, and the awful accident with the vase and how we’d left the mess behind. A nasty flood of heat flashed through my body.

Rusty cast me a warning glance.

And suddenly an idea popped into my head. Trying to keep my relief from showing, I frowned and said, “Maybe we’d better go over to Lee’s house first and tell her about what happened. See what she thinks.”

Rusty looked pained. “She hears what they did, man, she isn’t gonna take us.”

I gaped at him, astonished that he didn’t realize a trip to Lee’s house would save us from going to Slim’s. The mess in her mother’s room was sure to be discovered sooner or later, but I preferred later. The longer we could put it off, the better.

“She shouldn’t take us,” Slim said. “None of us should go to that show.”

“Anyway,” I said, “we have to tell Lee what happened.”

“No, we don’t.”

“Yes, we do. Otherwise, she’ll be waiting for us.” To Slim, I explained, “We’re supposed to be at her house at 10:30 tonight.” To Rusty, I said, “We can’t just not show up when she’s expecting us.”

“So we do show up. I’ve got no problem with that.”

“I think we’d better tell her now,” I said.

Slim nodded in agreement.

“Besides,” I said, “her house is closer than Slim’s. We can stop there first and borrow some bandages.”

Rusty opened his mouth as if all set to argue. Before any words came out, however, a light of understanding filled his eyes.

He got it.

He got something anyway.

“Good point,” he said. “Bandages. Lee must have bandages. Everyone has bandages. Okay. Let’s go there first.”

“Okay by me,” Slim said.

Not saying a word, I raised one foot off the ground and pulled off my sneaker.

“What’re you doing?” Slim asked.

“Giving you my shoes.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

I smiled at her and shrugged and pulled off my other sneaker. Holding them both toward her, I said, “I insist.”

“Hey, no. C’mon. I can’t wear your shoes.”

“Sure you can.”

“If she doesn’t want to wear ’em…”

I gave Rusty a look that shut his mouth.

“Put them on,” I told Slim. “Please.”

“I don’t know.”

“If it hadn’t been for your shoes, I would’ve gotten chomped by the dog.”

“Glad to help.”

“I’m the one who threw ’em,” Rusty reminded us.

“You did a good job,” I told him.

“Saved your butt.”

“I know. You both did.”

“Yeah, well, remember that when you wanta rook me outa Valeria.”

“Sure.” To Slim, I said, “I want you to wear them. Please.”

“But what about you?”

“I’ll be fine.”

With a look of embarrassed but grateful surrender, she nodded and said, “All right.” Then she took the sneakers from my hands, turned away and walked over to the remains of an old, fallen-down tree. She sat on its trunk, facing us, and set both sneakers beside her. While Rusty and I stood there and watched, she brought up one foot, crossed it over her knee, and removed the shirt that she’d been using to protect it. The bottom of her bare foot looked filthy. I glimpsed some blood on it before she put my sneaker on.

“Are your feet okay?” I asked.

“A few little nicks. No big deal.” She let the shirt fall to the ground, then brought up her other foot.

When she had both my shoes on, she stood up. “Feels much better,” she said. Then she crouched and plucked our shirts off the ground. Holding them out in front of her, she shook her head. “These are really wrecked, guys. I’m sorry.”

They were not only covered with dirt and blood, but torn in a few places.

“Want them?” she asked.

Rusty shook his head.

“We can throw them away when we get to town,” I said, holding out my hand. “I’ll carry ’em.”

She was about to give them to me when Rusty asked her, “Don’t you want to wear one?”

“Thanks anyway. They’re filthy. You want me to get infected?”

“You can’t walk back to town looking like that. Everybody’s gonna wonder how you got all wrecked up.”

I nodded. “You’d better wear a shirt.”

She frowned at the shirts in her hands. “I’d rather let people see me….”

“You can borrow mine,” Rusty said. He started to unfasten the buttons of the shirt he was wearing.

Shaking her head, Slim said, “It’ll get blood on it. I’ve wrecked enough shirts for one day.”

“I insist,” Rusty said.

“No, really….”

“You can wear Dwight’s shoes….”

“Okay.”

He pulled his shirt off.

“Thanks,” Slim said. She handed the two ruined shirts to me, then stepped closer to Rusty. “You’d better put it on me, though.” She turned her back to him.

He gave me a strange smile—somehow smug and embarrassed at the same time—then slipped the shirt up Slim’s arms and eased it onto her shoulders. “There you go,” he told her.

Turning to face us, she fastened a couple of the middle buttons. “Thanks, guys,” she said.

The shirt was way too large for her. It drooped over her shoulders. The sleeves reached down to her elbows. The single pocket hung below the rise of her left breast. The tails were so long that they completely hid her cut-off jeans.

She looked so cute it hurt to look at her.

I wished I could put my arms around her and hold her and never let go.

Instead of giving it a try, I just stood there, staring at her and feeling like I almost wanted to cry.

I don’t know what it was about Slim.

I’d seen Lee a few hours earlier wearing my brother’s big old work shirt. Even though it fit Lee pretty much the same way as Rusty’s shirt fit Slim, even though Lee was probably the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen, the sight of her hadn’t made me feel like my heart might break.

Maybe because Lee wasn’t cute.

Slim was cute; Lee was spectacular.

I loved both of them. They both had ways of making me ache for them. But different ways. And different sorts of aches. In different places.

“What’s wrong?” Slim asked me.

“Nothing.”

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go,” Rusty said. He led the way, Slim walking behind him.

I followed, staying a few paces behind Slim, watching her.

With only my socks between my feet and the forest floor, I felt pokes and jabs with every step. I didn’t mind, though. I was glad that my own feet, not Slim’s, were the ones being hurt.

When we reached the pavement of Route 3, I said, “Wait up.”

They stopped walking. I checked the bottoms of my socks. They had picked up some dirt and debris, but they weren’t really damaged yet.

“Want your shoes back?” Slim asked.

“Nope. I’m fine.” I pulled off my socks, stuffed them into the pockets of my jeans and then we all resumed our hike back to town.