The Traveling Vampire Show

Chapter Fifty

Holy shit,” Rusty said.

I couldn’t believe it, myself. But the woman in the stands was Lee, all right. When she saw that we’d spotted her, she lowered one arm and waved with the other, beaming a smile down at us.

My eyes filled with tears, I was so glad to see her alive and free.

Rusty tapped Vivian on the shoulder. She looked back at us. “Our friends are already here,” he announced.

Vivian frowned.

“Up there.” Rusty pointed.

Vivian looked.

“The blonde in the blue shirt,” Rusty said.

Nodding, Lee smiled and patted herself on the chest as if to say, Yeah, it’s me. I’m their adult.

“That’s your friend?” Vivian asked.

“Yeah,” Rusty said.

“That’s her,” I threw in.

“I thought there was supposed to be a girl with her?”

“She’s probably wandering,” Rusty said. “She’s my sister. A real pain in the butt.”

The missing girl wasn’t his sister, she was Slim. The switch was just part of his lie, but it annoyed me. Maybe because I didn’t like to be reminded of Bitsy. Maybe because I wished Slim were with us. It was her choice to stay behind, I reminded myself. She never really wanted to see the vampire show, anyway.

But I wanted her to see it… wanted her sitting beside me.

Slim on one side, Lee on the other.

“Okay, guys,” Vivian said. “Go on ahead.”

We both thanked Vivian. She stepped around us and headed away.

Apparently, I’d been wrong about us being prisoners.

I’d been wrong about a lot.

Rusty and I trotted up the nearest section of bleacher stairs. When we were level with Lee, I stepped into the row and waded toward her, audience knees on one side, heads and backs on the other. A few people nearby said, “Hi, Dwight,” and “Hey, young man,” and so on. I smiled, nodded, and greeted some of them by name.

Sitting two rows up was Dolly Desmond, the dispatcher. She didn’t say hi, though. Just glared at me and Rusty.

We’ve had it for sure, I thought.

But it suddenly didn’t bother me. Not very much, anyway. Trouble with Mom and Dad about coming to the Vampire Show didn’t seem very significant anymore. Kid stuff. Not worth worrying about, now that I’d found out Lee was safe.

She had spread a folded blanket over about six feet of the bench to save space for us. She was sitting in the middle, her purse by her left hip. It was the brown leather purse we’d last seen in her kitchen.

The one Slim had searched.

I stepped past Lee, brushing against her knees, and sat on the blanket near her right side.

Rusty sat on her left.

She looked great. Her long, blond hair hung behind her in a ponytail. She had no makeup on, and looked about nineteen years old. She was wearing a blue chambray shirt, white shorts and white sneakers. The shirt didn’t have any sleeves. Its top couple of buttons were open, and it was so short that it didn’t quite reach the waist of her shorts. The shorts were white, small, and tight. Her white sneakers looked brand new, and she didn’t have any socks on.

She watched the way I looked her over. “I’m glad to see you, too,” she said, smiling. Then she turned her head. “And you, Rusty.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Thompson.”

“I’ve been looking for you guys. Thought you would’ve been here before me.”

“We walked in from the highway,” I explained.

“To avoid the parking tie-up?”

I nodded.

“No wonder I got here first,” she said. Turning again to Rusty, she asked, “What happened to your arm?”

“Aaah, nothing. Some crappy little poodle took a bite outa me.”

“A dog bit you?”

“Yeah. When we were coming through the parked cars.”

“The same dog as this morning?”

“Nah. Different one.”

“It’s been a bad day for dogs,” I remarked.

“I’ll say,” Lee said. “You’d better see a doctor about it, Rusty. You might need shots or something.”

“Rabies shots,” I added.

A disgusted look on his face, he said, “Yeah, I know.”

“Are you all right?” I asked Lee.

“I’m fine.” She spoke as if everything were perfectly ordinary. “Where’s Slim?”

“Waiting in her car.”

“What for?”

“Just… she didn’t want to… where were you? We were over at your house and…”

Nodding, she said, “I got your note.”

“We thought something had happened to you.” I almost got through the sentence before my voice broke and tears again filled my eyes.

“Oh, God,” Lee murmured. She leaned against me and put a hand on my back. “I was fine, honey. I just went out, that’s all. I never expected you to show up so early.”

Sounding amused, Rusty said, “Dwighty here, he had you kidnapped and murdered.”

Not trusting myself to speak, I nodded.

“Your truck was still there,” Rusty explained. “Same with your purse.”

“I… thought Stryker got you.”

“Jeez.” She rubbed my back. “I’m so sorry. I just went down to the river, that’s all. It’s such a wonderful, windy night. I sat out on the end of the dock to enjoy the weather and have myself a little cocktail.”

“My God,” I said. I’d almost looked for her there. “But the screen door was locked.”

“The back screen? Was it?” She frowned and shrugged. “I must’ve gone out the front.” She was silent for a few seconds, then nodded. “Yeah, I did go out the front Sat on the stoop for a few minutes before I got the idea to see what the river was doing.”

“Man,” Rusty said, and chuckled.

Lee rubbed my back some more. “I’m so sorry, honey. I had no idea….”

“That’s okay,” I said. “We shouldn’t have shown up so early.” Why had we gone to her house so early? It took me a moment to remember. Then I explained, “We were worried about you. That’s why we didn’t wait till ten-thirty. I was afraid Stryker was gonna try something….”

“Because I gave him that check?”

A few other reasons, too—but Bitsy, not Stryker, had turned out to be the culprit behind most of them. I didn’t want to get into all that with Lee.

“I guess it was mostly because of the check,” I told her.

“I pay with checks all the time,” she said.

“But Stryker’s so creepy.”

She smiled gently. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“He is.”

“He’s a pretty bad guy,” Rusty affirmed.

“And he… he likes you.”

“That’s not so terrible. He probably wouldn’t have sold us the tickets if he hadn’t liked me.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Dwight thinks he’s got the hots for you.”

“He does,” I said.

Looking mildly amused, Lee said, “Well, that may be so, but he never tried anything. I haven’t even spoken to him since you and I were out here.”

I stared at her.

“And he hasn’t spoken to me. I did see him selling tickets on my way in, but he looked really busy so I didn’t bother him. And he didn’t bother me. I don’t think he even noticed me. I figured he must’ve already let you guys in…. So why isn’t Slim here?”

“It’s her time of the month,” Rusty proclaimed.

I couldn’t believe my ears. I wanted to kill him.

“She got it all of a sudden on our way over.”

“Rusty!” I gasped.

He leaned forward and smiled at me. “It’s all right, pal. I’m sure Lee knows all about this sorta thing.”

“Does Slim need… anything?” Lee asked. She seemed a little flustered, herself.

“You mean like a tampon?”

Lee nodded.

“Nah. She had some in her glove compartment. She walked off into the trees to put one on. Dwight and me, we waited in the car so as not to embarrass her.”

If Slim ever heard about this, I wouldn’t have to kill Rusty—she would beat me to it.

“So where is she now?”

“Back in the car, waiting for us.”

Lee looked at me, frowning. Apparently, she wasn’t completely buying Rusty’s tale.

I shrugged.

She gave Rusty a perplexed look.

“You can’t go to a vampire show when you’ve got your period,” Rusty said, sounding exasperated by the need to explain something so obvious.

Lee looked at him as if he were nuts. She said, “Huh?”

“A vampire show? Your period? Blood! Get it?”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Lee said.

Rusty raised his right hand. “I kid you not.”

“Jesus H. Christ,” Lee muttered.

Rusty’s eyes bulged. “It’s not your time of the month, is it?”

She choked out a laugh. “As if I’m going to discuss that with you.”

“Well, if it is…”

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION PLEASE?”