The Traveling Vampire Show

My mom was saying, Of all things, to take advantage of your father’s accident that way.

Lee yelling, “DWIGHT! RUSTY! UP HERE!”

Lee’s voice was real.

My head jerked up and turned. I searched the faces of the audience. Saw so many familiar ones. Neighbors, store clerks, teachers, friends of my parents…

“DWIGHT! HEY, DWIGHT! UP HERE!”

This time, I found the source of the voice.

There stood Lee, about halfway to the top of the bleachers, waving her arms overhead.

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.