The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(106)

“Again,” Maryellen said, “we’re a book club, not a bunch of detectives. If he’s so much stronger than us, this is futile.”

“You think…we can’t match him?” Slick asked from her bed. “I’ve had three children…And some man who’s never felt…his baby crown is stronger than me? Is tougher than me? He thinks he’s safe…because he thinks like you…He looks at Patricia and thinks we’re all a bunch of Sunshine Suzies…He thinks we’re what we look like on the outside: nice Southern ladies. Let me tell you something…there’s nothing nice about Southern ladies.”

There was a long pause, and then Patricia spoke.

“He has one weakness,” Patricia said. “He’s alone. He’s not connected to other people, he doesn’t have any family or friends. If one of us so much as misses a car pool pickup everyone starts dropping by the house to make sure we’re okay. But he’s a loner. If we can make him disappear, totally and completely, there’s no one to ask questions. There may be a hard day or two but they will pass, and it will be like he never existed.”

Maryellen turned her face to the ceiling, arms out in a shrug. “How are you sitting here talking like this is normal? We’re six women. Five women, because I don’t think Grace is coming back. I mean, Kitty, your husband has to open jars for you.”

“It’s not…about that,” Slick said, eyes blazing. “It’s not about…our husbands or anyone else…it’s about us. It’s about whether…we can go the distance. That’s what matters…not our money, or our looks, or our husbands…Can we go the distance?”

“Not with killing a man,” Maryellen said.

“He’s not a man,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Listen to me,” Slick said. “If there were…a toxic waste dump in this city…that caused cancer…we would not stop until we closed it down. This is no different. This is our families’ safety we’re talking about…our children’s lives. Are you willing to gamble…with those?”

Maryellen leaned forward and touched Kitty’s leg. Kitty looked up from studying her knees.

“You really saw Francine in his attic?” Maryellen asked. “Don’t lie to me. You’re sure it was her and not a shadow or a mannequin or some Halloween decoration?”

Kitty nodded, miserable.

“When I close my eyes I see her in that suitcase, wrapped in plastic,” she moaned. “I can’t sleep, Maryellen.”

Maryellen studied Kitty’s face, then leaned back.

“How do we do it?” she asked.

“Before we go any further,” Slick said. “We have to see it through…and then never talk about it again…I have to hear it from each of you…After this there’s no…changing your mind.”

“Amen,” Mrs. Greene said.

“Of course,” Patricia agreed.

“Kitty?” Slick asked.

“God help me, yes,” Kitty exhaled in a rush.

“Maryellen?” Slick asked.

Maryellen didn’t say anything.

“He’ll come for Caroline next,” Patricia said. “Then Alexa. Then Monica. He’ll do to them what he’s done to Korey. He’s just hunger, Maryellen. He’ll eat and eat until there’s nothing left.”

“I won’t do anything illegal,” Maryellen said.

“We’re beyond that,” Patricia said. “We’re protecting our families. We will do whatever it takes. You’re a mother, too.”

Everyone watched Maryellen. Her back was stiff and then the fight went out of her and her shoulders slumped.

“All right,” she said.

Patricia, Slick, and Mrs. Greene exchanged a look. Patricia took it as her cue.

“We need a night when everyone’s distracted,” she said. “Next week is the Clemson-Carolina game. The entire population of South Carolina is going to be glued to their television sets from kickoff until the last down. That’s when we do it.”

“Do what?” Kitty asked in a very small voice.

Patricia took a black-and-white Mead composition book from her purse.

“I read everything I could about them,” she said. “About things like vampires. Mrs. Greene and I have been making a list of the facts they agree on. There are as many superstitions about how to stop one as there are how to create one: exposure to sunlight, drive a stake through its heart, decapitation, silver.”

“We can think he’s evil and not an actual vampire,” Maryellen said. “Maybe he’s like that Richard Chase, the Vampire of Sacramento, and he just thinks he’s a vampire.”

“No,” Patricia said. “We can’t fool ourselves anymore. He’s unnatural and we have to kill him the right way or he’s just going to keep on coming back. He’s underestimated us. We can’t underestimate him.”

Her words sounded bizarre in the sterile hospital room with its plastic cups and sippy straws, its television hanging from the ceiling, its Hallmark cards on the windowsill. They looked at each other in their practical flats with their roomy purses by their feet, with their reading glasses, and their notepads, and their ballpoint pens, and realized they had crossed a line.