The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(110)

She nodded, then realized he needed more. “Yes,” she whispered.

“Your son loves me already,” he said. “And your daughter belongs to me. I’ll take you now, but she’s next. Will you do that? Will you give me your body to buy her another year?”

“Yes,” Patricia said.

“One day it will be Blue’s turn,” he said. “But for now, I’m the family friend who helps put your life back together after your husband dies. Everyone will think that we just naturally felt a powerful attraction, but you’ll know the truth: you gave up your pathetic, miserable, broken failure of a life to accept your place at my feet. I’m not some doctor, or lawyer, or rich mommy’s boy trying to impress you. I am singular in this world. I am what you people make legends from. And now I’ve turned my attention on you. When I’m done, I’ll adopt your children and make them mine. But you’ve bought them one more year of freedom. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said.

James Harris stood and walked up the stairs without looking back.

“Come,” he said over his shoulder.

After a moment, Patricia followed, only pausing on the way to unlock the deadbolt on his front door.

In the darkness of the upstairs hall, she saw white solid walls all around her, each one a closed door, and then she saw a black hole like the entrance to a tomb. She walked into the master bedroom. James Harris stood in the moonlight. He had taken off his shirt.

“Strip,” he said.

Patricia stepped out of her shoes and inhaled sharply. Standing barefoot on the cool wooden floor made her feel naked. She couldn’t do this, but before she could stop herself her hands were already moving to her back.

She unzipped the dress and let it fall to the floor and stepped out of it. Blood rushed and flowed to parts of her body that were dry, leaving her light-headed. Her head spun and she wondered if she would faint. The darkness seemed very close around her and the walls seemed very far away. A fever seized her as she unsnapped her bra and shucked it off, then kicked her clothes into one corner and threw her brassiere on top.

She felt the cool air of a stranger’s house on her bare breasts and hips and belly. Through the window she heard some family let out a mindless cheer, barely audible, like the shore roaring in a seashell or something half imagined carried on the wind.

He pointed to the bed, and she walked over to it and sat down. He stood before her, outlined dark in the moonlight. His broad shoulders and narrow waist, his thick thighs and long legs, the strong jaw, the full head of hair. She found where his eyes would be and saw a faint shimmer of white in the darkness. She maintained eye contact with him as she leaned back on his bed, feet still on the floor, and spread her legs for him and felt the cool air of his house kiss her sex. The air caressed her curls and made them unkink. He knelt between her legs.

Everything in her life funneled down to this moment.

She watched as his jaw moved in a way she’d never seen before. He looked up from between her legs and put his hand over the bottom of his face.

“Don’t look,” he said.

“But…,” she said.

“You don’t want to see this,” he said.

She reached out and gently moved his hand away. She wanted to see everything. Their eyes met and it felt like the first honest moment they’d ever shared. Then he dipped his head down, and his face opened all the way, and she saw darkness come crawling from his mouth.

He was right. She didn’t want to see this. She leaned back and looked up at the smooth, white painted ceiling, and his breath tickled her pubic hair and then she felt the worst pain she’d ever experienced. Followed by the greatest pleasure.





CHAPTER 38


“Do you think Patricia’s all right?” Kitty asked, looking in the rearview mirror.

They were parked in Maryellen’s minivan at the far end of the Alhambra Hall parking lot. Maryellen sat in the driver’s seat with Kitty riding shotgun. Mrs. Greene sat in the back.

“She’s fine,” Maryellen said. “You’re fine. I’m fine. Mrs. Greene, are you fine?”

“I’m fine,” Mrs. Greene said.

“We’re all fine,” Maryellen said. “Everyone’s fine.”

Kitty let the silence last a full five seconds this time.

“Except Patricia,” she said.

No one had an answer to that.

“It’s seven,” Mrs. Greene said in the dark. No one moved. “Either Mrs. Campbell has done it by now, or it’s too late.”

Clothes rustled, and the back door thunked open.

“Come on,” she said.

She got out of the minivan and the other two followed. Mrs. Greene took the red-and-white Igloo cooler out of the back, and Kitty carried the Bi-Lo grocery bag. The cooler clanked softly as their tools slid around inside. They wore dark clothes and walked quickly, turning onto Middle Street, preferring to take the risk of someone spotting them walking rather than have an extra car parked outside James Harris’s house for three hours. People in the Old Village had a habit of writing down license plate numbers, after all.

Middle Street was a long, black tunnel leading straight to his house, lined with cars spilling out of driveways. The cold wind tugged at their coats. They put their heads down and forged forward, walking fast beneath the leafless trees and dead palmettos rattling in the wind.