The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(111)
“Have you bought your Christmas presents yet?” Kitty asked.
Mrs. Greene perked up at the mention of Christmas. Maryellen gave Kitty a sideways look.
“I get the big things during the after-Thanksgiving sales,” Kitty said. “But I start planning people’s gifts in August. This year I’ve still got more blanks than I normally do. Honey is easy, she needs a briefcase for job interviews. I mean, it’s not that she needs it but I thought it would be the kind of thing she’d want. And Parish wants a tractor and Horse says we need a new one anyway, so that’s taken care of. Lacy, I’m going to take to Italy as a graduation present next year so she’ll get something small for now and she’s fun to shop for anyhow, and as long as whatever I give Merit is bigger than what I get for Lacy she’s thrilled. But I do not know what to buy for Pony. It’s different to shop for a man, and he’s got this new girl he’s seeing, and I don’t know if I have to get her a present or not. I mean, I want to, but does that make me seem overbearing?”
Maryellen turned to her.
“What on earth are you talking about?” she asked.
“I don’t know!” Kitty said.
“Hush,” Mrs. Greene said, and they passed the last house before James Harris’s and they all fell silent.
The huge white house loomed over them, dark and still. The only light came from the living room window. They stepped off the street into his driveway then sat on the bottom step of his front stairs, took off their shoes, and hid them underneath. With Mrs. Greene leading the way, they stepped onto the cold boards and quietly climbed up to his porch.
He’d left his porch lights off so they were concealed by darkness, but Kitty still looked around nervously, trying to see if anyone was watching them from their windows. A cheer drifted to them on the wind, and they all froze for a moment. Then Kitty put down the paper Bi-Lo bag around the corner of the porch away from the living room light, and Mrs. Greene carefully placed the cooler in the shadows next to it. Kitty pulled an aluminum baseball bat out of the grocery bag and gave the sheathed hunting knife to Maryellen, who didn’t know how to hold it. She decided it was just like a kitchen knife and that made it easier.
“My feet are freezing,” Kitty whispered.
“Shhh,” Mrs. Greene said.
The rushing wind helped hide the sounds they made as Maryellen carefully opened the screen door then tried the door handle while Kitty held the bat down by her leg, just in case. Mrs. Greene stood on Kitty’s other side, holding a hammer.
The door popped open, silently and easily.
They stepped inside fast. The wind wanted to slam the door shut, but Maryellen eased it gently into its frame. They stood in the quiet downstairs hall, listening, worried that the howling wind rushing through the door had alerted James Harris. Nothing moved. All they heard was a piano concerto surging softly from a radio in the living room to their left.
Mrs. Greene pointed to the stairs leading up into darkness, and Kitty took the lead, palms sweating on the rubberized grip of her baseball bat. She held it straight up by her right shoulder and walked sideways, left foot first, right foot coming behind, one carpeted step at a time. Mrs. Greene walked in the middle, Maryellen in the rear. They needed to get him down before she could use the knife.
Every footstep was soft, soundless. Mrs. Greene jumped when a plummy man’s voice started announcing the next selection from WSCI’s Classical Twilight down below them in the living room. Every step took an hour, and any second they expected to hear James Harris’s voice from the top of the dark stairs.
They regrouped in the darkness of the upstairs hall. All around them were closed doors. A CRACK echoed through every room in the house and Maryellen almost screamed before realizing it was the wind shifting the window frames.
The master bedroom doorway stood dark in front of them and from it they heard a soft, wet suckling sound. They crept toward it, until they stood full in the doorway and the bright moonlight showed what lay on the bed.
Patricia lay back, arms flung over her head, a carnal half-smile on her lips, naked, her legs spread, and between them, blocking their view, crouched a shirtless James Harris, back muscles pulsing. His shoulder blades spread and retracted like wings as he fed on Patricia, his head by the join of her thighs, one large hand on her left thigh, gently pushing it open, the other on her stomach, fingers squirming on her pale flesh.
The sheer ravenous hunger of the sight paralyzed them. They could smell it, thick and carnal, filling the cramped room.
Kitty recovered before either of the other two women. She adjusted her grip, took three steps forward, ending with her left foot almost on James Harris’s right ankle, and brought the bat straight off her shoulder, swinging hard in a powerful line drive.
The bat caught him in the side of the head with a metallic TONK, like a sledgehammer hitting stone, and Kitty let go with her lead hand and let the bat come around in a full arc, almost popping Mrs. Greene in the chin. A gout of regurgitated blood pulsed once out of James Harris’s mouth and splattered across Patricia’s pubic hair and belly, but otherwise he kept sucking, uninterrupted.
Patricia moaned once in sexual ecstasy, in heat, in pain, and Kitty brought the bat around again, even though her left shoulder ached. This time she swung for the fences.
The second blow got his attention, too much of it, in fact, and he whirled in a crouch, eyes feral, blood pouring down his face and dripping off something that hung from his chin. Blood poured from the wound in Patricia’s thigh. Kitty saw the muscles in James Harris’s stomach and shoulders tense and the planes of his face moved impossibly, and the thing hanging there disappeared, and Kitty thought, He’s going to, and even though she wasn’t a left-handed hitter she didn’t have a choice—that was the side the bat was on and he wasn’t going to give her time to get her stance back or even finish her thought. She brought the bat back at him as hard as she could but she knew it wasn’t hard enough.