The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(113)

He tried to throw her off but his legs weren’t kicking as hard as before, and he began squirming on the floor as she rode the handle, bearing down on the blade, and then his screams turned to gurgles, and he renewed his wriggling. She used her elbows to force his shoulders down and she slammed her chest down into the center of his back, and the knife took a sick crunching drop, and hit tile on the other side, and his body went slack.

She had done it.

In the silence she only heard him gargling and herself breathing as she rolled off and looked behind her. Mrs. Greene had one of his feet and Maryellen held the other, both of them pressing his legs to the floor. From downstairs drifted the jaunty sound of a symphony orchestra.

“You bitches haven’t even slowed me down,” James Harris gurgled.

Why is it always bitches, Kitty thought. As if men believed that word had some kind of magic power. She tried to stand but it was Maryellen who helped her to her feet, while Mrs. Greene kept kneeling on James Harris’s legs in case he fought back. Kitty snapped on the bathroom light to make things feel more real.

All their pupils dilated at once and then adjusted to the brightness. They looked down at the vampire, facedown, lungs pumping, helpless on the bathroom floor.

Now came the hard part.





CHAPTER 39


“We should get the cooler,” Kitty said from the bathroom door.

What she wanted was for Grace to be there, giving orders in her cool, condescending way. If Grace were in charge, things would be getting done the right way. But Grace had abandoned them, and they had to get moving. Maryellen pushed past her into the bedroom, snapping on the lights.

“She’s not breathing,” she called.

Kitty didn’t know who she was talking about. Now that her adrenaline was beginning to fade, bruises were blossoming all over her body. Her neck hurt. She felt like she had a black eye.

“Who?” she asked, stupidly, then realized that of course Maryellen was talking about Patricia.

She turned and limped into the bedroom, leaving Mrs. Greene alone with the thing on the bathroom floor. The only sign that something had happened was the easy chair tipped over on its back in the corner, and Patricia, naked, blood soaking through the duvet beneath her thighs.

“I came in to put something over her,” Maryellen said, hand flat on Patricia’s forehead, lifting one eyelid.

All she could see beneath it was the white. Patricia was inert, lifeless, dead weight. Kitty tried to see if her chest rose and fell, but she knew that didn’t tell you anything. She prodded at Patricia’s throat without really knowing what she was doing.

“How do you know if she’s breathing?” she asked.

“I listened to her chest and there’s no sound,” Maryellen said.

“Don’t you know CPR?” she asked.

Patricia’s shoulders hitched and her body began soft, boneless convulsions.

“Don’t you?” Maryellen asked. “I’ve only seen it in movies.”

“You’ve killed her,” a voice echoed from the bathroom. It had a rasp in it but it still sounded strong and clear. “She’s dying.”

Maryellen looked full into Kitty’s face, mouth slack, eyebrows raised in the middle like she was about to cry. Kitty felt lost.

“What do we do?” she asked. “Do we call 911?”

“No, roll her on her…” Maryellen took her hands and tried different approaches, fluttering over Patricia’s twitching body. “Maybe raise her head. She might be in shock? I don’t know.”

Of course it was Mrs. Greene who knew CPR. One moment, Kitty watched Maryellen helplessly running through everything she knew and the next Mrs. Greene gently pushed her aside, placed her hands underneath Patricia’s shoulders and said, “Help me get her on the floor.”

Kitty took her feet and they half-dragged, half-dropped Patricia onto the throw rug next to the bed. Then Mrs. Greene put one hand under the back of Patricia’s neck, the other on her chin, and popped Patricia’s mouth open like the hood of a car.

“Check the blinds,” Mrs. Greene said. “Make sure no one can see.”

Kitty almost wept with gratitude at being told what to do. She looked in the bathroom and saw James Harris still on the floor where they’d left him. At first she thought he was convulsing, then realized he was laughing.

“I’m starting to feel much better,” he said. “Every second I’m feeling better and better.”

She made sure the blinds were closed all over the house. She wanted to switch off the symphony music on the radio downstairs, but finding the on/off switch took too much time and she needed to be back upstairs. There weren’t enough of them to do all this.

In the bedroom, Mrs. Greene applied four perfect chest compressions, then four identical breaths into Patricia’s mouth, as methodically and calmly as if she were blowing up a raft by the pool. Patricia’s mouth hung slack. She had stopped convulsing. Was that a good sign?

Mrs. Greene stopped the CPR and Kitty’s heart stopped, too.

“Is she…” she began, then found her throat was too dry to speak.

Mrs. Greene pulled a Kleenex from her pocket and wiped her mouth, checked the Kleenex, and dabbed at the corners of her lips.

“She’s breathing,” she said.

Kitty could see Patricia’s chest lifting and falling. They both looked at Maryellen.