The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires(119)

“Carter,” Patricia said, pushing herself up in bed. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I want to talk about when we’re bringing Korey home.”

“A man is missing,” Carter said. “Jim meant a lot to this family, he meant a lot to the kids, and he meant a lot to that project. If you know anything at all about where he might be, I need you to tell me.”

“I don’t know anything about James Harris,” she said.

She must not have said it very convincingly because Carter took it as proof that she knew something.

“Is this about your obsession?” he asked, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. “Did you go off the deep end again and say something to him? Patty, I swear, if you’ve messed this up for everyone…you don’t even know how many families you might have affected. There’s Leland, us, Horse and Kitty…”

He got up and began to walk circles in the room, still talking on and on about James Harris, escrow accounts, missing money, and principal investments, and Patricia realized she didn’t recognize this man anymore. The quiet boy from Kershaw she’d fallen in love with was dead. In his place stood this resentful stranger.

“Carter,” she said. “I want a divorce.”



* * *



—

Two days later, Patricia dragged herself out of bed and drove downtown to see Slick in the hospital. She was dozing when Patricia arrived, so Patricia sat and waited for her to wake up. Slick looked sallow, and her chest hitched occasionally as she breathed. They had her on a full oxygen mask now, trying to keep her levels up. Patricia remembered stumbling across James Harris asleep all those years ago and thinking he was dead. That was how Slick looked.

“Grace already…told me,” Slick said, opening her eyes, pulling her mask away from her face to speak. “I made her…give me all the details.”

“Me too,” Patricia said. “I was out from what he did to me.”

“How did…it feel?” Slick asked.

Patricia never would have said this to anyone but Slick. She leaned forward.

“It felt so good,” she breathed, then immediately remembered what he’d done to Slick and felt selfish and insensitive.

“Most sin does,” Slick said.

“I know why they hurt themselves,” Patricia said. “It’s this feeling of things being whole and stable and warm and safe, and you want it back so badly, but it’s just slipping away over the horizon and you feel like you’ll never get it back again and you don’t want to live without it. But then you just keep living and it hurts all the time. Everything feels like knives on my skin and my joints ache.”

“What…did he do to us?” Slick asked. “He made us…murderers…and we betrayed…everything…and now it’s all falling apart…”

Patricia took Slick’s hand that didn’t have an IV needle in it.

“The children are safe,” Patricia said. “That’s what matters.”

Slick’s throat worked for a minute, and then she said, “Not the…ones in…Six Mile…”

Patricia’s blood felt like lead in her veins.

“Not all of them,” she said. “But your children, and Maryellen’s children, and Kitty’s. Mrs. Greene’s boys. He’s been doing this for a long time, Slick. No one’s ever stopped him before. We did. We paid a price but we stopped him.”

“What about…me?” Slick asked. “Am I…going to get better?”

For a moment, Patricia thought about lying but they’d been through too much together to do that now.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think you are. I’m so sorry.”

Slick’s hand gripped hers so hard Patricia’s fingers felt like they were about to break.

“Why?” Slick asked behind her mask.

“Mrs. Greene told me he said something before he died,” Patricia said. “I think this is how he makes other ones like him. I think that’s what he did to you.”

Slick stared at Patricia, and Patricia saw her eyes turn red and bloodshot and then Slick nodded.

“I feel…something growing…inside,” Slick said. “It’s waiting for me…to die…and then…it hatches.”

She put a hand to the base of her throat.

“Here,” she said. “Something…new…hard to swallow…”

They sat quietly for a while, holding hands.

“Patricia…” Slick said. “Bring…Buddy Barr tomorrow…I want to…change my will…I want to…be cremated…”

“Of course,” Patricia said.

“And make sure…I’m not alone…”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” Patricia said.

And she didn’t. Someone from book club was with her all the way to the end. On Thanksgiving day, when Slick started having trouble breathing, and her oxygen count began to fall, and she lost consciousness for the last time, Kitty was there, reading to her from In Cold Blood. Even after the crash team burst into the room and surrounded Slick and crowded Kitty into a corner, she kept reading silently, just moving her lips, whispering the words from the book like a prayer.