The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

by Grady Hendrix

She wondered if she was getting to be too much for them to handle anymore. If Carter got home from the hospital before eleven she’d bring it up with him.

“He climbed up on the roof,” Blue said, and right at that moment Patricia heard a footstep directly overhead.

reaching for the window, slamming it shut, turning the latch, and something dark flashed past outside, cutting off the night sky. She yanked her hands back like the window was on fire. They had to get out of the house.

If this is a rat...

After they put Blue and Korey to bed, Patricia told Carter everything. “I’m not saying it was your imagination,” he said when she’d finished. “But you’re always keyed up after your meetings. Those are morbid books y’all read.”

Patricia didn’t breathe. It had been years since Miss Mary had put this many sentences together.

“They’d never have found Charlie Beckham if that combine salesman hadn’t stopped his horses at the Moores’ old place and seen the water from their pump flow thick with maggots. They had to let that little boy’s body sit in the icehouse for three days to let all the water drain before he’d fit in his coffin. Even then, they had to build it extra wide.”

??

Deep summer suffocated the Old Village. It hadn’t rained all month. The sun cooked lawns to a crunchy yellow, baked sidewalks white-hot, made roof shingles soft, and heated telephone poles until the streets smelled like warm creosote. Everyone abandoned the outdoors except for the occasional midafternoon child darting across spongy asphalt streets. No one did yard work after ten in the morning, and they saved their errands until after six at night. From sunup to sundown, the whole world felt flooded in boiling honey.

Imagry

Even when their central air conditioning finally broke and the air-conditioner man told them they should have called earlier and it would be two weeks before he could get parts, Patricia insisted on locking every window and door before they went to bed. No matter how many fans they had running, every night, everyone sweated through all their sheets, and every morning Patricia stripped every single bed and made them up again fresh. The dryer ran nonstop.

Patricia had thought she might not see him again after she’d overreacted the night the man got on their roof and shouted at him, as if he were the danger rather than the person trying to get into the house.

The other reason she was glad James Harris came by was because she didn’t know how to talk to Blue anymore. All Blue wanted to talk about was Nazis. She’d helped him get an adult library card and now he checked out photograph-packed Time-Life books about World War II. She found his old spiral notebooks covered in drawings of swastikas, SS lightning bolts, Panzer tanks, and skulls. Whenever she tried to talk to him about his summer Oasis program or going to the Creekside pool, he always countered with Nazis. James Harris spoke fluent Nazi.

Um???

The second Patricia and Carter were out the door, Mrs. Greene stepped out of her shoes and peeled off her socks and stuck them in her purse. It was too hot to have anything on her feet. Blue and Korey were spending the night out, and no one was home to care if she went barefoot or not.

!!

Mrs. Campbell had said she’d been going through her old photo albums all week, and if she hadn’t lost so much weight Mrs. Greene would think she almost seemed like her old self.

?

“Well, that man’s grandmother bit off her ear,” Loretta said, cocking her head to one side. “What do you mean? Did something else happen?” Patricia wanted to slink away, but Kitty gripped her wrist. “It was his great-aunt,” Kitty said. “And she just took a nibble.” Loretta cocked her head and said, “Do you need a good plastic surgeon? I can get you a name. You look lopsided.

She squatted on top of the toilet lid in the tiny, hot bathroom, feeling the water beneath the lid boiling with rats as steam filled the bathroom, and after a while she couldn’t hear Miss Mary’s shrieks through the door anymore.

!

she sensed movement behind them. She turned and saw a crowd of people coming their way, walking fast from the basketball courts, and before she or Kitty could move there were boys in front of them, boys behind them, boys leaning on the hood of her car, boys all around them, adopting lounging postures, fencing them in.

Obsessed. Imagry

Boo Daddy, Boo Daddy One, two, three Sneaking in my window And sucking on me.

Creepy

A large, artificial tree dominated one corner. Every lamp was made of an oversized nutcracker or a ceramic Christmas tree, and every lampshade sported a smiling Santa or a snowman. On the wall next to Patricia was a framed cross-stitch of Santa Claus holding the baby Jesus.

“You have to forgive those boys,” Mrs. Greene said, settling into her chair. “Everyone out here has their nerves up about strangers.” “Because of super-predators,” Kitty said, sitting gingerly on the other end of the sofa. “No, ma’am,” Mrs. Greene said. “Because of the children.” “Are they on drugs?” Kitty asked. “No one out here’s on drugs as far as I know,”

Lol

Patricia said, happy to suddenly have a plan. “But after that I can use your help getting the house back together, and maybe cooking supper, too.”

Doesnt she not clean or cook she said?

Mrs. Greene watched Patricia and Kitty sip their iced tea. When she spoke again, her voice was low. “I need to make that money fast,” she said. “I’m sending my boys up to live with my sister in Irmo for the summer.” “On vacation?” Patricia asked. “To keep them alive,” Mrs. Greene said. “You heard those Nancy girls chanting out there. There’s something in the wood’s been taking our babies.”

“Since May,” Mrs. Greene said, “we’ve had two little boys turn up dead and Francine has gone missing.” The room stayed silent as the Christmas tree lights cycled through their colors. “I haven’t read anything about it in the newspaper,” Kitty said. “I’m a liar?” Mrs. Greene asked, and Patricia saw her eyes get hard. “No one says you’re lying,” Patricia reassured her. “She just did,” Mrs. Greene said. “Came right out and said it.” “I read the paper every day,” Kitty shrugged. “I just haven’t heard anything about children going missing or getting killed.” “Then I guess I made up a story,” Mrs. Greene said. “I guess those little girls you heard singing out there made up their rhymes, too. They call him the Boo Daddy because that’s what they say’s in the woods. That’s why those boys were so nervous about strangers. We all know someone’s out here sniffing after the children.”

This is crazy

Patricia felt caught up in a particularly lurid and unstoppable bedtime story and now it was her turn to prompt the teller. “What happened to Sean?” she asked.

This is literally me rn

has a few pistols and rents them to people. He says Sean couldn’t afford to rent a gun, so he rented him a hammer for three dollars, and he says Sean told him he was going to follow his little cousin into the woods and scare off whoever was bothering him. But the next time they saw Sean he was dead. The man says he still had his hammer, too,

Patricia realized she wasn’t breathing. She carefully let out the air in her lungs. “That had to be in the papers,” she said. “It was,”

Obsessed

that’s why everyone’s real skittish about strangers. Before he stepped in front of that truck, Orville Reed told his mother he was talking to a white man in the woods, but she thought maybe he was talking about one of his cartoons. No one thinks that after what happened to Sean. Sometimes other children say they see a white man standing at the edge of the woods, waving to them. Some people wake up and say they see a pale man staring in through their window screens, but that can’t be true because the last one to say that was Becky Washington and she lives up on the second floor. How’d a man get up there?”

I got up and saw it turning, leaving Six Mile, heading back for the state road, but it was a white van and before it turned off I got most of its license plate number.”

and then her heart stopped and blood drained from her brain. April 8, 1993, the entry read. Ann Savage’s House—parked on grass—White Dodge Van with drug dealer windows, Texas, TNX 13S. A high-pitched whine filled Patricia’s ears.

James Harris says he grew up all around, but then says he grew up in South Dakota. He says he lived in Vermont, but his van had Texas plates.” “You have suffered two terrible blows this summer,” Grace said, lifting the platter and gently drying it. “Your ear has barely healed. You are still grieving for Miss Mary. This man is not a criminal based on when he moved here and the license plate of a passing car.” “Isn’t that how every serial killer gets away with it for so long?” Patricia asked. “Everyone ignores the little things and Ted Bundy keeps killing women until finally someone does what they should have done in the first place and connects the little things that didn’t add up, but by then it’s too late.”

Theres a lot more of this book to get through to already think this

“Grace, it doesn’t add up!” Patricia said. “Stop cleaning and listen to me. At what point do we get concerned?” “Never,” Grace said, drying the tureen lid. “Because you are spinning a fantasy out of coincidences to distract yourself from reality.

Is se the vaMp?

“Why do you pretend what we do is nothing?” she asked. “Every day, all the chaos and messiness of life happens and every day we clean it all up. Without us, they would just wallow in filth and disorder and nothing of any consequence would ever get done. Who taught you to sneer at that? I’ll tell you who. Someone who took their mother for granted.”

Kitty told me she needed extra money to send the children to summer camp, Slick had said over the phone. Do you think they’re in trouble? Seewee Farms is expensive, and it’s not like Horse works. Horse seemed so solid and dependable, but apparently he was spending all his family’s money on treasure-hunting expeditions while Kitty snuck around selling off family heirlooms to pay camp fees.

Was it for .mrs greens son?

She knew that Carter spent so much time at the hospital because he wanted to be head of psychiatry, but she wondered what else he did there.

Patricia thought about the three-minute response time in Mt. Pleasant. “How long until the police get here?” she asked. “Could be a while,” Mrs. Greene said. “This is the country.”

the light in one direction and saw the little road disappearing into a dark tunnel of trees. She flashed the light in the other direction and saw the chrome grille of James Harris’s white van. She snapped off her light and stepped back into the pines, stumbling over a stump.

Gagged!!!!!!

She walked to the back of the van, wrapped her hand around the door handle, and pulled. Then she raised her flashlight and turned it on. A man’s back bent over something on the floor, his rear end and the soles of his work boots turned toward her, and then his back reared up, and he turned into the flashlight’s beam and she saw James Harris. But there was something wrong with the lower half of his face. Something black, shiny, and chitinous like a cockroach’s leg, stuck several inches out of his mouth. His jaws hung open, stupefied, as he blinked blearily in the light, but otherwise his body didn’t move as this long insectoid appendage slowly withdrew into his mouth, and when it had retreated fully, he closed his lips and she saw that his chin and cheeks and the tip of his nose were coated in slick, wet blood. Beneath him, a young black girl lay sprawled on the floor, long orange T-shirt pushed up to her stomach,

Screaming Ggggg

then a loud shriek filled the trailer. The officer lowered his pad and ran down the hall. Patricia couldn’t squeeze past the officers so she stayed with Mrs. Greene until Wanda Taylor emerged from between them with Destiny in her arms.

Pounding came from the front door and they looked at each other, frozen. The aluminum door rattled in its frame until Mrs. Greene pushed past everyone. She flung the door open. Carter stood on the porch. “Jesus Christ, Patty,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”

Its him!!

When they passed James Harris’s house she saw Carter’s brake lights flare briefly, probably because he also noticed James’s Chevy Corsica parked in front of his house. That night, for the first time in months, Carter held Patricia while she slept. She knew because she kept waking up from nightmares about a bloody red mouth chasing her through the woods and each time she felt his arms around her, and went back to sleep, reassured.

but the doorbell rang again. Carter looked up over his forkful of chicken. “Are you going to get that?” he asked. “I’ll get it,” Blue said, sliding out of his chair. Patricia stood up and blocked him. “Finish your chicken,” she said.

“Did I catch you during a meal again?” he said. “I’m so sorry.” “It’s no bother.” “You know,” he said, “I got interrupted during a meal recently. It was very upsetting.” For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. No, she told herself, it was an innocent comment. He wasn’t testing her. “I’m sorry to hear that,” she said. “It made me think about you,” he said. “It made me realize how often I interrupt your family’s meals.”

Im deaddd

“So when I found myself dealing with an unpleasant situation today I thought of you,” he said. “You were so helpful last time.” “Oh?” Patricia said. “The woman who cleaned for my great-aunt disappeared,” he said. “And I heard that someone was spreading the story that the last place she was seen was my house. The insinuation is that I had something to do with it.”

“The last thing I want is for anyone to be afraid of me.” “Don’t you worry about that for a second,” Patricia said, and she made herself meet his eyes. “No one in this house is afraid of you.”

“…would drain the person of all their blood and then give them someone else’s blood that was the wrong type,” Blue was saying as she led James Harris back into the dining room. “Mm-hmm,” Carter said, ignoring Blue. “Are you talking about Himmler and the camps?” James Harris asked.

christ

“I thought Mr. Harris had done something wrong,” Patricia told Blue, pushing the words through her constricted throat. “But I was confused.” “It wasn’t much fun having the police stop by my house today,” James Harris said.

“Whatever you think you saw, he seems like an okay guy.” “Carter, I saw it,” she said. “He was doing something to that little girl. They took her from her mother today because they found a mark on her inner thigh.” “I’m not going to get into that again,” he said. “At some point you have to assume the professionals know what they’re doing.” “I saw him,” she said. “Even if you did look in his van that no one could find,” Carter said, “eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. It was dark, the light source was a flashlight, it happened fast.” “I know what I saw,” Patricia said. “I can show you studies,” Carter said.

F u

She found her copy of Dracula in the bookcase in the den. They’d read it for book club in October two years ago.

“He may not enter anywhere at the first,” says Van Helsing in his Dutch-tainted English, “unless there be some of the household who bid him to come; though afterwards he can come as he please.”

one cover of a hunky, smooth-shaven young man with spiked hair after another: Vampire Beat, Some of Your Blood, The Delicate Dependency, ’Salem’s Lot, Vampire Junction, Live Girls, Nightblood, No Blood Spilled, The Vampire’s Apprentice, Interview with the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, Vampire Tapestry, The Hotel Transylvania. If it had fangs, sharp teeth, or bloody lips on the cover, Patricia bought it. Her final total: $149.96. “You must be really into vampires,” the clerk said. “Will you take a check?” she asked. She hid the books in the back of her closet, and as she read them one by one behind her closed bedroom door she realized that she couldn’t do this alone. She needed help.

“Patricia,” Grace said. “I warned you when you came to see me. I begged you not to make a fool out of yourself.” “I know what I saw, Grace,” Patricia said, although she felt less and less sure.

Grace iz a vamp?

“Patricia?” Grace asked. “Maryellen? Who all’s there?” The men shook hands and Carter saw Patricia standing in the window and said something to the rest of them and they trooped up to the front porch in single file. “All of them,” Patricia said. The front door opened, and Carter walked into the hall, Blue right behind him. Then came Ed, who saw Maryellen standing at the base of the stairs and stopped. The rest of the men piled up behind him, hot evening air billowing in around them. “Ed,” Maryellen said. “Where are Detectives Cannon and Bussell?” “They’re not coming,” he said, fiddling with his tie.