The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

by Grady Hendrix

The skin on the face of the corpse was dark brown and stretched tight, pulling the lips away from the teeth in a terrible grin. But even then, Patricia recognized Francine.

She’d leave the bag here, get Mrs. Greene, and they’d get this out of the house together. She wouldn’t hesitate. She’d drive it right to the police station. She turned around and stepped onto the first step down. That was when she heard voices downstairs and automatically pulled her foot back. “Mrs. Greene,” a distant man’s voice said. She missed the next part and then: “…a surprise.” She heard Mrs. Greene say something she couldn’t make out, and then she heard the end of James Harris’s reply: “…come home early.”

James Harris was saying something to Mrs. Greene that Patricia couldn’t hear because everything in her body was directed at Lora, willing her to understand. Then Lora moved: she held out one yellow gloved hand, palm up in a universal gesture. Patricia remembered the other ten-dollar bill. She jammed her hand into her pocket, bending the nail of her forefinger backward, and pulled it out. She dropped it and it fluttered down slowly, right into Lora’s hand.

Obsessed

She heard faint voices floating up from downstairs: “…come again next…” He was sending them home. She heard a distant, final thump and realized it was the front door closing. She was in the house alone. With James Harris. Everything was silent for a few minutes and then, from right beneath the trapdoor, a singsong voice drifted up. “Patricia,” James Harris sang. “I know you’re in here.” She froze. He was going to come up. She wanted to scream but caught it before it could slip out between her lips.

SCREAMING!!

She raised the stiff edge of the pile and began to slither under, head first. Spiders fled from the disturbance, and roach eggs loosened from the fabric and rained down on her face. Centipedes fell out and squirmed against the hollow of her throat. She heard James Harris coming across the attic floor and she forced herself to fight down her gorge and slither in, moving carefully

The roach stepped past her nose, brushed over her cheekbone, and she squeezed her eyes shut, gritty in their sockets with all the rotting fabric flaking into them, and the roach’s progress across her face tickled so badly she had to brush her cheek or she would go insane. The roach crawled down the side of her face, over her ear, probing inside her ear canal with its antenna, then, drawn by the warmth, its legs began to scrabble into her ear.

Nooooo

She wondered what had happened to Slick, and she wondered why he had come back early, and why he had risked going out in daylight, and inside her cold, gummy head, these thoughts went slower and slower and melted together and suddenly she knew it was Slick. Slick had told him she was here. That was why Slick hadn’t come.

“He left,” Kitty said. “Now mush. We need to be gone before he comes back.”

Love mush

Well, I didn’t understand what he meant at first and I said I’d have to ask her about it when I saw her again, and he said I wouldn’t be seeing her again, unless I went up in his attic and looked inside his suitcases. Well, I couldn’t help it, it just sounded so absurd, and I laughed. I don’t need to tell you how men get when you laugh at them. His face turned red, and he reached into his wallet and pulled out something and stuck it in my face and said if he was lying then how did I explain that. And, Detective, that’s when I got scared. Because it was Francine’s driver’s license. I mean, who carries around a thing like that?

“If he did this to me,” Slick whispered, “what’s he going to do to you?” “Who?” Patricia asked. “James Harris.”

“I need you to think,” she said. “I need to know exactly what time you went into his house.” “Like around seven-thirty,” he said. “Jesus, why do you care? We played Resident Evil all night.” He was lying, he didn’t understand the severity of the situation,

“Men Are from Mars? That’s giving them too much credit.”

“How is she?” a gentle, caring male voice said from the door. Patricia hunched as if she’d been stabbed between the shoulder blades. Slick’s eyes widened. Patricia turned, and there was no mistaking the eyes above the mask or the shape beneath the paper gown. “I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier,” James Harris said through his mask, moving across the room. “Poor Slick. What’s happened to you?” Patricia stood and put herself between James Harris and Slick’s bed. He stopped in front of her and placed one large hand on her shoulder. It took everything she had not to flinch.

The car engine came to life, idled, and then James Harris reached for her head. She flinched as he put his hand on the back of her headrest, looked over his shoulder, and reversed out of his space.

“Leland did this to her,” James Harris said. “Leland made her sick.” Patricia’s thoughts fragmented. What was he saying? She tried to pay attention, but he was already talking. “It all started with those damn trips,” he said. “If I’d known, I never would have suggested them.

At dinner, this psychiatrist from Reno asked if we wanted to see some girls.

Her ears wandered through the dark house. She heard the higher-pitched heat coming through the air registers, the ticking sound it made deep in the tin ducts. Behind the ticking came the high-pitched rush of warm air, and the drip from the bathroom faucet.

Patricia realized Korey was sneaking out of the house. She kicked herself. No wonder Korey acted so exhausted in the morning. No wonder she seemed so fuzzy headed. She was sneaking out of the house every night to see some boy.

She threw back her comforter, slid her feet into her slippers, and padded down the hall. There was a furtive, rhythmic sound coming from behind Korey’s door and she realized that maybe Korey wasn’t sneaking out, but this boy was sneaking in. She snapped on the hall light and threw open Korey’s bedroom door. At first she didn’t understand what she was looking at in the spill of light from the hall. Two pale, naked bodies lay on the bed, and she realized the one closest to her was James Harris,

SCREAMMMMMMM

His mouth was affixed to a place on her inner thigh, right next to her pubis. Her hair was spread out across the pillow, her eyes were half-closed in ecstasy, and she smiled with abandon, a smile Patricia had never seen before on Korey’s face.

He belched and a line of bloody drool dribbled from the corner of the proboscis hanging beneath his chin. Then it began to curl back up on itself, retracting slowly into his gore-slimed mouth. My God, Patricia thought, I’ve gone insane,

Me too?

She went to her daughter and examined the wound on her inner thigh. It looked swollen and infected, and it wasn’t the only one. All around it were overlapping bruises, overlapping punctures, all their edges torn and ragged. Patricia realized this had happened before. Many times.

“What have you done to my daughter?” she managed. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said. “I know you must be confused and frightened but it’s no different than my eyes—it’s just a condition I have. Some of my organs don’t work properly and from time to time I need to borrow someone’s circulatory system and filter my blood through theirs. I’m not a vampire, I don’t drink it, it’s not any different than using a dialysis machine, except it’s more natural. And I promise you there’s no pain. In fact, from what I can tell it feels good to them. You have to understand, I would never do anything to hurt Korey. She agreed to do this. I want you to know that. After I told her about my condition she came to me and volunteered to help. You have to believe I would never make her do something against her will.”

Her one job as a parent was to protect her children from monsters. The ones under the bed, the ones in the closet, the ones hiding in the dark. Instead, she’d invited the monster into her home and been too weak to stop it from taking whatever it wanted. The monster had killed her mother-in-law, seduced her husband, taken her daughter, and her son.

“He isn’t a drug dealer,” Patricia said. “He’s a vampire.” Kitty looked like she was about to throw up. Grace’s face turned dark and ugly. Maryellen uttered a single bark of laughter and said, “What?” “Slick,” Patricia said. “Tell them what happened.” “I was…attacked,” Slick said, and instantly her eyes turned red and wet. “By James Harris…Patricia

What are you made of, Mrs. Cavanaugh, that lets you walk away from your friends?”

Patricia decided it was safe to push them to the next step. “I don’t know if the word is vampire or monster,” Patricia said. “But I’ve seen him like this twice and Slick has seen it once. He’s not like us. He can live for a very long time. He’s strong. He can see in the dark.” “His willpower can make animals do his bidding,” Mrs. Greene said.

“You think…we can’t match him?” Slick asked from her bed. “I’ve had three children…And some man who’s never felt…his baby crown is stronger than me? Is tougher than me? He thinks he’s safe…because he thinks like you…He

Fear made Patricia’s voice strong and clear, “I have to give him what he wants,” she said. “I have to give him me.”

Girl no

Patricia told Carter that Korey was on drugs. Korey was so sick and confused from James Harris that Carter believed her immediately. It helped that this was one of his biggest nightmares. “This is from your side,” he said as they threw Korey’s clothes into an overnight bag. “No one on my side

“I love you,” he said. It took her by surprise and she faltered for a moment, thinking of everything James Harris had told her about Carter’s out-of-town trips and wondering how much of it was true. “I love you, too,” she made herself say back.

He left and she waited until she heard his car back out of the driveway, and then she got ready to die.

All I had to do was make you think I needed help and here comes that famous Southern hospitality. Y’all don’t like talking about money, do you? That’s low class. But I waved some around and you all were so eager to grab it you never asked where it came from. Now your children like me more than they like you. Your husband is a weakling and a fool. And here you are, dressed up like a clown, with no cards left to play. I’ve been doing this for so long I’m always prepared for the moment when someone tries to run me out of town, but you’ve truly surprised me. I didn’t expect the attempt to be so sad.”

I thought for sure the humiliation I inflicted on you three years ago would make you kill yourself, but you couldn’t even do that right.”

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.

Kitty rode his back all the way to the floor. He landed with his arms beneath him. He was stronger but she outweighed him by fifty pounds.

Maryellen looked up, saw her, looked down, saw the knife, and suddenly squatted. She tossed it underhanded to Mrs. Greene, who, for the first time in her life, caught something thrown to her.

From downstairs drifted the jaunty sound of a symphony orchestra. “You bitches haven’t even slowed me down,” James Harris gurgled.

Back in the bathroom, James Harris’s torso greeted her again. It was time for his head. She dreaded this moment although she also hoped it would finally shut him up. One thing she’d learned about men: they liked to talk.

The pile of black plastic packages containing pieces of James Harris’s body twisted like snakes. Their motion was muscular and angry. “We put the nails through his eyes,” Mrs. Greene said. “He’s not stopping,” Kitty wailed. “It didn’t work. He’s still alive.” The doorbell rang.

“What are you going to do?” Maryellen asked. “Burn this place down?” “Don’t be absurd,” Grace said. “Mrs. Greene and I will stay behind. We’ve been cleaning up after men our entire lives. This is no different.”

what Patricia would always remember about Miss Mary wasn’t those hard meals, or the shock of finding her that night after Grace’s party, or the roach falling into her water glass, but it was how much you had to love your son to come back from Hell to warn him. And then she remembered that Miss Mary hadn’t come back to warn Carter. She’d came back to warn her.

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.”

“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.

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.”

think this is how he makes other ones like him. I think that’s what he did to you.”

They drove to Southern Pines together, and signed out her daughter against the advice of her doctors, and brought her home. When Ragtag saw her, he began to bang his tail against the floor where he’d been lying.

Then he asked them who they wanted to live with during the week. They both surprised Patricia by saying, “Mom.”

Everyone was broke. Leland had declared bankruptcy just after the new year and was selling houses for Kevin Hauck on commission. Kitty and Horse had lost almost everything and were chopping Seewee Farms into parcels, selling it off piecemeal to keep the lights on. Patricia didn’t know how much Carter had sunk into Gracious Cay, but judging by how many times her lawyer had to remind him to send the child support checks, it was a lot.

At the end of the day, some rich white people lost their money. Some poor black people lost their homes. That’s just how it goes.