RICHARD LAYMON
RAVE REVIEWS FOR RICHARD LAYMON!
“A brilliant writer.”
—Sunday Express
“Laymon doesn’t pull any punches. Everything he writes keeps you on the edge of your seat.”
—Painted Rock Reviews
“One of the best, and most reliable, writers working today.”
—Cemetery Dance
“Laymon is incapable of writing a disappointing book.”
—New York Review of Science Fiction
“Laymon lets out the stops in typically ferocious fashion. The Traveling Vampire Show contains some of the wisdom of King’s The Body or Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life, but the book belongs wholly to Laymon, who with his trademark squeaky-clean yet sensual prose, high narrative drive and pitch-dark sense of humor has crafted a horror tale that’s not only emotionally true but also scary and, above all, fun.”
—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
“Laymon always takes it to the max. No one writes like him and you’re going to have a good time with anything he writes.”
—Dean Koontz
“If you’ve missed Laymon, you’ve missed a treat.”
—Stephen King
“If, like me, you consider Ray Bradbury’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes an American classic, you are in for a real treat. The traveling Vampire Show will put you in the same vicarious world that no one has entered since the master.”
—Denver Rocky Mountain News
“Laymon is an American writer of the highest caliber.”
—Time Out
“Laymon is unique. A phenomenon. A genius of the grisly and the grotesque.”
—Joe Citro, The Blood Review
Other books by Richard Laymon:
DARKNESS, TELL US
NIGHT IN THE LONESOME OCTOBER
ISLAND
THE MUSEUM OF HORRORS
IN THE DARK
THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW
AMONG THE MISSING
ONE RAINY NIGHT
BITE
Copyright © 2001 by Richard Laymon
Chapter One
Saturday May 24
The sound of breaking glass shocked Rhonda Bain awake. She went rigid on the bed and stared at the dark ceiling.
She told herself it wasn’t someone breaking into the house; a framed picture or a mirror had fallen off one of the walls.
She didn’t believe it.
Someone had smashed a window. She’d heard glass hitting a floor, so it was the kitchen window; the other rooms had carpet.
Rhonda imagined herself bolting from the bedroom, racing for the front door. But as she rushed past the kitchen, a dark shape would lurch out and grab her.
I can’t just lie here and wait for him!
She flung the sheet aside, sat up, snapped her head toward the bedroom window. The curtains were open, stirring slightly in the breeze. She shivered and clenched her teeth, but not because of the mild night air on her bare skin.
I’ve gotta get out of here!
The window was no good. The damn thing was louvered. There wouldn’t be time to pull out enough slats, remove the screen and climb through. If she barricaded the bedroom door and smashed an opening with a chair ...
She flinched at the sound of a footstep—a shoe crunching broken glass.
He’s still in the kitchen.
If I try smashing the slats, he’ll know I’m here, and what if he gets to me before I can—
He doesn’t know I’m here!
Rhonda swung her legs off the bed. She rose slowly. The boxsprings squeaked a bit, but then she was standing. She turned to the queen-sized bed. With trembling hands, she smoothed her pillow, drew up the top sheet, then the electric blanket, then the quilt. A few tugs and the bed looked as if it hadn’t been slept in.
She crouched. She sat on the carpet. She lay back and squirmed sideways, the hanging quilt brushing across her body. It passed over her face. She kept moving. It slid over her left breast, then her shoulder. She scooted in farther. Stopping, she fingered the hem of the quilt. It was five or six inches beyond her left hip and about two inches short of touching the floor.
Good enough.
She lay still, hands pressed to the sides of her thighs. She was trembling badly. She heard her quick thudding heartbeat. She heard herself panting. But she didn’t hear footsteps.
He’s probably out of the kitchen, walking on carpet. Where?
Turning her head, Rhonda could see out with one eye. She watched the bottom of the doorway.
Calm down, she told herself.
Oh, sure thing.
Want him to hear your damn heart drumming?
She let go of her legs, rested her hands on the carpet, and concentrated on letting her muscles relax. She filled her lungs slowly and let the air out.
Calm, she thought. You’re not even here. You’re lying on a beach. You’re at the lake, stretched out on a towel. You can hear the waves lapping in, kids squealing and laughing. You can feel the sun and the breeze on your skin. You’re wearing your white bikini.
You’re naked.
Her stomach twisted.
You’re naked and hiding under a bed and somebody’s in the goddamn house.
She suddenly felt trapped. Though the bed didn’t touch her, it seemed to be pressing down, smothering her. She struggled for breath. She wanted out. She ached to squirm free, scurry to her feet and make a dash for safety.
Calm down. He doesn’t know you’re here.
Maybe he does.
The pale beam of a flashlight danced through the darkness beyond the bedroom door. Rhonda glimpsed it. Then it was gone. She held her breath and stared through the gap, waiting. The beam scrawled a quick curlicue, darted high and vanished again.
He’ll come in soon, Rhonda thought. He’ll find me. God, why didn’t I make a run for it when the window broke?
Why didn’t I go with Mom and Dad to Aunt Betty’s?
She forced herself to take a breath.
The beam of the flashlight slanted through the doorway, swept toward Rhonda and up.
He’s checking the bed, she thought.
See, nobody’s here. So get on with it. Rob the place. Take whatever you want, you bastard, just don’t look under the bed.
With the snap of a switch, the lights came on.
Rhonda’s fingernails dug into her thighs.
Her one eye saw a pair of old jogging shoes in the doorway. The ragged cuffs of blue jeans draped their tops and swayed slightly as the man walked forward.
The shoes stopped, turned, moved toward the closet. Rhonda watched the closet door swing open. She heard some empty hangers clink together. A loop of threads hung from the back of the jeans’ frayed left cuff, dangling almost to the floor.
The shoes turned again. They came toward her, veered away, and passed out of sight as the man walked toward the end of the bed. She heard quiet steps crossing the room.