Table of Contents
RAVE REVIEWS FOR RICHARD LAYMON!
Laymon lets out the stops in typically ferocious fashion. The Traveling Vampire Show contains some of the wisdom of Kings The Body or Robert R. McCammons Boys Lije, 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
thats 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 youre going to have a good time with anything he writes.
Dean Koontz
If youve missed Laymon, youve missed a treat.
Stephen King
What an amazing book! Laymon rides hard and fast and deep. He gives us characters that are absolutely memorable. Its great. I promise.
Mehitobel Wilson, Gothic.net
The Traveling Vampire Show successfully blends nostalgia with gritty realism and outright Grand Guignol gore. Compulsively readable, its a stripped-down page-turner that slowly builds to a bloody crescendo. Laymon is in absolute control throughout.
Hank Wagner, Hellnotes
Laymon is Stephen King without a conscience.
Dan J. Marlowe
Laymon is an American writer of the highest caliber.
Time Out
MORE PRAISE FOR RICHARD LAYMON!
Laymon is unique. A phenomenon. A genius of the grisly and the grotesque.
Joe Citro, The Blood Review
[Laymon has] an uncanny grasp of just what makes characters work. Readers turn the pages so fast they leave burn marks on the paper.
-Horrorstruck
Laymon is incapable of writing a disappointing book.
New York Review of Science Fiction
One of the best, and most reliable, writers working today.
Cemetery Dance
Ive read every book of Laymons I could get my hands on. Im absolutely a longtime fan.
Jack Ketchum
A brilliant writer.
Sunday Express
Laymons writings super-tight and characters well detailed and believable, which makes the savage termination of so many of them all the more shocking! The unbridled joy of a delightfully fertile and wicked imagination at work.
Terrorzone
Richard Laymon is a legend in dark fiction circles ... a master of the macabre, a man on the cutting edge of the horror genre.
Scary Monsters Magazine
THE TRAVELING VAMPIRE SHOW
Come and see
the one and only known VAMPIRE in captivity!
VALERIA
Gorgeous!
Beguiling!
Lethal!
This stunning beauty, born in the wilds of
Transylvania , sleeps by day in her coffin. By night she
feeds on the blood of strangers.
See Valeria rise from the dead!
Watch as she stalks volunteers from the audience !
Tremble as she sinks her teeth into their necks!
Scream as she gulps their blood!
Where: Janks Field, 2 mi. south of Grandville on Route 3
When: One Show OnlyFriday, midnight
How Much: $10.
(Nobody under age 18 allowed.)
Other Leisure books by Richard Laymon:
AMONG THE MISSING
ONE RAINY NIGHT
BITE
This book is dedicated to Richard Chizmar,
owner, manager and coach of the CD Team.
You took us to the show.
A LEISURE BOOK
March 2001
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
276 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10001
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as unsold and destroyed to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this stripped book.
Copyright 2000 by Richard Laymon
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law
ISBN 0-8439-4850-7
The name Leisure Books and the stylized L with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in dw United States of America.
Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.
Chapter One
The summer I was sixteen, the Traveling Vampire Show came to town.
I heard about it first from my two best friends, Rusty and Slim.
Rustys real name was Russell, which he pretty much hated.
Slims real name was Frances. She had to put up with it from her parents and teachers, but not from other kids. Shed tell them, Frances is a talking mule. Asked what she wanted to be called, her answer pretty much depended on what book she happened to be reading. Shed say, Nancy or Holmes or Scout or Zock or Phoebe. All last summer, she wanted to be called Dagny. Now, it was Slim. A name like that, I figured maybe shed started reading westerns. But I didnt ask.
My name is Dwight, by the way. Named after the Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe. He didnt get elected President until after Id already been born and named.
Anyway, it was a hot August morning, school wouldnt be starting again for another month, and I was out in front of our house mowing the lawn with a push mower. We mustve been the only family in Grandville that didnt have a power mower. Not that we couldnt afford one. Dad was the towns chief of police and Mom taught English at the high school. So we had the money for a power mower, or even a riding mower, but not the inclination.
Not Dad, anyway. Long before anyone ever heard of language like noise pollution, Dad was doing everything in his power to prevent this or that godawful racket.
Also, he was opposed to any sort of device that might make life easier on me or my two brothers. He wanted us to work hard, sweat and suffer. Hed lived through the Great Depression and World War Two, so he knew all about suffering. According to him, kids these daysve got it too easy. So he did what he could to make life tougher on us.
Thats why I was out there pushing the mower, sweating my ass off, when along came Rusty and Slim.
It was one of those gray mornings when the sun is just a dim glow through the clouds and you know by the smell that rains on the way and you wish it would hurry up and get here because the day is so damn hot and muggy.
My T-shirt was off. When I saw Rusty and Slim coming toward me, I suddenly felt a little embarrassed about being without it. Which was sort of strange, considering how much time wed spent together in our swimming suits. I had an urge to run and snag it off the porch rail and put it on. But I stayed put, instead, and waited for them in just my jeans and sneakers.
Hi, guys, I called.
Whats up? Rusty greeted me. He meant it, of course, as a sexual innuendo. It was the sort of lame stuff he cherished.
Not much, I said.
Are you working hard, or hardly working?
Slim and I both wrinkled our noses.
Then Slim looked at my sweaty bare torso and said, Its too hot to be mowing your lawn.
Tell that to my dad.
Let me at him.
Hes at work.
Hes getting off lucky, Slim said.
We were all smiling, knowing she was kidding around. She liked my dadliked both my parents a whole lot, though she wasnt crazy about my brothers.
