The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires

Mrs. Greene only needs stitches and a rabies shot, but the attack proves fatal for Miss Mary, despite Mrs. Greene’s best efforts to save her. The Campbells have no luck in hiring anyone to clean the house after the infestation, so the women of the book club agree to do it. 

When Patricia visits Mrs. Greene for the first time since Miss Mary’s death, she has trouble convincing anyone to come with her to Six Mile. Eventually, Kitty reluctantly agrees to accompany Patricia.

Patricia and Kitty are taken aback when they see children jumping rope to an eerie rhyme about a menacing creature called “boo daddy” (139), a monster who kidnaps and eats children. As the women get out of the car near Mrs. Greene’s home, several young boys defensively ask why they came to Six Mile. Mrs. Greene shoos the kids away and apologizes for their behavior, inviting Patricia and Kitty inside. 

Patricia gives Mrs. Greene a check as a way to make amends, but Mrs. Greene needs employment more than a one-off sum of money. She is planning to send her sons to her sister’s for the summer because something has been hunting the children of Six Mile.

Mrs. Greene explains why she feels that Six Mile is no longer safe for children. Since May, “two little boys […] turned up dead, and Francine has gone missing” (146). Kitty counters that there hasn’t been anything in the paper, but Mrs. Greene argues that’s not the only way to know if something happened.

Mrs. Greene sums up all the recent rumors and reports. One of the two boys who died was eight-year-old Orville Reed, who allegedly died by suicide by jumping in front of a car. Before he died, there were periods where he would seem quite ill, go into the woods, come out giggly and well again, only to be sickly again the next day. The other dead boy was Orville’s cousin, Sean, who followed Orville into the woods to find out what was going on only to wind up “dead-face smashed up against the tree and scraped down to his skull” (148). Other children have reported seeing a white man standing at the edge of the woods, while others have seen a pale man through their windows. Nine-year-old Destiny Taylor has recently become oddly lethargic, sleeping all day. Sometimes there are twigs in her hair, so she might be going to the woods.

Mrs. Greene saw a mysterious white van with tinted windows near the woods where the children had been going and wrote down part of its license plate.

Patricia knows that James drives a white van, so she drives by his house only to see a new car out in front of his house, a red Chevy Corsica. Patricia visits Grace, who keeps a notebook of license plate numbers, including the one from James’s van.

Patricia put the pieces together: James Harris has no ID, no family, a lot of cash, and a license plate that matches the fragment of the license number Mrs. Greene wrote down. Patricia tells Grace her theory, but Grace thinks Patricia “convinced [her]self something dangerous is happening so [she] can act like a detective” (155). Annoyed at Grace’s skepticism, Patricia and Mrs. Greene decide to go see Destiny Taylor and her mom.

Destiny Taylor’s mom Wanda is reluctant to let Mrs. Greene and Patricia into their trailer, but eventually agrees they can enter. Wanda leads them to Destiny’s room only to find it empty. She immediately turns on Mrs. Greene and Patricia, demanding to know “Where’s Dessy?” (165), but of course they have no idea. They call the police, but Patricia is worried they might run out of time before the police show up at the scene. She thinks about what James could be doing to Destiny and imagines one of her children in this situation. Mustering her courage, Patricia bravely heads to the woods by herself.

In the woods, Patricia finds the white van. In the back of the van, James Harris is lying on top of Destiny, his mouth attached to her thigh with “something black, shiny, and chitinous” that drips blood and other fluids (171). James is momentarily stunned by Patricia’s bright flashlight, which is enough time for Patricia to make a quick escape. She runs towards a road just as the police arrive to investigate.

Patricia seeks safety in the police car, and the cops take her back to Wanda Taylor’s trailer, where Destiny is in now her room, asleep. Carter shows up to retrieve Patricia, defending her when the police are skeptical about her story that James assaulted Destiny. Mrs. Greene pleads with Patricia not to leave Wanda Taylor to deal with the investigation on her own, reminding her that “we’re all mothers” (176). Patricia is moved by Mrs. Greene’s words and worries about what will happen to Destiny, but Carter assures her it’ll be alright. 

On the way home, Carter drives by James’s house. The red Chevy Corsica is parked in his yard, which plants doubt in Carter’s mind about what his wife actually saw. That night, Carter holds Patricia while she sleeps for the first time in months, as Patricia has awful nightmares about a red mouth chasing her.

Patricia is trying to forget the horrific thing that happened in James Harris’ van and resume life as normal when she gets a call from Mrs. Greene. The police have removed Destiny from her mom’s custody. Patricia asks Carter to help, reminding him that Mrs. Greene is covered in scars from trying to save Miss Mary, but Carter argues over whether he has reason to intervene, worried it will interfere with his job. Patricia knows that Destiny, though not their child, must be protected from harm. 

Later that night, James bursts in during dinner, saying he almost feels like Patricia’s home is his home, too. Carter pressures Patricia into apologizing to James—since the police haven’t arrested James, Carter assumes he must be innocent of the crimes his wife claims he committed. Patricia apologizes, but the incident stirs up her frantic desire to discover what exactly she saw in the van. In her old copy of Dracula, she finds the passage, “He may not enter unless invited” (188), and shivers as she recalls the first time James approached their home—he hesitated to come in until she extended an invitation. Reading further, Patricia is more certain that James must be a vampire. The next day, she buys $150 worth of books about vampires, hoping to learn how to deal with James Harris.

Patricia decides to tell her book club friends that James Harris is a threat to the safety of their neighborhood, knowing they won’t believe her vampire theory.

After the club discusses The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule’s book about her relationship with serial killer Ted Bundy, Patricia announces to the group that James Harris deals drugs to children. There is an uproar of disbelief, but Patricia points out their hypocrisy: They all just agreed that Ann Rule should have “put the pieces together earlier” that Ted Bundy was dangerous (196), and there are many of the same signs that James Harris is not who he claims to be. Patricia urges her friends to act before it’s too late. Kitty, Slick, and Maryellen come to Patricia’s side, but Grace remains firm that she will not be joining their crusade until she does a little digging of her own and finds out that James still has his white van in a storage unit. With everyone on board, the only thing left to do is create a plan.