The Vigilantes (The Superiors) by Lena Hillbrand

We got a surprise for you,” Larry said. He’d hardly been able to contain himself through supper. Sally could just tell. She couldn’t eat nothing herself, what with all the excitement just about eating up her insides.
    “What’s that, son?” Daddy asked, leaning his chair back on two legs and hanging his arm over the back of it.
    “You gotta come out to the shed to see it,” Sally said.
    “Come on now, I don’t want to be traipsing out in the snow, getting all cold and getting my feet wet just to see you found the shovel or some damn thing. Just spit it out.”
    “Nope,” Larry said. “You wanna see it, you gotta come out to the shed.”
    “Quit trying to be mysterious,” Uncle Tom said. “You done fixing to make me lose my patience. What you do, make an improvement on the cage?”
    “Oh no,” Larry said. “Cage is perfect already. I seen to that.”
    “So what is it?” their cousin asked. She’d come back with Tom from her mother’s house. “I wanna see, if no one else does. I’ll go with you.”
    “Sissy, finish your supper. Nobody’s going out in this cold at night, getting all bundled up to see one of Larry’s crazy inventions.”
    “Trust me, you’re gonna wanna see this one,” Sally said. “And it ain’t nobody’s invention. Least not nobody who lives here.”
    “I’ll go,” Mama said. “I’m done eating. Let me get my boots on. Come on, Daddy, you come, too. Ain’t safe for us to be out there without some menfolk. You know those bloodsuckers come out at night.”
    “Oh, alright.” Daddy sighed and got up, grumbling curses as he did so. He went to fetch his boots, and Sally and Larry got up, too.
    “Come on, Uncle Tom. You’re gonna wish you’d come out if you don’t. I’m telling you. It’s better than any deer, or any of my inventions,” Larry said.
    “Dammit, Larry. Fine, I’m coming. Get your coat, Sissy. But I’m warning you, Larry. If this is one of your hare-brained schemes, and I have to get all dressed up to go see it, I’m gonna tan your hide when we get back.”
    “I ain’t twelve years old no more, Tom. Now quit your yapping and let’s go.”
    The six of them tromped out through the frigid night, sending cloudbursts into the darkness with every breath. The night was clear and cold as that steel chain after it had lain in the snow. Sally wondered if bloodsuckers ever felt cold. She’d never seen one up close before, and she wanted to know what they looked like for real. She’d only seen pictures and lots of drawings in her books. Now that they’d gotten this one safely caged, it might be kind of fun to see its fangs. It were probably real scary, though. Maybe Sissy shouldn’t’ve come.
    They crowded into the shed, and Larry pulled the string that turned on the single bulb hanging from the ceiling. They all looked at the black oblong shape on the floor in the cage.
    “What is it?” Sissy asked, her voice full of awe.
    “We got ourselves a real live bloodsucker out in the woods today,” Sally said.
    Mama covered her heart and started up trembling. “Sweet Jesus,” she said.
    “You went out there and brought this back and never told us all through dinner? You’re a couple of damn fools is what you are. It could’ve escaped and killed us all.”
    “He ain’t escaping, Daddy,” Larry said. “I worked hard on this cage every day, and we’ve both read up and been to all them meetings. We know how to chain them up real good.”
    “You should’ve told us sooner.”
    “Ain’t you even happy about it?”
    “Sure I am. I’m real proud of you both. I only hope there ain’t more of them out there in the woods. We best set up a watch.”
    The lump on the floor started saying things, too muffled for them to understand.
    “How’d you get it all wrapped up like that?” Sissy asked.
    “We didn’t. It was the darnedest thing. He was all wrapped up like that when we found him.”
    “What’s it look like?”
    “We ain’t seen it yet. But it