Vampire Lodge, page 8
Digging, Kevin though. Digging a hole in the ground. Digging… for something.
But what?
Count Volkov’s coffin? he wondered. Or the treasure?
It was just one more thing he’d have to find out. He knew there had to be more clues in the secret room, and tomorrow he would go back, with a bright flashlight, so he could see better and investigate some more.
But there was something he had to investigate now.
I have to make absolutely sure, he thought, that Aunt Carolyn really is a vampire…
And he knew there was only one way to do that.
Kevin knew where Aunt Carolyn’s bedroom was. It was upstairs, on the second floor, at the other end of the hall from where he and Jimmy’s room was…
I’ll have to go there now, he realized. I’ll have to look into Aunt Carolyn’s bedroom. If she’s sleeping in her bed, then I’ll know she’s not really a vampire, because vampires never sleep at night, and they only sleep in coffins. And if she isn’t there…
The rest of the thought trailed off for a moment, replaced by fear.
If she isn’t there, his thoughts continued nervously, then I’ll know I’m right. I’ll know for a fact that Aunt Carolyn really is a vampire…
Kevin stood up then, in the dark hearth room, with the rain still pounding the windows and the lightning still flashing. He doubted that he’d ever been this scared, but he knew what he must do.
He had no choice.
I’ve got to go up there now, he thought. To Aunt Carolyn’s bedroom, and I’ve got to see if she’s there. That’s the only way I’ll know for sure.
The clock on the mantle over the fireplace ticked loudly. Kevin looked up and saw that it was almost three o’clock in the morning. He walked cautiously into the foyer, set foot on the landing, and began to quietly climb the stairs. Each step felt higher than he remembered, and took more effort to climb, but maybe that was because he was afraid about all the things he’d discovered tonight. Each step creaked too, not loud, but still he fretted that the sound might wake someone up. Eventually he got to the top of the second-floor landing. It was very dark, he could barely see anything, but at least the lightning in the window at the ends of the hall offered enough light that he could make his way. As he stepped down the hall over the carpet, even the floor creaked a little, and, more eerie paintings passed on either side of him. Kevin felt grateful that it was too dark to see any of their details.
After all, he knew who had painted them.
It seemed to take forever to get all the way down to the end of the hallway. Aunt Carolyn’s bedroom, he knew, was the last door on the left. In another few moments, he was there, standing before the door. And all at once, his entire body felt as thought it were made of stone…
He tried to raise his hand, to grasp the doorknob and open the door. But—
He couldn’t.
His hand was shaking too much.
Get a grip on yourself! he thought. You can’t be a chicken all your life!
He took a deep breath, let himself calm down. then—
Do it! he ordered himself. Just go on and do it!
Very slowly, his hand raised, and then, even more slowly, his fingers closed over the doorknob. They tightened, turned. Then—
He began to turn the old brass doorknob.
Please don’t creak, he thought fearfully to himself. Every door and stair and section of flooring in the entire lodge seemed to creak. But, to Kevin’s relief, when he began to carefully push the door open, he found that the hinges didn’t make any sound. Soon the door was opened wide enough that he could stick his head in and look.
Drat! he thought.
Darkness.
The room was so dark he couldn’t see anything at all inside. The only thing that faced him now was an utter and complete wall of black.
What am I going to do now! he wondered.
But it was just his luck. At that very instant, a long peal of lightning cracked across the sky, and its brief white light flashed into Aunt Carolyn’s bedroom through the high, narrow window. And—
Kevin’s heart felt like it might actually stop beating right there in his chest.
Because when the lightning flashed and lit up the room, he saw no sign at all of Aunt Carolyn.
He saw an antique dresser, a table, a few chairs. He saw some paintings on the wall, too, but—
That was all.
Aunt Carolyn’s not here,he realized. And he realized something else, too.
There wasn’t even a bed in the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
No Aunt Carolyn, Kevin thought. And not even a bed in her own bedroom.
And that could only mean one thing.
She doesn’t have a bed. She doesn’t need one, because she’s a vampire. Vampire’s don’t sleep in beds, they never do. They sleep in coffins…
Which supported what he had suspected all along.
Aunt Carolyn really is a vampire. There’s no doubt…
But something else came to his mind just then, something just as frightening:
If Aunt Carolyn isn’t here, he wondered, trembling, then where is she?
The first impulse told him to scoot back to his own bedroom right now, pretend he hadn’t seen anything. He’d play dumb till Sunday morning when his father got back, and then could just get in the car and go home, and Kevin could forget all about this evil place.
But that wasn’t like him, was it? Kevin’s curiosity was just too strong; it wouldn’t let go. Like right now, for instance. He knew Aunt Carolyn was up and about somewhere—as most vampires would be at this hour—and he knew that the safest thing to do would be to go back to bed. But one thing he’d noticed while peeking into his aunt’s bedroom, during that last flash of lightning, were the two paintings on the wall, and next thing he knew—
I really shouldn’t be doing this, he warned himself.
—he was tiptoeing into the room!
Because he had to see those two paintings. He’d seen most of the others in the lodge, the scenes painted by Count Volkov himself, and it only stood to reason that the best of the paintings would be here, in his aunt’s room.
But, again, the biggest problem was light. The room was so dark that once he entered he found that he’d have to wait for another flash of lightning to light his way. It took him several minutes this way to get across the room to where the paintings hung. The first thing he noticed was that one of the paintings was larger than any of the other paintings he’d seen in the lodge, maybe even twice as large, with a thick fancy-carved frame. When the lightning cracked, Kevin’s eyes darted immediately to the bottom of the painting, to see what the title was:
Count Volkov, it read. A Self-Portrait.
And painted in the corner, sure enough, was The Count’s signature, proving that he was the artist.
Then the lightning cracked again, and Kevin’s eyes flicked quickly upward to look at the painting itself, and—
His jaw dropped.
—and in the brief flash of lightning, the painting of The Count looked right back at him…
It was the scariest painting he’d ever seen in his life. In dark, creepy colors, there he was—The Count. The painting looked so real, it almost seemed as though Count Volkov were standing before him in the flesh.
The Count’s face was long and thin—and so pale it was white. He was bald, and the collar of his great black cape was turned up, connected by a big brass button with a fancy V embossed on it. V, Kevin thought. For Volkov. And hanging just under the button, from a chain about The Count’s neck, was a pendant of gold, a pendant of a hideous vampire bat with outstretched wings…
Kevin’s stomach quivered as he examined the painting more thoroughly, and when the lightning flashed again, he took closer note of The Count’s face:
The whites of Count Volkov’s eyes were bloodshot, with pupils so black they looked like holes. The mouth, turned up into a sinister smile, was opened just enough that Kevin could see the two long needlelike fangs…
Kevin turned away. Count Volkov’s self-portrait was more frightening than any of the vampires he’d seen in the movies. It was so chilling, in fact, that he forced himself to turn away, because he knew that if he looked at it any longer, he’d have nightmares of The Count’s fangs and terrible white face for a long time to come.
Get out of here, he told himself, shivering.
But he couldn’t leave yet, could he? There was still one more painting he needed to look at…
The second painting was smaller, more like the others that hung in the lodge, and with a similarly carved, antique frame. Kevin waited for another lightning flash, and when it came, he read the second painting’s title:
The Count, Standing on the Balcony of his Room.
And another lightning flash—
All the breath seemed to seize in Kevin’s chest once he got a full glimpse of the second painting. It was a painting of the back of the lodge, at night, with a full, yellow moon hanging just over the peak of the lodge’s roof, and there, on a second-floor balcony, at the far corner of the lodge, Count Volkov stood in his great black cape, looking out into the night…
Suddenly, all Kevin could do was stare at the picture. The depiction of The Count was frightening enough—yes—but that wasn’t what scared Kevin the most—
In his mind, he recited the painting’s chilling title: The Count, Standing on the Balcony of his Room.
And then he thought further: His room. The Count’s room. The second-floor balcony at the far end of the lodge…
Then he realized:
Count Volkov’s room, and Kevin’s room, were the same.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The lightning, now, flashed along with Kevin’s terror. Bug-eyed, and still staring at the ghastly painting, he backed away. His heart raced, his breath grew thin, and now his hands were shaking uncontrollably. I’m staying in the same room that used to be Count Volkov’s, his thoughts pounded in dread. The very same room!
Kevin knew he had to get out of his aunt’s bedroom now—he’d been here too long already, and staying another minute would just be too risky. But in leaving, that left him with a big problem:
Where do I go now?
Eventually, he knew he’d have to go back to bed, but now that he knew that his bedroom was once Count Volkov’s room—he didn’t know if he could do it. How could he sleep, knowing that he was sleeping in the same room that was once inhabited by a vampire?
But he knew he had no choice…
He finally backed out of Aunt Carolyn’s room, the storm still pounding, the lightning still flashing along with its crackling, thunderous sound. Back out in the hallway then, he began to close the door but before he could push it shut completely—
—a hand landed on his shoulder.
“Kevin!” a voice caught him from behind. “What on earth are you doing?”
Kevin’s heart suddenly felt like a bomb that had just exploded in his chest. He turned, in newfound terror, at the sharp, angry voice and the touch of the hand that suddenly had landed on his shoulder—
To face Aunt Carolyn!
At once a softly glowing light was on his face. Aunt Carolyn was holding up a lantern—the same kind of lantern, Kevin noted, that Bill Bitner had been holding in the back hallway this morning—and what Kevin immediately noticed was that Aunt Carolyn wasn’t dressed in a nightgown but was wearing one of the same long, tight black dresses that she always wore. She looked scoldingly at him, her dark eyes narrowed, and the look on her face was clearly one of irritation.
“Young man,” she said. “It’s not nice to go into people’s bedrooms without their permission. I’m surprised that you would do such a thing. Now I want to know what you were doing in there, and I want to know right now.”
Kevin, all trembles now, could only stutter in reply, “I, I, I, uh, was looking for you.”
“Looking for me? What for?”
“I, I—” and suddenly Kevin could think of nothing to say in the way of an answer.
Aunt Carolyn’s angry face glared down in the lantern light—a long, thin, pale face, Kevin noticed. Like Count Volkov’s face, like a vampire’s face! But then, just as suddenly, that same anger drifted off, and at once, Aunt Carolyn’s voice softened. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said consolingly. “You poor thing. Of course, you must’ve been frightened by the storm, is that it?”
“Uh, yes,” Kevin stammered back. “The storm, it woke me up and, uh, I got scared.”
“Well, you needn’t worry, because I was just downstairs listening to the weather report on the radio, and they said the storm will be over soon. So there’s nothing to worry about, see?”
“Uh, yes,” Kevin bumbled.
“It’s very late,” Aunt Carolyn went on. “You get back to bed now. Hopefully, the weather will be good enough tomorrow for you and Jimmy to fly your kites.”
“Uh, yeah, Aunt Carolyn, that would be great,” Kevin managed to say. “Well, I’m going back to bed now. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Kevin.”
Boy, did I luck out there, Kevin thought, walking down the darkened hall toward his bedroom. She thought I was scared of the storm. What a joke! After all the things he’d seen tonight, and all the things he’d discovered, a lightning storm was the last thing he’d be scared of!
When he got back to his bedroom, Jimmy was still fast sleep. Kevin got into his own bed and lay back under the heavy covers, his mind still spinning with thoughts…
Yes, Aunt Carolyn was definitely a vampire, she had to be. Up at this hour, still in her long black dress. Never eating anything and never going out into the sun. And no bed in her bedroom. There could be no doubt—
She’s a vampire, all right, he realized. But what am I going to do about it?
What could he do?
Well… nothing, he concluded, at least not until their fathers got back from fishing. And what had her excuse been, for being up so late herself?
Listening to the weather report on the radio, he remembered. What a bunch of malarkey!
Kevin felt exhausted and he tried to fall asleep but again the fact returned to his mind, and so did his fearful recollection of the second painting he’d seen in his aunt’s room. Count Volkov used to live in this same room, he thought. This used to be a vampire’s room. How can I expect to fall asleep, knowing that Count Volkov himself used to think and walk and breathe in this same room?
He lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling. But then he noticed something. I guess Aunt Carolyn was right after all. The lightning and thunder has stopped. Sure enough, it had, and it seemed like the rain was letting up too.
And this sudden absence of the storm’s steady sounds left the bedroom suddenly, and eerily, silent—
clink! he heard.
Then—
crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…
Kevin leaned up in bed. What were those sounds? The clink had sounded somehow like metal, and the steady crunching noise sounded just like—
People walking, he realized.
And something else: The sounds seemed to be coming from the french doors which led to the balcony, which could only mean:
The sounds are coming from… outside, he thought.
But who on earth would be walking around outside this late at night?
He listened some more. Maybe it was just my imagination, he considered when the sounds disappeared. But just when he was about to forget about them—
clink!
crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…
—he heard them again!
Quietly, he climbed out of bed and approached the two closed french doors. Then he quickly opened them and slipped out onto the wet balcony. The rain was only trickling now, and the wind had vanished. He glanced down at the grassy area between the forest and the back of the lodge, and was astounded at the heavy silence. And, once more, that creepy feeling returned to his belly, the idea that he was now standing on the same balcony that Count Volkov had once stood upon.
Count Volkov… the vampire…
clink!
There it was again! And then, again—
crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…
Kevin leaned out over the balcony’s heavy wooden railing, and then looked down.
And he… saw something, didn’t he?
Yes, indeed he did. There, at the edge of the woods behind the lodge, he noticed two faintly glowing lights…
Lanterns! he recognized. Lantern lights!
And once his eyes had adjusted, he recognized something else too.
Two figures!
He was sure of it. So late at night, and in the trickling rain, two men were walking along the edge of the woods behind the lodge, their lanterns pitching slowly back and forth as their feet—crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch—crunched on over fallen leaves and branches, and every so often—clink!—that same metallic sound could be heard. Each man seemed to be carrying something long and thin, which Kevin, in the dim lantern light, was then able to identify.
Shovels, he thought, peering down. They’re carrying shovels. And every few steps, the big blades of their shovels clinked together as they walked on towards the forest.
And Kevin was able to recognize something else too, as the trickle of rain continued to fall. In their bobbing lantern lights, he could make out their faces beyond a doubt—
It’s Bill Bitner! he recognized. And Wally!
And just one second later, both figures turned into one of the paths which led into the woods, and disappeared.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The next morning, Kevin awoke to see Jimmy, already fully dressed, looking out the french doors. “Wake up, Kevin,” he said. “The rain stopped. We can go out to the bluff and fly our kites.”
Kevin groaned groggily. He hadn’t slept well at all, which was no wonder. It had been well past three a.m. before he’d fallen asleep, and all through the night he kept waking up from nightmares of Count Volkov: the long thin face, pale as milk, emerging from the dark. The bald head, the black hole-punch eyes, and the sharp-pointed fangs showing through The Count’s twisted vampire grin…
