Vampire Lodge, page 9
Kevin would wake up each time in a shivering sweat, leaning up wide-eyed in bed, his heart pattering.
“Come on,” Jimmy exclaimed. “Up and at ’em. Let’s get out there and get our kites flying while we still can. It could start raining again any time.”
Kevin nodded sleepily. “I’ll be ready in a few minutes,” he said.
“Great, I’ll meet you downstairs.”
Kevin dragged himself out of bed, then showered and dressed. He was so tired he didn’t even feel like flying kites today, but then he realized if he didn’t, he’d have to sit around the lodge all day, and that was one thing he definitely didn’t want to do. The lodge terrified him now, and why shouldn’t it? With all the things he’d found out last night? And finding out that my aunt is a vampire? he added in thought. Hanging around the lodge was the last thing he wanted to do.
Dressed and ready, he grabbed his bat kite and trudged downstairs. The lodge was dead quiet. Jimmy was waiting for him in the foyer with his own kite. “Let’s go.”
“Jimmy, Kevin,” Becky’s voice called out from the dining room. “Where are you guys going?”
“To the bluffs,” Kevin said, rubbing sleep out of his eyes.
“To fly our kites,” Jimmy added.
Becky smirked from her place at the table, over a bowl of cereal. “You and your stupid kites. Aren’t you even going to eat breakfast?”
“Naw,” Jimmy answered. “We want to get going now, before it starts to rain again.”
“Oh, and let me tell you two nitwits something,” Becky chided. “I asked Wally about what you guys said yesterday.”
“What’s that?” Jimmy asked.
“About how you two doughheads said you saw him mysteriously digging around in the woods.” Becky frowned at them. “All he was doing was digging for a broken water pipe. Real mysterious, guys.”
Water pipe, my eye, Kevin thought. And I guess Bill Bitner and your lover boy Wally were digging for broken water pipes last night, too. At three a.m.! But Kevin didn’t voice this thought, and he remained convinced that not telling anyone about the things he’d discovered so far was the best idea. But before he and Jimmy left, he stopped and said, “Hey, Becky?”
“Hay is for horses!” Becky complained back.
“Which is what you look like,” Kevin couldn’t resist, and groaned. But then he asked his sister the question he was sure he already knew the answer to. “Where’s Aunt Carolyn?”
“How would I know?” Becky griped. “I’m not her keeper.”
“Well, have you seen her at all this morning?”
“No. I haven’t seen her anywhere. Oysterbrains!”
“Neither have I,” Jimmy volunteered. “But who cares? Let’s get going.”
Kevin followed Jimmy out the front door, but before he could close it behind him, Becky harassed him a final time from the breakfast table. “Oh, and have fun flying your stupid kite… Kevvie.”
Kevin groaned to himself, then closed the front door. Sisters sure are a pain, he thought. I should’ve dumped that bowl of cereal right on her smart head.
Outside, they immediately buttoned up their jackets. The air was brisk—they could see their breath condense in front of their faces—and there was a steady wind, ideal for kite flying. Fallen autumn leaves blew around their feet as they headed for the path that would lead them to the bluffs. Jimmy looked worriedly up at the sky. “Yeah, it looks like it might start raining again. We may never get a chance to fly these kites.”
Kevin, trudging along, nodded noncommittally. Right now, kite flying was the furthest thing from his mind. All he could think about instead was The Count, the lodge and all the weird business he’d uncovered, and, of course, Aunt Carolyn.
“Don’t you think that’s kind of odd?” Jimmy asked.
“What?”
“Well, you know. Your Aunt Carolyn. Your sister said she hadn’t seen her all morning, and we didn’t see much of her yesterday either, except after it got dark.”
“Yeah,” Kevin replied, but that’s all he said. If he got to talking about it, he might wind up telling Jimmy everything, and he still didn’t think that would be too smart.
“Hey, look at this!” Jimmy exclaimed and rushed forward. Just off the path stood an old rickety wooden shed, with its front door hanging open. “I wonder what it is.”
“Just some old tool shed probably,” Kevin wearily guessed.
“Let’s go in.”
“Naw, we probably shouldn’t. That old thing looks like it’s going to fall down any second.”
Jimmy smirked. “What are you? Chicken all of a sudden? Let’s go inside, check it out.”
Before Kevin could object further, Jimmy was entering the shed, and Kevin, having no choice, followed him. The inside of the shed smelled musty, and it was very damp. “See?” Kevin said. “Big deal. It’s just some old shed.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Jimmy concurred. “But—”
“But what?”
Jimmy’s head tilted. “What’s that sound?”
“I don’t hear any—” But before Kevin could finish the sentence, he stopped, listened. And, yes, he did hear something. Something like a tiny squeaking sound?
“Sounds like baby birds chirping,” Jimmy observed. He looked up at the ceiling of the shed. “Bet there’s a bird nest up there somewhere.”
“Naw, there wouldn’t be a bird nest here, not this late in the season,” Kevin informed him. “It’s too cold, it’s almost winter. Birds don’t nest this time of year, they fly south.”
“Oh,” Jimmy said. He scratched his head. “Then what is it?” And, next, from his jacket pocket, he withdrew a small flashlight.
“Cool,” Kevin said. “Where’d you get that?”
“This flashlight? I don’t know. But I always carry it around in case I need a light.” And as the strange chirping sound persisted, he turned on the flashlight’s bright beam, aimed it up at the shed’s ceiling, and—
“Oh, man, gross!” Kevin exclaimed.
“Let’s get out of here!” Jimmy yelled, and with that, they both pounded out of the shed. Because what they’d seen up there on the old ceiling was at least a dozen bats, hanging upside-down by their feet. And in the brief flashlight beam, Kevin had been able to notice their faces looking down at them: tiny squashed, brown faces that twitched, their little mouths stretched open, showing rows of needle-sharp teeth.
“Wow,” Jimmy said, winded, once they got back outside. “Did you see all those bats?”
“Yeah,” Kevin said. “They sure are ugly.”
“You’re not kidding. But what were they doing there, all huddled together upside-down?”
“They were sleeping,” Kevin explained. “They sleep upside-down, in dark places, hanging by their feet.”
“They sleep in the morning?” Jimmy asked, astonished.
“Yeah, that’s what bats do. They’re nocturnal. That means they sleep during the day so they can be awake all night.”
“Wow,” Jimmy muttered again, the shock now worn off. “Just like vampires.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Yeah, Kevin thought, trudging on back down the path with Jimmy. Just like vampires.
And then came another thought:
Just like Count Volkov and… Aunt Carolyn…
The bats were just another reminder of all the weird things he’d found out, and this only reminded him of the dilemma he was in. If he told anybody, no one would probably believe him, and Aunt Carolyn, along with her servants Bill and Wally, would know he was onto them.
And who knew what would happen then?
What would they do? he wondered. What would Aunt Carolyn do if she knew I’d found out that she’s a vampire?
Maybe nothing. Or maybe—
Or maybe she’d turn me into a vampire too, he considered.
“Here we are,” Jimmy announced as the path finally opened up into the flat field overlooking the ocean. “The bluffs!”
“Yeah,” Kevin said without much enthusiasm.
“We beat the rain. With any luck we should be able to fly our kites for a while before it starts again.”
“Yeah,” Kevin said.
Jimmy set his box kite down, took out his spool of string, and connected it to the corner of his kite. Kevin feebly began to do the same.
“Hey, man?” Jimmy said, looking over. “What’s eating you?”
“Huh?”
“You’ve been acting weird all morning, and you’ve barely said a thing.”
“Oh, well, I’m just tired, that’s all,” Kevin made the excuse. That was about all he could think to say. He couldn’t very well tell Jimmy the rest, now could he?
“Well, I’m ready,” Jimmy said. “Here goes!” And then Jimmy, holding his spool tightly, took off running across the bluff. Instantly, his box kite launched off the ground and, seconds later, it was climbing high into the air. “Come on, slow-poke!” Jimmy called out. “Get yours up! This is great!”
Yeah, great, Kevin thought. My aunt’s a vampire, and here I am flying kites like I don’t have a worry in the world. He took off running himself then, and in a few seconds his kite, too, was airborne. The black plastic wings of his bat kite flapped violently, but once the wind took a solid hold, Kevin was able to stop, looking up at the cloudy sky. He slowly unreeled more string from his spool, and his kite climbed higher. To his left, the fence at the edge of the bluff stretched on, and he could hear the waves crashing against the rocks down below on the beach. Higher and higher, his kite sailed, its bat-shape looking down at him with its two evil red eyes and fanged mouth.
“This is great, isn’t it!” Jimmy’s kite had climbed twice as high as Kevin’s.
I guess I’m just not into it today, Kevin realized.
In the next moment, though, his string jerked suddenly in his hand, and a big gust of wind blew into him hard from behind. At once, both kites began churning violently back and forth in the air. And above them, they could see the sky turning dark as rain clouds quickly moved in.
“The storm’s coming back!” Jimmy yelled.
“We have to reel our kites in quick or we’ll lose them!” Kevin yelled back in reply, his hair suddenly blowing every which way in the fierce wind of the oncoming storm.
His wrists moved frantically as he reeled in his bat kite which was now pitching so wide to either side he thought it might actually crash into the ground. But Jimmy struggled worse; his box kite was spinning uncontrollably. But then—
snap!
Kevin’s line broke.
“Aw, drat!” he exclaimed.
And his kite took off on its own, soaring unevenly toward the forest where it eventually disappeared into the treetops.
“I’ve got to go try to get it!” he yelled to Jimmy over the wind, and then he took off running just as giant raindrops began to splatter on his face. Thunder rumbled overhead, and lightning began to crackle. Boy, are we morons, he thought, dashing into the path. I should’ve known this would happen. At that same instant, the sky broke open, pouring hard sheets of rain. Kevin had made it into the woods just in time. He trotted down the path, in the direction of where he guessed his kite had landed. With my luck, he thought, it’ll be hung up in the trees and I’ll never get it down. He trotted on, realizing that, this deep in the woods, he’d probably never find the kite, and even if he did, he’d never be able to reach it. But just then he noticed a road through the trees, more than likely the same road he and Jimmy had seen yesterday when they’d gotten lost. So he squeezed through the trees, stepped out onto the dirt road, and—
“What luck!” he exclaimed aloud to himself.
There was his black bat kite, lying right there in the middle of the road. When he picked it up, he noticed that the wooden crossbar was broken, but that was no big deal. I can fix that easy, he thought. And the rest of the kite looked in good shape, no tears or rips in the wings, no places where the material had detached. Great, he thought.
Then he looked up, noticed something… strange.
Right next to him was a tall forked tree, a tree with two trunks sprouting from one root. The same kind of tree we saw Wally digging near yesterday, he remembered. He also noticed that the dirt right in front of the tree was churned up, as though someone had dug a hole there and then covered it up. And he noticed something else:
Kevin dropped his kite as he stared in frightened amazement.
On one of the tree’s forked trunks, there was a sloppy red symbol. At once Kevin realized, Someone painted that symbol on the tree. But… what is it?
Then it dawned on him, and a shudder coursed up his spine.
It’s a cross, he thought. A cross painted… in blood!
Kevin slowly backed away from the forked tree, his hands shaking. What had Aunt Carolyn said last night during her story? That villagers in olden times had painted crosses on their doors, in blood—
To keep vampires away! he thought in alarm.
This was too much. He turned, leaving his kite on the dirt road, and ran. He wasn’t even sure where he was running to, as the rain pelted the forest and the lightning cracked. It was fear more than anything else that urged him to run, to get away, anywhere…
Then he slowed down, noticing a sound over the rain. He stopped, peering through the trees. Just around the corner he noticed an old faded blue car. Wally’s car, Kevin realized. He’d seen it yesterday. And sure enough, here was Wally again, digging a hole in the ground with a big shovel, the rain beating down on his shoulders, and—
Another forked tree! Kevin saw.
Yes, Wally was digging a hole in front of yet another forked tree, just like he’d been doing yesterday, and just like the tree Kevin had seen a minute ago, with the cross painted on it in blood. Kevin stepped away as quietly as he could; he didn’t want Wally to see him. So he squeezed through some more trees and only moments later—
What is this!
—found himself standing in the middle of still another dirt road.
And that’s when he saw the truck. An old, dented pickup truck. And—
Bill Bitner standing next to it, holding a shovel!
Kevin stepped behind a fat oak tree, so Bill wouldn’t see him. Bowed down in the rain then, Bill—clang!—tossed the shovel into the back of his pickup truck and then seemed to be approaching a specific tree, while carrying a bucket. Kevin immediately noticed that the dirt at the foot of the tree was all churned up, too—
As though someone had dug a hole there and then filled it right back up. And when Kevin peered more closely, he noticed something else.
Another forked tree…
And, next—
Bill Bitner, frowning as always, set the bucket down, and when he did so, Kevin could easily make out its scarlet contents:
Blood, he saw. A bucket full of… blood!
It came as no surprise when Bill Bitner next withdrew an old paint brush, dipped it in the bucket, and painted a big bloody cross on one of the forked tree’s trunks…
Then he put the bucket back in the truck and wiped his red hands off on a rag, which Kevin realized was probably the same bloody rag he’d seen in the secret room last night.
Kevin trembled, not from the cold and the rain, but from total fear. He didn’t know what to do! If he ran, Bill would see him. Back out slowly, quietly, Kevin logically thought. Then get away from this place.
But when he proceeded to do so, taking his first step backward—
snap!
—his heel came down on a branch, and the branch snapped very loudly.
Kevin froze.
Bill Bitner looked up at the sudden sound, then he looked straight at Kevin, and then—
Oh, nooooo, Kevin thought.
—Bill Bitner marched straight for the tree Kevin was standing behind…
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
I’m caught now! Kevin thought. I’m dead meat!
He did the only thing he could think to do: he ducked down very quickly, hunkered over to one side behind the tree, and kept his fingers crossed. Bill Bitner’s crunching footsteps soundly wetly over the leaves in the road. Kevin didn’t dare look up; all he could do was remain squatted down as much as possible. A second later, Bill’s vague shadow fell across the area just to Kevin’s left. The shadow stood still. Then Bill said, “Daggit. I could’ve sworn I heard something back here.”
A few seconds ticked by but they seemed like minutes. Kevin was so scared, he feared his teeth might start chattering, and his heart felt like it might burst right then and there.
But then, to his relief, Bill walked back to his truck, got in it, and drove away.
Holy smokes, am I lucky! Kevin thought, releasing. He didn’t see me after all!
He waited a good five minutes before he dared leave; he wanted to make sure that Bill was far away. The lightning was still flashing, and the rain was still coming down, but not quite as hard as before. The first thing I have to do, he told himself, is go back to the bluffs and find Jimmy.
He trotted back down the path, and in only a few minutes, he was back at the bluffs. He gazed out, his eyes roving back and forth across the long grassy field before the safety fence. But—
No Jimmy! There was no sign of him anywhere!
Where could he have gone?
But there was no point in standing here worrying about it. He probably went back to the lodge, Kevin deduced. And that’s just what I’m going to do.
He jogged back to the path, then followed its way back through the woods. Thunder rumbled in the sky as he made his way; by now, he was soaked, and his sneakers squished with each step. But it didn’t take long before he was back at the lodge.
He rushed through the big front door into the foyer.
“Jimmy?” he called out. “Are you here?”
Kevin’s voice echoed back, but there was no answer.
“Becky?”
No reply.
“Aunt Carolyn?” he called out even more loudly.
