Vampire Lodge (11 page)

There were some other things in the
room, too. More cardboard boxes, a file cabinet, an antique rolltop
desk. Kevin wanted to examine all of these things but he knew there
wasn’t time now, and the candle was burning down. He turned away
from the box of stakes, was about to step out of the hidden room,
but before he could actually leave and go back upstairs,
he—

Wait a minute…

There was something else,
lying under the table that the coffee cup and newspaper were on.
Something small, shapeless, and white. But what
was
it?

Kevin got down on one knee, lowered
the candle, and stared under the table.

There, in the flickering light, he
finally realized what the thing was:

A white rag with blood all over
it…

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Terror and dread made Kevin
feel light-headed as he stumbled out of the secret room, closed the
door behind him, and raced back down the dark corridor. All at once
he felt more confused—and more
scared
—than he probably ever had in
his whole life. Nothing made sense now. According to Aunt Carolyn,
and according to everything else he understood, vampires didn’t
exist. They were just part of a myth.

But…

If vampires don’t
exist,
he thought, moving down the
hall,
then what else can explain all the
things I’ve found so far?

It was a terrifying
question.

Secret panels, secret rooms. Creepy
paintings all over the place, paintings of a vampire. Strange
people digging in the woods. Shovels and hammers and—

And a box of wooden
stakes
, he added in thought,
and a rag with blood on it…

And on top of all those
things, there was always Aunt Carolyn’s story itself, about Count
Volkov, a
vampire
story.

Could it all be just a
strange coincidence?
No,
he felt sure.
No way.
There are just too many things that all add up to vampires.
A coincidence would be impossible.

And all the things he’d discovered so
far? They all pointed to one person, didn’t they?

Aunt Carolyn,
Kevin realized.

He got to the end of the hidden
corridor, rushed out, then carefully pushed the panel closed. He
didn’t want to leave any evidence that he’d been down here. What
would he do then? What would he say? How could he possibly explain
it without being forced to reveal what he’d found?

No, he couldn’t do that—he
knew it. He couldn’t tell anybody about any of this.
At least not yet,
he
thought.
At least not till Dad gets back
from his fishing trip.

And the reason for this was
simple.

Kevin was scared.

Very
scared.

He double-checked to make sure the
secret panel was properly closed, then he headed back to the
kitchen. The candle, by now, had burned down most of the way. Kevin
blew it out and turned on the kitchen faucet. Then he ran the
candle’s wick thoroughly under the water, to be absolutely sure
that it was out. The task finished, he hid the stub of the candle
in the garbage can beneath the sink.

But for the entire time that he was
doing this, his thoughts kept running away with his fears, and then
he noticed that his hands were shaking. Yes, Kevin was scared, all
right. And he knew why.

Suddenly the pieces started to fit
together. They fit together so well, in fact, that Kevin was
surprised he hadn’t figured it out sooner.

He turned off the overhead kitchen
light, then wandered out to the hearth room. By now, the fire had
all but died; only a tiny pile of glowing embers remained, and
traces of heat. Outside, the storm still raged, the rain splashing
against the windows, and the lightning crackling. But it wasn’t the
storm that made Kevin so nervous…

He sat down in the dark, on
one of the couches surrounding the fireplace.
This whole creepy lodge is just like something out of a
vampire movie,
he realized,
and everything else fits, too.

Bill Bitner’s secret room, the wooden
stakes, and all that were bad enough. Not to mention the bloody
rag, the shovels, and the weird paintings. It was Aunt Carolyn
herself that bothered Kevin the most.

He formed a list in his mind, of all
the things that suddenly bothered him about his aunt.

She’s kind of creepy
looking to begin with,
he thought.
Her pale skin, her long black hair, and those
long black dresses she always wears. She knows all about the Count
Volkov legend, every detail, plus she bought the very same lodge
that The Count had built and used to live in, and she has all of
The Count’s paintings hanging all over the place…

But there was more, wasn’t
there?

She never eats anything.
She didn’t eat a thing at dinner, even though she set herself a
place at the table, and she didn’t eat any of the popcorn she’d
made when she was telling her story about The Count…

And if there was one thing Kevin knew
full well:

Vampires don’t
eat.

And one more thing, too, the most
important hint of all.

She never goes
outside,
he realized.
She never goes out in the daylight. In fact, I’ve
never
seen her outside,
ever in my life. She’s always inside, in the dark. Sure, this
morning she stood out on the porch when we pulled up in the station
wagon, but the porch is covered, and the sky was so cloudy, there
wasn’t much sunlight anywhere. And for most of the day she
was…

Kevin’s hands began shaking
again.

All day long, we didn’t
see her anywhere,
he recalled.
She disappeared, and that’s when vampires sleep
in their coffins—during the day, so they can be awake at
night.

Kevin’s eyes went wide with dread as
the lightning crackled in the window.

And it was then that he finally
admitted to himself what had to be true…

Aunt Carolyn,
he realized,
is… a
vampire…

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

He couldn’t believe it, but
he knew there could be no other explanation.
Aunt Carolyn is a vampire, living here in Count Volkov’s
lodge
, he thought.
Where else would a vampire live, but in another vampire’s
house?

And everything else made sense,
too.

Like Bill Bitner and Wally.
In all the vampire movies Kevin had seen, the vampires always had
helpers, people who weren’t vampires themselves, so that they could
follow the vampire’s orders during the day.
Servants,
Kevin thought.
Like those blank-faced men in the paintings.
Those men were Count Volkov’s servants.

So what did that make Bill Bitner and
Wally?

They’re… Aunt Carolyn’s
servants,
Kevin figured.
No wonder they work for her so cheap. They’re
probably under her spell. They protect her during the day when
she’s asleep in her coffin, and they do her work for her.
But—

But what work?

Digging,
he answered himself at once. He’d found the
shovels in the secret room, and not only had he seen Bill holding a
shovel in the hallway, he’d also seen Wally out in the woods today,
during the rainstorm. And what had Wally been doing?

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…