Vampire Lodge

Vampire
Lodge

by Edward
Lee

Smashwords
Edition

Little Devil
Books

A Division of Necro
Publications

2011

This book is for readers ages 8-12.

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| — | —

VAMPIRE LODGE

VAMPIRE LODGE
© 2011 by Edward Lee

Cover art © 2011 by Travis
Anthony Soumis

This digital edition
January 2011 © Little Devil Books

ISBN:
978-1-4524-0434-9

Cover, Book Design &
Typesetting:

David G. Barnett

Fat Cat Graphic
Design

www.fatcatgraphicdesign.com

a Necro
Publication

5139 Maxon Terrace •
Sanford, FL 32771

www.necropublications.com

This ebook is licensed for your
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to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for
respecting the hard work of this author.

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| — | —

CHAPTER ONE

The hammer rose and
fell—

—
clink-clink-clink!—

—
until the old, rusted
lock broke in half, and its pieces clattered loudly to the stone
floor.

The heavy, wooden vault
door creaked open…

Dim firelight flickered
inside, from torches attached to the walls by crusty iron brackets.
A long stone hallway led deep into darkness…

The torches crackled. The
men followed the flickering yellow light as the damp hallway
twisted and turned. From up ahead, a squeaking noise seemed to
flutter, and then they could see the massive stone archway standing
before them.

The men paused a moment.
Fear glittered in their eyes.

Then they stepped into the
vault.

Large stone blocks formed
the vault’s four walls. More torches sputtered and crackled. The
squeaking sound grew louder now, and faster, and set high in the
walls were tiny holes for windows.

The dark ceiling seemed to
move, and then the men understood why, and they knew now what that
awful squeaking sound was. Hanging on the ceiling were hundreds of
bats…

Then the men noticed
something else—

In the high, tiny windows,
the sun was going down…

“
Hurry!” one of them said
as the others opened dusty leather bags. From the bags they quickly
withdrew hammers and wooden stakes. But—

“
Heaven help us,” one of
the men gasped.

Sitting in the middle of
the vault was an old wood-plank coffin.

And as the men stood
trembling with fear, the coffin’s lid began to creak
open…

“
We’re too late!” the
first man exclaimed.

And then, from the coffin,
the vampire began to rise.

Its eyes were black as
chunks of coal, but its face was deathly white. His head was
completely bald, and he had fingernails an inch long at least. The
pale lips pulled back into a twisted snarl, showing two long white
fangs.

“
Yes,” the vampire
croaked. “You’re all too late…”

The television clicked off. Their
father’s shadow loomed. “Okay, kids, that’s it. Time for
bed.”

“
Aw, come on, Dad,” Kevin
griped. “It was just getting good. The vampire was just getting out
of his coffin.”

“
The vampire, huh?” Mr.
Bennell smirked. “Well, it’s late, and you kids shouldn’t be
watching junk like that anyway.”

“
But, Dad, can’t we just
watch a few more minutes?” Kevin asked from the floor of the family
room. “It’s a pretty cool movie.”

“
No it’s not, Dad,” Becky,
Kevin’s fifteen-year-old sister, butted in. “It’s stupid. Some
creepy bald guy with fangs gets out of a coffin, and Kevin thinks
it’s cool.”

She never fails,
Kevin thought.
My good
old turncoat sister does it again.
“It’s
not just some creepy bald guy with fangs, Becky,” he corrected her.
“It’s Count Dracula, the Prince of the Undead, the King of the
Vampires.”

“
Yeah, then how come he
wasn’t bald in the stupid vampire movie you watched
last
night? He didn’t
even have the same kind of coffin,” Becky told him.

“
Well, so what?” Kevin
objected. “They get different actors to play the
vampires.”

“
To play the
stupid
vampires, you
mean.”

“
Vampires aren’t
stupid!
” Kevin
objected.

“
All right, that’s enough,”
their father cut in, still frowning. “You two get to bed. I
would’ve thought that you’d both be sleepy already after that huge
Thanksgiving meal we just had. And, anyway, we’ve got a big day
tomorrow, and we’ve got to get an early start. And Kevin? I don’t
want to hear anymore of this foolishness about vampires. If you
watch enough of that junk on TV, it’ll turn your brain to
muck.”

“
Kevin’s brain
already
is
muck,”
Becky laughed.

“
Hey, what did I just say?
It’s bed time.”

Kevin and Becky went off to
their rooms, Kevin grumbling under his breath.
It figures,
he thought.
Becky always gets the last word because she’s
older.
Of course, Kevin knew that vampires
didn’t really exist, but that didn’t mean they weren’t cool to
watch on television.

“
Lock your door, Kevvie,”
Becky chided. “Don’t let the vampires get you.”

Kevin ignored her.
That’s what older sisters are for,
he decided.
They’re for
ignoring. And, boy, do I hate it when she calls me
Kevvie…

He closed his bedroom door behind him,
got ready for bed, and turned off the light. Darkness seemed to
leap into the room; for a second, Kevin felt a little uneasy. The
images of the vampire movie returned to his mind: the dark vault,
the torch-lit hallway, the coffin…

Vampire,
Kevin thought, wide-eyed beneath the bed covers.
He could still see the long white face, the bald head and black
cape, and—

The fangs,
he thought.

But he shrugged it off. He
was being silly.
It was just a
movie,
he reminded himself, and besides,
he’d seen lots of vampire movies in the past. Only babies were
afraid of things like vampires, and Kevin Bennell was no baby. He
was thirteen years old now, a full-fledged teenager, and he was
already well into his first year of junior high school.
Teenagers aren’t afraid of things that don’t
exist,
he told himself, and that was one
thing he was sure of: Vampires didn’t really exist.

He turned his mind to other
things, like the trip tomorrow. To their Aunt Carolyn’s. It was a
trip they made every year the weekend after Thanksgiving, and Kevin
always looked forward to it. Aunt Carolyn owned a campsite and old
fishing lodge up north on the coast. The lodge was a little
run-down, but it was always great fun to go there; they’d go
fishing, camping, kite flying near the bluff where they could hear
the waves crash. Becky, naturally, didn’t like to go—she thought it
was stupid.
All she cares about these days
are boys and nail polish,
Kevin
thought.

This year would be a little different.
Kevin’s mother wasn’t going; she sold houses for a real estate
company in town, so she had to go to Chicago for some kind of
convention with her friend Mrs. Grimaldi, who also worked for the
real estate company. But Mr. Grimaldi, and their son, Jimmy, would
be going up to Aunt Carolyn’s with them, and that would be cool
because Kevin and Jimmy were best friends, and they had four days
in a row off from school because of Thanksgiving break. Last week,
Kevin and Jimmy had bought their new kite kits to take up, and they
couldn’t wait to assemble them and get them out onto the high,
windy bluffs next to his aunt’s lodge.

So I better get some
sleep,
Kevin thought now, and he’d probably
fall asleep easily because he was still stuffed from the
Thanksgiving dinner they’d had a few hours ago. It was a pretty
long drive up to Aunt Carolyn’s lodge, and they’d have to leave
real early.

Yeah, get some
sleep,
he told himself…

But every time he closed his eyes,
they’d snap right back open for some reason. On one of his shelves,
his monster models all stood in a line: Frankenstein’s Monster, the
Mummy, Wolfman, and, of course, Dracula, the caped and sinister
vampire…

Then Kevin found himself glancing
uneasily at his bedroom window.

It was late now, and very dark
outside.

And vampires only come out
when it’s dark,
he remembered just as he
finally drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER TWO

“
You guys got everything
loaded up and ready?” Mr. Grimaldi asked.

“
Yep,” Kevin
said.

“
Sure do,” Jimmy said.
“Everything except our kites.”

Kevin’s father closed up the tailgate
on the station wagon, then looked curiously at the two boys. “You
guys aren’t taking your kites?”

“
We’re taking them, Dad,”
Kevin said, “but we’d rather carry the kits with us than put them
in the back with all the other stuff. The wooden rods could break
back there with the luggage.”

Kevin and Jimmy had bought
the kite kits with their allowances last week, but they realized
the smartest thing to do would be to wait till they got to the
lodge before they put them together. The back of the station wagon
was loaded up with their suitcases—Becky’s suitcases were round and
pink!
Girl Luggage,
Kevin thought of it as—plus a lot of fishing rods and tackle
boxes that Kevin’s father and Mr. Grimaldi would be
using.

“
What are you wearing a
dress for?” Kevin asked of his sister when she came out of the
house. “We’re going to a camping lodge, not the junior
prom!”

Becky’s blonde hair shined in the
early morning sun; she was wearing a pink and white frilly dress,
and, as usual, she smirked at Kevin’s comment. “Just because you
want to dress like a bum doesn’t mean I have to,” she said of Kevin
and Jimmy’s blue jeans, camping boots, and flannel shirts.
“Besides, I might meet some boys, and I want to look my
best.”

Boys, as in boys her own
age.
That’s all she ever thinks about
these days are boys,
Kevin thought. Kevin
knew she couldn’t wait to get into high school and start dating.
But he doubted that there would be any boys for her to meet up at
Aunt Carolyn’s. The lodge and campsites were way out in the woods,
and there wasn’t a town around for miles.

Both Kevin and Jimmy’s father were
dressed in boots, jeans, khaki fishing vests, and these kind of
dumb looking hats with fishing lures on them. Mr. Grimaldi glanced
at his watch. “I guess we better get going. The sooner we get on
the road, the sooner we’ll get there.”

“
Everybody ready?” Kevin’s
father asked.

The kids all agreed, then piled into
the backseat of the station wagon, while the fathers got up in
front. Both Kevin and Jimmy’s mothers had already left for their
real estate convention in Chicago—their fathers had taken them to
the airport earlier.

The car doors chunked closed, and
Kevin’s father backed out of the driveway.