Vampire Lodge (8 page)

“
Yeah, I guess you’re
right.”

More bright floodlights lit the side
of the lodge as they walked around. When they looked up they could
see smoke pouring slowly out of the tall brick chimney. They
continued to walk around, their hands jammed down in their coat
pockets. Kevin expected the back of the lodge to be lit up by
floodlights too but he found he was wrong the minute they turned
the corner.

The back was pitch-dark.

Wind rustled the leaves in the trees.
They glanced up at the back of the building, noticing only a few
windows lit up.

“
Look,” Kevin said. He
pointed up the great dark face of the back of the lodge, to the far
corner of the second floor. There, they could see the lit french
doors and balcony. “There’s our room.”

Jimmy peered up, squinting. “Oh, yeah,
you’re right. I guess they only have the balconies on the
corners.”

Just then, though, both Kevin and
Jimmy flinched. Several small, barely seen shapes seemed to flutter
past their faces.

“
What was—”

`”—
that?
” Kevin finished.

A chittery sound could be heard very
faintly above them, like a rapid squeaking noise. Then the shapes
fluttered past a second time.

“
Are those… birds?” Jimmy
asked.

“
No,” Kevin finally
realized. “They’re
bats!
”

“
Run!” Jimmy
shouted.

And they ran, all right. They ran as
fast as they could back toward the side of the lodge where the
bright floodlights glowed. But before they could make it completely
out of the darkness, and with the circles of bats still squeaking
above their heads—

A tall, dark figure quickly stepped
out in front of them, blocking their way…

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Kevin thought his heart would stop
when he looked up fearfully at the figure. And beside him, Jimmy’s
teeth were chattering.

Then, the figure stepped
forward.

“
What’s with you guys
anyway? I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Kevin and Jimmy both sighed in relief
when they recognized Wally’s voice.

“
We were just walking
around,” Kevin said.

“
Walking around where?”
Wally questioned.

“
Just around
back—”

“
And we saw bats!” Jimmy
added.

Wally frowned, his long hair blowing
in the wind. “Bats can’t hurt you, but you kids shouldn’t be
wandering around out here in the dark. Besides, it looks like it’s
going to start raining again any minute. We get a lot of storms
around here this time of year.” Wally paused to brush some of his
hair out of his eyes. “Anyway, your aunt sent me out to look for
you, says she wants you to come inside now.”

“
Okay,” Kevin
said.

They followed Wally back
into the lodge through the big front door, back into the warmth of
the foyer. Kevin hoped Wally didn’t notice that they were
scared.
He’d tell Becky and she’d laugh
her head off!
he felt certain. But he had
to admit, it was kind of scary back there behind the dark building,
with the bats squeaking above their heads.

Kevin took off his jacket and was
about to hang it up in the foyer closet when he took notice of the
painting hanging there, the first one he’d seen this
morning.

The Count Arrives with his
Servants and Treasure,
he reread the title
along the bottom. For some reason the painting looked even spookier
now. The coffin and box of gold in the rowboat, and the
glassy-eyed, blank-faced men working the oars and guiding the boat
through foamy waves. Then Kevin saw something he hadn’t noticed
when he’d first seen the painting. Way in the background was the
same sailing ship, on fire.

The Scrimm,
Kevin remembered from the other paintings.
That’s the name of the ship that The Count came
in on. The Scrimm…

“
In here, kids,” Aunt
Carolyn called out from the hearth room. “The popcorn’s almost
ready.”

“
Popcorn!” Jimmy exclaimed.
“That sounds good to me.”

It sounded good to Kevin
too, but he wondered what the occasion could be.
Ah, I know,
he realized
then.
Aunt Carolyn’s going to tell us
about the local vampire legend!

This was just what Kevin
had been waiting for. They went into the hearth room and sat down
on the big, plush couches surrounding the fireplace. “Be careful,”
Aunt Carolyn warned, placing several large bowls of popcorn in
front of them. “It’s
very
hot.”

“
This is great,” Jimmy
said.

Yeah,
Kevin thought,
but let’s get on with
the story.

“
Where’s Wally?” Becky
complained from the opposite couch. Naturally she chose to sit as
far away from the boys as she could. “Isn’t he staying?”

“
No, I’m afraid not, dear,”
Aunt Carolyn informed her. “Wally’s still got a lot of work to do
now.”

Kevin raised a brow.
A lot of work? This late?
It sounded funny. He saw on the mantle clock that it was
almost ten p.m. now.
What kind of work
would Wally have to do this late at night?
he wondered suspiciously.

Aunt Carolyn sat down in the big
leather armchair to the side of the fireplace. The light behind her
left her almost completely in shadow; Kevin could barely see her,
just vague features.

The mantle-clock ticked steadily, and
the rain started again, pelting the windows. The fire crackled, its
moving lances of flame shifting like bright-yellow tails, turning
the entire hearth room into a dark, creepy chamber of jumping
shadows.

Jimmy and Becky munched
popcorn as they waited, but Kevin completely forgot about it, and
about everything else that had happened today—he was too excited
about hearing the legend.
I wonder if the
legend has anything to do with all those weird paintings I
found,
he asked himself.
The Count, The Scrimm, those blank-faced
men…

“
All right,” Aunt Carolyn
announced from her shadowed chair. “I guess it’s time
now—”

And at that very instant, the three
kids jumped in their seats, as a loud belt of lightning cracked in
the sky.

“
It’s time,” Aunt Carolyn
went on, “for me to tell you about The Count…”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“
You mean Count Dracula?”
Kevin immediately asked, his excitement causing him to lean forward
in his seat. “The most powerful of all the vampires?”

Becky winced. “Shut up and let her
tell the story, Kevin. Aunt Carolyn hasn’t even started yet, and
you’re already interrupting her and asking dumb
questions.”

“
Let’s try to get along
now, kids,” Aunt Carolyn said. “And to answer your question, Kevin,
no, the local vampire legend isn’t about Count Dracula. It’s about
another vampire, who came from the same part of the
world—”

“
Transylvania?” Kevin
asked.

“
That’s right,
Transylvania, in what is now Romania, in Europe. And this vampire’s
name was Count Volkov…”

Count Volkov,
Kevin thought, testing the sound of the name in
his mind. It sounded creepy enough, a perfect name for a vampire,
in fact. “Was Count Volkov immortal too, like Count Dracula?” he
asked next.

“
Of course,” Aunt Carolyn
explained. “All vampires are immortal.”

“
What’s immortal mean?”
Jimmy asked, crunching handfuls of popcorn into his
mouth.

“
It’s someone who never
dies,” Becky hissed. “Don’t you know anything, or do you just have
rocks in your head?”

“
But vampires aren’t just
immortal,” Aunt Carolyn continued with her tale. “They’re also…
evil.”

More lightning cracked from outside,
the tall narrow windows across the room lit up with white light for
a moment, then went dark again, and the rain seemed to be falling
harder now.

“
Vampires, according to the
legends,” Aunt Carolyn began, “only come out at night, because they
can’t stand to be in sunlight. They sleep during the day, in their
coffins.”

“
Wow,” Jimmy mumbled, his
cheeks stuffed with popcorn.

“
Don’t talk with your mouth
full,” Becky griped. “It’s so impolite.”

Aunt Carolyn rolled her eyes,
smiling.

Kevin jumped in, “And vampires can’t
be in water, either, right?”

Aunt Carolyn nodded.
“That’s right. They can’t cross running water, for the same reason
they can’t be in sunlight. Because running water and sunlight are
pure things of the earth, and vampires are just the opposite.
They’re
im
pure.
They’re cursed to live forever in evil, and do evil things. And
sometimes, as I’m sure you’ve heard, they can change themselves
into bats and fly around wherever they like at night.”

Jimmy gulped and looked over at
Kevin.

Bats,
Kevin thought with a slow dread spreading.
We just saw several bats right outside…

Then he asked, “Isn’t it true that,
even though vampires are immortal, there are ways to stop them? In
the movies, the good guys always hammer a wooden stake into the
vampire’s heart, and that kills them.”

Again, Aunt Carolyn nodded. “That’s
quite right. A wooden stake driven through the heart will do it.
And the only other way to kill a vampire is to keep him out in
bright sunlight for a while or in running water. Plus, a vampire
can’t look at the sign of the cross, so that’s how people would
protect themselves. Vampires are, like, allergic, to crosses. In
fact, in Romania and other countries in Eastern Europe, townspeople
would often paint crosses on their doors to keep vampires away. And
they’d paint the crosses… in blood.”

In blood!
Kevin thought.
Gross!

The fire continued to pop and crackle,
and thunder rumbled from outside—Kevin could actually feel the
floor shudder. He leaned further over in his seat on the couch and
said, “Tell us about Count Volkov.”

Aunt Carolyn’s long black dress and
black hair almost made her look like part of the shadows around her
armchair. At times, all Kevin could really see was her thin, pale
face smiling in the firelight. She waited a moment for the thunder
to pass, then went on, “Count Volkov was a vampire, just like
Dracula. He was born in the 1600’s as a prince. No one knows how he
became a vampire, he may even have been born that way. He lived for
hundreds of years in a big castle, ruling over his kingdom. But one
day—”

“
What?” Kevin asked, his
eyes wide in fascination. “What happened?”

“
Let her tell the story,
stupe!” Becky complained again.

“
It was hundreds of years
later, in the late 1800’s. By then the people in The Count’s kingom
realized that he was a vampire. So they all banded together and
revolted against him. Unfortunately, many of them died in the
fight, but eventually they were able to drive The Count out of his
kingdom. And can you guess what happened then?”

“
He changed into a bat and
flew away?” Jimmy suggested.

“
No, but you’re close,”
Aunt Carolyn informed him. “The Count still had many servants under
his vampire’s spell, and he was also very rich. He collected all
the gold in the kingdom and had it melted down into gold bricks,
then he had his servants build him a big sailing ship—”

“
The Scrimm,” Kevin said,
more under his breath than to anyone, remembering the bizarre
paintings he’d seen in the foyer and the back hallway. “The name of
his ship was The Scrimm.”

Aunt Carolyn looked amazed. “Why,
that’s quite correct

Kevin. How… how did you know
that?”

Kevin then explained about the
paintings he’d seen in the lodge, the blank-faced servants, the
crate full of gold bricks, and, of course, the coffin.

Aunt Carolyn continued, impressed by
Kevin’s sense of observation. “And anyway, Count Volkov, now
banished from his kingdom, loaded up his gold and his servants onto
The Scrimm, and then he set sail… for America.”

“
And when he got to
America,” Kevin concluded, “his servants brought him ashore in his
coffin, along with his gold. And they burned the
Scrimm…”

“
Exactly,” Aunt Carolyn
verified. “The Count ordered that The Scrimm be burned in the water
so that none of his servants could sail back to Europe and tell
anyone where The Count was. He didn’t want any of his enemies
coming after him to try to kill him.”

Kevin was astonished. He’d been right!
The paintings he’d seen were depictions of the very story Aunt
Carolyn was telling right now, the local legend. But when Kevin
fully realized that, another question came immediately to
mind.