A Creepy Case of Vampires (2 page)

Scritch. Scritch, screetch. Scriiiiiiiittttchhhhh.

Giles’s eyes popped open. It was the middle of the night. A strange scratching noise was coming from outside his window. It sounded like an old, brittle twig scraping against the glass. Probably just some of those dead ivy vines his father had forgotten to cut back in the summer. But then, through the curtains, he thought he saw a strange shadow…

Giles slowly slipped out of bed and padded silently across the room. His heart pounded. He reached the window, took a deep breath, and threw back the curtains.

There was a flash of red light from upside-down eyes. A bat hung by its claws from the outer window frame.
It had thick black fur and sharply pointed ears, and Giles could see tiny, needle teeth in its open jaws.

He was frozen in terror. With a squeak, the bat quickly dropped from the window, stretched its wings, and swooped down into the fog that blanketed the road. Giles’s teeth chattered furiously. Just as he was about to close the curtains and dive back into bed, he heard footsteps on the pavement.

From out of the fog came the man they had seen on the bell tower! He walked straight past the front of Giles’s house, his black cape flowing around him, and then disappeared once more into the night.

“Mom, do we have any garlic?” Giles asked at breakfast.

“Garlic?” said his mother, looking at him strangely. “What for?”

“Oh, just vampires,” said Giles breezily.

Mr Barnes looked up from his bowl of cereal.

“Vampires?” he said.

“Garlic’s supposed to protect you from vampires.”

“Will you be running into many today?” his mother inquired.

“Well, you know all those bats we saw over at the old church? I think there might be a vampire with them.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Mrs Barnes. She was a professor of mathematics at the university, and she didn’t like anything that couldn’t be explained by long equations. It was almost impossible for her to believe in anything even slightly supernatural—even the one time her own house was filled to bursting with genuine ghost birds.

“Well, Tina agrees with you,” Giles told his mother. “But I’m not so sure. Anyway, we’re trying to help Father Peter get rid of his bats.”

“Hmm. I hope you three aren’t making a nuisance of yourselves,” his mother said, frowning. “I was on the phone to Mr Wallace for almost half an hour, trying to calm him down. I don’t want an angry call from the local priest next.”

Giles nodded and sighed. It seemed that every time something went wrong with the genius business, everyone forgot all the successes they’d had, and only remembered the bad things. It wasn’t much fun being thought of as a pest.

“You’d better give him some garlic,” Mr Barnes said to his wife, winking at Giles.

“Humph,” said Mrs Barnes, but started rooting around in one of the drawers. “I think I’ve got a few cloves around here somewhere…here.”

She put half a bulb of garlic on the kitchen table. Giles looked at it dubiously.

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it.”

“I was kind of hoping to make a big chain, like you see in the old movies. The kind you wear around your neck.”

“Well, you’ll just have to make do with that, I’m afraid.”

“What makes you think there’s a vampire on the loose?” his father asked.

Giles told him about the spooky man he and Kevin had seen on the church tower, and about his strange reappearance last night.

“And you think he’s a vampire,” said Mr Barnes.

“I’m just keeping an open mind,” said Giles.

Mr Barnes looked at the garlic on the table. “Do you think you could spare a clove or two?”

“She still won’t let me into the workshop,” Kevin told Giles when he arrived at the Quarks’ later that day. “She says she’s at a critical stage with this bat project.”

“Ah.”

“She’s usually at a critical stage,” Kevin said with a sigh, “or at least that’s what she says whenever I want to get in and help. She thinks I’m a pest, Barnes—just like Mr Wallace said.”

“Well, he called all of us pests,” Giles pointed out, “even Tina.”

This seemed to cheer Kevin up a bit. “Well, as long as we’re all pests, I guess it’s not so bad.”

“Let’s go see if she’ll let us in now,” Giles suggested.

“Okay.” Kevin frowned and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

“Garlic,” said Giles, and told Kevin about what he’d seen last night.

“This is getting pretty freaky,” said Kevin. “I think we’ve got a vampire out there, Barnes. Um, do you think you could spare some of that…”

Giles dug the garlic out of his jeans pocket and broke off a few cloves for Kevin. It didn’t leave a lot for him. He hoped it would be enough if he ever came face to face with the vampire.

“Thanks,” said Kevin, smearing some garlic across his neck and under his arms.

Downstairs in the basement, they knocked on the workshop door.

“Who’s there?” came an impatient voice.

“It’s Barnes,” said Kevin, and then after a pause, “and Kevin.”

There was a long silence. “You can come in—
if
you don’t touch anything.”

They found Tina hunched over a small piece of
machinery that looked like a cross between a calculator, a beat-up alarm clock, and an old MP3 player.

“I believe I’ve come up with the answer to Father Peter’s bat problem,” she said.

She tightened the last screw and turned around to face them, wiping a smudge of grease off her face.

“Bats use sound to find their way around. Very high-pitched sound. Our human ears can’t pick it up. But bats send out millions of little sound pulses that bounce off whatever’s in front of them.”

“Like an echo!” said Kevin excitedly.

“Yes,” said Tina, “though I prefer the more scientific term, echolocation.”

“So what’s this gizmo do?” said Giles, pointing at Tina’s latest invention.

“Barnes, I’d really prefer that you didn’t refer to my invention as a
gizmo.
” She uttered the word as if it left a particularly revolting taste in her mouth. “A
gizmo
is something a small child might make from Christmas-tree lights and Popsicle sticks. This is an invention. This is a complex piece of electronics.”

“Okay,” said Giles, rolling his eyes at Kevin. “How does it work?”

“Well, I won’t confuse you by getting too technical,” she said, “but it’s supposed to scare the bats away. Allow me to demonstrate.”

She handed a set of headphones to Kevin.

“Put these on,” she said.

“Do I have to?” said Kevin warily.

“Yes,” said Tina, “it’s a scientific experiment.”

“Why is it always me, though?” said Kevin. “Why don’t
you
put the headphones on?”

“Someone has to operate the controls,” said Tina.

Reluctantly, Kevin put the headphones over his ears while Tina plugged them into her machine. She tapped various buttons, turned a few dials, and finally flicked a red switch.

All at once, Kevin jerked back and all his curly hair shot straight up from his head. His eyes and mouth formed huge circles, and he immediately scrambled to push the headphones off his ears.

Watching all this, Tina merely nodded to herself in satisfaction.

“Excellent,” she said.

“What was
that
?” Kevin shouted. “That’s the most horrible sound I’ve ever heard!”

“Precisely,” said Tina. “Naturally, this won’t be the same sound we play to the bats. It’ll be at a much higher frequency. But the principle is identical. The noise will be so frightening to them, they’ll do anything to avoid it.”

“I don’t blame them,” said Kevin, wagging his head. “My ears are still ringing.”

“So we put this giz—I mean, this electronic machine of yours, in the church,” said Giles, “and it scares the bats away. Kind of like a scarecrow.”

“I’ve decided to call it the Bat Zapper,” said Tina proudly. “Now, let’s go show Father Peter.” She paused and sniffed the air with distaste. “Is that garlic?”

“Do we really have to go up here?” said Giles.

“Yes,” said Tina. “It’s essential that we put the Bat Zapper as close as possible to the bats.”

Giles, Tina, and Kevin, with Father Peter in tow,
slowly made their way up the narrow, spiral staircase to the bell tower. Even in mid-afternoon it was quite dark, and Giles had to guide himself by trailing a hand along the cold, damp stone. He was glad Father Peter was with them. A priest could ward off vampires, couldn’t he?

“Now, be very quiet,” whispered Tina. “We don’t want to wake up the bats.”

They reached the top of the tower and padded around the big shaft where the bells hung. There were three of them, each a different shape and size, and through the hole in the floor, Giles could see straight down into the church.

“What a stink!” gasped Kevin, plugging his nose.

“Bat droppings,” whispered Father Peter, pointing to the floor.

“At least there’s no sign of a coffin for the you-know-what,” Giles whispered to Kevin.

“Shhhh!” Tina hissed.

Pale shafts of light filtered through the slit windows. As Giles stared up into the darkness, he couldn’t see a thing at first, but then, as his eyes adjusted, he could make out hundreds of small black and brown shapes, roosting among the timbers and stone.

“There are zillions of them!” Kevin gasped.

Tina was already at work, setting down her machine and twiddling the dials and knobs.

“It’ll turn itself on in one hour,” she said to Father Peter. “And then you should be bat-free within a day.”

“I hope it works,” said the priest.

“Me too,” Giles said, staring at the mass of bats overhead. “Let’s get out of here.”

“It’s a disaster!” Father Peter cried when they came back the next day. He’d met them in front of the church doors. “There are more bats than ever!”

“Impossible,” said Tina with a frown. “The Bat Zap-per is supposed to scare them off.”

“Well, it’s not working,” said Father Peter. “It’s
attracting
them!”

“I’d better take a look,” said Tina.

Kevin and Giles followed her to the doors. They carefully pushed them open and poked their heads inside the church. Giles couldn’t believe what he saw. It sent an icy tingle through his whole body. The entire church was teeming with bats—they swarmed excitedly like a thick cloud of giant bees. You could barely see to the altar, the
bats were so thick. The air throbbed with their chorus of high-pitched squeaks and squeals.

They stepped back outside and quickly slammed the door shut.

“I don’t understand,” said Tina. “All my calculations…those bats should not be here!”

“Well, they are!” shouted Father Peter. “And how am I supposed to conduct mass now? My own fault for hiring three children, I suppose.”

“At least he still doesn’t know about the dishwasher disaster,” Kevin whispered to Giles.

“I
do
know about the dishwasher disaster!” Father Peter roared. “Mr Wallace told me all about it today! You’ve made a complete mess of things! You’re fired!”

“Maybe I can be of some help,” came a strange, squeaky voice behind them.

Giles turned and gasped. Standing among the tombstones in the misty graveyard was the mysterious man in the black cape.

“It’s…it’s…” stammered Kevin.

“I know,” said Giles. “It’s the vamp—”

“I’m Morley Fleder,” said the man, walking toward
them with a jerky, light-footed gait. “I’m a bat expert from the university. I’ve been studying these bats of yours.”

“You’re
studying
them?” said Giles in relief.

“We saw you that night on the tower!” said Kevin.

“Yes, I remember seeing you, too. I hope you don’t mind,” he said to Father Peter. “When I spotted the bats, I simply had to take a closer look, so I went up the tower by myself.”

“We thought you were a vampire!” said Kevin.

Tina rolled her eyes wearily, but Professor Fleder laughed—a high, squeaky laugh.

“A vampire, oh, that’s funny,” he said. “Oh, I’ll have to tell my friends. They’ll think that’s wonderful!”

He was very tall and pointy, with thick curly black hair, big ears, and a bristly beard and moustache that spread out over most of his pale face. Giles could understand how, from a distance, he’d thought the man was wearing a black mask. There wasn’t much of his skin showing. Even his eyes looked black, but that was probably just the fading light. And Giles could see that he wasn’t really wearing a cape, just a long, flappy, black raincoat.

“Well, since you’re an expert,” said Father Peter,
“maybe you could tell me why all these bats came here in the first place.”

“Simple,” said Professor Fleder. “They need a new home. These bats used to live in a very nice, cozy cave down the river, but it just got bulldozed for a new office building. So now they’re looking for a new place to roost.”

Giles gasped in surprise. A small brown bat was crawling up the professor’s arm onto his shoulder. “You’ve got one on you!” Giles said, pointing.

“Oh, him,” said Professor Fleder, picking up the bat. “That’s one of my bats from the lab. I take him out every once in a while for some fresh air. He’s quite friendly. He likes being stroked, very gently, just like a mouse. See? But you mustn’t ever handle a wild bat. It might bite.”

Giles cautiously took a step closer and looked at the bat in Professor Fleder’s hand. He had to admit that it did look a little like a mouse if you could picture it without wings. He was surprised at how small it was, really, once it was all folded up. They looked much bigger when they were flying—scarier, too. Tina was right all along. They were just animals, and here he’d been, worrying about vampires! He felt a little ashamed of himself.

From his pocket, Professor Fleder took a little cloth bag, no bigger than a handkerchief, and slid the bat inside. Then he popped the bag back into the pocket of his pants.

“He’s happy in there?” Giles asked.

“Very happy, yes. Very cozy. They like small spaces.”

“Look, my church is not a zoo!” said Father Peter. “And as far as I’m concerned, these bats are pests! Am I going to have to spray?”

“Oh no!” said the professor in alarm. “That’s a terrible thing to do to bats. You’ll kill them.”

“I’m certain my Bat Zapper only needs a few minor adjustments,” said Tina firmly.

“Ha!” said the priest.

“Please, give us just a few more days,” Giles said to Father Peter. “I’m sure we can figure something out by then.”

“All right, all right,” grumbled Father Peter. “I’ll give you geniuses one more chance.”