Vampire Lodge (13 page)

Shovels,
he thought, peering down.
They’re carrying shovels.
And every
few steps, the big blades of their shovels
clinked
together as they walked on
towards the forest.

And Kevin was able to recognize
something else too, as the trickle of rain continued to fall. In
their bobbing lantern lights, he could make out their faces beyond
a doubt—

It’s Bill Bitner!
he recognized.
And
Wally!

And just one second later, both
figures turned into one of the paths which led into the woods, and
disappeared.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The next morning, Kevin awoke to see
Jimmy, already fully dressed, looking out the french doors. “Wake
up, Kevin,” he said. “The rain stopped. We can go out to the bluff
and fly our kites.”

Kevin groaned groggily. He hadn’t
slept well at all, which was no wonder. It had been well past three
a.m. before he’d fallen asleep, and all through the night he kept
waking up from nightmares of Count Volkov: the long thin face, pale
as milk, emerging from the dark. The bald head, the black
hole-punch eyes, and the sharp-pointed fangs showing through The
Count’s twisted vampire grin…

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—