Vampire Lodge (17 page)

But Kevin’s warnings went
ignored, and already—
ping! ping!
ping!
—Wally was striking the lock on the
coffin’s chains with a hammer from his toolbelt.

“
No!” Kevin
shouted.

ping!

“
No!”

ping!

“
You can’t!”

ping—CRACK!

And that’s when the old, rusted lock
broke in half.

The chains slid off the top of the
coffin and clanked to the floor. Then Wally put his hand on the lid
and began to raise it.

Kevin shrieked till he was
bug-eyed. “Don’t open it! You’ll let Count Volkov out, and
he’ll
kill
us!”

Very, very slowly, then, the coffin
lid raised, its decades-old hinges creaking like nails across
slate.

Higher and higher, Wally lifted the
lid.

Higher…

Higher—

“
Don’t do
it!
” Kevin screamed a final
time.

But Aunt Carolyn leaned over, smiling
at him. “Kevin, don’t be silly. There are no such things as
vampires. Don’t you see? It was all a trick.”

“
What are you talking
about?” Kevin wailed.

Aunt Carolyn went on, “Count Volkov
isn’t in that coffin.”

“
Then what is!”

“
It has to be the—” she
started but didn’t finish.

“
You got to be kidding me!”
Wally exclaimed when he’d fully the coffin lid. His long hair hung
in front of his face as he stared into the opened
coffin.

Then Aunt Carolyn finished, “It has to
be the treasure, The Count’s gold bricks…”

Kevin, terrified, expected to see a
white, long-nailed hand snap out of the coffin and grab Wally’s
throat. But that didn’t happen at all. Wally remained standing
there, staring down. Then Aunt Carolyn walked up to the coffin too,
and so did Jimmy.

“
Wow!” Jimmy said. “Look at
that!”

Only then did Kevin step toward the
coffin himself. He looked down inside of it, and his jaw
dropped.

She was right,
he thought.

It wasn’t Count Volkov who lay in the
coffin…

The coffin, instead, was full of solid
gold bricks.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

“
Kevin,” Aunt Carolyn began
to explain. “Yes, there really was a Count Volkov, and he came to
America a hundred years ago just like I said in the story. But he
wasn’t really a vampire. He was a rich eccentric.”

“
What’s eccentric?” Kevin
asked.

“
It means he was an
oddball,” Wally answered.

Then Aunt Carolyn
continued, “That’s why he had this lodge built, and that’s why he
painted all those sinister vampire paintings. And as far as the
story goes—well, he invented it himself. He wanted people to
think
he was a
vampire.”

“
Why?” Kevin asked,
thoroughly confused.

“
So people would stay away
and not bother him,” Aunt Carolyn replied. “The whole vampire story
was a decoy. The Count was afraid people would try to steal his
gold, so he made up the story about him being a vampire
so—”

“
So people wouldn’t come
anywhere near the place,” Kevin finished.

“
Exactly,” Aunt Carolyn
said. “But when he was old and knew that he was dying, being a man
of intrigue, he had to leave
some
clue, so that’s why he wrote the passages in the
diary about the forked tree. Count Volkov has been dead for
decades.”

Only now did Kevin finally
understand. The Count wasn’t really a vampire.
He was just a rich weirdo
, he
realized now.
He painted the pictures
himself, so people would think he was an evil vampire and stay
away.

But—

“
Look at all this gold!”
Kevin exclaimed, looking again into the coffin. It looked like
there were at least a dozen gold bricks sitting in there, sparkling
in the light.
It must be worth a
fortune!

“
There’s a lot of money in
there,” Aunt Carolyn said. “It’s been a local legend for a hundred
years, but
you
found it—”

“
That’s right,” a craggy
voice interrupted. “This kid found it, but
I’m
going to take it.”

Everyone in the room turned then, to
the figure that was now standing in the doorway.

It was Bill Bitner, holding a shovel
up like a weapon.

“
I’ve been searching for
that gold for months,” he said, his face lined with hatred and
greed. “This punk kid may have found it, but I’m taking it. It’s
mine.”

“
It’s not yours!” Wally
shouted. “It’s Carolyn’s! It’s on her property, so it belongs to
her! You have no legal right to it, and you can’t take
it!”

“
Yeah, I can, Wally,” Bill
Bitner said with his greedy grin. He looked like a maniac standing
there, his clothes drenched from the rain earlier, and a crazy
gleam in his eyes. Then he raised the shovel up over his head. “I’m
taking it, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me!”

“
You’re not taking
anything, old man,” another voice suddenly sounded from
behind.

Another figure stepped into the room
and immediately snatched the shovel out of Bill Bitner’s
hands.

“
Dad!” Kevin
exclaimed.

Yes, it was Kevin’s father who walked
into the room just then, his clothes, too, as well as his fishing
hat, damp from the previous rain, and his cheeks pink from being in
the cold weather for the last day. “I overheard everything,” he
said. Then he turned to Bill. “And you’ve been working here under
false pretenses the whole time, so why don’t you just get out of
here unless you want some real trouble.”

Bill Bitner glared back at them, then
grumbled under his breath and ran out of the room.

“
Is everybody all right?”
Kevin’s father asked, setting the shovel down.

Everyone nodded, relieved to see
him.

“
You came just in the nick
of time, Dad!” Kevin exclaimed. “Bill was going to hit Wally with
the shovel and steal the gold.

“
Thanks, Mr. Bennell,”
Wally said.

“
No problem,” Kevin’s dad
said, “And I don’t think we’ll have to worry about Bill Bitner
anymore.”

But then Jimmy stepped up. “Where’s my
dad, Mr. Bennell?”

“
After we overheard what
was going on in here, he went back downstairs to call the police,
Jimmy. We tried calling earlier from a ranger’s station but the
phone lines got knocked out from the storm, so we rushed back to
make sure everyone was okay. But the phone lines have been fixed
now.”

Kevin looked out the window, and saw
Bill Bitner running across the front yard. “Shouldn’t we chase him,
Dad?”

“
No, that’s not necessary,”
his father said. “It won’t take the police long to find him and
pick him up.” Then he walked up to the coffin, looked in it, and
smiled.

“
Wow,” he said. “Look at
all that gold!”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Later, they all sat around the big,
roaring fire in the fireplace. Everyone was there: the two fathers,
Wally, Becky, Kevin, Jimmy, and, of course, Aunt Carolyn. Kevin’s
dad was explaining why they turned back in the first place. “The
weather was so bad, it rained almost the entire time we were out.
We didn’t catch a single fish!”

“
And it was just too cold,”
Mr. Grimaldi added, “so this morning we packed up our gear and
headed back, and that’s when we came across the ranger’s station,
and he let us use his phone.”

Kevin’s father chuckled, grabbing a
handful of hot popcorn. “Yeah, I guess we’re not exactly the
greatest campers and fishermen in the world.”

“
But it’s a good thing you
came back when you did,” Jimmy said.

“
Yeah,” Kevin added. “You
really saved the day!”

“
Don’t be modest, Kevin,”
Aunt Carolyn said. “
You’re
the one who figured out the mystery, put all the
pieces together, and found the hidden gold. That was clever of old
Count Volkov. Stashing the gold in a coffin, and hiding it behind
that painting of the forked tree.”

“
And that’s really
something, isn’t it?” Kevin’s father observed next. “The old local
legend, in a way, turned out to be true. Count Volkov had the
townspeople believing that he really was a vampire, so naturally
they wouldn’t dream of coming near the lodge to try and steal his
gold.”

“
And since Bill Bitner grew
up in this area,” Aunt Carolyn said, “he was obviously familiar
with the legend too, so that’s why he offered to work for me. And
no wonder this place got to looking so rundown. Bill was out in the
woods every day looking for the treasure when he was supposed to be
fixing up the lodge!”

“
And he had me digging out
there too,” Wally said, “lying to me about some broken water pipe.
I knew there was something funny about that guy.”

“
Well, now that Mr.
Bitner’s gone,” Aunt Carolyn said, “I hope that you’ll stay and
continue to work for me as my maintenance man.”

“
Sure,” Wally said. “I’d be
happy to.”

Becky, of course, wasn’t saying much
of anything. She was sitting right next to Wally, all gussied up in
one of her best dresses, and she looked like she was in
dreamland.

“
All right everyone,” Aunt
Carolyn announced and stood up. “Come over here. I have something
to show you.”

They all got up and
followed Aunt Carolyn to the dining room.
What’s this?
Kevin thought when he
looked. A sheet lay across the big, hardwood dining room table, and
he could see lumps underneath the sheets.

Then Aunt Carolyn pulled the sheet
off, to reveal six shining gold bricks sitting on the table.
“Kevin, Jimmy, Becky, Wally,” Aunt Carolyn said next. “Here’s my
gift. One gold brick for each of you.”

“
Wow! Thanks!” the four of
them said nearly at the same time.

“
Really, Carolyn,” Kevin’s
father said. “That’s not necessary.”

“
Right,” Jimmy’s father
agreed. “It’s your gold, free and legal. You’ll need it to get the
lodge repaired properly and to fix up the grounds.”

But Aunt Carolyn wouldn’t hear of it.
“No, no, I insist,” she said. “I want each of the kids to have one.
You can exchange the bricks for money at any bank, then you can
deposit the money in a savings account for them. Each brick will
easily pay for their college educations and leave them each with a
nice little nest-egg for the future. Plus, a brick for your
fathers. I’ll still have more than enough left to pay the repairs
and refurbishment of the lodge and the camp grounds.”

Carolyn,” Kevin’s father repeated.
“You really shouldn’t.”

“
I told you, I
insist!”

And that was that.

The mystery was solved now, and it was
Kevin who had solved it.

“
But one thing, Kevin,”
Aunt Carolyn added, smiling. “I hope by now you understand that
there really are no such things as vampires.”

“
You bet!” Kevin exclaimed
as everyone around him laughed. Then he looked at the gold on the
table again, and all at once it felt like the wind had been knocked
out of him when he realized:

We’re all rich!

CHAPTER EPILOGUE

They drove back home the next morning.
It was a crisp, clear autumn day without a raincloud in the sky.
“It figures,” Kevin’s father said when they pulled up in the
driveway to their house. “The day we leave is the day the weather
turns perfect for fishing.”

“
And kite flying,” Kevin
added.

Oh, well. But going to Aunt
Carolyn’s had turned out to be fun in spite of the lousy weather.
Fun—and exciting, if not a little
too
exciting at times!

Becky pouted as they got out and began
to remove their luggage. “Wally was just so cool,” she lamented. “I
guess I won’t see him again till next year.”

“
Boo-hoo,” Kevin mocked,
hoisting his suitcase.

“
Shut up, you stupe!” Becky
yelled.

“
Becky,” Kevin’s father
ordered, “don’t call your brother a stupe.”

Kevin silently stuck his tongue out at
her.

Later, Jimmy came back over, and he
and Kevin took the opportunity to finally fly their kites in
Kevin’s big back yard.

The day was perfect for it, a good
wind and—for once!—no rain or lightning.

“
This is great, isn’t it?”
Jimmy celebrated, pulling on his string. Their kites must’ve gotten
up to several hundred feet.

“
It sure is,” Kevin
said.

“
But it’s too bad we can’t
be out on the bluffs.”