Vampire Lodge

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The lightning, now, flashed along with Kevin’s terror. Bug-eyed, and still staring at the ghastly painting, he backed away. His heart raced, his breath grew thin, and now his hands were shaking uncontrollably. I’m staying in the same room that used to be Count Volkov’s, his thoughts pounded in dread. The very same room!

Kevin knew he had to get out of his aunt’s bedroom now—he’d been here too long already, and staying another minute would just be too risky. But in leaving, that left him with a big problem:

Where do I go now?

Eventually, he knew he’d have to go back to bed, but now that he knew that his bedroom was once Count Volkov’s room—he didn’t know if he could do it. How could he sleep, knowing that he was sleeping in the same room that was once inhabited by a vampire?

But he knew he had no choice…

He finally backed out of Aunt Carolyn’s room, the storm still pounding, the lightning still flashing along with its crackling, thunderous sound. Back out in the hallway then, he began to close the door but before he could push it shut completely—

—a hand landed on his shoulder.

“Kevin!” a voice caught him from behind. “What on earth are you doing?”

Kevin’s heart suddenly felt like a bomb that had just exploded in his chest. He turned, in newfound terror, at the sharp, angry voice and the touch of the hand that suddenly had landed on his shoulder—

To face Aunt Carolyn!

At once a softly glowing light was on his face. Aunt Carolyn was holding up a lantern—the same kind of lantern, Kevin noted, that Bill Bitner had been holding in the back hallway this morning—and what Kevin immediately noticed was that Aunt Carolyn wasn’t dressed in a nightgown but was wearing one of the same long, tight black dresses that she always wore. She looked scoldingly at him, her dark eyes narrowed, and the look on her face was clearly one of irritation.

“Young man,” she said. “It’s not nice to go into people’s bedrooms without their permission. I’m surprised that you would do such a thing. Now I want to know what you were doing in there, and I want to know right now.”

Kevin, all trembles now, could only stutter in reply, “I, I, I, uh, was looking for you.”

“Looking for me? What for?”

“I, I—” and suddenly Kevin could think of nothing to say in the way of an answer.

Aunt Carolyn’s angry face glared down in the lantern light—a long, thin, pale face, Kevin noticed. Like Count Volkov’s face, like a vampire’s face! But then, just as suddenly, that same anger drifted off, and at once, Aunt Carolyn’s voice softened. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said consolingly. “You poor thing. Of course, you must’ve been frightened by the storm, is that it?”

“Uh, yes,” Kevin stammered back. “The storm, it woke me up and, uh, I got scared.”

“Well, you needn’t worry, because I was just downstairs listening to the weather report on the radio, and they said the storm will be over soon. So there’s nothing to worry about, see?”

“Uh, yes,” Kevin bumbled.

“It’s very late,” Aunt Carolyn went on. “You get back to bed now. Hopefully, the weather will be good enough tomorrow for you and Jimmy to fly your kites.”

“Uh, yeah, Aunt Carolyn, that would be great,” Kevin managed to say. “Well, I’m going back to bed now. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Kevin.”

Boy, did I luck out there, Kevin thought, walking down the darkened hall toward his bedroom. She thought I was scared of the storm. What a joke! After all the things he’d seen tonight, and all the things he’d discovered, a lightning storm was the last thing he’d be scared of!

When he got back to his bedroom, Jimmy was still fast sleep. Kevin got into his own bed and lay back under the heavy covers, his mind still spinning with thoughts…

Yes, Aunt Carolyn was definitely a vampire, she had to be. Up at this hour, still in her long black dress. Never eating anything and never going out into the sun. And no bed in her bedroom. There could be no doubt—

She’s a vampire, all right, he realized. But what am I going to do about it?

What could he do?

Well… nothing, he concluded, at least not until their fathers got back from fishing. And what had her excuse been, for being up so late herself?

Listening to the weather report on the radio, he remembered. What a bunch of malarkey!

Kevin felt exhausted and he tried to fall asleep but again the fact returned to his mind, and so did his fearful recollection of the second painting he’d seen in his aunt’s room. Count Volkov used to live in this same room, he thought. This used to be a vampire’s room. How can I expect to fall asleep, knowing that Count Volkov himself used to think and walk and breathe in this same room?

He lay there in bed, staring at the ceiling. But then he noticed something. I guess Aunt Carolyn was right after all. The lightning and thunder has stopped. Sure enough, it had, and it seemed like the rain was letting up too.

And this sudden absence of the storm’s steady sounds left the bedroom suddenly, and eerily, silent—

clink! he heard.

Then—

crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…

Kevin leaned up in bed. What were those sounds? The clink had sounded somehow like metal, and the steady crunching noise sounded just like—

People walking, he realized.

And something else: The sounds seemed to be coming from the french doors which led to the balcony, which could only mean:

The sounds are coming from… outside, he thought.

But who on earth would be walking around outside this late at night?

He listened some more. Maybe it was just my imagination, he considered when the sounds disappeared. But just when he was about to forget about them—

clink!

crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…

—he heard them again!

Quietly, he climbed out of bed and approached the two closed french doors. Then he quickly opened them and slipped out onto the wet balcony. The rain was only trickling now, and the wind had vanished. He glanced down at the grassy area between the forest and the back of the lodge, and was astounded at the heavy silence. And, once more, that creepy feeling returned to his belly, the idea that he was now standing on the same balcony that Count Volkov had once stood upon.

Count Volkov… the vampire…

clink!

There it was again! And then, again—

crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch…

Kevin leaned out over the balcony’s heavy wooden railing, and then looked down.

And he… saw something, didn’t he?

Yes, indeed he did. There, at the edge of the woods behind the lodge, he noticed two faintly glowing lights…

Lanterns! he recognized. Lantern lights!