Vampire Lodge

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