Vampire Lodge

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—

“What luck!” he exclaimed aloud to himself.

There was his black bat kite, lying right there in the middle of the road. When he picked it up, he noticed that the wooden crossbar was broken, but that was no big deal. I can fix that easy, he thought. And the rest of the kite looked in good shape, no tears or rips in the wings, no places where the material had detached. Great, he thought.

Then he looked up, noticed something… strange.

Right next to him was a tall forked tree, a tree with two trunks sprouting from one root. The same kind of tree we saw Wally digging near yesterday, he remembered. He also noticed that the dirt right in front of the tree was churned up, as though someone had dug a hole there and then covered it up. And he noticed something else:

Kevin dropped his kite as he stared in frightened amazement.

On one of the tree’s forked trunks, there was a sloppy red symbol. At once Kevin realized, Someone painted that symbol on the tree. But… what is it?

Then it dawned on him, and a shudder coursed up his spine.

It’s a cross, he thought. A cross painted… in blood!

Kevin slowly backed away from the forked tree, his hands shaking. What had Aunt Carolyn said last night during her story? That villagers in olden times had painted crosses on their doors, in blood—

To keep vampires away! he thought in alarm.

This was too much. He turned, leaving his kite on the dirt road, and ran. He wasn’t even sure where he was running to, as the rain pelted the forest and the lightning cracked. It was fear more than anything else that urged him to run, to get away, anywhere…

Then he slowed down, noticing a sound over the rain. He stopped, peering through the trees. Just around the corner he noticed an old faded blue car. Wally’s car, Kevin realized. He’d seen it yesterday. And sure enough, here was Wally again, digging a hole in the ground with a big shovel, the rain beating down on his shoulders, and—

Another forked tree! Kevin saw.

Yes, Wally was digging a hole in front of yet another forked tree, just like he’d been doing yesterday, and just like the tree Kevin had seen a minute ago, with the cross painted on it in blood. Kevin stepped away as quietly as he could; he didn’t want Wally to see him. So he squeezed through some more trees and only moments later—

What is this!

—found himself standing in the middle of still another dirt road.

And that’s when he saw the truck. An old, dented pickup truck. And—

Bill Bitner standing next to it, holding a shovel!

Kevin stepped behind a fat oak tree, so Bill wouldn’t see him. Bowed down in the rain then, Bill—clang!—tossed the shovel into the back of his pickup truck and then seemed to be approaching a specific tree, while carrying a bucket. Kevin immediately noticed that the dirt at the foot of the tree was all churned up, too—

As though someone had dug a hole there and then filled it right back up. And when Kevin peered more closely, he noticed something else.

Another forked tree…

And, next—

Bill Bitner, frowning as always, set the bucket down, and when he did so, Kevin could easily make out its scarlet contents:

Blood, he saw. A bucket full of… blood!

It came as no surprise when Bill Bitner next withdrew an old paint brush, dipped it in the bucket, and painted a big bloody cross on one of the forked tree’s trunks…

Then he put the bucket back in the truck and wiped his red hands off on a rag, which Kevin realized was probably the same bloody rag he’d seen in the secret room last night.

Kevin trembled, not from the cold and the rain, but from total fear. He didn’t know what to do! If he ran, Bill would see him. Back out slowly, quietly, Kevin logically thought. Then get away from this place.

But when he proceeded to do so, taking his first step backward—

snap!

—his heel came down on a branch, and the branch snapped very loudly.

Kevin froze.

Bill Bitner looked up at the sudden sound, then he looked straight at Kevin, and then—

Oh, nooooo, Kevin thought.

—Bill Bitner marched straight for the tree Kevin was standing behind…