CHAPTER ONE

The hammer rose and fell—

—clink-clink-clink!—

—until the old, rusted lock broke in half, and its pieces clattered loudly to the stone floor.

The heavy, wooden vault door creaked open…

Dim firelight flickered inside, from torches attached to the walls by crusty iron brackets. A long stone hallway led deep into darkness…

The torches crackled. The men followed the flickering yellow light as the damp hallway twisted and turned. From up ahead, a squeaking noise seemed to flutter, and then they could see the massive stone archway standing before them.

The men paused a moment. Fear glittered in their eyes.

Then they stepped into the vault.

Large stone blocks formed the vault’s four walls. More torches sputtered and crackled. The squeaking sound grew louder now, and faster, and set high in the walls were tiny holes for windows.

The dark ceiling seemed to move, and then the men understood why, and they knew now what that awful squeaking sound was. Hanging on the ceiling were hundreds of bats…

Then the men noticed something else—

In the high, tiny windows, the sun was going down…

“Hurry!” one of them said as the others opened dusty leather bags. From the bags they quickly withdrew hammers and wooden stakes. But—

“Heaven help us,” one of the men gasped.

Sitting in the middle of the vault was an old wood-plank coffin.

And as the men stood trembling with fear, the coffin’s lid began to creak open…

“We’re too late!” the first man exclaimed.

And then, from the coffin, the vampire began to rise.

Its eyes were black as chunks of coal, but its face was deathly white. His head was completely bald, and he had fingernails an inch long at least. The pale lips pulled back into a twisted snarl, showing two long white fangs.

“Yes,” the vampire croaked. “You’re all too late…”

The television clicked off. Their father’s shadow loomed. “Okay, kids, that’s it. Time for bed.”

“Aw, come on, Dad,” Kevin griped. “It was just getting good. The vampire was just getting out of his coffin.”

“The vampire, huh?” Mr. Bennell smirked. “Well, it’s late, and you kids shouldn’t be watching junk like that anyway.”

“But, Dad, can’t we just watch a few more minutes?” Kevin asked from the floor of the family room. “It’s a pretty cool movie.”

“No it’s not, Dad,” Becky, Kevin’s fifteen-year-old sister, butted in. “It’s stupid. Some creepy bald guy with fangs gets out of a coffin, and Kevin thinks it’s cool.”

She never fails, Kevin thought. My good old turncoat sister does it again. “It’s not just some creepy bald guy with fangs, Becky,” he corrected her. “It’s Count Dracula, the Prince of the Undead, the King of the Vampires.”

“Yeah, then how come he wasn’t bald in the stupid vampire movie you watched last night? He didn’t even have the same kind of coffin,” Becky told him.

“Well, so what?” Kevin objected. “They get different actors to play the vampires.”

“To play the stupid vampires, you mean.”

“Vampires aren’t stupid!” Kevin objected.

“All right, that’s enough,” their father cut in, still frowning. “You two get to bed. I would’ve thought that you’d both be sleepy already after that huge Thanksgiving meal we just had. And, anyway, we’ve got a big day tomorrow, and we’ve got to get an early start. And Kevin? I don’t want to hear anymore of this foolishness about vampires. If you watch enough of that junk on TV, it’ll turn your brain to muck.”

“Kevin’s brain already is muck,” Becky laughed.

“Hey, what did I just say? It’s bed time.”

Kevin and Becky went off to their rooms, Kevin grumbling under his breath. It figures, he thought. Becky always gets the last word because she’s older. Of course, Kevin knew that vampires didn’t really exist, but that didn’t mean they weren’t cool to watch on television.

“Lock your door, Kevvie,” Becky chided. “Don’t let the vampires get you.”

Kevin ignored her. That’s what older sisters are for, he decided. They’re for ignoring. And, boy, do I hate it when she calls me Kevvie…

He closed his bedroom door behind him, got ready for bed, and turned off the light. Darkness seemed to leap into the room; for a second, Kevin felt a little uneasy. The images of the vampire movie returned to his mind: the dark vault, the torch-lit hallway, the coffin…

Vampire, Kevin thought, wide-eyed beneath the bed covers. He could still see the long white face, the bald head and black cape, and—

The fangs, he thought.

But he shrugged it off. He was being silly. It was just a movie, he reminded himself, and besides, he’d seen lots of vampire movies in the past. Only babies were afraid of things like vampires, and Kevin Bennell was no baby. He was thirteen years old now, a full-fledged teenager, and he was already well into his first year of junior high school. Teenagers aren’t afraid of things that don’t exist, he told himself, and that was one thing he was sure of: Vampires didn’t really exist.

He turned his mind to other things, like the trip tomorrow. To their Aunt Carolyn’s. It was a trip they made every year the weekend after Thanksgiving, and Kevin always looked forward to it. Aunt Carolyn owned a campsite and old fishing lodge up north on the coast. The lodge was a little run-down, but it was always great fun to go there; they’d go fishing, camping, kite flying near the bluff where they could hear the waves crash. Becky, naturally, didn’t like to go—she thought it was stupid. All she cares about these days are boys and nail polish, Kevin thought.

This year would be a little different. Kevin’s mother wasn’t going; she sold houses for a real estate company in town, so she had to go to Chicago for some kind of convention with her friend Mrs. Grimaldi, who also worked for the real estate company. But Mr. Grimaldi, and their son, Jimmy, would be going up to Aunt Carolyn’s with them, and that would be cool because Kevin and Jimmy were best friends, and they had four days in a row off from school because of Thanksgiving break. Last week, Kevin and Jimmy had bought their new kite kits to take up, and they couldn’t wait to assemble them and get them out onto the high, windy bluffs next to his aunt’s lodge.

So I better get some sleep, Kevin thought now, and he’d probably fall asleep easily because he was still stuffed from the Thanksgiving dinner they’d had a few hours ago. It was a pretty long drive up to Aunt Carolyn’s lodge, and they’d have to leave real early.

Yeah, get some sleep, he told himself…

But every time he closed his eyes, they’d snap right back open for some reason. On one of his shelves, his monster models all stood in a line: Frankenstein’s Monster, the Mummy, Wolfman, and, of course, Dracula, the caped and sinister vampire…

Then Kevin found himself glancing uneasily at his bedroom window.

It was late now, and very dark outside.

And vampires only come out when it’s dark, he remembered just as he finally drifted off to sleep.