Free Vampire Lodge by Edward Lee Page A

truth…
    Suddenly, his aunt’s final words of
the night seemed very haunting. And how could anybody really know
for sure?
    Maybe there really are
vampires, Kevin considered. Of course, this
was an easy thing to consider in the middle of the night during a
rain storm with thunder and lightning booming outside, and in a
lodge that was once owned by a guy named Count Volkov!
    Just go to sleep, he told himself. He wanted to get his mind off the
topic. He had to admit—
    He was a little bit afraid.
    But the harder he tried to
fall asleep, the more awake he felt. It was almost as if part of
his mind didn’t want him to go to sleep. It was almost as if…
    There was something he’d forgotten to
do.
    But what?
    When the next crack of lightning lit
up the room, he noticed the paintings again. And that reminded him
of the paintings downstairs, the ones supposedly painted by The
Count…
    Then he remembered the sinister title,
in small, painted letters along the bottom:
    The Count Comes
Ashore.
    The painting of The Count’s treasure
and coffin being carried across the beach by his servants. The
painting he’d seen in the dark hall behind the kitchen…
    Hanging on the door to
Bill Bitner’s secret passageway ! Kevin
remembered all at once.
    Yes, the secret place he’d found
tonight after dinner. He’d been so caught up in Aunt Carolyn’s
story that he’d forgotten all about it!
    The secret door that Bill
came out of this morning…
    When Kevin had first discovered it,
he’d planned to hunt for a flashlight and check out it late
tonight…
    Yeah, he recalled.
    And it was late tonight…
now.
    The idea of getting up and
investigating the passageway right now was pretty scary. Everyone
was asleep. And the big lodge was dark and vacant downstairs.
And—
    Thunder boomed, more lightning
crackled in the window
    — and the raging storm
outside didn’t help.
    But—
    I’ve got to do it, he realized. Now is the
only time.
    He’d be crazy to try and
check out the passage during the day. I’d
get caught! he thought.
    And if he got caught, what could he
possibly say? His father would be so mad…
    So now is the time, he instructed himself.
    He glanced over to Jimmy’s bed. Jimmy
lay fast asleep.
    Then Kevin, dressed in his flannel
pajamas, climbed out of his own bed. He tiptoed across the bedroom,
the rain beating against the french doors to the balcony behind
him, and he crept out of the room, quietly clicking the door behind
him.
    Then, determined to summon all of his
courage and see this thing out, he began to walk down the hall,
toward the wide, dark stairwell…

CHAPTER TWENTY
     
    The second-floor hallway
stretched silent before him. This late at night, and so dark, it
seemed ten times longer than he knew it actually was. His first
task was to find a flashlight. Without a flashlight, he wouldn’t be
able to see anything, and he’d be wasting his time. There was no
way he was going to sneak back down to the passageway without some
kind of light. Downstairs, he thought. Aunt Carolyn
must have some flashlights downstairs for power failures and stuff
like that.
    The carpet felt warm against the
bottoms of his bare feet. He walked cautiously down the hall—he
didn’t want to make any noise and risk waking someone up—then
turned at the landing and began to descend the twisting stairwell.
Now, he found he was grateful for the occasional flashes of
lightning, for they provided enough light for him to safely make
his way down the stairs.
    On the bottom landing, he
immediately felt the sudden gust of warmth from the huge fireplace.
The fire had burned down now, to not much more than a pile of
glowing-orange embers with a few short fingers of flame, but it was
still putting out a lot of heat. And by the soft orange light, he
was able to find his way to the kitchen without stumbling over
anything. But once he was in the kitchen, he had no choice but to
flick on the light; otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to see. Everybody’s