Vampire lodge, p.6
Vampire Lodge, page 6
“Transylvania?” Kevin asked.
“That’s right, Transylvania, in what is now Romania, in Europe. And this vampire’s name was Count Volkov…”
Count Volkov, Kevin thought, testing the sound of the name in his mind. It sounded creepy enough, a perfect name for a vampire, in fact. “Was Count Volkov immortal too, like Count Dracula?” he asked next.
“Of course,” Aunt Carolyn explained. “All vampires are immortal.”
“What’s immortal mean?” Jimmy asked, crunching handfuls of popcorn into his mouth.
“It’s someone who never dies,” Becky hissed. “Don’t you know anything, or do you just have rocks in your head?”
“But vampires aren’t just immortal,” Aunt Carolyn continued with her tale. “They’re also… evil.”
More lightning cracked from outside, the tall narrow windows across the room lit up with white light for a moment, then went dark again, and the rain seemed to be falling harder now.
“Vampires, according to the legends,” Aunt Carolyn began, “only come out at night, because they can’t stand to be in sunlight. They sleep during the day, in their coffins.”
“Wow,” Jimmy mumbled, his cheeks stuffed with popcorn.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” Becky griped. “It’s so impolite.”
Aunt Carolyn rolled her eyes, smiling.
Kevin jumped in, “And vampires can’t be in water, either, right?”
Aunt Carolyn nodded. “That’s right. They can’t cross running water, for the same reason they can’t be in sunlight. Because running water and sunlight are pure things of the earth, and vampires are just the opposite. They’re impure. They’re cursed to live forever in evil, and do evil things. And sometimes, as I’m sure you’ve heard, they can change themselves into bats and fly around wherever they like at night.”
Jimmy gulped and looked over at Kevin.
Bats, Kevin thought with a slow dread spreading. We just saw several bats right outside…
Then he asked, “Isn’t it true that, even though vampires are immortal, there are ways to stop them? In the movies, the good guys always hammer a wooden stake into the vampire’s heart, and that kills them.”
Again, Aunt Carolyn nodded. “That’s quite right. A wooden stake driven through the heart will do it. And the only other way to kill a vampire is to keep him out in bright sunlight for a while or in running water. Plus, a vampire can’t look at the sign of the cross, so that’s how people would protect themselves. Vampires are, like, allergic, to crosses. In fact, in Romania and other countries in Eastern Europe, townspeople would often paint crosses on their doors to keep vampires away. And they’d paint the crosses… in blood.”
In blood! Kevin thought. Gross!
The fire continued to pop and crackle, and thunder rumbled from outside—Kevin could actually feel the floor shudder. He leaned further over in his seat on the couch and said, “Tell us about Count Volkov.”
Aunt Carolyn’s long black dress and black hair almost made her look like part of the shadows around her armchair. At times, all Kevin could really see was her thin, pale face smiling in the firelight. She waited a moment for the thunder to pass, then went on, “Count Volkov was a vampire, just like Dracula. He was born in the 1600’s as a prince. No one knows how he became a vampire, he may even have been born that way. He lived for hundreds of years in a big castle, ruling over his kingdom. But one day—”
“What?” Kevin asked, his eyes wide in fascination. “What happened?”
“Let her tell the story, stupe!” Becky complained again.
“It was hundreds of years later, in the late 1800’s. By then the people in The Count’s kingom realized that he was a vampire. So they all banded together and revolted against him. Unfortunately, many of them died in the fight, but eventually they were able to drive The Count out of his kingdom. And can you guess what happened then?”
“He changed into a bat and flew away?” Jimmy suggested.
“No, but you’re close,” Aunt Carolyn informed him. “The Count still had many servants under his vampire’s spell, and he was also very rich. He collected all the gold in the kingdom and had it melted down into gold bricks, then he had his servants build him a big sailing ship—”
“The Scrimm,” Kevin said, more under his breath than to anyone, remembering the bizarre paintings he’d seen in the foyer and the back hallway. “The name of his ship was The Scrimm.”
Aunt Carolyn looked amazed. “Why, that’s quite correct
Kevin. How… how did you know that?”
Kevin then explained about the paintings he’d seen in the lodge, the blank-faced servants, the crate full of gold bricks, and, of course, the coffin.
Aunt Carolyn continued, impressed by Kevin’s sense of observation. “And anyway, Count Volkov, now banished from his kingdom, loaded up his gold and his servants onto The Scrimm, and then he set sail… for America.”
“And when he got to America,” Kevin concluded, “his servants brought him ashore in his coffin, along with his gold. And they burned the Scrimm…”
“Exactly,” Aunt Carolyn verified. “The Count ordered that The Scrimm be burned in the water so that none of his servants could sail back to Europe and tell anyone where The Count was. He didn’t want any of his enemies coming after him to try to kill him.”
Kevin was astonished. He’d been right! The paintings he’d seen were depictions of the very story Aunt Carolyn was telling right now, the local legend. But when Kevin fully realized that, another question came immediately to mind.
“Who painted the paintings, Aunt Carolyn?” he asked.
“Do you really want to know?”
“Yes!”
Aunt Carolyn smiled that creepy smile of hers again. From the shadows in which she sat, she pointed across to the room into the foyer, at the first painting Kevin had seen this morning.
“Go look,” she instructed him. “Look for the artist’s name on the canvas. It’s written in the lower right corner, in very small letters.”
Confused, Kevin got up from the couch and walked over to the painting. The Count Arrives with his Servants and Treasure, he read the title again. Then his eyes moved down, to the lower right-hand corner of the fancy, carved picture frame.
It was so dark he could barely see at all; he had to squint as hard as he could, and even then, it took a momentary flash of lightning for him to actually be able to read the artist’s signature.
My… gosh, Kevin thought, bug-eyed.
The signature, in fine, curvy letters, was this:
Count Volkov
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kevin rushed back to the hearth room, and, nearly stuttering, said, “You mean he painted these pictures? Count Volkov himself?
“He certainly did, Kevin,” Aunt Carolyn replied. “There’s no way you could have seen them all yet, but Count Volkov painted a lot of the paintings in the lodge. There are actually several dozen of them, hanging in various places.”
Kevin felt intrigued by this information, that The Count himself had painted the very pictures Kevin had looked at and even touched. But then, Kevin’s thoughts came to a screeching halt.
Why, he wondered, are Count Volkov’s paintings here? In my aunt’s lodge?
It didn’t make sense!
“And let me guess your next question, Kevin,” Aunt Carolyn said, still cloaked by the shadows. “You want to know why The Count’s paintings are here, in my lodge, right?”
“Well, yes,” Kevin admitted. “I was just thinking that, just this second.”
Aunt Carolyn’s voice lowered to a strange whisper. “So I’ll tell you why,” she said. “Because this lodge, this very same building that you’re sitting in right this moment, used to be owned by Count Volkov.”
“No!” Kevin exclaimed.
“Wow!” Jimmy said, his mouth still stuffed with popcorn.
“Kevin’s getting scared,” Becky rudely interrupted.
“I am not!” Kevin retorted.
“Watch out for the big bad vampire… Calve.”
“Shut up! And don’t call me Kevvie!”
“That’s enough of that, kids,” Aunt Carolyn went on. “But what I just told you is true. When The Count arrived in America, it was the beach right off my bluffs where he landed. And since he had the equivalent of many millions of dollars in gold bricks, the first thing he needed was a home. So he paid the local villagers to build the lodge. According to the legend, the lodge was built over a hundred years ago for the price of one single gold brick that weighed over twenty pounds.”
“That’s a lot of gold,” Jimmy said, munching more popcorn.
“It certainly is,” Aunt Carolyn responded. “Today, a standard gold brick is worth almost $200,000. And it was worth a lot more back in those days.”
Kevin’s mind reeled; he was fascinated, but his fascination had nothing to do with the amount of money it cost to build the lodge. What fascinated him was this: This is Count Volkov’s house, he thought. I’m sitting in The Count’s house right this minute!
“About twenty years ago,” Aunt Carolyn went on, “I found out that the lodge was for sale. It had been vacant for years and years, and it was in very bad condition at the time. So I was able to buy it for a small amount of money, then I had it refurbished, and opened it up to campers and fishermen.”
“If it was vacant for all those years,” Jimmy asked, grabbing yet another fistful of popcorn, “how come nobody else bought it?”
“No one wanted it,” Aunt Carolyn told him.
“But it’s a great place,” Kevin said. “How come no one wanted to buy it?”
“Well, because of it’s history. Who would want to buy a lodge that was once owned by a man rumored to be a vampire? The lodge was considered bad luck, like a haunted house, so it sat for all those years without any buyers. Fortunately, I was able to fix it up pretty well, and until very recently, the lodge and the surrounding fishing dells and campgrounds attracted quite a lot of people.”
Kevin’s astonishment held him fast into his seat. There was still one more question burning in his mind…
“What is it, Kevin?” Aunt Carolyn asked. “You look like you have another question. Am I right?”
“Well, uh, yes, Aunt Carolyn,” Kevin admitted. “I do have another question.”
Aunt Carolyn smiled again, as though she already knew what Kevin wanted to ask. “Go ahead.”
“Well, uh, whatever happened to Count Volkov?”
“Nobody knows,” Aunt Carolyn said. “He disappeared, was never seen again. But of course, there are rumors about what actually happened.”
“What are they?” Kevin asked, still brimming with excitement. “What are the rumors?”
Aunt Carolyn relaxed back in her armchair. “The rumors are that the townspeople eventually found out that Count Volkov was a vampire, just like the people back in his kingdom had, and one day, when The Count was asleep in his coffin, they all banded together and overpowered Count Volkov’s servants. Then, still in the safety of daylight, they chained The Count’s coffin up… and buried it.”
“Where?” Kevin asked.
“They buried it somewhere on the grounds, Kevin, but no one knows exactly where. And they never told anyone else where The Count’s grave was, so nobody could dig him up and unleash him again.”
“Wow,” Jimmy said, digging out the last kernels of popcorn out of the bowl. “But what about all that gold?” Jimmy asked. He looked dejectedly down at the empty bowl of popcorn. “What happened to all those millions of dollars?”
“Nobody knows that either, Jimmy,” Aunt Carolyn said. “The way the rumor goes is that The Count had it buried somewhere on his own, and he wrote down the location of where it was buried in his secret diary. But no one ever found out where the diary was because The Count never told anyone. All that money is probably buried somewhere on the property too, just like The Count’s coffin, but with all these hundreds of acres of forest, it’s not likely that it will ever be found.”
Okay, Kevin thought, that crate of gold bricks is buried somewhere around here. This part he easily understood: buried treasure. There were lots of stories about buried treasure. What bothered him, however, was not the part about the buried gold bricks…
The Count’s coffin is buried somewhere around here too… with him still in it!
And since vampires were immortal, that could only mean one thing:
Count Volkov is still alive…
Kevin felt captivated. What a great, scary story! It was the best vampire story he’d ever heard, and much better than the movies he’d seen so many times on tv. And he wanted to know more about The Count, he wanted to hear more of the story, but—
“Well, kids,” Aunt Carolyn said, and stood up from her armchair. “That’s the local vampire legend. And I’m afraid it’s time for you all to get to bed. It’s past eleven now.”
“That was a great story,” Jimmy said. “And thanks for the popcorn.”
“You’re quite welcome, Jimmy,” Aunt Carolyn replied.
“I thought it was silly,” Becky complained and smirked. “You don’t really believe in vampires, do you?”
Aunt Carolyn chuckled. “Of course not. The story of Count Volkov is just old local folklore, just a legend.” She rubbed her hands together. “Okay, off to bed now, all of you. It’s late and you must be very tired.”
Kevin got up from the couch. He felt strange, but he didn’t feel tired. He guessed it was just the creepy story about The Count, but there was no real reason for him to be bothered about that because, just as Aunt Carolyn had said, the story was just folklore, a legend. And vampires weren’t real…
“Goodnight, kids,” Aunt Carolyn said. “See you all in the morning.”
The rest of them said goodnight and headed up the wide, carpeted stairs. But Kevin was last in line, and before he could even make it to the first step, Aunt Carolyn stopped him and said, “Oh, and Kevin?”
Kevin turned at the bottom of the steps. “Yes?”
“It’s true, the story about Count Volkov is only a legend, but there’s one thing you should think about.”
“What’s that, Aunt Carolyn?” Kevin asked.
Aunt Carolyn’s long black dress made her look like a shadow in the foyer. Her white face seemed to grin at him in the dark, and then she said:
“All legends, in some way, are based on truth.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
More thunder faintly shook the house as Kevin walked up the staircase, his hand sliding along the polished wood banister. The narrow window at the end of the second-floor hallway filled with brief wires of bright-white light each time the lightning cracked outside. Jimmy was already asleep by the time Kevin himself got into bed. It was a high bed with pointed oak posters. More lightning filled the curtain gap over the French doors, momentarily lighting up the room like quick flashbulbs on a camera, and sheets of rain could be heard blowing against the glass. Each time the lightning flashed again, Kevin could see the two paintings on the bedroom walls. But he’d already looked at these paintings this morning; they were just paintings of a forest, one winter scene and one fall scene—nothing like the strange and eerie paintings he’d seen downstairs of Count Volkov’s arrival to America. He made a mental note to himself, to look all around the lodge tomorrow and check all the other paintings. Find out how many more paintings were done by Count Volkov himself, he thought. Of course, he understood that Count Volkov wasn’t really a vampire—that was just a legend—but who was he really?
Probably just some rich guy who came to America in the late 1800’s, he deduced. He probably just looked weird, so people started the legend about him being a vampire.
More lightning cracked. Kevin flinched.
No, The Count wasn’t really a vampire, he told himself again. Vampires don’t exist. They’re just part of a legend. Aunt Carolyn said so…
Still one more louder bolt of lightning cracked outside.
But Aunt Carolyn had something else too, hadn’t she?
All legends, in some way, are based on 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—
