Vampire Lodge (3 page)

“
Well,” Aunt Carolyn said,
and then she paused as if she were embarrassed. “None at the
moment. Thanksgiving weekend is never a good time for
business.”

Again Kevin sensed that
Aunt Carolyn was making excuses. He knew that fishing and camping
was big business in most places except for the coldest months of
winter, and, again, this only reminded him of what his father had
hinted at early, that Aunt Carolyn wasn’t making enough
money.
Going bust,
he thought.

“
So I guess you and your
friend Mr. Grimaldi will want to be hiking out to the lake, is that
right?”

“
Yes, we’re looking forward
to it,” Kevin’s father said.

“
Well let me tell you, it’s
still some of the best fishing you’ll ever find in these
parts.”

“
Sounds great,” Mr.
Grimaldi said. “I haven’t been to a good fishing spot in
years.”

“
Hey, Dad?” Jimmy asked.
“How come we can’t go fishing with you and Mr. Bennell?”

“
Well, son, because the
lake is a good ten-mile hike through the woods, and Mr. Bennell and
I will have to camp out for several days.”

“
But you kids will have a
great time here at the lodge,” Mr. Bennell added. “With Aunt
Carolyn.”

“
Oh, yes!” Aunt Carolyn
agreed. “The kids and I will have a wonderful time together.
There’s plenty to do around the lodge. And I hope you boys brought
your kites.”

“
Yes, Aunt Carolyn,” Kevin
told her. “We got brand-new ones last week.”

“
Oh, wow, neat!” Jimmy
interrupted when they stepped into the hearth room. The hearth room
had lots of big soft couches arranged around the giant brick
fireplace which was full of burning logs that crackled and popped.
“Look at all the animal heads!” Jimmy said.

Mounted above the fireplace mantle
were the heads of deer and bears and foxes, and even one moose
head.

Aunt Carolyn explained, “When I bought
the lodge years ago—twenty years ago, to be exact—it was mainly a
hunting lodge that had sat vacant for a long time, but I don’t
really like the idea of hunting. So I changed it to a fishing and
camping lodge.” Then she pointed to the next wood-paneled wall, and
hanging there in frames were lots of stuffed fish, and some of them
were over three feet long.

“
That’s really cool!” Jimmy
said. “Man, this lodge is terrific. We’re going to have a
blast!”

“
We sure are,” Kevin said.
“And wait till we get out onto the bluffs with our new
kites.”

They all sat down around the crackling
fireplace, and Aunt Carolyn brought out glasses of spiced, hot
apple cider for everyone. “So when will you two want to be heading
out on your fishing expedition?” she asked the fathers.

Mr. Grimaldi rubbed his hands together
eagerly. “The sooner the better. Packed in an office five days a
week and nine hours a day, there’s no better way to relax than to
get right out into the great outdoors.”

Mr. Bennell nodded in agreement. “I’ve
been looking forward to this since… well, since last
year!”

The hot cider tasted sharp
and tangy; it was just one more thing that Kevin loved about coming
to his aunt’s. He never understood why his aunt never drank any
herself, though; it was really good.
Maybe
she just doesn’t like apples,
he
considered. Then he asked, “Hey, Dad, how long will you and Mr.
Grimaldi be camping and fishing?”

“
We’ll be back Sunday
morning,” Kevin’s father replied.

“
Great,” Becky whispered to
Kevin. “Two whole days I’ll be cooped up with you two nitwits. I’ll
go absolutely nuts.”

“
You’ve been absolutely
nuts for your whole life,” Kevin couldn’t resist.

“
But I want you kids to
mind Aunt Carolyn,” Kevin’s father went on. “No monkeying around
and no arguing. And no staying out after dark.”

“
That goes for you too,
sport,” Mr. Grimaldi added aside to Jimmy.

“
Right, Dad,” Jimmy said.
“I won’t get into any trouble.”

“
Make sure you
don’t.”

“
Oh, I’m sure the kids will
be just fine,” Aunt Carolyn said. “Don’t worry about a thing. Just
go out and have a good time, and enjoy the fishing.”

They sat around and talked for a few
minutes more, Mr. Grimaldi chatting about his job at some computer
place, and Mr. Bennell telling Carolyn about the real estate
convention, and other things like that. Then they all went back
outside. Kevin and Jimmy helped their fathers strap on their big
back-packs which were full of supplies, tents, and, of course, lots
of coffee.

“
Have fun, Dad,” Kevin
said. “Bring back lots of fish.”

“
Don’t worry,” Mr. Bennell
said. “We will.” Then he leaned over and whispered, “And give your
Aunt Carolyn a break, will ya? Try to get along with
Becky.”

“
I will, Dad,” Kevin said,
but then he thought,
At least I’ll
try
. Sometimes getting along with his
sister was about as easy as building a snowman in July.

Then, Mr. Bennell and Mr. Grimaldi
checked their pack straps one last time and walked off into the
main trail in the woods, waving.

Kevin glanced after them. A strange
notion occurred to him then, and he couldn’t imagine the reason.
But as his father disappeared into the trail with Mr. Grimaldi,
Kevin couldn’t escape the feeling that they were in
danger…

CHAPTER SIX

“
You think they’ll really
catch a lot of fish?” Jimmy asked skeptically, as autumn leaves
floated down from the trees.

“
Sure,” Kevin said.
“They’ll catch
tons
of fish.”

“
If you ask me,” Becky
said, “the only thing they’re going to catch are colds.”

“
Yeah, well nobody asked
you,” Kevin told her. But one thing he had to admit, it was getting
chilly out, and the wind was stirring up.

Aunt Carolyn waited for them back at
the huge front door. “Come on, kids,” she said. “It’s getting very
cold. It’ll be winter in less than a month.”

They all came back across the court,
passing the parked station wagon.

“
Hey, what happened to our
suitcases?” Becky asked.

The suitcases, which they’d left
beside car, weren’t there any more.

“
Wally and Bill must’ve
taken them up to your rooms while we were talking by the
fireplace,” Aunt Carolyn told them.

Bill and Wally,
Kevin thought again. Just who
were
these guys?

They all filed back into the lodge and
at once felt the shimmering warmth given off by the huge fire in
the fireplace. Aunt Carolyn closed the big door behind her. “Why
don’t you kids go on up now. The second floor. Bill and Wally will
show you your rooms.”

“
Okay,” Kevin said. “We’ll
be back down in a little while, Aunt Carolyn.”

The wide, heavily banistered staircase
curved upward from the dark foyer. The thick carpet swallowed the
sound of their footsteps as Kevin, Jimmy, and Becky clattered up
the stairs. But before they could even get to the top, Kevin
noticed two tall shadows on the landing.

“
You two must be Jimmy and
Kevin, huh?” one shadow asked in kind of a rude, unfriendly
voice.

“
That’s us,” Kevin said
when they got to the top. “Who are you?”

“
I’m Bill Bitner,” the
voice replied, and then the first shadow stepped forward. It was an
older guy, in a faded flannel shirt and overalls. He had short,
grayish hair, a thin, gangly body, and lots of wrinkles in his
face. “You two just come with me,” he said, “so’s I can show you to
your room.”

“
Are you Becky?” asked the
second figure.

“
Yeah,” Becky
said.

“
I’m Wally. Wally Eberhart.
Nice to meet you,” the second figure at the top of the stairs said.
Kevin noticed a much younger guy, like someone in his late teens,
with long brown hair and broad across the shoulders.
Oh, no,
Kevin
thought.
A young guy. Becky will go
nuts!

“
Follow me, Becky,” this
Wally character said. “Your room’s right down at the end of the
hall. You’ll like it.”

Becky didn’t say anything, which came
as not much of a surprise to Kevin. All she did instead was gawp at
the guy.

“
You kids coming, or are
you gonna dawdle all day?” Bill Bitner asked impatiently. “Kids
these days, I’ll tell ya. They putz around like a bunch of old
ladies.”

Kevin and Jimmy followed him down the
dark, carpeted hall to the last room on the left. “That there’s
your room,” he said, and pointed to a half-opened door. “I stuck
your suitcases inside.”

“
Thanks, Mr. Bitner,” Kevin
said, trying to be courteous.

“
Yeah, thanks,” Jimmy
added.

Bill Bitner walked away grumbling, and
he didn’t say another word.

“
What a creep,” Jimmy said
aside to Kevin.

“
Tell me about it,” Kevin
said. “He must’ve gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this
morning.”

At least the room was decent. Kevin
and Jimmy walked in to find a nice, large, wood-paneled room with a
huge curtained window overlooking the woods in back of the lodge.
There was a big wooden dresser, two closets, and two big, high beds
on dark-wood frames and oak posters. And when Kevin looked closer
he noticed that the big window wasn’t really a window; instead,
there were two glass-paned French doors that opened up. “Hey,
Jimmy, this is pretty cool!” Kevin enthused. “These doors open up
to a balcony!”

“
Let me see,” Jimmy
said.

Kevin opened the pair of doors, and at
once, a brisk breeze gusted into the room. They walked out onto a
railed balcony.

“
You’re right, this
is
cool,” Jimmy
commented, leaning against the rail and looking out. All the trees
in back of the lodge looked like a great, shivering wall of various
colors from the autumn leaves. “What’s that path there?” Jimmy
asked.

“
It cuts through the
woods,” Kevin remembered. “It’s kind of like a nature trail that
leads to some of the campsites. We’ll check it out
later.”

Jimmy’s brown hair blew in the breeze.
“I guess we better get back in the room and put our stuff
away.”

“
Yeah,” Kevin agreed. “Come
on.”

They went back in the big bedroom;
Kevin closed the French doors.

“
Looks like that creepy guy
just tossed our suitcases on the floor,” Jimmy observed. The
suitcases lay on top of each other near the closet. “I don’t think
I like him much,” Jimmy added.

“
Me either,” Kevin said.
“And I don’t think he likes us too much either.”

“
Why did your Aunt Carolyn
hire him?”

“
I don’t know, but I think
I overheard her saying something like he didn’t charge a whole of
money to keep up the lodge and the campsites.”

Jimmy ran his hand over the dresser,
brushing off a pile of dust. “Well, it doesn’t look like he does
much of a job. This room isn’t very clean.”

Kevin couldn’t disagree. There was a
good deal of dust on the furniture, and he even noticed cobwebs in
the corner of the room. “Yeah, you’re right. No wonder he doesn’t
charge much to work here.”

“
What was that your dad was
saying, about your Aunt Carolyn going bust?”

“
I’m not sure,” Kevin said,
wondering himself. “I guess she’s not making a whole lot of money
renting out rooms and campsites. Means she’s having money problems,
I guess.”

Kevin stopped a moment, as he was
putting some of his clothes on wire hangers. Immediately, he
noticed two dark oil paintings hanging on the walls, set into what
looked like old, expensive carved frames. Kevin had noticed a lot
of paintings downstairs too. These two here, though, looked pretty
dull. One showed a winter landscape, mostly trees topped with snow,
and the other painting showed a fall forest scene. But the
paintings were the only decorations in the room.

Kevin got his clothes hung up and put
away faster than Jimmy. “I’m going downstairs to look around. Come
on down when you’re done putting your stuff away.”

“
Okay,” Jimmy said, placing
folded pairs of pants into the dresser.

Kevin walked back out into the dark
hallway. Suddenly everything was so quiet. And, yes, there were
lots of framed paintings that hung on the walls but it was so dark
he couldn’t really see what they were paintings of. Some of them
looked like people but all he could make out were dark
streaks.

He went back down the stairs, to the
sitting area in front of the giant fireplace. But—

Where’s Aunt
Carolyn?
he wondered. She didn’t seem to be
around. The room crackled from the big fire, but when he went back
out into the foyer, it got so quiet he could hear his own heart
beat. In the foyer there were still more odd, dark paintings, most
of which he couldn’t make much out of, like the ones upstairs. One
painting, though, sat in a slant of daylight that came through the
windows of the dining room.