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 upstairs asleep, he reasoned. No one will be able to see the light.

Kevin used his time wisely. He searched all the kitchen cabinets and counter drawers quickly and efficiently. There were quite a few of them, and this took several minutes. But unfortunately—

A, darn it!

He didn’t find a single flashlight anywhere.

Without a flashlight, there was no way he could expect to investigate Bill’s secret passageway. I’ll never find out what’s going on around here! he exclaimed to himself, frustrated. He looked through a few more drawers and cabinets, found nothing, but then—

All right!

It wasn’t a flashlight he’d found, but it was the next best thing. There, lying in the last drawer, was a box of long, white candles, and right next to the candles was a large box of blue-tip safety matches.

He took up one candle and removed the box of matches. Then, very carefully, he struck one of the matches across the flint striker on the box, cautious to make sure the box was closed when he did so, and then he lit the candle.

Now he was ready to get on with it!

He walked to the end of the kitchen, past the long butcher-block counter, and stepped into the back hallway.

It was like stepping from a world of light into a world of grim, silent, eerie darkness. Suddenly Kevin found himself standing in the middle of what seemed a corridor of faint, shifting shadows, the shadows of course being thrown by the single candle in his hand. Again, the darkness made the hallway seem a lot longer; it seemed to stretch on for a hundred yards, but he knew this was only his imagination working on him. Get on with it! he ordered himself. What are you? A chicken?

And if there was one thing Kevin swore he would never be, it was a chicken. So he walked on down the dark hallway, with bizarre, ghostly shadows roving about him from the candle. The shadows, above him and on both sides, looked like weird butterflies flittering about…

Butterflies—

Or bats! he thought.

But that was silly. He was just getting scared.

Instead, he let his imagination get behind him, and he proceeded down the corridor. Each wooden panel on the wall had one of the dark paintings hanging on it, and Kevin inspected each one as he passed, holding the candle close to the canvas.

His eyes widened, and a breath caught in his chest.

Each painting showed a different depiction of The Count’s arrival to the shores of America. His coffin and crate of gold bricks being carried across the beach, through the woods, up hills and dales. Then another painting showed the lodge being built. And another painting showed the lodge fully erected, and it looked just like the lodge today.

And one more thing:

All of these paintings bore the same artist’s signature in the lower right-hand corner:

Count Volkov, Kevin read.

The Count had painted all of these pictures. So Kevin was right:

The Count is more than just a legend, he realized. He was a real person, who really came here over a hundred years ago, and he really had this lodge built, and it must have cost a lot of money, so maybe The Count really did have a crate full of gold bricks that he’d brought with him from Europe…

And if all of that was true, then maybe the rest was also true.

Maybe it was true what Aunt Carolyn said earlier, he considered. About how all legends are based in truth. Maybe Count Volkov really was a vampire too. And maybe his crate of gold bricks really is buried somewhere around here, and maybe his coffin is too. With The Count still in it, just like Aunt Carolyn said!

Eventually Kevin came to the end of the hallway, to the wall-panel on which hung the painting entitled The Count Comes Ashore.

This is it, Kevin thought to himself. He knew there was no way he could be mistaken. This was the exact same place he’d discovered earlier.

He steeled himself. His hand, very slowly, raised up in the candle-lit dark, and then he pushed against the panel.

And, just as he’d remembered, the panel moved, and—

click!

The panel nudged forward, then began to move inward, with a slow and steady creeeeeeak…

A moment later, Kevin found himself standing before a pitch-black, open doorway.

The secret passage, he thought.

Here it was, right in front of him.

The candle shadows seemed to move faster, like a flurry of birds. Kevin felt his heart suddenly begin to beat more quickly, like an impatient fist pounding on the inside of his chest. Total silence wrapped around him—he didn’t even hear the thunder and lightning anymore. All he could hear now were his own thoughts:

Here’s the secret passage…

And he knew there was only one thing left to do.