CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

It seemed colder this time, and darker even with the bright flashlight. He clicked open the wall panel on which hung the painting entitled The Count Comes Ashore. The panel creaked as it swung open, showing him the jet-black corridor. He didn’t waste time. Armed now with a bright flashlight instead of a feeble candle, he boldly strode to the door, pulled it open, and entered the secret room.

The first thing he noticed didn’t surprise him. The bloody rag he’d seen last night under the wooden table—

It’s not here now, he saw.

But of course it wasn’t. Less than an hour ago, he’d seen Bill Bitner out in the woods, using the rag to wipe off his hands after he painted the bloody cross on that forked tree.

But the rest of the room looked unchanged. Kevin swung the wide, bright flashlight beam over every corner. The room was the same as it had been last night. The box of wooden stakes was still here, and so were the two hammers, and there were a few other boxes full of cleaning supplies. But there was one thing he remembered:

The desk.

The desk was still here too, sitting against the back wall. It was a big antique rolltop desk, and the top was closed. This would definitely be worth checking out.

The desk’s top clattered as he rolled it open. Then he shined his flashlight down and saw—

A… book?

He leaned forward, tilting the flashlight. Yeah, it’s a book, he noticed, squinting down. The book lay open on the table. And it looked very old.

Kevin reached out and touched it. The pages felt thick but very brittle; he thought that if he picked the book up, it might actually crumble in his hands, and the cover, too, looked old and crumbly, like leather that was made a years and years ago. He knew he had to be careful with it, but he had no choice. He had to close the book so he could see its title on the cover.

Careful, careful, he instructed himself, slowly raising one edge of the book’s cover. The spine made a faint crackling noise, but after several long moments he was able to get the book partly closed, keeping his finger inside so he wouldn’t lose the page it was opened to. If he lost the page, he knew, Bill Bitner would know that Kevin had been in here.

Kevin squinted. The letters on the book’s covered appeared just slightly darker than the cover itself. Come on, Kevin thought. What does it say?

The first thing he recognized, right at the top of the book, was the date:

1899

So this book really was old. Over a hundred years, he thought. But below the date were letters, and these, he knew, must spell out the title.

Eventually, as Kevin focused his eyes more precisely, he was able to read the dark letters on the book cover—

—and when he did so, he sucked in a long, loud breath of astonishment.

My… gosh, he thought. He squinted harder, to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. I don’t believe it…

First there was a symbol, a fancy circle with the letter V in the middle. And Kevin remembered at once that this was the same symbol he’d seen imprinted on the collar button of The Count’s cape, on the painting he’d seen in his aunt’s room last night.

Then his eyes flicked lower, to the book’s title.

The title read:

The Diary of Count Volkov

Kevin’s skin prickled at the discovery, and then he realized what must’ve happened. Aunt Carolyn said that Count Volkov had kept a diary, but he’d hidden it somewhere, and he never told the townspeople where it was before they chained him up in his coffin and buried it. But—

Somehow, Aunt Carolyn found it, Kevin concluded. That’s probably why she bought the lodge in the first place, because she already knew about the legend, and she already knew that the diary was hidden somewhere around here. And she also knew that the location of The Count’s treasure was written down in the diary too.

Kevin’s hands trembled as he carefully reopened the book to the page it had been opened at. He held the flashlight close and made out the lines of tight, cursive handwriting.

Count Volkov’s handwriting, he thought in a grim and very creepy reminder.

But even with the flashlight, the letters were hard to read. The paper had yellowed over the last hundred years, and the ink itself had faded and turned brown. Kevin squinted so hard his eyes began to hurt, but after a short time he was able to read the last few lines in the diary:

And the curs’d townsfolk, I fear, are beginning to suspect what I truly am, just as my rebellious underlings did when I was forced to leave my homeland. My servants here are weak and so few in number. An uprising of the townsfolk would easily overpower them, and if such an uprising occurred during the hours of sunlight, when I must lay dead in my coffin till dusk, I would be at their mercy. They could destroy me with their crosses and wooden stakes, or worse, bury deep in the ground, where I would be powerless to escape…

Kevin’s eyes went wide. And that’s exactly what they did, Count, he thought. They chained your coffin shut and buried you, and you’re down there in the ground somewhere, right now… still alive…

Kevin let a chill pass, then read the last line:

Indeed, I feel in my evil heart that time is growing oh so short. I may be dead on the morrow, or buried alive. But at least these curs’d townsfolk will not be able to profit from my end, for my treasure of gold is safely hidden at the forked tree, and to insure that it will never be found I must hide this diary too, and hide it well.

And those were the last written words of Count Volkov. No doubt he’d hidden the diary then, and shortly afterwards, the townspeople had buried him in his coffin, during the day when he was powerless to stop them. The Count had predicted his own end. But—

‘—for my treasure of gold is safely hidden at the forked tree,’ Kevin recited The Count’s words in his mind.

The forked tree…

Now Kevin was really confused.

He understood the part about the forked trees; he’d seen Bill and Wally digging at several forked trees just in the last day. But—

Now I get it, he thought.

It wasn’t Count Volkov’s coffin that Aunt Carolyn had ordered Bill and Wally to find, it was the gold treasure itself!

But this realization, now, left him confused. If they’re not trying to find The Count’s coffin, why the wooden stakes, and why the red crosses in blood?

Confusion, it seemed, was quickly becoming a part of Kevin’s life. And figuring out what was really going on still didn’t solve any of his problems. He’d spent enough time back here. There were still other things he needed to do, like right now, and the first thing on the list was find Jimmy and Becky. His worst fear was beginning to turn solid. I’ll bet Aunt Carolyn ordered Bill and Wally to abduct them, so she can turn them into vampires…

And she probably wants to turn me into one too!

He left the secret room, closed the door behind him. When he made it back out to the hearth room, before the crackling fire, he stopped and tried to figure out what to do next. But at that same instant, he heard something—

What was it?

A rumble of some kind, like a—

Like a car engine! he realized, and the sound was coming from out front. He dashed to the window, peeked out, and saw—

No! he thought in terror.

He’d been right, but he wished he hadn’t.

A car was driving slowly through the court in front of the lodge. An old car. An old blue car—

Wally’s car! Kevin recognized.

Then it turned out and began to drive away.

But when it had driven by, Kevin noticed that not only was Wally in it, driving, but Becky and Jimmy were in the car with him—

I was right! He’s abducting them, taking them to Aunt Carolyn, to turn them into vampires!