A Creepy Case of Vampires

by Kenneth Oppel

  “That’s it?”

  “Yes, that’s it.”

  “I was kind of hoping to make a big chain, like you see in the old movies. The kind you wear around your neck.”

  “Well, you’ll just have to make do with that, I’m afraid.”

  “What makes you think there’s a vampire on the loose?” his father asked.

  Giles told him about the spooky man he and Kevin had seen on the church tower, and about his strange reappearance last night.

  “And you think he’s a vampire,” said Mr Barnes.

  “I’m just keeping an open mind,” said Giles.

  Mr Barnes looked at the garlic on the table. “Do you think you could spare a clove or two?”

  Chapter 4

  A Critical Stage

  “She still won’t let me into the workshop,” Kevin told Giles when he arrived at the Quarks’ later that day. “She says she’s at a critical stage with this bat project.”

  “Ah.”

  “She’s usually at a critical stage,” Kevin said with a sigh, “or at least that’s what she says whenever I want to get in and help. She thinks I’m a pest, Barnes—just like Mr Wallace said.”

  “Well, he called all of us pests,” Giles pointed out, “even Tina.”

  This seemed to cheer Kevin up a bit. “Well, as long as we’re all pests, I guess it’s not so bad.”

  “Let’s go see if she’ll let us in now,” Giles suggested.

  “Okay.” Kevin frowned and sniffed the air. “What’s that smell?”

  “Garlic,” said Giles, and told Kevin about what he’d seen last night.

  “This is getting pretty freaky,” said Kevin. “I think we’ve got a vampire out there, Barnes. Um, do you think you could spare some of that…”

  Giles dug the garlic out of his jeans pocket and broke off a few cloves for Kevin. It didn’t leave a lot for him. He hoped it would be enough if he ever came face to face with the vampire.

  “Thanks,” said Kevin, smearing some garlic across his neck and under his arms.

  Downstairs in the basement, they knocked on the workshop door.

  “Who’s there?” came an impatient voice.

  “It’s Barnes,” said Kevin, and then after a pause, “and Kevin.”

  There was a long silence. “You can come in—if you don’t touch anything.”

  They found Tina hunched over a small piece of machinery that looked like a cross between a calculator, a beat-up alarm clock, and an old MP3 player.

  “I believe I’ve come up with the answer to Father Peter’s bat problem,” she said.

  She tightened the last screw and turned around to face them, wiping a smudge of grease off her face.

  “Bats use sound to find their way around. Very high-pitched sound. Our human ears can’t pick it up. But bats send out millions of little sound pulses that bounce off whatever’s in front of them.”

  “Like an echo!” said Kevin excitedly.

  “Yes,” said Tina, “though I prefer the more scientific term, echolocation.”

  “So what’s this gizmo do?” said Giles, pointing at Tina’s latest invention.

  “Barnes, I’d really prefer that you didn’t refer to my invention as a gizmo.” She uttered the word as if it left a particularly revolting taste in her mouth. “A gizmo is something a small child might make from Christmas-tree lights and Popsicle sticks. This is an invention. This is a complex piece of electronics.”

  “Okay,” said Giles, rolling his eyes at Kevin. “How does it work?”

  “Well, I won’t confuse you by getting too technical,” she said, “but it’s supposed to scare the bats away. Allow me to demonstrate.”

  She handed a set of headphones to Kevin.

  “Put these on,” she said.

  “Do I have to?” said Kevin warily.

  “Yes,” said Tina, “it’s a scientific experiment.”

  “Why is it always me, though?” said Kevin. “Why don’t you put the headphones on?”

  “Someone has to operate the controls,” said Tina.

  Reluctantly, Kevin put the headphones over his ears while Tina plugged them into her machine. She tapped various buttons, turned a few dials, and finally flicked a red switch.

  All at once, Kevin jerked back and all his curly hair shot straight up from his head. His eyes and mouth formed huge circles, and he immediately scrambled to push the headphones off his ears.

  Watching all this, Tina merely nodded to herself in satisfaction.

  “Excellent,” she said.

  “What was that?” Kevin shouted. “That’s the most horrible sound I’ve ever heard!”

  “Precisely,” said Tina. “Naturally, this won’t be the same sound we play to the bats. It’ll be at a much higher frequency. But the principle is identical. The noise will be so frightening to them, they’ll do anything to avoid it.”

  “I don’t blame them,” said Kevin, wagging his head. “My ears are still ringing.”

  “So we put this giz—I mean, this electronic machine of yours, in the church,” said Giles, “and it scares the bats away. Kind of like a scarecrow.”

  “I’ve decided to call it the Bat Zapper,” said Tina proudly. “Now, let’s go show Father Peter.” She paused and sniffed the air with distaste. “Is that garlic?”

  “Do we really have to go up here?” said Giles.

  “Yes,” said Tina. “It’s essential that we put the Bat Zapper as close as possible to the bats.”

  Giles, Tina, and Kevin, with Father Peter in tow, slowly made their way up the narrow, spiral staircase to the bell tower. Even in mid-afternoon it was quite dark, and Giles had to guide himself by trailing a hand along the cold, damp stone. He was glad Father Peter was with them. A priest could ward off vampires, couldn’t he?

  “Now, be very quiet,” whispered Tina. “We don’t want to wake up the bats.”

  They reached the top of the tower and padded around the big shaft where the bells hung. There were three of them, each a different shape and size, and through the hole in the floor, Giles could see straight down into the church.

  “What a stink!” gasped Kevin, plugging his nose.

  “Bat droppings,” whispered Father Peter, pointing to the floor.

  “At least there’s no sign of a coffin for the you-know-what,” Giles whispered to Kevin.

  “Shhhh!” Tina hissed.

  Pale shafts of light filtered through the slit windows. As Giles stared up into the darkness, he couldn’t see a thing at first, but then, as his eyes adjusted, he could make out hundreds of small black and brown shapes, roosting among the timbers and stone.

  “There are zillions of them!” Kevin gasped.

  Tina was already at work, setting down her machine and twiddling the dials and knobs.

  “It’ll turn itself on in one hour,” she said to Father Peter. “And then you should be bat-free within a day.”

  “I hope it works,” said the priest.

  “Me too,” Giles said, staring at the mass of bats overhead. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter 5

  One More Chance

  “It’s a disaster!” Father Peter cried when they came back the next day. He’d met them in front of the church doors. “There are more bats than ever!”

  “Impossible,” said Tina with a frown. “The Bat Zap-per is supposed to scare them off.”

  “Well, it’s not working,” said Father Peter. “It’s attracting them!”

  “I’d better take a look,” said Tina.

  Kevin and Giles followed her to the doors. They carefully pushed them open and poked their heads inside the church. Giles couldn’t believe what he saw. It sent an icy tingle through his whole body. The entire church was teeming with bats—they swarmed excitedly like a thick cloud of giant bees. You could barely see to the altar, the bats were so thick. The air throbbed with their chorus of high-pitched squeaks and squeals.

  They stepped back outside and quickly slammed the door shut.

 
“I don’t understand,” said Tina. “All my calculations…those bats should not be here!”

  “Well, they are!” shouted Father Peter. “And how am I supposed to conduct mass now? My own fault for hiring three children, I suppose.”

  “At least he still doesn’t know about the dishwasher disaster,” Kevin whispered to Giles.

  “I do know about the dishwasher disaster!” Father Peter roared. “Mr Wallace told me all about it today! You’ve made a complete mess of things! You’re fired!”

  “Maybe I can be of some help,” came a strange, squeaky voice behind them.

  Giles turned and gasped. Standing among the tombstones in the misty graveyard was the mysterious man in the black cape.

  “It’s…it’s…” stammered Kevin.

  “I know,” said Giles. “It’s the vamp—”

  “I’m Morley Fleder,” said the man, walking toward them with a jerky, light-footed gait. “I’m a bat expert from the university. I’ve been studying these bats of yours.”

  “You’re studying them?” said Giles in relief.

  “We saw you that night on the tower!” said Kevin.

  “Yes, I remember seeing you, too. I hope you don’t mind,” he said to Father Peter. “When I spotted the bats, I simply had to take a closer look, so I went up the tower by myself.”

  “We thought you were a vampire!” said Kevin.

  Tina rolled her eyes wearily, but Professor Fleder laughed—a high, squeaky laugh.

  “A vampire, oh, that’s funny,” he said. “Oh, I’ll have to tell my friends. They’ll think that’s wonderful!”

  He was very tall and pointy, with thick curly black hair, big ears, and a bristly beard and moustache that spread out over most of his pale face. Giles could understand how, from a distance, he’d thought the man was wearing a black mask. There wasn’t much of his skin showing. Even his eyes looked black, but that was probably just the fading light. And Giles could see that he wasn’t really wearing a cape, just a long, flappy, black raincoat.

  “Well, since you’re an expert,” said Father Peter, “maybe you could tell me why all these bats came here in the first place.”

  “Simple,” said Professor Fleder. “They need a new home. These bats used to live in a very nice, cozy cave down the river, but it just got bulldozed for a new office building. So now they’re looking for a new place to roost.”

  Giles gasped in surprise. A small brown bat was crawling up the professor’s arm onto his shoulder. “You’ve got one on you!” Giles said, pointing.

  “Oh, him,” said Professor Fleder, picking up the bat. “That’s one of my bats from the lab. I take him out every once in a while for some fresh air. He’s quite friendly. He likes being stroked, very gently, just like a mouse. See? But you mustn’t ever handle a wild bat. It might bite.”

  Giles cautiously took a step closer and looked at the bat in Professor Fleder’s hand. He had to admit that it did look a little like a mouse if you could picture it without wings. He was surprised at how small it was, really, once it was all folded up. They looked much bigger when they were flying—scarier, too. Tina was right all along. They were just animals, and here he’d been, worrying about vampires! He felt a little ashamed of himself.

  From his pocket, Professor Fleder took a little cloth bag, no bigger than a handkerchief, and slid the bat inside. Then he popped the bag back into the pocket of his pants.

  “He’s happy in there?” Giles asked.

  “Very happy, yes. Very cozy. They like small spaces.”

  “Look, my church is not a zoo!” said Father Peter. “And as far as I’m concerned, these bats are pests! Am I going to have to spray?”

  “Oh no!” said the professor in alarm. “That’s a terrible thing to do to bats. You’ll kill them.”

  “I’m certain my Bat Zapper only needs a few minor adjustments,” said Tina firmly.

  “Ha!” said the priest.

  “Please, give us just a few more days,” Giles said to Father Peter. “I’m sure we can figure something out by then.”

  “All right, all right,” grumbled Father Peter. “I’ll give you geniuses one more chance.”

  Chapter 6

  In the Shop

  That night, Giles sat cross-legged on his bed, trying to think up a solution to the bat problem.

  He was sure of one thing. Tina’s Bat Zapper wasn’t the answer. Even if she did manage to fix it, it would only scare the bats off someplace else. And what if they weren’t wanted there either? They’d just be driven off again and again.

  To most people, the bats were simply pests. But the bats weren’t pests on purpose. It wasn’t their fault. They just wanted a place to sleep, like everybody else. Right now, they happened to be sleeping in Father Peter’s church. It seemed cruel to drive them out, but Giles could understand the priest’s point of view, too. People simply wouldn’t come to the church if it was full of bats.

  The bats were looking for a new home. That’s what the professor had said. But how did you find a new home for bats? Maybe, Giles suddenly thought, you didn’t have to find one.

  Maybe you could build one.

  “Bat boxes?” said his father.

  “That’s what they’re called,” said Giles, showing him the plans he and Kevin had found on the internet that morning. “See, you nail them high up on trees, and the bats come inside through a narrow opening in the bottom and roost there. We thought we could build some for the church bats. It’s only fair, after all. Their last home got bulldozed, so it’s up to us to build them a new one. But we’d need your help, Dad.”

  “Well,” said his father, leafing through the plans. “Some of these deluxe models might be a little too ambitious for beginners—like this bat mansion, for instance.”

  “We can leave out the fake skylight,” said Kevin helpfully. “And the porch columns and bay windows.”

  “We want it to be nice, though,” said Giles.

  “They’re just bats!” said Mr Barnes. “Do they need electricity and indoor plumbing, too?”

  “Well, why don’t we build some of these smaller ones, then,” said Giles.

  “Good idea,” his father agreed. “Tina won’t be joining us?”

  Kevin shook his head. “No. She’s back home, still trying to fix the Bat Zapper. And she sure doesn’t want my help.”

  “Still locked out of the workshop?” Giles asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Never mind,” said Mr Barnes, rolling back his sleeves. “There’ll be plenty of work to do here. Let’s get started, shall we?”

  In Mr Barnes’s garage workshop, they began by marking out the measurements of all the different bat box parts on the wood planks. Mr Barnes showed Giles and Kevin how to saw in a perfect straight line, and then how to nail two pieces of wood snugly together.

  “You two are catching on really fast,” said Mr Barnes. “I’m impressed.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “Thanks, Mr Barnes,” said Kevin, beaming at this rare compliment.

  “So, what happened to that vampire of yours?” Mr Barnes asked.

  “He wasn’t a vampire after all, just a bat expert from the university.”

  “Oh,” said Mr Barnes, “so I guess I don’t need that garlic anymore.”

  “No,” Giles said with a grin. Not that there weren’t some strange things about Professor Fleder. For a start, he really was unusually pale. But then again, Giles supposed anyone would be pale if they worked nights, studying bats. You’d hardly ever see the sun. And as for those big ears that were just a little pointy on top, and that strange, squeaky voice, and that thick, furry black beard—well, Giles told himself reasonably, that was just the way Professor Fleder was. Lots of people had funny ears and voices and beards!

  “And you know what else?” said Giles. “I did some reading up on bats. They’re not so scary after all. And they’re not pests, really. Their droppings make excellent fertilizer, and they eat all sorts of insects, especially mosquitoes.”
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  “Sounds good to me,” said Mr Barnes.

  “And it’s only vampire bats that drink blood, and they only live in tropical countries. So I guess we were pretty silly to be worrying about vampires.”

  “Oh, well,” said Kevin, “I knew there wasn’t anything to be afraid of. If you don’t mind me saying so, Barnes, you always were a little on the superstitious side.”

  “Me?” exclaimed Giles. “What about you? With your wooden stakes and mirrors and feather dusters!”

  “Oh, that,” said Kevin. “I was just trying to make you feel better.”

  “Right!”

  After a few hours, the bat boxes were beginning to look like the pictures in the plans. “This is fun,” said Kevin happily. “I think I’ve got a knack for this.”

  There was a knock on the garage door.

  “Hello?” Giles called out.

  “Barnes, it’s Tina.”

  Giles shot Kevin a smile. “Tina?” he said doubtfully. “Tina who?”

  “Tina Qu—you know very well who it is! I just came to see what you two were working on.”

  “I’m afraid we’re rather busy right now, Tina,” said Giles.

  “We’re at a critical stage,” said Kevin.

  “Yes, that’s right, a critical stage,” said Giles. “We really can’t be disturbed right now.”

  “Oh,” came Tina’s voice. She sounded a little taken aback. “I see. Well, what are you working on in there?”

  “We wouldn’t want to confuse you by being too technical, but we’ll be glad to show you our inventions when they’re all done,” said Giles.

  “Tell Mom and Dad I’ll be home for dinner,” Kevin called out.

  “Well…all right…”

  They waited for Tina’s footsteps to die away, and then they burst into laughter.

  “You were a little hard on her, weren’t you?” said Mr Barnes, but Giles could see that he was smiling, too. “Well, maybe not,” he said. “Let’s get back to work. We’ll be finished in no time.”

  Chapter 7

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