Ringo barked again at the darkness.
“No, Ringo!” Charlie shouted, but as usual Ringo ignored him and took off down the tunnel.
Charlie turned to the small stairs that led to the entrance of the crypt. The door at the top was still closed.
“Here be monsters,” he said again and took a step into the tunnel. “One,” he counted out loud, and then, “two . . .”
With each step, Charlie could just make out the flickering of a torch farther down the narrow passage.
“Billy, is that you?” he called, but again the only answer was the fading echo of his own words.
His hands trembling, Charlie felt his way along the wet, mossy walls, until he saw the glow of the torch again.
“Come on, Billy, I’m scared . . . ,” he started to say. Then he heard Ringo bark. The sound was high-pitched and sharp.
“Ringo!” Charlie panicked and ran toward the light, following the tunnel around a long bend, the end of which revealed the shadowy figure in the hooded cape standing at a second stone door.
Charlie stopped. He was out of breath. “Billy? Is that you?”
It was still hard to see, but the figure seemed to be studying the carved inscriptions that spiraled around the door frame’s heavy rock edges. Ringo sat beside the door whimpering, and much like the strange figure, the dog failed to acknowledge Charlie’s presence.
Even so, Charlie was glad to have caught up with them, and with a sigh of relief, he stepped from the shadows and reached out for Billy’s hand.
“Hey, Billy, it’s me . . . ” Charlie froze. The hand he held was cold, very cold. Charlie had expected this to a certain degree—after all, his own hands were numb—but this was a different kind of cold entirely. It was a kind of cold difficult to associate with living things. Charlie slowly looked up at the figure, the icy hand now holding his firmly.
“Hey, Billy?” the figure snapped back, tightening his grip.
Charlie could not move.
“Why have you been following me?” the shadowy figure in the hooded cape asked in a peculiar accent. The odd intonation of his words seemed to struggle to keep his W’s from slipping into more natural-sounding V’s.
Charlie could not speak.
“Well?”
Charlie stared, mesmerized by the hooded figure. He thought he saw the hint of a pearly white fang flash as the ghastly profile turned to face him.
“You seem to have lost your ability to speak.”
The hooded face was thin, long, and angular. Pale skin, the texture of a fish’s belly, sagged in folds under his eyes, giving his features the drooped appearance that they were melting. It did not look like any Halloween costume that Charlie had ever seen. This, he thought, did not look like a man.
Charlie felt the cold seep into his hand and slowly crawl up his arm.
“I beg your pardon, but I am not in the habit of repeating myself.”
“I-I-I’m s-s-sorry,” Charlie stuttered. “I think I s-s-saw you earlier, in-in-in the pumpkin patch.”
“Ah, the pumpkin patch.” The creature smiled, revealing two long, pointed fangs that seemed to drip from the roof of his mouth.
“I-I-I mean, I was following my cousin Billy . . . or I thought I was. I-I-I guess I thought you were him.”
“But alas, I am not.”
Charlie struggled to pull his hand free of the creature’s grasp. Ringo barked.
“Please, my young friend. I mean neither you nor your mongrel harm. After all, you are the ones who followed me.”
The creature released his hand, and Charlie stumbled back and fell against the wet stone wall. Charlie thought about running, but now, in this tunnel, in the back of the graveyard, he also found that he was strangely drawn to the situation.
“Wh-wh-where are we?” Charlie stammered, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“You are either brave or foolish to wander into a place of which you know nothing. Especially a place, well, a place such as this,” the creature replied with a hiss. He turned back to the stone door and ran his long, bony fingers along the carved runes. “Where are you, you ask?” he continued. “Why, my young friend, you stand in a tunnel dug by monster hand. You stand on the very threshold of Vampyreishtat, or if you must, in the common vernacular, Monsterland.”
“M-M-M-Monsterland?”
“I must admit, it surprises me how quickly the outside world forgets.” The creature raised a long finger again and tapped his temple with a fingernail that was almost as long. “Monsterland . . . the places in between, the places stuck in the shadows, in the cracks, in the dark . . .” The creature’s voice trailed off, as he seemed to be distracted by the thought for a moment. “Vampyreishtat, itself,” he abruptly continued, “lost in the places where no one wants to go . . .” The creature pushed on the great stone door. It moved slightly, the heavy rock grinding against itself. “Care for a peek?”
Wind gushed from the darkness. The air was hot and cold at the same time, filled with the putrid, sweet smell of honeysuckle and rancid meat. Ringo growled. Charlie peered into the tunnel and then looked back at the creature.
“I-I don’t understand. Wh-wh-who are you?” Charlie heard the question before he decided to ask it.
At that, the creature removed his black hood, revealing the rest of his face.
“Who am I? Or what am I?” He laughed, clicking his long fangs. “I will grant you one guess.”
Charlie gasped at the grotesque features; his ears were pointed, each one scarred and tattered, and he did not have a single hair on his face or head. And those fangs, the way he gnashed his teeth sent a shudder down Charlie’s spine. Fearsome as the creature was, Charlie noticed that there was also something oddly calming about him—a strange warmth and sad longing behind his yellow bloodshot eyes. A vampire? Charlie thought, but this did not look like any that he had ever seen in the movies or Old Joe’s monster magazines. No, he couldn’t be.
Charlie felt his head spinning. The vampire turned and appeared to sniff the air through his open nostrils.
“Ah, I smell chocolate . . .”
“I don’t under—” Charlie was struggling to catch his breath. “I don’t understand . . .”
Ringo barked and Charlie took a step back, his legs starting to buckle beneath him. The vampire reached out to catch him, but Charlie stumbled. Then he collapsed on the cold stone floor.
— chapter 7 —
Mrs. Edith Winthrope
WHEN CHARLIE OPENED his eyes, he found himself in the center of a large bed draped in dark red curtains. With his bad dreams and sleepwalks back home, it wasn’t unusual for Charlie’s memory to be a bit hazy in the morning, but this was definitely not his room. And the old-fashioned hospital pajamas he wore were definitely not his either. He sat up and pushed open the curtains to reveal his new surroundings.
The room’s walls were littered with antlers of every sort and oil paintings of portraits whose subjects looked to be long dead. Ringo sat as still as a statue staring into an immense fireplace that held the last of the night’s fading embers. His dark brown fur seemed almost a part of the bearskin rug that lay beneath him.
“Ringo,” Charlie whispered. He felt groggy, and even the simplest movement reminded him that his head, while now neatly bandaged, still hurt.
“Ringo, come here, boy.”
Ringo turned to Charlie, the reflection of the dull embers lingering in his eyes. The dog crossed the room, pausing to look back at the fire, then lifted his head to uneasily lick the boy’s hand.
“I don’t understand,” Charlie said. “Where are we?”
Ringo whimpered.
“Have ye woken in there, young sir?” The words came with a loud cracking knock on the room’s heavy wooden door.
Charlie jumped and Ringo barked before sheepishly circling back behind the bed.
&nb
sp; “Uh, yes,” Charlie said, struggling to find his full voice. “I’m awake.”
He heard a set of ringed keys jangle, followed by the clang of a metal lock. Then the door flew open, and a short, plump woman with graying red hair tied up into a bun burst into the room. She wore a blinding-white apron over a long black frock that swept the floor behind her. Her dress was buttoned up to a fur-lined collar, and she spoke in a thick Irish brogue.
“Aye, good to hear. Slept well, I hope? That bed is particularly comfortable, and I tried to keep the fire going best I could. It gets dreadfully cold in the old castle this time of year—that is without debate.”
In just a few steps, she was at the fireplace stoking the coals with a log in hand.
“I am Mrs. Edith Winthrope. At your service at the bequest of my employer, so I hope we made your stay as pleasant as possible.”
“I’m Charlie. But I’m sorry, I-I-I don’t understand. Where am I? I was in the woods . . . I got lost . . . and then I met a . . .”
Charlie thought he felt the blood freeze in his veins. His hand quickly shot to his neck, checking for any open wounds. There were none.
“Ah, yes, Charlie. The Prime Minister found you in his wanderings last night and brought ya here to protect yer well-being. Looks like you’ve taken a knock to the head, but strange a young man such as yerself would be off wandering in the night . . . in that part of the woods and on All Hallows’ Eve . . . of all nights . . . my goodness.”
“The Prime Minister?” Charlie said. He was beginning to think that he was still sleeping.
“Yes, the Prime Minister. Your host,” Mrs. Winthrope replied, moving quickly around the room, opening the curtains and straightening the framed portraits that hung on the walls. “You must be hungry,” she said. “We’ll get ya something to eat and wait for the Prime Minister to rise. He’s better to explain all that to ya.”
Charlie saw the sun peeking through an overcast sky and wondered how long he had been asleep.
“Excuse me, but do you think there is a phone I could use? You know, to call home. They might be worried,” Charlie said, knowing Old Joe would be expecting his help down at the pumpkin patch.
“A telephone? My goodness, of course not,” Mrs. Winthrope scoffed as though Charlie had asked to borrow their rocket ship. “Yer clothes looked like you’d been through a swamp, so I’ve taken the liberty of having them laundered for ya. You can get freshened up and come down when yer ready, and don’t worry, Charlie, yer in good hands here. The Prime Minister is an exceptional host when he cares to be.”
And with that, Mrs. Winthrope disappeared, pulling the heavy oak door shut behind her.
“No phone? What do you think of that?” Charlie turned back to Ringo, only to see him crawling farther under the bed.
Charlie found his clean clothes folded on an oak chest that sat at the foot of the bed, just as Mrs. Winthrope had promised. Next to his clothes, meticulously arranged, were the contents of his pockets: his photograph with Billy, the werewolf mask, the plastic fangs, and the Hershey’s bar that Ms. Hatchet had given him.
“That’s strange,” Charlie said, turning the chocolate over in his hands. Charlie could plainly see that the bar had been opened and a small piece was missing, though the foil and paper wrapper were so neatly folded over that the bar might appear at first glance to be fully intact. “I don’t remember eating any. You didn’t have some, did ya, Ringo?” Charlie asked, wishing the dog could respond. “No, I guess not.”
He set the chocolate down and picked up the photograph. It was damp from the rain, its edges curled slightly, but he could still see Billy smiling back at him.
Slowly waking up now, Charlie began to replay the events of the night before in his head. The older boys stole his candy . . . he hit his head . . . there was a pumpkin . . . he ran . . . was lost . . . the graveyard . . .
“Monsterland, Ringo. That’s what the vampire said, Monsterland.”
Charlie felt colder as he said it. The sensation crawled from the floor up his legs. His lips trembled and his teeth slowly shook to a chatter. Charlie knew it wasn’t just the chill in the air; he understood Ringo’s odd behavior and was very afraid.
— chapter 8 —
The Vampire’s Castle
RINGO FOLLOWED CLOSE behind as Charlie opened the heavy door and crept out of the room. They were in a long, dimly lit hallway lined with more portraits and some odd assortments of taxidermy. Charlie squinted, trying to make out the paintings, but it was too dark to distinguish much more than shadowed shapes and silhouettes.
“Wh-wh-what do you think, Ringo?” Charlie rattled off through his chattering teeth. It was colder away from the fire and Charlie thought he could see his breath. Ringo only whimpered.
There was a light at the end of the hall, so Charlie counted his steps in that direction, suddenly missing not only his parents and Old Joe, but also Mrs. Winthrope, despite the fact that they had only just met. After his third step, Charlie thought he heard someone or something behind him, but turned to find nothing but a damp draft. At his feet, Charlie heard something else scratching its way along the baseboards, but again, when he strained his eyes to see through the darkness, the hallway was empty. Ringo jumped at the scurrying sounds and nosed around for some sort of explanation.
“Don’t look at me,” Charlie said, scratching the dog’s ears. “I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t some kind of a joke. You know, like on TV, hidden camera or something.”
Charlie and Ringo continued, passing ornate candelabras dripping what looked to be a hundred years of wax down the walls. It was even harder to see in the pockets between the sconces, so Charlie crawled up the bust of a stone gargoyle and removed a stub of candle from the sculpture’s extended claw. He had to protect the flame from the strong gusts that raced down the winding corridor as they walked. A booming roll of thunder crashed outside, quickening their pace to the top of a tall stone staircase that wound down into an immense foyer. Charlie saw through the stained glass of the arched windows that rain had joined the thunder. Trembling, he stopped when they reached the grand staircase.
“I don’t know about this,” Charlie whispered. “Maybe we should just get out of here—”
A loud crack of lightning interrupted him, splattering the steps in a bright flash and illuminating another series of portraits, which were hung neatly along the turn of the stair’s spiral. At the second flash of lightning, Charlie noticed something familiar about the subject—or subjects. Standing on his toes, Charlie held the candle before the first painting. Though the face was drastically different from what he remembered, he immediately recognized the man in the portrait as the vampire from the tunnel. It was the sadness in his eyes.
Charlie held the flickering candle up to the next portrait. It was the vampire again, but this time he appeared younger and not as pale. His hair was jet black in the painting and plastered back behind his pointed ears, which were not tattered and scarred as Charlie remembered them from the night before. The next portrait was also of the vampire, and Charlie realized that each painting seemed to be from a drastically different period in history. In some, he wore elaborate military uniforms. In others, suits of the finest fabrics layered with vests and shirts with high collars. As Charlie moved down the stairs, the vampire became younger while the clothes he wore continued to reflect the fashion of a much older time.
Another lightning flash revealed suits of armor, masks, swords, battle-axes, and other curious oddities neatly hung between the endless rows of portraits. One object looked somewhat like a stuffed dragon’s head, but Charlie quickly dismissed the thought, assuming it was something from Australia that he must have missed in National Geographic.
Finally, they reached the bottom of the stairs and the very last painting. Right away, Charlie could see that this portrait was different. It seemed more alive and did not possess the somber tone of the others. Wit
h his broad grin, the vampire looked pretty human in it, and wasn’t more than a few years older than Charlie was now. He sat in an elaborate chair and next to him, with her hand on his shoulder, stood a beautiful girl. She was about the same age as the vampire and her eyes seemed to almost sparkle, as did her smile. Charlie’s gaze turned back up the stairs to the portraits that seemed to span hundreds of years. In each one, the vampire appeared increasingly weary, as though each artist’s rendering had managed to capture one last moment, just before that year’s toll had been taken.
Ringo barked at the next crack of lightning, startling Charlie. He stumbled back, tripping over the dog, who let out a yelp. A hound of some sort answered from somewhere deep in the castle. Then the sound grew to a whole pack of dogs howling back and to the storm.
“What have we gotten ourselves into?” Charlie whispered to Ringo, deciding that it might be best if they just kept moving.
They wandered through grand ballrooms, neatly arranged libraries, and dusty sitting rooms. Winding corridors gave way to more stairs, and just as Charlie was about to give up all hope of ever finding the front door or Mrs. Winthrope, he noticed Ringo sniffing at the air.
“What is it?”
Charlie inhaled deeply, trying to smell what had caught the dog’s interest. A glorious aroma drifted to them from the far end of the dark hall. Ringo licked his drooling lips.
“Kinda reminds me of Christmas,” Charlie said. He was hungry and could practically taste the rib roast and potatoes that hung in the air. “Come on,” he said, now willing to let Ringo’s senses lead the way. “Can’t be too bad, right?”
— chapter 9 —
Mrs. Winthrope’s Kitchen
MAKING THEIR WAY down the hall, Charlie and Ringo found themselves in Mrs. Winthrope’s large, orderly kitchen. There was an oversize wood-burning stove and a cooktop on which several brass pots and cast-iron pans sat simmering. There was also a little boy standing on a chair at the end of a sturdy wooden table. He had a long knife in his hand, a toothpick tucked into the corner of his mouth, and he was mumbling some sort of a nursery rhyme to himself.
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