“I’m listening.”
“If the head vampire is destroyed, then every person they turned into a vampire goes back to normal. Assuming they were normal in the first place.”
“And if it isn’t destroyed?”
“Then every person that becomes a vampire keeps turning people into vampires. And so on and so on. Until the whole world becomes theirs.” Ernie grew paler than he already was. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?”
“I don’t feel so well.”
“You need the nurse?”
“I need a stake.”
Assuming he meant the other kind, Vicky pointed to a nearby booth. “You’re in luck. China has pepper steak.”
Ernie rubbed his belly. “Think I’ll pass.” He staggered back to his own booth, feeling awful from his widow’s peak to his toes. The topographical map of Romania was on display. Was it Ernie’s fault? Had he unwittingly unleashed a vampire on his town? And if so, how long would it take for its foul contagion to spread across nations, like the ones represented in the gym? Ernie looked around at the other booths. It’s a small world, after all.
Over the next three days, reports of three more attacks dominated the headlines. Same details. Puncture marks. Loss of blood. You know, Vampires 101. Ernie had purposely kept away from the attic. What you don’t see can’t hurt you. But his conscience had done a number on him. Something dreadful was happening, something he had started. Yet who’d believe such a thing? Vicky van Sloan, perhaps. Ernie needed a plan. Vampires weren’t stupid. They enjoyed the wisdom of the ages. During wood shop an idea came to him. He’d been putting the final touches on his wall sconce—basically a basket for mail—when a solution presented itself.
It took only a few minutes on the lathe before—eureka!—he had converted his wall sconce into a wooden stake…that also held mail. His teacher promptly converted his A to a D, but it was worth sacrificing his place on the principal’s list to rid the world of evil.
Ernie knew something was wrong the moment he walked through the door. There was an aura of evil about the dining room. Okay, that’s a little dramatic. But there was a mysterious stranger at the head of the table, where his father usually sat. The stranger stood, as a gentleman does when someone new enters a room. He was tall, about six foot six. And handsome, in an unconventional way. “You must be Ernest,” he said with an eastern European accent.
Ernie felt his legs give way to gravity. He knew at once that the fiend who had drained Chelsea Browning and others of their blood had been invited into his home as a dinner guest. Ernie’s sister was seated to the stranger’s left, entranced by his signet ring, which featured an engraving of the Lupescu crest. His father was fiddling with a bottle of Bordeaux. Ernie’s mother rushed in from the kitchen, collecting Ernie, taking his arm in hers. “We have a surprise guest!”
The stranger met them halfway, extending his hand. It was the same hand Ernie had seen clinging to the side of the house, and he refused to shake it. “So. Who invited you?”
His father stepped forward, a stern look in his eyes. “Ernie, shake the Count’s hand.”
The Count! It was confirmed, though the long black cape had given Ernie a clue; this wasn’t one of his dad’s pals from the plumber’s union. The Count shook his hand with a grip like a steel vise. It was quick, but long enough for Ernie to understand. The Count could crush him. Along with the rest of the family if he so desired.
Ernie’s mother broke the silence. “This is amazing! We’re related to royalty. A real live count.” Ernie’s mother smiled. “Honey, pop open the wine!”
The Count bowed modestly. “My title is an anachronism. I am merely your humble guest.” He noticed an item in Ernie’s left hand. “What is that you have?”
“A wall sconce,” replied Ernie. “It also holds mail.”
“May I see?” The Count reached out to take it, and Ernie shifted it behind his back, in a somewhat rude manner.
His mother was mortified. “Ernie, what’s gotten into you?”
With little choice, Ernie handed over the sconce. The Count examined it, intrigued, turning it over, poking the sharp tip. “Take caution, young Ernest. This could break the skin, no?” He handed it back to Ernie.
“I-I’ll be careful.”
“I know you will.” The Count nodded.
Ernie’s father beckoned them to the table. “Don’t be rude. Let the Count sit down. He must be bushed from all that travel.”
“The Count flew all night to get here,” added Ernie’s mom. Under different circumstances, Ernie might have laughed. But there was nothing funny about this situation. Thinking fast, he excused himself, saying he had to wash up before dinner. “Allow me to hold that for you, Ernest,” said the Count, pointing to the sconce. “We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“I’ll keep it, thanks!” Ernie scooted from the dining room, ducking into the first-floor bathroom, where he put in a frantic call to Vicky and, in one long breath, told her everything. At first she politely listened. And then she laughed. Ernie was irate. “You of all people. I thought you believed!”
“I do. It’s just…you need proof.”
“Okay. What kind of proof?”
Vicky thought about it. “I know, I know. Take a picture! If nobody’s in it, then the somebody that’s a nobody is most likely the somebody you’re looking for!”
It took Ernie a moment to process what she had said. (Just like you.) But he sort of got the idea. “Okay, then what?”
“Destroy him. For the sake of humanity. Drive that wall sconce through his blackened heart!”
Ernie hung up the phone, and a moment later, the doorknob jiggled. Ernie backed away, tripping and landing on the toilet. What if the fiend was right outside? Having left Ernie’s entire family at the dining room table, sucked dry? There was a knock, followed by more jiggling. “Yo, dingbat, you fall in in there?” It was his sister.
“I’ll be right out!” Ernie splashed some water on his face, looking up at his reflection in the mirror, for perhaps the last time. Was he up to the task? Could his thirteen-year-old brain outwit a being who’d outlasted centuries? It was almost time to find out.
He returned to the dining room just as a platter was being placed in the center of the table. It was a specialty from the old country, brought by the Count. It was called blood pudding.
The night a vampire shows up at your house for dinner should be the worst night of your life. But for Ernie, it might have been the best. The dinner conversation saw to that. What the Count had to say about Transylvania blew away his online research. The Count exhibited the most magnetic personality Ernie had ever encountered. Admittedly, middle school students weren’t renowned for their magnetic personalities, but still…The Count spoke proudly of the old country. The battles their ancestors had fought in the name of freedom. They were a noble class Ernie suddenly felt a part of. It was easy to believe by looking at him. Ernie shared the Count’s nose, his eyebrows, his widow’s peak.
And even…
“The mark of the Lupescu.” The Count was pointing to the birthmark on Ernie’s cheek, a trait of the royal family, he explained, dating back centuries. “We Lupescus have a right to be proud.” The Count loosened his tie and lowered his collar, and tears welled in Ernie’s eyes. A matching birthmark was on the Count’s chest. For the first time, the dots on Ernie’s cheek were no longer an embarrassment. They were a birthright. He was a Lupescu, the blood of a warrior pulsing through his veins.
As the evening drew to a close, Ernie’s dad asked the Count about his plans. “America is the land of opportunity,” noted the Count. “It will also be the land of my retirement.”
“You’re much too young to retire.”
The Count replied, “I am considerably older than I appear.”
The remark ripped Ernie out of the moment, propelling him back to his mission. He took out his cell, on the pretense of taking a family picture. “Smile!” The Count went along, grinning at the strange modern devi
ce, at which point Ernie caught a glimpse of his canines.
Seeing Ernie’s face, his sister asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” lied Ernie. “It’s all good.” But it wasn’t. Because when he looked at his phone, the Count’s image wasn’t there.
Ernie spent all night holed up in the attic, waiting for the Count to return from his nightly feeding. The lethal wall sconce (that also held mail) was in his quavering hands. The Count had to return to the crate, his resting place, before sunrise. But what would Ernie do when he saw him? Complete the mission? Drive a wooden wall sconce into the beating heart of a man he now respected? Even admired? Blood is blood, after all. Or…
There was another option. A second choice came up during a last-minute call to Vicky. Either way, Ernie was about to find out.
There was a crunch, followed by a wrenching sound. Ernie lowered his blanket and saw the vent being yanked out of the wall. Flecks of snow entered the attic, followed by a shadow, spilling into the aperture like black ink, rising, finding form. The vampire had returned and was preparing to enter his crate when Ernie stepped out of hiding. The Count smiled when he saw him, like a favorite uncle might, which only made it harder. “Ernest, what have you got there?”
“A wall sconce.”
“That also holds mail,” added the Count, completing the thought.
Ernie nodded. “It also kills vampires.” He took a breath, fighting his emotions. “You see, I know what you are.”
“You are correct,” said the Count. “I am a vampire, and have been for over five hundred years.” He pointed to his chest, showing Ernie where to strike. “You would be doing me a favor. It is a curse to live eternally, to walk the earth feeding on the blood of the innocent. Your blood gave me life again. You must set me free.” The Count opened his shirt, giving Ernie a clean target to his heart. It was the birthmark, that infernal thing that had plagued Ernie his entire life.
The Count remained immobile as Ernie crossed the attic, then placed the tip of the lethal wall sconce against the vampire’s chest. “Do it,” ordered the Count. Ernie could still hear Vicky’s words: All vampires must be destroyed! He closed his eyes, unable to look, as he prepared to finish the deed. “Do it!” But…but…
“I can’t.” Ernie dropped the wall sconce and backed away. The Count was family.
“You must! I command you!”
“I can’t!” Ernie could see the weariness in the Count’s eyes. Perhaps he’d been at it too long. Perhaps he really did want it to end. “Is it true, what you said about wanting to retire?”
The Count nodded. “It is so.”
“That’s good, very good!” Ernie felt a twinge of relief trickling in. “I have a friend—her name’s Vicky. And Vicky, she talked to her grandfather. He’s sort of an expert in the field. And he said there’s a place that might take you in. A place where people won’t bother you as long as you stop bothering people.”
The old vampire wasn’t buying it. “Strike now! There is no place for my kind in this world.”
“But there is! A mansion—built for your kind and others…in your condition. You can go there now. Before sunrise. Or…” Ernie picked up the wall sconce, taking aim at the vampire’s heart. This time he meant business. “I can’t allow you to drain anyone else.”
The Count lowered the weapon with one finger. “How would I find such a place?”
Ernie smiled. “Just follow the moon. You follow it to an old graveyard, the Eternal Grace Cemetery. From there, the mansion will find you.”
The Count looked back at his blood relative with pride. “You are a noble man, Ernest Lupescu.”
“Looper. The name’s Ernie Looper.”
The Count granted him a deep, respectful bow, then turned and faced the breached vent. He raised his arms above his shoulders. The cape transformed, silk becoming wings. The Count’s body shrank and sprouted hair, and before Ernie’s astonished gaze, an oversized bat was flapping in its place, the vampire’s searing eyes, now in miniature, looking back at Ernie.
“Safe travels,” said Ernie, bidding him farewell.
The bat fluttered out through the vent. Ernie rushed over to watch it fly across a vast winter landscape by the light of a blue moon. The bat would eventually find its way to an old cemetery. And from there, a gated mansion on a hill.
—
Later in the week, Ernie’s sleepy little town returned to normal. And on the first real snow day, he hung out with Vicky van Sloan, boasting about his mom, who worked in a cubicle, and his dad, the best plumber in town. They laughed until it hurt, and made snow angels until they shivered.
The same night, Chelsea Browning returned to her job at the convenience store. During her ten o’clock break, she drank her first customer. And within a month, their sleepy little town was infested with vampires….
William was still staring into the searing eyes of the portrait as the tale concluded. The librarian looked up from the page. “Good to his word, the Count retired to our humble abode but insisted on continually transforming into a bat or a wolf, so we had to ask him to leave due to our strict ‘no pets’ policy. But he did not go far. He keeps to the yard, wandering the grounds and howling at the moon. His brethren, however, are still quite active in the community.”
“I’m not interested in vampires. I only want to hear from…”
“A ghost?”
“My sister.”
At that very moment, someone called his name. William turned with renewed hope. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in years, except in old family videos and a phone message he clung to. Was it wishful thinking? Or a cheap trick, perpetrated by the librarian? The unbeliever in William assumed the latter. “That was low. Having a girl’s voice call my name. It’s about as low as…”
“Something you might have done?” The librarian seemed to know more about William than he was saying. “I assure you, there is no trickery involved.”
“We’ll see about that.” William took off, sprinting down the corridor. “And don’t try following me!”
William made his way into a large foyer, then began climbing a grand staircase. At the top, he began checking doors, jiggling knobs to the left and the right, before eventually making his way up another set of stairs, not knowing where they led. The attic, he hoped. Does no one heed my warnings?
The stairs themselves seemed to defy gravity, and William found himself running upside down, like a bug on the ceiling. His conclusion was that the mansion was an impossible feat of engineering. The only other option was that he had gone utterly insane. William chose to focus on the former.
He heard music, a funerary march, somewhere nearby. It was a tune the dead might dance to. But William wasn’t about to stop. A lone door lay up ahead and William ran right through it. Had he gone the opposite way, he would have crossed a balcony overlooking a ballroom…where a party was in progress. A party attended by the dead. With the guest of honor…
His dearly departed sister.
The door flew open and William barreled through, stumbling headfirst over a stack of metal canisters. Right away, he knew what they were. Old movie reels. He had somehow found his way into the mansion’s projection booth. Didn’t see that on the tour, did you?
William got to his feet, at the same time spotting a gaunt figure standing beside an antiquated movie projector. It was the librarian, who’d been expecting William just as surely as William had been expecting him. “Do you frequent the cinema, Master William?”
“What? No. Not anymore.”
“But you used to…when you were a child.”
“I used to see scary movies with my sister. But I’m not a kid anymore.” William sighed. “Look, I don’t know what your game is…”
“This is not a game.” The librarian spun the movie reel. “I have something rare to show you.”
“I thought you were a keeper of books.”
“Of tales. And what is cinema but an extension of the written word? Although I do prefer parch
ment to celluloid.”
The projector came to life, its take-up reel stubbornly pulling the film through its rusted gears.
“Arcane, I don’t have time to watch a—”
The librarian pressed a bony finger to his lips. “Shhhh! Don’t spoil it for the audience.”
William was at his wits’ end. “What audience?”
The librarian pointed to a rectangular slot, which overlooked an old theater. William took a peek down below. The seats were filled with patrons whose features William could not see in the dark. Nor would he have wanted to. They were residents of the mansion, no longer in the pink. But William did have an unobstructed view of the screen, where the opening moments of our next tale were flickering to life.
Have you seen any ghosts lately? I’ll wager you have.
In fact, I know you have. The trick is knowing where to look. We begin, naturally, with the most obvious places: your attic, your basement, inside your closet, under your bed…You get the idea. These are all decent dwellings for a happy haunt to hide in. But the most likely place to find a ghost happens to be right on your TV, or in an old movie theater.
Many of the thespians appearing in old movies have since departed their corruptible mortal vessels, yet we still see and hear them today, as youthful and vibrant as they were in the past. They are ghosts, repeating their routines for all eternity, insisting we laugh or cry or scream until we faint.
So if you’re really interested in seeing a ghost, try watching an old flicker—I mean, movie. One or two are bound to turn up.
Today’s screaming—ahem, screening—involves a young man’s undying love of film. Until he watches one spook show too many. So grab your popcorn and let’s go to the movies.
Lights! Camera! Terror!
The day Uncle Rory died was the second-worst day of Mark’s life. The day Uncle Rory came back from the dead was the worst.
Interior, Uncle Rory’s Bijou theater, night.
Tales from the Haunted Mansion, Volume II Page 6
