Caitlin feigned a hurt look. “Darcy, stop it! I just got my fingernails done. You know, you are so…so mean sometimes.”
“Shush. Or I will put a curse on you.”
“Wait…. You can do that?”
Darcy rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”
The two hurried on to their respective classes, leaving the subjects of their chatter standing in the school stairwell.
Lisa and Liev could often be found this way, sitting idly on the stairs, or on the planters just outside the school yard, or on top of the fence behind the building. They never seemed to talk to anyone else. And few saw them move between classes. They seemed just to be here, or there, or nowhere at all.
Lisa wore her raven hair in a ponytail. She also wore pitch black clothes, routinely, with painted black fingernails. Even her eyes looked black.
Liev was the exact opposite of his sister, with his silver-blond hair and silvery-gray eyes. He wore clothing so white that when he stood next to his sister one had the tendency to think of opposing pieces in a game of chess. Still, they had a sense of style many secretly envied, and that few could pull off.
Both had the angular features and the mystique that came with their Russian blood. It just made them that much more of an oddity to their schoolmates.
Donnie Wickles passed their stairwell making several faces, most of them not altogether nice. Liev just watched him with his eyebrows raised in quasi-interest. Lisa did not seem to notice at all.
Donnie gave up, but quickly spotted Nash Stormstepper and grinned with evil glee. If Donnie could pick a fight with anyone, it was Nash. He moved on, leaving the Vadiknovs to their stairwell hideout.
The school bell rang, and the twins simultaneously stood and walked to Mr. Switzler’s class, which they had for first period.
“What do you think it was this time?” Lisa asked of her brother.
“Well,” said Liev. “I think it was something with an appetite. Maybe a pricolici…or maybe the giant purple people eater!”
Lisa elbowed her brother in the ribs.
“Be serious. We have to figure this out.”
The twins had been watching the disappearances of the last couple of years carefully, and this new resurgence piqued their interest. Something was off, and the Vadiknovs were more willing than the jocks and cheerleaders to admit it might not have been entirely human. Because the Vadiknov twins came from what some would laugh at nervously and call a superstitious family.
But even they had been stumped by the disappearances. Lisa decided it was time for some research.
The twins walked into the classroom, as the already present prisoners all turned to stare at the tardy pair. Mr. Switzler peered over his glasses, pointing wordlessly to the two adjacent seats universally recognized as the Vadiknov Seats.
“Then again,” whispered Liev as they sat down, “it could be Mr. Switzler. He could be a grumpy werewolf!”
“What was that, Vadiknov?” called Mr. Switzler.
Liev brightened up with his whitest smile. “I was just saying how delighted I am to start the first day of my school week in your classroom, sir!”
Mr. Switzler pointed a trembling finger at him.
“Keep it up, Mr. Vadiknov. Good grades only go so far.”
Liev only smiled. It was hardly mid-morning, and he was already pushing people to exasperation.
For Charlie Sullivan, the day continued the same as any other wet, cold, ominously clouded Monday. No teenager in their right mind liked having to start the week at school, especially with bad weather. It was hard to focus on the droning at the front of the classroom.
As far as Charlie could recall, Mondays had been wet, ominously clouded, and downright miserable ever since the dark visitor appeared in Hunter’s Grove about two years ago. It began raining when he arrived, on a Monday no less, and the clouds had been thicker ever since.
Some thought the dark visitor was the cause of the missing people. Others, like Fish and Dink, had been extra careful in hanging up their old world charms. Of course, the rest of the town scoffed at that, believing for a long time that the stranger’s appearance was just coincidence.
Charlie’s dad was one who believed it was a coincidence. Charlie, on the other hand, did not.
However, they both agreed about the grave condition of Mrs. Pinkerly’s hair, and her mismatched shoes…and socks. How could someone look so….
Oh, thought Charlie, stricken with terror. She’s glaring at me.
“CHARLIE!” screeched Mrs. Pinkerly. Every teen in the room let loose an inner cry of sorrow for their wounded ears. “Did you throw that pencil at me?”
Charlie sat up and began to plead, “Not me…”
But it would do no good. It never did.
Mrs. Pinkerly’s heavily painted eyelids squinted mercilessly as she leaned forward.
“Then would you care to explain to the class what was I just talking about? And don’t you dare look at the board!” she asked, lips pinched into a thin line of disturbed flesh and badly plucked moustache hairs.
Just thinking about Mrs. Pinkerly’s hair and eyes and lips were enough to erase Charlie’s memory.
“Um…I…you were talking about….”
Charlie actually had no clue as to what Mrs. Pinkerly was talking about, because he was thinking about something completely different. Hunter’s Key, his nightmares, the dark stranger….
He caught himself lost in thought again and quickly snapped out of it. His classmates snickered at something Mrs. Pinkerly had said.
“What?” he asked, fearing he already knew the answer. “I’m sorry, I was—”
“Not listening, I know! Charlie Sullivan, get yourself to the principal’s office. Now.”
Charlie groaned. He could not afford the principal’s office again. He flung his backpack over his shoulder, sheepishly took the you’re in trouble note from Mrs. Pinkerly and dragged himself out of the classroom, toward the office of Principal Adams. A collection of giggles and disapproving glares followed him out the door.
On his way, Charlie looked out the hallway windows, catching glimpses of Hunter’s Key. Or at least glimpses of the three tallest towers of the mansion, which sat on the grandest of the mountains surrounding the town: Hunter’s Point.
If the dark stranger was a mystery, Hunter’s Key was a whole new ball of wax. Sitting above the town, shrouded by thick forests and low hanging clouds, Hunter’s Key was the centerpiece of the town’s heritage, and yet the most forbidden. It was the mayor’s ceremonial residence—like the White House, or Buckingham Palace. But the mayor didn’t live there. And he most certainly denied any knowledge or association of the person that did live there. Charlie wanted to know why.
He knew others would probably laugh at his theories, so he kept them to himself. He wondered whether the stranger up in Hunter’s Key was some sort of eccentric scientist, a reclusive widower…or a deranged kidnapper? It might explain the missing people.
The idea grabbed hold of him. Was the “dark stranger” the kidnapper? Charlie had to find out. But how?
Charlie was so immersed in his thoughts he did not realize he had entered the waiting area. Nor did he hear the principal’s secretary tell him to sit and wait.
He walked straight into Adams’ office, where a girl—Darcy Witherington, he recognized—stood primly with a finger pointed at a boy with dark skin and shiny black hair: Nash Stormstepper.
Nash was the school’s only Native American, and a loner like Charlie. Apparently in the role of the accused, Nash stood hunched over, fists clenched and arms bulging. He looked like he had just been in a fight and was about to start another fight, right here, in Adams’ office.
“…Nash was pounding him when I got there,” Darcy said as Charlie stood in the doorway.
Then Charlie noticed the third person standing in front of Adams’ desk. It was Donnie Wickles. He stood off to the side, acting hurt, his worn hat being
wrung in one hand.
It did not take more than a second for Charlie to realize what was going on. Darcy reporting on Nash, and for a fight Donnie Wickles probably started.
Principal Adams stood up, face turning red. He glared at Charlie. Following the principal’s lead, everyone else turned to stare at him.
“Young man,” said Adams, “get out.”
“Right,” said Charlie. “Sorry.”
Heart thumping, he hurried to close the door and sat in the waiting area. The secretary raised her eyebrows as if to say I told you so. Charlie felt his cheeks flush.
Five minutes later, Darcy Witherington walked out of Adams’ office with her chin held high, victorious. Nash stormed out shoving past her. His knuckles were white over his backpack straps. Charlie imagined he could see a few veins over his forehead. Last to exit the office was Donnie Wickles, still acting as if he were a wounded pup, holding his arm just so.
Charlie shook his head at the injustice of things.
“Principal Adams will see you now,” the secretary said.
Charlie wondered what was in store for him. The word DETENTION hovered in his mind, right next to GROUNDED.
He entered the office and sat down in the single and uncomfortable metal chair. Adams stood looking out the window over the school parking lot disdainfully, in a very principal-like manner. He turned around at Charlie’s squeaking chair.
“Mr. Sullivan,” said Adams, weary. “Weren’t you here just Friday?”
“Thursday, sir.”
“Right. And what is it this time?”
It was a rhetorical question—they both knew what Charlie had been sent to the office for, and by what teacher. Adams held his hand out for the note Mrs. Pinkerly had written out. Charlie fidgeted while the principal read it over.
“Well,” said Adams.
The principal’s face was still a steady shade of red, but he made an effort to articulate the word. Charlie prepared himself for a lecture, reminding himself to stay focused on the task at hand which was, chiefly, being terrified of the principal.
“I don’t know what you expect out of this school, Charlie, but it is not an amusement park. Your lack of attention is a continuing problem, and it seems to only be getting worse. What do you think, am I right so far?”
Charlie hesitated. There was only one answer he could give, anyway. “Yes, sir.”
“Of course I am. I’ve been lenient so far. But this negligent attitude, your slipping grades and recent tardiness—along with your rather incompetent intrusion earlier—forces my hand. Detention.”
“What?” Charlie moaned. It came out in a whisper, though he didn’t mean for it to come out at all.
Still, Adams heard it, and immediately turned beet red.
“Do not backtalk me, young man! You can spend an hour’s detention in the library. Be there, tomorrow after school. That’s the end of it. And Charlie?”
“Yes, Mr. Adams?”
“You better take care in the future. I’ll consider suspension the next appropriate step.”
Adams thrust out the detention slip and Charlie took it, painfully, regretfully. Mrs. Pinkerly was making his school year hellish.
Grounding was all but certain.
Later that day, Charlie slogged out to the school yard, where the last remnants of his peers piled onto the final bus. Its doors closed before he could catch the driver’s attention.
He walked home, alone.
It was well past midnight, and the people of Hunter’s Grove were fast asleep. A black car with tinted windows prowled along Certifus Street before turning left on to Frederickson. After a few yards it vanished into the shadows of the trees.
The driver of the car scowled as he was jostled to and fro in his seat; Frederickson Street was really just a fancy name for a dirt road up the side of the large hill. It was a rather bumpy ride that slanted upwards so you felt as if you might at some point fall backwards out of your seat. In other words, the drive was uncomfortable.
The dark stranger continued to scowl.
Eventually the ground evened out. He parked amid a cloud of up-ridden dust and threw open his door. Looking around when he got out, he then walked over to the large, black, cast iron gate that stood forebodingly in the middle of the road.
The gate had turned many people, mostly adventurous teens, away throughout the years, as it gave whoever approached a spine-tingling sense of being watched and frowned upon with an angry vehemence.
With a large skeleton key he unlocked the padlock that held the gate together and heaved its doors open wide. This was not light work, but the dark stranger was stronger than he appeared. He drove the car through, parking again to close the gate and relock the giant chain.
The car drove on, leaving a trail of angry dust behind it, as if it were complaining about the bumpiness of the road.
Through the tops of the wild, gnarled trees the dark stranger saw the three tallest spires reaching for that night’s collection of clouds. It wasn’t long before the trees opened into the courtyard of Hunter’s Key.
Hunter’s Key. It was massive. It dwarfed the old feudal castles of Medieval Europe, put to shame the strongholds and forts of the American pioneers.
Its Three Towers rose in the middle, connected by two thick stone bridges and commanding the attention of most of the inhabitants of Hunter’s Grove on a daily basis. Sometimes the Towers would actually disappear into the clouds. Lightning often struck the gigantic weathercock adorning the middle tower, or the giant gargoyles that stood guard over the outer two. Huge balconies jutted out defiantly, as if to prove they could defy gravity itself. Lights flickered in many of the Towers’ arched windows. The stranger let the lamps burn each night; he knew strange lights flickering in abandoned mansions tended to keep out unwanted visitors.
The Main Body of the Key was only four stories high, but it was still massive and impressive. It had doors fit for a giant, surrounded by a collection of strange-shaped windows. Steeped roofs had been crammed together to cover the foreboding structure.
The Main Body stretched to the left, where it created what was called the Head Wing of the Key.
The Head Wing (technically the West Wing) was a long, extended strip of building mixed between castle and mansion. Its long roof was an allure, or a castle walk. But the most noticeable feature of the Head Wing was something that looked very much like a castle turret, only several hundred feet wide, and obviously shorter than the rest of the Key’s towers.
On the opposite end of the Key, the Main Body became the Teeth Wing (or the East Wing). Unlike the Head Wing, it did not end in a castle-turreted shape, but rather stretched onwards so that it looked like a proper mansion, ending in an almost flat wall. There was the exception, however, of two four-car garages that stuck out in front of the Key, and a small, peculiar cottage that stood at the eastern end of the Teeth Wing. A single tower, shorter and skinnier than the Three Towers, stood crookedly on top of the cottage.
This could not be taken in all at once, nor was it recommended that the viewer even try. For all its grandeur, Hunter’s Key was a hodgepodge of different architectures, but it was a hodgepodge with an air of ancient pride. No one in their right mind would dare point out how awkwardly the Teeth Wing Tower stood on edge, for fear of offending the castle-like mansion. Not that they would be there in the first place.
The dark stranger continued up the driveway, circled the dry fountain in the middle of the courtyard and turned toward the nearest of the large garages. He got out of the car to raise the old garage door, for modern electric implements had never been installed in Hunter’s Key, and the two large garages there were worked manually.
The grinding of the metal chains was almost deafening.
Almost deafening. It did not drown out the slight rustling of trees beside the Teeth Wing.
The stranger peered vigorously into the blackness of the trees. They did not move or so much as make a creaking noise.
Then again
, maybe he was imagining things. Perhaps he was finally becoming paranoid.
No, he thought. Paranoia or not, he could not take a chance visitors had trespassed. It was simply too dangerous. The time to finish his job grew shorter every day, and every day was more threatening for it.
The dark stranger stalked into the trees, like a cat hunting for a mouse. But an hour later, he was stalking back toward Hunter’s Key. After an extremely thorough search, it was clear he wasn’t going to find anything.
Because what he had been looking for had already moved on. It moved as silent as the night itself, with purpose and direction. And that direction was Hunter’s Grove.
Chapter 2: Trouble with Troublemakers
Charlie shot out of bed. He looked around his room in a daze before zoning in on the alarm clock. 6:45 am.
He groaned to start his day, throwing his legs out of bed.
There had been another nightmare. Out of morbid curiosity, Charlie tried to remember it. He remembered himself—was it himself?—running through the woods, up on the mountainside. He also remembered finding a very dangerous book.
And then someone dying a thrice death.
Charlie shivered and reluctantly made his way toward the bathroom. He did not want to be late for school today. Detention would be bad enough without any more of his usual blunders.
Passing the bathroom mirror, Charlie frowned at his reflection. His eyes were blood red, like a vampire from some cheesy horror film. Then he blinked and realized they were just bloodshot. He got in the shower and let the cold water shock his overactive imagination out of last night’s dreams.
I need something to put my mind on. Maybe I should get a job or some other after school activity….
The sudden idea of going up to Hunter’s Key after school woke him up more than the freezing shower. But he quickly pushed it out of mind. It was crazy.
A few minutes later, sufficiently cold, wet, and miserable enough to go to school, Charlie shut off the water.
Charlie Sullivan and the Monster Hunters: The Varcolac's Diary Page 2