Lost Kingdom

by Matt Myklusch

  Joey kept moving forward, careful not to upset the delicate balance of the bridge and wondering if he was still technically in Romania. The hazy crossing felt otherworldly. It reminded Joey of Redondo’s “Off-Broadway” realm in between realities. As he closed in on the castle in the distance, he thought about who it might belong to. Was this the real Dracula’s castle? Was he entering the real Transylvania? Joey’s mind cycled through the possibilities. Transylvania, as he had always imagined it from stories, could be another dimension, like Redondo’s sanctuary, or the mirror world, or it could be a magical place, hidden inside the “normal world” like Jorako. Joey gave the matter a lot of thought as he inched forward one wood plank at a time. He was happy to occupy his mind with something other than the weak and wobbly bridge under his feet.

  “If the bridge snaps, don’t let go of the rope!” Shazad shouted out of the blue, his voice quivering a bit.

  “Don’t say that!” Leanora shot back. “Don’t even think it!”

  Joey grunted. Like we’re not all thinking it. He stretched out his leg to step over a missing plank and warned the others to watch out for it. Joey hoped he wouldn’t come across any more gaps in the bridge, and he really hoped he wouldn’t create one himself. In the movies, whenever someone had to cross a bridge like this, there was always one spot where it broke underneath their foot. Then there was a big tense moment as they nearly fell through but somehow managed to hang on and climb back up. Movie-star action heroes always made it back onto the bridge and finished their journey, but Joey knew if it happened here, the force of someone falling down would snap the rope like a string of dental floss. Even if the bridge didn’t break, it would twist wildly and dump everyone into the canyon. Joey pressed on, tapping each plank with his toe before committing his full weight to it. He was like a person walking through a minefield, testing the ground with every step and hoping not to blow up. His caution paid off when the end of the bridge at last came into view. Joey shouted out the good news to his friends, resisting the urge to speed up. Slow and steady, Joey told himself. He couldn’t afford to get sloppy. The stakes were too high. When he finally stepped off the bridge onto the rocky crag, he collapsed with relief as all the tension that had built up inside him drained out at once. He was so happy he nearly kissed the ground, but he decided against it, thinking it would have been overly dramatic. Also, germs.

  Leanora and Shazad arrived a few minutes later. They were just as thrilled as Joey was to be back on land. The moment their feet hit solid ground, their bodies deflated as if someone had uncorked an air valve at their ankles. Joey leaned his head back against a rock, closed his eyes, and got comfortable. His friends did the same. The three of them sat in the shadow of the castle, recuperating. No one said anything for a while. They were too mentally exhausted after their harrowing walk across the bridge. Later, after Joey’s heartbeat returned to normal, he opened his eyes and looked around. The sun had gone away completely, and it wasn’t hiding behind a cloud. It was nighttime on this side of the bridge. Somewhere in the forest, a wolf howled at the large, bright full moon hanging in the sky. The sound jolted everyone back to full-alert mode.

  “Velcome to Transylvania,” Shazad joked in his best Dracula voice.

  Everyone laughed. “Nice place to visit,” Joey said. “I wouldn’t want to live here.”

  “I don’t think anyone lives here,” Leanora said, looking up at the dark, Gothic castle above them. “Not for a long time.”

  “Good.” The rock Joey was using as a headrest was next to a flagstone path that led up to the open drawbridge door. It was lined with torches, but none of them were lit. “The lights are off, and no one’s home.” Joey’s neck started to itch. “So why do I get the feeling we’re being watched?”

  Leanora waved Joey off. “We’re fine. You’ve seen too many horror movies.”

  “I don’t watch horror movies. Not my thing.”

  “How come?” asked Shazad. “Too scary?”

  Joey nodded. “Basically.”

  “That explains it,” Leanora said. “If you don’t like scary movies, you’re in the wrong place.”

  Joey’s stomach lurched as a man stepped off the bridge, shrouded in fog. He was a shadowy figure, dressed all in black, with skin as white as a sheet.

  “I think you’re right,” Joey said. “Let’s get out of here. Now.”

  11 To the Batcave

  Shazad leaned forward, squinting in confusion. “Is that a vamp…?” He trailed off, unable, or perhaps just afraid to say the word out loud.

  Leanora acted quickly. “Close your eyes,” she said, snatching the glowing pendant back from Shazad and springing to her feet. Joey did as he was told, turning away as she held up the magic stone. Joey had thought it was useful back in the forest, but it really came in handy as blinding light flared up like a tiny star being born. The glare was so intense it sizzled the hair on the back of Joey’s neck. Leanora’s pendant gave them instant daylight—for a few seconds anyway.

  “Ahhh!” The man in black with the pale face (Joey wasn’t ready to call him a vampire yet, either) cried out and turned away, hissing.

  Joey opened his eyes and the light was already gone. He tried to get a look at the man who was staggering around, reeling from the flash, but there wasn’t time. “Move!” Leanora ordered, pushing everyone up the stone path toward the castle. “I don’t think I can do that again.”

  Joey didn’t need to be told twice. He ran with his friends up the path, across the lowered drawbridge, and up to the main gate of the castle. Two massive wooden doors with large iron knockers blocked their entry. The doors were fifteen feet tall and had to weigh a thousand pounds each. Wasting no time, Joey, Shazad, and Leanora chose a door and pulled back on its handle with all their might. The ancient hinges protested and the base of the door scraped against the ground, but working together, Joey and his friends cracked the door wide enough to slip inside.

  “This is great—we’re running into the haunted castle,” Joey said.

  “It’s not haunted,” Leanora argued.

  “Tell him that!” Shazad said.

  Outside, the man in black was coming up the path.

  “Close the door! He can’t come in unless we invite him,” Leanora said.

  “I thought that was all superstition,” Joey said, throwing his weight into the door.

  “Not now,” Leanora told him.

  “This is probably his house,” Shazad said as they pushed the door into place. “I don’t think he needs an invitation.”

  “Lock him out, then,” Leanora said, spotting a crossbar on the inside of one of the doors. She tapped her stone pendant to give Shazad and Joey more light as they pushed a rusty iron bar into position. “He’ll have to break this door down if he wants to come after us.”

  “Aren’t vampires super strong?” Joey asked.

  “He’s not a vampire. He can’t be,” Leanora said, still struggling with the idea. Joey looked at her skeptically. “Okay, he might be a vampire,” she admitted.

  Joey grunted as if to say, That’s what I thought. “Let’s get out of here. Shazad, where do we go?”

  “Down,” Shazad said instantly. “We go down. One hundred doors in the dungeon. Look for stairs.”

  They entered the castle’s great hall, but it was difficult to see anything. The only light they had came from Leanora’s pendant. “I can make it a little brighter,” Leanora said, holding the sunstone up like a lantern. “Not too much. The stone’s running out of light.”

  “Don’t waste it in here,” Shazad said, circling the empty room. “There’s nothing here but tapestries. Let’s try outside.” They darted across the hall and out into the courtyard, where moonlight illuminated the grounds. On a wall near the base of a broken tower, a sketchy-looking door sat behind a half-lowered portcullis. The heavy metal grate with spiky bottoms struck everyone as dungeonesque.

  “That looks promising,” Shazad said.

  “Promising. Right,” Joey mutter
ed. “Not the words I’d use.”

  They ducked under the portcullis and went down a handful of steps, stopping at an iron door at the end of a short tunnel. Shazad pulled the door open, revealing pitch-black darkness on the other side. Everyone paused at the threshold, waiting for someone else to make the first move. They had already seen one vampire, and there was no telling what might be hiding in the shadows ahead. “Hello?” Shazad called out. “Anyone in there?”

  Or anything? Joey thought. After a few seconds, they heard something. It was a shuffling and scratching noise. Please don’t be rats. Or zombies. Joey stepped back as Leanora inched forward with the sunstone, and a cloud of bats streamed out into the tunnel.

  Everyone screamed as flying rodents filled the cramped space, rushing past them like a waterfall of black leathery wings. Fortunately, none of them transformed into vampires and tried to drink anyone’s blood. In fact, they didn’t seem very interested in Joey and his friends at all. They just wanted out. But there were so many of them. Too many. Joey knew that bat colonies could number in the millions and the tunnel wasn’t big enough for that. The bats were getting hung up at the portcullis. Some of them squeezed their way through the grate and escaped, but they weren’t getting out fast enough and they kept coming. Soon Joey, Shazad, and Leanora would be overrun.

  Hugging the walls, Joey worked his way back to the portcullis and pushed with all his might to raise it up. It was far too heavy for him to lift on his own, but fortunately, whatever gear or pulley system it had was still functional. The gate went up with a series of loud click and clacks, and the relentless wave of bats passed out into the night, flying away in a crooked arc.

  “Is that all of them?” Joey asked when the tunnel was finally clear.

  Leanora let out a deep breath. “I think so.” At that exact moment, a lone bat flew out, startling everyone like a jump scare in a monster movie. Thankfully, nothing followed it. “Hopefully, that’s the last of them.”

  “What’s in there?” Shazad asked as Leanora shined the sunstone pendant into the open door. There wasn’t much to see. A flight of stone steps wound down around a corner, descending into darkness.

  “Could be the way to the dungeon,” Leanora said. “It certainly has that feel.”

  There was a pounding noise behind them as the door to the great hall burst open. The man who was chasing them stepped into the courtyard and locked eyes with Joey. He bared his teeth, and Joey swore he saw fangs. “Guys! He’s back!”

  “I told you he didn’t need an invitation,” Shazad said.

  “Come on!” Leanora said, placing a foot on the staircase and waving for Joey and Shazad to join her.

  Joey started back down the tunnel toward Leanora, but stopped himself halfway there. “Wait.” He ran back to the portcullis and pulled down until its spikes dug into the earth. He heard a latch snap into position somewhere, locking the iron gate in place.

  “Did you just lock us in?” Shazad asked.

  “I hope so. Locking us in means locking him out.” Joey fell in line behind Shazad and Leanora. They hurried down the steps, going deeper and deeper in a tight spiral with only the dying light from Leanora’s pendant to guide them. At the bottom of the staircase was a long hallway lined with cells. Leanora shined her light into each one as they moved down the corridor. The chambers were all empty. There were no creatures lurking in the shadows or skeletons chained to the walls, and Joey was thankful for that. At the end of the hall was an arched doorway framed out with decorative stonework. A gargoyle figurehead sat on top, watching from the peak of the arc. Joey half expected the thing to say “Boo!” as they passed underneath it, but the ugly stone beast stood still.

  Beyond the doorway was a spacious cavern. It was so big Leanora’s pendant couldn’t possibly light the whole place, but Joey could sense its size, even in darkness. The ground under his feet was made up of rough, bumpy, natural stone. Joey imagined a massive cave underneath the castle—like the Batcave, only without the cool cars and supercomputers.

  “Can you give us any more light?” Shazad asked Leanora. As soon as he asked the question, her sunstone began to flicker and dim. “I guess not,” he said. His timing would have been funny if the situation weren’t so dire.

  “The flare used too much sunlight,” Leanora said, her voice rising with concern. “There’s almost nothing left.”

  “I’ve got this. It’s not much, but—” Joey fumbled for his phone, but dropped it in his haste to get it out. “Great,” he muttered.

  “What was that?” asked Shazad.

  “My phone. It’s got a flashlight on it.”

  Everyone got down on their hands and knees to look for Joey’s phone. “Found it!” Leanora called out a few feet away.

  “Is the screen cracked?” Joey asked, but a second later he didn’t care about the answer. He put a hand on the wall to get up, and the whole cave lit up as if someone had flipped a light switch. “Whoa!” Joey moved his hand, and the lights went out again. “Where did that come from?”

  “What? What happened?” asked Shazad. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing! What do you mean what happened? You didn’t see that?”

  “See what?” Leanora asked.

  “The light! It was everywhere! How could you miss it?” Shazad and Leanora assured Joey they had not seen any light. Leanora hadn’t even opened Joey’s phone. “I didn’t just imagine it.” Joey felt around for the “light switch” and found it again. In an instant, the whole cave was illuminated with a supernatural, bluish hue. “There! It’s back. I can see—OH MY GOD!”

  “What?” Leanora shouted, spinning around with her necklace, trying to see. “Is someone here?”

  Joey couldn’t answer. He was too much in shock.

  “Talk to us!” Shazad ordered. “Joey, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Joey managed to say after a few seconds. “It’s just this thing I picked up. I—gah!” Joey shook his hand out in disgust and wiped it off on his jeans, trying in vain to get it clean. “It’s dark again now. I dropped it.”

  “Dropped what?” Leanora said.

  “Let me have my phone. I’ll show you.” Leanora passed him the phone. He turned it on and shined its flashlight on the floor, revealing what he had unintentionally picked up—a human hand severed at the wrist. The hand was greenish black. Its fingers were curled like a claw, and sawed-off radius and ulna bones stuck out at the end. It was withered, dry, and completely bloodless, which was a blessing. The hand looked like it had been cut off the arm of Frankenstein’s monster.

  “That’s disgusting,” Shazad said.

  Leanora made a gagging noise. “You touched that?”

  “I know. It’s gross.” Joey sniffed his fingers and cringed. “What is it?”

  Leanora knelt down next to the hand, inspecting it but not touching it herself. “You said you could see when you were holding this?”

  Joey nodded. “Just for a second, but yeah. It was like I was wearing night-vision goggles.”

  Leanora twisted her lips, showing her distaste. “It’s a Hand of Glory. Made from the severed left hand of a thief. It gives light to the holder but leaves everyone else in darkness.” She got up, leaving the Hand of Glory on the floor. “It’s a vile thing. Black magic.”

  A loud banging noise echoed through the cave. The sound echoed with a metallic clang and was followed by a terrible click-clacking that could only be the portcullis going up.

  “I guess you didn’t lock it,” Shazad said.

  Everyone looked at the hand on the floor, then back up at Joey. “You already touched it once,” Leanora said.

  “She’s got a point,” Shazad said, gently nudging him toward the hand.

  Joey shuddered. “This is pretty foul, but at the same time, I like being able to see.” He screwed up his courage and grabbed the Hand of Glory by the wrist. The blue light returned immediately. Joey looked around in wonder, trying not to think about the object in his hand. The cave was bigger and dee
per than he’d expected, a giant hole under the earth. “This place is huge.” Fifty feet above Joey’s head, stalactites hung down from the ceiling, along with thousands of sleeping bats. “There’s so many bats.… It’s a good thing they didn’t all wake up before. We’d still be back in the tunnel waiting for them to clear out. You guys really aren’t getting this?”

  “No,” Shazad said.

  “What do you see?” Leanora asked. “Are the hundred doors down here?”

  “Right now I’d settle for one.” Joey scanned the cave for a long second. “There, I see them! In the back of the cave. Across the bridge.”

  “Not another bridge,” Shazad complained.

  “Don’t worry. This one’s legit.” Directly ahead of them, a natural stone bridge ran out and down to the floor of the cavern. Joey described the sturdy rock formation, assuring his friends it wouldn’t be a problem. They told him that was easy for him to say. He was the only one who could see anything. They were still in the dark. Behind them, the clicking noise had stopped clacking. In its place they now heard footsteps. The vampire was coming. “We have to move,” Joey said. “Take my phone. Just don’t drop it like I did. And stay close. As long as you can see me, you’ll be okay.” Leanora took the phone, and Joey led the way across the bridge.