by B. A. Frade
Holding my breath and with very slow movements, I lightly tapped one finger on the book’s cover.
The glowing light went out.
The room was cast into an eerie darkness.
Chloe moaned sleepily, “Thanks.” Moments later, I could tell from her heavy breathing that she’d already fallen back to sleep.
Now that the book looked once again like a normal old journal, I felt confident that I could touch it safely. I scooped the book up and fled the bedroom to where Matt snored on the sofa bed.
“This thing is giving me nightmares,” I told him, shaking his shoulder. “Matt.” I was whispering so as not to wake the others. “Matt. I’m telling you the Scaremaster’s journal really is possessed.”
“Go away,” Matt told me, pushing off my hand and pulling the blanket over his head. “No pranks while I’m sleeping.”
“I’m not kidding,” I said, tugging down his covers to reveal his face. “I had bad, bad nightmares about my mom turning into a bat.”
“Your mom was a bat?” Matt snorted. “That’s funny. Everyone knows she hates to fly.” He pried the blanket out of my hands. “We’re hitting the slopes early. I need energy. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t!” I held out the book toward him. “It’s not just the nightmares. This thing moves and glows.”
Matt sat up in bed. “Zoe, cut it out. You can’t scare me. Give it up.”
“I’m not pulling a prank.” I held up one hand like I was taking a vow. “I promise.”
Matt stared at me for a long moment. His hair was standing on end on one side of his head and was smooshed down on the other side. “Fine.” He took the book. “Leave it here. If I have nightmares or the book bursts into flames, I’ll come get you.” He shoved it under the sofa bed. “Now can I go back to sleep? I was dreaming about grinding rails in fresh powder.”
“I wish I was dreaming about snowboarding too,” I said, glancing down at the floor. The corner of the journal was sticking out from under the sofa bed. I kicked it with my foot until it was entirely out of sight. Then I stood. “Fine, but don’t come searching for me when you’re trapped in a horrifying nightmare!”
“You’re hysterical, Zo,” Matt said, snuggling down into his bed. “See you tomorrow.” Just to be funny, he leaned over the mattress and stuck his face close to the floor. “Good night to you too, Scaremaster.” He chuckled. “See you in my dreams.”
Chapter Six
No amount of athletic training could have prepared me for skiing when I was this tired. I was in really good shape from soccer, and yet, after just a few hours of skiing, I needed a break.
Chloe was in beginner group ski lessons.
Matt had taken an hour snowboarding refresher class in the morning and was planning to explore the slopes on his own in the afternoon.
I’d signed up for an all-day ski lesson, but by noon, I was falling down so often, I was thinking that I needed a nap instead of another run.
I met Matt in the Snow Hut for lunch. It was a round building on the mountain, at the top of the ski lift. My group was going there, so I’d texted Matt what time to join us.
“Ditch the group,” he said as I carried my tray with a burger and fries to a private table. “Let’s go for a run together instead.” He’d gotten a steak and potatoes for lunch.
I sank into a plastic chair and picked at a fry. “I’m so tired,” I said, admitting defeat. “I might just want to go back to the cabin.” I yawned. “I barely slept.” Under my breath, I muttered, “Stupid Scaremaster.”
“I slept fine,” Matt said, taking off his helmet and hanging the straps on the back of his chair. He ran a hand through his hair to puff it up. “Like a rock.”
“Bragger,” I said, unclipping my boots so I could wiggle my toes.
Matt raised an eyebrow. “I can’t wait for the rest of the Scaremaster’s story!” He pulled his own lunch tray closer and picked up a knife. “If we’re lucky, maybe tonight I’ll have nightmares!”
“You don’t want them,” I said. “Not fun.”
“I hope tonight my mom turns into a bat! She loves flying,” Matt said with a laugh, making fun of my dream. “And when I go to the old lodge, I’ll bring a coat.”
I rolled my eyes. I regretted telling him the whole dream at breakfast. He’d been making fun of it ever since. To Matt, it was silly. To me, the woman in the velvet chair haunted my thoughts. I could hear her saying, “I am your mother,” as if it were on repeat in my brain. It kept me up all night, and I could still hear the voice now if I let myself be still a moment.
Matt stuck the knife into his steak, then stopped. “Huh, that’s weird,” he said, looking down at the slab of meat. “Look, Zoe.”
There were two strange holes in the middle of the steak. They almost looked like puncture marks. Around them the meat was brown, not the usual bloody red of a mostly rare steak.
“You’re messing with me,” I told Matt. “Nice try. Did a vampire suck the blood out of your steak?”
“Maybe,” Matt said, thoughtfully poking at the meat with his fork. “And I am not messing with you.” He raised his eyes and crossed his heart with his left hand.
“You’re ridiculous. You can’t make me have more bad dreams,” I said. “I’m so tired, I am going to sleep like a log tonight no matter what the Scaremaster writes.” I rolled my eyes. “This feels like one of your tricks.”
“It’s not,” Matt insisted. He flipped over the meat, and the same twin holes were on that side as well. They went all the way through.
I cast him a challenging gaze. “Prove it.”
“I will.” Matt picked up his plate. “Follow me.”
The restaurant at the Snow Hut was a buffet with different areas for different meals. I left my burger on the table and followed Matt past the Mexican station to “Fine Dining,” which was where the fancy steak meals were served.
There was no line for the steaks. Instead, a handwritten sign said “Closed.” There were no servers or cooks at the station, and the cash register was covered in a thick white cloth.
“That’s odd,” Matt said, holding his plate in front of him. “It wasn’t closed five minutes ago.”
“I hear voices,” I said, slipping behind the counter. There was a small kitchen in the back of the station area. “Let’s find out what’s going on.” I gave Matt a small grin. “Wouldn’t want you to get food poisoning from vampire steak.”
“And I don’t want to eat something that’s ABC,” Matt said. When I looked at him confused, he said, “Already been chewed.”
“Right.” I laughed. “Though I don’t think vamps chew their food. It would be ABD.”
“Eww.” Matt stuck out his tongue. “Already been drank? That’s just gross.” He looked down at his bloodless steak and frowned.
We moved toward the back of the Fine Dining station, ready to walk into the kitchen, when suddenly Matt put out a hand to stop me. “Shhh.” He froze and put a finger to his lips.
We ducked down below the kitchen window, where we could hear the chefs but not be seen.
A woman said, “I can’t believe this is happening again! Such waste.”
“Who would drain blood from the meat?” a man asked. “That’s absurd.”
“I bet it’s the guys over at the pasta station. They’re so competitive,” the woman replied. “And holiday bonuses are being given out next week. They’re trying to ruin our best customer service record.”
I looked at Matt and whispered, “Strange.”
He nodded.
The woman went on, “Mr. Wampir isn’t going to like that we closed early today.”
“Let’s tell him it was a refrigeration issue,” the man suggested. “Remember what happened last time we showed him the spoiled meat?”
“Ugh.” The woman’s voice cracked. “Bad memories. I thought we were going to be fired.”
“He ran off shouting about how he was going to ‘kill that woman once and for all!’” The man was getting closer to
where Matt and I were hiding. We ducked lower beneath the window. “He’s a little batty at times.”
“He’s just old,” the female chef argued. “He cares so much about the lodge.”
“He should retire,” the male chef said, his footsteps clicking against the tile floor. He gave a small snicker. “Some people say he’ll live forever.… I mean he’s been here since the begin—” The footsteps stopped. “Hey!” We hadn’t noticed, but he’d come around the corner and was now standing above me and Matt. “What are you doing here?”
The male chef was short, wide, and bald. He looked like a character in one of Chloe’s comic books. The woman he’d been talking to came out of the kitchen as well. She was tall and thin and had red hair. They were opposites in appearance and yet both really mad.
“You aren’t allowed back here,” the woman told us. “Kitchen’s closed!”
Matt quickly held up his plate. “The meat is weird,” he said in his most grown-up-sounding voice. I silently cheered him for his quick thinking. What better way to distract them from our spying than to complain about the food?
The woman and the man exchanged unreadable glances. She grabbed the plate from him. “Fine,” she said, dumping the steak into the nearest trash. “Go get a slice of pizza. Tell the cashier that Janet said to refund the steak and that the pizza is on the house.”
“Thanks,” Matt said. We started to go around to the front of the counter, away from the kitchen.
“Oh,” the male chef came close to us. In a whispered voice, he said, “Whatever you might have heard, forget all about it. I mean it. More than jobs are at stake.”
“Okay, no problem,” I said quickly, and Matt nodded. The man seemed satisfied, so we hurried away.
Matt got a piece of pizza, and we went back to our table, where I’d left my burger. It was cold, but I ate it anyway.
The whole encounter at the restaurant was weighing heavily on me as I munched on my lukewarm fries.
“Matt?” I said at last. “I think—”
“I was thinking,” Matt interrupted. “We need to go to the old lodge. I mean, why are we reading scary stories, when we could explore a real haunted house instead?” Matt swallowed his last bite of pizza. “I also think we need to find Mr. Wampir. The guy must be a hundred years old! I bet he has some great stories to tell!”
“Older than a hundred…” I’d considered that when the chefs talked about him. There was a part of me that hoped they weren’t talking about Count Frederic Wampir from the Scaremaster’s story, but rather his son or cousin or nephew. Please, I thought, let there be a younger Mr. Wampir. Because there was only one way that Count Frederic could still be alive… he’d have to be a vampire. That would explain the blood-drained steaks as well as the movement in the window of the old lodge. And the bats in my dream.
And it would mean that the Scaremaster’s story was fact, not fiction.
“Want to go explore right now?” Matt asked me. Behind me, my group was getting dressed again to finish the lessons. My instructor called my name.
“I think I’ll ski,” I said, picking up my gloves and helmet. I was wiped out and skiing sounded terrible, but I wasn’t ready to tell Matt that I didn’t want to go to the old lodge with him. That dream had me spooked. He’d say I was a chicken, and he’d be right. Maybe I’d get my guts back after a good night’s sleep, but in this moment—I wasn’t sure.
“My parents paid for the lesson.” I dumped the trash from my lunch tray into a garbage bin. “I’d feel bad ditching.”
“Let’s go tonight, then,” Matt said, following me toward the exit. “After dinner.”
“I hear there’s a campfire,” I said, rubbing my belly. “S’mores and cocoa… yum.”
“After that?” Matt asked, glaring at me through his lowered yellow goggles.
I shrugged. “Maybe. I might be too tired.” I hurried off to meet my ski group.
Over my shoulder, I could feel Matt’s eyes on my back. I’d never run away from a fright before. Never. Usually I sought them out. But there was a warning inside me that was telling me to stay away from the old lodge.
The Scaremaster and his story had done what no book or movie had ever done before—I was honestly afraid.
Chapter Seven
“I can’t believe they left us to babysit!” I complained to Matt, though deep inside I was glad. Babysitting Chloe meant we could not go explore the old lodge.
I was acting incredibly lame, and I knew it. There was no excuse for me not wanting to go. Scaring each other was what Matt and I loved most. But there was something about that book that had set me on edge. I didn’t want to read another story, or explore the lodge. Not tonight, anyway.
When Matt asked Chloe, “Hey, want to hear a scary story?” I was so wound up, I jumped out of my chair at the table and shouted at him, “No. She doesn’t want to hear a story!”
It was embarrassing. I was out of control. “Sorry,” I told Matt, forcing myself to sit back down and pick up the dice. It was my turn in Monopoly. “That dream thing and then the meat thing—it’s giving me a headache.”
Chloe was on my side. “Zoe had bad dreams last night. They were so bad, she even left the light on to sleep.” She smiled as if she was the more mature one. “I made her turn it off.” She looked at me as if I was pathetic. Which was exactly how I felt.
“Mom said no scary stories,” she told Matt. “But Zoe never listens.”
This was getting worse. I rolled the dice and took my turn, then handed them to Chloe. “Go,” I said. “You’re close to owning another hotel.”
“If you’re lucky, it’ll be haunted,” Matt joked, but I didn’t think it was funny.
Chloe shook the dice in her hands but didn’t roll. Instead, she set them on the table. “I don’t want to play anymore.” Pushing back from the table, she said, “I want to have a dance party.”
It was one of those things I did with her when Mom and Dad were away. We could never agree on something to watch on TV, so I’d come up with a few things to keep Chloe entertained while I babysat. A dance party was her favorite.
We’d change into fancy clothes, then turn the music up and the lights down. Sometimes, if I had time, I’d put up streamers and blow up balloons while she put on her dress and brushed her hair.
The dance parties were always fun. But now that she was mentioning them in front of Matt, I was self-conscious. My cheeks flushed. It all felt so immature and silly. I’d rather go to the haunted lodge than have a dance party with him.
“I brought a dress in case we had a dance party,” Chloe told me. She twirled around in her jeans and T-shirt. “I can go put it on.”
I didn’t have anything that was dance-party-worthy. And besides, I was already in pj’s. I’d put my fuzzy flannel top and bottoms on after my shower. They were new and had blue snowflakes printed on the soft pink fabric.
I clicked my tongue. “I don’t have anything to wear,” I told my sister. “Sorry.” Behind me, I heard Matt snort. There was no doubt that he was on the verge of laughter. I’d never hear the end of this. He was definitely going to make fun of me for a long, long time.
“Maybe we can have a dance party another night?” Chloe suggested. “You can borrow something to wear from Mom!”
“Okay,” I told her, hoping to end the subject.
“I have another idea.” Grabbing my hand, she said, “I want to make snow angels.” Chloe stopped me before I could protest. “You promised Mom.”
I started to remind her that I’d also said we shouldn’t do them in the dark, but Matt interrupted.
“Sounds fun,” Matt jumped in. “More fun than dancing anyway.” He grabbed his coat from the rack and tossed me mine. “We’ll do it right outside the door.”
I glanced down at my pajamas. “Really? How about you take her? I’ll stay here.”
“You have to come, Zoe. You promised!” Chloe eagerly scampered to the bedroom to get her gloves.
While she was gone, Matt s
aid, “Let’s run around outside, throw snowballs, make angels, and get her tired. Then, after she’s asleep, we can read the Scaremaster’s book some more.”
“Sure.” I gave up. Matt wasn’t going to stop nagging at me until I agreed to either read the book or sneak over to the lodge. So with those as my options, I decided that reading the book was better than exploring the lodge. Plus, I was so tired I wasn’t going to have bad dreams, no matter what the story said. I knew I was going to sleep like the dead.
“Fine,” I said with a sigh. “Let’s make angels. Where’s my scarf?”
I tucked the bottom of my pajamas into my boots, slipped on my ski pants, put on my coat, and covered all my skin. Chloe was all covered up too.
Matt was willing to brave the cold. He had his coat on but no ski pants.
“I’m not scared to get cold and wet,” he said, as if that was a challenge to me.
I ran a hand over my ski pants. “This has nothing to do with fear. It has to do with brains, which I have. And you don’t.”
“Zoe!” Matt gave me a shocked look. “How could you reveal my secret like that?” He turned to Chloe. “Don’t tell anyone. It’s because a zombie ate my brains.”
Chloe was into the joke. She screamed playfully and dashed out the cabin door.
It was bitterly cold outside but not snowing. We stayed in the light of the cabin windows and had a short snowball fight. Even though I was wearing my gloves, my fingers felt cold. We let Chloe hit us both with snowballs a few times, and then Matt knocked me down into a snow bank.
“That’s for yesterday,” he told me. “When you hit me with a snowball at the lodge.”
“Now I’ll need my revenge,” I said, standing and dusting myself off. “You better watch out!”
He laughed, and I swore I heard his laughter echo.
That’s odd, I said to myself. I shook off a feeling that we were being watched and told Chloe, “How about those snow angels?” My ski pants were already wet, so I just flopped down into a flat area right near I was standing.