by B. A. Frade
Chloe lay down beside me.
Matt was hovering above us. His shadow blocked the moonlight.
“Are you scared to get your jeans wet?” I asked him. “Lie down already.”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” he told me with a chuckle, which again seemed to echo.
He settled next to Chloe and leaned back into some fresh powder.
“Snow angels, go!” Chloe announced, raising her hands above her head and pressing them back into the snow.
This time, it was Chloe’s voice that seemed to echo in the night. Like “Sn-oh-oh-oh…”
I raised my arms, about to start my own angel, when I looked up to the sky.
“Augh!” I screamed.
“What?” Chloe said. “If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not funny!” She stood up from her angel in a huff.
“Yeah,” Matt repeated in her same tone. “It’s not funny.”
“Hey, Chloe,” I told my sister. My words were tumbling out fast. “I screamed because snow got in my pants.”
She giggled, just as I’d expected her to.
“Can you grab me a towel?” She was already standing, so I thought she might be willing. I added, “If you do, I’ll make us some hot chocolate.”
“With mini marshmallows?” she asked.
“As many as you want,” I said, sitting in the snow and pointing toward the house. “Just get any towel, okay?”
“Oh, fine.” With a big huff, she said, “Be right back. Don’t mess up my angel.”
“My tushie is too cold to move,” I assured her.
When the cabin door shut behind her, I told Matt, “It wasn’t snow that made me scream. Look!”
I pointed to the sky. It was a bat. It was circling our heads and zooming back and forth through the trees.
“Is that your mom?” Matt turned to the side to look at me. He was still lying in the snow. “Mrs. Lancaster? Is that you?” he called.
“Don’t make fun of me!” I threw a handful of snow at him. It fell like a fine dust into his hair.
“Mellow out. We’re in the mountains. Bats live in the mountains. What’s your issue?” Matt sat up and looked back at the snow. “My angel looks like a snow robot. I forgot to move my arms.”
Clearly, Matt wasn’t making the same connections that I was making. “It’s a bat,” I told him. “Like Mr. Wampir’s mother in the story.”
He shrugged. “How can you know that?”
“I just do!” I replied. I couldn’t explain it, but I just knew that it was like the same vampirish bat in my dream.
“At least it’s not your mother,” Matt said, smirking at me.
I stood up. “You don’t find this even a little scary? There are too many coincidences,” I told him. “The music, my dreams, the meat… I think Mr. Wampir got turned into a vampire by his creepy vampire mom.”
“That was all in the Scaremaster’s story.” Matt shrugged again. “It’s a story, Zoe. A st-o-ry.” He said that last bit as if slowing down his words would make me realize how insane I was acting.
“But it’s coming true,” I told him, my voice rising. “Things in the story are actually happening.”
“Your imagination is running wild, Zo,” Matt said, heading into the cabin. “You’re too tired. Let’s go in. You sleep. I’ll hang out with Chloe till our parents get back.”
The bat above my head squeaked in a long, high sound that hurt my ears.
“Your mom’s calling,” Matt said with a laugh. “Come on, sleepyhead.” He opened the cabin door and waited for me to enter.
“Okay,” I said, not quite convinced he was right. “Maybe I am too tired. We can start fresh with vacation scares tomorrow.”
I went to find out what was taking Chloe so long with the towel. She’d never come back outside. “Chloe?” I peeked into the bathroom we shared. She wasn’t there.
“Chloe?” I looked in Mom and Dad’s room. “We aren’t playing hide-and-seek. Come out.”
She didn’t answer.
My heart was starting to beat a little faster as I went room to room calling her name. “Chloe?”
“What’s up?” Matt asked. He’d been in his parents’ bathroom changing into dry pants.
“Did you see Chloe?” I asked him. I could now barely hear my own voice over the beating of my heart.
“Um, no, she wasn’t in the bathroom with me—”
I smacked him hard on the arm. “No messing around,” I said, my voice tight and my face flushed. “She’s missing.”
“No way,” Matt said, looking around the living room. “She just came inside a minute ago. She’s got to be here.”
“She’s not,” I said. Just to be sure, I called her name one more time. “CHLOE!”
When we came in, we’d left the cabin door open. I could hear the bat outside squeaking, as if it were talking to me. I rushed to the door and peeked outside. The bat circled the cabin one last time, then flew off toward the old lodge.
“Matt,” I told him, shaking with fear like never before. “I don’t know where she is.”
“She left a clue,” Matt said in a voice so low I had to ask him to repeat what he’d said.
“What?”
“I know where she is.” Matt held a creamy-white square of paper in his hand. “Our game was moved to the side, and the Scaremaster’s journal was sitting in the center of the table.” He pointed back toward his bed. “I made the bed into a couch this morning and put the book underneath a cushion. I swear, Zoe.”
Goose bumps broke out along my spine and traveled all the way to my toes.
“The book moves on its own,” I said. “It did that last night too.” I put a hand on the cover. “Chloe would never read a story from this,” I said, feeling a tingling warmth radiate from the pages. “She doesn’t like to be scared.”
“Maybe, but look at this.” Matt handed me the paper he was holding. It was an envelope. “This was sitting on top of the book.”
On the front on the envelope was Chloe’s name in powdery gold lettering.
Inside, the card had an embossed golden W with two small red dots over the letter, at the top of the paper.
The invitation read:
Please join me this evening for a
special celebration.
The final night of the Wampir
Ski Resort and Lodge
Dinner will be served at
8:00 p.m.
Dancing to follow
“It’s a dance party,” I moaned as my legs threated to collapse under me.
Matt slipped a chair behind me, and I sat.
“A dance party,” I muttered again. “Chloe went to a dance party.” Gathering my strength, I rushed to the bedroom. “Her party dress is missing!” I shouted to Matt. “And her nice shoes.” I came back to the living room. “And her coat and gloves. She must have gone out the sliding glass door and around the cabin so we didn’t see her.”
Matt looked at me. He was standing at the table, over the Scaremaster’s journal. The book was open. “There’s a new story,” he said.
It began:
Once upon a time, there was a
girl named Chloe.
Chloe loved to dance.
Chapter Eight
I dressed quickly in jeans and a sweater. Wearing my ski jacket and warm boots, I rushed outside with Matt. I was carrying the Scaremaster’s journal and the two other invitations that we’d found tucked inside its pages. There was one with my name on it and one for Matt.
Matt had a backpack with the supplies he thought we might need, specifically, a flashlight and garlic. Well, it was actually garlic spread for the garlic bread that my dad had made us for dinner, but we figured it would have to do.
“I heard that a silver chain is good for fighting vampires,” Matt said, zipping up his backpack. “Vampires can’t break silver, so maybe we could tie up his hands?”
“If Mr. Wampir really is a vampire, I’m not planning to get close enough to him to tie his hands. And
if his mom lives there too, we’d need two chains.” I didn’t even have one. “I think we are stuck with garlic spread and our wits.”
“A stake?” Matt suggested. We’d left the cabin, locked the door, and left a note on the table for our parents saying that we had gone to see a movie at the lodge. I hated lying, but it was better than the truth:
Chloe has been abducted by
vampires.
Home by 10.
Love, Zoe and Matt
“Do you mean stake, as in a sharp stick to plunge through a vampire’s heart? Or a steak, like at lunch? Just in case the vampire is thirsty for blood.”
Matt shrugged and wrinkled his nose. “Both?”
I could tell he was trying to crack jokes to keep me from worrying too much. But I was worried. And he was too.
I looked around. There was so much snow on the ground that I didn’t even see a stick. Again, I was not planning to get close enough to a vampire to plunge a stake through his or her heart tonight.
I was also scared. Really, really scared.
Matt grew quiet as we hurried toward the old lodge.
He put a hand out to stop me as we neared the front steps. “Read the story, Zo,” he told me, pulling out the flashlight. “If the Scaremaster’s stories are coming true, we need to be prepared for what’s going to happen next.”
That made sense. I opened the book and held it in the beam from Matt’s flashlight.
Chloe loved parties. When
the bellman brought her the
invitation, she immediately
changed for the dance. He
assured her that she’d have a
fun time. He said that Zoe and
Matt would be there soon. Chloe
agreed to go, and together they
hurried out the cabin’s back door.
The beam of the light flickered, and I tapped the flashlight impatiently.
I read on:
Tonight was going to be the most
lavish party Frederic Wampir had
ever held. It would make up for
the disaster at the grand opening
event all those years ago.
The tables were set with the
finest china. The crystal glasses
sparkled in the glow from the
chandeliers. The band had been
practicing for weeks.
This night would be one that no
one would ever forget.
It was the last time a party would
ever be held at his Wampir Ski
Resort and Lodge.
I raised my eyes from the page. “That’s it,” I said. But as I said it, I glanced down to find that more words were slowly appearing at the bottom of the page.
To be continued…
I flipped to the next journal page. It was blank. “I don’t know what it means,” I told Matt. “What happens next?”
Matt bit his bottom lip. “We’re going to have to go inside and find out,” he said.
He started to move, but I held back. “Are you scared?” I asked. “Because I am. I admit it.” I felt tears brimming in my eyes. “What if we can’t find Chloe? Or what if she’s already a vampire? What will we do?”
Matt considered my face for a long moment, then switched off his flashlight. “Don’t stress yet,” he said at last. “We’ll find Chloe, and she’ll be fine. Just keep repeating that, okay?”
I nodded. “I’ll try.”
He put a hand on my back as we walked together. “I’ll let you know if I get scared, okay?” he said. “Right now, I have that bubbling feeling of anticipation. Like when you’re about to enter a haunted house. Like when you know that things are going to pop out and try to scare you.” He turned to me and smiled. “I like that feeling. It makes me brave. I’m going to use that bravery to find your sister!”
Channeling every drop of courage I had left in my tired body, I tucked the Scaremaster’s journal under my arm. “Let’s go,” I said, stepping up over a broken board on the old lodge’s porch and entering the lobby.
The lobby was exactly like I’d dreamt. Only now, there was one huge difference. It looked brand-new. The wooden steps of the staircase gleamed with polish. Brass rails that I hadn’t noticed before glimmered under the light of a giant crystal chandelier. The paintings on the wall were all straight, not damaged, and there were no spiderwebs in sight.
I gasped. “Matt,” I said, taking a steady breath. “What is going on?”
“Velcome to Vampir,” a voice said from behind us.
I swiveled on my boot so fast that I nearly knocked Matt down as I turned. It was the bellman from the new lodge. The one who’d welcomed us before. He was wearing the same jacket and hat. I realized then that the uniform was timeless. It could have been from another era or from today. It was just a coat and hat.
“You!” I pointed at him.
The bellman gave me a curious look that revealed nothing. “You are here for the party, no?” He put out his hand to take my jacket.
“It’s cold,” I said, still sounding rude. “I’d rather keep it.” I wrapped my arms around myself, as if my coat was some kind of protective shield.
Matt, on the other hand, gave his coat to the bellman. “I think it’s warm,” he said, taking the claim check from the man. He leaned into me and said, “I’m curious where he’ll take it. To the coatroom from the past or the one from the present?”
“I don’t know.” This was all overwhelming. I couldn’t tell what was real and what wasn’t anymore.
“Your table is ready,” the bellman told us, waving his hand toward the old ballroom. The doors were now fixed, or else it was all a ghostly mirage.
When we entered the grand ballroom, it was exactly as the Scaremaster’s story had described, which was also the same as in my dream.
Beautiful tables set with fine china. A band on a long stage played songs that I assumed were the same ones that Chloe had heard at the new lodge. They were certainly the tunes that I’d dreamt about.
The room was crowded with guests. They seemed too solid to be ghosts. Where had they come from? Their clothing was old-fashioned. Their skin was oddly pale. They didn’t seem to notice Matt and me in our modern clothes, or if they did, they were too polite to stare.
I was struck by how many people were there, and yet, there had been no footprints in the snow around the lodge. I told myself it must have been too dark to notice.
“Have you seen my sister?” I asked the bellman. I kept my voice calm and kind. I had decided that being rude wasn’t going to help us.
“Mistress Lancaster is somewhere else,” he said mysteriously. He pulled out a chair for me to sit. “Dinner will be served promptly.”
I sat down, but the instant the bellman walked away, I stood.
“Matt, what are we going to do?”
“This is amazing,” Matt breathed as he looked around. “This must be what the actual grand opening looked like. It’s as if we stepped back in time.”
“Right before the guests started disappearing and Wampir’s mother showed up,” I said. I put a hand on his arm and shook it. “Matt! We gotta find Chloe and get out of here.”
Matt looked at the strange scene in the room. “I know—I’m sorry. I just can’t believe what I am seeing is real,” he said.
“Me either,” I told him. “I think we’re trapped inside the Scaremaster’s story.” I set the Scaremaster’s book on the table.
“Let’s see if he’s written anything else,” Matt said. He opened the book and turned a few pages. Then he read:
Chloe was early for the party.
Mr. Wampir offered to take her
on a tour of the lodge before the
other guests arrived. She was
eager to go.
He put a hand on the back of her
neck and led her up the steps.
“Neck! It says neck! That’s a vampire’s favorite place to drink from!” Matt gave me a look. I was shouting.
“Oh.” I glanced up at the people in the room. Oddly, no one turned to look at me. The music must have been louder than my outburst.
“Upstairs.” Matt was out of the ballroom so fast I had to run to catch him.
“Wait,” I said. “Was there more story?”
He stopped at the bottom of the steps and showed me the journal.
To be continued…
Chapter Nine
The instant we stepped onto the first step, a cold gust blasted through me. I blinked against the frozen wind, putting my hands into my pockets. My eyes watered, and my nose started running.
“Zoe.” Matt tipped his head close to mine and whispered, “I’m not saying that I’m scared, but this is odd.” He turned me slightly. I wiped the wetness from my eyes and could see that the stairs were now decayed. The banister no longer gleamed. And the pictures on the wall looked exactly like they had in my dream: torn, crooked, with cobwebs.
“What happened?” I asked him, wiping my eyes again to be sure what I was seeing was real.
“I don’t know….” He stepped carefully onto the next step. It creaked under his weight.
I followed Matt as he climbed the stairs. He tested each board to check that it was secure enough to stand on.
At the top of the stairs, there were two ways to go. Both directions led to long hallways filled with guest room doors.
“We are not splitting up,” I told Matt, grabbing his arm. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I considered it,” he admitted. “But that never goes well in stories.” After looking left, then right, he said, “We’ll go left.”
Desperate to find my sister fast, I yelled, “Chloe! Are you here?” I yelled it both directions. There was no answer.
“Okay.” I sighed. “Let’s start left.”