“I wanna sweep witchoo, too!” Beth cried, and roped her arms around Mom’s neck.
“I think that’s a good idea,” Grandfather said. He never cracked a smile.
“Pete?”
Peter looked out the window again, then back at his mother and nodded quickly.
“Okay…okay, grab your pillow and you can sleep in my room. Come on, Bethie, let’s get your stuffed animals.”
Peter walked over to the bed to grab his pillow, but his eyes were still on the window.
“Boy,” Grandfather said.
Peter looked over at him.
“There are no such things as vampires, boy.”
Peter nodded halfheartedly.
“But if there were, they can’t enter a house without being asked in by someone living,” Grandfather continued. “You didn’t do that, did you?”
Peter frowned. “You believe me?”
“In your dream, you DIDN’T, did you?” Grandfather repeated sternly.
“No.”
“Good.” The old man turned to go. “If you have that dream again, DON’T.”
“You believe me, though?”
“There are no such things as vampires, boy,” Grandfather said, and then he walked out of the room.
15
It was a long time till morning.
Beth and Mom slept together on one side of the king-sized bed, Peter on the other. He never fully fell asleep, and when he seemed to be on the verge, he got jolted awake by every little sound. Boards creaking, trees scraping, the wind sighing – the tiniest noise made his body snap to attention, like one of those dreams where you’re falling, falling, falling, and just as you hit the ground you jerk and wake up.
That must have happened twenty times.
The one good thing was that there were no windows in his mother’s room. Peter thought that was just luck, just a matter of chance, until he heard a creaking outside the bedroom door.
Peter sat there for a good five minutes, ears aching to catch any more noise…but all he could hear was the gentle breathing of his mother and sister beside him.
He finally decided he had to get up. For his mom’s sake. For Beth’s sake.
He walked past the nightlight Mom had plugged in and went to the door. His hand rested on the doorknob for what seemed like an hour. Then he slowly opened the door about three inches.
There was his grandfather sitting on a wooden chair in the well-lit hallway. He heard the creak of the door and turned his head towards Peter.
Peter looked at him.
His grandfather glared back.
Without a word, Peter slowly shut the door and crept back to bed.
He finally got to sleep after that.
16
“No WAY,” Dill howled.
They were standing at the bus stop. Dill’s barely-started homework lay unnoticed on the ground where he had abandoned it five minutes ago when Peter ran up.
“That’s exactly the way it happened. It was awful, even worse than the dead guys in the garden – ”
“STOP.” Dill threw up a hand, palm out. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, what should I do?”
Dill put his hand up to his chin. “Well…there’s Italian food.”
“What? What good is spaghetti going to do me?”
“Garlic, man, garlic. Keeps vampires away.” Dill nodded sagely. “Girls, too. Ugh.”
“Well, I like spaghetti, but wouldn’t it just be better to have the real garlic itself?”
Dill shrugged. “I guess you can do that. Stakes through the heart work, too.”
“Why are you so obsessed with food?”
“Huh?”
“Steaks! Are you supposed to cook it, or can it be raw?”
“NOOO, wooden stakes, not food steaks. Although a hamburger would be good right about now.” Dill licked his lips, then sighed. “Don’t you watch TV at all? Buffy The Vampire Slayer reruns are on Saturday nights at 11. You should take notes.”
“I don’t think I have until Saturday, so why don’t you just tell me now?”
Dill ticked off the options on his fingers. “Wooden stakes…garlic…sunlight… crosses…uh…hold on…”
“Looks like somebody else should watch more movies, too,” Peter taunted.
“Holy water.” Dill pointed at Peter. “The Lost Boys. Rent it.”
“It’s Rated R, right? I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I’m only nine and a half! My mom won’t let me watch that!”
Dill tsked with his tongue. “Why does she deny you the classics?”
“Would you just – ”
“Wooden stakes, garlic, sunlight, holy water, silver bullets – ”
“I thought that was werewolves.”
“Uh…hmmm…I think it works for vampires, too.”
“What’s holy water?”
“Churches sell it. Or give it away. Something like that. They have bowls of the stuff.”
“Why?”
“I guess for vampire attacks, I don’t know.”
There was a distant rattling sound like an old machine coughing and clanking to life. Both the boys turned to look.
An ancient, weather-beaten truck puttered out of the ramshackle garage behind Grandfather’s house and down the gravel driveway. Behind the wheel sat the old man, his crazy white hair blowing in the breeze.
“Hey, where’s your grandpa going?”
“I don’t know. Hey, Grandfather!” Peter yelled and waved.
The old man totally ignored them as the old truck roared past, not 20 feet away.
“Man, that was cold,” Dill said as the truck grew small down the road.
“He’s going somewhere,” Peter murmured.
“You are brilliant, you know that?”
“No, I mean, he’s going somewhere important. I told you he kept watch last night, right? He’s going to go do something, I just know it.”
Dill looked at Peter. Peter stared back.
“Get your bike, I’ll meet you right back here,” Dill yelled as he ran to his house.
“What about school?”
“Let’s just call it a field trip!”
17
They pedaled furiously down the two-lane road, following the path Peter’s grandfather had taken. They had to pull off into the trees along the side when they spotted the school bus in the distance. Luckily the driver roared on past, and they started again at double their previous speed.
“We…have…no idea…where he’s going,” Peter panted.
“Where…would you go…if you were hunting a vampire?” Dill wheezed back.
The answer was Greenvale Cemetery, a good three miles away. It wasn’t that hard to figure out, especially since Grandfather’s truck was parked outside the huge locked gates and stone walls.
The boys coasted up to the truck. No sign of Grandfather, although in the truck bed there was a collection of shovels and tools caked with dried dirt.
“Freaky,” Dill said.
“Where do you think he went?” Peter asked.
“Duh, same place we’re going.” Dill hid his bike behind a large clump of bushes far away from the truck, then ran over, grabbed Peter’s bike, and did the same with it.
Peter peered up at the eight-foot stone walls. He pushed against the massive iron bars of the gates, which moved maybe a fraction of an inch. There was absolutely no way they could climb any of it, and the bars were too close together to squeeze through. It was hopeless.
“We can’t get in.”
“Sure we can,” Dill assured him.
“But it’s locked!”
“Are you gonna keep yelling till Old Man Parker comes out?” Dill whispered.
Old Man Parker was the keeper of the cemetery. From what Dill had told him, Parker was a recluse who lived with his big, black dog in the little cottage on the hill, only a couple hundred feet from the front gates. He was supposedly even weirder than Grandfather.
Peter looked around a stone column and watched the house for any sign that the old man was stirring.
“No…he’d probably just sic his dog on us.”
“‘Zactly,” Dill said, and tugged at Peter’s sleeve. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Round the back.”
A hundred feet down the road, the wall took a 90-degree turn into the forest. Soon they found a good climbing tree with limbs that reached over the stone fortress.
“Up we go,” Dill whispered, and began climbing like a monkey.
Peter followed him up more carefully. By now Dill was shimmying out on the branch that bridged the stone wall.
“Dill?”
Dill wasn’t listening. Once he crossed the wall, he grabbed the branch and swung off it, dangled from the drooping limb, and dropped out of sight.
“Ow,” came a disembodied voice from the other side.
Peter followed suit and shimmied out, dangled, and fell. His feet burned with sharp pain as he hit the ground and tumbled onto his rear end.
“Okay, we’re in,” Dill said. He was already on his feet and scanning the graveyard. The place seemed almost pleasant, its tombstones peaceful in the early morning light.
“Yeah, but how’re we going to get out?” Peter asked.
Dill looked back up at the tree branch four feet above them. “Oh crap.” Then he shrugged and started sneaking off. “We’ll figure something out.”
Peter ran up behind him. “How will we know what we’re looking for?”
“Look for a crazy old man.”
18
They ran through the cemetery, ducking behind tombstones, running past statues of angels that watched them with unseeing eyes. Before long they made it to the center of the graveyard, where a dozen simple stone buildings rose up out of the ground.
One of them had an iron door on it that was pushed halfway open.
The name cut into stone above the door was faded with time, though not enough that it couldn’t be read:
CHALMERS.
“Holy crap, that’s it,” Dill whispered as they hunkered down beneath the base of another angel statue.
“What do we do?”
“Well, if he’s fightin’ a vampire in there, I don’t want to get in his way.”
“It’s Mercy, Dill. It’s not just a vampire, it’s Mercy. And that’s my grandfather in there.” Peter bit his lower lip, then made his decision. “I gotta go help him.”
He was two steps away from the hiding place when Dill dragged him back. “Hold on, someone’s coming,” Dill hissed in his ear.
The iron door grated, clanged, and opened all the way as Grandfather stepped out. In one hand he held a shovel, in the other a crowbar. A canvas bag was slung around his neck, and a hammer hung from a loop in his pants.
“Whoa,” Dill breathed.
Grandfather stood there staring into the woods, an angry and defeated look on his face. Finally he turned around and started to pull the door closed. It grated and scraped awfully on the cement floor of the crypt.
“SEAMUS!” a loud voice boomed.
Peter about messed his pants.
Over the row of tombstones, almost fifty feet away, they could barely make out a short, fat man with a black beard streaked with silver. He wore plaid pajamas and a hunter’s cap, and he cradled a shotgun in his arms. A giant dog that looked like a mop made of black yarn barked at his side.
“Old Man Parker,” Dill whispered. He paused, then added, “I think I peed my pants.”
“You old lunatic – what the hell are you doing? Get out of there!” Parker roared.
“I haven’t done a damn thing,” Grandfather snapped. “Just let me – ”
“Get away from that door! What are you – is that a shovel? What are you doing?!”
“Minding my own business, just like you should.”
“I could have the sheriff’s department out here and arrest you, old man!”
“For what?”
“Graverobbing!”
Dill and Peter both gasped quietly.
“Trespassing at the most, Parker. And I don’t think you’d want to call the sheriff, seeing as we both know what happened here last winter.”
Peter looked at Dill, who shrugged.
Whatever Grandfather was talking about, it was enough to make Old Man Parker reconsider. “Hmph. We’ll let it go this time, Seamus. Now get away from that crypt.”
“Let me lock the door again – ”
Old Man Parker CLACKED the shotgun. “I’ll get it later. Get along now, Seamus.”
Peter watched as Grandfather moved away from the stone mausoleum, muttering under his breath. He walked past Old Man Parker, who turned and followed him.
Unfortunately, the black mop dog did not.
It was snuffling in the grass, not ten feet away from Peter and Dill.
Peter held his breath as the dog drew closer and closer, sniffing and snorting. It raised its head and looked straight forward – but not at the statue where Dill and Peter were hiding. It was looking at the open crypt. A low growl built in its throat.
“Percival!” Old Man Parker yelled. “Get over here!”
The dog growled once more, then turned and loped after its owner.
It felt like ten minutes went by before Peter breathed again.
“Jeez,” Dill gasped.
Peter looked around at him. “You didn’t really pee in your pants, did you?”
Dill looked down. He was wearing black corduroys that wouldn’t have shown any wet spots even if he had lost control of his bladder. “Uhhhh…no. ‘Course not. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
“Are you crazy? We’ve got to go in there.” Peter pointed at the stone building and the iron door.
“Are you crazy? I peed my – I mean, I almost peed my pants already, I don’t need to…almost do it again.”
“We have to know what Grandfather saw in there.”
“I think I can go the rest of my life without knowing that.”
“Then stay here.”
Peter started towards the crypt.
“Aw, man,” Dill muttered, and followed after him.
The building was large, with a floor that sunk deep in the ground. The smell of damp earth filled the air and seemed to press against their faces. Cobwebs hung like clouds from the ceiling.
It’s now or never.
Peter walked down the stone steps into the dim light of the tomb and waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness.
He kind of wished he hadn’t. Long cement blocks rose from the ground one after the other, four feet high, with tarnished brass plaques bolted to the sides. There must have been twenty of the graves, each with a giant stone slab neatly stacked atop it.
Except one.
On that one, the stone slab was pushed askew…so that someone could look inside.
Or so something could get out.
Peter approached the grave slowly, his heart thudding in his ears.
Grandfather came in here and left. Either he did something…or he didn’t find anything…which makes it safe…right?
He reached the cement block. A brass plaque hung on its side, too, still shiny and new in what little light shone in from outside the tomb.
MERCY CHALMERS
“Is…is that it?” Dill asked, his voice trembling.
Peter took a breath, stood on his tiptoes, and peered over the side of the crypt.
There was nothing inside.
No body, no coffin…
…no Mercy Chalmers.
19
“So what do we do now?” Peter asked as he and Dill rode their bikes away from the cemetery.
“Well…your grandpa looked like he meant business.”
“Yeah?”
“Like he showed up to do something.”
Peter remembered the angry expression on Grandfather’s face as he stepped out of the tomb. “Yeah…”
“So I figure we oughta get some stuff
and get busy, too, in case she comes back.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Dill pulled a hard left into a parking lot across the street. Peter followed and coasted to a stop beside him.
“Here,” Dill said, pointing to a gray building.
Peter looked at the sign out front in the grass. On it was a picture of a lady in blue, kneeling and praying. The name of the place was spelled out in gold letters next to her.
“‘Our Lady of Perpetual Peace,’” Peter read. “This is a church, Dill.”
Dill nodded. “A Catholic church.”
“What are we going to get here?”
“Whatever we need. This here is like ‘Kill-A-Vampire-R-Us.’”
“Dill…” Peter warned.
But Dill was already up the front steps and opening the door.
“Dill!” Peter hissed, then followed him inside.
The church was big and open. Wooden pews lined the center aisle all the way up to the front, where there were a couple of tables and a cross on the wall. Red and gold banners hung from the ceiling. Light filtered in from stained glass windows. No one was inside.
All this was like other churches Peter had been in, except for two things. One, there was a stand near the entrance that looked like a skinny bird bath. As Peter got closer, he saw that the bowl on top did indeed have water inside. And two, a six-foot tall box stood against the left wall of the church. It looked like a fat, wooden telephone booth, but without any glass to see inside.
“Dill, what are you doing?”
Dill had plucked a cross off the wall. A tiny figurine of Jesus was attached to the wood. “One cross. Check.” Dill swiped his hand through the air like he was checking off an invisible ‘to do’ list.
“That’s stealing!”
“We’re just borrowing it,” Dill whispered back. He reached in one pocket and brought out a plastic circular thing, then screwed it apart and flicked with one hand. Little plastic rings popped out and formed a cup, which he dipped in the water bowl on top of the bird bath.
Dill grinned. “Collapsible drinking cups are awesome.”
“Are you going to drink that?”
“No way – this is that holy water stuff. It’s like acid for vampires.”
“But this is Mercy we’re talking about! I don’t want to throw acid on her!”
“Well, I like my neck without any holes in it, so if you can talk her out of doing that, I’ll keep the holy water in the cup.”
“I’m pretty sure they don’t want you taking that!”