Vampire Kisses

Chapter 4: Truth or Scare (part 1)

- I looked back at him and saw the terror on his face. I wasn't sure if he was scared of his friends outside or of the basement steps that might cave in at the slightest pressure... Or maybe he was afraid of ghosts. -

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The most exciting things to happen in Dullsville in my lifetime, in chronological order:

1. The 3:10 train jumped its tracks, spilling boxes of Tootsie Rolls, which we devoured.

2. A senior flushed a cherry bomb down the toilet, exploding the sewage line, closing school for a week. 3. On my sixteenth birthday a family rumored to be vampires moved into the haunted Mansion on top of Benson Hill!

The legend of the Mansion went like this: It was built by a Romanian baroness who fled her country after a peasant revolt in which her husband and most of his family were killed. The baroness built her new home on Benson Hill to resemble her European estate in every detail, except for the corpses.

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She lived with her servants in complete isolation, terrified of strangers and crowds. I was a small child at the time of her death and never met her, although I used to play by her solitary monument in the cemetery.

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Folks said she would sit by the upstairs window in the evenings staring at the moon, and that even now, when the moon is full, if you look from just the right angle, you can see her ghost sitting in that same window gazing at the sky.

But I never saw her.

The Mansion has been boarded up ever since. Rumor had it there was a witchlike Romanian daughter interested in black magic. In any case, she wasn't interested in Dullsville (smart lady!) and never claimed the place.

The Mansion on Benson Hill was quite gorgeous to me in its Gothic way, but an eyesore to everyone else. It was the biggest house in town-- and the emptiest. My dad says that's because it's in probate. Becky says it's because it's haunted. I think it's because women in this town are afraid of dust.

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The Mansion, of course, had always fascinated me. It was my Barbie Dream House, and I climbed the hill many nights hoping to spot a ghost. But I actually went inside only once, when I was twelve. I was hoping I could fix it up and make it my playhouse. I was going to put up a sign that said, NO NERD BOYS ALLOWED. One night I climbed the wrought iron gate and scurried up the winding driveway.

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The Mansion was truly magnificent, with vines dripping down its sides like falling tears, chipped paint, shattered roof tiles, and a spooky attic window.

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The wooden door stood like Godzilla, tall and powerful--and locked.

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I snuck around the back. All the windows were boarded up with long nails, but I noticed some loose boards hanging over the basement window.

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I was trying to pull them loose when I heard voices.

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I crouched behind some bushes as a gang of high-school seniors stumbled near. Most were drunk and one was scared.