THE CEMETERY

We took Henry’s car service to the cemetery, which, let me tell you, sure beat the two buses and the long walk. If I couldn’t have the pool or the butler, maybe I’d settle for a car service. But only if I didn’t have to get up at five like Henry to make morning swim practice. When the car let us off at the cemetery gates, I stopped for a moment and looked around. It seemed oddly familiar.

“Wasn’t this where we reburied Beatrice?” I said.

“I think it was,” said Henry. “Yes, right over there. Maybe I should pay my respects. Let her know I’m still thinking of her.”

“She knows,” said Natalie. “Trust me. First let’s find out if Olivia is here.”

We wandered around the cemetery looking for a lost girl spending her days among the tombstones. It didn’t take us long to find her, sitting cross-legged on the ground, playing with the petals of a ragged bunch of flowers.

She was older than we were, tall and lanky, with curly red hair that was long and loose and a bit wild, almost like a mourning veil around her head. She looked like she belonged right where she was, beside a grave with a marble marker that read TRAVIS JOHNSTONE.

We quietly walked to the graveside and stood in a row until she looked up at us through her curls. Her face wasn’t sad or mournful, like Barnabas’s face, it was just flat. As if nothing got through, as if nothing mattered.

“So let me guess,” said the girl. “You’re the middle school kids they’re talking about, the ones who have been asking all kinds of dangerous questions. The ones my mother told me not to talk to.”

“That’s us, all right,” said Natalie proudly.

“Why are our questions dangerous?” I asked.

“The fact that you don’t know is dangerous enough. You three should just play with your dolls and forget about all of this.”

“How come everyone thinks we still play with dolls?” said Natalie.

“You don’t?” said Henry.

“I didn’t say that, it’s just—”

“Why did you stop going to school?” I said.

Olivia looked at me for a moment and then turned away. “After what I’d been through, was math going to save me?”

“But math rules!” I said.

“The whole school thing seemed so unreal after what happened, I couldn’t bear it. The doctor told my mom I just needed time, so she lets me come here, hoping the phase will pass. But it’s not passing, and a century won’t be enough for me to feel like I belong in school anymore.”

“And you belong here?” I said.

“With him, yes,” she said. “And Diego. And my dad, just three rows down.”

“What happened at that house?” said Natalie.

“If I snapped my teeth and hissed,” Olivia said in her dead voice, “would that send you running? It should.”

“But it won’t,” I said. “I’m sorry, but just like you, we have a friend in trouble. And the trouble he’s in is from Pili.”

Olivia went back to picking at her flowers. “Then he’s in a world of trouble.”

“Tell us about the doctor,” said Natalie.

“Which doctor?” she said.

“With the eye patch,” said Henry.

“And the dog,” I said.

“Oh,” Olivia said in her flat voice. “That doctor.” She picked at the flowers more violently and then started twisting the stems as she said, “He told us it would be bad.”

Natalie knelt down and gently took hold of the mangled bouquet. She straightened what stems she could straighten and arranged what was left of the petals until they almost looked like flowers again. Then she carefully laid them in front of the headstone with Travis’s name.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“He told us it would be bad and we had to do it his way,” said Olivia. “But Pili didn’t want to do it his way. Who would? That wasn’t the kind of girl she was, at least not then. We figured we knew what we’d find. Drugs. Crime. We’d seen enough movies. Travis and Diego were caught in a trap, but we could get them out. Our way. Sneak in, sneak out. We could do it ourselves. We’d seen the movies.” She paused for a moment and closed her eyes. “But this wasn’t like the movies.”

“What was in the house?” said Natalie.

“A nest,” said Olivia. “A nest of monsters, horrid beasts in human form, all teeth and nails, slithering around in the shadows like snakes and feeding themselves on the blood of their living victim, who was hung like a trophy on a wall.”

“Which one was on the wall?” said Natalie.

“Travis,” said Olivia as she stared at the headstone. “Still alive. Crazed with fear and pain.”

I tried to imagine the scene painted by her words, but I couldn’t. I had seen ghosts and demons and the very strange Court of Uncommon Pleas, I had seen a chupacabra suck the life out of a goat, but this was too much. This gasp of horror was beyond my imagining.

“Just the sight of it was enough to convince us both that all our movie plans were ridiculous,” said Olivia. “We backed away from the window, keeping our gaze on the monsters as we stepped quietly away. But we didn’t step quietly enough. Burning-red eyes turned in our direction, two of which belonged to Diego. Then came the inhuman howls. And then came the dogs.”

I looked up just then, looked around. The snap of danger that had chased Pili and Olivia was still in the air. I could hear the monsters howling and the dogs charging. Then I spied a strange figure standing at the cemetery entrance, as if summoned by the story. It was tall and thin and still and sad, a little like Barnabas. With a start I realized it was Barnabas. I had told him where we were going that afternoon, but why was he here?

“What happened next?” said Natalie, still kneeling next to Olivia.

“Something charged right past us, a fierce gray thing that leaped straight into the pack of dogs that were about to tear us to pieces and sent them scattering like bowling pins.”

I looked up into the sky, high and blue and clear. Clear of clouds, clear of vultures. If Barnabas was here, where was Keir?

“As the dogfight continued,” said Olivia, “the doctor appeared like a ghost out of the darkness. He had come to save us, he said. He had come to end the horror.”

I pulled my gaze from the sky and stared at Olivia as she continued her story.

“They went back in to finish what needed finishing. The doctor, and his gang, and Pili, too. She decided that the only way to save her brother was to do it the doctor’s way. When they went in, I sat on the ground, hugging my knees. And then, as the fire raged, I ran. I didn’t know what else to do. When I was finally home safe, I went right up to my room and crawled under my covers. Who could I tell what I’d seen? Nobody. So that’s who I told. And in truth, I still haven’t come out from under the covers. And I haven’t seen Pili since.”

“You said Pili tried saving Travis the doctor’s way,” I said. “What was Dr. Van’s way?”

She turned her head and looked at me. “Who is Dr. Van?”

“The dude with the eye patch and the dog,” said Henry. “His name is Dr. Rudolf Van.”

“Van is just part of his last name,” said Olivia. “His full name is Van Helsing. Dr. Rudolf Van Helsing. And his way is to hunt the monsters and kill them. To stick stakes into their hearts and burn their corpses until not one of them remains on the face of the earth. And that night Pili joined the vampire slayer’s crusade.”

As soon as the implications of Olivia’s story slipped through my thick skull, I knew right away what had happened to Keir. He had said he had plans, which meant avoiding Barnabas after school and slipping away to find his own path to safety. He thought maybe it lived in a full-color brochure, but what he would find instead was… was…

I spun toward Barnabas and started running.