Excerpt from A CREEPY CASE OF VAMPIRES
by Kenneth Oppel
Illustrated by Sam Sisco
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Night Visitor
SCRITCH. Scritch, screetch. Scriiiiiiiichhhhh.
Giles's eyes popped open. It was the middle of the night. A strange, scratching noise was coming from outside his window. It sounded like an old, brittle twig scraping against the glass. Probably just some of those dead ivy vines his father had forgotten to cut back in the summer. But then, through the curtains, he thought he saw a strange shadow...
Giles slowly slipped out of bed and padded silenty across the room. His heart pounded. He reached the window, took a deep breath and threw back the curtains.
There was a flash of red light from upside-down eyes. A bat hung by its claws from the outer window frame. It had thick black fur and sharply pointed ears, and Giles could see tiny, needle teeth in its open jaws.
He was frozen in terror. With a squeak, the bat quickly dropped from the window, stretched its wings and swooped down into the fog that blanketed the road. Giles's teeth chattered furiously. Just as he was about to close the curtains and dive back into bed, he heard footsteps on the pavement.
From the fog came the man they'd seen on the bell tower! He walked straight past the front of Giles's house, his black cape flowing around him, and then disappeared once more into the night.
From A Creepy Case of Vampires. Copyright © 2002 by Kenneth Oppel.
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