by Brian Rowe
It only took Brin ten seconds to reach the bottom of the staircase, but she knew she only had ten more seconds to stay at the bottom before the exacerbated vamps would smash right into her. She heard them running down the corridor.
Brin jumped away from the bottom step, to see Anaya standing still, her back turned to her.
“Anaya! What are you doing?”
“Go,” she whispered. “Don’t worry about me.”
“What?” Brin grabbed Anaya’s right arm. Anaya was bawling, and she wouldn’t budge. “What the hell are you doing?”
“We can’t all survive,” Anaya said. “Let me stand here. I can block them. I can give the rest of you more time—”
“No! No way! Don’t even think it!”
Brin didn’t grab her arm this time; she grabbed her head. She pulled Anaya’s face toward hers. Brin may have just kissed Paul on the lips a minute or two ago, but now she wanted to spread the love. She hadn’t been thinking about it; she hadn’t planned to do it. She just did it. Brin planted her lips on Anaya’s.
Brin pulled away a second later, and took in Anaya’s stunned reaction. “Anaya, I never thought I’d say this,” Brin said, “but I love you. I love you, and I’m not letting you die tonight.”
“You love me?” Anaya said, with a slight smile. “See, this is why I’m going to make the better director than you. Because I’m not so goddamned sentimental.”
Brin slugged Anaya in the shoulder, playfully, and pulled her back toward the staircase. “Come on! Hurry!”
The vampires appeared down the corridor, with their mouths wide open, ready to suck on blood and desecrate every human in sight. Brin glanced back at them only once, but she swore she could see saliva trickling down every one of their chins. She tried to catch a glimpse of her mother, but she didn’t see her; she didn’t know where Justin had taken her.
“Damn it,” Brin said, and she pushed Anaya up in front of her. “OK, you’re going first!”
“But I’m slower than you,” Anaya said.
“I know you are! That’s why I’m going to push you, so that you go faster!”
The first vampire jumped up toward the staircase and reached for Brin’s foot but missed by mere inches. A second vampire grabbed for her ankle but she kicked him in the face before he could pull her down.
“Move it!” Brin screamed. “Faster, faster!”
“I’m trying,” Anaya said.
Anaya could be slow at times, but she wasn’t being slow now; she started leaping up the steps three at a time, all the way up to the top.
“Did they get the trapdoor opened?” Brin asked.
“One… two…” Paul and Ash said in unison.
“Three!” Anaya shouted and pounded her head and fists up against the door, not only finally opening it, but catapulting the entire door up into the air. Anaya jumped out first, then Paul, then Ash. Mr. Barker ran out onto the snow, and Brin rolled away from the opening.
Paul grabbed her and pulled her up to her feet.
“What the hell, Paul?” Brin said. “Why didn’t we go out that way last time? It was so much faster!”
“I’d never been down that way before. I didn’t know.”
“What?” She glared at him for a moment. “You didn’t know where the corridor led? What if it had taken us to a dead end, to a cement wall?”
“But it didn’t!”
“Hey! Guys!” Anaya shouted, walking backward. “Watch out!”
Brin and Paul turned around to see ten vampires already crawling out the top of the open stairwell.
“Crap,” Brin said. She grabbed Paul’s hand and turned toward the others. “Let’s run toward the church! Does anyone see Droz? Does anyone—”
They had only run for five seconds, when a wall of vampires appeared on the other side of them.
“Oh no,” said Brin. She looked back at the stairwell opening. Forty vamps had already pushed themselves out of it, and formed another wall.
Brin looked to her left and right. More vampires appeared out of nowhere. They were closing in. The humans were trapped.
“Oh God,” Brin said, pulling Paul close to her. Then she reached out for Ash and Anaya. “They’ve cornered us. Again. Just like last time.” She glanced at Ash and said, “Where’s your Volkswagon Bug, Ash? We need it right now!”
“There has to be a way to kill them,” Ash said. “There has to be!”
Mr. Barker trampled forward and started ripping through a couple of vamps—but the wolf wouldn’t be able to cut through all of them.
Anaya held up her silencer and magnum. Ash held up the shotgun. Brin held up her sword. And Paul held up his fists.
“What are we going to do?” Anaya said.
“What do you think?” Brin said. “Try not to die.”
Ash and Anaya fired their weapons. Paul started punching the nearest creature. And Brin sliced through three vampires, all with one slick swing.
They were about to go down.
But they weren’t going down without a fight.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Oh God!” Ash screamed. “They’re closing in on us!”
“Ash! Shoot again!” Brin screamed.
“I can’t!” He pulled the trigger three times. “I’m out of ammunition!”
“Goddammit,” Brin said, and she slashed through another vamp. She kicked down a second one, then slashed the head off a third. She turned around. Five vampires were marching toward her. She could fend for herself for a few more seconds—but her time was almost up.
“Oh my God,” Anaya said. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know… I don’t know… I—”
“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!”
The yell echoed across the entire ghost town. It was the scream of not just one creature, but hundreds. Brin and Ash and Anaya stared at each other, all hoisting their weapons up to their chests, in total confusion as to the source of the noise.
“What…” Ash said, softly. “Brin, what was that?”
“It sounds so familiar,” Brin said. She turned to her left, readying for the endless line of vampires to attack her.
“Very familiar,” Paul said, backing up against Anaya, his face covered in black blood.
The group prepared to fight more vamps, but the bloodsuckers had stopped—every one of them. They weren’t just suddenly disinterested in the three humans, in Paul, in the wolf; they looked worried and shaken, like the hunters had become the hunted.
The ground started to rumble with the loud echoing of a thousand footsteps.
“Oh my God, it’s like that scene in The Lion King,” Ash said. “There’s no lions around here, are there? At least not with Jeremy Irons’ voice, I hope?”
“I don’t think it’s a herd of lions we have to worry about,” Brin said.
“Do you think it’s another monster?” Anaya asked. “Another giant of some sort? There can’t be another one! We’ve seen every single monster in history today!”
“We haven’t seen Bigfoot,” Ash said. “Or the Loch Ness Monster. Or what about… oh! Oh!” Ash shouted. “I know! What about dinosaurs?”
Paul shook his head and wiped the blood from his face. “I think Ash has gone mental. What do you all think?”
Brin didn’t say a word. She pushed past Ash and Anaya, and slid her fingers over Mr. Barker’s soft fur. Their teacher wolf friend was still remarkably free of any major wounds.
The vampires scattered. Some tried to run away, while others sprinted down the hill toward the oncoming fleet of creatures. Brin heard a few more yells that sounded nothing like vampires, and then, she looked all the way down toward the schoolhouse to see the first group of the undead.
“Oh wow,” Brin said. “They came.”
“Who came? What?” asked Anaya.
“Who do you think?” Brin stepped forward and, despite all the horrors of the last few minutes, started grinning. “The zombies have arrived.”
Brin watched as two vampires attacked a zombie, and as ten
zombies tore a single vampire from end to end. Brin couldn’t believe it. The new visitors to one of the nation’s most famous ghost towns had come not for Brin and her friends, but to fight—and their diversion had come just in the nick of time.
It was zombies versus vampires.
The war was officially on.
“They’re fighting!” Brin shouted. She raced back to the others. “The vampires and the zombies are fighting each other!”
“Are you serious?” Anaya said. “My God, I’ve seen everything.”
“The zombies... they saved us!”
“Who would have thought?” Ash said. “Do the zombies want to eat the vampires?”
“No,” Paul said, stepping backward, away from all the gruesome fighting. “A couple of them took chunks out of me back in Grisly. They spit it out. They were turned off by my flesh.”
“So then why are they here?” Brin asked.
“I have no idea,” Paul said.
Brin started stepping backward, too, as more and more zombies stomped up the hill and headed their way. The zombies might not have been interested in the vampires for their putrid, pale flesh, but they were still surely interested in what the humans had to offer.
“What do we do now?” asked Ash, still holding up his shotgun, even though he had no more bullets left.
“Don’t we have to find Droz?” Anaya asked. “Don’t we have to stop him… to put a stop to all this?”
“Where’s my mother?” Brin asked, in an almost jokey way. She surveyed the surrounding area. “Where’s my vampire mom? That’s what I want to know.”
Paul had stopped and narrowed his eyes, as he scanned the fighting up ahead. He saw a figure burst through a pack of four zombies and run past the schoolhouse.
“Wait a second,” Paul said. “Everyone, follow me.”
“Follow you where?” Anaya asked.
“Just trust me.”
Everybody ran after Paul, over a big mound of dirt and past two small, dilapidated houses. They stumbled upon another thin trail of dirt, just in time to see Droz stop up ahead and catch his breath. He smiled, like he thought he was out of harm’s way.
“Hey Dad!” Paul screamed. “You still haven’t killed me!”
Droz smiled even bigger as he turned his gaze to the quintet before him. “In due time, my boy,” he said. “Come and get me! You know you want to!”
He sprinted to his left and disappeared behind another home.
Brin was the first to run after him. She didn’t take a moment to assess the situation; she just started bolting.
“Let’s go!” Ash shouted, and he followed after Brin.
“Yes, let’s,” Paul said. He ran past Ash, past Brin, and became the first out in front on the tail of the clan leader.
Mr. Barker raced forward on all fours, with the ability to move about three times faster than any of the others.
Anaya was the last to start running. “Wait for me!” she shouted, but none of the others heard her. “Guys! Hold up! Wait for m—”
Two zombies crashed through a window from the house next to her and pulled Anaya down to the ground, by her legs.
“Noooooo!” Anaya shouted, as they reached for her flesh, her intestines, her brain. “Noooooo! Somebody! Help me!”
But the others were too far ahead. Nobody heard Anaya. Nobody stopped.
Droz was weak but still sprinting fast as lightning past all the archaic houses, and up the hill, toward the big, intimidating standard mill.
“Where’s he going?” Brin shouted to Paul.
“His sanctuary,” he said.
“His what?”
Mr. Barker raced past Brin and Paul and stampeded toward Droz, who had just opened the side door to the mill. Mr. Barker entered a mere ten seconds after Droz disappeared inside, but Brin and Paul were still a minute away.
“Oh God, Mr. Barker,” Brin said, looking ahead. Then she shouted, “Destroy him! Go, teacher, go!”
“Amen to that!” said Ash, from far behind.
“We have to hurry,” Paul said.
“I know,” Brin said, but she was concerned with Ash, who was tagging along way too slow behind her. “Ash, what are you doing?”
“It’s a steep hill!” he shouted. “I’m doing my best!”
“Come on,” Paul said. “We’re almost there.”
Ash hadn’t been joking. The hill really did seem to get steeper with every step, like Droz had built it himself to make sure that by the time the trio reached his so-called sanctuary, they’d be too weak and too out of breath to go on.
Paul reached the door first, then Brin crashed against his side.
“Let’s go,” he said.
“No! We have to wait for Ash and Anaya!”
Ash was crawling on all fours by the time he reached the other two. Paul pulled him up, and Brin patted him on the back.
“Good job,” she said, then she glanced back down the hill for Anaya. “Where…”
“What is it?” Ash said, trying to catch his breath.
“Where’s Anaya?” Brin said. She took a step forward and looked to her left and right. “Anaya?” she shouted.
Paul grabbed Brin by her waist and pulled her toward the mill entrance. But she pushed him away.
“No! I’m not going in without Anaya!”
“Where is she?” Ash said. “Where’d she go?”
“She’s gone, guys,” Paul said. “Now come on, we have to hurry—”
“No.” Brin shook her head and started to cry. “I should’ve stayed with her. God, how could I have been so stupid? I ran ahead. I shouldn’t have done that. I should’ve—”
A loud shriek from inside the mill commanded the trio’s attention. It sounded like a scream not from the wolf, but from Droz. A good sign.
Brin’s attention immediately veered back to the mission at hand. “Did Mr. Barker get him?”
“I hope so!” Ash shouted, excited. “Let’s go see!”
Brin turned back to the hill one last time. She didn’t see Anaya anywhere. “I hope you’re OK, Anaya,” she said. “Don’t you dare die on me.”
And with that, Brin followed Paul and Ash inside the mill. She breathed in deeply. She’d never been this scared in her entire life.
It was time, after all.
Time for the final showdown.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Brin hoped she never had to wander through another dark, drafty corridor for the rest of her life, but just ten minutes since winding through the Vampire Underground, here she was, back in a mysterious setting, trampling through a massive abandoned mill that reeked of dust and smelled of centuries past.
“This place is spooky,” Ash said.
“What was it used for?” asked Brin.
“Mining, I think,” Paul said. “In the late 1800’s. But it hasn’t been used for anything productive in a long, long time. It’s my father’s home now.”
“Droz lives in here?”
“Yes. Most of the Leifers of the Bodie clan live in the Underground, but the Volgas, including my father, stay above ground. Most live in the abandoned houses, while some live in the farmhouses. My father made this standard mill his castle many, many decades ago.”
“I don’t know whether to be frightened by that, or impressed,” Brin said. “This place is humongous!”
“I know,” Paul said. “But he doesn’t take care of it. He has a couple of rooms he uses all the time, and leaves the rest of the building to rot.”
When they heard a second scream, this one definitely from Droz, they picked up speed.
“Hurry up!” Paul said. “I know where that came from!” He made a sharp right, and they reached the world’s longest staircase. “Come on! Up the stairs!”
Ash tried to catch his breath again. He shook his head and sighed. “Are you freaking kidding me?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks.” Paul started to climb, but Ash didn’t budge. He planted his fists against his sides.
“I don’t t
hink I can do it, Brin,” Ash said. “I’ve never been a fan of exercise to begin with, and I feel like all we’ve been doing tonight is running—”
“Ash, shut up,” she said, grabbing onto his shirt and pulling him close to her. “We’ve almost got him. We dispose of Droz, and we can end this. I let Anaya out of my sight, and I’m not going to do the same for you. Understand me?”
“Yes,” said Ash. He hesitated. “I love you, Brin.”
She nodded. “I love you, too, Ash.”
They both just stared at each other for a moment. Finally, Brin pushed him toward the staircase and started following him up the steps. They both started moving faster and faster, leaping up the steps two and three at a time. Her heart pounded. Her head ached. She wanted this night to be over. She wanted this nightmare to be over.
She reached the top step and nearly tripped as she entered a large bedroom, easily the most presentable room in the entire mill. She saw a fireplace roaring in the corner, a large king bed underneath a small window to her left. Paul and Ash stood to the right, both wanting to move forward, but staying resistant. Paul’s face screamed panic, but Ash looked to be in a cheerier mood.
“Yes!” Ash screamed. “Mr. Barker! Get him!”
Brin crashed against Paul’s side and looked toward the fireplace to see Mr. Barker, in his ferocious wolf form, knawing at Droz’s neck, while Droz tried to move closer to the fireplace, slapping and punching the wolf’s face. Droz managed to grab hold of Mr. Barker and slam him down to his side, but Mr. Barker, drenched in both his own blood and Droz’s nasty blood, wasn’t letting up. He jumped right back up on the clan leader and continued biting at Droz’s head.
Ash kept on clapping, and Brin turned toward Paul, to see his panic slowly slipping away.
“I don’t believe it,” he said. “The wolf is killing him. This is going to be easier than we thought.”
“Are you serious?” Brin said, sporting her first big grin of the night. “Yes! Yes, Mr. Barker! Kill him! Kill him, and we can go home!”
Droz pushed Mr. Barker away again and rolled himself over to the fireplace.
“Get him!” screamed Ash. “You’ve got him, Mr. Barker!”
Brin still had a big smile on her face, but her eyes narrowed as she motioned to the fireplace. “What’s he doing? Is he going to kill himself? Just roll right into the fire without a fight?”