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After escaping the tunnel, Allie could feel a tremble beneath her and she sensed danger. She thought about the coming explosions and pulled herself up from the ground and looked around. She was in the forest and had a sense of where she was so she turned and ran toward the trees as fast as she could. She had time to leap to several trees to watch the explosion from a distance away. The ground shook and after a loud bang, she witnessed a small plume in the distance that reminded her of the pictures of the explosions she had read about when bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Allie waited and the ground beneath her trembled once more and a greater explosion occurred that lifted dirt hundreds of feet in the air as if from a volcanic eruption. Great oaks sixty feet tall and taller were turned over and snapped in half as if they were toothpicks. The water flowing from the waterfall stopped for a moment and dried up before trickling back to life again. Animals ran in every direction, fleeing the catastrophe.
Allie leaped to another tree to get a better view as the dust began to settle to the ground. As she was looking at the damaged area, the weak branch she stood on gave way and she fell. Though she ought to have been killed by the fall, she was relatively unscathed.
Allie looked back at the damage that had been done. The woods had been leveled. Where trees had once stood, there was nothing but dust and smoke that rose to an unimaginable height. She looked out at what could be described as a pit or bowl. All the surrounding land was flat and untouched, but the center was a depression that was at least a clear foot lower than the surrounding land.
Allie anguished at the loss of the underground city and her friends. Her tears began to flow for Sara, Malcolm, Bethany, Mrs. Taylor, and all the ones she had not met. She looked up at the sun shining down and cursed it for its hatred of those people, her people.
Allie ran from the area and leaped into a tree. She climbed to the top and looked about, trying to find the direction her people had taken to escape this catastrophe. She used her advanced vision to find just a small trace so she could follow them.
She saw two people leaping ahead of her in the trees, no more than half a mile ahead. She whistled and yelled and they stopped. One of them turned around and leaped back toward her into a clearing. She raced to the spot and leaped down and ran to them. It was Shihong.
“You made it! Come on, we have to catch the others.”
Sadness hit Allie as she was struck with an epiphany. She saw a vision with her lost friends on one side and her mother, father, their dinners, Monopoly games and Lissy on the other. A strong voice inside her said no, the deaths had broken the bond. The thing she struggled with had been solved.
She stood contemplating, but it was useless, her mind was made up. She loved her children and all the Cavers had gone with them so they were safe and would be well cared for. If she was Death, the Destroyer, the Lost Vampire Princess that would ruin them all, she couldn’t risk going. Bethany told her to go. To go meant she would install Shelby as the new queen and that was the real danger. Maybe that is how she would inadvertently destroy their world. She hated Shelby and knew her to be evil. Allie loved the people in the vampire world, but no way would she be involved in helping Shelby to gain power over them.
No. She would not go for that reason. Shelby in control would surely destroy the vampire world. She wouldn’t go. She gave a momentary thought to Brad. He was handsome, the handsomeness boy she knew. She touched her lips to feel his echo. If she went he might die in the destruction. She couldn’t go for that reason. He was a good friend to her and she would miss him. She gave thought to her parents, Kay and George Carter. They needed her, loved her. They would be a mess if she up and disappeared. She couldn’t go for that reason. Sara was dead. Malcolm was dead. Her children were safe and her parents needed her. She would thwart the vampire legend. She was not that person and would prove it. She decided to stay. She would not give Shelby the satisfaction of becoming queen. She would not harm anyone if the stories had a remote chance of being true. She would not rip her family apart. She decided to stay. She made her decision and felt at peace with it.
“Hey, are you coming?”
Allie was in a daze, reflecting on a past line from a book. She mumbled. “It is a far better thing I do than I have ever done before. A far better resting place I come to than I have ever known . . .” She trailed off with a far off stare.
“What?” Shihong inquired with a puzzled look. “Hey, are you coming?”
“No. I’m not going.”
“What?”
“I had two families. Malcolm and Sara didn’t make it out. Mrs. Johnson is dead and so are Mrs. Taylor and Bethany. All I have left is my parents. Leaving them for the girls is not enough. I’ve started over too many times. Not again. They need me more right now.”
“Oh.”
Allie smiled, doing her best to hold the floodgates back. “Who knows what the future holds for me? In a few years I will be off to college. Maybe I will join you then, but for now I can’t leave my parents.”
“I understand. If I had parents I would do the same. You know you have to keep a low profile?”
“I will. I won’t betray anyone.”
“If anyone asks, I never saw you. Good luck.”
Shihong gave her a hug and then she turned around and ran. Within seconds she was back high in the trees and out of sight.
Allie turned around and went back to where the daycare center was. She thought about an earlier conversation with Bethany as she walked. With her last act as a Caver, she had saved the children, so there was no way she could be their destroyer. She walked with contentment, but for an instant, she wanted to turn back and join them.
Cavers: A Vampire Tale Page 45