The Vampire Underground

by Brian Rowe

  We don’t have a chance, Brin thought. They’re taking their time, because they know they’ve cornered us, they know we won’t be able to get away. Chace was the appetizer. Lavender was the main course. Dylan was dessert. I’m leftovers. As was Sawyer.

  She passed the next desk. She had just one more to go.

  And Anaya… let’s not kid ourselves… she’s tomorrow night’s appetizer, main course, and dessert.

  Brin slammed her hands down against the final desk and lifted herself up off the ground. She raced quickly for the window and jumped. Again, she could barely squeeze herself through, and she wondered how the hell Anaya was going to fit.

  But Brin didn’t have to think about the conundrum for long. She crawled all the way through the open window, just in time to see nearly a dozen vampires standing underneath, their pale arms reaching out, waiting to rip the poor girl from end to end.

  “Oh my God!” Brin shouted, as one of the creatures grabbed her hands and pulled her down into the mob of bloodsuckers.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The vampire tried to bite her index finger off. Brin flailed her hands all around, making the wretched creature lose his grip on her. She tried to push back. Outside were ten vampires; inside were two. She could handle two.

  “Pull me in!” Brin shouted. “Anaya! For God’s sake, pull me in!”

  The vampires started jumping, and their red eyes glowed against Brin’s face so strongly that she felt like she was going blind.

  “Anaya! Please!”

  She stuck her feet out in the air as far as she could. Anaya still wasn’t grabbing them. She still wasn’t pulling her back inside.

  Maybe they got her, she thought. Maybe they’re drinking Anaya’s thick, juicy blood right at this moment.

  Brin looked forward, this spread of creatures before her looking more like zombies than vampires as they all pushed against each other and tried to pull her down.

  She could see herself falling into the snow, looking up to see not one mouth but a hundred, all proceeding to sink their teeth into her veins. She wouldn’t feel any pain; there’d be a shocking jolt of energy, just for a moment, before the darkness overtook her, for now and for eternity.

  “No!” Brin shouted down at the vampires below. “Get away! Get away! Get—”

  Something grabbed her feet and pulled her back into the schoolhouse.

  “Yes!” she screamed once, but then she screamed “Nooooo!” even louder, when she saw the fangs coming for her neck. She reached up and tried to push the creature away, but he wasn’t budging. Worse, he was stronger than the one that tried to attack her before.

  “Youuuuuu…” the figure said. “Youuuuuu… tastyyyyyyy…”

  “Oh God!” Brin screamed. “Get off me!”

  The creature started drooling all over her face. She kicked him in his crotch, but that didn’t seem to cause any harm. Apparently he had no working tools down there.

  “Mmmmm…” the creature said as he licked his slimy tongue along Brin’s neck and brought his sharp teeth down to her succulent skin. “Sooooo goooooood—”

  One second the vampire was on top of Brin, and the next second, he wasn’t. Anaya crushed the top of a broken desk against the creature’s face and sent him soaring against the wall to the right.

  Brin looked up at Anaya, her mouth agape. Then she looked to her left to see the other creature knocked unconscious.

  “Give me your hand,” Anaya said, reaching out for Brin.

  “What?” She didn’t move a muscle. “You saved me? I thought you hated me!”

  “Just do it, bitch!”

  Brin leaned forward and grabbed Anaya’s hand, just as the second creature jumped up on Anaya’s back and sunk his fangs into her neck.

  “Owww!” Anaya screamed. “You son of a—”

  She threw her arms back and clawed at the vampire’s head. She pushed Brin to the side, brought her arm back, and pummeled her fist into the creature’s face, knocking him down against the broken desks.

  “You’re so strong!” Brin couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “It’s not all fat,” Anaya said, shoving her back against the wall next to Brin. “How do we get out of here?”

  Brin shook her head. “Not the window.” She could hear mumbling from outside, as if the blood-sucking fiends were discussing their next plan of attack.

  “Good,” Anaya said. “It was almost impossible for me to fit through there.”

  “How did you fit in there?”

  “Shut up.” Anaya pointed at the door. “What about the—”

  “It’s locked,” Brin said, pointing to the left. “We have to go out one of those shattered windows on the other side of the room—”

  But as she finished her sentence, more creatures appeared before those shattered windows, all looking ready to crawl their way inside.

  “Shit,” Brin said. “We’re trapped.”

  “We’re not trapped.”

  “We’re gonna die in here!” Brin shouted, shoving her hands behind her head.

  “Don’t be a girl,” Anaya, turning to her right. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  “Doing what?”

  Anaya shook her head. “Here goes nothing.” She faced the chain locked door and stepped back as far as she could go. She leaned down and silently prayed for a second.

  “What are you gonna do?” Brin said.

  Anaya took a deep breath, then screamed with shocking intensity as she ran full force across the room and against the front door, knocking it down onto the snow outside as if it had been made with toothpicks and glue.

  Oh my God, Brin thought. She did it. She’s out.

  “Brin! Run!”

  Brin turned around. The two creatures inside the schoolhouse were back up on their feet, and not looking happy. They didn’t start marching toward her this time. They started running.

  She didn’t have another second to think. She bolted for the newly created schoolhouse exit and headed toward Anaya in the deep, fresh snow.

  “Run!” Anaya shouted again. “Run for your life!”

  Brin caught up to Anaya in only five seconds—the big girl was strong but not exactly fast on her feet—and as they started running up a hill, toward more dilapidated homes, sawmills, and factories, Brin turned around to see not a few creatures running toward them, but dozens.

  “Oh my God!” Brin shouted. “There’s so many of them!”

  “Hurry!” Anaya was already out of breath but doing her best to keep moving. The snow was slowing both of them down.

  As Brin kept on running, her heart racing, her pulse in her neck and in her wrist pounding incessantly, she realized she was thankful for one thing at the moment: the red glow from all the creatures’ eyes was illuminating the dark night better than any light bulbs or flashlights ever could.

  She ran past a home, then another, then another. She needed somewhere to hide, somewhere far away from the schoolhouse, somewhere she could actually stay put for a while without any of these homicidal creeps discovering her whereabouts.

  “We need to hide!” Brin shouted.

  “No, duh!” Anaya screamed, now way behind Brin, clearly running out of steam.

  Brin turned around. Her eyes widened. “Hurry, Anaya! They’re gaining on you!”

  “I can’t make it!”

  “Yes you can!” Brin shouted. “You can’t stop now! We’re the only ones left!”

  Anaya stumbled against a bed of rocks and crashed hard to the ground. She lifted her head up and looked like she wanted to cry. All of the vampires were close to surrounding her.

  “Noooo! Anaya!”

  “Run!” Anaya screamed. “Save yourself!”

  Brin charged toward the nearest shed, glancing back briefly to see that all but two of the vampires were stopping to hover around Anaya. The two creatures racing after Brin seemed to be the fastest in the group. They weren’t stopping.

  She had to be smart. And she had to be quick. She darted arou
nd the shed, then ducked under a sawmill, and ran into an abandoned home, crashing the door down. She hopped over the kitchen table and jumped out through the window in the back. She kept running. She didn’t want to stop. Even though it was two degrees outside, her forehead and cheeks were sweating. She was scared for her life. And she knew she was now the last human standing.

  Can’t quit now.

  She decided to count to thirty and sprint as fast as possible. She only made it to twenty, but for good reason. There was a tiny shack at the edge of the town, and while its door was locked shut, the side window was cracked open. She looked behind her one more time, hearing chanting and screaming way off in the distance, but not seeing the two creatures who were chasing after her.

  She dove arms first through the window and crashed down against the creaky shack floorboards.

  “Owww,” Brin said, rubbing her aching elbows and shoulders. But she didn’t say anything after that. She stared into the darkness and took a deep, satisfying breath, feeling confident that she was finally safe.

  But it only took a few seconds for her to realize she wasn’t alone.

  Brin tried not to scream when she heard a low growl come from the other side of the room.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ash whistled, trying to stay upbeat, even though two hours into his long journey he was starting to believe driving to Bodie Ghost Town was likely a huge mistake.

  “She’s not gonna be there,” Ash said to himself, whistling to the John Williams movie scores from Raiders of the Lost Ark and Hook. “What a waste of a tank of gas.”

  He continued whistling to himself. He doubted Brin would be there. But there was still that lingering question of why she wasn’t picking up her phone. Bodie wasn’t that far away—just three hours—and he felt it was a short enough journey to ensure that she was OK.

  “Maybe Anaya convinced the group to do a night shoot,” he said. “Maybe she’s so nuts she’s filming her little western horror movie at night.”

  He rubbed his eyes and blinked a few times. His contact lenses were blurring up with each passing minute.

  Ash hadn’t passed a car in over ten minutes as he sped down the two-lane highway at seventy miles an hour. The roads were probably too icy for him to drive this fast, but he didn’t care. His Volkswagon Bug had withstood worse, and he knew that the faster he drove, the faster he’d be at his destination.

  But Ash didn’t drive fast for long. Even though his contact lenses were fogging up, he could tell exactly what the bright, colorful lights in his rearview mirror were.

  “Oh, damn it all to Hell,” Ash said.

  The sounds of sirens pierced his ears, and a blinding white light smacked against his driver’s side window. He pulled over to the side of the road. He hoped the police car would just zoom on by, but, of course, it didn’t.

  Ash sighed, crossed his arms, and leaned his head back. He couldn’t believe it. This would be his third ticket in less than five months.

  A tap at his window broke him out of his daze. He tried to fake a smile as he rolled the window down.

  “Evening,” the officer said. He looked old and grouchy. Ash knew he wasn’t going to get a warning with this one.

  “Evening, Officer. Was I speeding?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. “Were you?”

  Ash didn’t answer right away. He didn’t realize the cop was conducting a test.

  “Uhh, no,” he finally said.

  “Good,” the officer said.

  “OK.” Nothing was said for a moment. Ash didn’t like, or understand, the awkward silence. “So what’d I do?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “What did I do?”

  “You didn’t do anything,” the officer said.

  Now the situation was becoming comical. “All right… I guess I’ll be going, then.”

  “No,” the officer said. “I pulled you over because I had a question for you. Have you by any chance seen an RV pass by recently?”

  “An RV?”

  “Yes. A man and his granddaughter have been reported missing, and they were headed toward Grisly on US-395. We’re trying to locate their RV.”

  “Oh.” Ash thought for a moment. He’d been so wrapped up in his own head that he hadn’t paid attention to any of the vehicles headed in the opposite direction. But he figured he would remember seeing a gargantuan motorhome. “You know, I’m sorry, Officer. I haven’t.”

  The man nodded and wiped some snot from his nose. He looked ready to head back to his car, as if Ash, for once in his life, would get a break from the law.

  But when the cop pursed his lips and didn’t budge, Ash knew the little confrontation wasn’t over. “Say… what are you doing out here so late, anyway?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It’s nearly midnight, and you’re in the middle of nowhere. What’s your destination?”

  Ash stared at him with antipathy. He didn’t think it was a crime in the United States to drive after ten o’clock at night.

  He tried to say something nice. But what came out was: “I don’t see how that’s any of your business.”

  The officer was taken aback by Ash’s snap. He frowned. “You hiding something from me, boy?”

  “What? No.”

  “Do you wanna get arrested?”

  Now it was Ash’s turn to be taken aback. The officer started foaming at the mouth. Ash bit down on his bottom lip.

  “I’m going to Bodie Ghost Town,” he said. “I’m looking for a friend of mine.”

  “In Bodie?”

  “That’s right.”

  The officer shook his head. “That’s impossible. Bodie’s closed. It has been since late October.”

  “You mean… the town is closed?”

  “Yes. The town, and the road that leads to it. There’s no way in or out.”

  “You’re joking,” Ash said.

  “Nope.”

  Ash wasn’t about to argue with the police officer. As he sat in his car, now freezing because of all the cold air getting in, he thought maybe Brin was shooting her movie late today because the group’s first destination to film in was closed, so they had to improvise and find themselves another location.

  “I guess I need to try calling her again,” Ash said. He didn’t know what else to say. The officer was still hovering over him, so close Ash could smell his putrid breath.

  “OK, well don’t be getting yourself into trouble, son,” the man said. “And please… keep your eye out for that RV, all right?”

  Ash nodded. “Will do.”

  As the officer made his way back to his vehicle, Ash checked his phone again. No calls. No texts. Nothing.

  “Where the hell are you, Brin?” he said, as the cop car pulled a U-turn and disappeared into the blackness down the road behind him.

  Ash rolled up his window, turned on the ignition, and continued on his journey.

  A few minutes later he saw the sign: 42 MILES TO ROUTE 270. He knew what that meant.

  58 more miles to Bodie Ghost Town.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The growl from the corner dissipated. Then Brin saw the red glow.

  “Shit,” she whispered, before jumping back up to her feet and leaping for the window. She was halfway out, when a pair of hands grabbed her by the waist and pulled her back inside the shack.

  She tried to scream, when a large, pale hand slammed against her mouth. She fell back against the figure, right on his lap, as the two vampires still chasing after Brin approached the window from outside. They peered into the shack for a second or two, before turning around and retreating in the opposite direction. A creature in the distance shouted for them, and the two figures, walking side by side, growled loudly at each other as they departed the vicinity.

  “Don’t scream,” a low voice said behind her. “Please don’t scream. If you scream, then I can’t help you.”

  She breathed through her nose and nodded, feverishly.

  He slowly brought his
hands down from her mouth and subtly but noticeably ran the edges of his fingers down her sides, all the way to her jeans. She was still sitting on him. She leapt forward and turned to look at him. She couldn’t see a thing—only the remnants of his bright red eyeball glow.

  She stayed still. He didn’t come near her a second time. He didn’t try to suck her blood or rip her in half. Instead, the figure scooted backward, to the other side of the shack.

  “It’s… it’s you,” Brin said. “You’re the one who helped me up on the hill, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t hear a response. But then, quietly, the figure said, “Yes.”

  “OK.” Brin didn’t know what to say. He had saved her life, a second time. “Why are you doing this?”

  “What?”

  “Why are you helping me?” Brin tried to stay calm, but she could tell the decibel level of her voice was rising.

  “Shhh,” he whispered. “Please be quiet. They may come back.”

  “They? Who’s they? And who are you? Are you really…”

  He waited for her to end her question. She didn’t. “Really what?”

  “Are you really… vampires?”

  He didn’t answer her. All she could hear was his breathing.

  Brin wished she could see the man, or creature, or vampire, or member of the undead—whatever it was—before her. This little conversation wouldn’t be creeping her out so much if she could actually see him.

  “Well?” Brin said.

  “We’re dead. We drink human blood. But we don’t prefer the word, vampire.”

  “You’re dead?”

  “Yes. I have been for a long time.”

  Brin couldn’t believe she was doing this, but she scooted herself forward. She could tell, instinctively, this figure wasn’t going to harm her.

  “Do you have a name?”

  Silence for a moment. Then: “Paul.”

  “Paul,” she said, “what’s happened to my friends? Are they dead?”

  “They’re not dead. But they will be.”

  “What about me?”

  “You’re safe. For now, at least.”

  The figure before her, now with a name, turned to his left, allowing the full moon from outside the window to shine against his face. She’d forgotten how youthful he looked, how innocent.