by Brian Rowe
“All right. Here’s a magnum.” The teacher handed her one gun. “And here’s a silencer.” Another.
“Wow! Thanks.”
“What?” Ash said, pointing at Anaya’s new arsenal. “Anaya gets a magnum, and a freaking silencer?”
“Ash, relax,” Mr. Barker said. “OK, does everyone have a weapon?”
Brin took a dramatic step forward and showed her hands, empty of ammunition.
“Ahh, yes, Brin,” he said. He leaned down against the back of the suburban and reached for the weapon farthest to the right. He pulled it out and handed the giant piece of machinery to Brin.
“Whoa,” she said.
“Whoa is right,” said Mr. Barker. “You get the AK-47.”
“Brin gets the AK-47?” Ash shouted, his jaw dropped so far it was almost hitting the snow. “I get a flimsy handgun, and Brin gets Rambo’s weapon of choice?”
Mr. Barker put his hand on Ash’s shoulder and said, “Ash, I like you, I do, but please—shut the hell up.”
The teacher closed all the suburban doors and stepped toward the church. The others followed.
He stopped on the first step and turned to the other five. “OK. Brin.”
“OK, what?”
“How do we get to the Underground? Through the church?”
“No,” she said. “I mean, maybe. I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know?”
“I didn’t spend anytime in the church,” Brin said. “I spent it in Paul’s little shack up top the hill over there.” Brin pointed to the right, past the center of town, past the large, scary building on top the hill—Bodie Ghost Town’s standard mill. “His shack leads down to the Underground.”
“OK, perfect,” said Mr. Barker.
Justin shrugged. “Are we supposed to be able to see anything? It’s pitch black out here.”
“I know the direction,” Brin said. “Follow me. It’s just a few minutes away. Then we can head down to where Paul is, where Principal Stine is, where my mom is.” She looked at Justin and bit down on her tongue. “God, I hope she’s OK.”
“I hope so, too,” he said.
“All right, let’s follow Brin,” said Mr. Barker. He waited for everyone to start walking, but nobody budged. He shook his head and jumped off the bottom step. “The Grisly High administration may have fired me, but out here, I want you all to still think of me as your teacher, understand? Now do as I say!”
Brin started walking, and Ash, Justin, and Anaya followed. But Mr. Barker stopped Valerie and turned her toward him.
“Just one more thing before we go,” Mr. Barker said. He nodded at Valerie, and she nodded back.
The trio in front turned around just in time to see Mr. Barker transform into a werewolf, and Valerie, into a troll, at the exact same time. One second, Brin saw two normal human beings, and the next, they were big and vicious creatures strong enough to annihilate every bloodsucker in sight. Mr. Barker, now a fierce brown wolf, growled loudly, and Valerie, monstrous and slobbery and seemingly ten feet wide, looked ready to unleash some whoop-ass.
“Lots and lots of whoop-ass,” Brin said.
“What?” Ash asked.
“Nothing,” she said, then waved on Mr. Barker and Valerie. “Come on, everybody. Let’s go!”
Brin held out her AK-47 and led the others past the center of the ghost town, and up the mountain toward Paul’s secret shack.
Chapter Thirty-One
Brin didn’t like being first, but she knew she didn’t have a choice.
Every second that passed, she awaited a vampire jumping out at her from the shadows. When she walked by the creepy children’s schoolhouse, she prepared herself for a vampire—maybe even a horde of six or seven of them—to leap out from one of the windows and rip her in two or three, or maybe even ten.
But as Brin found herself halfway up the giant hill that led to a dilapidated standard mill, she started to feel confident that every remaining vampire in Bodie Ghost Town was underneath the surface, far away, with no awareness of the oncoming humans and their impressive arsenal. She thought Droz might have at least one vamp on lookout duty somewhere up above, but she hadn’t heard or seen a thing. When she reached Paul’s front door, she wanted to hug herself in triumph.
“This is it,” Brin said. “We made it.”
“Are you sure?” asked Justin.
“Pretty much. Let me check inside. I’ll see if he’s—”
“No,” a loud, booming voice said from the back of the pack. “It’s too dangerous. Let me check.”
Brin turned around, startled. Ash and Justin looked back in total amazement.
“Mr. Barker?” Ash asked. “You can… you can talk… when you’re a werewolf?”
The wolf shook its head and darted its eyes at Ash. “Duh.”
“I think I’m going to faint,” Ash said, and he fell back against Brin’s chest.
“Ash, stop it,” she said.
“This is some crazy Chronicles of Narnia shit,” Ash said, and he stepped out of the way just in time to let the wolf march past him.
Brin stared down at Mr. Barker 2.0, still amazed at the sight of him. The wolf turned to her. “Can you open the door, please?”
Brin’s eyes went wide. “Oh! Uhh, yes. Of Course.”
She turned the knob, happy to see that the door wasn’t locked or sealed shut in any way, and kicked it open. No light emanated from the inside, but Mr. Barker, as the wolf, walked in on all fours, despite the chilly darkness.
“Stay here,” he said.
“Will do.” Brin turned around and blinked a few times dramatically, in amazement at what she was seeing. She took another glance at Valerie, who appeared even bigger and stronger and slimier as the troll.
“See anything in there?” Ash asked. He waited for a response. “Mr. Barker?”
Nothing. Dead silence.
“I don’t like this,” Justin said.
Brin nodded at Justin, frightened, and turned back toward Paul’s pitch black home. “Mr. Barker? Answer us!”
A pair of yellow eyes appeared in the darkness. Brin readied her AK-47, but then remembered that was the color of Mr. Barker’s wolf eyes.
“All clear,” he said, and motioned with his left paw for the others to step inside.
Brin nodded and looked back at the others. “All right. Let’s g—” She stopped. She heard a shuffle from the right.
“What’s wrong, Brin?” Ash said, stepping past her. “Let’s follow Mr. Barker, come on.”
“I think I heard something.”
“Brin, come on,” Justin said, antsy. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
Anaya pushed against Brin. She wanted to continue on into the darkness of Paul’s shack, too. “I agree with Ash,” Anaya said. “We’ll be safer inside.”
“Just… please,” Brin said. “One second.”
Brin listened for more footsteps. Nothing. She tried to look around Valerie’s massive troll body but couldn’t see much.
Then she heard a footstep.
“Oh no,” Brin said. “Oh shit! Valerie! Look out—”
The troll wasn’t even able to turn around before a long, shiny sword jutted right through Valerie’s belly. She let out a deep, surprised shriek, and before the scream was over, she was already Valerie again, shrunk down to human size in barely two seconds. The vampire behind her pulled the sword out and watched, gleefully, as she dropped to the ground.
“Oh my God!” Brin screamed.
Brin didn’t have time to fire her gun. Before she had it pointed the vampire’s way, he was already running toward her, mere seconds away from colliding. Brin’s eyes went wide and she tried to scream again, but nothing came out. She watched as the sword came for her, aimed straight for her heart.
She closed her eyes.
Then heard a bang.
Ash nearly pushed her to the ground as he collided with the right side of her and fired his handgun at the vampire’s face. He missed, but the second and third bullets struck h
im in the chest.
The vampire didn’t budge. He just looked down at his stomach and smiled right back at Ash.
“Silly boy,” the creature said, shaking his head. “Don’t you humans know that bullets don’t hurt us—”
Brin barely felt Mr. Barker, in stealthy vicious wolf form, graze her left side; one second he was nowhere to be found, and the next he had his whole jaw covering the vampire’s face.
“No!” the creature shouted. “No! What the! What the—”
The vampire tried to slice Mr. Barker in two with his sword, but the wolf kept moving, tearing at his head, then his shoulders, then his back.
“Brin, grab the sword,” Anaya said, from below. Anaya wasn’t firing her weapons at the vampire, but was instead tending to Valerie, who was severely wounded but still alive, still breathing.
“What? I can’t just grab—”
“Do it! It’s our only chance!”
Brin glanced at Ash, and then at Justin, who was aiming his shotgun at the vampire but not firing, obviously concerned he might strike Mr. Barker.
Brin turned to the fight taking place just a few yards ahead. Mr. Barker had brought the vampire down against the snowy ground, but now the creature was on top of the wolf, slashing the sword every which he could. Brin saw the sword strike Mr. Barker’s legs. She saw the smallest trickle of blood.
“I can’t let him die,” Brin whispered.
“What?” Justin said. “Brin, what are you going to do?”
She glanced at her brother. “Give me that thing.”
Brin dropped the AK-47 to the ground, snatched the shotgun from Justin, leaped forward, and brought her foot down against the vampire’s back.
“What did you say?” Brin shouted. “Guns don’t kill vampires, right?”
She had no interest in taking the sword, at least not right now. She aimed the shotgun at the back of the vampire’s head and fired.
Brin didn’t kill the vampire—she annihilated him. The entire skull of the creature exploded, chunks of its flesh launching every which direction, including hers. The force of the blast catapulted her backward, down against the snow. She hit the ground first, then all the bits and pieces of the vampire’s head landed right next to her.
“Oh my God,” Ash said, just a few feet behind her.
“Wow!” Justin shouted. “I knew that gun would come in handy one day!”
Brin brushed a piece of the vampire’s pale ear away from her chest. “Ugh. Gross.”
“Oh my God, Brin,” Ash repeated. She looked up at his face as he added, “That… was amazing.”
“I think epic is more like it,” said Justin.
Mr. Barker trudged forward, on all fours. She waited for him to turn back into his human self, but he didn’t. He had a small cut on his right leg, but nothing traumatic. She thought he would stop in front of her, but he moved past her, all the way up to Valerie.
“How is she?” Mr. Barker asked.
If anyone in the group had wanted to laugh about a wolf talking, no one showed it now. Anaya had tears in her eyes. She had her right hand pressed against Valerie’s chest wound.
“We’re losing her,” Anaya said. “We have to get her to a hospital.”
“We can’t,” Brin said.
“What do you mean we can’t?”
“We’re in the middle of nowhere—”
“We didn’t ask for this!” Anaya screamed. “None of us did! This is so absurd. We’re all going to die out here, and it will have been for nothing!”
“That’s not true,” Brin said. “No one is going to die tonight.”
Brin pushed Anaya aside and placed her hands over Valerie’s chest. The girl was still batting her eyes but was clearly slipping away. Brin brought her hands to Valerie’s cold cheeks. She slapped her right cheek lightly.
“Come on, Valerie,” Brin said. “Stay with me.”
Anaya just kept shaking her head, as she looked away, anywhere but the motionless body to the left of her.
“Can we turn her back into a troll?” Brin asked. “Maybe that will save her? Maybe that will reverse the wound or something?”
She looked at Anaya, who was still turned away. She looked at her brother, who had his arms wrapped over his head, at a total loss for what to do. She looked up at Ash, who had no witty comeback, no movie reference remark. He had tears in his eyes, too.
Then she looked at Mr. Barker, who didn’t appear so vicious anymore as the wolf; now he looked downright contemplative.
“There has to be something we can do for her! We can’t just let her—”
“She’s gone,” Mr. Barker said.
Brin looked down just as Valerie stopped breathing. Her head tilted backward, and her body lay dormant in the snow, like an angel.
“Goddammit,” Brin whispered. She pushed her hands against her tear-stained cheeks, then jumped back up to her feet. “Goddammit! Ash! Get me the sword!”
“What?”
“That vampire’s sword! Bring it to me!”
“Oh… OK…”
He walked over and tried to pry the weapon out of the dead watchman vampire’s hands.
“We shouldn’t have come here,” Anaya said. “This was a mistake.”
“Don’t say that,” Brin said. “You know it’s not true.”
“At this point I would’ve preferred the zombies. At least I wouldn’t have had to spend my last few hours alive in a goddamn car, when we’re all just going to die anyway.”
Ash tapped his finger against Brin’s back, and she turned around to see him holding the sword, which was dripping with the vamp’s black blood. Brin grabbed the sword and turned back to the entry of Paul’s shack. Mr. Barker approached her right side, as did Justin.
“Are we ready?” Brin asked, tightening her grip on the sharp, impressive weapon.
“No,” Anaya said, still crying. “We can’t just leave her here.”
Brin glanced at Ash, who held his empty gun to his side. She tossed the shotgun toward him, and he grabbed it before it collided against his chest.
“For me?”
“Yes, Ash.” She glanced at her brother, who nodded his head approvingly back at her. “We’ve obviously seen that it works.”
“That it does,” Ash said. “Awesome.”
“Brin!” Anaya shouted, stomping toward her. “You didn’t answer me!”
Brin turned around. “What do you want me to say, Anaya? This is a rescue mission. I’m sorry this happened, but I can’t control the fate of the goddamn universe—”
“I don’t need you to,” Anaya said. “But you keep promising that no one else is going to die—and then they do! Death just surrounds you, feeds off you, doesn’t it? Everyone who gets close to you… dies.”
Brin held her sword tight against her side. “Then go.”
Anaya stood still. “What?”
“Nobody’s keeping you here, Anaya. There’s only five of us left. If you want to be on your own, fine by me. But if you want to find and kill this Droz son of a bitch, and stop this, all of this, then stay with us, and I promise you, we will win this thing.”
“But…” Anaya was at a loss for words. “How do you know?”
Brin took a step back and tilted her head back with surprising confidence. “Because it’s the Monster Apocalypse. It’s the end of the world.” She swung her sword through the air, then aimed it toward the open door. “And we’re the only ones who can stop it. Now follow me.”
Ash held the shotgun in front of him and followed close behind Brin, into Paul’s shack. Justin shrugged at Anaya, then followed Ash. Brin immediately leaped down to the bottom floor, and Ash and Justin did the same.
Mr. Barker looked back at Anaya, but the wolf didn’t say a word. He entered the shack as well and disappeared into the shadows.
Anaya spun around in a circle, slowly. She weighed her options. She looked down at the guns in her hands, then at Valerie, her newest friend, lying motionless in the snow.
Another
tear trickled down her cheek. “We’re going to get them, Valerie. I promise you that.”
She pointed her magnum and silencer toward the darkness, marched into the shack, and slammed the big, wooden door behind her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“What…” Paul said. Blood trickled out of his mouth, down his chin. “Chace, what have you done?”
Chace kneeled down and pushed the stake deeper into Paul’s back, twisting it slowly. Paul let out a scream so loud the dirt from the ceiling actually shook down onto the trio, like snowflakes.
“You’re not going anywhere, Paul,” Chace said. “Get up.”
“I can’t move.”
“Now!” He pulled the stake out of Paul’s back and brought him up to his feet. Paul could barely stand up. Stakes didn’t kill vampires—at least not in this clan—but they could wound them severely.
“I haven’t even seen a stake in years,” Paul said. “How did you… how did you find one?”
“Your dad gave it to me. Told me to use it if we hit any complications. He’s a good man, your dad. The best bad guy I’ve ever known.” Chace smiled and motioned for the shaken but uninjured Sawyer to walk along with them. “Sorry. I keep calling him your dad. He’s our dad. We’re the only ones who matter to him now—”
Paul had a load of black blood in his mouth. So he looked up at Chace and unloaded as much of it as he could with one giant spit. The black goo struck Chace in the center of his face, splattering directly against his nose and nearly covering his entire head.
“You little shit,” Chace said, rubbing the tar-like substance away from his face with his left hand and striking his fist against Paul’s face with his other. “I can’t wait to see you die. That person you’ll hear laughing and applauding louder than anyone else? That, my friend, is going to be me—”
A loud bang from above—the boom of a deafening gunshot—stopped all three of the vampires. Chace looked at Sawyer, and Sawyer looked at Chace.
“What was that?” Paul asked.
Sawyer started breathing more heavily. “They can’t be here already, can they?”
“I’m sure they can,” Chace said. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
Sawyer grabbed onto Paul’s right arm and held onto him even tighter than Chace, as the two hoisted Paul out of the Underground jail and quickly maneuvered him down a dark hall, pushing through a metal door, and entering a new, winding hallway.
