THE VAMPIRE UNDERGROUND

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ash yawned from boredom as he drove his Volkswagon Beetle across town and entered the quiet neighborhood of Diablo Shadows. He flipped through the radio for most of the trip, never landing on a song or station he liked. He finally settled on a classical music station and tried to pretend that it was the film score to his own life.

He pulled up to Brin’s home in a surprisingly positive demeanor. He knew there was nothing to worry about: she wasn’t tired of him, she wasn’t ignoring his calls. He knew it was weird that his best friend was a girl, and he figured Brin would soon move on to new friends, a boyfriend, a brand new life. He’d expected this ever since they first walked through the halls of Grisly High two and a half years ago. He knew, though, at least in the meantime, that she wasn’t going anywhere.

Ash stepped outside into the fierce cold and slammed the door shut. He stared down the street—the only discernable activity was a dog barking in the distance. Nothing unusual could be seen. It was a night like any other in Grisly, Nevada.

He checked his phone one last time—again, nothing—before tiptoeing up to Brin’s front door. He thought about using the doorbell, but it was past 10 P.M. He decided to lightly knock.

“Come on, Brin,” he said. “Don’t leave me out here in the cold.”

She didn’t answer. He waited a full minute before knocking a second time, this time a little louder.

Ash waited. Again, no answer. He squinted his eyes and looked through the small window next to the door to see that the kitchen light was on. He chuckled and stepped back.

“She’s home,” he said. “Why is she making this so difficult?”

He almost rang the doorbell, but decided against it, given that her mom might already be in bed.

He started walking around the house, toward the back of her bedroom window. He hadn’t crawled through her window in a long time—it would be a nostalgic trip to the past.

As he crept through the bushes, finding the side gate and entering the backyard, Ash thought about the simpler times with Brin, before high school, before her dad died.

“Oh my God,” Ash said as he softly shut the side gate. “That was a year ago. Today.”

Ash still freaked out every time he thought about Brin’s father Kristopher. The man had been the healthiest adult person he’d ever known. Kristopher loved his daughter, and loved being a part of her life—much more than Brin’s mother Tessa ever did—and nearly every weekend, Ash found himself on an adventure with Brin and her dad. Sometimes Tessa joined; sometimes she didn’t. Either way, they would all have a blast, going skiing or hiking or boating. The guy could even make golf fun.

What made Kristopher’s death so tragic was that it was so sudden. In the middle of a lecture he was giving at the University of Nevada, Reno, he started feeling chest pains. He collapsed soon after and was taken to Washoe Medical Center, where he died within the hour. Brin, nor her mother, received enough warning to see him in time. It turned out Brin’s dad died of an aortic dissection, the result of a previously undiagnosed heart defect. The man was never sick, was always filled with energy, then dropped dead faster than you could snap your fingers.

Brin loved her dad, with all her heart, and hadn’t been the same since. Ash tried to be there for her in those following weeks and months, but Brin had preferred her solitude, until finally breaking out of her shell last summer and allowing him back into her life. He’d missed her a lot, and in the last few months she finally returned to her normal self. But it was still tough, even for Ash. It was one of those unthinkable tragedies in life no one could see coming, making it that much harder for everyone to move on and be happy.