THE VAMPIRE UNDERGROUND

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

“Ash!” Brin wrapped her hands around the vampire’s claws and tried to pry them away from her throat. “Ash, please! “

“I’m gonna try to go in reverse,” he said nonchalantly.

“All right, fine!” Brin screamed. “Just do something!”

“Oh my God!” Dylan shouted.

“There’s like a thousand of them!” Lavender screamed.

Ash put the car in reverse and slammed his foot against the pedal. It took a few seconds, but Ash managed to back up the car and return to the snow-covered road. 

A second vampire tried to break the driver’s side window, but he wasn’t fast enough. Ash looked in his rearview mirror to see a mob of creatures mere seconds away from jumping on top of the car.

He slammed his foot down, again, and sped forward, swerving around the mud and heading up the large hill that looked over Bodie Ghost Town. A vampire managed to latch onto the back bumper of the car but quickly lost his grasp. They sped away from the town, from the creatures, from the drama, from Hell. Only one vampire remained, still hanging on for dear life, still with his hand wrapped around Brin’s neck. 

“Get… off me!” Brin shouted as she bit down on the vampire’s palm.

“One second,” Ash said with a look of determination.

“One second?” Brin said. “Until what?”

“Five, four, three, two—”

A loud scream followed, as did a splatter of blood against Brin’s face, as a lone tree smacked dead center against the unlucky vamp. The severed hand dropped to her lap.

“Oh God! Gross!” Brin picked up the hand and tossed it out the window. “How many severed vampire hands do I have to see today?”

“That… was close,” Ash said.

“Thanks for that,” Brin said to Ash, rubbing her fingers against her swollen neck. She coughed a few times, then turned to the duo in the back. “Are you guys OK?”

Dylan appeared to be in a daze, while Lavender leaned against the side window, tears streaming down her face. “I’m OK,” Dylan said. “But…”

“Lavender?” Brin said. “Are you—”

“Chace...” she said. “He was still alive… when they were drinking his blood…”

“There was nothing we could have done,” Brin said. “There was—”

“He was still alive!” Her scream put everyone in the tiny car on edge. “We should’ve tried to save him! We could’ve at least tried!”

“They were swarming him. If we had tried to save him, we’d be dead, too.”

“What do you even care?” Lavender glared at Brin. Her eyes were now as red as the vampires’. “You didn’t even know him.”

“No, I didn’t. But what are you trying to say? That I don’t care that he’s dead? Of course I care!”

“Then why aren’t you crying? Why aren’t you showing anything?”

“I’m…” She didn’t know what to say. “I’m processing.” She leaned in toward Lavender and awkwardly put her hand on her leg. “I’m lucky to be alive. We all are.”

“Chace looked so helpless, so sad…”

“If he hadn’t kept running and fending for himself, he might still be alive,” Dylan said, chipping in to the conversation. “Did you ever think about that? If he had stuck with us, if he had helped us save Brin in that passageway, maybe he’d still be with us.”