THE VAMPIRE UNDERGROUND

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

“The ground!” Paul shouted. “It’s caving in!”

“Brin, come on!” Ash slowed the car down, but not for long. The vampires, at least a hundred or more, charged toward Brin and Paul like a stampede of voracious wolves. 

Brin looked back at Droz, who had one hand pressed against his bloody cheek, and the other held out in front of him, like he was the one—the only one—with the power to open up this hole in the world.

She wanted to stop running. She wanted to quit. But she knew quitting wasn’t an option; she had gotten this far.

Brin closed her eyes, bit down on her bottom lip, and started running as fast as her legs would let her, her hand grasped in Paul’s so that he wouldn’t fall behind.

The car was closer. Brin found her one chance to leap into the passenger seat.

Ash kicked the door open. “Jump in! Come on!”

Paul was lagging. Brin had to let go of his hand. The ground was erupting beneath them. She looked back, for a split second, to see a giant hole forming behind them.

“Jump!” Ash shouted. “For Christ’s sake, now!”

Brin ran for two more seconds, silently prayed, and leapt forward, landing stomach first on the passenger seat, her legs sticking out the side.

“Hold on!” Ash shouted, grabbing Brin’s arm and pulling her all the way inside the vehicle. “I’ve got you!”

“Is he coming?” Brin said, now safely in the car.

“He’s not gonna make it,” Ash said. “We have to leave him here.”

“No!” she shouted. “He saved my life, Ash! He saved all our lives!”

“He didn’t save my life!” Ash darted his head around to see the black hole behind them growing bigger. “And right now he seems to be harming our lives more than helping them!”

“Ash! Please… do this for me!” 

“No!” he screamed. “I’m not gonna have us all die because you’ve got some goddamn crush, Brin!”

She stared at him incredulously. “It’s not a crush,” Brin said. “I’m not interested in him like that.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Of course not!”

Dylan leaned forward. He looked ready to throw up. “Can you guys please discuss this after we’re not dead?”

The hole grew bigger. The car was about to fall in. The vampires ran around it, still gaining on the car. Droz hadn’t moved at all. He was standing way off in the distance, a chilling grin on his face.

Brin turned to her right. She couldn’t believe it. Paul hadn’t given up. He was still rushing toward the car.

“Jump into my arms!” Brin shouted.

“I can’t!” he said.

“Don’t be a girl! Jump!”

Two other vampires leapt toward Paul, but he jumped before they could reach him. He missed Brin but grabbed the door handle. His entire body hung out the side for a scary moment, before Brin grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him inside the car.

“Go!” she shouted. “Ash, step on it! Floor this puppy!”

He did, and even though he was driving on snow, he managed to get the Beetle speeding upward of fifty miles per hour. Five more vampires leapt toward the back bumper but failed in their attempts. The hole grew wider, but instead of taking the car and the humans, it took more than fifty of the running vampires, killing them all with a long drop into the vast, deep Underground.