The Monster Apocalypse

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Paul wanted to scream again—but he didn't know if his voice could take it. He wanted to try to move, to escape, for the fiftieth time, but he knew it was no use. His father wouldn't let him out of his sights again.

When the hearse started slowing, he glanced toward the front seat. "Dad?" he said.

He didn't see the top hat. He didn't see his father at all.

The hearse came to a complete stop, and Paul rolled over onto his back. After he shouted for that kid in Minden to get help, two of Droz's minions had tossed Paul into the very back of the hearse, where he couldn't see or interact with anyone, outside the vehicle, or inside.

All he could do was look out the back window. He saw the small town of Bridgeport disappear, the back of the large BODIE 13 MILES AHEAD sign become fuzzy, the pavement end and the dust kick up against the vehicle so fast that in the course of ten seconds the hearse was already in need of a car wash.

He heard the front door open and close, and then he was left in silence. He didn't want to accept the truth: that he was probably going to be hung from a hook and drained of all the black blood still seeping through his deader-than-dead system, and that he had returned to Bodie for the final time, with no chance of ever seeing Grisly, or Brin Skar, ever again.

He knew he only had a few more seconds of alone time before he was going to be removed from the back of the hearse and taken down into the Underground. So he took those last few seconds to think about the girl who had changed his life.

Paul had never meant or expected to develop feelings for a human. He had developed a crush on a young Judy Garland when he took her out for a round of golf back in 1938, and he nearly got engaged to a soft-spoken pottery store owner in the 1970's, before she mysteriously died in a hit-and-run accident. It had been decades since he had fallen for anyone, young or old, man or woman, vampire or human. He had forgotten the intensity of these feelings. He loved Brin. He was sure of it. He loved her, and he didn't want her to be out of his life.

Paul wanted to see her again. He hoped it'd be soon.

"As soon as possible," he whispered to himself.

The back of the hearse opened, to reveal two of his father's henchmen. They too had little top hats on their heads, like they were trying to emulate their almighty clan leader.

"Come on," one of them said. "Let's go."

"What are you going to do to me?" Paul said, coughing a few times and blocking the early evening sun from his eyes. "I'm not going with you!"

The second of the henchmen laughed, revealing teeth so yellow they could have been mistaken for miniature canaries. "You don't exactly have a choice in the matter, Paul." The vampire said his name with such disdain that Paul wanted to punch him in both his head and groin.

"I'm not going to say it again," the first guy said. "Come on."

He pulled on Paul's oversized golf shirt and hoisted him up to his feet, but Paul immediately brushed the creature away.

"Don't," he said. "Don't touch me. I'll comply—but don't you touch me."

"So moody," the second henchman said. "Jeez, I'm glad I never had kids."

"I know, right?" the first one said. "Kids do nothing but suck away your soul. Even if you're a vampire and don't even have a soul."

"And even if their fangs haven't matured enough so they can suck!"