The Monster Apocalypse

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

"Oh God!" Ash screamed. "They're closing in on us!"

"Ash! Shoot again!" Brin screamed.

"I can't!" He pulled the trigger three times. "I'm out of ammunition!"

"Goddammit," Brin said, and she slashed through another vamp. She kicked down a second one, then slashed the head off a third. She turned around. Five vampires were marching toward her. She could fend for herself for a few more seconds—but her time was almost up.

"Oh my God," Anaya said. "What are we going to do?"

"I don't know... I don't know... I—"

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"

The yell echoed across the entire ghost town. It was the scream of not just one creature, but hundreds. Brin and Ash and Anaya stared at each other, all hoisting their weapons up to their chests, in total confusion as to the source of the noise.

"What..." Ash said, softly. "Brin, what was that?"

"It sounds so familiar," Brin said. She turned to her left, readying for the endless line of vampires to attack her.

"Very familiar," Paul said, backing up against Anaya, his face covered in black blood.

The group prepared to fight more vamps, but the bloodsuckers had stopped—every one of them. They weren't just suddenly disinterested in the three humans, in Paul, in the wolf; they looked worried and shaken, like the hunters had become the hunted.

The ground started to rumble with the loud echoing of a thousand footsteps.

"Oh my God, it's like that scene in The Lion King," Ash said. "There's no lions around here, are there? At least not with Jeremy Irons' voice, I hope?"

"I don't think it's a herd of lions we have to worry about," Brin said.

"Do you think it's another monster?" Anaya asked. "Another giant of some sort? There can't be another one! We've seen every single monster in history today!"

"We haven't seen Bigfoot," Ash said. "Or the Loch Ness Monster. Or what about... oh! Oh!" Ash shouted. "I know! What about dinosaurs?"

Paul shook his head and wiped the blood from his face. "I think Ash has gone mental. What do you all think?"

Brin didn't say a word. She pushed past Ash and Anaya, and slid her fingers over Mr. Barker's soft fur. Their teacher wolf friend was still remarkably free of any major wounds.

The vampires scattered. Some tried to run away, while others sprinted down the hill toward the oncoming fleet of creatures. Brin heard a few more yells that sounded nothing like vampires, and then, she looked all the way down toward the schoolhouse to see the first group of the undead.

"Oh wow," Brin said. "They came."

"Who came? What?" asked Anaya.

"Who do you think?" Brin stepped forward and, despite all the horrors of the last few minutes, started grinning. "The zombies have arrived."

Brin watched as two vampires attacked a zombie, and as ten zombies tore a single vampire from end to end. Brin couldn't believe it. The new visitors to one of the nation's most famous ghost towns had come not for Brin and her friends, but to fight—and their diversion had come just in the nick of time.

It was zombies versus vampires.

The war was officially on.

"They're fighting!" Brin shouted. She raced back to the others. "The vampires and the zombies are fighting each other!"