The Monster Apocalypse Page 15

  But still—it was odd.

  “Can you think of something to explain it?” Justin asked.

  “Stress,” Brin said, nonchalantly.

  “I don’t think that’s it, Brin. It’s not just a few strands like earlier. It’s a lot. It’s like… half your hair now.”

  “Half? What?”

  “It’s like Bride of Frankenstein,” Ash said, turning around. “But instead of white hair mixed in with the black, it’s red!”

  “Was I asking for your opinion, Ash?”

  “I’m just saying,” he said. “It’s weird.” He turned around, and he too rested his head against something—the top of his seat belt.

  Brin turned back to Justin. “Do you think it’s something I need to worry about?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything like it before, but… I sure hope not.”

  “Let’s get our mom. Then we’ll address the goddamned hair issue.”

  “OK. Sounds good.”

  “Can I go to sleep now?”

  “You may.”

  Brin closed her eyes and kept her head rested against Justin’s shoulder. She wasn’t sure how long it would take to fall asleep. Ten seconds, maybe?

  But the last two thoughts she had before she drifted off into slumberland were scary ones. First, a suggestion: Maybe the hair change was happening because the real Brin was coming forward.

  And then a question: What if she wasn’t a human at all?

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Paul cowered down against the cold cement again. He thought he would be safe. He thought he would survive his father’s umpteenth threat that the teenaged vampire would once again be a dead man.

  But as Brin’s mother pressed her face in between the bars and grinned down at him like she wanted to munch on his brain for a midnight snack, Paul realized the severity of his situation. He realized, for the first time, this could be it.

  “You kissed my daughter?”

  “I… uhh…”

  “You put your wicked vampire lips on my precious little girl?” Mrs. Skar shook her head in disappointment, then revealed her sharp, giant fangs at the front of her mouth.

  Paul scooted forward and narrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “With all due respect, Mrs. Skar, you’re a vampire now, too.”

  She tapped her long fingernails against the metal bars and noticeably bit down hard on her yellowing tongue. “Which is exactly why we have to maintain her innocence. She doesn’t deserve to be pulled into our world.”

  “Our world?” Paul wasn’t afraid of this woman. Just days ago she was making him hamburgers with raw meat and soups with strained, tasteless tomatoes. “You’ve been a vampire for one day, Mrs. Skar. You don’t know the half of what it means to be us.”

  “You know what? I don’t really care what you think. You’re a little punk. You’re nothing to me. And you’re nothing to your father. All you’ve been to that wonderful, caring man is disrespectful from minute one. For over a hundred years he told me. What kind of a son does what you do? Why can’t you just listen to your father?”

  “Because every time I listen to him, he threatens to kill me! It’s not what I would call a normal, loving relationship—”

  “Yes, well…” Mrs. Skar trailed off for a moment. She wrapped her fingers around the bars and pressed her head even closer to Paul’s, even though she didn’t seem to have the desire to physically open the cell door. “I can’t really argue with that. Since you are going to die tonight.” She snickered to herself a little, like she was looking forward to watching Paul be torn limb from limb. “But it’s something you could’ve avoided. If you had just been the kind of child we all hope for. I had one with Brin. We’ve had our little tiffs over the years, but she’s always come back around. You, on the other hand, have made your father look like a fool, time and time again—”

  “And I can’t argue with that. He is a fool. I don’t have to do anything to show the world that.”

  “He’s not a fool. You’re the fool, Paul. You’re a little piece of shit who lied to me, lied to my daughter. You think you can make her happy. You think you can actually be her boyfriend?”

  Mrs. Skar had been so polite to Paul in the last two weeks that he was having difficulty talking to this new darker version of her. It’d been so long since he saw someone turn into a vampire, that he forgot that the personality changed, too, even if that person was, as a human, the kindest, gentlest person on the planet. Once that person became a vampire, he or she turned a little, or a lot, darker. Always.

  Which is why Droz was so upset when Paul started developing a soul, as early as 1915. One hundred years ago.

  “I love your daughter, Mrs. Skar,” Paul said. “I don’t know how or why, but I do. She’s the first person in forever… to get me. And I know she feels the same way.”

  Tessa finally pushed her face away from the bars, and took a step back into the hallway. She stood far away from the cell for a second, tapping her feet loudly and annoyingly against the hard surface of the ground.

  She turned to her right. “Can I be the one to kill him?”

  Paul’s eyes opened wide in fear. “Who are you talking to?” he whispered, accidentally.

  “Who do you think?” the low, vicious voice bellowed.

  Droz appeared out of the shadows, his black dress shoes first, then his black slacks, black jacket, black top hat. He was covered in black from head to toe, and the only white Paul could see was in the man’s face. He didn’t really walk into the hallway as he did glide, and then, surprisingly, he didn’t stop at Paul’s cell; he stopped to the left, out of sight, in front of Principal Stine.

  “Is everything moving ahead as planned?” Tessa asked Droz, who had momentarily disappeared.

  “Oh, yes,” he said. “But there’s been a consensus.”

  Paul scooted forward. He knew if Droz or Tessa wanted to punch him, slap him, remove him, kill him, that all they had to do was open the cell door and have their way with him. There was no sense in cowering in the back of the cell, his hands over his face, his head planted between his knees. There truly was no escape.

  “A consensus?” Paul asked. “For what?”

  “Shut up, you miserable boy,” Mrs. Skar said, the hatred in her voice intensifying with every word uttered out of her mouth. She looked at Droz. “It is all right for me to be cruel to your son, isn’t it, honey?”

  Paul heard a cell door open with a loud bang.

  “Get up!” Droz shouted, and Paul heard another bang, this one sounding like a head slamming against bars.

  “Please,” Principal Stine said, a discernable fear in his voice. “Please don’t hurt Paul—”

  “Quiet!”

  Mrs. Skar put her hands to her hips. “Well?”

  Droz appeared in Paul’s line of sight, trying to hoist the wary principal up off the ground with one hand, and reaching toward his new bride-to-be with the other. He stopped mere inches away from her and dropped Principal Stine to the ground.

  Droz wrapped his arms around Tessa, smiled big and awkwardly, and said, “You can call my boy anything you want. After all, you’re about to become his mother.” He leaned in to kiss her, but he didn’t kiss her in any normal way, even for a vampire. He stopped his face an inch away from hers and started slathering her face, her cheeks, her forehead, the tip of her pointy noise, with his long, yellow, slimy tongue. Worst of all, Tessa appeared to enjoy it, as she locked her tongue, much smaller, only slightly yellow, against his. Paul was a vampire—he had seen the most gruesome sights known to man—but this still made him want to upchuck all over the cell.

  “Will you please stop doing that!” Paul finally had to say. He looked away, and blinked a few times, in morbid disgust. He looked back to see them still French kissing. Droz licked the bottom of Tessa’s chin for a few seconds, then kissed her briefly on the lips and pulled away.

  “I can’t wait to be Mrs. Droz,” Tessa said. She smiled, then paused, with a narrowing
of her eyebrows. “Wait, what’s your last name?”

  Droz looked at his son, then back at his bride-to-be. “Deckard.”

  “Deckard?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  Paul looked at his father angrily, like their last name was forbidden, like it was never worth mentioning.

  “Like Blade Runner?” Tessa said.

  Droz glanced back at the female vampire. “Like what?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I’ve got a film buff for a daughter.”

  “I see,” Droz said, then stepped toward Principal Stine, who was sprawled out on the ground, obviously in pain. He appeared to be crying, even though Paul still wasn’t able to see his face. “I’ve never understood the movies,” Droz said. “They’ve only been around for the last century or so, and I have to tell you, I think they’re shit.”

  “Dad,” Paul said, scooting even closer to the bars, “take that back.”

  Droz turned to his son. “What did you say?”

  “You can lather Mrs. Skar’s face with your spit for hours on end for all I care. But don’t look down on the movies. Movies are the last source of magic in this world.”

  “The last source of magic in this world? Are you high? Look, Paul! There’s magic everywhere!” He kicked Principal Stine in his shiny, bald head and pulled on his arm. “Get up, stand up. Show my son here what you can do.”

  “No,” the man muttered. “I can’t.”

  “Get up now, or I’ll split you into thirty pieces.”

  Principal Stine reluctantly pushed his chapped hands against the ground and stood up on his feet. He glared at the clan leader.

  “Well, go ahead,” Droz said. “Show Paul. He’ll think it’s neat.”

  “What will I think is neat?” Paul asked, dumbfounded.

  Principal Stine pulled his right arm back, like he was going to throw a baseball, and started shaking his hand, like his whole body was going to start convulsing. Instead, his hand started glowing, and little yellow specks that looked like bright corn flakes emanated from it. He gathered the little specks in his hand, then pushed his arm forward and let the specks blow straight against Droz’s face and send him back against the wall.

  “What the hell?” Paul asked.

  “Wow! Bravo!” Droz shouted. He laughed as he leaped back toward the principal. “That was your strongest hit yet!” He clapped his hands together and turned to Paul. “What’d you think?”

  “What just happened?”

  “That was pixie dust,” Droz said. “Magical, right?”

  “Shut your mouth,” Principal Stine said, taking a step back and gathering more of the yellow dust, this time in both of his hands. “Shut it, or I’ll hit you again!”

  “You’re a…” Paul looked at the principal, not in surprise, but in caustic disappointment. “You’re a fairy?”

  “Tinker Bell has nothing on me!” the old man shouted and thrust his hands forward, releasing an even stronger, more potent dose of the pixie dust, against Droz’s face.

  But this time, he was ready.

  Droz ducked just in time, slipped back behind the principal, removed a sharp kitchen knife from a jacket pocket, and sliced open the man’s neck from end to end without a moment’s hesitation.

  Principal Stine’s blood sprayed all over Paul’s cell bars.

  “Oh my God!” Paul screamed. “Nooooooooo!”

  The principal’s eyes bulged out of their sockets, and all the glowing yellow pixie dust turned to black soot.

  Droz leaned in and licked a trickle of the principal’s blood with his tongue. He made a disgruntled face, like the taste was horrible. “I’m so sorry, Principal Stine. But a few of us just had a thoughtful conversation about what to do with you, and we came to the consensus that your old age would make your blood taste awful. Turns out… I was right. The kids would spit it out, all the mothers would gag for minutes on end. Even those who’ve gone weeks without a fix would turn you down. So there was nothing left to do… but let you go.”

  Principal Stine gave Paul a pained look that said, “Help me,” but before Paul could even budge, the principal’s eyes rolled to the back of his head, and his whole body collapsed to the ground with a loud splash against the puddle of his own blood.

  “You’ve been telling me all day how great blood tastes,” Tessa said, crossing her arms and smiling, in no way perturbed by the gruesome murder in front of her. “Don’t start with him, though, huh?”

  Droz shook his head. “Don’t start with him. We have much younger, more nubile blood coming. They’re already on their way.”

  “Who?” Paul said, his hatred for his father at an all-time high. “Who’s coming, Dad?”

  “Ash, Anaya, your little girlfriend Brin. They’re getting closer. I can feel them.” Droz slapped his hands against the bloodied bars. “They might be coming to save the day, but this time, we’ll be ready.”

  He took Tessa’s hand, helped her over the bloody mess on the ground, and walked down the hall toward the downstairs auditorium, toward the center of the Vampire Underground.

  “Where are you going?” Paul asked. “What are you going to do with me?”

  “You’ll see, Paul. Very soon.”

  Droz and Tessa walked out of the room, leaving Paul with nothing to do but stare at the lifeless body of his high school principal.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Brin swore she hadn’t fallen asleep. She felt like she had blinked a few times and merely let out an exaggerated yawn before she re-opened her eyes.

  But when she turned to her right to see the Shell gas station, and looked forward to see the four neighborhood blocks of a tiny town that featured one mom-and-pop motel on the right lining the dimly lit Main Street, she knew that more than an hour had passed.

  “Is this Bridgeport?” Brin asked, lifting up her head. She looked down to see a puddle of drool on her brother’s shoulder.

  “I have no idea,” Justin said.

  Anaya and Ash turned their heads around at the same time. “Yup,” they both said in unison. “Bridgeport.”

  “Reno may be the biggest little city in the world,” Valerie added, “but this is by far the littlest city in the whole world!”

  “It’s like four blocks,” Brin said, wiping the slobber from her chin and shaking her head real fast, to wake all the way back up. She looked at her brother and asked, “How long was I out?”

  “An hour,” he said. “Maybe a little longer.”

  “Jeez, I didn’t even feel it.”

  “So we’re getting closer, right?” asked Justin.

  “Very close.” Brin was amazed how fast that hour had gone by, but she was relieved to have received the sleep that she did. She knew more sleep wouldn’t be coming for a long, long time. Unless they managed to grab Paul and her mother without a single obstacle—and she knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  “Does she have to go that slow?” Justin tapped his fingers against his shotgun, like it was the only object between him and the potential dangers of the night.

  “The speed limit is ridiculous in this town,” said Brin. “I remember that from when we passed through the first time.”

  “Should we be concerned with getting pulled over by a police officer? Isn’t that the least of our worries right now?”

  “I know.” Brin leaned forward and looked toward the front of the vehicle. Mrs. Hallow and Mr. Barker were whispering to each other, like they were discussing their plan of attack in Bodie and didn’t want the young kids in the back to listen in. “Mr. Barker?”

  He stopped talking to the vice principal and looked back at Brin. “Yeah?”

  “What are you guys talking about up there?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” he said.

  Mrs. Hallow started slowing the vehicle down, even though they weren’t nearing a stop sign. There didn’t seem to be a reason for slowing anymore, but slower she went—10 MPH, 5 MPH, and then a complete stop.

  “What…” Brin looked out the window
s to the left, and behind her. “For God’s sake, what now? Why are we stopped?”

  “Everyone, quiet down,” Mr. Barker said, putting out his left arm horizontally, like he wanted to block everyone from potential danger.

  “What is it?” Anaya asked, pushing her chest against the back of Mr. Barker’s seat. “Is it bears or something?”

  “No.”

  “Cows?”

  “Think more creatively.”

  “Shit,” Brin said. She looked at her brother, who appeared more concerned now than he did when he saw the alien life forms. She pushed her chin up against the seat in front of her and leaned her forehead against the back of Ash’s cranium. “Mr. Barker, whatever’s out there, can’t we just run them over?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I think we’re the ones in danger of being run over.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Brin wished she could roll a window down, but the window to the side of her was immobile. She couldn’t stick her head out, and she couldn’t see anything substantial through the front windshield. She sat there, stupefied. She didn’t know what to think.

  “What monsters have we not seen today?” she asked, not really to Justin, but to anyone in the group who wanted to answer.

  “We haven’t seen ghosts,” Ash said.

  “I don’t think we have to be worried about getting run over by ghosts, Ash,” Brin said.

  “What about the Loch Ness Monster?” asked Valerie.

  “There’s not a lake nearby.”

  “I hope there’s no evil clowns running amok,” Anaya said, before she shivered in an overdramatic fashion.

  Justin turned to Brin and said, “What about demons?”

  Brin just looked back at him. She didn’t say a word.

  But then: “Ding, ding, ding!” Mr. Barker shouted from the front of the suburban. “Everybody, get down!”

  “Get down?” Brin asked. “What do you mean, get—”

  A high-pitched, God-like shriek blew out of a most assuredly monstrous voice, and Brin and the others slammed their palms up against their ears. Brin was the last to duck down because she wanted a good look at the creature outside. It turned out it wasn’t one. It was three.