DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

by J. A. Konrath

  He punched the dracula again.

  And again.

  He wasn’t sure if the blood was from his knuckles or merely on them, but he kept punching that monster until its grip loosened. He tossed it to the floor. It quickly began to crawl toward him, squirming actually, and he kicked it in the head with such force that what little remained of its cheeks split open.

  Another kick and it slid several feet across the floor.

  The poor amputee had not had the luxury of an electric wheelchair. This meant that its existing source of mobility was relatively lightweight, which meant that Randall was able to pick up the wheelchair and slam it down upon the creature, splattering it underneath the wheels.

  God. Randall had never in his life been so politically incorrect.

  “It’s okay, Tina,” Randall said. “It’s dead.”

  Actually, it wasn’t, the ghastly thing was still writhing around under the wheels, but Randall turned away so the little girl couldn’t see the mess.

  Now, what to do? Try to get back to pediatrics? Get Tina to safety and then try to get back to pediatrics? Why hadn’t Jenny said anything else on the intercom? Should he try to find an intercom himself and talk back to her? Should he start searching corpses for cell phones?

  Something dropped onto the back of his neck and slipped down his hospital gown.

  Then something else. Small, like a pebble.

  Or a tooth.

  More teeth dropped against the back of Randall’s neck, followed by some warm blood. He couldn’t see Tina, but from the wet sounds of shredding flesh he could picture exactly what was happening to her.

  When the hell had she been infected?

  All he really wanted to do right now was howl in frustration. Scream and scream and scream and make the whole cruel world go away.

  Instead, he speed-limped backward toward the nearest wall and bashed himself into it.

  Crunch.

  Tina snarled as he smashed her between him and the wall a second time.

  Crunch.

  She was a tiny little girl, a sick little girl, a helpless little girl, and so the third time he struck the wall she stopped moving. Her hands slipped away from his neck and she dropped onto the floor.

  Her skull, and the entire top half of her body, crushed.

  He’d done that to a five-year-old girl. A little girl he was supposed to save.

  He bellowed. There may have been words in there. He wasn’t sure.

  Randall didn’t want to focus. Didn’t want to stay in the moment. Didn’t want to know what was happening to him.

  He’d lost Tina. Probably lost Jenny. Hell, he’d even lost his goddamn chainsaw. Why shouldn’t he just march his ass right over to the largest crowd of draculas he could find and offer them his throat? He could rip out a chunk himself, help them out. “Eat up, boys and girls! You might as well get a decent meal out of me—it’s the only value I’m going to contribute to the world today!”

  Nobody was going to miss Randall Bolton.

  Well, the other lumberjacks might. If he was dead, it would be harder for them to have another hearty laugh at his expense. “Haw, haw, haw. That dumbass Randall couldn’t even save a little girl. Can you believe it? Big guy like that and he can’t even protect an asthmatic five-year-old. Waste of skin and bones. Can’t even hold a chainsaw right.”

  No.

  Screw that.

  He didn’t know that Jenny was dead. Even if her message was interrupted by a dracula, she was strong. She could handle herself. Probably had a six-foot-tall pile of dead draculas in the room with her. And if there was any chance that she was still alive, even a tiny sliver of a fraction of a percentage of a chance, then Randall was going to find her.

  He could still hear the legless dracula struggling behind him.

  Randall ignored it. He shoved the image of Tina’s corpse out of his mind, then left the Rehabilitation Therapy area. He didn’t care how many of those creatures stood in his way, he was going to get through them—a thousand of them if he had to—until he found his way back to pediatrics and the woman he so desperately…

  Randall stopped for a second. Looked to the right and then to the left.

  Fuck.

  Which way had he come from?

  Despite what many people said about him, Randall was not an idiot. But when you were losing blood from popped stitches and carrying a kid on your back and wandering around in barely existent lighting with monsters all around you, it was easy to lose your sense of direction.

  All of that for nothing. Jesus. He should’ve just let Tina run off and get eaten by draculas. At least then he’d still be with Jenny, there to protect her from whatever interrupted her intercom message.

  Or, he would’ve been there to helplessly bumble around while those things tore his wife apart. That was probably more likely. God, he was pathetic.

  No, wait—he wasn’t lost at all. There was a stairwell right next to the swinging door to the rehabilitation area. He hadn’t passed one of those. Good, good. He was back on track. Ha! Those bastards could kill a little girl, but they couldn’t get him lost!

  Actually, you killed the little—

  Shut up.

  He started to turn around, but maybe the stairs were the way to go. Instead of backtracking where he knew there were draculas, he should find a different route back to pediatrics. Up the stairs, across the hall, down the stairs, and get back just in time to put his fist through a dracula’s stomach. Good plan. Solid.

  Going up a flight of stairs was gonna hurt.

  So what? More pain? Quite honestly, he could barely even feel his injured leg. So long as it remained attached to his body and didn’t collapse like an accordion, he could deal with it.

  Accordion music sucked.

  He pushed open the door to the stairwell and took his first step up.

  So far, so good.

  His second step was less good.

  He bashed his jaw on the edge of the step as he fell forward. He lay there for a moment, hurting and trying to work up the energy to try again.

  Had he lost consciousness?

  Nah.

  No, wait, yes he had, because now a clawed hand was wrapped around his ankle.

  He twisted to see what it was. Holy shit. The legless dracula, covered in blood and with at least one visible internal organ, was still after him. He hadn’t squished it enough.

  Randall yanked his foot out of its grasp, kicked it in the head, and then began to crawl up the stairs. He could hear it crawling after him. This had to be a hallucination. No way could he actually be in this situation. This was absolutely batshit insane!

  Move! Move! Move!

  His leg wasn’t cooperating at all, and the dracula, pulling itself from step to step just using its arms, kept pace with him all the way up to the first landing. Then it grabbed his foot again.

  I’m losing a race with somebody who doesn’t have any goddamn legs!

  The dracula snarled, opened its mouth wide, and bit at Randall’s foot just as he pulled it free. With those jaws, Randall had no doubt that the creature could take off his entire foot. Maybe not in one bite, but two or three would do the trick for sure.

  Can’t get bit. Don’t wanna turn into one of those things!

  Randall scooted backward, his butt squeaking against the floor (squeaking just like that damned clown) until his back struck the wall. The dracula, several ropes of bloody drool dangling from its fangs, crawled after him.

  Fuck it. He needed to make this problem go away.

  Not giving a shit how bad it hurt, Randall forced himself to stand, grabbed the dracula under the shoulders, then heaved it. It bounced on the stairs twice before it hit bottom, where it lay with its neck twisted at a grotesque angle.

  Still trying to come after him.

  Jesus Christ. He’d just thrown a cripple down a flight of stairs. Dracula or not, Randall was pretty sure that hellfire awaited him in the afterlife.

  And now he most definitely gave a sh
it about how bad it hurt to stand up. Wincing the entire time, Randall made his way up the second half of the stairway, wondering if any hidden cameras would see him should he decide to curl up and cry for a few days.

  Finally he made it to the third floor. He stepped out into the hallway, expecting to see something that continued his streak of bad luck. Maybe two, three thousand of those things, all charging him, desperate to avenge their legless brother.

  Aw, for God’s sake…

  Randall couldn’t honestly say that he’d rather have had two or three thousand draculas waiting for him, but, c’mon, Clay Theel? Really? The dickhead who’d thought that his gun and badge gave him the right to stick his nose into Randall’s business?

  Clay was with a frightened-looking woman. Neither had seen him yet. Randall took a deep breath. He couldn’t let that guy see him looking weak. Had to act casual. Maintain his dignity. Nothing he could do about the blood and the ass-exposing hospital gown, but he certainly wasn’t going to let Clay know that he was mourning his failure to save a five-year-old girl.

  He steeled himself, tried to think of something sarcastic to say, then walked forward.

  Clay

  “ALL right. Let’s get you out of here.”

  He put his hand on the knob but used the slit window to give the lobby another look-see before stepping out.

  “Aw, hell.”

  “What?” Shanna said, trying for a peek.

  While they were talking, half a dozen monsters had gathered in the lobby. If Clay had only himself to worry about, he might have charged out and given it a go. But with Shanna along…no way.

  He put his lips to her ear. “Let’s go back up to the second floor and see if we can find another stairway that doesn’t open on the lobby.”

  He let Shanna lead the way up and covered their six, keeping his shotgun trained on the door in case one of those things decided to check out the stairwell.

  But when she reached the second-floor landing, she said, “We’ve got a problem.”

  Clay reached her side and peeked through the slit and saw what she meant: at least three monsters prowling the hall. One was dressed like a clown, but all its teeth were gone—shattered. Clowns looked weird enough in full light, but in this shadowy half-light, this bugger was about the most terrifying thing Clay had ever seen.

  He could feel his temper rising. He sort of prided himself on being able to stay cool in any situation, but he was getting pissed.

  “Are we the only people in this goddamn place who haven’t turned?”

  Shanna shuddered. “What an awful thought.”

  “Okay. The third floor. If it’s the same up there, I’m just gonna have to step out and do some population control.”

  But the third-floor looked empty. Clay stepped out, shotgun ready. All clear. He spotted an EXIT sign glowing in the shadows at the end of the hall. He motioned Shanna out of the stairwell and pointed.

  “We’ll try that one,” he said, keeping his voice low. No telling what was about and he didn’t want to attract any attention.

  She nodded and gripped the strap of his duffel. They hadn’t taken two steps when a loud voice froze them.

  “Well, well. If it ain’t Deputy Dawg!”

  As he whirled, Clay’s finger tightened on the trigger, ready to fire. When he recognized that asshole Randall Bolton stepping out of the shadows ten feet away, he almost fired anyway.

  “Stay right there, Bolton.”

  “Or what? You’ll shoot?”

  Clay took in Randall’s bloodstained face and hospital gown and didn’t like what he saw. He looked almost crazed.

  “Absolutely. You’ve been infected. How long ago?”

  “I’m not infected.”

  “You got blood all over you.”

  “Well, shit, you’ve got blood on you too! Everybody in this goddamn place has blood all over them! You want me to hire some guy in a white coat to scrape this stuff off me and put it under a microscope? This blood ain’t mine!”

  “Why should I believe that?”

  “Do you see any dracula wounds on me?”

  “Maybe on your leg. Looks like that one took a lot of stitches.” Clay, of course, couldn’t even see Randall’s leg wound from the front, but he’d certainly heard about it.

  Randall’s eyes narrowed. “You think that’s funny?”

  “Hilarious. Whole department knows about Randall Bolton damn near cutting off his own ass. Drunk again?”

  He couldn’t remember how many times Jenny had called the department to come and subdue her drunken husband. He had no respect for bums like Randall Bolton.

  Randall’s face reddened. At least Clay assumed it did, beneath all of the blood. “Takes a small man to bring up something petty like that when we’re in so much shit. I been dry ninety-seven days now.”

  Clay snorted a laugh. “Believe that when I see it.”

  Randall took a step toward him. “You’re seeing it right now, you dumb fuck. I’m standing right here.”

  “Stay where you are!” Clay raised the shotgun to his shoulder. “You might turn any second now.”

  Randall stopped and shook his head. “You know better’n that, Theel. We’ve got monsters everywhere in this place, but you don’t want to deal with that, you just want to wave your gun at me like a schoolyard bully. You think you’re hot shit, but without your badge and your big bad gun, you’re just a coward.”

  Clay’s temper had already been frayed when he’d stepped out into the hall. Now it snapped.

  “That so? Okay. My badge is off.” He shrugged off his duffel bag and handed Shanna his shotgun and Alice. “And now my big bad guns are gone.”

  Shanna stared at him with eyes so wide he could see white all around. “What are you doing?”

  “Shanna, meet Jenny’s ex-husband.”

  “Never mind him. Are you insane?”

  “No, just gonna see who’s a coward.”

  “Clayton Theel, you stop this macho bullshit right now!”

  “Sure, honey. Right after I stop his bullshit.”

  He stepped away from Shanna and faced Randall, raising his right hand and doing the Bruce Lee come-hither thing with his fingers.

  Randall stared at him. “Did you get that from a kung fu movie? Are you Chinese now?”

  “Are you two kidding?” Shanna said, her voice rising and getting all screechy. “We’re in the middle of a slaughterhouse!”

  “If Theel wants me to knock him on his ass in front of his girlfriend, I guess the draculas can wait a little while,” Randall said.

  Clay started circling. “Is that what you call them? Not bad for a dumbass.”

  Suddenly Shanna was between them as they circled each other. “Stop this! Stop this now!”

  Clay looked past her at Randall. “I saw one of your draculas downstairs in a clown suit.”

  “Benny?”

  “Oh, you’re friends with a clown? Figures. Birds of a feather, and all that. Well, when I finish kicking your ass, I’m going down there and kicking his ass, then I’m gonna dress you in his clown suit.”

  “Well, shit, looks like bad circumstances bring out our perverted sides, huh? Should I act like a little choir boy when you dress me up? As for that clown, I greased that rat-fuck son of a bitch but good.”

  Something familiar about that line, but Clay couldn’t place it.

  “I don’t believe this!” Shanna cried. “You’re trash talking when we should be getting out of here!”

  Clay remembered the clown’s broken teeth. “You the one who messed up his teeth?”

  “Yeah. Think I may take up dentistry on the side during the slow lumber months.”

  Clay was impressed—not about the threat but about the number he’d done on that clown. Wouldn’t ever admit that to Randall, of course.

  “Well, there’s plenty more where he came from.”

  Randall grinned. “That’s because we got draculas coming outta the walls. They’re coming outta the goddamn walls.”r />
  Clay stopped circling and stared at him. “Aliens?”

  “Hell yes Aliens! Beat the shit out of the original.”

  “I know. I loved that movie.”