Draculas
Page 14
"That's pretty."
"I'm Adam, by the way." He offered his hand and she took it.
"Brittany."
"You're here alone?"
She nodded. "My baby's father...he left six months ago. My parents didn't want me to keep it, said if I did they wouldn't be involved. I didn't think they'd actually keep their word on that, but..." She gave a wry smile and he caught a whiff of the sass Brittany sported underneath the present fear. "...here I am, alone."
"You aren't alone."
"Oh, because God's with me?"
"I believe He's with all of us."
"Even those people who are getting slaughtered out there?"
"All of us. Brittany, would you like me to pray with you?"
"No thanks. How old are you?"
He laughed. "Why do you ask?"
"You're the youngest-looking pastor I ever saw."
"I'm thirty-two."
"Do you like being a pastor?"
"Sometimes I love it. Sometimes...it sucks."
Nurse Herrick appeared in the doorway. "Pastor, could you come with me?"
"What's wrong?"
She smiled. "Nothing. Just that your wife is getting ready to have a baby."
"Now?"
"Now."
As he came to his feet, the lights went out.
Randall
TINA screamed when it happened, but the complete darkness lasted only a second. Then a backup generator or something turned on, and dim lights came on in the hallway, though not the office. Of course the hospital would have backup power, and of course it would be funneled to things like breathing machines and not to somebody's number-crunching office.
Squeak...squeak...squeak...
Right outside the door.
The sound of squeaking was not typically something that chilled Randall's bones, particularly in a situation that had involved lots of screaming and wet splattering sounds, but there was something oddly unnerving about this squeak.
Something menacing.
He looked through the tiny window in the door. A clown stood outside, staring in at him. Just staring. He had a fright wig, a big red nose, and, yes, a lower half of his face that was shredded and bloody and laden with fangs.
A clown dracula. Wonderful.
Randall hated clowns.
He was not, he had hastened to point out in the past, scared of clowns. Grease-painted weirdos with shiny red noses did not fill him with terror. He simply hated clowns. He'd never seen a funny one. Never seen one that was anything more than an annoying, obnoxious freak.
"Is somebody out there?" Tina asked, her voice trembling.
Randall shook his head. "Nah. Just a clown."
Even in the mostly dark room, Randall could see Tina's eyes widen. "A clown?"
"Yeah. Don't worry about him. He's like Ronald McDonald." A Ronald McDonald who will devour your face like a Big Mac and large fries...
Tina put her hand over her mouth, as if trying not to throw up. Then she looked as if she were going to hyperventilate.
"I'm not gonna let the clown hurt you," Randall promised. "No way. I didn't let the other monster get you, so there's no way in the world a stupid rotten clown is gonna do anything to you. Okay?"
The little girl didn't seem convinced. She struggled for breath--deep, wheezing gasps that sounded a lot worse than just a kid getting spooked by a clown. Did she have asthma?
"Are you all right?" he asked. "Do you...do you need an inhaler?"
She nodded vigorously.
"Do you have one?"
She shook her head and pointed to the door. He assumed she meant that she left it in pediatrics. Son of a bitch. A sick kid in a hospital--who'd've thunk it?
"What can I do to help?" Randall asked.
He had no idea what you did for people having an asthma attack except giving them a honk off their inhaler. There weren't a lot of asthmatic lumberjacks out there.
She couldn't answer. Tina didn't seem to be suffocating--at least some air was getting in--but this was definitely serious.
Randall glanced back at the door. That goddamn clown was still staring in at them. Why was he doing that? Why wasn't he clawing at the wood and snarling like a wild animal? Weren't these things supposed to be all feral and stuff?
Randall wasn't scared of clowns, he swore he wasn't, but this was becoming creepy.
"Fuck off!" he told the clown.
Shit. He shouldn't have said "fuck" in front of the little girl.
The clown just stood there. Randall couldn't tell for sure if he was grinning--all of the creatures kind of looked like they were grinning--but he had a sadistic glint in his eyes.
"Okay, Tina, I'm gonna get you to your inhaler," Randall said. "I'm gonna take you on a piggyback ride, okay?"
"How do..." Tina gasped for breath, a long, pained gasp that tore at Randall's heart. "...we get out?"
"Through the door. Past the clown."
"No!"
"I can handle Bozo, don't worry. I'll pop his head like a water balloon. Hop on."
"No!"
"Tina, there's no other way out of here!"
Randall inwardly raged about the stupidity of the building designers to not have included another way out of the office, then immediately decided that architects did not typically have "homicidal monster infestation" on their list of situations that required safety precautions.
"He'll eat us!"
"No, he won't. He's too lame and stupid to eat us." Randall was one step away from shouting "Goddamn it, Tina, get on my back!" but kept himself in check. "Cross my heart, the clown isn't gonna hurt you, I promise. But we have to get out of here before more of them come. How do we know there isn't a clown car downstairs? There could be more of them on the way!"
Randall wasn't sure if that was a necessary lie or sheer cruelty, but it got the job done. He crouched as Tina climbed up onto his back. She was nice and light and her weight didn't make his leg hurt any more than the unbearable agony he was already feeling from it.
The clown was still staring at them.
Now Randall had a decision to make: chainsaw or no chainsaw? It didn't have any gas, and was hardly the most effective bludgeoning weapon available to him, but leaving it behind would be like leaving behind his...well, maybe not his penis, but rather...well, he supposed it was just like leaving behind his beloved chainsaw. He couldn't do it. If refusing to do battle with a clown without his chainsaw made him insane, fine, he was insane. Plenty of insane people had done great things for the world.
"Are you ready?" Randall asked.
Tina gasped for breath in reply.
Randall unlocked and opened the door with his free hand. The clown stood motionless for a split second, then sprung to life like an electrified Frankenstein and lunged at him, mouth wide open.
Randall thrust the chainsaw blade at him, as hard as he could. The blade went straight into the clown's mouth, making a cringe-inducing fingernails-on-chalkboard screech as the metal blades scraped against his teeth. The blade did not burst out through the back of the clown's neck, which would've been helpful, but Randall settled for leaving it there for a moment, deep-throating the white-faced son of a bitch.
The clown did not gag as it reached for him, arms wildly flapping.
Randall yanked out the chainsaw blade. A few of the clown's teeth came with it. The clown's suit was completely soaked with blood, and dangling from the waist of his pants was a short rope of twisted intestine that Randall didn't think originally belonged to him. A blood-streaked button identified him as Benny the Clown.
Randall slammed the chainsaw blade back into Benny the Clown's mouth, taking out most of his lower row of fangs.
Benny the Clown was notably less sedate than he'd been while peeking through the window. His claws scraped against Randall's arm, hurting like hell but not cutting very deep.
Randall gave the chainsaw a violent twist, and that took care of most of Benny the Clown's remaining teeth. He turned the blade in a complete circle. Twice.
Randall yanked the chainsaw out again. A spurt of blood soaked Benny the Clown's already-blood-soaked oversized squeaky shoes. Using his good foot, Randall kicked the clown in the nuts.
Benny the Clown clutched at his groin and fell to the floor.
Now that was a clown pratfall Randall could enjoy.
Three separate bottles of pills had fallen out of Benny the Clown's pockets as he struck the tile. Fuckin' clown was probably thoroughly drugged up. Maybe that was why he wasn't in total "wild animal" mode like the others.
Benny the Clown was far from dead, but he was disabled enough to suit Randall's purposes. The extra ten seconds he spent beating the fucker to death might be ten seconds he needed for running away, especially if...
A pair of draculas came around the corner.
Shit!
Randall didn't want to lock himself in the office again--he needed to make some progress. But this was going to take him farther away from Jenny and pediatrics.
Nothing he could do about that. It was a hospital, so there had to be more than one place he could find an inhaler.
With Tina still on his back, he limped down the hallway as quickly as he could.
Then his blood-soaked chainsaw popped out of his hands and dropped onto the floor.
Damn! Shit! Piss! Crap! Ass! Fuck!
He couldn't stop to pick up his chainsaw without gas with a little girl on his back and two draculas on his tail. It wasn't worth dying for.
Fuck! Fucker fuck frick fuck! Fuckleberry!
His leg twisted just a bit, because, apparently, it hadn't hurt quite enough before.
Ignore the pain...ignore the pain...imagine that your leg is a mighty redwood, standing straight and tall...
Goddamn my leg hurts...
He pushed through a swinging door. A sign overhead read Rehabilitation Therapy. Ah, yes. He'd get to know this place well...in another hospital, of course.
He heard the draculas rush right past the door. Then a scream. They must've found a more helpless victim.
Squeak...squeak...squeak...
Not the squeak of Benny the Clown's shoes. A different squeak.
Though Randall didn't have time for stopping and gaping, he couldn't help but stop and gape as the dracula in a wheelchair rolled across the room toward him.
Moorecook
BEING wealthy, Mortimer Moorecook had thought he'd understood power.
But he hadn't truly known it until now.
He was fast, with the speed and reflexes of a jungle leopard. Pouncing and tearing. Drinking and devouring. Going from hospital room to hospital room, attacking patients, staff, visitors.
He could see in the dark. The talons on his feet and hands were so strong he could climb walls, even hang upside-down from the ceiling. He bolted into a woman's room, her screams like hot fudge on a sundae, her supple, weak flesh unable to push him away as he sank his fangs into her warm, wet neck.
Seeing her fear, feeling her revulsion, was a rush better even than the sex he'd so desperately missed. But even more wonderful than that was all the precious blood blood BLOOD BLOOD BLOODBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD...
STOP!
He released the girl he'd been slurping, even though she still had some blood left. She'd been dead for a few minutes, but if he drank all of her blood, she wouldn't turn.
Moorecook wanted them to turn. He wanted as many of his kind as possible.
When not overwhelmed by bloodlust, he was capable of higher brain functioning. He knew he was different from the others he had created. Smarter. Better. Still evolving, in a different kind of way.
The others sensed the difference. They attacked one another, but gave him a wide berth. He'd even been able to screech at them, get them to follow some rudimentary orders. Direct them where to go.
He found three of them on the third floor, fighting over a pathetic pool of blood on the tile floor. Mortimer hissed, clacking his teeth together, commanding them to follow. They avoided the gunfire, going down an empty stairwell, slinking outside into the parking lot.
There were many cars. Cars meant chances for humans to escape.
Moorecook couldn't allow that. He showed them how to attack the tires. Directing them to each car, biting and tearing through the rubber treads with the sound of thunderclaps as they popped.
As they were finishing up, Mortimer heard the distant bray of police sirens, closing in. He directed his brood to hide near the entrance. Two went into the bushes flanking the ER doors. One crouched behind the BLESSED CRUCIFIXION HOSPITAL sign. Moorecook easily scaled the wall and pressed into a corner like a gecko, letting the darkness hide him.
Three police cars pulled up, two men in each. They exited their vehicles with practiced skill. Alert. Armed. Cautious.
They didn't even get a single shot off.
His brood attacked from all sides, slashing their talons, snapping their jaws. Moorecook hung down, his feet gripping a security camera, snatching a cop trying to run into the building. He pulled him up to his perch and bit into his face, tasting his blood and his bubbling screams. Moorecook chewed into his skull until his prickly tongue pierced down through bone and cartilage and sinew all the way to the carotid artery.
He drank until the man was empty--he was too damaged to turn--then leapt down on his brood, hissing and chasing them off, ensuring that three of the cops would join his brethren.
More. They needed more.
The bigger their numbers, the harder they would be to stop.
Mortimer stared up at the moon, painfully bright in the dark sky. He listened to the squawk of a police band radio, then leapt into an open car and ripped the radio from the dashboard. As he did, three of his talons broke off, revealing nubby white bone beneath the skin.
How curious.
There was no pain. In fact, something deep and primeval in him had expected this to happen.
Moorecook was the first. He'd been infected by the original source. That made him special.
He knew he was going to change into something else.
Something even more powerful than what he already was.
Something that would allow him to infect the whole world.
Oasis
HUNGRY again.
So hungry.
Oasis moved through a corridor. The hospital lights had gone out and come back on, though much dimmer. Just these soft blue lights above the doorways, which left lots of shadows.
She didn't like shadows. The dark scared her even though she could still see so much better than before.
She came around a corner and stopped.
A big sign on the wall read, THE BIRTHPLACE.
Oasis moved carefully down the corridor.
She'd learned her lesson. You couldn't just go running into things when you were a little girl. Adults were strong and mean, and none of them wanted to share their red candy.
She passed a woman lying on the floor, but the others had gotten to her and been thorough.
Finally came to a set of double doors. She hooked a talon through the handles and pulled.
They didn't budge.
She looked up at the window in one of the doors--the glass had been broken out, and someone had stapled a piece of paper across the opening from the other side.
She reached up, punched a talon through the paper, thinking there must be something really good on the other side of these doors if someone had gone to the trouble to lock them.
She crouched and jumped.
Got her arms halfway through the window frame.
She struggled to pull herself the rest of the way inside.
It was a tight fit, really tight, but she had a good feeling now that she was going to make it through.
Clay
SO stubborn!
he thought as he led Shanna down the stairs.
Didn't she realize that two people had a much better chance of survival when both were armed? But no. She was too scared to pack even a little heat.