DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

by J. A. Konrath

  He was in an office. A pretty nice one. Clearly the guy who used it worked with numbers instead of patients. Randall thought that might be him behind the desk, a bald middle-aged man with a dracula chewing on his neck.

  The dracula’s face was buried in its meal, and it didn’t see them. Randall grabbed the little girl’s hand and tugged her back out into the hallway…

  …where six or seven creatures emerged around the far corner. Randall yanked the little girl back into the office and slammed the door shut.

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  The dracula twisted its head and looked over at him, its mouth so laden with gore that Randall could barely see its fangs. It regarded him for a moment, then slammed its mouth back onto the number-cruncher’s wound.

  So they weren’t homicidal. Just…hungry.

  The door had a push-button lock on it. Randall quickly locked it but didn’t feel all that much safer. He had no idea if those things in the hallway would come after him or not.

  “It’s okay,” he told the little girl. “They can’t break down a door.”

  He was saying that based on absolutely no proof. For all he knew, they were wandering around the hospital kicking down doors left and right. The little girl seemed to have gone from pure panic to frozen terror, which made things a little easier for him. He hoped her mind wasn’t permanently damaged.

  Randall still didn’t know much about how these things behaved, but he figured this one was unlikely to finish guzzling the blood and then settle down for a long nap. He had to take the offensive instead of waiting for it to come after them.

  Damn, he wished he still had his hatchet. Though the chainsaw had worked nicely before, it really wasn’t intended to be used as a club, and he didn’t want to ruin it before he had the opportunity to find some gas. He’d have to think smaller.

  Screwdriver through the back of the head? That should do it.

  He set the chainsaw on the floor and pulled the screwdriver out of his belt.

  What if the change was only temporary? Randall hadn’t felt any guilt about slaughtering the other monsters, but what if they could be saved? What if the dracula that was slurping blood right in front of him was a nice guy, with a wife and two kids at home, and this change—this horrific creature he had become—was reversible? Didn’t that make Randall a murderer?

  A fountain of crimson jettisoned from the office man’s neck as the dracula opened a new vein. The dracula lapped at it greedily, letting it spray all over its face. Randall decided that he’d rather have a bothered conscience than his own body parts strewn across the hospital.

  “Close your eyes,” Randall told the little girl.

  She squeezed them shut immediately. Good. She was still hearing him, at least.

  Randall slowly walked over to the desk, clutching the screwdriver in his fist, looking for the best place to jam it. Probably the forehead. The dracula seemed aware of his approach, but was apparently not concerned enough about the threat to risk losing some of that scrumptious blood. What was the appeal?

  The dracula made a soft, almost inaudible sound, like a lion protecting its kill. It thinks I’m gonna steal its dinner.

  It was time to move fast. Randall stepped forward…and his leg, which he’d abused so relentlessly this evening, finally couldn’t take it anymore. It twisted, popping some more stitches, and Randall hit the floor, several trickles of blood streaming from his calf. He gritted his teeth and winced but didn’t scream.

  The dracula pounced.

  Randall swung the screwdriver at it, bashing it in the fangs. Unfortunately, none of them broke off. The screwdriver popped out of his hand and fell to the floor.

  The dracula, jaws open wide, jerked its head toward him. Randall punched it between the eyes, knocking a spray of blood out of the side of its mouth—the number cruncher’s blood that it hadn’t swallowed yet.

  He slammed his hand against the creature’s neck and held it tight, trying to keep its jaws away from his flesh. Some droplets of blood fell from its fangs and pattered onto his cheek. Shit! What if it was infectious? He pressed his lips together as tightly as he could and prayed that none of it would drip into his eyes.

  He squeezed its neck with one hand while feeling around for the screwdriver with the other. He’d seen this trick work remarkably well in a zombie movie, although in that case the guy had actually been able to find the goddamn screwdriver! Where had the stupid thing gone? It’s not like it was round and would’ve rolled away!

  A large drop of blood hit his lips.

  Forget the screwdriver. He reached for his belt and grabbed the first thing he touched: a pair of pliers. He opened the pincers, pounded them against the creature’s throat, and squeezed them shut. Then he yanked, tearing off a chunk of the dracula’s neck. A shower of blood poured down upon him.

  He did it again, getting one half of the pliers into the hole he’d just created, and tearing off an even larger strip.

  The dracula flailed and spasmed and helplessly clawed at its throat but remained very much alive.

  Randall ripped out two more pieces of its neck. Then he bashed it in the nose.

  It struggled quite a bit less now.

  After the next chunk, the dracula gave up the fight. Its lifeless body collapsed on Randall. He rolled it off him and pushed himself up to a seated position.

  He had blood all over his face, but none seemed to have gotten into any orifices as far as he could tell. He at least wasn’t snorting blood. He lifted his gown and used it to mop off his face, although it was difficult to find a part of the gown that wasn’t already wet.

  He couldn’t feel too bad for the creature. Even if it could revert to human, its face would be all mutilated from where the teeth broke through. Nobody would want to live like that.

  The little girl stared at him, unmoving.

  The man at the desk moaned.

  No fucking way…

  Randall grabbed the top of the desk and used it as leverage to push himself up. His injured leg really didn’t like that. He shoved the pain out of his mind.

  “Help me…” said the man. How was he still alive? Randall was probably the least qualified person in the entire building to make such a diagnosis, but he figured the man had a minute left to live, tops. “Get me to…” The man paused to cough up some blood.

  “I don’t think I can help you,” Randall said, feeling absolutely sick to his stomach.

  “Get me to surgery,” the man whispered. “I can do it. I just need you to take me there.”

  Even regular surgery wasn’t going to help him, much less self-performed surgery. “I can’t,” said Randall. “My leg is ruined. I can’t carry you.”

  “Please…”

  “I can’t. I would if I could, I swear, but there’s nothing I can do for you.” Randall knew he should lie to him—the man was a goner anyway—but he just couldn’t bring himself to do that.

  The man stared at him with dying eyes. “You’re going…to burn in hell.”

  Randall watched helplessly as his eyes went blank.

  What kind of asshole would do that to somebody? Randall had no time for guilt; he had to focus on the person he could actually save.

  He looked over at the little girl. She recoiled.

  Why was she scared of him?

  Oh, yeah. He was a giant-sized blood-soaked man in a hospital gown who’d ripped the neck out of a monster with a pair of pliers. Her fear was justified.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, again trying to use his kid-friendly voice.

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’m Randall.” He set the bloody pliers down on the desk, hoping that might help. Even though it hurt, he got down on one knee, bringing himself closer to her level. “I’m a lumberjack. Do you know what that is?”

  She just stared at him.

  “Do you know Paul Bunyan?”

  She nodded. Randall smiled.

  “I’m not Paul Bunyan, but I’m one of his friends. He’s a good guy. Ha
ve you heard of Babe?”

  “His blue ox?”

  “Yeah. I get to ride him sometimes. Now, Paul gets really mad if his fellow lumberjacks let little girls get hurt on their watch, so I promise you that if you listen to me and do what I say, I’m going to protect you from the monsters, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Tina.”

  Tina. That’s what Randall had wanted to name his daughter, if he and Jenny ever had one.

  Well, okay, it was one of about fifty names that he’d considered. Not a huge coincidence. But still…

  He stood up again, promising himself that if he lived through this he’d spend the next five years on a beach not moving his leg at all.

  A peek through the tiny window in the door didn’t offer a wide view of the hallway, but at least there were no draculas in the immediate vicinity. Had the others just moved on past, or were they still there and just out of his viewing range?

  The lights went out.

  Tina made a single, high-pitched scream.

  And then came a sound on the other side of the door.

  Squeak, squeak, squeak…

  Shanna

  THINK!

  Shanna paced the perimeter of the chapel—the Catholic chapel. Blessed Crucifixion had two. One non-denom and, since the hospital was run by nuns, the other Catholic. Very Catholic. This one ran slightly longer than wide with about a dozen folding chairs set up in three rows. Crucifixes, stained glass windows—fake, illuminated with fluorescents behind them—and even the Stations of the Cross. The whole enchilada.

  Shanna wasn’t Catholic, wasn’t much of anything as far as religion went, but for the first time in her life she was taking comfort in depictions of some poor man suffering horrific torture.

  Maybe it was because of seeing Mortimer down in the lobby—or rather, what he’d become. She’d barely escaped with her life. But she couldn’t get the image of his face out of her mind.

  He looked just like the “Dracula skull” that he’d jabbed into his throat.

  And the Dracula part had driven her to seek the company of crucifixes.

  Irrational? Absolutely. Comforting? Absolutely.

  She slowed her speeding, panicked thoughts and forced her brain into analytical mode. Take it in order:

  1) Mortimer had received the “Dracula skull.”

  2) Mortimer had stabbed himself—deliberately, it seemed—with the skull’s fangs.

  3) He had been brought to the hospital.

  4) Shortly thereafter she’d seen a blood-soaked man in Mortimer’s pants and belt but with a head identical to the Dracula skull.

  5) Ernie’s head had been removed from his body.

  The only conclusion she could draw from what she knew was that Mortimer had changed into some sort of murderous creature and that the blood all over him was Ernie’s.

  Huh?

  Come on, Shanna. That’s horror-movie stuff.

  Obviously it wasn’t the only possible scenario—she could be the mark in one of those hidden-camera spoof shows, but somehow she didn’t see Blessed Crucifixion going along with that.

  No, as bizarre and way out and insane as it seemed, that was the only scenario that fit all the facts.

  Something supernatural was going on, something to do with vampires, or something like vampires. Maybe the creature that had started all the vampire stories, the wellspring of the legends, had returned. She didn’t know what, or how, or why. And if a vampire was out there, she wanted to be in here, amid crosses and crucifixes and stations of the cross.

  Did the police know?

  Probably on their way. She’d heard shooting, lots of it, so hospital security must have gotten involved. Probably all over now.

  The ER would know. She’d left Jenny there. Maybe she could find a phone and call down. There—one on the wall. She lifted the receiver and pressed the “O” button. After four rings a message came on, telling her that all lines were busy and to please hold. Okay, she’d—

  “Shanna? Shanna Davies?”

  She dropped the phone and spun. The voice came from the ceiling. She looked at the big crucifix at the far end of the room. Had Jesus just called her name?

  “Shanna, if you’re in the hospital and can hear this, please call extension two-seven-nine-four.” It came from the speaker in the ceiling—the hospital paging system. “Shanna Davies call extension two-seven-nine-four.”

  Clay’s voice! She never thought she’d ever be this glad to hear that voice. The police were here.

  She cut the call to the switchboard and punched in 2794.

  “Shanna?”

  “Oh, Clay, where are you?”

  “The ER. Where are you?”

  “The chapel on the second floor. I’m coming down—”

  “No-no-no-no! Stay right where you are. I’ll come to you. Stay put. Whatever you do, stay out of the hallways.”

  Her gut clenched. Stay put?

  “What are you saying? What’s going on?”

  “All hell’s broken loose, babe. Monsters everywhere.”

  Monsters…more than one?

  “What do you—?”

  “They’ve got two chapels, as I recall. Which are you in?”

  “The Catholic.”

  “The doors—do they have loop handles, the kind you could stick something through?”

  She looked. One on each.

  “Yes.”

  “Find something—anything—to stick through them till I get there. Don’t let anyone in but me, and I do mean anyone. Got that?”

  “You’re scaring me, Clay.”

  “Good. Scared’s a good thing to be right now, considering what’s roaming the halls. You sit tight. I’m on my way.”

  Shaken, she hung up.

  …considering what’s roaming the halls…monsters everywhere…

  That didn’t sound good, not good at all. But it dovetailed with the vampire thing…they created more of themselves. But didn’t you have to die and get buried and rise from the grave to become one? Didn’t it take—?

  She heard the elevator open. Clay?

  No. No way he could make it from the ER yet.

  Don’t let anyone in but me, and I do mean anyone.

  She was going to take that to heart—her own picked up its tempo as she looked around. Something to stick through the handles…

  Her gaze settled on the crucifix. No, too big. Never get Jesus’s knees through those handles. But the slim cross in the side alcove ran about six feet along the upright.

  Perfect.

  She hurried over to it and yanked on it, expecting resistance. But it was hung on a nail like a plaque. It came loose and toppled toward her. She tried to hold it up but it over balanced her and she fell backward into the folding chairs with a terrible racket.

  No way anyone—or anything—in the hall hadn’t heard that.

  The cross had landed atop her. She pushed it off, jumped to her feet, and lugged it toward the doors. This wasn’t some plaster casting, this thing was solid wood, and not light. She’d chosen an academic field to avoid exercise. Now she wished—

  She froze for a second. A sound outside…like a hiss? Panic lent her strength, lunging her forward to shove the long end of the upright through the loops of both handles.

  “Did it!” she whispered.

  Then something hissed and hit the other side of the doors.

  Shanna couldn’t help it. She screamed.

  And instantly wished she hadn’t because it seemed to incite the thing outside. It slammed its full weight against the doors, moving them inward an inch or so, but the cross held and kept them closed. This seemed to infuriate the thing. It threw itself against the barrier, and she could hear claws gouging the outer surface.

  Mortimer…trying to get in?

  She backed away from the ferocity of the attack as the thing repeatedly hurled itself against the doors.

  BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

  Didn’t it feel
pain? Didn’t it get tired?

  And where was Clay?

  As the assault continued she noticed a faint diagonal line begin to stretch across the cross’s upright between the door handles. A crack? Oh, no!