DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

by J. A. Konrath

  Big, clumsy, stupid Randall.

  Loyal, loving, brave Randall.

  “Yes,” she said, surprising herself with the certainty of her conviction. “He is.”

  Lanz

  KURT Lanz, MD, inhaled through the scorched, gaping hole in his face where his nose used to be. Part of him—the rational, thinking part—knew that when he’d yanked off his burned nose to eat, he’d managed to deviate his septum. But that didn’t matter now.

  All that mattered was blood.

  After killing the lights, he’d scampered to the geriatric ward, giddy with the thought of defenseless old people. But it had been picked clean.

  Next, he’d gone to the Birthplace, but found the entrance locked. He couldn’t fit through the small window hole in the door, which infuriated him, because he could smell humans in there.

  Oncology was next and yielded similar results. The beds were empty, the ward in disarray. Lanz tried to squeeze a few drops of blood from a severed leg he’d found on the floor, but it had been sucked dry. He made do chewing on a blood-soaked bed sheet, swallowing the torn strips.

  The many others roaming the halls had sensed their blood supply gone and begun to turn on each other. Lanz even joined in, pouncing on a smaller creature—a teenager—that was being eviscerated by a group of larger adults. Lanz got away with a kidney and half the liver.

  Neither soothed the growing ache in his belly.

  He craved blood.

  He wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

  Half-insane with bloodlust, he remembered that bitch up in pediatrics. Jenny. Assuming she’d been resourceful enough to fight off the horde, perhaps she was still alive. Maybe she’d even managed to protect some of the children.

  The innocent, defenseless, delicious little children.

  Only one way to find out…

  Lanz slunk into the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time, his mouth salivating at the thought of the nurse’s sweet, warm blood.

  Stacie

  AT first, she thought she’d lost consciousness, but the pain was still there, like her back was ripping itself apart, and then the lights returned, only in a much diminished state—nothing but a cold, blue glow emitting from the battery-backup above the door to her room.

  Two figures emerged out of the shadowy corridor—Adam and Nurse Herrick hurrying back.

  “What happened to the lights?” Stacie asked through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t know,” the nurse said.

  “Epidural,” Stacie moaned. “I didn’t want it, wasn’t part of the plan, but now—”

  “I’m sorry, sweetie.” Nurse Herrick patted her hand.

  “What do you mean ‘sorry’? I can’t keep…” Her voice trailed into another groan as Adam came around and put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t touch me,” she seethed through the pain.

  “Baby, this too shall—”

  “Oh my God, if you quote another fucking bible verse, I’m gonna rip your eyes out of your head. Nurse, get me the epidural.”

  “I’m not qualified to administer it.”

  Desperate now, she pleaded, “How hard can it be?”

  “It’s a spinal block. I could accidentally paralyze you for life. You could get an infection and die. It takes a high level of skill that I don’t have.”

  Stacie glared at Adam, felt a rush of anger flooding through her.

  “You can do this,” he said. “I know you can. You’re so beautiful.”

  She shook her head. “You did this to me. You did, and I will never forgive you as long as I—”

  “Stacie—”

  “Stop. Talking.”

  The nurse perused one of the cabinets, finally emerging with a flashlight. She came around to the foot of the bed and lifted Stacie’s gown.

  “I need to push,” Stacie begged. She’d never wanted anything so badly.

  “Not yet.”

  “Why?” She could feel the nurse’s hands probing under her gown.

  “You’re almost fully dilated,” Herrick said. “I can’t believe how fast you’re progressing. Wait until the next contraction, and when it comes, you grab your husband’s hand and push like you’ve never pushed before. But not on this one.”

  She thought about crushing the bones in Adam’s fingers and this made her briefly happy.

  “Don’t push,” Herrick warned.

  “I’m not! Adam?”

  He was suddenly right there.

  “What, baby?”

  “I’m never doing this again.”

  “I know.”

  And suddenly she could breathe again, her chest heaving, sweat running down into her eyes. A break between the bouts of torture.

  She could hear more gunshots blasting in the hospital.

  “Are the doors out there holding?” she asked.

  “Don’t think about it,” Adam said.

  “Please check.”

  Her husband hustled out of the room as Nurse Herrick fed her another ice chip. “This is the threshold, Stacie,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of women at this point, where you think you can’t go on, and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Babies get born, every day.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “You breathe through it. Just breathe. The baby’s coming no matter what you do.”

  Adam returned. “The barricade’s still in place.”

  And then it came, a contraction a step above all others, a new revelation of pain, and Stacie felt the ring of fire her girlfriends had joked about—nothing in the history of language had been so aptly named—and the voices in her ear all swirling, yelling, Push! The head’s coming! You’re almost there! Just a little longer!

  Three minutes of the most intense pain of her life, and all she could think was, There better be a motherfucking baby at the end of this contraction, and when it finally, mercifully passed, it was like coming up for air after three minutes underwater.

  She didn’t hear any crying, just her husband’s voice in her ear, distant and echoey, telling her how great she was doing.

  Nurse Herrick was right at her ear.

  “The head is halfway out. Baby’s in a good position. You push it out next contraction.”

  Next?

  She was nodding, and before she could wrap her head around the concept of “next” she was pushing again, her throat raw from screaming, screaming for what seemed like hours through unending pain, and then her head fell back into the pillow. She was done. She had nothing left. She quit, because the contraction was over and still this thing was inside of—

  A small, precious cry brought her head instantly up off the pillow.

  Nurse Herrick stood at the foot of the bed, holding a tiny creature, suctioning its mouth and nose, and then a baby-cry erupted and this living, squirming creature was on Stacie’s chest, blue and covered in vernix, all the anger, fear, and pain replaced by a shot of the most all-encompassing joy she’d ever known, and Stacie was sobbing, and Adam right there with her—strong, beautiful, loving, perfect Adam—and he was crying and patting their baby’s back.

  “You’re amazing, baby,” he said, laughing. “Both of you.”

  She could feel the umbilical cord pulsing against her stomach.

  “I’ll leave you two for a minute,” Herrick said, and as she slipped outside, Stacie looked at Adam, touched his blue-lit face.

  “Should we check?” she said.

  “Check what?”

  “If this is Matthew or Daniella.”

  Adam laughed. “I hadn’t even thought of it.”

  “Introduce us,” Stacie said.

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Stacie turned her head away as Adam lifted their cooing baby and then eased it back onto her chest. He had tears in his eyes when she looked back.

  “Stacie,” he said, and she looked down into the little face, eyes struggling to open, staring cross-eyed right into hers. “I’d like to introduce
you to your daughter, Daniella.”

  “Hey, baby girl,” Stacie said, touching the back of her finger to Daniella’s little cheek. “Meet your mom and dad. We’re going to…”

  “Stace? You all right?”

  She was. She was great. The pain was gone, just a little dizziness. Well, maybe a lot of dizziness, and it was coming on stronger with every passing second.

  “Yeah, I just…little light-headed.”

  Adam moved around to the end of the bed, said, “Oh, God,” and Stacie watched him rush out of the room, heard him calling Nurse Herrick, something in the tone of his voice that unnerved her. She couldn’t take her gaze off Daniela, but she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open now, and the last thing she noticed before she descended into unconsciousness were the bloody footprints—Adam’s—leading out into the corridor, dark as crude oil in the lowlight.

  Adam

  HE found Herrick at the nurse’s station, making entries in a chart by flashlight.

  “She’s bleeding,” he said. “A lot.”

  Herrick dropped her pen and came around the desk into the corridor, practically ran down the hall.

  “Is this normal?” Adam said.

  They passed through the open door into Stacie’s room and Herrick stopped, staring at the bloody sheets, the dark drops falling into a puddle on the floor.

  “Stacie!” she yelled, and Adam followed her to his wife’s bedside. “Stacie. Can you hear me?”

  Stacie still held the baby in her arms, but her eyes were closed, and even in the lowlight, Adam thought she looked pale.

  Herrick lifted Stacie’s wrist, checked her radial pulse.

  She turned on her flashlight and lifted Stacie’s hospital gown.

  “Is she gonna be okay?”

  “Shhh.”

  A beat of terrible silence, and then Herrick turned and faced him.

  “She’s postpartum hemorrhaging.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “She passed the placenta immediately following birth. What I’m guessing is there’s still a piece of it in there.”

  “Why is that bad?”

  “Because it’s stopping her uterus from contracting.”

  “How much blood has she lost?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but at least half a liter, which is past the point of being okay.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Listen to me.”

  “Can you fix her?”

  “Yes, but I need your help.”

  “Anything.”

  “I think I can stop the bleeding, but she’s lost so much already, she’s gonna need a transfusion.”

  “Okay.”

  “You have to go down to the blood bank.”

  Adam felt a tremor of fear ride down his legs.

  “Where’s the blood bank?”

  “The basement.”

  “Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, are you fucking kidding me?”

  Herrick actually took a step back from the minister, her eyes going wide.

  “Sorry about that,” he said.

  “It’s quite all right, pastor, we’re all under a great deal of stress. You’ll need this.” Herrick lifted his overnight backpack off a rocking chair. Adam overcame the tremor in his hands, finally managing to unzip it and dump the contents—a change of clothes and some toiletries.

  “How do I get there?”

  Herrick walked out of the room into the corridor, pulling him along.

  “Through those doors, then you go to the end of the hallway and take a right. Go to the end of that hallway and take a left. On your next right, four doors down, you’ll see a door leading to the stairwell. Go all the way down, and when you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor. You’ll see the sign for the lab. Refrigerators are in back. Grab at least five units of O-positive.”

  His head was swimming.

  “O-positive. Okay.”

  “Help me with this.”

  They slid the furniture back from the door, and then Adam stared through the window. The paper that Herrick had stapled over the opening had blown away.

  “Coast clear?” she asked.

  “For now.”

  He heard the locks sliding up, his heart beginning to pound at the thought of going out there.

  “Adam?”

  He looked at Herrick.

  “I know you don’t want to go out there, but your wife will die if she doesn’t start receiving new blood in less than thirty minutes.”

  Adam’s daughter began to cry at the other end of the wing.

  He wondered if he’d seen the last he would ever see of her.

  “I’ll take care of your girls, Adam,” Herrick said. “Now get going.”

  Jenny

  “I’M just going to see if the playroom is empty,” Jenny told the clinging, whimpering kids. “I’ll be right back.”

  Amid cries of protest, the nurse extracted herself from the tangle of children and stood up, holding the glowing green light stick in front of her like a talisman. She crept to the closet door, making sure her footing was solid. Jenny prayed Randall was on his way back for them. The desire to hear his voice again was overwhelming. For his many faults—the gullibility, the temper, the drinking, the inability to think ahead—the old Randall had been a rock. He’d also been one of the most reassuring, nurturing people she’d ever known, and all of her friends were nurses, so that was really saying something.

  If the old Randall was back—and she sensed he was—he’d find a way to reach her, even if he had to walk barefoot through hell.

  The intercom was near the front door, which was still barricaded shut. Jenny wanted to tell him to find an intercom, to let her know he was okay, to come for her and the kids, and…

  And?

  To tell him I love him.

  Funny how that worked. During the dark days of their marriage, she had felt less his wife, and more his mother—always scolding him, trying to make him straighten up and fly right. But now that the shit had hit the fan, he was the one person in the world Jenny needed. She closed her eyes, for just a moment, imagining his embrace—like being hugged by a big, friendly bear.

  Jenny hoped she’d be able to feel that embrace at least one more time.

  He’s alive. He’s got to be alive. Randall has survived countless accidents and mishaps. Countless drunken bar fights. He’s indestructible.

  She opened her eyes, focused on the door. Holding her breath, she stopped just an arm’s length away from the square window, listening for sounds.

  The silence was so loud it made her wince.

  Jenny let out a slow sigh, then took a cautious step forward and—

  “STOP! A monster is going to pop out and grab you! I know it!”

  Jenny’s bladder clenched at the child’s outburst. The courage she’d stored up seeped right out of her.

  “It’s okay,” she said.

  But it really wasn’t okay, was it? Monsters—real monsters—were running around the hospital, killing people. Her husband was gone. Jenny had no weapons. And now she was about to peer through a broken window when there was a pretty good chance something would pop out and grab her.

  Maybe staying put was a smart idea.

  She was about to give in to cowardice when she remembered something her husband had said to her on their honeymoon. They’d spent the week at the ridiculous sounding “Camp Kookyfoot Waterpark” because Randall was nuts about waterslides. Jenny had initially resented him for it—it had been his “surprise” wedding gift to her—but it ultimately didn’t matter because they spent most of the trip in bed. During one of their rare ventures out of the bedroom to eat at the suitably hokey “Kookypants Famous Bar and Grill,” Randall had cut his sirloin into pieces too big to swallow and wound up getting one stuck in his throat. Jenny had calmly gotten behind him and applied the Heimlich, saving his life.

  “Thanks, babe,” he’d told her once he could breathe again. “It’s nice to have
someone I can count on. You know you can count on me too. Always and forever.”