DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

by J. A. Konrath

  “What?” Clay couldn’t believe this. “You left Alice?”

  “Alice?”

  “My Taurus!”

  “Well, it was empty and—”

  “Alice is a Taurus Raging Bull four-fifty-four Casull, the most powerful handgun in the world—”

  “And would blow your head clean off…I know. But it—she would’ve made a lousy club. Sorry.”

  Sorry? Sorry didn’t cut it. Alice was—

  Another scream from down the hall. Damn. Okay, he’d worry about his baby later.

  He quickly reloaded the MM-1, making sure each of the twelve chambers in the cylinder had a live round, then headed down the hall.

  Randall

  “WE need to change this up,” Randall said, stopping and looking back at Jenny. “Can you take the lead? I’ll make sure they don’t hit us from the rear.”

  Jenny looked a bit confused, but nodded. “Sure. Why?”

  “I’m not so good with stairs right now. I don’t want to fall and crush anybody.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Just a little dizzy. If I fall, it’ll be better if I’m in the back.”

  “All right.” Jenny appeared concerned as Randall stepped out of the way and let her get in front, but she said nothing else. They resumed their ascent. Randall felt like he was slowing them down and almost told them to leave him and go on ahead…but, no, it was better to move at his slow pace if he could help keep them safe.

  They’d all be fine.

  Happy endings for all.

  As far as Randall was concerned, if you couldn’t defend four boys from a dracula invasion with a roaring chainsaw, then you didn’t deserve to carry a roaring chainsaw, right? He’d get them and Jenny to the roof, no problem. Then they’d all get rescued, drop the kids off at a fun water slide, get his leg patched up, and hurry back to Jenny’s place. A quick stop at the kitchen for a couple of cold beverages, and then they’d stampede into her bedroom. She’d have to be on top because of his injuries, but he could live with the bottom position until he healed up. They’d get remarried, take their honeymoon on a luxury cruise through Alaska, and have a daughter who looked just like Tina, who would go on to live a long, healthy life.

  An excellent plan.

  He knew it wasn’t really going to happen like that. Hell, ten seconds after they flew off in that helicopter, Jenny might say “Oh, sorry, Randall, but you can’t expect me to honor something I said while we were in the midst of a dracula attack. I can’t be with you.” Then she’d use a big word that she knew he didn’t understand, laugh about his injured leg (legs now, goddamn it), and rush off for a Clay/Jenny/Shanna threeway.

  Jesus. What was wrong with him?

  He knew exactly what was wrong. Right now, almost every part of his body hurt, but what concerned him most wasn’t the parts that hurt, it was the part that tingled.

  A mild, unpleasant tingle, like that moment after you’d had a filling when the Novocain was just starting to wear off.

  A tingle right under his teeth.

  Shit.

  Why the hell had he bit the clown? What kind of stupid idiot would do a thing like that? He’d saved the woman he loved, was probably going to save a bunch of kids, and he might have irreparably fucked it up by getting caught up in the heat of battle.

  Or not. They didn’t know how this dracula stuff worked. They couldn’t. Not this quick. Blood might not have anything to do with it. There could be some fuckin’ sorcerer in the basement, waving his Harry Potter wand and creating these things. And he’d washed his mouth out with rubbing alcohol.

  He wasn’t necessarily screwed.

  Jenny glanced back at him.

  He smiled. See? No dracula teeth.

  He was fine. The tingling meant nothing. Could be anything. It wasn’t even that bad. He could barely feel it unless he concentrated. No way was he going to get this far, go through this much crap, and ruin his happy ending. Randall Bolton was going to be a hero, a muscle-bound lumberjack taking out dozens of monsters with his trusty chainsaw, not the asshole who turned into one of them.

  Or the asshole who suspected that something was happening and didn’t tell anyone.

  “Jenny…?”

  She stopped. “Yes?”

  “No, keep moving. We’ll talk while we walk.” His mouth had gone dry. “Jenny, I…I really shouldn’t have bit that clown.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “No, no, no, don’t panic. I’m not…I haven’t…I think I’m fine. None of the other draculas are as big as me, and it would take longer to affect me even if I were…I think you were right, swishing around that rubbing alcohol helped, but I just…I didn’t want to not say anything, in case, but I swear I feel fine.”

  They passed the next landing. At least there were no draculas in the stairwell. That was something.

  Almost there.

  Almost to the magical helicopter that would whisk them away from all this.

  “I just want you to know, I’m not gonna be dumb about this if anything happens,” Randall said, hoping that the kids didn’t pick up on what they were talking about. “I’ll never hurt you. I promise.”

  “I know.”

  He was just overreacting. He posed no danger to anybody but the draculas. Hell, he was going to get Jenny and the kids out of danger, not put them in—

  No.

  No!

  He wanted to scream as one of his bottom teeth fell out.

  Clay

  HE came to an intersection and stopped, unsure of whether to keep going straight ahead, or take the hall to the right. A cry of pain to the right—a man’s voice—firmed up the decision. He made the turn and increased his pace to a trot. At the end of the hall he came upon half a dozen draculas pounding and clawing at a door, slamming themselves against it. That could mean only one thing: live humans on the other side.

  As Clay raised the launcher, he heard a loud CRACK! and saw the doors start to swing inward. No time to lose and he had to make every shot count. The buckshot rounds turned the MM-1 from a grenade launcher into a super-size sawed-off shotgun. He didn’t even want to guess at the gauge of something that fired a 40mm shell—two, maybe? No matter. Sawed-offs were great at close range, crap at long range because the cone of shot spread so rapidly.

  So he stepped up behind the draculas, squared off around six feet from their clustered backs as they began to push the doors in against whatever was barricaded on the far side, and fired high. The first shot put four of them down, totally ruining the heads of two and carving good chunks out of two more. He angled a little to the right and fired again, splattering the brains of two more, then pulled his Glock from the small of his back. He had three backup magazines of .40 cal hollowpoints for the pistol, so might as well use that for coup-de-grâce duty. He double-tapped the skulls of the two draculas that were down but still kicking, then stepped into a new corner of hell.

  The first thing he saw was a guy in a clerical collar on his back on the floor holding off a mini-dracula in a party dress.

  Aw, no. A kid.

  It got worse. Approaching the minister and the mini was another female dracula, this one full grown, but it had a baby dracula chewing through her stomach like the creature in Alien. Looked like some human-kangaroo mutant with her baby in a pouch. Clay stood frozen in horror. He’d seen some awful things today, but this…this…he had no words for this.

  He shook himself. What to do? The minister’s most immediate problem was the girl-dracula. Couldn’t use the MM-1without taking out the minister too, but he still had his Glock in hand, so—

  The momma-dracula solved the problem for everyone, grabbing the girl-dracula by both sides of her head and ripping her off the minister. The girl-dracula screeched in rage but only for an instant. The screech was replaced by a sickening crunch of bone as the momma-dracula gave her head a full one-eighty twist. Then another. Girl-dracula’s head faced front again but her jaws had gone slack and her eyes were rolled up in he
r head. Then momma-dracula bit her throat. As blood squirted, she pressed girl-dracula against her ruptured belly where baby-dracula began to suck.

  Clay couldn’t take any more. He pulled the trigger twice and blew all three to pieces.

  He shuddered, feeling sick. He’d just killed a little girl, a new mother, and her—what?—nursing baby.

  He shook it off. No, they weren’t people anymore. They’d become things. He’d done them a favor.

  So how come he felt so rotten?

  Clay was stepping forward to help the minister when he caught a flash of movement to his right. Another female dracula, this one in a nurse’s uniform, was charging him. As Clay swiveled the MM-1 and fired, he heard the minister yell, “Carla, no!”

  Carla stumbled a step but kept coming, her head intact, but her face a pincushion mass of darts.

  “Crap!”

  He’d mistakenly loaded a Beehive round into the launcher. He’d been taking one along to Denver as a novelty. It fired a swarm of forty-some steel flechettes. Beehives weren’t used much because of their low stopping power, which was being demonstrated right now as the dracula lunged at him. Clay ducked to the side and she went right by, talons raking empty air. The flechettes hadn’t stopped her, but multiple darts in her eyes had blinded her. He waited till she wheeled around, then blew her away.

  He helped the bloodied minister to his feet.

  “You okay, padre?”

  “I think so.” He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off what was left of momma-dracula. “Poor Brittany.”

  Clay was doing a slow turn, looking for more surprises.

  “Let’s get you out of here.”

  “No—my wife and baby!”

  Clay glanced at the momma-dracula, then away. “Oh, God, I…I…”

  “Oh, they’re fine.” His face fell. “Well, not really. Stacie lost a lot of blood after delivery. She’s getting transfused now and—”

  “Now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can she walk?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Why?”

  Clay pointed back the way he came in. “Because those doors aren’t stopping anything anymore.”

  As if to prove the point, a dracula came around the corner, saw them, and charged. It looked like it was going for the dead draculas, but Clay let it get within six feet, then blew its head off anyway.

  The only good dracula…

  The minister looked both repulsed and impressed. “That makes it look so easy. Almost doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Like my daddy likes to say, ‘If you find yourself in a fair fight, you obviously didn’t plan right.’ Besides, ‘fair’ is a matter of opinion, depending on what side you’re on. These things here probably think it’s unfair you’ve got all this blood running around inside you and won’t share it. Anyway, it’s not safe here. We need to get your wife to the roof.”

  “Roof?” The minister shook his head. “Gosh, I don’t know…”

  “Good chance a copter will be doing pick-ups. Women and children first.”

  Sudden resolve solidified his expression. “Really? Then we’ve got to get her up there.”

  Clay followed him into a room where a pale young woman—so pale she faded into the sheets—lay in bed with a blood pack dripping into her arm.

  Clay shook his head. No way this gal was walking up to the roof. He glanced at the minister. Kind of scrawny.

  “She’ll need to be carried, padre.”

  “We can get a gurney and—”

  “The elevators are out and a gurney will never make the turns in the stairwells. I’ll carry her. You take the baby and my Glock—”

  “No! I couldn’t!”

  “Jesus! Another one!” He sounded like Shanna.

  “Please don’t take the Lord’s name in—”

  “Jesus could have used a Glock. Wouldn’t have wound up with see-through hands and feet if he’d had one.”

  “Please, deputy…”

  “All right, all right. Here’s what we’re gonna do…”

  “All set?”

  The minister nodded. Clay had learned his name was Adam, his wife was Stacie, and their screaming newborn—swathed in a baby blanket and cradled in the crook of Clay’s left arm—was Daniella. As per Clay’s instructions, Adam had stuffed her ears with cotton. Clay knew his own ears would never be the same after today, might as well give the kid’s a break. While Adam had stuffed cotton, Clay had stuffed rounds into the MM-1’s cylinder. He was just about out of ammo. Only two buckshot rounds as backup for the dozen in the cylinder. He had the two H-E rounds but they had no practical use.

  Stacie groaned from her place on Adam’s back, but didn’t open her eyes.

  They’d transferred Stacie to a gurney, hanging her blood bag from an IV pole and leaving her blood-soaked mattress behind. They rolled her to the stairwell door where Adam tried to carry her in his arms, but her dead weight was too much for his left arm. He’d messed it up going for the blood. But still he insisted on carrying her, so Clay helped get her onto his back and wrapped adhesive tape around them to hold her in place.

  So, Adam stood ready with his elbows hooked under the backs of Stacie’s knees. Clay, with Daniella in his left arm, the MM-1 in his right, and the tab atop the blood bag clamped between his teeth, led the way up. As long as he stayed higher than Stacie, gravity would keep the blood running into her arm.

  “Stay close, padre,” he said through his clenched teeth and over the baby’s wails. “We’ve got four flights to go and then we’re home free.”

  The baby had to be hungry—no one left on the OB floor to feed it, and she sure wasn’t going to get much from her mother. He just hoped its cries didn’t attract any draculas. Spraying double-ought shot in a stairwell was a last resort.

  He heard a door squeak open below, turned and looked over Adam’s head. A dracula leaped through the doorway onto the landing below, followed by another. They’d heard Daniella.

  “Shit!”

  Keeping Daniella in his left arm, he gripped the barrel of the launcher with his left hand and used his right to take the blood pouch from between his teeth and shove it between Stacie’s chest and Adam’s back. Then he pressed against the railing to let Adam pass.

  “Keep on going. Move your ass. I’ll slow them down.”

  “But Daniella—!”

  “I’ve got her. You’ve got all you can handle. Just keep moving!”

  The minister lacked the wind to say much else, so he kept on a-trudgin’. As soon as he was past, Clay clutched the MM-1 by its rear pistol grip and dangled it over the railing. A heavy sucker—especially with a full cylinder—designed for two-handed use. It kicked and all of its weight was forward of the trigger—hence the second pistol grip on the front end of the stock. Clay had only one free hand. He had strong wrists, but not strong enough to fire the launcher one-handed—unless he was firing it downward.

  “Hey, ugly!” he shouted to the lead dracula as it spotted him and rushed up the flight below.

  It looked up, its face not twelve inches from the muzzle of the launcher.

  “Say hello to my leetle fren’.”

  Clay fired, splattering its head all over its torso and the stairs with virtually no shot scatter. The second leaped upon it and began feasting. Clay didn’t want to leave it there, because he heard more coming, so he started shouting at the top of his voice, and when the second looked up, it got the same as its buddy.

  Daniella had probably increased her screaming, but Clay couldn’t hear her over the ringing in his ears. He carried her halfway up the next flight and shouted for more draculas. He’d leave a combination buffet and obstacle course all the way to the roof.

  Adam

  “MOVE, Padre!” the man named Clayton screamed, and Adam was moving—moving as fast as he possibly could, one step at a time, his wife strapped to his back with several rolls of adhesive tape. He sweated buckets, his legs cramping, and two flights of stairs still to go, warm blood—Stacie-blood—sl
uicing down the back of his legs.

  The deputy fired that freakishly huge gun again, the noise so loud it jogged his fillings, and when his hearing faded back in he heard the deputy screaming, “Come on! Come on! Come and get it, fucker! Come on! I don’t got all day! Come on!”

  Boom!

  “Come on, you bastard! Yeah, you! You want some of this? You got it!”

  Boom!

  They rounded another landing and at the top of the next flight, he saw a door with a sign above it glowing under the emergency light—HELIPAD.