DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

by J. A. Konrath

  It gave him a burst of energy, small to be sure, but enough to push him those last fifteen steps, the deputy firing behind him and screaming to go, and then Adam buried his shoulder into the door and burst out into a cool, dark night.

  Made it fifteen feet before crumbling to the concrete.

  He’d lost Stacie’s blood bag on the ascent.

  A man with a chainsaw stood with a woman and four kids on the far side of the helipad, and they were waving their arms toward a sea of headlights, spotlights, flashlights, ambulance light bars on a steady burn, highway patrol cruisers sending out a manic frenzy of blues and reds. Every law enforcement and first response agency in the Four Corners had to be out there.

  He reached back and began ripping the tape from his shoulders as Clayton broke through the door and then spun around and kicked it shut.

  “Bolton!” he screamed. “Get your ass over here!”

  Adam watched the man with the chainsaw limp quickly back across the helipad, the woman in tow.

  When they reached Clayton, the woman took Adam’s swaddled little girl out of his arms.

  “Incoming,” Clayton said.

  “How many?”

  “More than we can handle.”

  Adam ripped off the last bit of tape and eased Stacie onto the concrete. She shivered under her hospital gown and the insides of her legs were streaked with blood.

  So, so much of it.

  Adam had brought his backpack along, carrying it on the front of his chest. He unzipped it and grabbed another unit of O-positive, plugged Stacie’s IV line into the bottom, then held it up so the blood ran down into her veins.

  “Baby?” he said. “Can you hear me?”

  Stacie’s eyes opened.

  Barely.

  Slits.

  “Where’s Daniella?” she asked.

  Adam glanced back toward the door, saw the woman who held his child hurrying over. She knelt beside them.

  “That’s our baby girl,” Adam said.

  “She’s beautiful. I’m Jenny.”

  “I’m Adam. This is Stacie, my wife.”

  Even in the lowlight, he saw the concern darken Jenny’s face.

  “Here, would you take her?” She handed the sleeping infant—its neurological system shut down from all the mayhem—to Adam.

  “Hi, Stacie, I’m a nurse. My name’s Jenny.”

  Adam heard the sound of metal clanging nearby, saw Clayton and the man he’d called Bolton kicking one of the huge air conditioning units mounted to the roof.

  Jenny took Stacie’s wrist and held it for a moment.

  “Postpartem hemorrhage?”

  “That’s what Nurse Herrick called it.”

  Jenny looked down at the blood still pooling on the cement between Stacie’s legs.

  “She’s bleeding again,” Jenny said. “Had they stopped it before?”

  “I think so.”

  “Can I hold my baby?” Stacie whispered.

  “Sure, sweetie.” Adam laid their daughter in the crook of Stacie’s arm.

  Jenny said, “Could I speak with you for a moment, Adam?”

  “What about this bag?”

  “It’s okay. You can put it down.”

  He laid the blood bag on the concrete and followed Jenny for a few feet toward the edge of the roof. Clayton and Bolton were struggling to push an air conditioning unit that was bigger than a refrigerator in front of the door to the hospital.

  Jenny stopped and took both of Adam’s hands and said, “I am so sorry, but I’m afraid your wife isn’t going to make it.”

  Like someone had shovel-punched him in the gut.

  Jenny continued, “It probably jarred the clots loose when you carried her up from the birth unit.”

  Adam felt a rush of emotion coming on.

  Fought against it.

  “How long does she have?”

  Jenny just shook her head. “Go be with her.”

  Adam turned away from her, stared down at his wife lying on the helipad, stroking Daniella’s head with her fingers. He had never been more scared, including the previous hour.

  He walked back over to his family, sat down beside his wife.

  “She’s beautiful,” Stacie said.

  “She looks like you. Your eyes for sure.”

  Clayton and Bolton were muscling another unit toward the door, metal scraping against concrete. Thought he could hear inhuman screaming echoing from inside the hospital.

  He laid his hand against his wife’s forehead—cool and sweaty.

  Closed his eyes. Prayed harder than he’d ever prayed in his life.

  “I’m so cold, Adam.”

  He started unbuttoning his black shirt.

  “I hope you won’t lose your faith over this.”

  He wondered if she meant her death, if she knew it was imminent, or everything else.

  “Of course not,” he said, wondering if he was lying to her.

  Stacie looked down into the face of her daughter, and as Adam pulled his arms out of his shirtsleeves and laid it across Stacie’s chest, she said, “You’ll tell her about me?”

  “Stacie, stop, you’re gonna be—”

  “I know what’s happening,” she said.

  He could barely get the words out. “Every day, darling. Every day. I love you, Stacie. I love you so much.” Tears streamed down his face.

  Her eyes were going glassy, filling slowly with a kind of stunned emptiness.

  “Stacie! Do you hear me?”

  She turned her head, and stared up into his eyes, one last and fading beat of lucidity.

  “I know you love me, Adam,” she whispered. “You know I love you?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m scared, Adam.”

  He laid down beside his wife as the demons started beating against the door, their faces turned toward each other, staring into Stacie’s eyes as the life inside them drained away.

  Jenny

  JENNY turned away from the dying woman and her newborn. Yet another tragedy in a night filled with them.

  She pushed her emotions back, maintaining the guise of a professional, and looked for Randall. He and Clay had finished barricading the door and now Randall stood alone, staring off into the sea of blinking, flashing emergency lights. Jenny walked over and stood next to him, slipping her hand into his, welcoming the familiarity of his calluses.

  “Do you think we’ll be rescued?” she asked.

  A silly question, because there was no way he could know, any more than she did. But Jenny wasn’t seeking an answer. She just wanted to hear his voice.

  “I’ll make sure you and the kids get safe, Jenny.”

  His voice was cracking, and he looked away from her.

  “Randall? What’s wrong?”

  He coughed and covered his mouth, but not before something fell from his lips and bounced onto the tar-papered roof.

  A tooth.

  “Oh, Randall…”

  He stared at her, his eyes hooded, his pupils already starting to enlarge.

  “I won’t hurt you,” he said. “I won’t hurt you or the kids. I’ll…I’ll throw myself off the building before I let that happen.”

  He tried a pathetic smile, and more of his teeth dropped out. Jenny watched, revolted, as new ones breached the gums and began to grow in.

  Clay was walking over.

  “Randall, I need your help guarding the barricade…holy fuck!”

  Clay raised his weapon, pointing it at her husband’s head.

  Without thinking, Jenny stepped between the men.

  “No!”

  “Get out of the way, Jenny! He’s—”

  “He’s my husband! You’re not going to kill him, Clayton Theel!”

  Randall made a grunting sound, then doubled over and dropped to his knees. Jenny shoved Clay’s gun away, and crouched next to Randall, keeping her arm around his shoulders.

  “Jenny, you need to step away from the dracula.”

  “I know Randall. He won’t h
urt me. Will you, Randall?”

  Randall violently shook his head. “Won’t…hurt…no one. I…can…fight it.”

  Clay reached for Jenny, grabbing her arm, tugging her away. A millisecond later, Randall was on his feet, getting inside Clay’s aim and grabbing the deputy by the throat.

  “If I…lose…control…kill me. But…until then…fuck…off.”

  Randall released Clay, who immediately pointed the gun at him again. Once more, Jenny interceded, protecting Randall with her body.

  Clay stuck out his jaw. “My girl, Shanna. She said if we find that Moorecook guy, we might be able to find a cure. His blood could have a vaccine, or antibodies, or something.”

  Randall cried out as his teeth tore through his cheeks. Then came an ear-splitting sound of screeching metal.

  “They’re here!” one of the boys screamed.

  Jenny looked at the roof entrance, hoping she’d see cops and the military and rescue workers flooding in. But it wasn’t the good guys. It was the draculas, pushing open the door, the air conditioning units scraping across the roof.

  Randall pulled her tightly against him.

  She felt his hot breath on her cheek, his warm, bloody drool dripping onto her neck.

  “I…love…you…” her husband whispered.

  Then he picked up his chainsaw and limped toward the oncoming horde.

  Stacie

  IT was like someone dimming the lights from inside her head.

  No pain, but so dizzy.

  She could still sense her daughter lying asleep in the crook of her arm, though she couldn’t feel a thing.

  There was noise all around her, but Adam—sweet, wonderful Adam—his voice cut through, lips pressed against her ear.

  “I will extend peace to her like a river.”

  Thinking, I cannot be dying. This is not happening. I’m a mother now.

  “And the wealth of nations like a flooding stream.”

  Please God, undo this.

  “You will nurse and be carried on her arm and dandled on her knee.”

  There’s so much I want to experience.

  “As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you; and you will be comforted.”

  Nothing to do but latch onto his voice as the darkness flooded in and unconsciousness loomed like both the heartbreaking end and the answer to so many questions.

  “When you see this your heart will rejoice and you will flourish like grass. Peace like a river, Stacie. Peace to you. I love you Stacie.”

  His voice fading.

  “I love you Stacie.”

  She could feel herself slipping, and she didn’t fight it anymore.

  “Always, Stacie.”

  Randall

  RANDALL admitted, often with pride, that he could be one of the most stubborn bastards to walk the planet. He’d always been that way, and even though his stubbornness hadn’t always helped life to work out in his favor, it was deep inside of him and he’d figured it would never change.

  But at some point you had to accept that things weren’t going to happen the way you wanted, no matter how desperately you stuck to the plan.

  At some point you had to accept that you were doomed.

  Randall did not accept his fate as he rushed onto the roof with Jenny and the kids.

  Did not accept his fate as he and Jenny encouraged the children to scream as loudly as they possibly could, jump up, wave their arms, do anything they could to attract attention.

  Did not accept his fate as he and Clay dragged the air conditioning units to create a barricade against the draculas.

  Hell, he didn’t even accept his fate when Clay had a big-ass gun on him. He’d be fine. He’d recover. He was a lot stronger than the other people who’d transformed. He was a goddamn lumberjack!

  Even as he vowed to throw himself off the roof if needed, he knew it was an unnecessary promise. He’d never hurt anyone. Not a chance. No way.

  But when the pain began, he knew he was fucked.

  It seemed like tonight had been nothing except pain, but not like this. Nothing could compare to this. It was as if every single tooth in his mouth was simultaneously attacked by a sadistic Nazi dentist, drilling deep into the nerves, not simply without Novocain but with drugs to enhance his senses, pain so incredible that he thought he might finally take that next step and go completely insane.

  His new teeth burst through his gums and then through his cheeks in a shower of blood, flesh, and bone. One of his old teeth, a molar, went down his throat. As the gore spilled out of his face, he saw the barricade fall away, the draculas coming through the doorway, pouring out onto the roof.

  This was it.

  Randall Bolton’s final scene.

  Maybe he could fight whatever homicidal impulses struck the other draculas, but he wasn’t coming back. Wasn’t going to grow old with Jenny. Wasn’t going to have the last laugh on the other lumberjacks, or even get a slap on the back for a job well done. He couldn’t even help get the kids on the helicopter if they successfully got one to come over here—they’d just scream and run away from him.

  This was the end of Randall’s life, and he was leaving this world as a monster.

  And so there was only one way for him to go out with his head held high: kill as many other monsters as he possibly could.

  They could take away his humanity, but not his fucking chainsaw.

  He pulled the cord, relishing the sound of the motor. There was a whole forest of trees in front of him, and he was going to cut down every last one of them.

  He swung the chainsaw blade, hitting the first dracula so hard that it felt more like knocking its head off than slicing it off. In the same arc, his chainsaw dug a deep bloody line along the chest of the dracula next to it. The return swing finished off that dracula and two more.

  He couldn’t shout anything coherent, not with his face so mutilated, but he let out a primal scream, screaming out a lifetime’s worth of rage and sorrow all at once. The draculas parted beneath his whirring blade, some of them ripping into his flesh before they died, some not getting the satisfaction.

  There was so much blood spraying at him that he could practically gargle with it.

  Arms fell away like branches.

  A dracula stumbled forward and fell upon him, its teeth tearing into his side. Randall didn’t even feel it. He twisted the blade around and drove it deep into the dracula’s skull in a spray of brain and bone chips.

  No need to tell himself to focus.

  A dracula’s jaws clamped down upon his left hand, biting off all of his fingers except his thumb, but it didn’t matter. That wasn’t the hand with the chainsaw.

  Did he have talons instead of fingers now? He’d barely noticed.

  Another dracula and its head parted ways. How many had he killed so far? He couldn’t even estimate.

  A squirt of blood shot directly into his good eye.

  So he was mostly blind. So what? Didn’t matter.

  The chainsaw stalled for a split-second, right in the middle of a dracula’s torso, but he yanked it out and the blade started whirring again.

  Blood dripped from his hair, his ears, his chin.

  Bloodbloodblood…

  He shook off whatever urge had suddenly come over him. He wasn’t going to drink any of that shit.

  There were dismembered bodies piled around him.

  Literally piled.

  He almost lost his balance, but stayed upright.

  He wasn’t going down just yet.

  Not while there were still monsters around.

  Adam

  LIKE a YouTube clip from hell.

  Demons fighting to squeeze through the partially open door, and Randall—now one of them himself—wielding a giant chainsaw and slashing at everything in sight—legs, limbs, heads, guts strewn across the helipad—and a pang of fear now cutting through Adam’s grief.