DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

by J. A. Konrath

  “Pretty sure…”

  Clay’s gut clenched at the prospect. He’d modified the buckshot rounds, changing the gauge of the shot and such, but the H-E grenades were lots more complicated. He hadn’t ventured into one of them yet. No point in letting Adam in on that. He had enough on his plate.

  “Okay,” he said. “While I do my tinkering, I want you to stack all these chairs in a circle in the center of the room, but leave enough space for you in the middle.”

  “Why?”

  “Coupla reasons. I’ll explain later, because we don’t have a lot of time and it won’t matter if I can’t arm the grenades. So circle those chairs, then get every drop of blood you can find and pour it around them like a moat. But you’ve got to keep the door closed as you do that. When those draculas smell blood they’re like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Let’s get to work.”

  Clay left him there and went in search of a quiet cubbyhole to work on his H-E grenades, hoping he could pull this off without turning himself into Bolognese sauce.

  Jenny

  SHE was sitting there, exhausted, devastated, clutching her husband’s lifeless hand, when she heard the whine of propellers.

  Jenny glanced up, thinking the TV helicopter had returned.

  But it hadn’t.

  This was something different.

  Adam

  HE battled with his conscience as he unpacked the transfusion bags in the lecture room.

  Suicide was a sin. The bible said so. The Lord gave each of us life and only He could take it away. Suicide was self-murder, and “no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.” The meaning was pretty clear: no eternal life meant banishment for all eternity from the presence of God. Adam didn’t believe in the old-school Lake of Fire, but he did believe in hell.

  The inner debate continued as he closed the door and began arranging the chairs as Clay had instructed.

  But wouldn’t it be worse to allow himself to become a foul, murderous abomination? To kill indiscriminately and, far worse, turn others into similar abominations? Wouldn’t that earn him hell just as quickly?

  With the chairs circled in a double stack, he began creating the “moat,” slicing open the transfusion bags with the scalpel, and dumping their contents around the chairs.

  You weren’t allowed to take your own life, but you were certainly allowed to sacrifice it for your fellow man. And woman too, of course. John 15:13 said it all: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Was any act more noble?

  That was what he wished for himself.

  He was feeling funny and didn’t know if it was the smell of the blood or the first symptoms of something worse. He was just squeezing the contents from the last bag when Deputy Theel slipped quickly through the door. He didn’t look so hot himself.

  “Something wrong?”

  Clayton shook his head. “Had a couple of bad moments there, but I’m still in one piece.” He shook his head. “Man, it stinks in here.”

  Adam had been thinking that same thing for a while, but now it didn’t smell so bad.

  Dear Lord, was he starting to change?

  “Let’s not waste any time,” he told the deputy. “What do I do?”

  “First thing is you put yourself in the middle of those chairs.”

  As Adam squeezed between two double-stacked pairs, he said, “Care to tell me about the chairs now?”

  “They’re gonna make excellent shrapnel.”

  Adam’s knees softened but didn’t give way.

  The deputy stepped over the blood moat and handed one of the high-explosive grenades through the chairs.

  “This one goes on the floor. Do not drop it—it’s armed. You’re right handed, so—”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Habit. Always know a guy’s handedness. Put it by your right foot.”

  Adam complied. “Now what?”

  The deputy hesitated, started to hand his grenade launcher through the chair maze, then pulled it back. He cradled it, hugged it, actually kissed it, then handed it through.

  “You have no idea what it took to find one of these, and what it cost me when I finally did.”

  Adam took it but didn’t know what to do with it. His confusion must have shown.

  “See the pistol grip there?” the deputy said. “Hold it by that but keep your finger outside the trigger guard. Do not touch that trigger till you’re ready to squeeze it.”

  Adam did as instructed.

  “Good. Now, lower the launcher until the muzzle’s pointing at the floor.”

  He did.

  “Position the muzzle directly over the round on the floor.”

  Again, Adam complied.

  “Okay. Now, you’re ready.”

  “Ready for what?”

  “I’m going to open the door and run like hell. The draculas are going to catch this stink and come in like sharks. They’re going to start lapping up the blood. They’re going to start fighting with each other, which will bring more. Eventually they’re going to run out of blood and notice you. That’s when you pull the trigger. You’ve got one H-E round in the chamber and the other on the floor. The former will hit the latter and they’ll both explode.”

  “Oh, God!”

  “Yeah, God. If He’s paying attention at all, this will express mail you straight to Him. You won’t feel a thing, padre, but you’ll reduce every dracula you’ve managed to lure in here to meat confetti. That’s what I call a blaze of glory.”

  “Yes. Glory. ‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’“

  “Yeah, there’s that,” the deputy said, shaking his head as he stared at his weapon. “But how about, ‘Greater love hath no man than giving up his MM-1 for his friends?’“

  Adam felt his muscles beginning to cramp.

  “I think you’d better go.”

  The deputy looked at him, then nodded. “Gotcha.”

  He pulled a pistol from the small of his back, stepped to the door, and yanked it open.

  “Don’t let me down, padre.”

  “That would mean letting myself down, letting God down.”

  The deputy smiled and nodded again. “You’ll do fine, padre. We’ve all got it coming. You just happen to know when.”

  And then he ducked out, leaving the door open behind him.

  It didn’t take long.

  The deputy had been uncannily accurate in his description.

  They came like a school of sharks. First the scouts. He spotted them through the windows onto the hall, dark shapes weaving through the shadows, popping into view when they passed through a pool of light.

  One darted through the door and dropped to the floor with a screech. Two more followed, then a dozen, then a dozen more, pushing, shoving, fighting for a place at the blood buffet. Their struggles spread them further and further around Adam’s chair barricade until they completely encircled him.

  The sight of the huddled, struggling shapes, limned by the light from the hall and the flashes from the parking lot, chilled his blood. But the sounds were worse. Adam couldn’t see the blood moat, but the frenzied lapping, the hissing and screeching made his gorge rise.

  And then two of them got into a fight, tearing at each other. Others joined the fray in a cannibalistic orgy that drew even more of their kind to the room.

  But worst of all for Adam…the room no longer smelled bad.

  In fact, the aroma was almost…mouth watering.

  No, wait…that wasn’t water in his mouth. It tasted like blood. It tasted good. And something else there. Three, no, four hard lumps. He knew what they were: teeth. He’d seen Nurse Herrick’s teeth fall out before she became…

  God help me, it’s happening!

  He spit them out and moved his finger from alongside the trigger guard and curled it around the trigger.

  How long to wait? To maximize his impact, he had to delay until the room couldn’t hold any more draculas, but not so
long into the change that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—pull the trigger.

  He had to hold out in memory of Stacie, who had sacrificed everything for Daniella. And especially for Daniella. She had to live. She’d grow up without her mother and father. They’d miss her first steps, her first day at school, her wedding day…but at least she’d grow up. His parents or Stacie’s parents, or maybe all four together would raise Daniella, and he prayed they’d tell her that her folks loved her so much that they gave their lives for her.

  So hold off…hold off as long as—

  The creatures decided for him. When the smell of the fresh blood he’d spit out with his teeth reached them, they froze. Then slowly, almost as one, they turned toward him, noticing him for the first time.

  “I forgive you,” he told them. “You’re not responsible. You didn’t want to be what you’ve become, and I am going to relieve you—us—of this hideous affliction.”

  Oddly, instead of a passage from the bible, the last lines of A Tale of Two Cities came to mind. He didn’t remember them exactly, but he did his best: “Listen to me and believe this,” he said to them. “It’s a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it’s a far, far better rest we go to, than we have ever known.”

  With a chorus of shrieks and hisses, they leaped at him as one.

  Adam pulled the trigger.

  Clay

  HE ducked into the report room—a landlocked cubicle just off the OB nursing station, where one shift briefed the next on the floor’s patients and their status. He’d been tempted to head straight for the stairs but didn’t know how many draculas he’d run into along the way. Once they caught the scent of that blood, they’d come swarming from all directions. He had north of fifty .40 caliber rounds for the Glock, but knew from his first foray into the ER that it took a good three hits to put down a dracula. One on one, that was okay, but if he got swarmed he’d go down.

  He closed the door and plunged into perfect darkness.

  Didn’t know if his hacks on the H-E rounds had been successful. No way to test them.

  So he locked the door, found a chair, and waited.

  Soon he heard movement outside—feet scraping the floor as they passed. Someone rattled the doorknob. A dracula had probably smelled him—no surprise since he was pretty much covered in dried blood. He raised the Glock, ready to fire if the creature somehow managed to break in, but it moved off. The smell of the fresh blood in the education room had to be more enticing.

  Okay, Part A of the plan was working—the draculas were taking the bait. Part B depended on two factors: the hacks and the padre. Clay was pretty sure about the hacks. He’d rotated the firing pin in each round to line up with the detonator. Any impact would—should—set them off.

  Adam was a bigger unknown. Pulling that trigger would take a certain level of intestinal fortitude. He didn’t know if a noncombatant and officer in the God Squad like the padre had it in him. Just have to wait and—

  The explosion shook the walls and floor, practically knocking Clay off his seat. Even through the locked door, the compression wave from the blast popped his ears.

  Sorry for doubting you, padre.

  Via con Dios.

  He waited half a minute, then unlocked the door and stepped out. He’d expected smoke but instead felt a cool, clean breeze. Outside air?

  He looked left and saw that windows on the far side of the building, opposite the explosion, had been blown out. He made his way through the rubble to the education room—or rather where it had been. The hallway wall and windows had been blown out. Everything in sight was coated with gore. The outer windows and wall were gone as well. He could look out at the night and see the flashing lights in the parking lot.

  The parking lot…that was where he wanted to be. With Shanna.

  He saw the TV copter idling in a clear corner of the lot. Great. The kids were safe.

  But he heard another copter—a much heavier engine noise than the KREZ bird—though he couldn’t see it. Sounded like it was directly over the hospital. Another pickup? Jenny was the only one left up there.

  But would she go? Maybe, maybe not. Women were crazy sometimes.

  He headed for the stairs. He’d get up there and force her onto the bird—even if he had to sling her over his shoulder and carry her aboard. She felt she owed it to Randall to stay with him, but that was the last thing her ex would have wanted. Last thing Clay wanted too. She was a good nurse and good people. Not enough of those around.

  Randall…man, he’d misjudged him big time. But then, he’d known only the drunk Randall. The sober one was one helluva stand-up guy. Come to think of it, he’d underestimated the padre as well. Hazard of the job, he supposed. As a cop he saw too much of the worst side of people. After a while he couldn’t help but start expecting it.

  In the stairwell, he made it up one flight before stumbling to an abrupt halt. He wasn’t going any farther. The flights above were packed with draculas.

  Earlier, when he and Adam had made their way down, they’d had to climb over the pile of dead draculas Randall had sliced up. It had been a tight squeeze. Now the surviving draculas were feasting on their brothers, fighting each other for a place at the table. Probably what it had looked like on the way to the roof that last day at the US embassy in Saigon.

  He started back down, hoping Jenny got some sense into her head and boarded the chopper. She could return to Randall later, after the army or National Guard or whatever mopped up the surviving draculas.

  Jenny

  SHE stared up into the night sky at the helicopter. But it wasn’t the one from the TV station. This one was dark, with guns mounted on the front and sides.

  Military.

  Jenny waved her hands over her head, but the aircraft gave no indication that it noticed her. It continued to hover, not making any attempt to land.

  Then the building shook and Jenny heard an explosion from the lower floors. One of Clay’s toys? Or had the cavalry finally arrived?

  Shanna

  SHE was pacing back and forth by Clay’s Suburban, praying for his safe return, when she noticed movement on the ground, not too far from her. She looked closer and saw one of the supposedly dead state troopers moving—one of the pair Clay hadn’t shot.

  Oh, God. As it lifted its head and looked her way, glow from the army headlights glinted off rows of long sharp teeth.

  “Hey!” she called. “Hey, somebody! We’ve got trouble over here! Hey!”

  Nobody seemed to hear her. The noise from truck motors revving, soldiers shouting to each other, giving and taking orders, swallowed her cries.

  “Hey!” she called, raising her voice to its limit. “A little help over here.”

  She backed up a few steps, readying to run, fearing it was coming for her, but it veered away, toward the empty darkness.

  Confused? The side of its skull looked bashed in. Too damaged to know what it was doing? Well, that was fine with Shanna…

  Except if it got away and bit someone, the plague would be loose and there’d be no stopping it.

  She screamed. “Will somebody please—oh, crap!” He was going to get away and no one was paying her a bit of attention.

  She glanced in the rear of Clay’s Suburban and saw his super shotgun, his beloved AA-something. She didn’t want to touch it…she remembered Marge back in the chapel, but somebody had to stop that thing.

  She grabbed the gun and went around the other side of the car in time to see the dracula passing. How hard could this be? She raised the shotgun, pointed it toward the thing, and, closing her eyes—she couldn’t look—pulled the trigger.

  The gun boomed but had nowhere near the kick of that pistol Clay had handed her.

  She opened her eyes and saw the dracula on the pavement. She was about to congratulate herself when she realized it was still alive, if that was what you could call whatever it was, and trying to regain its feet. But it couldn’t. Shanna had shredded its knees.

  “Lower your w
eapon!” shouted a voice behind her.

  She turned and found herself facing the muzzles of half a dozen guns of various shapes and sizes and a chorus telling her to drop it. She laid the shotgun gently on the pavement. After all, Clay loved that thing.

  “Now you listen!” she said.

  A soldier with three stripes on his arm—that meant sergeant, right?—who looked like he was in charge, got in her face. “What do you think you’re doing, firing that here?”