Draculas

by J. A. Konrath

  Free. Safe.

  Shanna leaned against him and started to cry. To tell the truth, Clay felt his own throat tightening. He took a deep breath and swallowed a sob of relief.

  Shanna was safe. The ER parking lot was just around the corner.

  "Let's find my truck and get you the hell out of here."

  They turned that corner and walked into a circus.

  The first thing he saw were three empty state police cars, stopped with their doors open and lights flashing. Parked a short distance away, a white van emblazoned with KDGO with a dish on its roof. A guy with a camera on his shoulder was shooting a woman speaking into a mike.

  How the hell--?

  Then he realized what had happened. Crime reporters always monitor the police frequencies. They must have heard the sheriff call the staties for help at the hospital. Whatever they said must have sounded newsworthy because they'd sent a video team.

  Wup-wup-wup overhead: A KREZ helicopter flew by.

  Must have sounded real newsworthy.

  He spotted an emergency rig on the far side of the state units. Two EMTs were pulling an empty stretcher from the back of their rig. Why?

  Then he saw the six bloody lumps scattered before the ER entrance.

  "Oh, shit."

  "What?" Shanna said.

  He pointed to the TV truck. "Wait over there."

  He rushed over to the bodies and reached them the same time as the EMTs.

  "Stay back!" he yelled.

  They froze. Normally they would have ignored him--they had their duty to the injured--but people tend to listen to a bloody man carrying a semi-auto shotgun.

  "They need help," one of the EMTs said, a stocky Hispanic woman.

  "They're dead."

  She pointed. "No. Some of them are moving."

  Clay turned and checked them out. All state cops, all bloodied. Two of them were torn up something fierce and sprawled like rag dolls, but the other four were still breathing and twitching.

  "Okay, they're gonna be dead."

  "You a doctor?"

  "No."

  "Then how can you say they're going to die?"

  "I'm not just saying it, I'm guaranteeing it."

  "Listen, we need to get them--"

  Clay wriggled his badge holder from his back pocket and flashed his tin. "Deputy Sheriff Clayton Theel. Who called you in?"

  The male half of the team pointed skyward at the copter. "The KREZ pilot saw the bodies and radioed it in."

  He pointed to their idling rig. "I'm ordering you to withdraw."

  They glanced at each other, then complied. He turned and saw the reporter and her cameraman approaching.

  A good-looking brunette. Clay had seen her on the tube, but usually looking more composed. "I'm Carmen Ro--"

  "Yeah, I know. I want your guy here to keep his camera trained on these cops."

  "Why aren't you letting the EMTs help them?"

  "Because in a few minutes, we're the ones who're gonna need help."

  "I don't under--"

  One of the staties coughed and lifted his head. He spat half a dozen teeth. Another rolled over, also spitting teeth.

  "Here we go." Clay looked at the cameraman, a young white guy with fuzzy, dirty-blond dreads. "You filming this?"

  "It's not film," he said with the hint of a sneer. "It's digital."

  "Whatever. What's your name, son?"

  The sneer vanished. "Um, Tony."

  Clay didn't have that many years on him, but asking a guy his name and calling him "son' often took the starch out of them.

  "Well, listen, Um-Tony, since you can't film these guys, your job right now is to digital them."

  Carmen said, "We can't broadcast victims injured like this, especially police."

  "Well, fine, but it is being recorded somewhere, right?"

  Tony nodded.

  "No matter what happens," he told him, "you keep digitaling or whatevering. Got that?"

  Another nod.

  Clay knew people would think he was crazy if he told them what was going on inside Blessed Crucifixion. So he was going to show them.

  A picture was worth a thousand words, right? This video would be worth millions of them.

  When the first fangs began ripping through lips and cheeks, Clay heard Carmen cry, "Oh my God!" and the cameraman say, "Holy fucking shit!"

  Without looking at them, he said, "Back up, but keep rolling."

  He removed his eyes from the newbie draculas only long enough to check the AA-12's magazine. Only a dozen shells left. Very little slack. Had to make every shot count. No wastage. He raised it to his shoulder and waited.

  Didn't take long.

  The first statie--fully-fanged now, with all ten talons extended--pushed itself to its feet, looked around, then charged the nearest fresh blood--Clay. Much as he disliked state cops, he'd never imagined shooting one. Well, okay, maybe once or twice. The uniform caused Clay to hesitate just a second, then he emptied two twelve-gauge shells at the new dracula when it was two feet from the muzzle. The proximity concentrated the cone of the #4 shot and literally dissolved his head into a spray of blood-and-brain Slurpee.

  Behind Clay, Carmen screamed long and loud while something went splat! on the pavement. A quick glance back showed Tony losing lunch.

  "Keep filming or you're next!"

  The guy straightened and his camera wobbled as he raised it to his pasty face. "It's not--"

  "Yeah, I know. It's digital. Just do it."

  He turned back in time to see the second statie dracula leaping through the air--but not at Clay. It landed on its headless fellow and began tearing into it with loud grunts and greedy slurping noises. Clay stepped closer and aimed at the top of its lowered head. Two more twelve-gauge blasts pulverized the brain inside and popped one of its eyes from the socket. Clay took out the next two just as they were starting the change. One blast each did the trick for them. The remaining pair were still down and gave no sign that they were going to change.

  Carmen had lost all her reportorial cool. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Wh-wh-wh-what just happened here?"

  "The same thing that's been happening all over Blessed Crucifixion." He pointed to Shanna, approaching with tentative steps. "I don't think anyone can explain, but this woman here can background you some. You'll have to catch up to her later, though. Right now, she's on her way home."

  "In what?" the cameraman said. "Check out the tires, man."

  Clay did just that, and found every tire in sight flat.

  "Oh, Christ."

  He hurried over to his Suburban and saw that it hadn't been spared. Four brand-new Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor tires, ripped to shit.

  He kicked at one of them until his leg got tired, then turned and saw Shanna walking his way. Carmen stood back by the truck on her cell phone. He calmed himself and then looked at the hospital. He was going to have to go back in. He didn't want to, but...

  "It's okay," she said. "Carmen said I could stay with them."

  "I want you gone."

  "But I can't go. And help is on the way."

  "What? Another TV crew?"

  "No. The news director at the station saw what Tony was recording. He's calling the state police, the National Guard, even the governor. I told Carmen to tell him to call the CDC too. This has got to be contained."

  Okay, maybe Shanna would be okay. Another look at the hospital. But what about him?

  This could be their last time together--ever. He might not make it back from his next trip inside. Had to do this now. Might not ever get another chance.

  He dug into his pocket as he turned back to Shanna.

  "I want to give you something."

  She shook her head. "I told you: I can't do it. I can't shoot anyone."

  "Not a gun." He held out the ring box. "This."

  Looking confused, she took it and opened it--and gasped when she saw the sparkler.

  He didn't want to die with the ring in his pocket. If it came to
that, better she had it, to remember him by.

  Shanna

  "OH, Clay. Ohmygod!"

  It was beautiful, but it was so wrong!

  His words filtered through the cotton that had suddenly filled her brainpan.

  "I was going to ask you to marry me this weekend--you know, when we were in Denver."

  What? What?

  "Get married? This weekend?"

  Has he lost it?

  He laughed. "No-no. Ask you this weekend--do the whole down-on-one-knee thing. We'll get married later."

  Tears filled her eyes. "Oh, Clay, I--"

  "But it doesn't look like we're going to Denver, and I won't get to take a knee here and ask you to marry me, because I know this is a moment every girl dreams about all her life and I want it to be special for you. But I want you to have the ring now. We can talk about getting married later."

  ...because I know this is a moment every girl dreams about all her life...

  What planet was he from?

  God, she was going to break it off with him and there wasn't going to be any Denver this weekend. How was she going to tell him that she could not accept this ring?

  "Clay, I can't--"

  "You can take it. I really, really want you to have it."

  She shook her head and sobbed as she stared at the ring. "Clay...really..."

  "If anything happens, I just wanted you to know, beyond any doubt, how I feel about you."

  If anything happens...

  What was he talking about? They were out, safe, free from those...draculas.

  ...I just wanted you to know, beyond any doubt, how I feel about you.

  The ring said a whole lot about how he felt, and about how long he expected to go on feeling that way. But she simply could not reciprocate.

  "I...I don't know what to say."

  No lie.

  "Not a problem. I understand. Women get overwhelmed with emotion at a time like this."

  She looked into those loving brown eyes...oh, you clueless, clueless man. But then, weren't most men clueless? She had to tell him now, this instant. She couldn't let this go one more second.

  "Clay..."

  But then he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips against hers, and the memory of those lips elsewhere on her body, all over her body, awakened a heat. But before she could respond, he released her.

  "Gotta go."

  "What? Where? What are you talking about?"

  He cocked his head toward the hospital. "Back inside."

  "Are you crazy? Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

  "Believe me, that's the last thing I want--not when I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you. But I promised Randall."

  "You don't even like him."

  "Don't matter. Told him I'd be back to help him find Jenny. And Jenny's good people. You know that."

  Yeah, she did, but...

  "You said you're almost out of ammo."

  "For the shotgun, yeah." He opened the back of his Suburban and reached inside. "But I've still got my biggest and baddest."

  He pulled out some contraption that looked like a sawed-off shotgun from outer space.

  Shanna blinked. "What is that?"

  "An MM-One--a semi-automatic grenade launcher."

  It looked familiar.

  "Wasn't that in one of your movies?"

  "Good memory. Christopher Walken carried one in Dogs of War." He leaned closer. "That's just another reason we belong together--we love the same movies."

  She felt her eyes roll of their own accord. "Did it ever occur to you that--hey, wait. Did you say grenades?"

  "Sure did."

  "Isn't that kind of extreme? I mean, aren't you afraid you'll blow yourself up?"

  Clay laughed. "Not a problem." He patted the gun. "It's designed to hold a dozen grenades, but I've got 'er loaded with 40-millimeter M576 buckshot rounds. They don't explode. They're like giant shotgun shells. Each one unloads twenty-seven balls of double-ought. I don't expect to have to shoot any of those draculas twice with this baby."

  He transferred his backup ammo for the MM-1 from the duffel to a small backpack and slipped his arms through its straps.

  She felt the ring box in her hand and realized this was why he'd given it to her now--he didn't know if he'd survive. No way she could give it back. At least not now. Send him back inside feeling he had nothing to lose? Uh-uh. She wanted Clay Theel to have every reason to survive.

  A brave, decent man stood before her--one of the good guys. And she loved him for that. And, well, for the good sex too. She might not want to marry him, but he'd make someone else an amazing husband.

  She'd tell him when he came out.

  She hugged him. "Come back to me, Clay."

  He smiled. "Do my damnedest."

  For some reason, as she watched him trot toward the hospital, she began to cry.

  Adam

  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. The refrigerators are in back. Grab at least five units of O-positive.

  He must have mixed up one of his rights or lefts, because Adam was lost, wandering through a pitch black corridor guided only by the faint glow from the light, which was fading quickly, its battery drained by some recent sleepless nights spent reading.

  Figured he could see, at most, ten feet ahead of him. Same claustrophobic creepiness as driving in dense fog with no idea what might emerge at any moment from the mist.

  He passed radiology, coming up on another blind corner.

  Adam stopped, because something was coming--a faint scratching noise just around the bend.

  He extended his Kindle and in the glow of the light, watched a skinny, gray rat waddle around the corner.

  It stopped, sniffed the air, then turned to face Adam.

  He tripped over his feet backing away from the rat, which was scurrying toward him now, its head nothing but massive brown fangs that were snapping shut with increasing ferocity the closer it got.

  Adam climbed to his feet, thinking, Don't miss, on the verge of stomping the rat when he realized he only wore socks.

  So he kept backing away as the thing came toward him, squeaking and hissing, and after twenty feet of this, he was starting to feel ridiculous. He had the scalpel in his pocket, but that didn't seem feasible.

  "Oh you stupid, ugly rat!" he said.

  There were a few chairs along the wall outside of radiology and he picked one of them up and lifted it over his head and brought a wooden leg down on the rat's rear haunches with a juicy crunch, blood and entrails exploding across the floor.

  He lifted the chair again, the rat still scrambling toward him with its forepaws, albeit slower, and crushed its head and teeth and brains, over and over, until it was nothing but a soup of furry, gray-pink globs.

  Adam charged on ahead, rounded the next corner, the realization coming that if he didn't find the lab in the very near future, his wife was going to die.

  He was running now, suddenly found himself at the end of the corridor, staring at the word LABORATORY in block letters over a door inset with glass.

  He rushed in, past a waiting area and reception desk, through an exam room, until he reached the lab.

  Almost no light remained.

  He negotiated several desks, work stations and tables boasting microscopes and centrifuges, until he came to a tall refrigerator in the back, still humming off some battery power.

  He pulled open the doors and knelt down, letting the weak light fall upon the trays of blood bags, labeled by type.

  A+...A-...B+...B-...AB+...AB-...O+

  O-positive, yes!

  He slid out of his backpack and ripped open the main pouch.

  Loaded in six units of chilled O-positive.

  He zipped up, stood up, started out of the lab, then stopped.

  Hmm.

  Ravenous as these things were, maybe it wouldn't be such a terrible idea to stock up on a
little more blood.