Draculas

by J. A. Konrath

  "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.

  He clutched Daniella to his chest and backed away from Stacie's body as one of those things stalked him in full scrubs with a surgical power drill, revving the tiny motor.

  It stopped suddenly, attention drawn to Adam's wife and the pool of blood she lay in.

  When it fell to the ground and started hungrily licking it up, something came unhinged in Adam and he ran, six steps covered in no time, and kicked the former surgeon squarely in the face.

  The monster tumbled back, but quickly righted itself,
jumped to its feet, and charged. Adam held Daniella in his right arm, his left raised to fend off the attack.

  The demon sank its teeth into Adam's forearm, and just as he felt those fangs slicing into muscle, a chainsaw screamed and Adam watched Randall bring the blade straight down on the top of the demon's skull, the smell of friction between bone and chain filling the air with an acrid stench, the motor straining, and then the saw broke through and Randall brought the spinning chain through brain, face, neck, between shoulders blades, stomach, until the saw emerged from the crotch and the demon-surgeon stood staring at Adam, massively confused as it separated like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich slowly pulled apart, two halves falling away from each other to the concrete, leaving Randall, or whatever he had become, to face Adam.

  He looked every bit as horrific as the others, perhaps more so holding that chainsaw drenched in blood and sinew.

  A great wind was kicking up.

  Its eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Adam's heart stopped, but Randall only pointed the blade of his chainsaw toward the news helicopter whose skids were five feet from touching down on the big, white H in the center of the helipad.

  Randall screeched something unintelligible through his fangs, then turned and ran back toward the door as another pair of demons climbed through, the lumberjack's chainsaw singing like the cry of an angry God.

  Clay

  JENNY stood beside him, the kids clustered around them, all watching the running lights of the silhouetted KREZ copter easing down toward the helipad. Its strobe was almost blinding. He leaned toward her and cupped a hand around her ear.

  "Soon as it touches down, we get these kids on board. You too."

  She gave him an uncertain glance. In the strobe flashes she looked devastated.

  He added. "Randall will want that."

  Still no reply. Jenny turned back to the carnage and the thing that was once her husband, and Clay saw the pain strip her soul bare.

  She couldn't stay. Whatever love or loyalty she felt, Randall was gone, and she'd be gone too if she stayed.

  "I won't leave him, Clay."

  He stared at Randall, who had somehow found the strength to single-handedly wipe out at least ten draculas. But he was nearly dead himself.

  "Jenny..."

  "I'm not letting him die alone!" she screamed.

  Clay noticed a change in the tone of the copter's engine and looked around. The skids hovered about a foot off the helipad, but instead of continuing to lower, they'd begun to rise.

  What?

  Clay saw the woman in the open bay pointing to Randall, who was putting the saw to one final dracula. The pilot was looking that way too as he throttled up to leave.

  No fucking way.

  Clay charged forward and jumped onto the skid, tilting the copter. The woman scuttled back as the pilot looked around. The bay was lit by an overhead fixture. Clay leaned into the light. He didn't have to fake a fierce expression--his teeth were already bared in rage--as he gave the pilot a good look down the bore of the MM-1. He pointed toward the roof.

  "Down or you're dead!"

  He knew the pilot couldn't hear him so he spoke slowly and carefully, giving him ample opportunity to read his lips.

  The copter resumed its descent.

  When it hit the deck, Clay motioned the kids forward, ducking and squinting against the wash from the blades, Jenny led them up in a bunch. The strobe gave their approach an old-time movie look. Together they hauled the children up and in, one at a time, until all were aboard. Then he motioned to Jenny to follow but she shook her head. He was tempted to grab her and toss her in but spotted Adam approaching with the baby in his arms.

  Aw shit. Adam was bleeding.

  Randall

  A headless dracula dropped in front of him, adding to the pool of blood, and Randall realized that there was nothing left to kill. As if sensing this, the chainsaw gave one last sputter and died.

  A helicopter landed on the roof.

  Rescue.

  But not for him.

  Bloodblood...

  He gestured to the helicopter with his dead chainsaw, then staggered toward the door. More draculas would be coming through it. He'd kill them. Saw them up even without the chainsaw running.

  When he reached the door, his legs finally gave out and he collapsed.

  He sat there, chainsaw on his lap, trying to blink the blood out of his eye, too exhausted to use his hands to wipe it away.

  He couldn't stay human in his mind for much longer, but he didn't need to. He didn't have long to live as a monster or a man.

  If he could just stick around long enough to see Jenny and the kids fly off to safety, he'd shake hands with God and call it even.

  But Jenny didn't get into the helicopter.

  Instead, she began to walk his way.

  All Randall could think about was the day she left him, and how his one wish--the one thing that kept him sober and sane--was that one day she might come back to him.

  Her timing was ironical. Not only was he dying, but he was a dracula, and she was putting herself in danger instead of getting the hell out of there.

  But at that moment, when she reached down for him with tears in her eyes, Randall Bolton was the happiest guy on the planet.

  Adam

  HIS mind raced as he headed toward the helicopter, shielding Daniella from the wind-blasting rotors. He hadn't steeled himself to look at his arm. It hurt badly, and he thought he felt the evaporative cooling of blood on his skin, but maybe, maybe, please God--maybe he was imagining it.

  He glanced down, saw the shimmer of blood on his left forearm with every flash of the KREZ helicopter's LED strobe.

  The fangs had punctured skin.

  God, no!

  Why?

  He looked over toward the door to the hospital. Randall sat alone with his chainsaw amid a battlefield of gore. Nothing trying to come through the doors at the moment. Just a few dismembered demons squirming on the concrete.

  Couldn't be sure, but Randall looked injured.

  By the time he reached Clayton, he knew what he had to do, knew there was no other choice. Randall seemed to be controlling his will in the face of the infection, but what if he couldn't? What if Adam harmed his own daughter?

  Adam sidled up to Clayton, who'd just loaded the last child onto the helicopter.

  Clayton looked at him, at his arm.

  "You get bit?"

  Adam nodded.

  "Shit."

  "I've been praying that I'll be protected from any--"

  "Keep praying all you want, preacher, but you will be a full-blown fucking land shark in T-minus ten minutes."

  Adam tried to fight back the tears, not wanting to cry in front of this lawman, but he couldn't help it.

  "Is there room?" Adam yelled in Clayton's ear.

  Clayton's brow furrowed. "For your daughter, absolutely."

  "What about...?"

  "You know I can't let you off this helipad."

  Adam nodded. He looked down at his daughter, tugged back the blanket that shielded her face. Somehow, she still slept. Adam, crying so hard he couldn't see, spoke into her ear, "May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you and grant you peace. Your daddy loves you, Daniella, and he always will."

  "It's time!" Clayton yelled.

  Adam handed his child to a young woman in the helicopter wearing a pair of headphones, who was already extending her arms to his baby.

  He passed Daniella to her, yelled, "Her name is Daniella!"

  "What?" the reporter yelled.

  Adam stepped up onto the skid, yelled into her ear as she lifted the headphone. "This is my daughter! Her name is Daniella Murray! Her mother's dead, and I will be soon! Please take care of her!"

  The woman nodded and Adam felt a hand drag him back from the helicopter--Clayton's--and then Clayton signaled to the pilot and the rotors wound up and the skids eased off the helipad.

  Adam stood watching in disbeli
ef as it flew his daughter away from him into the night.

  She's safe now. These demons can't touch her.

  That piece of news was the only thing in the world keeping him from sprinting toward the edge of the roof and taking a swan dive into the parking lot.