Konrath, J.A. - DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

“I don’t know,” she said. “I just…I don’t know.”

“I’ll be right back,” Randall said. “I’ll kill him. If it doesn’t do anything…well, he should be killed anyway, before he kills somebody else. Barricade yourself and the kids in here as well as you can. Here, I’ll trade you.” He handed her the bloody hatchet, took back his chainsaw, and turned to go.

“Randall!”

He stopped. He’d never heard Jenny so upset before. When he turned and looked at her, she seemed close to tears.

“I need you here. Please don’t leave me.”

She held out her hand to him. He took it, the warmth of her touch penetrating his rough, calloused hands and working its way through his whole body.

I need you here…

Did she have any idea what those words meant to him? He felt the start of tears. He blinked them back and managed to speak around the lump in his throat.

“Okay. I’ll stay.”

Clayton Theel

DAMN hospital.

Clayton Theel, Jr. tossed his cell phone on the passenger seat as he pulled out of the Gulf station. He’d been filling up his Suburban—a feat that required a small business loan at current prices—and had missed Shanna’s call. His return call had hit instant voicemail. She had her phone off.

Sure, he’d pick her up at the hospital. Jenny too. Not a problem. But her voice had sounded a little funny. Prolly just a woman thing. Never knew how they’d react to something.

He dug the little cube box out of his pocket. He flipped up the top and checked out the diamond sparkle. He did know how she’d react when he handed her this and asked her to marry him.

Then again, maybe he didn’t know. Maybe she’d think it was too soon. They’d known each other only six weeks, true, but he had no doubt in his mind that she was the one. And he knew he was right for her. In all the schools she’d gone to, she’d probably never met a man like him. Just wimpy brainiacs and stuffy professors. She dug him almost as much as he dug her. Almost, because no one could be as crazy for anyone as he was for her.

She might say it was too soon, that he was rushing things, and maybe he was, but he wanted her to know that this wasn’t any fly-by-night relationship for him, wanted her to know he was committed. He’d wait. It was only a matter of time.

All that sparkle had cost him a bundle, but nothing was too good for—

His phone rang. He snatched it up and said, “Hello, darlin’.”

“Why, Clay! I didn’t know you cared!”

He winced as he recognized the male voice.

“Sorry, sheriff. Thought it was—”

“Someone else?” the sheriff said, laughing. “After I gave myself to you?”

Clay laughed too, despite his discomfort. Sheriff Seward was a good guy, but this stuff wasn’t all that funny.

“What’s up, boss?”

“Got a situation.”

Crap. He wasn’t going to call him in, was he? Clay had been planning this weekend, at least the gun-show part of it, for a loooong time. And looking forward to it even more with Shanna coming along. He needed this weekend.

“What’s up?”

“Got a train off the track and on its side, flat across the highway, but we’re handling that.”

Good, good. So far, so good.

“But I got a funny call from the hospital.”

Clay’s neck muscles bunched. Shanna was at the hospital.

“Funny how?”

“You know that tight-ass, his-shit-don’t-stink ER doc—?”

“Lanz?”

“Yeah, him. Well, he calls with some story about being terrorized by a monster running loose in the hospital. We’re all tied up here, so I was wondering—I mean, I know it’s your weekend off, but—”

“I’ll go take a look right now.”

A pause on the other end, surprise most likely. “You will?”

“Not a problem. Can’t have monsters running around Blessed Crucifixion, can we? I’ll check it out and call you back.”

No need to tell the sheriff he was headed there anyway.

“That’s damn white of you, Clay. I won’t forget this.”

Clay forced a casual laugh. “Damn right, you won’t. I won’t let you.”

The sheriff hung up laughing. Clay hit END and frowned. A monster at the hospital? What kind of crap was that? Was Lanz on drugs? Well, drugs or for-real monster, didn’t matter. Shanna could be in danger.

He stomped the gas.

An ambulance sat outside the ER entrance, lights flashing, rear doors open. Clay pulled his Suburban in beside it, popped the glove compartment, and removed his Glock 23. As he stepped out, he stuck it in the waistband of his jeans at the small of his back. He was out of uniform and didn’t want to freak anyone by going in hot.

He didn’t have to rack the slide because he always kept a round chambered. An empty chamber was worse than useless, it was just plain stupid. He’d filled its extended mag to the brim with .40 caliber, 180-grain Hydra-Shok hollow points.

Enough to stop any “monster.”

As he stepped toward the two-stage entrance, he saw someone in a hospital security uniform standing with his back to the inner doors. The outer motion detector caught his approach and opened one of the doors. The guard turned and Clay froze.

His face. He was wearing some sort of Halloween mask, except Halloween was a long way off. The blood and most of the mask looked pretty damn realistic, but the teeth didn’t work—too big, too many of them. Just plain unreal.

Then it opened its impossible jaws and wiggled its tongue as it hissed at him.

That was no mask.

…some story about being terrorized by a monster running loose in the hospital…

This was the monster.

It charged him, talons extended.

Clay backpedaled and pulled the Glock.

“Stop! Stop right there!”

If the thing heard him, it gave no sign. In fact it seemed to increase its speed.

Clay raised the Glock in the official two-handed grip as it burst from the entrance.

“Last warning or—!”

Those claws…too close. Clay squeezed the trigger three times and put three .40-caliber Hydra-Shoks into its center of mass. The impacts spun it 180 to the left, but it stayed up—staggering, but still on its feet despite the three gaping exit wounds in its back.

How was it standing? Those Hydra-Shoks with the little center post in the hollow expanded like mad. Its lungs and maybe its heart had to be confetti.

It staggered in a circle, completing another 180, then started for Clay again.

What the hell?

Clay went for the head this time. Three more straight into the face. He saw blood and brains form a crimson halo behind it as the head snapped back. It went down like a felled tree, arms spread like branches, to land flat on its back.

Clay watched it for a few seconds. When it didn’t move, he stepped up for a closer look.

“Jesus.”

One round had entered through its fangs, snapping off half a dozen of them. One through the nose, and the third through the left eye. He’d never seen anything like this thing. One ugly mother.

With the toe of his boot he flipped it over. The back of its skull was gone, the brain pan pretty much empty.

Well, Lanz hadn’t been exaggerating about a monster terrorizing the hospital, but now it was a dead monster. He hoped to hell Shanna was all right.

Clay was just about to turn away when he thought he spotted movement. He turned back and saw the creature slipping an arm under itself, trying to rise.

“You gotta be shittin’ me!”

He pumped two more rounds into the back of its neck, all but severing the head from its body.

It slumped and lay still. Clay watched a full half minute to make sure it stayed down and still. It did, so he turned and hurried toward the entrance.