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

“No,” Jenny answered firmly.

But that’s what she feared, and why she ordered everyone away. The glass was thick—a necessity in the children’s ward—and would be tough to crack bare-handed. These creatures were strong, but so far the glass had resisted their pushing and pounding.

If they did get in, Jenny needed a weapon. Preferably one like Sigourney had in that film. Keeping her eyes on the window, she walked over to the old woman, the one who’d thrown up. The stains on her dentures and fingers were telltale signs of a smoker.

“I need your lighter,” Jenny told her.

The woman didn’t answer. She just stared, wide-eyed, at the window. The draculas continued to knock and pound at the glass. Some bit at it, their teeth leaving scratches with the sound of nails across a chalkboard.

The boy holding the old woman’s hand nudged her. “Grandma, the nurse lady needs your lighter.”

The old woman stared at the child like she had just now realized he was there. Then, without a word, she handed her purse to Jenny. Jenny dug around until she found it; a cheap, plastic disposable brand. She flicked it once, and the flame came on big and bright.

She heard a CRUNCH , followed by squeals of fright from the children. Jenny stared at the window and saw that one of the monsters had picked up an office chair and was bashing it against the glass. Jenny didn’t even need to read the dracula’s nametag on its lab coat to know who it was. She recognized the hair.

Dr. Lanz.

After the second hit, the window spiderwebbed, but stayed intact. It had a plastic safety coating, similar to the one used on car windshields, so children throwing toys wouldn’t get showered with shards.

Lanz tried twice more, but the glass held. His eyes met Jenny’s, and his toothy mouth yawed open, a hiss escaping the crosshatched fangs. He tossed the chair aside and scurried off, probably to look for something bigger to throw at the window.

Moving quickly, Jenny went into the supply closet Randall had gotten open. She immediately zeroed in on a portable oxygen tank. It was the large MM size, brushed aluminum with a painted green top, almost the size of a scuba tank. A good start, but she needed more. Contrary to popular belief, pure oxygen wasn’t flammable.

Luckily, the hospital had something that was very flammable. And it was stored in the same closet as the oxygen.

Jenny walked past the medical supplies to the extra stock for the coffee machine at the nurse’s station. She bypassed the packages of regular and decaf, the filters, and the sugar, and took down a full box of non-dairy creamer. Twelve bottles, 15 oz. of powder per bottle. Enough to set a whole building on fire.

Finally, she found some rubber tubing, a large cannula, and a bottle of rubber cement.

Working quickly, Jenny removed the caps from all twelve creamer bottles. A plastic seal covered the opening, keeping the product fresh. She applied a big dollop of rubber cement to the top of each, and set the box next to the doorway.

Next, she hooked the cannula—a large, metal tube with a pointed tip—up to one end of the hose. After pulling over the oxygen tank on a hand truck, she attached the other end of the hose to the nozzle, and pulled the toggle lever to give it a try. O2 hissed out of the cannula, strong enough to blow her hair back.

“Miss! I need your help,” Jenny said.

But the old woman, like the other adult in the room, appeared to be catatonic.

CRACK!

Dr. Lanz had returned, resuming his assault on the window. But rather than attack it with a chair, he was now wielding a fire extinguisher. It was heavy, compact, and would easily break through the glass in another swing or two.

Jenny patted her pockets, frantic, afraid she’d misplaced the lighter. She found it in her hip pocket.

CRACK!

Jenny studied the lighter, and frowned when she saw it had one of those child-proof locks on it.

CRACK! Some glass tinkled onto the tile floor, a medium-size hole appearing in the window.

“Quickly! Can any of you children operate a child-proof lighter?”

Every child raised their hand.

“Peter!” she said, calling the oldest of them. “Come here!”

CRACK!

The hole was now big enough to crawl through, and one of the draculas got ahead of Lanz and forced itself through the opening, sliding on its belly into the playroom.

“Light the tops like this!” Jenny ordered, bending down and touching the flame to the rubber cement on the first bottle of creamer. It glowed blue, and Jenny picked up the bottle, jabbed the cannula through the plastic bottom, and then pointed it at the creature scrambling on all fours toward her.

“Everyone get back!”

She cranked the nozzle, the compressed air blowing the front off the bottle, showering the dracula with white powder.

A moment later, the powder ignited in a tremendous fireball, the powerful WHUMP! hitting Jenny with a blast of heated air that burned off all the fine little hairs on her arms.

The dracula fared much worse. Every square inch of it was throwing off flames. It twisted around on the floor, slapping at the inferno it had become, oily black smoke swirling up into the air and smelling a lot like bacon cooking.

Bacon, with a hint of artificial vanilla.

Thank you, Mythbusters.

Jenny turned off the oxygen. While non dairy creamer had nothing in it that made it flammable, it was a fine powder, and many powders were ignitable simply because they had such a huge surface area. Flour, sawdust, dust in grain silos—they’d caused countless fires and explosions throughout history. The oxygen worked as an accelerant, and also dispersed the powder so it spread evenly through the air.

“Light the next one, Peter!”

Jenny knocked off the smoking, melted plastic container from the end of the cannula, and jammed on a burning one just as Dr. Lanz flopped into the playroom.

“Now you’re fired, Lanz!” Jenny yelled. Then she hit him with her makeshift flamethrower, dusting the doctor in a cloud of powder.

But at the same time, Lanz had emptied his extinguisher, putting out the flame before it had a chance to ignite the cloud of creamer enveloping him.

Son of a—

Snarling, Dr. Lanz rushed at Jenny, far too quick for her to prep another creamer bottle, his hideous mouth unhinging at the jaw and a look of smug satisfaction in his predatory eyes.

Jenny threw herself backward, Lanz’s claw swiping the air a few inches in front of her face. A cloud of sweet-smelling vanilla non-dairy creamer floated above his head and shoulders, and a ropey line of drool escaped his cage of teeth, dripping down his neck.

“Die, you monster! Die!”

Peter Bernacky, his teenage face defiant, stuck his arm into the dust plume, his hand on the lighter.

“Peter! Don’t—”

The flash blinded Jenny, a wave of superheated air sunburning her face and bare arms, singeing her eyebrows, instantly drying out her mouth.

Both Lanz and Peter instantly burst into flames. Lanz scurried away, still holding the extinguisher, turning it on himself and dousing the fire as he fled back through the hole he’d made in the window.

Peter screamed, but the sound was instantly muffled by the flame entering his lungs. He staggered away from Jenny, arms pin-wheeling, heading straight for the grandmother with the dentures.

She tried to push him back, but Peter wrapped his arms around her, setting her clothes ablaze. They did a burning dance for several steps, then fell over in a tangle of screams and flailing limbs and burning flesh.

The sprinkler finally came on, dousing the pair, and Jenny turned her attention toward the broken window as another dracula climbed through. She charged it with the cannula, pulling it free from the oxygen tank, and spearing the creature through its left eye. The monster hissed, blood and bits of brain matter spraying out of the hollow end, arcing across the playroom, and landing directly in the mouth of the catatonic woman who’d been watching the entire scene unfold with her jaw hanging open.