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

That did it. The upright split and the doors flew open, knocking her back. Shanna staggered but didn’t fall. She still had her grip on the cross. She held it up as she looked at the thing.

It wasn’t Mortimer—or rather what Mortimer had become. This one wore a bloody orderly’s uniform. A piece seemed to be missing from its neck. Its skin was cocoa colored but the fangs were the same as the “Dracula skull.”

The thing saw the cross and cringed.

It’s afraid of the cross! Yes!

“Back!” she cried, hoping to drive it out of the chapel.

It looked around and crouched as if the walls and ceiling were closing in on it.

“Out! You chose the wrong place to break into. This is God’s territory. Leave!”

The creature looked again at the cross, then straightened. It gazed at Shanna with its black, black eyes and shook its head. If it had any lips left, it might have smiled.

“No.” She backed away. It had been toying with her. “No, please!”

It leaped—literally flew through the air toward her. She angled the cross to fend it off. The upright had split diagonally along the grain, leaving a ragged point. The creature landed on it, driving Shanna back. This time she did lose her footing, but kept her grip on the crosspiece as she went down. The head of the upright caught on the carpet, and its other end plunged a good foot deep into the creature’s chest.

As the impaled thing hissed and thrashed, Shanna scrambled to her feet and backed away, waiting for it to die. Staked through the heart—that was how you killed vampires, right?

But it didn’t die. Shanna watched in horror as it lifted the cross and tried to pull it out.

“No!” She stepped forward and pushed against the crosspiece. “No way!”

It clawed at her, raking the air in front of her face with its talons, but couldn’t get closer. If it ever connected, her nose and lips would be ripped off.

Now it pushed against the cross, taking her by surprise. She couldn’t hold against its strength. The thing was backing her up. She flashed on what it was up to—trying to pin her against a wall, or better yet, into a corner. Couldn’t let that happen.

She angled them around, keeping open space behind her.

Not so open. The back of her legs hit a chair. She went down. The thing was above her, slashing with its talons.

Through her scream she thought she heard someone shout, “ Hey! ”

As the thing looked up, a number of things happened almost at once: A black steel tube punched through its fangs into its mouth with a sharp crack , followed almost immediately by a blast that slammed her eardrums; the back of the creature’s head dissolved in a red spray, taking a good deal of the forehead with it, leaving a pair of black eyes with an oddly surprised look.

Shanna held back a surge of bile and shoved against the cross, toppling the creature backward as Deputy Clayton Theel pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in his arms.

“Christ!” she heard him say through the whine in her ears. “If I’d been half a minute later…”

Shanna sobbed as she returned the embrace. She’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

“C-C-Clay! Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!”

“Not a problem.”

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know what they are, Shanna, but they’re multiplying.”

“How many have you seen?”

“I’ve put down fourteen of them already.” He looked at the thing on the floor. “Make that fifteen.”

She pushed back and stared at him. He was carrying that strange-looking, rapid-fire shotgun he’d shown her a couple of weeks ago, and had a huge duffel bag slung from his shoulder.

“ Fifteen? ”

“Yep. Everything from ER patients to nurses to orderlies to operators.”

Shanna’s insides twisted. They were spreading like wildfire. It seemed impossible. All starting with…

“Was one of those patients you saw Mortimer Moorecook?”

Clay shrugged. “How could I tell? All their faces look the same.”

He had a point.

“He was wearing black slacks with a gold belt buckle.”

“No. Nobody like that. Why?”

“I think he started it all. I think he’s patient zero.”

“What are you talking about?”

She gave Clay a quick rundown of the “Dracula skull” and seeing Mortimer in the lobby.

“You know,” he said, staring at her when she finished, “if I hadn’t seen what I’ve seen in the past thirty minutes, I’d think you were on crack.”

“It’s somehow contagious,” she said, her mind racing. “But is it airborne like a flu, or does it need an open wound?”

“Everybody I put down was bloodied in one way or another.” He pointed to the dead thing on the floor. “Him too. Look at his neck.”

Shanna shot a quick glance, then away. The red-and-gray lumpy spray on the wall behind it made her want to gag.

“Then it’s like HIV.”

Clay looked disgusted. “You mean those things go around raping—?”

“No-no! Bites. Think vampires and werewolves.”

“Oh. Makes sense.”

“But it’s happening so fast.” An awful thought struck. “Do you know what a geometric progression is?”

His mouth twisted. “Would you believe…no?”

“It’s a way an infection can spread to astronomical numbers. Mortimer infects one, and so then there are two infected. If they each infect one more, we’ve got four infected. Then eight, then sixteen. By the fifteenth go-round they’ve infected almost fifty-thousand people. By the twentieth, we’re past the million mark.”

Clay paled. “We can’t let these things out of here.”

She shook her head. “Not even one of them.”

“But you’re getting out of here.”

“How?”

“I’m taking you down to my truck, giving you the key, and you’re driving the hell home.”

That sounded absolutely wonderful. But…

“What about you?”

“Gotta stay till reinforcements arrive. I’ll patrol the outside and contain the perimeter.”

“Just you?”

He shrugged. “Wish I had help, but I don’t see anyone else around to do it, so I guess that leaves me.”

Just like the heroes in those movies he loved to watch—and quote. Was that what he was doing—quoting? If so, she didn’t recognize it. No, this was just Clay, who he was.

“You could get hurt.”

“Yeah, but—”

A hiss from the doorway. They both turned at once to see one of the creatures charging. Almost upon them. Shanna screamed.

Clay fired his auto-shotgun from the hip. Two quick blasts to the chest knocked it back but not down. He raised it to his shoulder. His third shot blew away half its head and it crumbled.

“Gotta get you out of here.”

“I’m all for that.”

But somewhere inside a voice said, You’ll never make it.

“You’re gonna need some heat,” he said.

“Heat?”

“A weapon. A gun.”

“No, I—”

“Don’t argue, Shanna. It can be the difference between life and death.”

She wanted to tell him she hated guns, that they terrified her, but she could see he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

He pulled something big and silvery from his belt.

“This here is Alice. A Taurus Raging—”

“Wait-wait-wait. You named it?”

“Well, sure. She’s special.”

Well, sure …like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“But it’s a woman’s name.”

“Of course.”

“No. Not ‘of course.’ Why a woman’s name?”

He got a sheepish look. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I do. Humor me.”

“Well, when my daddy was teaching me to shoot he always said never pull the trigger, always squeeze it like…”