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

“Through the door. Past the clown.”

“No!”

“I can handle Bozo, don’t worry. I’ll pop his head like a water balloon. Hop on.”

“No!”

“Tina, there’s no other way out of here!”

Randall inwardly raged about the stupidity of the building designers to not have included another way out of the office, then immediately decided that architects did not typically have “homicidal monster infestation” on their list of situations that required safety precautions.

“He’ll eat us!”

“No, he won’t. He’s too lame and stupid to eat us.” Randall was one step away from shouting “ Goddamn it, Tina, get on my back !” but kept himself in check. “Cross my heart, the clown isn’t gonna hurt you, I promise. But we have to get out of here before more of them come. How do we know there isn’t a clown car downstairs? There could be more of them on the way!”

Randall wasn’t sure if that was a necessary lie or sheer cruelty, but it got the job done. He crouched as Tina climbed up onto his back. She was nice and light and her weight didn’t make his leg hurt any more than the unbearable agony he was already feeling from it.

The clown was still staring at them.

Now Randall had a decision to make: chainsaw or no chainsaw? It didn’t have any gas, and was hardly the most effective bludgeoning weapon available to him, but leaving it behind would be like leaving behind his…well, maybe not his penis, but rather…well, he supposed it was just like leaving behind his beloved chainsaw. He couldn’t do it. If refusing to do battle with a clown without his chainsaw made him insane, fine, he was insane. Plenty of insane people had done great things for the world.

“Are you ready?” Randall asked.

Tina gasped for breath in reply.

Randall unlocked and opened the door with his free hand. The clown stood motionless for a split second, then sprung to life like an electrified Frankenstein and lunged at him, mouth wide open.

Randall thrust the chainsaw blade at him, as hard as he could. The blade went straight into the clown’s mouth, making a cringe-inducing fingernails-on-chalkboard screech as the metal blades scraped against his teeth. The blade did not burst out through the back of the clown’s neck, which would’ve been helpful, but Randall settled for leaving it there for a moment, deep-throating the white-faced son of a bitch.

The clown did not gag as it reached for him, arms wildly flapping.

Randall yanked out the chainsaw blade. A few of the clown’s teeth came with it. The clown’s suit was completely soaked with blood, and dangling from the waist of his pants was a short rope of twisted intestine that Randall didn’t think originally belonged to him. A blood-streaked button identified him as Benny the Clown.

Randall slammed the chainsaw blade back into Benny the Clown’s mouth, taking out most of his lower row of fangs.

Benny the Clown was notably less sedate than he’d been while peeking through the window. His claws scraped against Randall’s arm, hurting like hell but not cutting very deep.

Randall gave the chainsaw a violent twist , and that took care of most of Benny the Clown’s remaining teeth. He turned the blade in a complete circle. Twice.

Tina was, quite understandably, shrieking. Randall wished she wouldn’t do that, because it could attract more of the creatures, but he wasn’t sure he could convince a five-year-old girl to stop screaming while he was in the process of mutilating a monster clown.

Randall yanked the chainsaw out again. A spurt of blood soaked Benny the Clown’s already-blood-soaked oversized squeaky shoes. Using his good foot, Randall kicked the clown in the nuts.

Benny the Clown clutched at his groin and fell to the floor.

Now that was a clown pratfall Randall could enjoy.

Three separate bottles of pills had fallen out of Benny the Clown’s pockets as he struck the tile. Fuckin’ clown was probably thoroughly drugged up. Maybe that was why he wasn’t in total “wild animal” mode like the others.

Benny the Clown was far from dead, but he was disabled enough to suit Randall’s purposes. The extra ten seconds he spent beating the fucker to death might be ten seconds he needed for running away, especially if…

A pair of draculas came around the corner.

Shit!

Randall didn’t want to lock himself in the office again—he needed to make some progress. But this was going to take him farther away from Jenny and pediatrics.

Nothing he could do about that. It was a hospital, so there had to be more than one place he could find an inhaler.

With Tina still on his back, he limped down the hallway as quickly as he could.

Then his blood-soaked chainsaw popped out of his hands and dropped onto the floor.

Damn! Shit! Piss! Crap! Ass! Fuck!

He couldn’t stop to pick up his chainsaw without gas with a little girl on his back and two draculas on his tail. It wasn’t worth dying for.

Fuck! Fucker fuck frick fuck! Fuckleberry!

His leg twisted just a bit, because, apparently, it hadn’t hurt quite enough before.

Ignore the pain…ignore the pain…imagine that your leg is a mighty redwood, standing straight and tall…

Goddamn my leg hurts…

He pushed through a swinging door. A sign overhead read Rehabilitation Therapy. Ah, yes. He’d get to know this place well…in another hospital, of course.

He heard the draculas rush right past the door. Then a scream. They must’ve found a more helpless victim.

Squeak…squeak…squeak…

Not the squeak of Benny the Clown’s shoes. A different squeak.

Though Randall didn’t have time for stopping and gaping, he couldn’t help but stop and gape as the dracula in a wheelchair rolled across the room toward him.

Moorecook

BEING wealthy, Mortimer Moorecook had thought he’d understood power.

But he hadn’t truly known it until now.

He was fast, with the speed and reflexes of a jungle leopard. Pouncing and tearing. Drinking and devouring. Going from hospital room to hospital room, attacking patients, staff, visitors.

He could see in the dark. The talons on his feet and hands were so strong he could climb walls, even hang upside-down from the ceiling. He bolted into a woman’s room, her screams like hot fudge on a sundae, her supple, weak flesh unable to push him away as he sank his fangs into her warm, wet neck.

Seeing her fear, feeling her revulsion, was a rush better even than the sex he’d so desperately missed. But even more wonderful than that was all the precious blood blood BLOOD BLOOD BLOODBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD…

STOP!

He released the girl he’d been slurping, even though she still had some blood left. She’d been dead for a few minutes, but if he drank all of her blood, she wouldn’t turn.

Moorecook wanted them to turn. He wanted as many of his kind as possible.

When not overwhelmed by bloodlust, he was capable of higher brain functioning. He knew he was different from the others he had created. Smarter. Better. Still evolving, in a different kind of way.

The others sensed the difference. They attacked one another, but gave him a wide berth. He’d even been able to screech at them, get them to follow some rudimentary orders. Direct them where to go.

He found three of them on the third floor, fighting over a pathetic pool of blood on the tile floor. Mortimer hissed, clacking his teeth together, commanding them to follow. They avoided the gunfire, going down an empty stairwell, slinking outside into the parking lot.