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

“Hey, baby girl,” Stacie said, touching the back of her finger to Daniella’s little cheek. “Meet your mom and dad. We’re going to…”

“Stace? You all right?”

She was. She was great. The pain was gone, just a little dizziness. Well, maybe a lot of dizziness, and it was coming on stronger with every passing second.

“Yeah, I just…little light-headed.”

Adam moved around to the end of the bed, said, “Oh, God,” and Stacie watched him rush out of the room, heard him calling Nurse Herrick, something in the tone of his voice that unnerved her. She couldn’t take her gaze off Daniela, but she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open now, and the last thing she noticed before she descended into unconsciousness were the bloody footprints—Adam’s—leading out into the corridor, dark as crude oil in the lowlight.

Adam

HE found Herrick at the nurse’s station, making entries in a chart by flashlight.

“She’s bleeding,” he said. “A lot.”

Herrick dropped her pen and came around the desk into the corridor, practically ran down the hall.

“Is this normal?” Adam said.

They passed through the open door into Stacie’s room and Herrick stopped, staring at the bloody sheets, the dark drops falling into a puddle on the floor.

“Stacie!” she yelled, and Adam followed her to his wife’s bedside. “Stacie. Can you hear me?”

Stacie still held the baby in her arms, but her eyes were closed, and even in the lowlight, Adam thought she looked pale.

Herrick lifted Stacie’s wrist, checked her radial pulse.

She turned on her flashlight and lifted Stacie’s hospital gown.

“Is she gonna be okay?”

“Shhh.”

A beat of terrible silence, and then Herrick turned and faced him.

“She’s postpartum hemorrhaging.”

“What does that mean?”

“She passed the placenta immediately following birth. What I’m guessing is there’s still a piece of it in there.”

“Why is that bad?”

“Because it’s stopping her uterus from contracting.”

“How much blood has she lost?”

“I don’t know for sure, but at least half a liter, which is past the point of being okay.”

“Oh God.”

“Listen to me.”

“Can you fix her?”

“Yes, but I need your help.”

“Anything.”

“I think I can stop the bleeding, but she’s lost so much already, she’s gonna need a transfusion.”

“Okay.”

“You have to go down to the blood bank.”

Adam felt a tremor of fear ride down his legs.

“Where’s the blood bank?”

“The basement.”

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, are you fucking kidding me?”

Herrick actually took a step back from the minister, her eyes going wide.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“It’s quite all right, pastor, we’re all under a great deal of stress. You’ll need this.” Herrick lifted his overnight backpack off a rocking chair. Adam overcame the tremor in his hands, finally managing to unzip it and dump the contents—a change of clothes and some toiletries.

“How do I get there?”

Herrick walked out of the room into the corridor, pulling him along.

“Through those doors, then you go to the end of the hallway and take a right. Go to the end of that hallway and take a left. On your next right, four doors down, you’ll see a door leading to the stairwell. Go all the way down, and when you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor. You’ll see the sign for the lab. Refrigerators are in back. Grab at least five units of O-positive.”

His head was swimming.

“O-positive. Okay.”

“Help me with this.”

They slid the furniture back from the door, and then Adam stared through the window. The paper that Herrick had stapled over the opening had blown away.

“Coast clear?” she asked.

“For now.”

He heard the locks sliding up, his heart beginning to pound at the thought of going out there.

“Adam?”

He looked at Herrick.

“I know you don’t want to go out there, but your wife will die if she doesn’t start receiving new blood in less than thirty minutes.”

Adam’s daughter began to cry at the other end of the wing.

He wondered if he’d seen the last he would ever see of her.

“I’ll take care of your girls, Adam,” Herrick said. “Now get going.”

Jenny

“I’M just going to see if the playroom is empty,” Jenny told the clinging, whimpering kids. “I’ll be right back.”

Amid cries of protest, the nurse extracted herself from the tangle of children and stood up, holding the glowing green light stick in front of her like a talisman. She crept to the closet door, making sure her footing was solid. Jenny prayed Randall was on his way back for them. The desire to hear his voice again was overwhelming. For his many faults—the gullibility, the temper, the drinking, the inability to think ahead—the old Randall had been a rock. He’d also been one of the most reassuring, nurturing people she’d ever known, and all of her friends were nurses, so that was really saying something.

If the old Randall was back—and she sensed he was—he’d find a way to reach her, even if he had to walk barefoot through hell.

The intercom was near the front door, which was still barricaded shut. Jenny wanted to tell him to find an intercom, to let her know he was okay, to come for her and the kids, and…

And?

To tell him I love him.

Funny how that worked. During the dark days of their marriage, she had felt less his wife, and more his mother—always scolding him, trying to make him straighten up and fly right. But now that the shit had hit the fan, he was the one person in the world Jenny needed. She closed her eyes, for just a moment, imagining his embrace—like being hugged by a big, friendly bear.

Jenny hoped she’d be able to feel that embrace at least one more time.

He’s alive. He’s got to be alive. Randall has survived countless accidents and mishaps. Countless drunken bar fights. He’s indestructible.

She opened her eyes, focused on the door. Holding her breath, she stopped just an arm’s length away from the square window, listening for sounds.

The silence was so loud it made her wince.

Jenny let out a slow sigh, then took a cautious step forward and—

“STOP! A monster is going to pop out and grab you! I know it!”

Jenny’s bladder clenched at the child’s outburst. The courage she’d stored up seeped right out of her.

“It’s okay,” she said.

But it really wasn’t okay, was it? Monsters—real monsters—were running around the hospital, killing people. Her husband was gone. Jenny had no weapons. And now she was about to peer through a broken window when there was a pretty good chance something would pop out and grab her.

Maybe staying put was a smart idea.

She was about to give in to cowardice when she remembered something her husband had said to her on their honeymoon. They’d spent the week at the ridiculous sounding “Camp Kookyfoot Waterpark” because Randall was nuts about waterslides. Jenny had initially resented him for it—it had been his “surprise” wedding gift to her—but it ultimately didn’t matter because they spent most of the trip in bed. During one of their rare ventures out of the bedroom to eat at the suitably hokey “Kookypants Famous Bar and Grill,” Randall had cut his sirloin into pieces too big to swallow and wound up getting one stuck in his throat. Jenny had calmly gotten behind him and applied the Heimlich, saving his life.

“Thanks, babe,” he’d told her once he could breathe again. “It’s nice to have someone I can count on. You know you can count on me too. Always and forever.”