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

Instead, he was standing, staring at Jenny, a line of bloody drool stretching down his chest.

Oh no…

She banged on the door with both fists. “Open this goddamn door now! Right now!”

Jenny chanced another look behind her.

Lanz was holding his hand—now a ragged stump—up to his mouth. His misshapen, hideous tongue gave it a long, slow lick, like he was enjoying a popsicle. His black eyes bore into Jenny.

Then he took an easy step forward.

“JESUS CHRIST JUST OPEN THE—!”

Lanz broke into a run, and just then the knob turned. Jenny slipped into the closet, managing to get the door closed and to brace her back against it just as Lanz hit full force. His claw—the one he still had—shot through the window and latched onto Jenny’s throat. She twisted away, crabwalking backward, watching in helpless terror as Lanz tried to force himself into the square window.

He got his arm in.

He got his head in.

But that was as far as he could go.

Jenny feverishly looked around for a weapon. Besides the art supplies, there was medical equipment, but none of it formidable. Bandages, sutures, iodine, splints, tape. Where were the scalpels? Where were the syringes? Where was the—

Crash cart! Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

The cart was a set of aluminum shelves on wheels, stocked with everything needed to resuscitate and treat life-threatening conditions. She crawled to it, yanking open a drawer, looking for something, anything, to hurt Lanz with. Her mind was thinking syringes and drugs.

But her eyes locked onto the defibrillator.

It was a manual model. Perfect. She flipped it on, cranked it to 970 joules, and grabbed the paddles while the battery charged the capacitor.

“You want something to eat?” Jenny said, pressing the electrodes on either side of Lanz’s head. “Eat this, you son of a bitch.”

The unit beeped, and Jenny pressed the button to deliver the jolt. Lanz screeched, then immediately pulled out of the window. Jenny charged the unit again, waiting for him to return.

The bastard did, jamming himself into the tight space, his outstretched claw swiping at her head. Jenny ducked it, brought up the paddles, and juiced him once more.

He jerked away, but this time he had the presence of mind to take a paddle with him. Jenny pulled on the other end of the wire, struggling not to lose it, but Lanz had weight and strength and he ripped it from her grasp, pulling it out of the defib unit.

One paddle wasn’t enough to complete the circuit, so the weapon was useless. But it didn’t seem to matter.

A minute passed.

Then two.

Dr. Lanz didn’t reappear.

“Is the monster dead?” one of the children wailed.

Jenny didn’t think so. The shock he got was no doubt painful, but probably not fatal.

“I don’t know.”

And she had no desire to check. If he was lying outside the door, dying, that was fine with Jenny. But she wasn’t going to risk peeking through the broken window and getting her face bitten off because Lanz was playing hide and seek.

Better to wait and see.

“Who let me in?” Jenny asked the children.

“I did.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tommy.”

“Tommy, you’re a brave boy. When we get out of here, I’m taking you to the Camp Kookyfoot Waterpark.”

“Can I come too?”

The other two also chimed in the chorus.

“Okay,” Jenny said, “I’m taking you all to Camp Kookyfoot.”

“Is your husband coming too?”

Jenny’s thoughts flashed to Randall. She pictured him trying to balance on an inner tube far too small for his massive frame, that goofy, perpetually confused look on his face.

“Yes. Him too.”

She closed her eyes and prayed the big lug was okay.

Randall

RANDALL was all in favor of the crippled. Not in favor of them being crippled, of course—that would be deranged—but of their rights and stuff. They definitely deserved their own parking spaces and ramps and everything that would let them live normal lives. So when the legless dracula wheeled itself toward him, he felt bad that his first reaction was to laugh.

Not a belly laugh or a “laughing and pointing” type of thing, but it was still a very definite laugh. He couldn’t help himself. The creature just looked so… ridiculous.

As the dracula reached him, Randall stuck out his good foot, stopping the chair from bashing into him, and then gave it a nice big shove. The dracula wheeled backward, jaws snapping.

Randall laughed again.

Now he was relatively certain that his was not the cruel laughter of ridiculing the handicapped, but a more insane sort of laughter—the kind of laughter that would come out of a man whose mind just couldn’t handle all of the shit it had seen tonight.

Yeah, he was losing it.

That was okay. No shame in a little dracula-induced brain-snapping. It was kind of relaxing, actually. Like alcohol without the hangover.

The dracula wheeled forward again.

Randall shoved it backward.

Hell, he could do this all day. Or at least for an hour or two. It’d make a great YouTube video. People would protest the shit out of it, but it would get millions of hits.

Tina shifted her weight on his back. Randall snapped back to reality.

Focus.

When Randall was in fourth grade, his teacher, Mrs. Quimbal, had told him that when he felt his concentration fade from the task at hand, he should imagine red laser beams coming out of his eyes. It had worked. He’d sit there at his desk, imagining red laser beams zapping into his math book, and he’d keep his focus. His grades were still crap, but at least he wasn’t getting into trouble.

Randall imagined red laser beams zapping into the dracula as it wheeled back toward him.

Gotta keep yourself sane. Gotta protect the little girl. If you screw that up, then you’ve lost the one positive thing that could possibly come from this nightmare. Focus. Focus. Focus.

He lifted his good foot to shove the dracula back one last time. Suddenly the dracula pushed itself up with its arms, practically leaping out of the wheelchair and onto Randall. The creature was significantly more threatening when it was latched onto his chest.

“Get off! Get off!” Randall shouted, stumbling backward.

Tina shrieked. For one terrifying moment Randall thought he was going to lose his balance, falling onto his back and crushing the little girl beneath him, but he managed to keep himself upright.

He punched the dracula in the head as hard as he could, getting it right between the eyes. Though a bolt of pain shot through his knuckles and he let out a loud grunt, this did keep the dracula from biting out a sizable chunk of his torso. He couldn’t get at his utility belt with the damn monster wrapped around him like this.

He jerked his body around, trying to shake off the creature, but the thing had an iron grip around him (apparently its lack of legs meant extra strength in its arms) and he couldn’t get it off. Tina, meanwhile, started to slip off his back and wrapped a panicked arm around his neck, immediately cutting off his air supply.

Then, Jenny’s voice: “ Randall …”

It took Randall a split second to realize that Jenny had not suddenly appeared in the room with him, but was speaking to him through an intercom. He’d heard that asshole Clay use it earlier. Jenny’s voice was much nicer.

“… I’m still in pediatrics with the children. I need you to…oh my God! ”

The message ended.

Randall punched at the dracula again. It tilted its head back and his fist almost plunged into its open mouth, but he struck it in the chin and its teeth clacked together, pinching off a small piece of its tongue.