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

He was fine. The tingling meant nothing. Could be anything. It wasn’t even that bad. He could barely feel it unless he concentrated. No way was he going to get this far, go through this much crap, and ruin his happy ending. Randall Bolton was going to be a hero, a muscle-bound lumberjack taking out dozens of monsters with his trusty chainsaw, not the asshole who turned into one of them.

Or the asshole who suspected that something was happening and didn’t tell anyone.

“Jenny…?”

She stopped. “Yes?”

“No, keep moving. We’ll talk while we walk.” His mouth had gone dry. “Jenny, I…I really shouldn’t have bit that clown.”

“Oh, God.”

“No, no, no, don’t panic. I’m not…I haven’t…I think I’m fine. None of the other draculas are as big as me, and it would take longer to affect me even if I were…I think you were right, swishing around that rubbing alcohol helped, but I just…I didn’t want to not say anything, in case, but I swear I feel fine.”

They passed the next landing. At least there were no draculas in the stairwell. That was something.

Almost there.

Almost to the magical helicopter that would whisk them away from all this.

“I just want you to know, I’m not gonna be dumb about this if anything happens,” Randall said, hoping that the kids didn’t pick up on what they were talking about. “I’ll never hurt you. I promise.”

“I know.”

He was just overreacting. He posed no danger to anybody but the draculas. Hell, he was going to get Jenny and the kids out of danger, not put them in—

No.

No!

He wanted to scream as one of his bottom teeth fell out.

Clay

HE came to an intersection and stopped, unsure of whether to keep going straight ahead, or take the hall to the right. A cry of pain to the right—a man’s voice—firmed up the decision. He made the turn and increased his pace to a trot. At the end of the hall he came upon half a dozen draculas pounding and clawing at a door, slamming themselves against it. That could mean only one thing: live humans on the other side.

As Clay raised the launcher, he heard a loud CRACK! and saw the doors start to swing inward. No time to lose and he had to make every shot count. The buckshot rounds turned the MM-1 from a grenade launcher into a super-size sawed-off shotgun. He didn’t even want to guess at the gauge of something that fired a 40mm shell—two, maybe? No matter. Sawed-offs were great at close range, crap at long range because the cone of shot spread so rapidly.

So he stepped up behind the draculas, squared off around six feet from their clustered backs as they began to push the doors in against whatever was barricaded on the far side, and fired high. The first shot put four of them down, totally ruining the heads of two and carving good chunks out of two more. He angled a little to the right and fired again, splattering the brains of two more, then pulled his Glock from the small of his back. He had three backup magazines of .40 cal hollowpoints for the pistol, so might as well use that for coup-de-grâce duty. He double-tapped the skulls of the two draculas that were down but still kicking, then stepped into a new corner of hell.

The first thing he saw was a guy in a clerical collar on his back on the floor holding off a mini-dracula in a party dress.

Aw, no. A kid.

It got worse. Approaching the minister and the mini was another female dracula, this one full grown, but it had a baby dracula chewing through her stomach like the creature in Alien . Looked like some human-kangaroo mutant with her baby in a pouch. Clay stood frozen in horror. He’d seen some awful things today, but this…this…he had no words for this.

He shook himself. What to do? The minister’s most immediate problem was the girl-dracula. Couldn’t use the MM-1without taking out the minister too, but he still had his Glock in hand, so—

The momma-dracula solved the problem for everyone, grabbing the girl-dracula by both sides of her head and ripping her off the minister. The girl-dracula screeched in rage but only for an instant. The screech was replaced by a sickening crunch of bone as the momma-dracula gave her head a full one-eighty twist. Then another. Girl-dracula’s head faced front again but her jaws had gone slack and her eyes were rolled up in her head. Then momma-dracula bit her throat. As blood squirted, she pressed girl-dracula against her ruptured belly where baby-dracula began to suck.

Clay couldn’t take any more. He pulled the trigger twice and blew all three to pieces.

He shuddered, feeling sick. He’d just killed a little girl, a new mother, and her—what?—nursing baby.

He shook it off. No, they weren’t people anymore. They’d become things. He’d done them a favor.

So how come he felt so rotten?

Clay was stepping forward to help the minister when he caught a flash of movement to his right. Another female dracula, this one in a nurse’s uniform, was charging him. As Clay swiveled the MM-1 and fired, he heard the minister yell, “Carla, no!”

Carla stumbled a step but kept coming, her head intact, but her face a pincushion mass of darts.

“Crap!”

He’d mistakenly loaded a Beehive round into the launcher. He’d been taking one along to Denver as a novelty. It fired a swarm of forty-some steel flechettes. Beehives weren’t used much because of their low stopping power, which was being demonstrated right now as the dracula lunged at him. Clay ducked to the side and she went right by, talons raking empty air. The flechettes hadn’t stopped her, but multiple darts in her eyes had blinded her. He waited till she wheeled around, then blew her away.

He helped the bloodied minister to his feet.

“You okay, padre?”

“I think so.” He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off what was left of momma-dracula. “Poor Brittany.”

Clay was doing a slow turn, looking for more surprises.

“Let’s get you out of here.”

“No—my wife and baby!”

Clay glanced at the momma-dracula, then away. “Oh, God, I…I…”

“Oh, they’re fine.” His face fell. “Well, not really. Stacie lost a lot of blood after delivery. She’s getting transfused now and—”

“ Now? ”

“Yes.”

“Can she walk?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. Why?”

Clay pointed back the way he came in. “Because those doors aren’t stopping anything anymore.”

As if to prove the point, a dracula came around the corner, saw them, and charged. It looked like it was going for the dead draculas, but Clay let it get within six feet, then blew its head off anyway.

The only good dracula…

The minister looked both repulsed and impressed. “That makes it look so easy. Almost doesn’t seem fair.”

“Like my daddy likes to say, ‘If you find yourself in a fair fight, you obviously didn’t plan right.’ Besides, ‘fair’ is a matter of opinion, depending on what side you’re on. These things here probably think it’s unfair you’ve got all this blood running around inside you and won’t share it. Anyway, it’s not safe here. We need to get your wife to the roof.”

“Roof?” The minister shook his head. “Gosh, I don’t know…”

“Good chance a copter will be doing pick-ups. Women and children first.”

Sudden resolve solidified his expression. “Really? Then we’ve got to get her up there.”

Clay followed him into a room where a pale young woman—so pale she faded into the sheets—lay in bed with a blood pack dripping into her arm.