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

RANDALL admitted, often with pride, that he could be one of the most stubborn bastards to walk the planet. He’d always been that way, and even though his stubbornness hadn’t always helped life to work out in his favor, it was deep inside of him and he’d figured it would never change.

But at some point you had to accept that things weren’t going to happen the way you wanted, no matter how desperately you stuck to the plan.

At some point you had to accept that you were doomed.

Randall did not accept his fate as he rushed onto the roof with Jenny and the kids.

Did not accept his fate as he and Jenny encouraged the children to scream as loudly as they possibly could, jump up, wave their arms, do anything they could to attract attention.

Did not accept his fate as he and Clay dragged the air conditioning units to create a barricade against the draculas.

Hell, he didn’t even accept his fate when Clay had a big-ass gun on him. He’d be fine. He’d recover. He was a lot stronger than the other people who’d transformed. He was a goddamn lumberjack!

Even as he vowed to throw himself off the roof if needed, he knew it was an unnecessary promise. He’d never hurt anyone. Not a chance. No way.

But when the pain began, he knew he was fucked.

It seemed like tonight had been nothing except pain, but not like this. Nothing could compare to this. It was as if every single tooth in his mouth was simultaneously attacked by a sadistic Nazi dentist, drilling deep into the nerves, not simply without Novocain but with drugs to enhance his senses, pain so incredible that he thought he might finally take that next step and go completely insane.

His new teeth burst through his gums and then through his cheeks in a shower of blood, flesh, and bone. One of his old teeth, a molar, went down his throat. As the gore spilled out of his face, he saw the barricade fall away, the draculas coming through the doorway, pouring out onto the roof.

This was it.

Randall Bolton’s final scene.

Maybe he could fight whatever homicidal impulses struck the other draculas, but he wasn’t coming back. Wasn’t going to grow old with Jenny. Wasn’t going to have the last laugh on the other lumberjacks, or even get a slap on the back for a job well done. He couldn’t even help get the kids on the helicopter if they successfully got one to come over here—they’d just scream and run away from him.

This was the end of Randall’s life, and he was leaving this world as a monster.

And so there was only one way for him to go out with his head held high: kill as many other monsters as he possibly could.

They could take away his humanity, but not his fucking chainsaw.

He pulled the cord, relishing the sound of the motor. There was a whole forest of trees in front of him, and he was going to cut down every last one of them.

He swung the chainsaw blade, hitting the first dracula so hard that it felt more like knocking its head off than slicing it off. In the same arc, his chainsaw dug a deep bloody line along the chest of the dracula next to it. The return swing finished off that dracula and two more.

He couldn’t shout anything coherent, not with his face so mutilated, but he let out a primal scream, screaming out a lifetime’s worth of rage and sorrow all at once. The draculas parted beneath his whirring blade, some of them ripping into his flesh before they died, some not getting the satisfaction.

There was so much blood spraying at him that he could practically gargle with it.

Arms fell away like branches.

A dracula stumbled forward and fell upon him, its teeth tearing into his side. Randall didn’t even feel it. He twisted the blade around and drove it deep into the dracula’s skull in a spray of brain and bone chips.

No need to tell himself to focus.

A dracula’s jaws clamped down upon his left hand, biting off all of his fingers except his thumb, but it didn’t matter. That wasn’t the hand with the chainsaw.

Did he have talons instead of fingers now? He’d barely noticed.

Another dracula and its head parted ways. How many had he killed so far? He couldn’t even estimate.

A squirt of blood shot directly into his good eye.

So he was mostly blind. So what? Didn’t matter.

The chainsaw stalled for a split-second, right in the middle of a dracula’s torso, but he yanked it out and the blade started whirring again.

Blood dripped from his hair, his ears, his chin.

Bloodbloodblood…

He shook off whatever urge had suddenly come over him. He wasn’t going to drink any of that shit.

There were dismembered bodies piled around him.

Literally piled.

He almost lost his balance, but stayed upright.

He wasn’t going down just yet.

Not while there were still monsters around.

Adam

LIKE a YouTube clip from hell.

Demons fighting to squeeze through the partially open door, and Randall—now one of them himself—wielding a giant chainsaw and slashing at everything in sight—legs, limbs, heads, guts strewn across the helipad—and a pang of fear now cutting through Adam’s grief.

He clutched Daniella to his chest and backed away from Stacie’s body as one of those things stalked him in full scrubs with a surgical power drill, revving the tiny motor.

It stopped suddenly, attention drawn to Adam’s wife and the pool of blood she lay in.

When it fell to the ground and started hungrily licking it up, something came unhinged in Adam and he ran, six steps covered in no time, and kicked the former surgeon squarely in the face.

The monster tumbled back, but quickly righted itself, jumped to its feet, and charged. Adam held Daniella in his right arm, his left raised to fend off the attack.

The demon sank its teeth into Adam’s forearm, and just as he felt those fangs slicing into muscle, a chainsaw screamed and Adam watched Randall bring the blade straight down on the top of the demon’s skull, the smell of friction between bone and chain filling the air with an acrid stench, the motor straining, and then the saw broke through and Randall brought the spinning chain through brain, face, neck, between shoulders blades, stomach, until the saw emerged from the crotch and the demon-surgeon stood staring at Adam, massively confused as it separated like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich slowly pulled apart, two halves falling away from each other to the concrete, leaving Randall, or whatever he had become, to face Adam.

He looked every bit as horrific as the others, perhaps more so holding that chainsaw drenched in blood and sinew.

A great wind was kicking up.

Its eyes narrowed, and for a moment, Adam’s heart stopped, but Randall only pointed the blade of his chainsaw toward the news helicopter whose skids were five feet from touching down on the big, white H in the center of the helipad.

Randall screeched something unintelligible through his fangs, then turned and ran back toward the door as another pair of demons climbed through, the lumberjack’s chainsaw singing like the cry of an angry God.

Clay

JENNY stood beside him, the kids clustered around them, all watching the running lights of the silhouetted KREZ copter easing down toward the helipad. Its strobe was almost blinding. He leaned toward her and cupped a hand around her ear.

“Soon as it touches down, we get these kids on board. You too.”

She gave him an uncertain glance. In the strobe flashes she looked devastated.

He added. “Randall will want that.”

Still no reply. Jenny turned back to the carnage and the thing that was once her husband, and Clay saw the pain strip her soul bare.

She couldn’t stay. Whatever love or loyalty she felt, Randall was gone, and she’d be gone too if she stayed.