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

“I won’t leave him, Clay.”

He stared at Randall, who had somehow found the strength to single-handedly wipe out at least ten draculas. But he was nearly dead himself.

“Jenny…”

“I’m not letting him die alone!” she screamed.

Clay noticed a change in the tone of the copter’s engine and looked around. The skids hovered about a foot off the helipad, but instead of continuing to lower, they’d begun to rise.

What?

Clay saw the woman in the open bay pointing to Randall, who was putting the saw to one final dracula. The pilot was looking that way too as he throttled up to leave.

No fucking way.

Clay charged forward and jumped onto the skid, tilting the copter. The woman scuttled back as the pilot looked around. The bay was lit by an overhead fixture. Clay leaned into the light. He didn’t have to fake a fierce expression—his teeth were already bared in rage—as he gave the pilot a good look down the bore of the MM-1. He pointed toward the roof.

“Down or you’re dead!”

He knew the pilot couldn’t hear him so he spoke slowly and carefully, giving him ample opportunity to read his lips.

The copter resumed its descent.

When it hit the deck, Clay motioned the kids forward, ducking and squinting against the wash from the blades, Jenny led them up in a bunch. The strobe gave their approach an old-time movie look. Together they hauled the children up and in, one at a time, until all were aboard. Then he motioned to Jenny to follow but she shook her head. He was tempted to grab her and toss her in but spotted Adam approaching with the baby in his arms.

Aw shit. Adam was bleeding.

Randall

A headless dracula dropped in front of him, adding to the pool of blood, and Randall realized that there was nothing left to kill. As if sensing this, the chainsaw gave one last sputter and died.

A helicopter landed on the roof.

Rescue.

But not for him.

Bloodblood…

He gestured to the helicopter with his dead chainsaw, then staggered toward the door. More draculas would be coming through it. He’d kill them. Saw them up even without the chainsaw running.

When he reached the door, his legs finally gave out and he collapsed.

He sat there, chainsaw on his lap, trying to blink the blood out of his eye, too exhausted to use his hands to wipe it away.

He couldn’t stay human in his mind for much longer, but he didn’t need to. He didn’t have long to live as a monster or a man.

If he could just stick around long enough to see Jenny and the kids fly off to safety, he’d shake hands with God and call it even.

But Jenny didn’t get into the helicopter.

Instead, she began to walk his way.

All Randall could think about was the day she left him, and how his one wish—the one thing that kept him sober and sane—was that one day she might come back to him.

Her timing was ironical. Not only was he dying, but he was a dracula, and she was putting herself in danger instead of getting the hell out of there.

But at that moment, when she reached down for him with tears in her eyes, Randall Bolton was the happiest guy on the planet.

Adam

HIS mind raced as he headed toward the helicopter, shielding Daniella from the wind-blasting rotors. He hadn’t steeled himself to look at his arm. It hurt badly, and he thought he felt the evaporative cooling of blood on his skin, but maybe, maybe, please God—maybe he was imagining it.

He glanced down, saw the shimmer of blood on his left forearm with every flash of the KREZ helicopter’s LED strobe.

The fangs had punctured skin.

God, no!

Why?

He looked over toward the door to the hospital. Randall sat alone with his chainsaw amid a battlefield of gore. Nothing trying to come through the doors at the moment. Just a few dismembered demons squirming on the concrete.

Couldn’t be sure, but Randall looked injured.

By the time he reached Clayton, he knew what he had to do, knew there was no other choice. Randall seemed to be controlling his will in the face of the infection, but what if he couldn’t? What if Adam harmed his own daughter?

Adam sidled up to Clayton, who’d just loaded the last child onto the helicopter.

Clayton looked at him, at his arm.

“You get bit?”

Adam nodded.

“Shit.”

“I’ve been praying that I’ll be protected from any—”

“Keep praying all you want, preacher, but you will be a full-blown fucking land shark in T-minus ten minutes.”

Adam tried to fight back the tears, not wanting to cry in front of this lawman, but he couldn’t help it.

“Is there room?” Adam yelled in Clayton’s ear.

Clayton’s brow furrowed. “For your daughter, absolutely.”

“What about…?”

“You know I can’t let you off this helipad.”

Adam nodded. He looked down at his daughter, tugged back the blanket that shielded her face. Somehow, she still slept. Adam, crying so hard he couldn’t see, spoke into her ear, “May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you and grant you peace. Your daddy loves you, Daniella, and he always will.”

“It’s time!” Clayton yelled.

Adam handed his child to a young woman in the helicopter wearing a pair of headphones, who was already extending her arms to his baby.

He passed Daniella to her, yelled, “Her name is Daniella!”

“What?” the reporter yelled.

Adam stepped up onto the skid, yelled into her ear as she lifted the headphone. “This is my daughter! Her name is Daniella Murray! Her mother’s dead, and I will be soon! Please take care of her!”

The woman nodded and Adam felt a hand drag him back from the helicopter—Clayton’s—and then Clayton signaled to the pilot and the rotors wound up and the skids eased off the helipad.

Adam stood watching in disbelief as it flew his daughter away from him into the night.

She’s safe now. These demons can’t touch her.

That piece of news was the only thing in the world keeping him from sprinting toward the edge of the roof and taking a swan dive into the parking lot.

Randall—now a bloody mess, was on his side, surrounded by the monsters he’d slaughtered. Adam watched the nurse, Jenny, go to his side.

Then he looked at Clayton, something roiling inside of him. Anger. Fear. Confusion. All wrapped up in a single emotion with a clear objective—kill.

“I want your gun,” Adam said.

“What?”

“Your gun. Show me how to shoot it. I’m going back into the hospital to kill as many of these things as possible.”

Clayton nodded, his eyes twinkling. “You hold that thought, padre, but I may have a better one.”

“What?” Adam said.

“If you’re gonna go down fighting, let’s make it really count.”

“How?”

“You still got all that blood in your backpack?”

“Yes.”

“Run and get it, and meet me over by the door.”

Jenny

SHE knelt next to her husband’s torn, bleeding body as the helicopter flew away. There was little left of him that was recognizable. She gripped his hand, feeling his talons gently wrap around her fingers.

“You did it, Randall,” she whispered. The tears were running down her face, and her shoulders shook from sobs. “You saved us.”

He blinked, tried to say something. All that came out was a low growl. Jenny cast her eyes down his body, looking at all the tears and gouges. He wasn’t bleeding as badly as before. Either he was almost out of blood, or…

Healing. These creatures had accelerated healing powers.

“Bite me,” she told her husband.