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

You weren’t allowed to take your own life, but you were certainly allowed to sacrifice it for your fellow man. And woman too, of course. John 15:13 said it all: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Was any act more noble?

That was what he wished for himself.

He was feeling funny and didn’t know if it was the smell of the blood or the first symptoms of something worse. He was just squeezing the contents from the last bag when Deputy Theel slipped quickly through the door. He didn’t look so hot himself.

“Something wrong?”

Clayton shook his head. “Had a couple of bad moments there, but I’m still in one piece.” He shook his head. “Man, it stinks in here.”

Adam had been thinking that same thing for a while, but now it didn’t smell so bad.

Dear Lord, was he starting to change?

“Let’s not waste any time,” he told the deputy. “What do I do?”

“First thing is you put yourself in the middle of those chairs.”

As Adam squeezed between two double-stacked pairs, he said, “Care to tell me about the chairs now?”

“They’re gonna make excellent shrapnel.”

Adam’s knees softened but didn’t give way.

The deputy stepped over the blood moat and handed one of the high-explosive grenades through the chairs.

“This one goes on the floor. Do not drop it—it’s armed. You’re right handed, so—”

“How do you know that?”

“Habit. Always know a guy’s handedness. Put it by your right foot.”

Adam complied. “Now what?”

The deputy hesitated, started to hand his grenade launcher through the chair maze, then pulled it back. He cradled it, hugged it, actually kissed it, then handed it through.

“You have no idea what it took to find one of these, and what it cost me when I finally did.”

Adam took it but didn’t know what to do with it. His confusion must have shown.

“See the pistol grip there?” the deputy said. “Hold it by that but keep your finger outside the trigger guard. Do not touch that trigger till you’re ready to squeeze it.”

Adam did as instructed.

“Good. Now, lower the launcher until the muzzle’s pointing at the floor.”

He did.

“Position the muzzle directly over the round on the floor.”

Again, Adam complied.

“Okay. Now, you’re ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“I’m going to open the door and run like hell. The draculas are going to catch this stink and come in like sharks. They’re going to start lapping up the blood. They’re going to start fighting with each other, which will bring more. Eventually they’re going to run out of blood and notice you. That’s when you pull the trigger. You’ve got one H-E round in the chamber and the other on the floor. The former will hit the latter and they’ll both explode.”

“Oh, God!”

“Yeah, God. If He’s paying attention at all, this will express mail you straight to Him. You won’t feel a thing, padre, but you’ll reduce every dracula you’ve managed to lure in here to meat confetti. That’s what I call a blaze of glory.”

“Yes. Glory. ‘ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. ’“

“Yeah, there’s that,” the deputy said, shaking his head as he stared at his weapon. “But how about, ‘ Greater love hath no man than giving up his MM-1 for his friends ?’“

Adam felt his muscles beginning to cramp.

“I think you’d better go.”

The deputy looked at him, then nodded. “Gotcha.”

He pulled a pistol from the small of his back, stepped to the door, and yanked it open.

“Don’t let me down, padre.”

“That would mean letting myself down, letting God down.”

The deputy smiled and nodded again. “You’ll do fine, padre. We’ve all got it coming. You just happen to know when.”

And then he ducked out, leaving the door open behind him.

It didn’t take long.

The deputy had been uncannily accurate in his description.

They came like a school of sharks. First the scouts. He spotted them through the windows onto the hall, dark shapes weaving through the shadows, popping into view when they passed through a pool of light.

One darted through the door and dropped to the floor with a screech. Two more followed, then a dozen, then a dozen more, pushing, shoving, fighting for a place at the blood buffet. Their struggles spread them further and further around Adam’s chair barricade until they completely encircled him.

The sight of the huddled, struggling shapes, limned by the light from the hall and the flashes from the parking lot, chilled his blood. But the sounds were worse. Adam couldn’t see the blood moat, but the frenzied lapping, the hissing and screeching made his gorge rise.

And then two of them got into a fight, tearing at each other. Others joined the fray in a cannibalistic orgy that drew even more of their kind to the room.

But worst of all for Adam…the room no longer smelled bad.

In fact, the aroma was almost…mouth watering.

No, wait…that wasn’t water in his mouth. It tasted like blood. It tasted good . And something else there. Three, no, four hard lumps. He knew what they were: teeth. He’d seen Nurse Herrick’s teeth fall out before she became…

God help me, it’s happening!

He spit them out and moved his finger from alongside the trigger guard and curled it around the trigger.

How long to wait? To maximize his impact, he had to delay until the room couldn’t hold any more draculas, but not so long into the change that he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—pull the trigger.

He had to hold out in memory of Stacie, who had sacrificed everything for Daniella. And especially for Daniella. She had to live. She’d grow up without her mother and father. They’d miss her first steps, her first day at school, her wedding day…but at least she’d grow up. His parents or Stacie’s parents, or maybe all four together would raise Daniella, and he prayed they’d tell her that her folks loved her so much that they gave their lives for her.

So hold off…hold off as long as—

The creatures decided for him. When the smell of the fresh blood he’d spit out with his teeth reached them, they froze. Then slowly, almost as one, they turned toward him, noticing him for the first time.

“I forgive you,” he told them. “You’re not responsible. You didn’t want to be what you’ve become, and I am going to relieve you—us—of this hideous affliction.”

Oddly, instead of a passage from the bible, the last lines of A Tale of Two Cities came to mind. He didn’t remember them exactly, but he did his best: “Listen to me and believe this,” he said to them. “It’s a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done; it’s a far, far better rest we go to, than we have ever known.”

With a chorus of shrieks and hisses, they leaped at him as one.

Adam pulled the trigger.

Clay

HE ducked into the report room—a landlocked cubicle just off the OB nursing station, where one shift briefed the next on the floor’s patients and their status. He’d been tempted to head straight for the stairs but didn’t know how many draculas he’d run into along the way. Once they caught the scent of that blood, they’d come swarming from all directions. He had north of fifty .40 caliber rounds for the Glock, but knew from his first foray into the ER that it took a good three hits to put down a dracula. One on one, that was okay, but if he got swarmed he’d go down.

He closed the door and plunged into perfect darkness.

Didn’t know if his hacks on the H-E rounds had been successful. No way to test them.