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

The doors…just a few more inches…an inch…

Steel met steel just as a heavy weight slammed against the other side. The cab began to rise.

Shanna sobbed with relief and slumped to the floor.

That thing …its wild, insane teeth resembled the skull Mortimer received earlier…the teeth that had pierced Mortimer’s throat.

And despite all the blood, Shanna had recognized the gold belt buckle on its pants.

She sobbed again, this time in disbelief.

“Mortimer?”

Lanz

“HER name’s Oasis,” the new LPN said from the head of the gurney.

Her nametag read Rodriguez and she was all dark eyes and mocha skin and black hair. Not bad looking if you went for the Hispanic thing. Lanz preferred blondes.

He shook his head. Oasis …was that who her mother was listening to when she conceived her? He brushed the question away and tried to focus on the girl’s arm.

Not an easy thing. But at least the ER was secured. The guard had returned Ernie’s head to his body, Winslow was escorting the orderlies and the four new corpses down to the cooler, and two gun-toting uniforms were ready for trouble.

Okay. Now to Oasis. The kid was sedated with a little diazepam but strapped down anyway. She had five tears in her forearm where she’d been bitten. The EMT stood by to help restrain her if she started struggling.

Lanz held out his hand. “Lido.”

Rodriguez placed a syringe of local anesthetic on his palm. He was about to begin injecting when the EMT backed away.

“Ooh, man.”

Lanz glanced up at him. He wore a strange look.

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of needles.”

“No, man.” His voice was slurred. “I stick ’em in people alla time. I just feel like shit alla sudden.”

He rubbed a hand across his face and Lanz noticed that one of his fingers was red and swollen to twice its size. Hadn’t he said he’d been bitten by Moorecook? Cellulitis already?

“Sit down before you fall down.”

Christ, was the EMT going to wind up a patient too? What else could go wrong?

He turned back to the kid. She began squirming as he injected the local—burned like hell for a few seconds going in, then the area went numb. He heard a hiss off to his right and glanced over to where the EMT slumped in a chair with his head lolling back. His mouth hung open and he was breathing funny.

Lanz had heard that sound before…just a little while ago—

Suddenly the EMT choked and bent forward. He hacked and spit. Not mucous.

Teeth.

He looked up at Lanz, his eyes tortured…and red . “Doc, I feel like sh— aaagh ”

A claw exploded from his infected fingertip, and then his other fingers followed.

Just like with Moorecook.

And then huge fangs extruded from his jaws, ripping through his cheeks and lips.

Just like Moorecook.

Oh, Christ, was it contagious?

Another hiss, closer. He looked down at the girl. Her red-rimmed ebony eyes were wide open, and she was spitting teeth, but rows at a time, the braces linking them like bloody little fence posts.

Lanz backed away. Both bitten, both changing. It was contagious.

Oasis ripped her clawed hands free of the restraints as fangs ripped through her face. The EMT was up now, approaching the gurney as Oasis sat up. Both had their eyes fixed on Lanz and Rodriguez. The LPN was backing away too. She bumped into Lanz. Instinctively he grabbed her and shoved her toward the gurney. She screamed horribly when the claws pulled her forward and fangs tore her flesh. As blood sprayed, Lanz turned and ran.

Out of the treatment room, into the ER proper. Ignore the terrified, questioning faces. Find a place to hide. A door—SUPPLIES. The handle won’t turn. Locked. Of course. But he has a key. He fumbles it free, unlocks the steel door, ducks inside, closes and locks it behind him.

Safe! OhgoodChrist, safe!

Lanz slumped to the floor and leaned with his back against some shelving. Gradually he controlled his breathing, felt his heart slow.

He got a grip. He had control.

Okay. Assess the problem.

Some sort of contagious agent—viral, chemical, whatever—had invaded the hospital. Moorecook seemed to be patient zero, at least in Blessed Crucifixion. The two who’d changed had been bitten by him, which was a good indicator it was blood or saliva borne.

He quickly checked himself for cuts or scratches. None. Good. He was infection free. He had a steel door between him and the contaminated. He—

Something in his mouth. He spit it out.

A tooth.

No!

Randall

AS Randall marched down the corridor, it occurred to him that limping out to his truck to retrieve a chainsaw in order to cut up a feral beast that gobbled intestines was exactly the kind of “acting without thinking” behavior that had caused so many problems in his marriage. Well, that and the drinking.

He was in no shape to be walking around like this—he was, after all, hospitalized with a severe leg injury. He didn’t actually need his chainsaw—it was a hospital, so they probably had giant bone saws or other tools for dismemberment that were closer than the parking lot. Not to mention that by the time he actually limped out there, got his chainsaw, and limped all the way back, somebody else probably would have already dealt with the dracula creature issue. And hospital security was probably not inclined to let a gown-wearing, stitched-up lumberjack enter the facility with a chainsaw, even in a time of crisis.

But when Randall got set on an idea, he saw it through. No matter what. He wasn’t going to turn around and sheepishly say, “Ummmm, changed my mind.” Jenny had little enough respect for him as it was. Whatever respect he’d earned before their marriage he’d pissed away during it. He’d let the booze turn him into someone he’d never choose to be, someone he never wanted to be again.

But when Randall Bolton started something, he finished it, whether it was building a treehouse for the son that he hoped to have someday or sitting through an entire wedding for somebody he didn’t know because he’d gone to the wrong church.

And if he did manage to protect his ex-wife with his chainsaw, maybe he’d regain some of his dignity. He loved his chainsaw. Loved being a lumberjack, even if other people liked to sing that cross-dressing song by those British assholes. Loved the sound of falling trees smashing to the ground. Loved the outdoors. Even loved the word “lumberjack,” despite the fact that a couple of his buddies insisted on being called “arborists.”

But the day before yesterday, he’d been humiliated. Oh, sure, he could see where it would be funny to the other lumberjacks—he would’ve been laughing his ass off if it happened to somebody else—but his face burned red just thinking about it. He knew people thought he’d fallen off the wagon, but he hadn’t touched a drop in almost a hundred days. And you know, it used to be a struggle—that whole one-day-at-a-time thing—but now it felt good to be sober.

The accident wasn’t his fault. Really. He hadn’t done anything stupid or careless. He’d been happily chainsawing away, and as the tree started to wobble a squirrel was dislodged from the branches, landing on his hard hat and then scampering down his back. He hadn’t shrieked like a girl or anything, but anybody would yelp if a goddamn squirrel dropped on their head from thirty feet. Randall flinched, twisted around, and his chainsaw blade hit the back of his leg.

He couldn’t hear his buddies laughing over the chainsaw motor, but oh, they were in hysterics. Blood was gushing from his shredded flesh and they were having themselves a great big ol’ guffaw. Again, he would’ve laughed too…but still, fuck those guys.