Draculas: A Novel of Terror

Well, okay, it was one of about fifty names that he’d considered. Not a huge coincidence. But still…

He stood up again, promising himself that if he lived through this he’d spend the next five years on a beach not moving his leg at all.

A peek through the tiny window in the door didn’t offer a wide view of the hallway, but at least there were no draculas in the immediate vicinity. Had the others just moved on past, or were they still there and just out of his viewing range?

The lights went out.

Tina made a single, high-pitched scream.

And then came a sound on the other side of the door.

Squeak, squeak, squeak…

Shanna

THINK!

Shanna paced the perimeter of the chapel—the Catholic chapel. Blessed Crucifixion had two. One non-denom and, since the hospital was run by nuns, the other Catholic. Very Catholic. This one ran slightly longer than wide with about a dozen folding chairs set up in three rows. Crucifixes, stained glass windows—fake, illuminated with fluorescents behind them—and even the Stations of the Cross. The whole enchilada.

Shanna wasn’t Catholic, wasn’t much of anything as far as religion went, but for the first time in her life she was taking comfort in depictions of some poor man suffering horrific torture.

Maybe it was because of seeing Mortimer down in the lobby—or rather, what he’d become. She’d barely escaped with her life. But she couldn’t get the image of his face out of her mind.

He looked just like the “Dracula skull” that he’d jabbed into his throat.

And the Dracula part had driven her to seek the company of crucifixes.

Irrational? Absolutely. Comforting? Absolutely.

She slowed her speeding, panicked thoughts and forced her brain into analytical mode. Take it in order:

1) Mortimer had received the “Dracula skull.”

2) Mortimer had stabbed himself—deliberately, it seemed—with the skull’s fangs.

3) He had been brought to the hospital.

4) Shortly thereafter she’d seen a blood-soaked man in Mortimer’s pants and belt but with a head identical to the Dracula skull.

5) Ernie’s head had been removed from his body.

The only conclusion she could draw from what she knew was that Mortimer had changed into some sort of murderous creature and that the blood all over him was Ernie’s.

Huh?

Come on, Shanna. That’s horror-movie stuff.

Obviously it wasn’t the only possible scenario—she could be the mark in one of those hidden-camera spoof shows, but somehow she didn’t see Blessed Crucifixion going along with that.

No, as bizarre and way out and insane as it seemed, that was the only scenario that fit all the facts.

Something supernatural was going on, something to do with vampires, or something like vampires. Maybe the creature that had started all the vampire stories, the wellspring of the legends, had returned. She didn’t know what, or how, or why. And if a vampire was out there, she wanted to be in here, amid crosses and crucifixes and stations of the cross.

Did the police know?

Probably on their way. She’d heard shooting, lots of it, so hospital security must have gotten involved. Probably all over now.

The ER would know. She’d left Jenny there. Maybe she could find a phone and call down. There—one on the wall. She lifted the receiver and pressed the “O” button. After four rings a message came on, telling her that all lines were busy and to please hold. Okay, she’d—

“Shanna? Shanna Davies?”

She dropped the phone and spun. The voice came from the ceiling. She looked at the big crucifix at the far end of the room. Had Jesus just called her name?

“Shanna, if you’re in the hospital and can hear this, please call extension two-seven-nine-four.” It came from the speaker in the ceiling—the hospital paging system. “Shanna Davies call extension two-seven-nine-four.”

Clay’s voice! She never thought she’d ever be this glad to hear that voice. The police were here.

She cut the call to the switchboard and punched in 2794.

“Shanna?”

“Oh, Clay, where are you?”

“The ER. Where are you?”

“The chapel on the second floor. I’m coming down—”

“No-no-no-no! Stay right where you are. I’ll come to you. Stay put. Whatever you do, stay out of the hallways.”

Her gut clenched. Stay put?

“What are you saying? What’s going on?”

“All hell’s broken loose, babe. Monsters everywhere.”

Monsters…more than one?

“What do you—?”

“They’ve got two chapels, as I recall. Which are you in?”

“The Catholic.”

“The doors—do they have loop handles, the kind you could stick something through?”

She looked. One on each.

“Yes.”

“Find something—anything—to stick through them till I get there. Don’t let anyone in but me, and I do mean anyone. Got that?”

“You’re scaring me, Clay.”

“Good. Scared’s a good thing to be right now, considering what’s roaming the halls. You sit tight. I’m on my way.”

Shaken, she hung up.

…considering what’s roaming the halls…monsters everywhere…

That didn’t sound good, not good at all. But it dovetailed with the vampire thing…they created more of themselves. But didn’t you have to die and get buried and rise from the grave to become one? Didn’t it take—?

She heard the elevator open. Clay?

No. No way he could make it from the ER yet.

Don’t let anyone in but me, and I do mean anyone.

She was going to take that to heart—her own picked up its tempo as she looked around. Something to stick through the handles…

Her gaze settled on the crucifix. No, too big. Never get Jesus’s knees through those handles. But the slim cross in the side alcove ran about six feet along the upright.

Perfect.

She hurried over to it and yanked on it, expecting resistance. But it was hung on a nail like a plaque. It came loose and toppled toward her. She tried to hold it up but it over balanced her and she fell backward into the folding chairs with a terrible racket.

No way anyone—or anything—in the hall hadn’t heard that.

The cross had landed atop her. She pushed it off, jumped to her feet, and lugged it toward the doors. This wasn’t some plaster casting, this thing was solid wood, and not light. She’d chosen an academic field to avoid exercise. Now she wished—

She froze for a second. A sound outside…like a hiss? Panic lent her strength, lunging her forward to shove the long end of the upright through the loops of both handles.

“Did it!” she whispered.

Then something hissed and hit the other side of the doors.

Shanna couldn’t help it. She screamed.

And instantly wished she hadn’t because it seemed to incite the thing outside. It slammed its full weight against the doors, moving them inward an inch or so, but the cross held and kept them closed. This seemed to infuriate the thing. It threw itself against the barrier, and she could hear claws gouging the outer surface.

Mortimer…trying to get in?

She backed away from the ferocity of the attack as the thing repeatedly hurled itself against the doors.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Didn’t it feel pain? Didn’t it get tired?

And where was Clay?

As the assault continued she noticed a faint diagonal line begin to stretch across the cross’s upright between the door handles. A crack? Oh, no!

She stepped closer. Yes! The wood was breaking under the relentless onslaught. She pressed her own weight against the doors to take the stress off the cross but was knocked back as the thing outside rammed them with shocking force.

She had an awful thought. When Clay did arrive, what could he do? He’d be powerless against that raging thing outside. No, wait. What was she thinking? This was Clay she was worried about. He’d have a gun—Clay always had a gun. But would a gun work against these things?

Meanwhile, she had to fend for herself. She needed to slide the upright farther through the handles so the cracked part was no longer between them. She got a grip on the crosspiece just as the thing rammed the doors with a particularly vicious blow.

That did it. The upright split and the doors flew open, knocking her back. Shanna staggered but didn’t fall. She still had her grip on the cross. She held it up as she looked at the thing.

It wasn’t Mortimer—or rather what Mortimer had become. This one wore a bloody orderly’s uniform. A piece seemed to be missing from its neck. Its skin was cocoa colored but the fangs were the same as the “Dracula skull.”

The thing saw the cross and cringed.

It’s afraid of the cross! Yes!

“Back!” she cried, hoping to drive it out of the chapel.

It looked around and crouched as if the walls and ceiling were closing in on it.

“Out! You chose the wrong place to break into. This is God’s territory. Leave!”

The creature looked again at the cross, then straightened. It gazed at Shanna with its black, black eyes and shook its head. If it had any lips left, it might have smiled.

“No.” She backed away. It had been toying with her. “No, please!”

It leaped—literally flew through the air toward her. She angled the cross to fend it off. The upright had split diagonally along the grain, leaving a ragged point. The creature landed on it, driving Shanna back. This time she did lose her footing, but kept her grip on the crosspiece as she went down. The head of the upright caught on the carpet, and its other end plunged a good foot deep into the creature’s chest.

As the impaled thing hissed and thrashed, Shanna scrambled to her feet and backed away, waiting for it to die. Staked through the heart—that was how you killed vampires, right?

But it didn’t die. Shanna watched in horror as it lifted the cross and tried to pull it out.

“No!” She stepped forward and pushed against the crosspiece. “No way!”

It clawed at her, raking the air in front of her face with its talons, but couldn’t get closer. If it ever connected, her nose and lips would be ripped off.

Now it pushed against the cross, taking her by surprise. She couldn’t hold against its strength. The thing was backing her up. She flashed on what it was up to—trying to pin her against a wall, or better yet, into a corner. Couldn’t let that happen.

She angled them around, keeping open space behind her.

Not so open. The back of her legs hit a chair. She went down. The thing was above her, slashing with its talons.

Through her scream she thought she heard someone shout, “Hey!”

As the thing looked up, a number of things happened almost at once: A black steel tube punched through its fangs into its mouth with a sharp crack, followed almost immediately by a blast that slammed her eardrums; the back of the creature’s head dissolved in a red spray, taking a good deal of the forehead with it, leaving a pair of black eyes with an oddly surprised look.

Shanna held back a surge of bile and shoved against the cross, toppling the creature backward as Deputy Clayton Theel pulled her to her feet and wrapped her in his arms.

“Christ!” she heard him say through the whine in her ears. “If I’d been half a minute later…”

Shanna sobbed as she returned the embrace. She’d never been so glad to see anyone in her life.

“C-C-Clay! Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!”

“Not a problem.”

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t know what they are, Shanna, but they’re multiplying.”

“How many have you seen?”

“I’ve put down fourteen of them already.” He looked at the thing on the floor. “Make that fifteen.”

She pushed back and stared at him. He was carrying that strange-looking, rapid-fire shotgun he’d shown her a couple of weeks ago, and had a huge duffel bag slung from his shoulder.

“Fifteen?”

“Yep. Everything from ER patients to nurses to orderlies to operators.”

Shanna’s insides twisted. They were spreading like wildfire. It seemed impossible. All starting with…

“Was one of those patients you saw Mortimer Moorecook?”

Clay shrugged. “How could I tell? All their faces look the same.”

He had a point.

“He was wearing black slacks with a gold belt buckle.”

“No. Nobody like that. Why?”

“I think he started it all. I think he’s patient zero.”

“What are you talking about?”

She gave Clay a quick rundown of the “Dracula skull” and seeing Mortimer in the lobby.

“You know,” he said, staring at her when she finished, “if I hadn’t seen what I’ve seen in the past thirty minutes, I’d think you were on crack.”

“It’s somehow contagious,” she said, her mind racing. “But is it airborne like a flu, or does it need an open wound?”

“Everybody I put down was bloodied in one way or another.” He pointed to the dead thing on the floor. “Him too. Look at his neck.”

Shanna shot a quick glance, then away. The red-and-gray lumpy spray on the wall behind it made her want to gag.

“Then it’s like HIV.”

Clay looked disgusted. “You mean those things go around raping—?”

“No-no! Bites. Think vampires and werewolves.”

“Oh. Makes sense.”

“But it’s happening so fast.” An awful thought struck. “Do you know what a geometric progression is?”

His mouth twisted. “Would you believe…no?”

“It’s a way an infection can spread to astronomical numbers. Mortimer infects one, and so then there are two infected. If they each infect one more, we’ve got four infected. Then eight, then sixteen. By the fifteenth go-round they’ve infected almost fifty-thousand people. By the twentieth, we’re past the million mark.”

Clay paled. “We can’t let these things out of here.”

She shook her head. “Not even one of them.”

“But you’re getting out of here.”

“How?”

“I’m taking you down to my truck, giving you the key, and you’re driving the hell home.”

That sounded absolutely wonderful. But…

“What about you?”

“Gotta stay till reinforcements arrive. I’ll patrol the outside and contain the perimeter.”

“Just you?”

He shrugged. “Wish I had help, but I don’t see anyone else around to do it, so I guess that leaves me.”

Just like the heroes in those movies he loved to watch—and quote. Was that what he was doing—quoting? If so, she didn’t recognize it. No, this was just Clay, who he was.

“You could get hurt.”

“Yeah, but—”

A hiss from the doorway. They both turned at once to see one of the creatures charging. Almost upon them. Shanna screamed.

Clay fired his auto-shotgun from the hip. Two quick blasts to the chest knocked it back but not down. He raised it to his shoulder. His third shot blew away half its head and it crumbled.

“Gotta get you out of here.”

“I’m all for that.”

But somewhere inside a voice said, You’ll never make it.

“You’re gonna need some heat,” he said.

“Heat?”

“A weapon. A gun.”

“No, I—”

“Don’t argue, Shanna. It can be the difference between life and death.”

She wanted to tell him she hated guns, that they terrified her, but she could see he wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

He pulled something big and silvery from his belt.

“This here is Alice. A Taurus Raging—”

“Wait-wait-wait. You named it?”

“Well, sure. She’s special.”

Well, sure…like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“But it’s a woman’s name.”

“Of course.”

“No. Not ‘of course.’ Why a woman’s name?”

He got a sheepish look. “You don’t want to know.”

“Yeah, I do. Humor me.”

“Well, when my daddy was teaching me to shoot he always said never pull the trigger, always squeeze it like…”

“Like what?”

He sighed and looked away. “Like your girlfriend’s tit.”

“Your father said that?”

“Uh-huh.”

“How old were you?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Seven or eight.”

“Did you even have a girlfriend?”

“No, but I gathered he meant slow and easy.”

Note to self: Never meet Clay’s daddy.

“But anyway,” he went on, “Alice is a Taurus Raging Bull, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow a head clean off.”

That sounded familiar, almost like—

“You’re not quoting Dirty Harry, are you?”

He looked sheepish. “Well, not exactly. His was a forty-four Magnum.”

“This isn’t the time for Clint Eastwood fanboy stuff, Clay. Dirty Harry is a made-up character in a movie. This is real.”

He gave her a funny look. “I know that, Shanna. But it…helps, okay? Because I gotta tell you, Harry Callahan seems more real to me right now than what I’ve seen here today.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

He hefted the huge silver pistol. “Alice here fires a heavy-duty, four-fifty-four Casull, even more powerful than Harry’s forty-four Mag.” He held it toward her.

She raised her hands, palms out, shoulder high. “No, I can’t.”

“Just till we get to the truck, okay? Please, Shanna? Just to the truck.”

Well…

“Okay. Just to the truck.”

She took it and it immediately dragged down her arms.

“God, it’s heavy.”

“Make sure you hold her with both hands and get ready for a helluva kick. Wait till you can’t miss and aim for the head. The muzzle velocity of the round is so high it cuts through a skull like paper and the shockwave of the impact purees the brain.”

She couldn’t help making a face. “Lovely.”

“One hit from Alice is enough. Don’t waste them. I didn’t bring many Casulls.”

She raised the pistol with both hands to eye level. So heavy. She wished she’d been working out.

Suddenly a hissing face out of a nightmare, all bloody fangs and tongue and black eyes appeared at the other end of the barrel. Shanna screamed and pulled the trigger. The gun lurched toward the ceiling with such force it toppled her over backward. She almost lost her grip on it but managed to keep hold.

Still screaming she rolled and rose to her knees, ready to fire again, but the thing lay flat on its back in the hall. It had a hole where its nose once resided and a widening halo of red spreading out beneath its skull.

“Great shot!” Clay said, grinning like a proud father.

She stared at the dead creature. “I did that?”

“You sure did! You killed the hell out of that fella!”

That too sounded familiar. “Unforgiven?”

He shrugged. “Sorry.” He helped her to her feet. “You okay?”

“Not sure.”

She stared down at the dead creature. “That fella” wasn’t a fella. It wore a bloodstained maroon pantsuit. She stepped closer and saw the nametag: Marge McGuire.

Shanna felt sick. “That’s Marge from admitting! I had a long sit-down with her when Mortimer was admitted for that possible overdose. She had pictures of her kids on her desk. She…” A sob broke free. “What have I done?”

“It was her or you, Shanna.”

“I killed Marge!”

Clay knelt beside her and placed a hand on her shoulder. “That wasn’t Marge from admissions anymore. Marge was already gone. You killed something else, something that had taken her over.”

“But her kids—”

“Had already lost their mama. You just kept this thing from fouling her memory by killing you and who knows how many others, and turning them into things like her. You did Marge a favor.”

Clay seemed to understand and was making sense, neither of which she’d expected from him. But she couldn’t take her eyes off the thing Marge had become.

“No need to watch her,” Clay said. “She’s down for good.”

“I’m…I’m just wondering if she’ll change back, now that she’s dead.”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t hold my breath. Once you become a pickle, you can’t go back to being a cucumber.”

“I feel so bad for her.”

“Us or them, Shanna,” he said. “Who do you want to walk out of here?”

“Us, of course.”

“And who are the attackers here?”

“Them.”

“So we’re going to walk out of here, and along the way we’re going to leave them alone. But if they try to kill us, we need to do what we have to do to protect ourselves—and that means kill them first.”

Yeah…she could see that, but doing it was something else.

He pointed to the Taurus. “I’m sorry she knocked you down.”

She? Oh, the gun.

“It’s okay, Clay.”

“No, it’s not. Alice is too powerful for you.” He took it from her. “I’ll give you my Glock and—”

“And what’s its name? Janet? Sophia? Rhianna?”

He gave her a strange look. “No. It’s just a Glock.”

“But I thought—never mind. I don’t want it.”

“You’ve got to. We’ll—”

She backed away a step. “I said no, Clay, and that’s what I mean: No.”

A mixture of anger and dismay flashed across his features. “You’re making a big mistake.”

“No.”

He sighed. “All right, but—”

The lights went out.

Stacie

SHE stood in the corridor, the floor cold against her bare feet, staring at the blood and glass around the double doors leading into the maternity ward.

Screams—awful, tortured screams—had drawn her out of the room, and now she was staring at Adam who had a look on his face like a seven-year-old boy debating whether to jump off the high dive for the first time.

Nurse Herrick looked even worse, her skin a pale gray, and she’d wet her pants.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Adam came over, catching himself, reapplying the strong face, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Darling—”

“No.” She stepped back. “You tell me right now what’s happening. The truth. Every bit of it.”

He stopped in front of her. “Let’s just go back into the room, and you can focus on—”

“No! Stop treating me like a child!”

“All right. All right. These…things…they’re people, or they were, and they’re running through the hospital, killing everyone they see.”

“Why?”

“For blood, I think.”

Nurse Herrick walked over.

“Look,” she said, opening her hand. “One of the teeth broke off when it tried to come through the window.”

Stacie lifted it out of the nurse’s hand.

A two-inch fang.

Still slimy with blood and a pungent-smelling saliva.

“They have a mouthful of these,” Adam said. “And their hands are like a bird of prey’s.”

Stacie turned the fang over in her hand.

She was a biology teacher at the local high school, and she could feel that inquisitive, scientific current coursing through her, despite the horror.

“This is a fang,” she said. “And it’s hollow. See the opening at the end?” She tossed the tooth away. “We should wash our hands. The saliva is probably brimming with neurotoxins. I bet it’s how they transmit the disease.”

She could feel something inside her solidifying, this primal need to be someplace dark, quiet, and warm. It reminded her of her favorite calico she’d had as a little girl. Whenever she was carrying a litter of kittens, Samantha became a different animal altogether. More guarded. More apt to lash out. And when it came time to give birth to the kittens, she always retreated to a corner of the deepest closet in the house.

Three words kept rushing through her brain, on a loop like a stock ticker—This isn’t happening This isn’t happening This isn’t happening This isn’t happening This isn’t happening This isn’t happening

But it was.

And she couldn’t curl up into the fetal position and cry and wish things weren’t the way they were. She had something more important than herself to protect.

“I’m going back to my room now,” she said.

“We’re going to barricade the doors,” Adam said. “I’ll come be with you when we’re done.”

As Stacie started back toward her room, she felt the first rumblings of a new contraction coming on.

Adam

THEY pulled the dressers out of two private rooms and pushed them up against the double doors. Nurse Herrick grabbed several sheets of paper from the printer and stapled them over the square windows.

“There’s no other way in here?” Adam asked. “No stairwell? No—?”

“Just the windows, but we’re three stories up.”

“Do you keep any firearms in this wing?”

She shook her head.

“No weapons or—”

“Nothing. We deliver babies here, Pastor. We bring life into the world.”

“How are we supposed to defend ourselves?”

“I suppose we could check the operating room.”

Scalpels.

Retractors.

Scissors.

Forceps.

Clamps.

It was something, but not much.

“Where are the saws and the drills?” Adam asked, staring at the cold, steel operating table.

“First floor, orthopedics. That’s where all the fun is.”

Adam lifted a small scalpel, tried to imagine defending himself, his wife, his unborn child, from one of those monsters.

“How’ the single-mom-to-be doing?”

“Scared.”

He slipped the scalpel into the side pocket of his jeans.

“Shanna? Shanna Davies?” A twangy, male voice boomed over the hospital paging system. “Shanna, if you’re in the hospital and can hear this, please call extension two-seven-nine-four. Shanna Davies call extension two-seven-nine-four.”

A soft, female voice inside Room 12 said, “Come in.”

Adam smiled and opened the door, left it open as he walked over to the bed where a young woman—nineteen, maybe twenty—sat propped up against a mountain of pillows.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, stopping at the foot of the bed.

She didn’t have to answer. Her face said it all—terrified.

“Are we going to die?” she asked.

He didn’t know how to answer that, so instead he gestured to a chair.

She nodded.

He pulled it over to the side of the bed.

“My wife’s two doors down.”

The girl smiled. “What are you having?”

“We haven’t found out yet. We’re going to let it be a surprise.”

“I’m having a boy.”

“How wonderful. Do you have a name picked out?”

“Tristan. What about you?”

“We’re thinking Matthew if it’s a boy, Daniella if it’s a girl.”

“That’s pretty.”

“I’m Adam, by the way.” He offered his hand and she took it.

“Brittany.”

“You’re here alone?”

She nodded. “My baby’s father…he left six months ago. My parents didn’t want me to keep it, said if I did they wouldn’t be involved. I didn’t think they’d actually keep their word on that, but…” She gave a wry smile and he caught a whiff of the sass Brittany sported underneath the present fear. “…here I am, alone.”

“You aren’t alone.”

“Oh, because God’s with me?”

“I believe He’s with all of us.”

“Even those people who are getting slaughtered out there?”

“All of us. Brittany, would you like me to pray with you?”

“No thanks. How old are you?”

He laughed. “Why do you ask?”

“You’re the youngest-looking pastor I ever saw.”

“I’m thirty-two.”

“Do you like being a pastor?”

“Sometimes I love it. Sometimes…it sucks.”

Nurse Herrick appeared in the doorway. “Pastor, could you come with me?”

“What’s wrong?”

She smiled. “Nothing. Just that your wife is getting ready to have a baby.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

As he came to his feet, the lights went out.

Randall

TINA screamed when it happened, but the complete darkness lasted only a second. Then a backup generator or something turned on, and dim lights came on in the hallway, though not the office. Of course the hospital would have backup power, and of course it would be funneled to things like breathing machines and not to somebody’s number-crunching office.

Squeak…squeak…squeak…

Right outside the door.

The sound of squeaking was not typically something that chilled Randall’s bones, particularly in a situation that had involved lots of screaming and wet splattering sounds, but there was something oddly unnerving about this squeak.

Something menacing.

He looked through the tiny window in the door. A clown stood outside, staring in at him. Just staring. He had a fright wig, a big red nose, and, yes, a lower half of his face that was shredded and bloody and laden with fangs.

A clown dracula. Wonderful.

Randall hated clowns.

He was not, he had hastened to point out in the past, scared of clowns. Grease-painted weirdos with shiny red noses did not fill him with terror. He simply hated clowns. He’d never seen a funny one. Never seen one that was anything more than an annoying, obnoxious freak.

“Is somebody out there?” Tina asked, her voice trembling.

Randall shook his head. “Nah. Just a clown.”

Even in the mostly dark room, Randall could see Tina’s eyes widen. “A clown?”

“Yeah. Don’t worry about him. He’s like Ronald McDonald.” A Ronald McDonald who will devour your face like a Big Mac and large fries…

Tina put her hand over her mouth, as if trying not to throw up. Then she looked as if she were going to hyperventilate.

“I’m not gonna let the clown hurt you,” Randall promised. “No way. I didn’t let the other monster get you, so there’s no way in the world a stupid rotten clown is gonna do anything to you. Okay?”

The little girl didn’t seem convinced. She struggled for breath—deep, wheezing gasps that sounded a lot worse than just a kid getting spooked by a clown. Did she have asthma?

“Are you all right?” he asked. “Do you…do you need an inhaler?”

She nodded vigorously.

“Do you have one?”

She shook her head and pointed to the door. He assumed she meant that she left it in pediatrics. Son of a bitch. A sick kid in a hospital—who’d’ve thunk it?

“What can I do to help?” Randall asked.

He had no idea what you did for people having an asthma attack except giving them a honk off their inhaler. There weren’t a lot of asthmatic lumberjacks out there.

She couldn’t answer. Tina didn’t seem to be suffocating—at least some air was getting in—but this was definitely serious.

Randall glanced back at the door. That goddamn clown was still staring in at them. Why was he doing that? Why wasn’t he clawing at the wood and snarling like a wild animal? Weren’t these things supposed to be all feral and stuff?

Randall wasn’t scared of clowns, he swore he wasn’t, but this was becoming creepy.

“Fuck off!” he told the clown.

Shit. He shouldn’t have said “fuck” in front of the little girl.

The clown just stood there. Randall couldn’t tell for sure if he was grinning—all of the creatures kind of looked like they were grinning—but he had a sadistic glint in his eyes.

“Okay, Tina, I’m gonna get you to your inhaler,” Randall said. “I’m gonna take you on a piggyback ride, okay?”

“How do…” Tina gasped for breath, a long, pained gasp that tore at Randall’s heart. “…we get out?”

“Through the door. Past the clown.”

“No!”

“I can handle Bozo, don’t worry. I’ll pop his head like a water balloon. Hop on.”

“No!”

“Tina, there’s no other way out of here!”

Randall inwardly raged about the stupidity of the building designers to not have included another way out of the office, then immediately decided that architects did not typically have “homicidal monster infestation” on their list of situations that required safety precautions.

“He’ll eat us!”

“No, he won’t. He’s too lame and stupid to eat us.” Randall was one step away from shouting “Goddamn it, Tina, get on my back!” but kept himself in check. “Cross my heart, the clown isn’t gonna hurt you, I promise. But we have to get out of here before more of them come. How do we know there isn’t a clown car downstairs? There could be more of them on the way!”

Randall wasn’t sure if that was a necessary lie or sheer cruelty, but it got the job done. He crouched as Tina climbed up onto his back. She was nice and light and her weight didn’t make his leg hurt any more than the unbearable agony he was already feeling from it.

The clown was still staring at them.

Now Randall had a decision to make: chainsaw or no chainsaw? It didn’t have any gas, and was hardly the most effective bludgeoning weapon available to him, but leaving it behind would be like leaving behind his…well, maybe not his penis, but rather…well, he supposed it was just like leaving behind his beloved chainsaw. He couldn’t do it. If refusing to do battle with a clown without his chainsaw made him insane, fine, he was insane. Plenty of insane people had done great things for the world.

“Are you ready?” Randall asked.

Tina gasped for breath in reply.

Randall unlocked and opened the door with his free hand. The clown stood motionless for a split second, then sprung to life like an electrified Frankenstein and lunged at him, mouth wide open.

Randall thrust the chainsaw blade at him, as hard as he could. The blade went straight into the clown’s mouth, making a cringe-inducing fingernails-on-chalkboard screech as the metal blades scraped against his teeth. The blade did not burst out through the back of the clown’s neck, which would’ve been helpful, but Randall settled for leaving it there for a moment, deep-throating the white-faced son of a bitch.

The clown did not gag as it reached for him, arms wildly flapping.

Randall yanked out the chainsaw blade. A few of the clown’s teeth came with it. The clown’s suit was completely soaked with blood, and dangling from the waist of his pants was a short rope of twisted intestine that Randall didn’t think originally belonged to him. A blood-streaked button identified him as Benny the Clown.

Randall slammed the chainsaw blade back into Benny the Clown’s mouth, taking out most of his lower row of fangs.

Benny the Clown was notably less sedate than he’d been while peeking through the window. His claws scraped against Randall’s arm, hurting like hell but not cutting very deep.

Randall gave the chainsaw a violent twist, and that took care of most of Benny the Clown’s remaining teeth. He turned the blade in a complete circle. Twice.

Tina was, quite understandably, shrieking. Randall wished she wouldn’t do that, because it could attract more of the creatures, but he wasn’t sure he could convince a five-year-old girl to stop screaming while he was in the process of mutilating a monster clown.

Randall yanked the chainsaw out again. A spurt of blood soaked Benny the Clown’s already-blood-soaked oversized squeaky shoes. Using his good foot, Randall kicked the clown in the nuts.

Benny the Clown clutched at his groin and fell to the floor.

Now that was a clown pratfall Randall could enjoy.

Three separate bottles of pills had fallen out of Benny the Clown’s pockets as he struck the tile. Fuckin’ clown was probably thoroughly drugged up. Maybe that was why he wasn’t in total “wild animal” mode like the others.

Benny the Clown was far from dead, but he was disabled enough to suit Randall’s purposes. The extra ten seconds he spent beating the fucker to death might be ten seconds he needed for running away, especially if…

A pair of draculas came around the corner.

Shit!

Randall didn’t want to lock himself in the office again—he needed to make some progress. But this was going to take him farther away from Jenny and pediatrics.

Nothing he could do about that. It was a hospital, so there had to be more than one place he could find an inhaler.

With Tina still on his back, he limped down the hallway as quickly as he could.

Then his blood-soaked chainsaw popped out of his hands and dropped onto the floor.

Damn! Shit! Piss! Crap! Ass! Fuck!

He couldn’t stop to pick up his chainsaw without gas with a little girl on his back and two draculas on his tail. It wasn’t worth dying for.

Fuck! Fucker fuck frick fuck! Fuckleberry!

His leg twisted just a bit, because, apparently, it hadn’t hurt quite enough before.

Ignore the pain…ignore the pain…imagine that your leg is a mighty redwood, standing straight and tall…

Goddamn my leg hurts…

He pushed through a swinging door. A sign overhead read Rehabilitation Therapy. Ah, yes. He’d get to know this place well…in another hospital, of course.

He heard the draculas rush right past the door. Then a scream. They must’ve found a more helpless victim.

Squeak…squeak…squeak…

Not the squeak of Benny the Clown’s shoes. A different squeak.

Though Randall didn’t have time for stopping and gaping, he couldn’t help but stop and gape as the dracula in a wheelchair rolled across the room toward him.

Moorecook

BEING wealthy, Mortimer Moorecook had thought he’d understood power.

But he hadn’t truly known it until now.

He was fast, with the speed and reflexes of a jungle leopard. Pouncing and tearing. Drinking and devouring. Going from hospital room to hospital room, attacking patients, staff, visitors.

He could see in the dark. The talons on his feet and hands were so strong he could climb walls, even hang upside-down from the ceiling. He bolted into a woman’s room, her screams like hot fudge on a sundae, her supple, weak flesh unable to push him away as he sank his fangs into her warm, wet neck.

Seeing her fear, feeling her revulsion, was a rush better even than the sex he’d so desperately missed. But even more wonderful than that was all the precious blood blood BLOOD BLOOD BLOODBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD…

STOP!

He released the girl he’d been slurping, even though she still had some blood left. She’d been dead for a few minutes, but if he drank all of her blood, she wouldn’t turn.

Moorecook wanted them to turn. He wanted as many of his kind as possible.

When not overwhelmed by bloodlust, he was capable of higher brain functioning. He knew he was different from the others he had created. Smarter. Better. Still evolving, in a different kind of way.

The others sensed the difference. They attacked one another, but gave him a wide berth. He’d even been able to screech at them, get them to follow some rudimentary orders. Direct them where to go.

He found three of them on the third floor, fighting over a pathetic pool of blood on the tile floor. Mortimer hissed, clacking his teeth together, commanding them to follow. They avoided the gunfire, going down an empty stairwell, slinking outside into the parking lot.

There were many cars. Cars meant chances for humans to escape.

Moorecook couldn’t allow that. He showed them how to attack the tires. Directing them to each car, biting and tearing through the rubber treads with the sound of thunderclaps as they popped.

As they were finishing up, Mortimer heard the distant bray of police sirens, closing in. He directed his brood to hide near the entrance. Two went into the bushes flanking the ER doors. One crouched behind the BLESSED CRUCIFIXION HOSPITAL sign. Moorecook easily scaled the wall and pressed into a corner like a gecko, letting the darkness hide him.

Three police cars pulled up, two men in each. They exited their vehicles with practiced skill. Alert. Armed. Cautious.

They didn’t even get a single shot off.

His brood attacked from all sides, slashing their talons, snapping their jaws. Moorecook hung down, his feet gripping a security camera, snatching a cop trying to run into the building. He pulled him up to his perch and bit into his face, tasting his blood and his bubbling screams. Moorecook chewed into his skull until his prickly tongue pierced down through bone and cartilage and sinew all the way to the carotid artery.

He drank until the man was empty—he was too damaged to turn—then leapt down on his brood, hissing and chasing them off, ensuring that three of the cops would join his brethren.

More. They needed more.

The bigger their numbers, the harder they would be to stop.

Mortimer stared up at the moon, painfully bright in the dark sky. He listened to the squawk of a police band radio, then leapt into an open car and ripped the radio from the dashboard. As he did, three of his talons broke off, revealing nubby white bone beneath the skin.

How curious.

There was no pain. In fact, something deep and primeval in him had expected this to happen.

Moorecook was the first. He’d been infected by the original source. That made him special.

He knew he was going to change into something else.

Something even more powerful than what he already was.

Something that would allow him to infect the whole world.

Oasis

HUNGRY again.

So hungry.

Oasis moved through a corridor. The hospital lights had gone out and come back on, though much dimmer. Just these soft blue lights above the doorways, which left lots of shadows.

She didn’t like shadows. The dark scared her even though she could still see so much better than before.

She came around a corner and stopped.

A big sign on the wall read, THE BIRTHPLACE.

Oasis moved carefully down the corridor.

She’d learned her lesson. You couldn’t just go running into things when you were a little girl. Adults were strong and mean, and none of them wanted to share their red candy.

She passed a woman lying on the floor, but the others had gotten to her and been thorough.

Finally came to a set of double doors. She hooked a talon through the handles and pulled.

They didn’t budge.

She looked up at the window in one of the doors—the glass had been broken out, and someone had stapled a piece of paper across the opening from the other side.

She reached up, punched a talon through the paper, thinking there must be something really good on the other side of these doors if someone had gone to the trouble to lock them.

She crouched and jumped.

Got her arms halfway through the window frame.

She struggled to pull herself the rest of the way inside.

It was a tight fit, really tight, but she had a good feeling now that she was going to make it through.

Clay

SO stubborn! he thought as he led Shanna down the stairs.

Didn’t she realize that two people had a much better chance of survival when both were armed? But no. She was too scared to pack even a little heat.

He didn’t understand fear of guns. Guns eased fear. They were equalizers.

“Are you mad at me?” she said, close behind him.

Lucky for them, all the stairwells had battery-powered emergency lights. Still, he didn’t want any shooting in here, especially with a shotgun. A miss would send buckshot ricocheting every which way.

“No, honey. I understand.”

And he did, sort of. First time she ever pulled a trigger she killed someone she’d known. Even though that person had no longer been the person she’d known, it still had to give one pause.

“I wish I were like you.”

“Now that’s a surprise.”

“I mean with guns. You seem so at ease with them.”

“Shanna, I’ve been preparing all my life for this moment.”

“What do you mean?”

“My daddy. He was what people called a survivalist.”

“You mean with the bomb shelter and the freeze-dried food and…?”

“The guns? Yep. The whole nine yards. He bought the whole package. And he made all of us buy into it too.” He remembered the emergency drills, the nights spent underground in the shelter, the constant target practice. “At least until we were old enough to go out on our own.”

“What was he afraid of? Aliens? Minority uprisings? Islamic fanatics? Economic holocaust?”

“None of the above. Daddy was old school. For him it was commies.”

“Commies? But—”

“I know, I know. But he believed they tore down the Berlin Wall to fool us. They never let go of their quest for world domination. Especially the Chinese commies—they were the ones who scared the crap out of my daddy. Because there’s so many of them. He kept saying, ‘They’re coming, Clay. A human tsunami. They’ll overrun us because we won’t be able to shoot fast enough.’ Can’t tell you how many times I heard that.”

Shanna gave a soft laugh. “He wasn’t so off about the Chinese, just about how they’d take over.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re practically buying the country.”

“Yeah, well. Daddy prepared us for invasion. We grew up to think he was crazy, but he wasn’t. It’s happening right now. Except it ain’t commies, it’s these monsters.”

They reached the ground-floor landing and peeked through the slit window in the steel fire door. Empty—at least as far as he could see. But instead of opening the door, Clay turned to Shanna. He dug in his pocket, pulled his truck keys from where they snuggled up against the ring box, and handed them to her.

“All right. Here’s the plan: We’re gonna cut our way through the ER to the parking lot. When we reach my Suburban, you’re gonna jump in and hightail it out of here. I’m gonna stay.”

“But—”

“That’s it. No discussion. I’ve got to hang around until the staties arrive, and that shouldn’t be long. When they get here, we’ll team up and clean up this mess. But a couple of things first. You called Moorecook ‘patient zero,’ said he started all this. From what you said, it sounds like he cut himself on purpose to get this going. Any idea why?”

Shanna shrugged. “He was terminal with cancer. Maybe he was trying to prolong his life.”

“By turning into a monster?”

“You’re assuming he knew what would happen. I can’t believe he’d want to become the thing I saw in the lobby.”

“Can you tell me anything else? I’m going to have to fill in the staties on what I know, and the more I know, the better. Even if you don’t think it’s important, tell me.”

Shanna pursed her lips, and her nose crinkled in that cute way that indicated she was trying to make a decision.

“It’s kind of complicated, Clay.”

“I can handle complicated.”

“Okay. You ever heard of a secret society called the Order of the Dragon?”

“That’d be a no.”

“It was formed in the early Fifteenth Century, ostensibly to fight the Turks and Ottoman Empire.”

He winked. “You mean the people responsible for the furniture you rest your feet—”

“Hang with me, Clay. Members of the order were called Draconists. Around this same time, the black death was raging throughout Eurasia. Today, historians and scholars believe it was the bubonic and pneumonic plague that caused the black death, but there has been no absolute evidence to support this hypothesis, only educated guesses. My contention, based on all the research I’ve done for Mort, is that the black death caused dracula-like symptoms in some of its hosts, especially in people with certain genetic precursors. Certain royal bloodlines.”

“You lost me, girl.”

“I’m saying the black death, in some cases, caused a mutation, resulting in vampirism.”

“Mutation. Got it. Like in Blade II with Wesley Snipes. Remember the scene with Ron Perlman when he—”

“Do you want to talk about movies, or about what I think is going on?”

Clay would have preferred movies, but he needed to hear what she had to say. “Okay, tell me what’s going on.”

“The son of Oswald von Wolkenstein, a member of the Order of the Dragon, was afflicted with horrific dental deformities. While the Draconists were killing vampires, Oswald hid his son, kept him chained up in a cellar. But the son escaped, went on a killing spree, ending up in Transylvania and causing a dracula epidemic. Ever heard of Vlad the Third of Wallachia?”

Clay knew that from the Coppola flick. “That guy who went around impaling folks?”

“Exactly. Legend has it that Vlad, because of his brutality, was the original Dracula, but my contention—”

“Just love how you contend everything. It’s cute.”

“Clay!”

“Sorry.”

“So my um, my…”

“Go on, you know you want to say it.”

“I hate you…contention is that he didn’t impale thirty thousand of his innocent subjects and countrymen. He impaled thirty thousand of these monsters in an epidemic started by Oswald’s son! Vlad saved his country! And what better way to stop these monsters than to impale them on twenty-foot stakes, immobilized so they starved to death?”

An explosive round to the brain pan was a lot better, but they didn’t have that hundreds of years ago.

“What about Oswald’s son?”

“Vlad caught him finally, beheaded him, and buried his head in a field in the Romanian countryside.”

Clay smirked, finally getting it.

“You going to tell me that Oswald’s son’s skull is the same skull your buddy Mort paid several million for so he could bite himself? Didn’t he need those genetic precursor thingies?”

Shanna’s eyes got wide. “Shit! How’d I miss that? Mortimer’s robes! They all have an Ouroboros insignia on them! A dragon eating its own tail! That’s the symbol of the Draconists!”

“So old Mort is a Wolkenstein.”

“He’s got the bloodline, and the genetic precursor. Do you know what that means?”

“That we need to kill the son of a bitch.”

“It means Mortimer’s not only predisposed to getting this disease, but perhaps he also carries the antibodies within him.”

“Huh?”

“He carries the virus that makes the vaccine.”

“You mean like a shot?”

“Yes, Clay. Like a shot.”

Jenny

THE children had begun to scream when the lights went out.

Their screams lured the draculas to the storage room door. They thumped and scratched and pounded on it, jerking and rattling the knob, pressing up against the square window in the door and blocking out the faint emergency lights from the playroom, which plunged the closet into complete darkness.

Working from memory, Jenny flailed out her hands until she found the shelf on the wall, then followed it until she came to the children’s art supplies: boxes of crayons, construction paper, bottles of finger paint, balloons…

Dammit, where are they?

Her probing fingers found their way into a cardboard box, locking onto a cylindrical, pen-shaped object. She shook it vigorously and bent it in half with a faint CRACK. Immediately, it gave off a faint, green light. Glow sticks. Essential for any underage patient afraid of the dark.

Apparently encouraged by the light, the monsters outside the door became even more frantic in their zeal to get in. The glass window shattered, and a taloned arm forced itself through, slashing at the air inches from Jenny’s face.

Jenny lurched away, tripping over someone’s legs, falling onto her ass. The children continued to scream. The dracula thrashed and swiped its claws. It even managed to push its head through, scraping its face against the jagged, broken glass, its neck kinked at an odd angle.

Jenny tore herself away from the horror, reaching for the box of glow sticks. To quiet the screaming of the children, she began bending, shaking, and passing them out as fast as she could. There were different colors, red and purple and yellow and orange, all giving off a diffuse, pastel light that reminded Jenny of another of Randall’s favorite VHS tapes—the movie Tron.

But rather than pacify the kids, the increased illumination allowed everyone to focus on the spastic dracula stuck in the window.

“Shh. Quiet. Everyone quiet down. It’s okay. The worst is over.”

She was wrong. The creature went from hissing to screeching, its head and arm flopping around as if in the throes of a grand mal seizure. Its eyes rolled up, showing the whites. Froth, then blood, sprayed from the torn vestiges of its lips. It began to shake its head, faster and faster, beating it against the sides of the windows, shredding off its own ears in the process.

Then the monster’s eyes bulged, protruding like hardboiled eggs. With an audible POP, they escaped their sockets, dangling by their optic nerves.

No…not the nerves. The eyeballs were pierced on the ends of two talons.

Another dracula had dug into the back of this one’s skull.

A millisecond later the dead creature was yanked free of the door. Jenny and the children listened to the frenzied feeding. Growls. Snapping jaws. Gurgling blood. Wet smacking.

It was like listening to a BBQ in hell.

Jenny sat back in the corner of the room, four children desperately clinging to her. Their hysterical screaming eventually subsided to steady sobs. Jenny kept her arms around them, patting arms, tousling hair, trying to figure out what to do next while nervously waiting for something else horrible to happen.

But nothing did. Eventually the feasting sounds died down, then vanished all together.

Jenny began to count her heartbeats. At any moment, she expected another dracula to try and force itself in through the window.

By the time she reached two hundred, all sounds had ceased.

There was only silence.

Dreadful, expectant silence.

“Are they gone?” one of the kids asked.

“I don’t know,” Jenny answered. “Is anyone hurt? Did anyone get bit?”

“I wet my pants.”

“It’s all right,” Jenny told the little boy. “We can take care of that later. You’ve all been very brave so far. I need you to keep being brave.”

Jenny tried to stand, but eight little hands clung to her.

“I have to check to see if they’re still there.”

“No! Don’t go!”

“It’s okay. I promise I’ll be fine. I need to get to the intercom and call my husband.”

“Is he the big man with the chainsaw?”

“Yes.”

“Is he going to save us?”

Jenny pictured Randall.

Big, clumsy, stupid Randall.

Loyal, loving, brave Randall.

“Yes,” she said, surprising herself with the certainty of her conviction. “He is.”

Lanz

KURT Lanz, MD, inhaled through the scorched, gaping hole in his face where his nose used to be. Part of him—the rational, thinking part—knew that when he’d yanked off his burned nose to eat, he’d managed to deviate his septum. But that didn’t matter now.

All that mattered was blood.

After killing the lights, he’d scampered to the geriatric ward, giddy with the thought of defenseless old people. But it had been picked clean.

Next, he’d gone to the Birthplace, but found the entrance locked. He couldn’t fit through the small window hole in the door, which infuriated him, because he could smell humans in there.

Oncology was next and yielded similar results. The beds were empty, the ward in disarray. Lanz tried to squeeze a few drops of blood from a severed leg he’d found on the floor, but it had been sucked dry. He made do chewing on a blood-soaked bed sheet, swallowing the torn strips.

The many others roaming the halls had sensed their blood supply gone and begun to turn on each other. Lanz even joined in, pouncing on a smaller creature—a teenager—that was being eviscerated by a group of larger adults. Lanz got away with a kidney and half the liver.

Neither soothed the growing ache in his belly.

He craved blood.

He wanted it more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life.

Half-insane with bloodlust, he remembered that bitch up in pediatrics. Jenny. Assuming she’d been resourceful enough to fight off the horde, perhaps she was still alive. Maybe she’d even managed to protect some of the children.

The innocent, defenseless, delicious little children.

Only one way to find out…

Lanz slunk into the stairwell, taking the steps three at a time, his mouth salivating at the thought of the nurse’s sweet, warm blood.

Stacie

AT first, she thought she’d lost consciousness, but the pain was still there, like her back was ripping itself apart, and then the lights returned, only in a much diminished state—nothing but a cold, blue glow emitting from the battery-backup above the door to her room.

Two figures emerged out of the shadowy corridor—Adam and Nurse Herrick hurrying back.

“What happened to the lights?” Stacie asked through gritted teeth.

“I don’t know,” the nurse said.

“Epidural,” Stacie moaned. “I didn’t want it, wasn’t part of the plan, but now—”

“I’m sorry, sweetie.” Nurse Herrick patted her hand.

“What do you mean ‘sorry’? I can’t keep…” Her voice trailed into another groan as Adam came around and put his hand on her shoulder. “Don’t touch me,” she seethed through the pain.

“Baby, this too shall—”

“Oh my God, if you quote another fucking bible verse, I’m gonna rip your eyes out of your head. Nurse, get me the epidural.”

“I’m not qualified to administer it.”

Desperate now, she pleaded, “How hard can it be?”

“It’s a spinal block. I could accidentally paralyze you for life. You could get an infection and die. It takes a high level of skill that I don’t have.”

Stacie glared at Adam, felt a rush of anger flooding through her.

“You can do this,” he said. “I know you can. You’re so beautiful.”

She shook her head. “You did this to me. You did, and I will never forgive you as long as I—”

“Stacie—”

“Stop. Talking.”

The nurse perused one of the cabinets, finally emerging with a flashlight. She came around to the foot of the bed and lifted Stacie’s gown.

“I need to push,” Stacie begged. She’d never wanted anything so badly.

“Not yet.”

“Why?” She could feel the nurse’s hands probing under her gown.

“You’re almost fully dilated,” Herrick said. “I can’t believe how fast you’re progressing. Wait until the next contraction, and when it comes, you grab your husband’s hand and push like you’ve never pushed before. But not on this one.”

She thought about crushing the bones in Adam’s fingers and this made her briefly happy.

“Don’t push,” Herrick warned.

“I’m not! Adam?”

He was suddenly right there.

“What, baby?”

“I’m never doing this again.”

“I know.”

And suddenly she could breathe again, her chest heaving, sweat running down into her eyes. A break between the bouts of torture.

She could hear more gunshots blasting in the hospital.

“Are the doors out there holding?” she asked.

“Don’t think about it,” Adam said.

“Please check.”

Her husband hustled out of the room as Nurse Herrick fed her another ice chip. “This is the threshold, Stacie,” she said. “I’ve seen a lot of women at this point, where you think you can’t go on, and you know what?”

“What?”

“Babies get born, every day.”

“So what do I do?”

“You breathe through it. Just breathe. The baby’s coming no matter what you do.”

Adam returned. “The barricade’s still in place.”

And then it came, a contraction a step above all others, a new revelation of pain, and Stacie felt the ring of fire her girlfriends had joked about—nothing in the history of language had been so aptly named—and the voices in her ear all swirling, yelling, Push! The head’s coming! You’re almost there! Just a little longer!

Three minutes of the most intense pain of her life, and all she could think was, There better be a motherfucking baby at the end of this contraction, and when it finally, mercifully passed, it was like coming up for air after three minutes underwater.

She didn’t hear any crying, just her husband’s voice in her ear, distant and echoey, telling her how great she was doing.

Nurse Herrick was right at her ear.

“The head is halfway out. Baby’s in a good position. You push it out next contraction.”

Next?

She was nodding, and before she could wrap her head around the concept of “next” she was pushing again, her throat raw from screaming, screaming for what seemed like hours through unending pain, and then her head fell back into the pillow. She was done. She had nothing left. She quit, because the contraction was over and still this thing was inside of—

A small, precious cry brought her head instantly up off the pillow.

Nurse Herrick stood at the foot of the bed, holding a tiny creature, suctioning its mouth and nose, and then a baby-cry erupted and this living, squirming creature was on Stacie’s chest, blue and covered in vernix, all the anger, fear, and pain replaced by a shot of the most all-encompassing joy she’d ever known, and Stacie was sobbing, and Adam right there with her—strong, beautiful, loving, perfect Adam—and he was crying and patting their baby’s back.

“You’re amazing, baby,” he said, laughing. “Both of you.”

She could feel the umbilical cord pulsing against her stomach.

“I’ll leave you two for a minute,” Herrick said, and as she slipped outside, Stacie looked at Adam, touched his blue-lit face.

“Should we check?” she said.

“Check what?”

“If this is Matthew or Daniella.”

Adam laughed. “I hadn’t even thought of it.”

“Introduce us,” Stacie said.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

Stacie turned her head away as Adam lifted their cooing baby and then eased it back onto her chest. He had tears in his eyes when she looked back.

“Stacie,” he said, and she looked down into the little face, eyes struggling to open, staring cross-eyed right into hers. “I’d like to introduce you to your daughter, Daniella.”

“Hey, baby girl,” Stacie said, touching the back of her finger to Daniella’s little cheek. “Meet your mom and dad. We’re going to…”

“Stace? You all right?”

She was. She was great. The pain was gone, just a little dizziness. Well, maybe a lot of dizziness, and it was coming on stronger with every passing second.

“Yeah, I just…little light-headed.”

Adam moved around to the end of the bed, said, “Oh, God,” and Stacie watched him rush out of the room, heard him calling Nurse Herrick, something in the tone of his voice that unnerved her. She couldn’t take her gaze off Daniela, but she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open now, and the last thing she noticed before she descended into unconsciousness were the bloody footprints—Adam’s—leading out into the corridor, dark as crude oil in the lowlight.

Adam

HE found Herrick at the nurse’s station, making entries in a chart by flashlight.

“She’s bleeding,” he said. “A lot.”

Herrick dropped her pen and came around the desk into the corridor, practically ran down the hall.

“Is this normal?” Adam said.

They passed through the open door into Stacie’s room and Herrick stopped, staring at the bloody sheets, the dark drops falling into a puddle on the floor.

“Stacie!” she yelled, and Adam followed her to his wife’s bedside. “Stacie. Can you hear me?”

Stacie still held the baby in her arms, but her eyes were closed, and even in the lowlight, Adam thought she looked pale.

Herrick lifted Stacie’s wrist, checked her radial pulse.

She turned on her flashlight and lifted Stacie’s hospital gown.

“Is she gonna be okay?”

“Shhh.”

A beat of terrible silence, and then Herrick turned and faced him.

“She’s postpartum hemorrhaging.”

“What does that mean?”

“She passed the placenta immediately following birth. What I’m guessing is there’s still a piece of it in there.”

“Why is that bad?”

“Because it’s stopping her uterus from contracting.”

“How much blood has she lost?”

“I don’t know for sure, but at least half a liter, which is past the point of being okay.”

“Oh God.”

“Listen to me.”

“Can you fix her?”

“Yes, but I need your help.”

“Anything.”

“I think I can stop the bleeding, but she’s lost so much already, she’s gonna need a transfusion.”

“Okay.”

“You have to go down to the blood bank.”

Adam felt a tremor of fear ride down his legs.

“Where’s the blood bank?”

“The basement.”

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck, are you fucking kidding me?”

Herrick actually took a step back from the minister, her eyes going wide.

“Sorry about that,” he said.

“It’s quite all right, pastor, we’re all under a great deal of stress. You’ll need this.” Herrick lifted his overnight backpack off a rocking chair. Adam overcame the tremor in his hands, finally managing to unzip it and dump the contents—a change of clothes and some toiletries.

“How do I get there?”

Herrick walked out of the room into the corridor, pulling him along.

“Through those doors, then you go to the end of the hallway and take a right. Go to the end of that hallway and take a left. On your next right, four doors down, you’ll see a door leading to the stairwell. Go all the way down, and when you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor. You’ll see the sign for the lab. Refrigerators are in back. Grab at least five units of O-positive.”

His head was swimming.

“O-positive. Okay.”

“Help me with this.”

They slid the furniture back from the door, and then Adam stared through the window. The paper that Herrick had stapled over the opening had blown away.

“Coast clear?” she asked.

“For now.”

He heard the locks sliding up, his heart beginning to pound at the thought of going out there.

“Adam?”

He looked at Herrick.

“I know you don’t want to go out there, but your wife will die if she doesn’t start receiving new blood in less than thirty minutes.”

Adam’s daughter began to cry at the other end of the wing.

He wondered if he’d seen the last he would ever see of her.

“I’ll take care of your girls, Adam,” Herrick said. “Now get going.”

Jenny

“I’M just going to see if the playroom is empty,” Jenny told the clinging, whimpering kids. “I’ll be right back.”

Amid cries of protest, the nurse extracted herself from the tangle of children and stood up, holding the glowing green light stick in front of her like a talisman. She crept to the closet door, making sure her footing was solid. Jenny prayed Randall was on his way back for them. The desire to hear his voice again was overwhelming. For his many faults—the gullibility, the temper, the drinking, the inability to think ahead—the old Randall had been a rock. He’d also been one of the most reassuring, nurturing people she’d ever known, and all of her friends were nurses, so that was really saying something.

If the old Randall was back—and she sensed he was—he’d find a way to reach her, even if he had to walk barefoot through hell.

The intercom was near the front door, which was still barricaded shut. Jenny wanted to tell him to find an intercom, to let her know he was okay, to come for her and the kids, and…

And?

To tell him I love him.

Funny how that worked. During the dark days of their marriage, she had felt less his wife, and more his mother—always scolding him, trying to make him straighten up and fly right. But now that the shit had hit the fan, he was the one person in the world Jenny needed. She closed her eyes, for just a moment, imagining his embrace—like being hugged by a big, friendly bear.

Jenny hoped she’d be able to feel that embrace at least one more time.

He’s alive. He’s got to be alive. Randall has survived countless accidents and mishaps. Countless drunken bar fights. He’s indestructible.

She opened her eyes, focused on the door. Holding her breath, she stopped just an arm’s length away from the square window, listening for sounds.

The silence was so loud it made her wince.

Jenny let out a slow sigh, then took a cautious step forward and—

“STOP! A monster is going to pop out and grab you! I know it!”

Jenny’s bladder clenched at the child’s outburst. The courage she’d stored up seeped right out of her.

“It’s okay,” she said.

But it really wasn’t okay, was it? Monsters—real monsters—were running around the hospital, killing people. Her husband was gone. Jenny had no weapons. And now she was about to peer through a broken window when there was a pretty good chance something would pop out and grab her.

Maybe staying put was a smart idea.

She was about to give in to cowardice when she remembered something her husband had said to her on their honeymoon. They’d spent the week at the ridiculous sounding “Camp Kookyfoot Waterpark” because Randall was nuts about waterslides. Jenny had initially resented him for it—it had been his “surprise” wedding gift to her—but it ultimately didn’t matter because they spent most of the trip in bed. During one of their rare ventures out of the bedroom to eat at the suitably hokey “Kookypants Famous Bar and Grill,” Randall had cut his sirloin into pieces too big to swallow and wound up getting one stuck in his throat. Jenny had calmly gotten behind him and applied the Heimlich, saving his life.

“Thanks, babe,” he’d told her once he could breathe again. “It’s nice to have someone I can count on. You know you can count on me too. Always and forever.”

Well, “always and forever” had taken a detour, but Jenny sensed it had come full circle and was true again. And if so, she knew she could count on Randall coming back. Knew it like she knew the sun would rise tomorrow and water was wet.

Now Randall was in the hospital somewhere, surrounded by monsters, possibly hurt, maybe even dying, and she wanted, needed him to know she felt the same way.

Eyeing the window, Jenny took another tentative step toward it, squinting into the playroom, looking for signs of movement, listening for any—

“STOP!”

“Kids!” Jenny admonished, turning around. “You’re going to give me a heart attack! Shush!”

Shaking off the adrenalin, she moved even closer to the door. Her imagination took over. Jenny could picture a monster crouching behind it, waiting to grab her once she got close enough.

Funny how just two hours ago she never could have thought such things existed. Now she was worried about one popping out and biting her head off.

Creeping ever closer to the door, too scared to even breathe, all Jenny could hear was the thrumming sound of her own pulse. The door loomed nearer.

Two feet away.

Eighteen inches.

Twelve inches.

Six inches.

Finally, Jenny could peek through the broken window into the playroom. She saw…

A massacre.

Severed limbs strewn everywhere. Entrails festooned on the chairs and tables. Half-chewed organs speckled the floor and unidentifiable lumps of fatty tissue and brain matter splattered across the walls. Some of the pieces were human—the people Jenny had left behind when she fled into the storage closet. But the majority belonged to the creatures. They had slaughtered each other.

For all the gore, there was surprisingly little blood. Jenny could smell raw meat, and the sickly-sour butcher shop odor of liver and sweetbreads, coupled with a deep, smoked pork scent courtesy of her dairy creamer weapon.

“Are they gone?” one of the children whispered.

Repulsive as it was, the playroom seemed to be empty.

“Yes,” Jenny said. Her hand found the doorknob, sticky with fluid that had been squeezed from the slaughtered dracula stuck in the window.

“Don’t go!”

“It’s okay,” Jenny said. “I’m just going to use the intercom. I’ll be right back.”

Touching the knob gingerly with just her fingertips, she swung open the door and immediately wiped her hand off on an unstained part of her uniform. The intercom was on the wall, right next to the barricaded door. Jenny moved carefully out of the closet, undecided on whether or not to leave the door open. On the one hand, she didn’t want to put the children in danger. But the door locked automatically, and if she needed to get in there quickly, she didn’t want to have to wait for one of the kids to let her in.

She opted for a compromise—closing it most of the way, but leaving it open a crack.

Then she focused her attention on the twenty-foot space between her and the intercom.

Slow and steady? Or run like hell?

Jenny ran, watching her footing but still feeling fleshy bits squish under the soles of her shoes. She reached the intercom in the space of a few seconds, then had a bad thought.

The power is out. What if it doesn’t work?

Jenny hoped it would be powered by the generator. Like life-support and operating room lights, the intercom was essential for patient care. Earlier, amid the chaos, someone had used it to call Shanna. But Jenny couldn’t remember if it was before or after the outage.

Only one way to find out…

She pressed the button and spoke into the speaker, “Randall, I’m still in pediatrics with the children. I need you to…oh my God!”

Jenny froze, immobilized by fear.

Dr. Lanz appeared in the hallway.

She spotted him through the spiderweb cracks of the room-length window, the children’s finger painting now frescoed with bits of tissue.

Lanz hadn’t spotted her yet. But he’d heard her. The intercom worked fine, Jenny’s voice blaring throughout the hospital, announcing her location.

Lanz reached the hole he’d broken in the glass, and locked eyes with her. His white lab coat was charred, his nametag a melted blob.

His face was also a melted blob. The doctor’s nose was nothing but a blackened hole, and his hair stuck to his scalp in sticky, burned patches.

“EEEEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICHHHHHHHH!”

Did he just call me a bitch?

Quick as a cat, he pounced through the window and sprang at Jenny, bounding toward her on all fours, closing the distance between them with astonishing speed.

Jenny reached for one of the chairs piled up against the exit door and held it in front of her like a lion tamer, keeping Lanz at bay. He swiped at it, hitting hard enough to sting Jenny’s palms and make her arms shake. He repeated the move, batting the chair to the other side, but she refused to let go, not letting him get close enough to touch her.

Then Lanz paused his attack. He sniffed the air, the ragged skin around his nasal cavity vibrating. He turned his head slowly toward the storage room.

No! Not the children!

Lanz leapt toward the closet, but Jenny had anticipated the move. She tossed the chair aside and threw herself at him, tackling the doctor around his ankles, causing him to sprawl face-first onto the floor.

Every cell in Jenny’s body screamed at her to let go, to get as far away from the hideous creature as possible. But Jenny Bolton had seen enough death that day. Horrible, pointless, unexpected death. If she had to kill Dr. Lanz with her own two fists, she would, because she would be damned if she let that monster harm another innocent.

Lanz twisted on the floor, reaching back for Jenny, his claws outstretched and tangling in her hair. She grabbed onto one of his talons—long and bony—and snapped it backward, hard as she could, so quick and violent that his knuckle split the skin and popped out to say hello.

Lanz immediately released her head—

—and shoved his bleeding finger into his mouth.

As the creature cannibalized its own hand, Jenny scurried off to the side, got her feet under her, and sprinted toward the closet door. She reached for the knob, yanking hard.

The door didn’t move.

It must have closed shut on its own.

Jenny glanced back at Dr. Lanz, who was sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth, chewing on his hand and shuddering with either agony or ecstasy. Or maybe both. His misshapen, angler-fish teeth were shredding the appendage to hamburger.

She stuck her head into the window.

“Kids! Open the door and let me in!”

The children didn’t reply.

“Come on! Open the door!”

When she got a response, it was tinged with tears. “I’m scared.”

“I’m scared too. But you need to let me in so I can protect you.”

Jenny stuck her arm through the window, waving the glow stick and peering inside. The four children were huddled together on the far side of the closet.

“Come on, kids. Please open up.”

She glanced over her shoulder toward Lanz. He was still chewing on his hand, but it wasn’t as frenzied. He’d grown calmer, almost contemplative about the task. As if deciding which part of the turkey leg to bite into next.

Even if Jenny made it past him, where could she go? No doubt the hospital was crawling with draculas. The closet was the safest place. Besides, she couldn’t leave the kids.

She stuck her head through the broken window. No way she’d fit through. Maybe ten years and twenty pounds ago, but all that would happen now was she’d get stuck like that monster had.

Another quick glance at Lanz.

He was no longer eating himself.

Instead, he was standing, staring at Jenny, a line of bloody drool stretching down his chest.

Oh no…

She banged on the door with both fists. “Open this goddamn door now! Right now!”

Jenny chanced another look behind her.

Lanz was holding his hand—now a ragged stump—up to his mouth. His misshapen, hideous tongue gave it a long, slow lick, like he was enjoying a popsicle. His black eyes bore into Jenny.

Then he took an easy step forward.

“JESUS CHRIST JUST OPEN THE—!”

Lanz broke into a run, and just then the knob turned. Jenny slipped into the closet, managing to get the door closed and to brace her back against it just as Lanz hit full force. His claw—the one he still had—shot through the window and latched onto Jenny’s throat. She twisted away, crabwalking backward, watching in helpless terror as Lanz tried to force himself into the square window.

He got his arm in.

He got his head in.

But that was as far as he could go.

Jenny feverishly looked around for a weapon. Besides the art supplies, there was medical equipment, but none of it formidable. Bandages, sutures, iodine, splints, tape. Where were the scalpels? Where were the syringes? Where was the—

Crash cart! Why hadn’t she thought of that before?

The cart was a set of aluminum shelves on wheels, stocked with everything needed to resuscitate and treat life-threatening conditions. She crawled to it, yanking open a drawer, looking for something, anything, to hurt Lanz with. Her mind was thinking syringes and drugs.

But her eyes locked onto the defibrillator.

It was a manual model. Perfect. She flipped it on, cranked it to 970 joules, and grabbed the paddles while the battery charged the capacitor.

“You want something to eat?” Jenny said, pressing the electrodes on either side of Lanz’s head. “Eat this, you son of a bitch.”

The unit beeped, and Jenny pressed the button to deliver the jolt. Lanz screeched, then immediately pulled out of the window. Jenny charged the unit again, waiting for him to return.

The bastard did, jamming himself into the tight space, his outstretched claw swiping at her head. Jenny ducked it, brought up the paddles, and juiced him once more.

He jerked away, but this time he had the presence of mind to take a paddle with him. Jenny pulled on the other end of the wire, struggling not to lose it, but Lanz had weight and strength and he ripped it from her grasp, pulling it out of the defib unit.

One paddle wasn’t enough to complete the circuit, so the weapon was useless. But it didn’t seem to matter.

A minute passed.

Then two.

Dr. Lanz didn’t reappear.

“Is the monster dead?” one of the children wailed.

Jenny didn’t think so. The shock he got was no doubt painful, but probably not fatal.

“I don’t know.”

And she had no desire to check. If he was lying outside the door, dying, that was fine with Jenny. But she wasn’t going to risk peeking through the broken window and getting her face bitten off because Lanz was playing hide and seek.

Better to wait and see.

“Who let me in?” Jenny asked the children.

“I did.”

“What’s your name?”

“Tommy.”

“Tommy, you’re a brave boy. When we get out of here, I’m taking you to the Camp Kookyfoot Waterpark.”

“Can I come too?”

The other two also chimed in the chorus.

“Okay,” Jenny said, “I’m taking you all to Camp Kookyfoot.”

“Is your husband coming too?”

Jenny’s thoughts flashed to Randall. She pictured him trying to balance on an inner tube far too small for his massive frame, that goofy, perpetually confused look on his face.

“Yes. Him too.”

She closed her eyes and prayed the big lug was okay.

Randall

RANDALL was all in favor of the crippled. Not in favor of them being crippled, of course—that would be deranged—but of their rights and stuff. They definitely deserved their own parking spaces and ramps and everything that would let them live normal lives. So when the legless dracula wheeled itself toward him, he felt bad that his first reaction was to laugh.

Not a belly laugh or a “laughing and pointing” type of thing, but it was still a very definite laugh. He couldn’t help himself. The creature just looked so…ridiculous.

As the dracula reached him, Randall stuck out his good foot, stopping the chair from bashing into him, and then gave it a nice big shove. The dracula wheeled backward, jaws snapping.

Randall laughed again.

Now he was relatively certain that his was not the cruel laughter of ridiculing the handicapped, but a more insane sort of laughter—the kind of laughter that would come out of a man whose mind just couldn’t handle all of the shit it had seen tonight.

Yeah, he was losing it.

That was okay. No shame in a little dracula-induced brain-snapping. It was kind of relaxing, actually. Like alcohol without the hangover.

The dracula wheeled forward again.

Randall shoved it backward.

Hell, he could do this all day. Or at least for an hour or two. It’d make a great YouTube video. People would protest the shit out of it, but it would get millions of hits.

Tina shifted her weight on his back. Randall snapped back to reality.

Focus.

When Randall was in fourth grade, his teacher, Mrs. Quimbal, had told him that when he felt his concentration fade from the task at hand, he should imagine red laser beams coming out of his eyes. It had worked. He’d sit there at his desk, imagining red laser beams zapping into his math book, and he’d keep his focus. His grades were still crap, but at least he wasn’t getting into trouble.

Randall imagined red laser beams zapping into the dracula as it wheeled back toward him.

Gotta keep yourself sane. Gotta protect the little girl. If you screw that up, then you’ve lost the one positive thing that could possibly come from this nightmare. Focus. Focus. Focus.

He lifted his good foot to shove the dracula back one last time. Suddenly the dracula pushed itself up with its arms, practically leaping out of the wheelchair and onto Randall. The creature was significantly more threatening when it was latched onto his chest.

“Get off! Get off!” Randall shouted, stumbling backward.

Tina shrieked. For one terrifying moment Randall thought he was going to lose his balance, falling onto his back and crushing the little girl beneath him, but he managed to keep himself upright.

He punched the dracula in the head as hard as he could, getting it right between the eyes. Though a bolt of pain shot through his knuckles and he let out a loud grunt, this did keep the dracula from biting out a sizable chunk of his torso. He couldn’t get at his utility belt with the damn monster wrapped around him like this.

He jerked his body around, trying to shake off the creature, but the thing had an iron grip around him (apparently its lack of legs meant extra strength in its arms) and he couldn’t get it off. Tina, meanwhile, started to slip off his back and wrapped a panicked arm around his neck, immediately cutting off his air supply.

Then, Jenny’s voice: “Randall…”

It took Randall a split second to realize that Jenny had not suddenly appeared in the room with him, but was speaking to him through an intercom. He’d heard that asshole Clay use it earlier. Jenny’s voice was much nicer.

“…I’m still in pediatrics with the children. I need you to…oh my God!”

The message ended.

Randall punched at the dracula again. It tilted its head back and his fist almost plunged into its open mouth, but he struck it in the chin and its teeth clacked together, pinching off a small piece of its tongue.

What did Jenny want him to do?

Come back?

Go for help?

Find some dynamite and blow this whole fucking place to smithereens?

Was something attacking her? Had she died in these last couple of seconds?

He had a mental flash of one of those things—no, three of them—dragging her to the ground, their jaws digging into her flesh, eating her alive as she screamed for Randall to help her and cursed him for abandoning her and the children.

Randall had felt plenty of anger in his life, much of it aimed at Jenny—oh, he’d broken more than one piece of furniture in those days after she left him—but none of it compared to the rage he felt right now, knowing that these creatures might be feasting upon the one love of his life.

He punched the dracula again.

And again.

He wasn’t sure if the blood was from his knuckles or merely on them, but he kept punching that monster until its grip loosened. He tossed it to the floor. It quickly began to crawl toward him, squirming actually, and he kicked it in the head with such force that what little remained of its cheeks split open.

Another kick and it slid several feet across the floor.

The poor amputee had not had the luxury of an electric wheelchair. This meant that its existing source of mobility was relatively lightweight, which meant that Randall was able to pick up the wheelchair and slam it down upon the creature, splattering it underneath the wheels.

God. Randall had never in his life been so politically incorrect.

“It’s okay, Tina,” Randall said. “It’s dead.”

Actually, it wasn’t, the ghastly thing was still writhing around under the wheels, but Randall turned away so the little girl couldn’t see the mess.

Now, what to do? Try to get back to pediatrics? Get Tina to safety and then try to get back to pediatrics? Why hadn’t Jenny said anything else on the intercom? Should he try to find an intercom himself and talk back to her? Should he start searching corpses for cell phones?

Something dropped onto the back of his neck and slipped down his hospital gown.

Then something else. Small, like a pebble.

Or a tooth.

More teeth dropped against the back of Randall’s neck, followed by some warm blood. He couldn’t see Tina, but from the wet sounds of shredding flesh he could picture exactly what was happening to her.

When the hell had she been infected?

All he really wanted to do right now was howl in frustration. Scream and scream and scream and make the whole cruel world go away.

Instead, he speed-limped backward toward the nearest wall and bashed himself into it.

Crunch.

Tina snarled as he smashed her between him and the wall a second time.

Crunch.

She was a tiny little girl, a sick little girl, a helpless little girl, and so the third time he struck the wall she stopped moving. Her hands slipped away from his neck and she dropped onto the floor.

Her skull, and the entire top half of her body, crushed.

He’d done that to a five-year-old girl. A little girl he was supposed to save.

He bellowed. There may have been words in there. He wasn’t sure.

Randall didn’t want to focus. Didn’t want to stay in the moment. Didn’t want to know what was happening to him.

He’d lost Tina. Probably lost Jenny. Hell, he’d even lost his goddamn chainsaw. Why shouldn’t he just march his ass right over to the largest crowd of draculas he could find and offer them his throat? He could rip out a chunk himself, help them out. “Eat up, boys and girls! You might as well get a decent meal out of me—it’s the only value I’m going to contribute to the world today!”

Nobody was going to miss Randall Bolton.

Well, the other lumberjacks might. If he was dead, it would be harder for them to have another hearty laugh at his expense. “Haw, haw, haw. That dumbass Randall couldn’t even save a little girl. Can you believe it? Big guy like that and he can’t even protect an asthmatic five-year-old. Waste of skin and bones. Can’t even hold a chainsaw right.”

No.

Screw that.

He didn’t know that Jenny was dead. Even if her message was interrupted by a dracula, she was strong. She could handle herself. Probably had a six-foot-tall pile of dead draculas in the room with her. And if there was any chance that she was still alive, even a tiny sliver of a fraction of a percentage of a chance, then Randall was going to find her.

He could still hear the legless dracula struggling behind him.

Randall ignored it. He shoved the image of Tina’s corpse out of his mind, then left the Rehabilitation Therapy area. He didn’t care how many of those creatures stood in his way, he was going to get through them—a thousand of them if he had to—until he found his way back to pediatrics and the woman he so desperately…

Randall stopped for a second. Looked to the right and then to the left.

Fuck.

Which way had he come from?

Despite what many people said about him, Randall was not an idiot. But when you were losing blood from popped stitches and carrying a kid on your back and wandering around in barely existent lighting with monsters all around you, it was easy to lose your sense of direction.

All of that for nothing. Jesus. He should’ve just let Tina run off and get eaten by draculas. At least then he’d still be with Jenny, there to protect her from whatever interrupted her intercom message.

Or, he would’ve been there to helplessly bumble around while those things tore his wife apart. That was probably more likely. God, he was pathetic.

No, wait—he wasn’t lost at all. There was a stairwell right next to the swinging door to the rehabilitation area. He hadn’t passed one of those. Good, good. He was back on track. Ha! Those bastards could kill a little girl, but they couldn’t get him lost!

Actually, you killed the little—

Shut up.

He started to turn around, but maybe the stairs were the way to go. Instead of backtracking where he knew there were draculas, he should find a different route back to pediatrics. Up the stairs, across the hall, down the stairs, and get back just in time to put his fist through a dracula’s stomach. Good plan. Solid.

Going up a flight of stairs was gonna hurt.

So what? More pain? Quite honestly, he could barely even feel his injured leg. So long as it remained attached to his body and didn’t collapse like an accordion, he could deal with it.

Accordion music sucked.

He pushed open the door to the stairwell and took his first step up.

So far, so good.

His second step was less good.

He bashed his jaw on the edge of the step as he fell forward. He lay there for a moment, hurting and trying to work up the energy to try again.

Had he lost consciousness?

Nah.

No, wait, yes he had, because now a clawed hand was wrapped around his ankle.

He twisted to see what it was. Holy shit. The legless dracula, covered in blood and with at least one visible internal organ, was still after him. He hadn’t squished it enough.

Randall yanked his foot out of its grasp, kicked it in the head, and then began to crawl up the stairs. He could hear it crawling after him. This had to be a hallucination. No way could he actually be in this situation. This was absolutely batshit insane!

Move! Move! Move!

His leg wasn’t cooperating at all, and the dracula, pulling itself from step to step just using its arms, kept pace with him all the way up to the first landing. Then it grabbed his foot again.

I’m losing a race with somebody who doesn’t have any goddamn legs!

The dracula snarled, opened its mouth wide, and bit at Randall’s foot just as he pulled it free. With those jaws, Randall had no doubt that the creature could take off his entire foot. Maybe not in one bite, but two or three would do the trick for sure.

Can’t get bit. Don’t wanna turn into one of those things!

Randall scooted backward, his butt squeaking against the floor (squeaking just like that damned clown) until his back struck the wall. The dracula, several ropes of bloody drool dangling from its fangs, crawled after him.

Fuck it. He needed to make this problem go away.

Not giving a shit how bad it hurt, Randall forced himself to stand, grabbed the dracula under the shoulders, then heaved it. It bounced on the stairs twice before it hit bottom, where it lay with its neck twisted at a grotesque angle.

Still trying to come after him.

Jesus Christ. He’d just thrown a cripple down a flight of stairs. Dracula or not, Randall was pretty sure that hellfire awaited him in the afterlife.

And now he most definitely gave a shit about how bad it hurt to stand up. Wincing the entire time, Randall made his way up the second half of the stairway, wondering if any hidden cameras would see him should he decide to curl up and cry for a few days.

Finally he made it to the third floor. He stepped out into the hallway, expecting to see something that continued his streak of bad luck. Maybe two, three thousand of those things, all charging him, desperate to avenge their legless brother.

Aw, for God’s sake…

Randall couldn’t honestly say that he’d rather have had two or three thousand draculas waiting for him, but, c’mon, Clay Theel? Really? The dickhead who’d thought that his gun and badge gave him the right to stick his nose into Randall’s business?

Clay was with a frightened-looking woman. Neither had seen him yet. Randall took a deep breath. He couldn’t let that guy see him looking weak. Had to act casual. Maintain his dignity. Nothing he could do about the blood and the ass-exposing hospital gown, but he certainly wasn’t going to let Clay know that he was mourning his failure to save a five-year-old girl.

He steeled himself, tried to think of something sarcastic to say, then walked forward.

Clay

“ALL right. Let’s get you out of here.”

He put his hand on the knob but used the slit window to give the lobby another look-see before stepping out.

“Aw, hell.”

“What?” Shanna said, trying for a peek.

While they were talking, half a dozen monsters had gathered in the lobby. If Clay had only himself to worry about, he might have charged out and given it a go. But with Shanna along…no way.

He put his lips to her ear. “Let’s go back up to the second floor and see if we can find another stairway that doesn’t open on the lobby.”

He let Shanna lead the way up and covered their six, keeping his shotgun trained on the door in case one of those things decided to check out the stairwell.

But when she reached the second-floor landing, she said, “We’ve got a problem.”

Clay reached her side and peeked through the slit and saw what she meant: at least three monsters prowling the hall. One was dressed like a clown, but all its teeth were gone—shattered. Clowns looked weird enough in full light, but in this shadowy half-light, this bugger was about the most terrifying thing Clay had ever seen.

He could feel his temper rising. He sort of prided himself on being able to stay cool in any situation, but he was getting pissed.

“Are we the only people in this goddamn place who haven’t turned?”

Shanna shuddered. “What an awful thought.”

“Okay. The third floor. If it’s the same up there, I’m just gonna have to step out and do some population control.”

But the third-floor looked empty. Clay stepped out, shotgun ready. All clear. He spotted an EXIT sign glowing in the shadows at the end of the hall. He motioned Shanna out of the stairwell and pointed.

“We’ll try that one,” he said, keeping his voice low. No telling what was about and he didn’t want to attract any attention.

She nodded and gripped the strap of his duffel. They hadn’t taken two steps when a loud voice froze them.

“Well, well. If it ain’t Deputy Dawg!”

As he whirled, Clay’s finger tightened on the trigger, ready to fire. When he recognized that asshole Randall Bolton stepping out of the shadows ten feet away, he almost fired anyway.

“Stay right there, Bolton.”

“Or what? You’ll shoot?”

Clay took in Randall’s bloodstained face and hospital gown and didn’t like what he saw. He looked almost crazed.

“Absolutely. You’ve been infected. How long ago?”

“I’m not infected.”

“You got blood all over you.”

“Well, shit, you’ve got blood on you too! Everybody in this goddamn place has blood all over them! You want me to hire some guy in a white coat to scrape this stuff off me and put it under a microscope? This blood ain’t mine!”

“Why should I believe that?”

“Do you see any dracula wounds on me?”

“Maybe on your leg. Looks like that one took a lot of stitches.” Clay, of course, couldn’t even see Randall’s leg wound from the front, but he’d certainly heard about it.

Randall’s eyes narrowed. “You think that’s funny?”

“Hilarious. Whole department knows about Randall Bolton damn near cutting off his own ass. Drunk again?”

He couldn’t remember how many times Jenny had called the department to come and subdue her drunken husband. He had no respect for bums like Randall Bolton.

Randall’s face reddened. At least Clay assumed it did, beneath all of the blood. “Takes a small man to bring up something petty like that when we’re in so much shit. I been dry ninety-seven days now.”

Clay snorted a laugh. “Believe that when I see it.”

Randall took a step toward him. “You’re seeing it right now, you dumb fuck. I’m standing right here.”

“Stay where you are!” Clay raised the shotgun to his shoulder. “You might turn any second now.”

Randall stopped and shook his head. “You know better’n that, Theel. We’ve got monsters everywhere in this place, but you don’t want to deal with that, you just want to wave your gun at me like a schoolyard bully. You think you’re hot shit, but without your badge and your big bad gun, you’re just a coward.”

Clay’s temper had already been frayed when he’d stepped out into the hall. Now it snapped.

“That so? Okay. My badge is off.” He shrugged off his duffel bag and handed Shanna his shotgun and Alice. “And now my big bad guns are gone.”

Shanna stared at him with eyes so wide he could see white all around. “What are you doing?”

“Shanna, meet Jenny’s ex-husband.”

“Never mind him. Are you insane?”

“No, just gonna see who’s a coward.”

“Clayton Theel, you stop this macho bullshit right now!”

“Sure, honey. Right after I stop his bullshit.”

He stepped away from Shanna and faced Randall, raising his right hand and doing the Bruce Lee come-hither thing with his fingers.

Randall stared at him. “Did you get that from a kung fu movie? Are you Chinese now?”

“Are you two kidding?” Shanna said, her voice rising and getting all screechy. “We’re in the middle of a slaughterhouse!”

“If Theel wants me to knock him on his ass in front of his girlfriend, I guess the draculas can wait a little while,” Randall said.

Clay started circling. “Is that what you call them? Not bad for a dumbass.”

Suddenly Shanna was between them as they circled each other. “Stop this! Stop this now!”

Clay looked past her at Randall. “I saw one of your draculas downstairs in a clown suit.”

“Benny?”

“Oh, you’re friends with a clown? Figures. Birds of a feather, and all that. Well, when I finish kicking your ass, I’m going down there and kicking his ass, then I’m gonna dress you in his clown suit.”

“Well, shit, looks like bad circumstances bring out our perverted sides, huh? Should I act like a little choir boy when you dress me up? As for that clown, I greased that rat-fuck son of a bitch but good.”

Something familiar about that line, but Clay couldn’t place it.

“I don’t believe this!” Shanna cried. “You’re trash talking when we should be getting out of here!”

Clay remembered the clown’s broken teeth. “You the one who messed up his teeth?”

“Yeah. Think I may take up dentistry on the side during the slow lumber months.”

Clay was impressed—not about the threat but about the number he’d done on that clown. Wouldn’t ever admit that to Randall, of course.

“Well, there’s plenty more where he came from.”

Randall grinned. “That’s because we got draculas coming outta the walls. They’re coming outta the goddamn walls.”

Clay stopped circling and stared at him. “Aliens?”

“Hell yes Aliens! Beat the shit out of the original.”

“I know. I loved that movie.”

Randall stopped and puffed his chest. “Seen it eighty-three times.”

“Wait-wait-wait!” Shanna said, staring at Randall. “You were quoting some movie?”

“He sure was, honey. You saw it. Aliens, remember? With Newt, the little girl who—”

“You mean there’s two of you?”

Clay wasn’t following. He looked at Randall. “I guess there’s hope for you yet.”

Shanna looked ready to cry. “Can we get out of here, please?”

“Yeah, okay.” Now that he was closer, he noticed Randall didn’t look in exactly top form, anyway. “We’ll settle this some other time.”

“Count on it.”

“You really dry?”

“Bone. Day one hundred coming up.”

If true, he deserved at the very least a pat on the back.

“Well, good for you. Seriously.”

Clay picked up Alice and the shotgun from where Shanna had laid them and shouldered the duffel. As he took Shanna’s hand and started for the end of the hall, he noticed Randall wasn’t following. He stopped.

“You coming?”

He shook his head. “Jenny’s down in pediatrics somewhere.”

“Somewhere?”

“She was with a bunch of kids. I think she’s hiding them.”

Jenny…Clay had always liked Jenny, but Shanna was his number-one priority. And Randall looked kind of all in. He might need a little edge if he was going to bring Jenny out.

“Can you shoot?”

Randall smiled. “Not as good as I chainsaw, but I can pull a trigger.”

Clay hesitated, then walked back to him.

“Here.” He didn’t believe he was doing this, but he handed him Alice. “Four rounds left. She kicks like a mule. Make sure nobody you care about is behind whoever you shoot—or even in the next room.”

Randall looked from the Taurus, to Clay, to the Taurus again. “You sure?”

“Take good care of her. Don’t make me regret this.”

He took one last look at Alice, then turned and walked away, wondering if Randall had enough left in him to get Jenny out on his own. Maybe not.

“Be back ASAP to help you find Jenny,” Clay called over his shoulder.

“You don’t have to do that,” Randall said.

“Yeah, I do.”

Benny the Clown

BENNY the Clown was sad again.

He hurt.

His teeth were gone.

Half of his tongue was also gone, and it made new blood while he licked up what was on his clown suit. His whole mouth was leaking faster than he could lap up the new blood. The taste had made him happy before, and he still wanted MORE MORE MORE but now he hurt too much to be anything more than sad.

He realized that one of his siblings was gnawing on his leg. This made Benny the Clown even sadder.

It was an old woman. Very old. He could kill her.

Benny the Clown killed her.

He drank her blood.

He was happier now.

But it didn’t last. He hurt again.

He hurt so bad that he wanted to rip his face off.

He tried, just a little, but it didn’t make him feel better.

Not at all.

Benny the Clown got up and walked down the hallway, looking around for something to make him happy. The screaming didn’t make him happy. The sobbing didn’t make him happy.

Nothing made him happy.

Except…

He looked at the thing on the floor. He seemed to remember something like it. One of his friends used to juggle them. Or was it his mentor? If he remembered correctly, somebody got badly hurt juggling them, and the other clowns had been sad, even though it was kind of funny.

He picked up the chainsaw and began to lick the blood off the blade.

Nurse Herrick

CARLA relocked the double doors and pushed the dressers back into place.

What a night.

The outbreak.

The doctors gone.

A woman dying on her watch.

Another young woman, by herself, that patient already at seven centimeters.

Could things get any worse?

There was a part of her, growing stronger by the minute, that just wanted to hole up in a supply closet and wait for help to come.

But she couldn’t do that. She had patients depending on her.

A sudden scream erupted from one of the private rooms.

She ran down the hall, the noise getting louder.

Room 12.

Brittany.

Maybe she was finally fully effaced and ready to push?

Carla opened the door. “How we doing, Brit—”

What the hell?

Brittany was pinned to the bed on her back by a little girl.

“Hey!” Carla shouted.

The little girl turned and looked at her and…hissed through a mouthful of hideous canines, her face a bloody wreck.

Carla backpedaled involuntarily out of the room as the little monster hopped off of Brittany and crawled in her direction on all fours, coming faster and faster, talons clicking on the linoleum.

“Lock yourself in, Brittany!” Carla screamed as the girl rose up on two feet and sprinted toward her.

The door to Room 12 slammed shut and Carla heard the deadbolt turn as the little monster leapt at her, talons pointing toward her like a full set of knives.

Hiss-screaming.

Carla lunged out of the way as the girl crashed into the nurses’ station.

The Murray’s baby daughter was screaming at the far end of the corridor, and Carla scrambled back onto her feet and hauled ass toward Stacie’s room as the girl-monster climbed out of the nurses’ station and came after her.

There was a delivery cart against the wall, and she opened the top drawer and grabbed the first thing she touched, a pair of episiotomy scissors—”bajango scissors” she called them on better days. She closed the scissors, took them by the end, turned, and threw them toward the little girl, knowing, even as the blades left her hand spinning end over end and catching glimmers of that weak, blue light, that stuff like this only worked in bad movies.

The little girl suddenly stopped ten feet away and went quiet.

She looked down at her chest where the scissors were embedded, and then up at Carla, and she made a sound like a mewling cat or a depressed banshee.

There was an extension cord in the bottom drawer of the delivery cart, and Carla pulled it out, her hands shaking as they unwound the twist tie.

The little monster-girl sat in the middle of the floor. At first, she’d been trying to pull the blades out of her chest, but her own blood seemed to be distracting her now.

Carla approached slowly.

“I’m Carla,” she said. “What’s your name?”

The monster screeched something unintelligible.

“Well, I’m a nurse, and you look like maybe you’re not feeling so well.”

She was five feet away now, and getting her first look at this perversion of a child, wondering what kind of a virus could cause this. Something worse than Ebola.

Carla had grown up on a ranch ten miles from here, and by God she’d hogtied a calf or two in her day. No this wasn’t anywhere near the same, but similar principles applied. Flip her on her stomach, hard and fast, knee digging into her spine, and get the cord around her wrists. Tie her ankles last.

Three feet away now. She squatted.

God, the closer she got, the more awful this thing looked. This wasn’t a little girl. Not anymore.

Carla slowly uncoiled a four-foot length of cord, the monster eyeing her now with the distrust of a psycho cat, and licking the blood seeping out of her chest with a long, spongy-black tongue.

The Murray’s baby wailed now, grinding down Carla’s nerves.

She had to get back to Stacie.

Now or never.

She tightened her grip on the extension cord and lunged at the little monster, but it recoiled with terrible speed.

Carla felt something puncture the skin of her left arm, and by the time she looked up, the little girl had fled back down the corridor and disappeared around the corner that led to the operating room.

Carla stood up.

The bite to her left arm wasn’t too bad.

Bleeding a little, sure, but considering those awful teeth, it could’ve been so much worse.

She walked a little ways up the corridor and opened the door to the supply closet, grabbed a dose of Pitocin out of the refrigerator, praying it would stop Stacie’s bleeding. She should’ve already had the Pit ready for an IV-push just like she did for every single birth. What a fuck-up. If it didn’t stop Stacie’s bleeding, and without a doctor on hand to intervene surgically, the poor woman didn’t stand a chance.

Lanz

DR. Lanz exited the playroom through the broken window, his head clear and his thoughts surprisingly rational. Perhaps that zap to the head had helped alleviate the urge to feed. Or perhaps he’d sucked enough of his own blood to gain a bit of perspective on things.

Because Lanz had a plan.

It had come to him, semi-formed, while he’d been chewing his fingers. Halfway into gnawing off his thumb, his fangs worrying the proximal phalanx, he’d noticed his breathing had become obstructed. Not because of the injury he was doing to himself, or because of the physical pain involved with chomping on his own flesh and bone.

His breaths were labored because his nose was growing back.

Obviously, his increased metabolism had resulted in preternatural healing powers. It wasn’t unheard of in the animal kingdom to regenerate body parts. Insects, starfish, and newts could all regrow limbs. Humans could regenerate their liver, ribs, and even fingertips.

Which gave Lanz an idea. An extraordinary idea of how to get to Jenny and those delicious little children. Plus, it would result in a bonus energy snack for him. Win-win.

But first he needed clamps and a bone saw.

He loped down the deserted hallway, heading to the Surgery wing, barging into Operating Room A. Unlike the rest of the hospital, which was spackled with gore, this area was so clean it shined.

Lanz would rectify that.

He raided the stainless steel equipment cabinet of two ring-handled bulldog clamps with curved tips, a scalpel with a no. 20 blade, and a nine-inch Saterlee bone saw. The hospital had cordless electric models, but Lanz couldn’t get his finger in the trigger guard with his talons. He’d have to do it the old-fashioned way.

Lanz tore off the remnants of his lab coat and shirt and examined his left shoulder. He could have bitten his arm off without much difficulty, but he wouldn’t be able to get close enough to the glenohumeral joint with his giant teeth. Instead, he awkwardly picked up the scalpel and decided to make his first incision just above the acromion, on the end of the clavical bone. With a deft, precise stroke, he parted the skin and sliced into the deltoid.

When the wound filled up with blood, Lanz’s tongue extended on its own volition and lapped it up.

Even better than a suction hose, he mused.

Cutting deeper, his blade sliced through the coracoacromial ligament, then scraped tender cartilage. Continuing to slurp up his own blood, he wielded the bone saw and nestled it into the wound, between the humerus and the glenohumeral ball joint.

The pain was exquisite, causing him to scream in between bouts of sucking at his own torn flesh. When he finally cut through the ligaments and joint capsule, he finished off with the scalpel, severing the infraspinatus muscle on the underside.

Blood squirted like a fountain, and his insane hunger tempted him to stretch out his own brachial artery and suck it like a straw. Instead, he used the bulldog clamps to seal off the brachial, as well as the cephalic vein.

Once the bleeding was under control, he shoved his severed arm into his mouth, chewing and sucking and drinking every last drop of moisture from it. Then he fell onto all fours (actually all threes) and vacuumed up every bit of blood he’d spilled onto the tile.

Momentarily sated, he examined his handiwork. The wound’s edges were ragged, but already beginning to heal. He decided to leave the clamps on for the time being, fearing that taking them off would make him lose his self-control and drink himself to death.

Lanz had no idea how long it would take his limb to grow back, but he wasn’t concerned. He had plenty of time.

With his arm gone, he’d be able to fit through the tiny window in the storage closet door.

He figured the blood of one adult and four children would sustain him for quite a while.

Benny the Clown

“ISN’T that burning your lips off?” Benny the Clown had asked, in another life.

Rupert shook his head. His lips were cracked and covered with blisters. Either his fire-spitting trick was indeed burning him, or it was a ghastly case of herpes. “It’s not that bad.”

“It looks painful.”

“Sacrifices must be made in the name of show business. Stick with me, Benjamin, and you’ll learn a lot.”

Benjamin hesitated. Rupert had gotten him this gig, and though it didn’t pay anywhere near what he’d made at Office Depot, he didn’t want to risk destroying his career as a children’s entertainer before it even started. But still…

“Y’know, Rupert, most fire eaters don’t use rubbing alcohol. They use something like lamp oil. I mean, your lips are…they’re…I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but what you’re doing could actually…you could get…can I see your tongue?”

“No, you may not. I know it’s unsafe. I’m not stupid. But let me ask you a question, Benjamin: when was the last time you crashed on somebody’s couch and found a bottle of highly purified lamp oil in their bathroom?”

“Never, I guess.”

“Damn right, never. Now how many times have you found a bottle of rubbing alcohol?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked.”

“Well I have, and let me tell you, if that house has a woman, it has a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I spend four or five nights a week crashing on a stranger’s couch, and when I leave, they may check their jewelry case, but they aren’t saying ‘Uh-oh, better check the bathroom cabinet to make sure our rubbing alcohol hasn’t been pilfered!’ If you want to be successful at this business, you have to learn to cut expenses. So you go buy your fancy lamp oil if you want, but I’ll stick with a good old fashioned bottle of stolen rubbing alcohol.”

“I’m sorry. Do you really need that much?”

“Tell me, Benjamin, how many chainsaws do I juggle in my act?”

“I haven’t seen it yet.”

“Three. Three chainsaws. What do you think chainsaws run on?”

“Gasoline?”

“Have you seen the price of gas? It’s obscene. Flat-out criminal. But do you know what makes a chainsaw run just as well?”

“Uh, rubbing alcohol?”

“That’s right. You try to siphon gas from your neighbor’s car, you’re going to jail. You steal rubbing alcohol, nobody ever notices.”

“Is it safe to juggle chainsaws that are fueled by…y’know, something that wasn’t really meant to fuel a chainsaw?”

“Haven’t lost a limb yet.”

“Yeah, but that can’t be good for the engine, can it?”

“You need to quit worrying about that kind of stuff,” said Rupert. “Trust me. I’ll groom you into the funniest clown the world has ever seen.”

Benny the Clown licked the last of the blood from the chainsaw blade.

He hurt, but he was happy.

He walked around for a while.

He couldn’t smile any more, but he wanted to smile when he saw what was on the shelf.

He took down the bottle. Stared at it for a while. Tried to remember.

He remembered.

He filled the chainsaw.

He couldn’t wait to use it. It would be funny.

Adam

STANDING on the other side of the double doors, he heard Nurse Herrick locking him out.

Adam started down the corridor, making the sign of the cross as he passed what was left of the nurse in black scrubs who’d been chased down and slaughtered an hour ago.

Felt like so much longer. Like days had elapsed.

The only lights in operation were those over the doorways, and this left long, deep shadows in the spaces between.

Already, he was breathing so fast he had to stop and lean against a wall and close his eyes, slow everything down until the lightheadedness receded.

He went on, down the long, empty hallway, until he came to the waiting area at the end.

Only the thought of Stacie and the blood she needed bolstered him enough to peer around the corner.

Empty.

Dark.

Absolutely quiet.

The rubber soles of his shoes were deafening on the recently-buffed linoleum, so he took them off, abandoned them, and continued on in sockfeet.

End of the hallway, take a right, go to the end of that hall, take a left, on your next right, four doors down, you’ll see a door leading to a stairwell.

He was coming up on the end of this corridor, and he stopped two feet from it.

Listening.

No sound but the lights humming over a doorway just ahead.

He peeked around. There was movement at the far end, two hundred feet away…something dragging itself across the floor.

Adam stepped out into the new corridor, jogging in his socks.

Four doors down, you’ll see a door leading to a stairwell.

He passed the first two doors, perfectly quiet save for the swish of his socks sliding—

Wait.

He slid to a stop.

Footsteps. That’s what he heard. A pack of them pounding the floor, and he’d just started moving again when the first…demon, no other word for it…came tearing around the corner at the far end of the corridor, followed by a dozen others, and they all began to scream and hiss when they saw him, Adam running now, door number three up ahead, then flashing past, door number four still twenty feet in the distance, and it occurred to him that he was actually running toward these things as they momentarily disappeared into a long black shadow.

He torqued his feet to the side like he was making a full stop on skis and skidded just past the door.

The demons close now, getting louder.

He pulled open the door and bolted through, slamming it shut behind him.

Harsh, blue fluorescent light flickered overhead.

Spun around and looked at the door, praying for a lock, but there was none.

He raced down the steps, taking them three and four at a time, hands sliding down the rails, his footfalls clanging on the metal steps.

Go all the way down…

He made it down four flights of stairs, to the ground level, before the door to the stairwell burst open above him, the noise of numerous taloned claws filling this cinderblocked-column with scraping metal and the echoing clang of those demons taking entire flights in a single jump.

The stairs ran out and Adam tore through the door leading into the basement floor…

…into pure and total darkness. No emergency lights, no exit lights, nothing.

When you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor. You’ll see the sign for the lab. The refrigerators are in back. Grab at least five units of O-positive.

He could still hear those things rushing down the stairwell, and he hurried along for several steps in the dark, expecting at any moment for the basement doors to bang open.

And he kept expecting…

And kept waiting…

A minute passed.

Then two.

He stopped moving.

He could still hear them, but the sounds of their snarling and hissing were fading away.

They’d all run into the hospital lobby.

Thirty seconds later, the silence was back, humming again inside his head.

His legs trembled, and he slid down against the wall until he was sitting on the cold floor. Unshouldered his backpack, hands shaking so badly he could barely unzip it.

He pulled out his Kindle. He’d been reading through the Book of Acts on it, and he couldn’t help but smile at the bible verse on the screen as he turned on the small light that was clipped to the top of the device.

Your word is a lamp unto my feet. A light unto my path.

Oasis

NONE of this was fair! Her Mommy always gave her everything she wanted when she wanted it how she wanted it and as many times as she wanted it and now all these stupid big people like that nurse—

Ooooo. Red candy. She’d missed a drop that was now congealing around the blades of the scissors still sticking out of her chest.

—who wouldn’t let her have any red candy, and you weren’t supposed to run with scissors much less throw them at people!

She crouched under the operating table. Strange how there was no light in the room, and yet she could see everything so perfectly in shades of gray and green.

There was red candy at the other end of this corridor. She was sure of it. The smell was better than cookies baking in the oven.

It called to her.

And in that moment, something occurred to the thing that used to be a little girl, something she’d heard her Mommy tell her Daddy a thousand times before Daddy went to live in Texas.

If you want something, you have to go out and get it. Stop asking people for things. Start taking them. It’s called initiative.

Maybe that’s what she needed.

More initiative.

Quit asking for red candy like a goooooood little girl.

Start taking it.

She had big sharp teeth and razor claws.

She just needed to be a little bit smarter, a little bit braver, and a whole lot meaner.

Clay

THEY made it down to the ground floor without meeting any draculas. Despite the fact that it was Randall’s term, Clay’s brain had latched onto it for the monsters—a perfect fit. The door carried the usual emergency-exit/alarm/blah-blah-blah warning. Well, son, if this wasn’t an emergency, he didn’t know what the fuck was.

Sure enough, bells started ringing as soon as he pushed it open.

He and Shanna stepped out onto a walk on the north side of the main building. No dracula-filled lobby or ER to blast through. Dumb-ass. He should have remembered that the corner stairwell opened directly to the outside.

Free. Safe.

Shanna leaned against him and started to cry. To tell the truth, Clay felt his own throat tightening. He took a deep breath and swallowed a sob of relief.

Shanna was safe. The ER parking lot was just around the corner.

“Let’s find my truck and get you the hell out of here.”

They turned that corner and walked into a circus.

The first thing he saw were three empty state police cars, stopped with their doors open and lights flashing. Parked a short distance away, a white van emblazoned with KDGO with a dish on its roof. A guy with a camera on his shoulder was shooting a woman speaking into a mike.

How the hell—?

Then he realized what had happened. Crime reporters always monitor the police frequencies. They must have heard the sheriff call the staties for help at the hospital. Whatever they said must have sounded newsworthy because they’d sent a video team.

Wup-wup-wup overhead: A KREZ helicopter flew by.

Must have sounded real newsworthy.

He spotted an emergency rig on the far side of the state units. Two EMTs were pulling an empty stretcher from the back of their rig. Why?

Then he saw the six bloody lumps scattered before the ER entrance.

“Oh, shit.”

“What?” Shanna said.

He pointed to the TV truck. “Wait over there.”

He rushed over to the bodies and reached them the same time as the EMTs.

“Stay back!” he yelled.

They froze. Normally they would have ignored him—they had their duty to the injured—but people tend to listen to a bloody man carrying a semi-auto shotgun.

“They need help,” one of the EMTs said, a stocky Hispanic woman.

“They’re dead.”

She pointed. “No. Some of them are moving.”

Clay turned and checked them out. All state cops, all bloodied. Two of them were torn up something fierce and sprawled like rag dolls, but the other four were still breathing and twitching.

“Okay, they’re gonna be dead.”

“You a doctor?”

“No.”

“Then how can you say they’re going to die?”

“I’m not just saying it, I’m guaranteeing it.”

“Listen, we need to get them—”

Clay wriggled his badge holder from his back pocket and flashed his tin. “Deputy Sheriff Clayton Theel. Who called you in?”

The male half of the team pointed skyward at the copter. “The KREZ pilot saw the bodies and radioed it in.”

He pointed to their idling rig. “I’m ordering you to withdraw.”

They glanced at each other, then complied. He turned and saw the reporter and her cameraman approaching.

A good-looking brunette. Clay had seen her on the tube, but usually looking more composed. “I’m Carmen Ro—”

“Yeah, I know. I want your guy here to keep his camera trained on these cops.”

“Why aren’t you letting the EMTs help them?”

“Because in a few minutes, we’re the ones who’re gonna need help.”

“I don’t under—”

One of the staties coughed and lifted his head. He spat half a dozen teeth. Another rolled over, also spitting teeth.

“Here we go.” Clay looked at the cameraman, a young white guy with fuzzy, dirty-blond dreads. “You filming this?”

“It’s not film,” he said with the hint of a sneer. “It’s digital.”

“Whatever. What’s your name, son?”

The sneer vanished. “Um, Tony.”

Clay didn’t have that many years on him, but asking a guy his name and calling him “son’ often took the starch out of them.

“Well, listen, Um-Tony, since you can’t film these guys, your job right now is to digital them.”

Carmen said, “We can’t broadcast victims injured like this, especially police.”

“Well, fine, but it is being recorded somewhere, right?”

Tony nodded.

“No matter what happens,” he told him, “you keep digitaling or whatevering. Got that?”

Another nod.

Clay knew people would think he was crazy if he told them what was going on inside Blessed Crucifixion. So he was going to show them.

A picture was worth a thousand words, right? This video would be worth millions of them.

When the first fangs began ripping through lips and cheeks, Clay heard Carmen cry, “Oh my God!” and the cameraman say, “Holy fucking shit!”

Without looking at them, he said, “Back up, but keep rolling.”

He removed his eyes from the newbie draculas only long enough to check the AA-12’s magazine. Only a dozen shells left. Very little slack. Had to make every shot count. No wastage. He raised it to his shoulder and waited.

Didn’t take long.

The first statie—fully-fanged now, with all ten talons extended—pushed itself to its feet, looked around, then charged the nearest fresh blood—Clay. Much as he disliked state cops, he’d never imagined shooting one. Well, okay, maybe once or twice. The uniform caused Clay to hesitate just a second, then he emptied two twelve-gauge shells at the new dracula when it was two feet from the muzzle. The proximity concentrated the cone of the #4 shot and literally dissolved his head into a spray of blood-and-brain Slurpee.

Behind Clay, Carmen screamed long and loud while something went splat! on the pavement. A quick glance back showed Tony losing lunch.

“Keep filming or you’re next!”

The guy straightened and his camera wobbled as he raised it to his pasty face. “It’s not—”

“Yeah, I know. It’s digital. Just do it.”

He turned back in time to see the second statie dracula leaping through the air—but not at Clay. It landed on its headless fellow and began tearing into it with loud grunts and greedy slurping noises. Clay stepped closer and aimed at the top of its lowered head. Two more twelve-gauge blasts pulverized the brain inside and popped one of its eyes from the socket. Clay took out the next two just as they were starting the change. One blast each did the trick for them. The remaining pair were still down and gave no sign that they were going to change.

Carmen had lost all her reportorial cool. Tears streamed down her cheeks. “Wh-wh-wh-what just happened here?”

“The same thing that’s been happening all over Blessed Crucifixion.” He pointed to Shanna, approaching with tentative steps. “I don’t think anyone can explain, but this woman here can background you some. You’ll have to catch up to her later, though. Right now, she’s on her way home.”

“In what?” the cameraman said. “Check out the tires, man.”

Clay did just that, and found every tire in sight flat.

“Oh, Christ.”

He hurried over to his Suburban and saw that it hadn’t been spared. Four brand-new Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor tires, ripped to shit.

He kicked at one of them until his leg got tired, then turned and saw Shanna walking his way. Carmen stood back by the truck on her cell phone. He calmed himself and then looked at the hospital. He was going to have to go back in. He didn’t want to, but…

“It’s okay,” she said. “Carmen said I could stay with them.”

“I want you gone.”

“But I can’t go. And help is on the way.”

“What? Another TV crew?”

“No. The news director at the station saw what Tony was recording. He’s calling the state police, the National Guard, even the governor. I told Carmen to tell him to call the CDC too. This has got to be contained.”

Okay, maybe Shanna would be okay. Another look at the hospital. But what about him?

This could be their last time together—ever. He might not make it back from his next trip inside. Had to do this now. Might not ever get another chance.

He dug into his pocket as he turned back to Shanna.

“I want to give you something.”

She shook her head. “I told you: I can’t do it. I can’t shoot anyone.”

“Not a gun.” He held out the ring box. “This.”

Looking confused, she took it and opened it—and gasped when she saw the sparkler.

He didn’t want to die with the ring in his pocket. If it came to that, better she had it, to remember him by.

Shanna

“OH, Clay. Ohmygod!”

It was beautiful, but it was so wrong!

His words filtered through the cotton that had suddenly filled her brainpan.

“I was going to ask you to marry me this weekend—you know, when we were in Denver.”

What? What?

“Get married? This weekend?”

Has he lost it?

He laughed. “No-no. Ask you this weekend—do the whole down-on-one-knee thing. We’ll get married later.”

Tears filled her eyes. “Oh, Clay, I—”

“But it doesn’t look like we’re going to Denver, and I won’t get to take a knee here and ask you to marry me, because I know this is a moment every girl dreams about all her life and I want it to be special for you. But I want you to have the ring now. We can talk about getting married later.”

…because I know this is a moment every girl dreams about all her life…

What planet was he from?

God, she was going to break it off with him and there wasn’t going to be any Denver this weekend. How was she going to tell him that she could not accept this ring?

“Clay, I can’t—”

“You can take it. I really, really want you to have it.”

She shook her head and sobbed as she stared at the ring. “Clay…really…”

“If anything happens, I just wanted you to know, beyond any doubt, how I feel about you.”

If anything happens…

What was he talking about? They were out, safe, free from those…draculas.

…I just wanted you to know, beyond any doubt, how I feel about you.

The ring said a whole lot about how he felt, and about how long he expected to go on feeling that way. But she simply could not reciprocate.

“I…I don’t know what to say.”

No lie.

“Not a problem. I understand. Women get overwhelmed with emotion at a time like this.”

She looked into those loving brown eyes…oh, you clueless, clueless man. But then, weren’t most men clueless? She had to tell him now, this instant. She couldn’t let this go one more second.

“Clay…”

But then he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his lips against hers, and the memory of those lips elsewhere on her body, all over her body, awakened a heat. But before she could respond, he released her.

“Gotta go.”

“What? Where? What are you talking about?”

He cocked his head toward the hospital. “Back inside.”

“Are you crazy? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”

“Believe me, that’s the last thing I want—not when I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you. But I promised Randall.”

“You don’t even like him.”

“Don’t matter. Told him I’d be back to help him find Jenny. And Jenny’s good people. You know that.”

Yeah, she did, but…

“You said you’re almost out of ammo.”

“For the shotgun, yeah.” He opened the back of his Suburban and reached inside. “But I’ve still got my biggest and baddest.”

He pulled out some contraption that looked like a sawed-off shotgun from outer space.

Shanna blinked. “What is that?”

“An MM-One—a semi-automatic grenade launcher.”

It looked familiar.

“Wasn’t that in one of your movies?”

“Good memory. Christopher Walken carried one in Dogs of War.” He leaned closer. “That’s just another reason we belong together—we love the same movies.”

She felt her eyes roll of their own accord. “Did it ever occur to you that—hey, wait. Did you say grenades?”

“Sure did.”

“Isn’t that kind of extreme? I mean, aren’t you afraid you’ll blow yourself up?”

Clay laughed. “Not a problem.” He patted the gun. “It’s designed to hold a dozen grenades, but I’ve got ‘er loaded with 40-millimeter M576 buckshot rounds. They don’t explode. They’re like giant shotgun shells. Each one unloads twenty-seven balls of double-ought. I don’t expect to have to shoot any of those draculas twice with this baby.”

He transferred his backup ammo for the MM-1 from the duffel to a small backpack and slipped his arms through its straps.

She felt the ring box in her hand and realized this was why he’d given it to her now—he didn’t know if he’d survive. No way she could give it back. At least not now. Send him back inside feeling he had nothing to lose? Uh-uh. She wanted Clay Theel to have every reason to survive.

A brave, decent man stood before her—one of the good guys. And she loved him for that. And, well, for the good sex too. She might not want to marry him, but he’d make someone else an amazing husband.

She’d tell him when he came out.

She hugged him. “Come back to me, Clay.”

He smiled. “Do my damnedest.”

For some reason, as she watched him trot toward the hospital, she began to cry.

Adam

WHEN you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor. You’ll see the sign for the lab. The refrigerators are in back. Grab at least five units of O-positive.

He must have mixed up one of his rights or lefts, because Adam was lost, wandering through a pitch black corridor guided only by the faint glow from the light, which was fading quickly, its battery drained by some recent sleepless nights spent reading.

Figured he could see, at most, ten feet ahead of him. Same claustrophobic creepiness as driving in dense fog with no idea what might emerge at any moment from the mist.

He passed radiology, coming up on another blind corner.

Adam stopped, because something was coming—a faint scratching noise just around the bend.

He extended his Kindle and in the glow of the light, watched a skinny, gray rat waddle around the corner.

It stopped, sniffed the air, then turned to face Adam.

He tripped over his feet backing away from the rat, which was scurrying toward him now, its head nothing but massive brown fangs that were snapping shut with increasing ferocity the closer it got.

Adam climbed to his feet, thinking, Don’t miss, on the verge of stomping the rat when he realized he only wore socks.

So he kept backing away as the thing came toward him, squeaking and hissing, and after twenty feet of this, he was starting to feel ridiculous. He had the scalpel in his pocket, but that didn’t seem feasible.

“Oh you stupid, ugly rat!” he said.

There were a few chairs along the wall outside of radiology and he picked one of them up and lifted it over his head and brought a wooden leg down on the rat’s rear haunches with a juicy crunch, blood and entrails exploding across the floor.

He lifted the chair again, the rat still scrambling toward him with its forepaws, albeit slower, and crushed its head and teeth and brains, over and over, until it was nothing but a soup of furry, gray-pink globs.

Adam charged on ahead, rounded the next corner, the realization coming that if he didn’t find the lab in the very near future, his wife was going to die.

He was running now, suddenly found himself at the end of the corridor, staring at the word LABORATORY in block letters over a door inset with glass.

He rushed in, past a waiting area and reception desk, through an exam room, until he reached the lab.

Almost no light remained.

He negotiated several desks, work stations and tables boasting microscopes and centrifuges, until he came to a tall refrigerator in the back, still humming off some battery power.

He pulled open the doors and knelt down, letting the weak light fall upon the trays of blood bags, labeled by type.

A+…A-…B+…B-…AB+…AB-…O+

O-positive, yes!

He slid out of his backpack and ripped open the main pouch.

Loaded in six units of chilled O-positive.

He zipped up, stood up, started out of the lab, then stopped.

Hmm.

Ravenous as these things were, maybe it wouldn’t be such a terrible idea to stock up on a little more blood.

No.

A lot more blood.

He transferred the units of O-positive into a smaller pocket, started loading the main pouch with as many blood bags as it would hold, and when he finally zipped the backpack and hoisted it onto his shoulder, it sagged with the weight of thirty units.

Adam started running, made it out of the laboratory and halfway through reception, when his Kindle light finally faded to black.

He froze, waited a moment, thinking his eyes would adjust, that he would be able to see something, but it never happened.

His first instinct was primal, animal panic, a sense of the walls both closing in and spinning until he’d completely lost his bearing.

No. You haven’t lost your bearing. You can’t see, but the doorway is straight ahead. Take it in ten step increments. You can do this. You have to do this.

He left his Kindle on the floor and moved forward with his arms outstretched until they touched the glass inset of the door. Fumbled for the handle, found it, pulled the door open.

When you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor.

So reverse that.

He stepped out into the corridor, turned left, wandering down the hall with one hand outstretched, the other trailing along the wall. Seemed to take forever to reach the end of it, but his hand finally touched the intersecting wall.

One down, three to go.

He prayed as he walked in the darkness, prayed Stacie would hold on just a little longer, prayed for the safety of his new daughter, prayed for his own—

He stopped.

A noise echoed through one of the corridors behind him—a snarling-hissing, soft at first but getting louder, and then the click of footsteps—no, not footsteps, talonsteps—became prevalent.

These weren’t rats, and there were more than one.

A legion of them.

The fear paralyzed him, his first instinct to run, that sightless disorientation setting back in, his heart racing as they drew closer.

Think, think, think.

He slid out of the backpack.

Clickclickclickclickclickclick…

Felt around for the main pouch’s zipper in the dark, ripped it open, pulled out one of the cold blood bags.

Clickclickclickclickclickclick…

Still couldn’t see a thing, but he heard the sound of talons sliding across the linoleum, those demons skidding as they rounded the corner, wondered how they could still see.

The things that had murdered the nurse up on the third floor had obsessively licked up every drop of blood. This was either going to work, or he was going to die horribly in about ten seconds.

His fingers struggled to tear the pack, but the plastic was too thick, and then he remembered.

Dug the scalpel out of his pocket, and the moment he drew the blade across the top of the plastic bag, those demons started screaming.

Adam shouldered the backpack and came to his feet, backpedaling, holding the blood bag by the top.

Please God let this work. So my wife can live, so I can be a father.

He slung the bag into the darkness, heard it hit thirty feet down with a splatter, and as he turned and sprinted through pure darkness, the shrieking of the demons filled the basement of the hospital, their screams resonating inside his head, and he knew that even if he survived this night, never in his life would he forget that sound.

He crashed so hard into the next wall, he felt his shoulder pop, but he didn’t stop to think about the pain, just righted himself and kept running, gasping so hard for breath he could no longer hear what, if anything, pursued him, and then he crashed into another wall, felt certain he’d bruised or fractured his arm, but all he could think was, This is it. The door to the stairwell, to Stacie, is on this corridor, and he jogged now, running his hand along the wall, trying every door he came to.

Dark.

Dark.

Locked.

Dark.

Locked.

Breathing normally again, finally, but he could hear something coming now, the horrific clicking of the talons just around the corner, one corridor back.

Clickclickclickclickclickclick…

He picked up speed, and ten feet later, came to the next door, which he pulled.

It swung open.

His eyes burned in the flood of light and he rushed into the stairwell and up the steps as the door closed after him.

He got up two flights, then fell to his knees and ripped open the pack again, pulled out four blood bags, zipped up, went on.

By the time he’d reached the second floor landing, he heard the door to the basement bust open beneath him, glanced down, saw one of those demons leap up to the first landing in one bound—a three hundred pound man in a janitor’s uniform who had no business moving at that speed.

Adam reached the penultimate landing as a door leading to the ground floor opened and a stream of demons rushed in and up the steps.

He pounded up the last ten steps and grabbed the first blood bag, cut a rip in the top, and threw it down to the second floor landing.

It struck the metal flooring and blood exploded everywhere, streaking the walls, the steps, demons screaming, a half dozen diving instantly to the floor and trying to lick up what hadn’t seeped through the metal grate, but another half-dozen still coming.

Adam pulled open the door and ran out into the third floor corridor, slicing into another blood bag as he skidded to a stop at the next junction.

He spun around just in time to see the stairwell door fly open, watched at least thirty of those demons fighting their way into the corridor.

Adam slid the blood bag toward them across the floor like an air-hockey disc, blood jetting out across the linoleum, and he was running again, full on sprint, tearing through light and shadow, and as he reached the next junction, he glanced back, still saw a dozen of those monsters chasing him.

He didn’t stop in time to take his next turn under control and slammed into the wall again.

Saw the double doors to the maternity ward a hundred and fifty feet straight ahead, and this made him run faster than he’d ever run in his life.

They were closing on him.

He could hear the talons clicking, and when he dared another glance back, four of those demons had rounded the corner and were moving toward him at a dead run.

Adam made an incision in the final blood bag and hurled it over his shoulder like a grenade, heard the screams and the screeches when it splattered on the floor.

The doors were straight ahead, and he collided with them.

Locked!

Adam pounded on them.

“I’ve got the blood!” he screamed. “Let me in!”

He grabbed the handles and tugged violently on the doors, but the locks held.

Fifty feet down, two of the monsters fought over the empty bag, one slurped the blood off the linoleum, and another had taken notice, again, of Adam.

Adam beat harder against the doors and through the tiny window, saw someone moving toward him past the nurses’ station.

“Hurry!” he screamed.

Glanced back again.

The fourth demon had stood up, still torn between Adam and the bloody floor, its head craning back and forth, back and forth, as if—bird in the hand, Adam, bird in the hand, Adam, and…

…It started forward, working up to a sprint, Adam thinking he should get another blood bag out, but it didn’t matter. There wasn’t time.

On the other side of the door, he heard furniture scooting back across the floor, and the locks sliding out of the ceiling, out of the floor.

“Carla, please,” he begged.

“Got it!”

One of the doors swung back.

Adam stepped inside, his backpack catching on the handle.

Gave it a fierce yank, and then he was inside.

“Help!” Carla screamed, and together they rammed their shoulders into the door, but a talon shot through a split second before it closed.

Adam could feel the terrifying strength of the creature driving them back as those razor talons gripped the side of the door.

“Oh, God!” Carla screamed. “More coming.”

Adam reached into his pocket, fingers curling around the scalpel, and he stabbed the blade into the demon’s claw, dark blood running out onto the floor.

The thing shrieked, its claw retracting for a fleeting second, and the door slammed shut.

“Lock it!” Adam yelled, and he crouched and slid a bolt into its housing in the floor, then reached up and drove the ceiling lock home as a tremendous force crashed into the doors, hinges quivering.

“Your side locked?” he asked.

She nodded. “Let’s push the table back.”

They braced it against the doors as the demons on the other side took turns running at full speed into the barricade, Adam watching the hinges for any sign of weakening, but they seemed to be holding.

He looked over at Carla. “How’s my wife?”

“Not good. We need to get her transfusion going right now.”

They turned away from the barricade, Adam glancing over his shoulder as they hurried down the corridor.

“A little infected girl got inside through the window, so keep a look out,” Carla said, the doors rattling behind them, the monsters calling after them in some demented, primal tongue.

“Where is she?”

“Hiding in the OR. But don’t worry, she isn’t as scary as she looks.”

Jenny

“I’M scared.”

“Me too.”

“I wet my pants again.”

“How about we sing a song?” Jenny asked the children.

She was also pretty frazzled. Since Lanz left, there hadn’t been any other monsters trying to attack them, but a few minutes ago a pack of them had run down the hallway. A large pack, maybe thirty or forty. Jenny knew that on an average day there were over a hundred and fifty patients in the hospital. If you figured maybe eighty people on staff, plus a few dozen visitors, there could be almost three hundred of those things roaming around.

While Jenny had no desire to draw their attention, some quiet singing was probably less harmful than four young boys wailing uncontrollably.

“Does everyone know Old MacDonald?” she asked.

The boys nodded.

“Okay, we’ll start with chicks. And let’s use our indoor voices. Are you all ready? Old MacDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-Ohhhh. And on his farm he had some chicks…”

The kids fell in with the E-I-Os. Jenny kept a strained smile on her face and sang through the cluck-clucks, and the moo-moos with the cow, and the oink-oinks with the pig, and just as she began the fourth verse she forgot what the next animal was. A horse? A duck? A dog?

“…and on that farm he had a dog, E-I-E-I-Ohhhh. With a—”

“SCCRRRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!”

Jenny whipped around and stared, open-mouthed, at the creature at the door.

Lanz had returned.

He was cramming himself into the door’s broken window. But rather than getting stuck this time, his whole body slid through, flopping onto the floor of the closet.

The children screamed in horror. Jenny didn’t think, she reacted. In preparation for an attack, she’d filled every syringe on the crash cart, ten in all.

She was going to stop the fucker’s heart.

She grabbed the first two needles, one in each hand, gripping them in her fists with her thumbs on the plungers. Succinylcholine, a powerful paralytic. Etomidate, an anesthetic. Both went into Lanz’s back, and as Jenny injected him she noticed, with a combination of horror and revulsion, that he was missing his left arm. Two clamps dangled from the fleshy stump, their stainless steel handles clack-clacking against the tile floor.

Lanz screeched again, his remaining hand locking around Jenny’s ankle. She left the needles sticking in his back and reached behind her, managing to snag two more just as he yanked Jenny off her feet.

Fighting the urge to pull away, Jenny sat forward, stabbing him with two more overdoses. Lidocaine and diazapam.

Lanz opened his horrible mouth, his teeth locking onto Jenny’s foot, beginning to chew. She tugged her foot away, pulling free of her shoe, and then scrambled back toward the children.

She’d injected Lanz with enough drugs to put a track team into a coma. But that didn’t seem to matter. Spitting out her gym shoe, Lanz began to slither toward her, eyes wide, mouth wide, his talons outstretched and his massacred face shuddering in what looked like ecstasy.

Lanz

BLOODBLOODBLOODBLOODBLOOD!MUST!HAVE!BLOOD!

The bitch nurse had jabbed him with a few needles, but that didn’t matter. He’d just amputated his own arm without sedation. A few measly shots weren’t going to stop him. Dr. Kurt Lanz M.D. was invincible.

Inching forward on his belly, he undulated in Jenny’s direction. Her terrified face—a rictus mask of pure fear—was delightful. She kept the delicious children behind her, as if she could somehow stop the primal force that was Kurt Lanz using just her sheer will.

He reached forward, stretching out his arm, a talon hooking into the cuff of her pants.

Then things started to get strange.

First, his lungs stopped working. They seized up, unwilling or unable to take a breath.

Then his head began to feel full and heavy, and the floor beneath him seemed to shift.

His vision blurred, going dark along the edges.

The drugs! It’s the drugs! My body can’t metabolize them fast enough!

Lanz snarled, tugging Jenny toward him by her slacks, sliding her across the floor until she straddled his face—an obscene imitation of a sex act.

Blood! Blood will revive me! Blood will get these drugs out of my system!

Lanz stretched open his jaws, ready to bite Jenny’s pelvis in half.

Then something punched into Lanz’s back. Something sharp and cold. He felt it stick up under his scapula, straight into his left ventricle. The pain made him gasp.

“Potassium chloride,” Jenny said.

Potassium chloride?

KCl was used to treat hypokalemia and digitalis poisoning. But in large doses it was the primary drug used in lethal injections for death row inmates.

Potassium chloride stopped the heart!

Lanz moaned, the drug working instantly. He curled up, twitching and spasming, the pain stormtrooping through his entire body in agonizing, dizzying, pounding waves. He vomited, but it wasn’t the contents of his stomach. It was his stomach, hanging inside-out from a slimy loop of esophagus, spilling out the precious blood he’d been digesting.

Even with everything going on, the smell of blood activated his biting reflex, and he chomped down on his own regurgitated organs, screaming as he chewed.

“You always were an asshole, Lanz,” he heard Jenny say.

As his eyes rolled up into his head and his brain kicked out its last few beta waves, Dr. Kurt Lanz MD thought, Smart, smart girl. I probably shouldn’t…have fired her…

Adam

“DID you stop the bleeding?” he asked.

“The Pitocin stopped it, but she’s lost about fifteen hundred milliliters and her vitals are way down.”

They entered Stacie’s room, and something inside of Adam broke apart seeing her still lying unconscious and bloodless in the bed.

“Where’s my daughter?”

“Resting peacefully in the nursery. The blood?”

He took his pack off and unzipped the pouch, handed Herrick the first unit of O-positive.

She already had the intravenous line lodged into Dee’s arm, and she hung the bag on the metal stand’s hook and plugged the IV line into the plastic, Adam watching the line of darkness push down the tube toward his wife’s veins.

He touched the back of his hand to her cheek—clammy and cool.

“Is she going to make it?”

Herrick didn’t answer.

“Nurse?”

Adam glanced over his shoulder.

Herrick stood with her hand cupped to her mouth, spitting blood and…were those teeth?…into the palm of her hand.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She looked up at him, confusion brimming in her eyes. Tried to speak, but more teeth were loosening, and she plucked one of her back molars out—root and all.

Said something that sounded like, “I don’t feel right.”

Adam reached out to touch her shoulder, but she retreated and ran out of the room.

He turned back to Stacie, took her cold hand in his.

“I’ll be right back, sweetie. You’re going to be okay now. Just rest.”

He leaned down and kissed her on the cheek, and as he turned to leave the room to see what was wrong with Herrick, something standing in the doorway stopped him cold.

A little demon-girl.

“You get out of here,” he said.

She hissed at him.

He noticed a pair of scissors protruding from her chest.

“Go on!” he shouted.

But she didn’t go on. Just stood there, drooling out of those horrific teeth, black eyes gleaming in the blue-glow of the emergency lights, watching him almost like she was gearing herself up for something, and then he realized she wasn’t looking at him.

It was the blood bag.

She moved forward and before he knew what he’d done, Adam swung and hit the little girl with a devastating left hook to the face, felt her nose sink in, his knuckles pop, and she went sliding back across the floor.

Something possessed him—a livid, white-hot jolt of rage, and as the little girl tried to sit up, the minister rushed forward, grabbing a knot of her hair as he shot past, and dragged her out into the corridor.

He could feel her struggling, trying to regain her feet, so he ran harder, hit a full-on sprint as he approached the junction, and then he gave one hard tug and sent the demon-girl careening into the nurses’ station.

She crashed head-first into the wood paneling and lay unmoving on the floor.

Adam could hear noise everywhere now.

From Room 12—Brittany’s room—God-awful screams, figured she was pushing the baby out, and he hoped Nurse Herrick was in with her.

The barricade was rattling, too, a demon trying to squeeze itself through the square window-frame.

The demon-girl jumped to her feet, hit the ground running, coming straight toward Adam, talons out, screeching like some battle cry, and it happened so fast Adam didn’t even react, just let the monster slam into him at full-speed.

They crashed hard to the floor, the little girl’s talons digging through his black pants, pinning him to the linoleum.

He looked down, saw her head moving toward his crotch, those shark teeth snapping.

Adam reached out and grabbed another handful of the little monster’s hair and torqued her head a half second before she decapitated his johnson.

He brought his legs up around her and squeezed her between his thighs, straining to crush her ribcage.

She screamed, tore one of her talons out of his leg and swiped it at his face.

Adam could hear those demons trying to break through the barricade, couldn’t see them from where he lay, but he could hear the ominous crack of wood splintering.

The girl struggled to inch toward him, close enough now that he let go of her hair and started punching—direct, solid blows to her face, her eyes swelling shut as she screamed.

And then suddenly he felt her talons close around his neck, and her face—the nightmare wreck of it—inches from his.

He stared into those black, soulless eyes that glistened with…

…joy…

It was unmistakable.

This little demon-girl looming over him, saliva dripping in long, bloody strings from her fangs, was pleased as punch, as if she’d finally managed to catch her first real prey.

I can’t be killed by a little girl.

Please God.

Not like this.

Wait! Someone had appeared behind the girl—he craned his neck to see who it was as those monsters ravaged the barricade beyond the nurses’ station.

Brittany! It was…Brittany?

Brittany stood in bare feet on the cold linoleum, her head tilted, watching Adam.

Her face had exploded, and her stomach too, and in the cavity a little eight-pound demon with a face full of half-inch razor whites was slowly chewing its way out, Adam thinking…

This is a hell worse than any I ever read about. Please God, please…where are you?

Jenny

IN a night filled with countless horrors, killing Lanz had to be the worst one of all.

Jenny huddled with the children once again, not even knowing what she was saying, but continuing to speak in soothing tones until their hysterics leveled off. Then she found a spare blanket and draped it over Lanz’s body so they wouldn’t have to look at it. She kicked something wet and lumpy—is that his stomach?—underneath the cover and then retreated back to the corner of the storage room.

“It’s okay now,” she said. “We’re all going to be—”

But she heard something that stopped her.

Squeak…

Squeak…

Squeak…

Could it be…?

The boys screaming in unison, so loud and shrill it hurt Jenny’s ears. She whipped her head around, following their shocked stares and saw…

That clown. That damn clown.

It stood next to the window, peering inside. Benny the Clown’s teeth were gone, and it looked like he’d been gumming barbed wire. But the red nose and the fright wig remained, as did patches of white make-up, reflecting multicolored hues of pastel in their glow lights.

Jenny summoned up courage she didn’t know she had and said, “It’s okay, kids. It’s okay. He can’t get in.”

“I hate clowns!”

“That’s not a real clown,” another boy said. “That’s just some guy dressed up like a clown!”

“It’s a monster clown!”

She hugged them. “Don’t worry. The monster clown is out there. We’re in here.”

“He’s doing something!”

Jenny didn’t want to look at the creepy thing again, but she felt compelled to. Benny the Clown was holding something in his hand and waving it into the broken window.

A blue handkerchief?

Squinting at it, Jenny realized it was sticking out of the vest pocket of his clown outfit. Benny the Clown gave the cloth a sudden tug.

The first handkerchief was tied to a second, yellow handkerchief. He fed both through the window and kept pulling.

Attached to it was a red one.

Then a green one.

“Go away, you goddamn clown!” Jenny ordered.

But Benny the Clown continued to pull out handkerchief after handkerchief. Five…ten…fifteen…then…

That’s not a handkerchief.

The next thing he yanked from his pocket was a human spleen.

The spleen was attached to a kidney.

The kidney was attached to a gall bladder.

Then a lung. A bladder. A descending colon. And something that might have been a trachea.

Jenny was speechless. Not only because this horrible perversion was being presented to her and the kids. But because of the effort that went into it. Benny the Clown had taken the time to tie all of these unconnected parts together.

Finally, with flourish, he ended the ghoulish display by tugging out the last organ. A human heart.

Then the bastard actually bowed.

“You sick son of a bitch!” Jenny screamed. “Get the hell away from us!”

But Benny the Clown didn’t go anywhere. He continued to stare at them, as if expecting a round of applause.

Jenny turned away, hugging the children. “Don’t look at him, kids. We don’t have to worry about him. He’s just a big bully, trying to scare you. He doesn’t even have any teeth. He can’t hurt us. The big loser can’t even get in.”

Then Jenny heard a sound that chilled her to the very core.

A sound that was both familiar, and totally out of place.

BRRRR-RRRR-RRRRR-RRRREEEEEEEEEE!

The starting and revving of a chainsaw.

The blade poked through the aluminum door like a finger through a wet tissue.

The children screamed. So did Jenny. She screamed for their lives, and hers, and for Randall’s, because she knew it was her husband’s chainsaw, and he never would have let Benny the Clown take it, which meant he wasn’t going to save her because he was dead.

As Benny the Clown cut the door off its hinges and stepped into the storage closet, Jenny’s biggest regret was that she hadn’t gotten to tell Randall how much she loved him.

Randall

HE hated to admit it, but Randall felt a lot better after his encounter with Clay. The new gun helped. But, really, the guy wasn’t a complete dickhead after all. Oh, he was still a dickhead, but perhaps a smaller one than Randall had originally thought.

Randall turned a corner. The emergency lighting in the corridor wasn’t nearly bright enough to give him a full view of what was happening, but he could see blood all over the floor, and two draculas on their hands and knees, greedily slurping it up.

Two draculas. He had four bullets. If Clay’s advice about making sure that loved ones weren’t behind what you wanted to kill was correct, then Randall could line up his shot carefully and take them both out with a single bullet.

Then again, they seemed really distracted by the blood. And there was a lot of it.

Maybe he could just walk on by. Save a bullet for when he desperately needed it…or at least for when Jenny could see him shoot it.

He kept the gun extended in front of him and picked up his pace as much as he could. The draculas continued slurping up the blood. Hard to believe that Randall was so concerned with the blow to his own dignity when these things—human beings who probably would’ve had a good chuckle at his injury just hours ago—writhed on the floor like animals. Disgusting. Pathetic.

He quickly stepped past them. They didn’t look up from their meal.

How much blood did they need? If you tightened the muscles in your arm just right, you could get a mosquito stuck as it was sucking your blood, and the little bastard could keep drinking and drinking until it popped. He’d love to see one of these draculas pop.

Wow, he’d done it. Walked right by the distracted draculas.

If not for the absolute shitstorm of misery he’d gone through tonight, he’d almost think that the rest of this was going to be easy.

Okay, his mind had more or less returned to where it needed to be to get himself back to Jenny and the other kids. He’d be fine now. Nothing but redemption from this point forward.

He continued down the dark hallway, still ready with the gun.

More blood on the floor. Better not slip on it.

There was some sort of commotion behind a closed door. Randall didn’t open it. He kept moving forward.

He tried to focus on the layout of the hospital. He was a floor above pediatrics, but distance-wise, he hadn’t really gone that far. If there was another stairwell close by (or an elevator, if by any chance they were still working, which they probably weren’t) he’d be in good shape.

A dracula burst through a swinging door, less than ten feet in front of him. He had a pasty complexion and too much gel in his hair. The dracula saw Randall and immediately charged, arms outstretched.

For a split second Randall considered conserving his bullets, but the stupidity level of being ripped apart while holding a handgun was more than he was willing to commit to, so he pulled the trigger. The top half of the dracula’s head virtually exploded. The creature kept running forward for a moment, as if the message that it was dead hadn’t quite reached its legs, and then it collapsed to the floor.

Clay Theel was a man who knew his guns. And that kick felt good.

Randall continued down the hallway, his confidence further boosted. He moved quickly, probably fucking up his numb leg beyond repair, but for right now he didn’t care. There were a lot of shadows, lots of places where something with claws could hide and jump out at him. Though Randall couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t scared, nothing was going to stop him.

Another dracula stepped into view at the end of the hallway. Looked like a teenage girl. She wore a hospital gown, had long blond hair, and much less blood on her than most of the other creatures he’d encountered. Randall imagined that she was rather adorable in her previous life. Not so much now.

She rushed him. He aimed for a spot right between her eyes and pulled the trigger.

His aim wasn’t spot-on, but he got her in the neck. It burst in all directions, her head flopped backward, and she tumbled to the floor just like the other one.

Half of his bullets gone. Damn. Randall needed to pick up the pace.

He reached the end of the hallway. Left or right? Both looked equally spooky. He was pretty sure pediatrics was to the right, so hopefully there’d be a staircase close…

He laughed out loud. There was. Right there. Finally some good luck.

Randall opened the door to the stairwell carefully, half-expecting dozens of draculas to tumble out and make him look dumb for having believed that he was having some good luck. But the stairwell seemed clear.

He sat and scooted down the stairs on his butt. It wasn’t comfortable or dignified, but it got the job done.

When he reached the bottom, he heard some screams.

And a sound that was…familiar. Couldn’t be, though.

As he pulled open the door at the bottom of the steps, the noise became much louder. Thought he had to be imagining this, because it sounded a hell of a lot like a chainsaw.

He stepped into the hallway. Definitely a chainsaw. How in the world…?

Randall walked down the hallway. Yes! This looked familiar! Now he knew exactly where he was! He was getting closer and closer to the sound of the chainsaw, and hoped that it was being put to good use on one or more of those monsters.

There it was. Pediatrics.

He pushed through the door, and the first thing he saw was that goddamn, motherfucking, toothless, unfunny son of a bitch clown holding his chainsaw.

His chainsaw!

This was blasphemy! Fucking blasphemy! You could dunk a cross in a pool of urine while environmentalists burned the American flag and Randall would not have been more outraged than he was at the sight of Benny the Clown holding his precious chainsaw. The grease-painted fuckhead didn’t even know how to hold it properly.

Heroes in the movies that Randall so dearly loved said cool things before they blew away the bad guy. But that would mean a few extra seconds of the clown holding his chainsaw, and that was unacceptable. Randall pointed Clay’s gun at the clown, who stood in front of a closet or something, and pulled the trigger.

Missed completely.

Shit!

Benny the Clown turned to look at him. He tossed the chainsaw from his right hand to his left, and then back again.

What the hell was he trying to do? Juggle?

Somebody inside the closet screamed. Even over the roar of the chainsaw motor, Randall recognized it.

Jenny.

Alive.

Randall was not going to miss a second time. That shiny red nose was just begging to have a bullet rip through it. He stepped forward, focusing on the spot with every bit of concentration he could summon, narrowing the distance between them. He’d fire into that clown’s head from just out of chainsaw range. His brains could make shadow puppets as they scattered against the wall.

He continued walking forward.

Focus…focus…focus…

His foot came down on something slippery and wet.

His legs flew out underneath him and he landed on his ass.

The gun went off, blowing apart a chunk of the ceiling. He winced as a large piece of plaster struck his eye. Dignity, gone.

With his other eye, he saw what he’d slipped on: a tied-together string of guts. What the hell…?

The clown tossed the chainsaw from one hand to the other again, then pointed the blade at Randall and took a big squeaky step forward.

Randall realized that he might very well be about to die, and he was going to die pissed.

He threw Clay’s gun at Benny the Clown.

Missed.

He needed something else to throw.

There wasn’t much in the way of dracula-killing equipment left in his utility belt, but he yanked out a tape measure as he scooted away from the chainsaw-wielding clown. His left eye kept blinking by itself—the falling plaster had really gotten in there.

The large, bloody hole that comprised most of Benny the Clown’s face curled up slightly on one side, as if he were trying to smile.

Randall threw the tape measure. In a battle of chainsaw versus tape measure, Randall would put his money on the chainsaw, but the tape measure was enclosed in metal and he certainly wouldn’t want to get hit in the face with it.

It struck the clown in the forehead.

His head snapped back.

The large, bloody hole curled downward.

Randall kept scooting away. The clown was less hyperactive than the other draculas, but Randall still didn’t want to get in the way of a waving chainsaw. There had to be other stuff to throw at him. Something heavy.

Jenny emerged from the closet, holding a plastic bucket. Randall hoped it was full of acid.

She swung the bucket with both hands, bashing the clown on the back of the head. His shiny red nose popped off and fell to the floor. The clown stumbled forward but maintained his footing. He turned around, chainsaw still roaring.

Sawing up my wife with my chainsaw? I don’t think so.

Randall got up and rushed at him, tackling him like the football player Randall might have been if he hadn’t decided to become a lumberjack. The clown maintained his grip on the chainsaw, damn it, and the two of them spun around in a complete circle.

“Stay with the kids!” Randall shouted at Jenny, praying the kids weren’t all dead.

Jenny hesitated, as if she didn’t want to leave him (was such a thing possible?) but when the chainsaw swung at her head she retreated back into the closet.

Randall grabbed the clown’s arm. He was sure he could tackle him to the floor without much trouble, but that carried the very serious risk of falling on the chainsaw blade. Benny the Clown struggled, trying to twist the chainsaw blade around into Randall’s stomach, and though he was a lot stronger than the clown, Randall felt off-balance and vulnerable.

Fuck it. Who said these draculas were the only things that could bite?

He leaned his head down and sank his teeth into the back of the clown’s neck. He then yanked his head back, tearing off a chunk. A small chunk, but a chunk of dracula clown neck nevertheless.

The clown convulsed.

Randall spat out the flesh.

Then he howled in pain as the goddamn chainsaw blade bounced against the back of his good leg.

Randall let go of the clown and took a step back. It’s okay. Just a superficial cut, he told himself, even though he knew no such thing.

The clown spun around, facing him.

There was no time to turn chickenshit. Randall threw a brutal punch at the clown’s face. His fist landed right in the clown’s open mouth, smacking against the back of his throat. The clown twitched, gagging, then his mouth closed around Randall’s fist.

Sucking on it.

Randall pulled his blood-and-saliva covered fist out and punched him right in his “Benny the Clown Says ‘Let’s Have Fun!’“ button, crumpling the metal.

He still didn’t drop the chainsaw.

In fact, Benny the Clown swung the chainsaw with more enthusiasm than ever, coming unnervingly close to spilling Randall’s insides out onto the floor. The clown swung the roaring weapon back and forth in a wide arc as he walked forward. Randall moved back at an equal pace.

Not enough of a gap between the swings to charge him.

Randall decided to retreat. Get the clown away from Jenny and the kids.

“C’mon, clowny clown!” he shouted, moving back toward the exit to pediatrics. “C’mon, Bozo the Prick! Let’s do this!”

If he ever got to relate this story to others, he’d come up with something better than “Bozo the Prick,” but for now it worked.

The clown followed him as Randall moved into the hallway, wishing that his newly cut leg would hurry up and go numb like his other one.

He picked a door, any door, with the clown in hot pursuit.

Stumbled into some sort of storage room, not much bigger than Jenny’s closet when they’d lived together, with a large metal shelf on each side. No way out except the way he came. Very little room to maneuver.

Randall tried to focus like the Terminator, imagining red lights flashing around the things that might be useful. An android from the future wouldn’t need to stumble around the room, looking for something to kill a clown with.

Benny the Clown’s chainsaw swing very nearly took off Randall’s arm, missing by inches. Randall continued his robot-scan as he tried to keep from being dismembered. In a few more steps he was going to smack against the back wall and be very deeply screwed.

Something caught his attention. Metal tanks in the middle row. He grabbed one of them, not knowing what was inside. How awesome would it be if it was laughing gas?

He threw the tank at the clown. It struck the chainsaw blade, creating a shower of sparks, but that still wasn’t enough to knock it out of his hands. Benny the Clown had one hell of a grip. The tank hit the floor, landing on the valve, and then the tank shot like a rocket, whizzing past Randall’s feet, bashing into the back wall, then spinning in a wild circle. He had to jump out of the way to keep it from tripping him.

Yeah. He could work with this.

The clown stared at the spinning tank. Maybe it reminded him of some sort of circus trick.

Randall grabbed another tank and slammed the nozzle against the shelf. He tried to hold it steady long enough to aim it, but the tank shot out of his hands, and flew straight into Benny the Clown’s stomach. The clown doubled over…and dropped the chainsaw.

Oh, yes. Yes, yes, yes.

The clown stood back up. No guts exposed, which was disappointing. Randall couldn’t even tell if the clown was in pain, though the tank had to have shattered some ribs.

Deciding that he would stick with what worked, Randall grabbed a third tank. Making sure he gripped it tighter than before so he wouldn’t lose control, he bashed off the nozzle, then lunged at the clown with it.

Poor clowny bastard. What a lousy time to have such a big mouth.

Randall slammed the tank into the clown’s gaping, bloody mouth, then pounded it hard with his fist to get it in a couple more inches. The clown clawed at it and stumbled back against the shelf, knocking over a bunch of medical supplies, including an inhaler.

The clown didn’t exactly inflate—not like a beach ball or anything—but his stomach definitely expanded as if he’d been gobbling down a really big meal, really fast. Randall grabbed his chainsaw from the floor and knew he should get back to Jenny as soon as possible, but he couldn’t look away from what was happening.

Is he really going to…?

Benny the Clown popped.

He stood there for a moment, the inside of his torso carved out all the way to his backbone, and then fell. His final gift of laughter to the world was a short but intense blast of flatulence. It might have been natural, or it might have been him landing on a whoopee cushion. Randall didn’t much care, though dying with a fart sound was a pretty ironical way for a clown to go.

Perhaps once he had been a good clown. A noble clown. But he’d stolen Randall’s chainsaw, and had to die.

My saw!

Randall clenched it tight, close to weeping with relief.

Finally. He had it back.

The motor sounded kind of weird. He wondered what kind of fuel they’d put in it. This baby only ever got premium.

He returned to pediatrics. Jenny had left the closet, and she threw her arms around him and squeezed tight.

“Randall! Oh, thank God! I knew you’d come back!”

“You know you can count on me, babe. Always and forever.”

“Always and forever,” Jenny repeated. And damn if she wasn’t looking at him like she hadn’t in a long time. Like she used to. Bright and happy and lovey-dovey.

Randall felt a bunch of emotions at once. Pride, that he was able to come through for her. Love, that had never faded. And hope.

Hope that they might actually have a future together.

Then Jenny asked, “Where’s the little girl?” and Randall’s spirits sank.

Lie. Tell her that Tina got out safely. You lowered her out a window or tossed her out to some firemen with a trampoline. They took her away in an ambulance. She’ll be fine.

Randall lowered his eyes. The plaster in his left eye started to hurt again. “She didn’t make it.”

Jenny put her hand over her mouth, then nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“But we’re going to save the rest of the kids. I’ve got my saw back. I’m going to cut through these motherfu—” He caught himself. “—motherhuggers all the way to the front door of this place. I’ll lead the way. We’ll all squish together close. You follow behind the kids. We’ll keep moving, I’ll clear our path, and we’ll be okay, I promise.”

“I believe you,” Jenny said. And Randall thought she actually meant it.

He smiled.

“What’s that between your teeth?” Jenny asked.

“Part of the clown. He tasted funny.”

Jenny

JENNY had never been so happy to see Randall. She had so much she wanted to say to him. But her training took precedent over her emotions, and she immediately went into nurse mode.

“We need to wash out your mouth,” Jenny said. “Right now.”

“I said motherhugger, not motherfu—”

“Now, Randall! The infection is bloodborne. We don’t know…”

Her voice caught in her throat. She needed something antiseptic. Hydrogen peroxide, or something that could kill germs.

“Gargle with gas,” she said, pointing at his saw.

Randall stared at her as if she were nuts, but he uncapped the tank on his saw and lifted it to his mouth. When he titled it back, his eyes bugged out.

“Kids, stay by me,” she told the boys. “Now swish it around, Randall. Keep it in there as long as you can stand it.”

Randall’s cheeks bulged side to side. Jenny returned to the storage room for two compression bandages, and bent down, wrapping up Randall’s old chainsaw wound, and his new chainsaw wound. Neither was pretty, but he’d live.

“Mmmm-mmm-bbmbmb,” Randall said.

“Yeah, you can spit.”

He turned his head, ejecting a stream of pink liquid.

“Rubbing alcohol,” he said, after clearing his throat. “What kind of person would put rubbing alcohol in a man’s chainsaw?” He quickly looked down at Jenny. “But I didn’t swallow any. I’ve been dry—”

“For ninety-seven days,” Jenny said. “I know. And when we get out of here, I think we should go somewhere to celebrate your sobriety.”

Randall’s face brightened. “You mean, like a date?”

“I promised the boys here I’d take them to Camp Kookyfoot, and that you’d come with us. But I was thinking of someplace more immediate.”

“Like where?”

Jenny wound tape around the bandage. “I was thinking as soon as we get out of here, we go straight to my place.”

“Your place?”

Jenny nodded, feeling her whole body grow warm. “Randall Bolton, this is one lady who knows how to show appreciation for a man who comes to her rescue.” She lowered her voice. “I’m going to do things to you that will make your toes curl.”

“Jenny,” he said, “Don’t talk to me like that in front of the kids.”

Jenny stood up, locking eyes with her husband. “This is the part in all your movies where the hero kisses the girl.”

Randall hacked spit once more over his shoulder, wiped his mouth on the back of his arm, and planted one on Jenny that was so passionate it made her toes curl.

When they both came up for air, Jenny knew the moment was right to tell him that she still loved the big lug, and she wanted to give their relationship another shot. But Randall seemed to suddenly realize that they were still in grave danger. He looked away from her and at the kids.

“Everybody stay close,” he told the four boys. “I don’t have any fancy hand grenades, but none of those boogeymen are going to get past my saw, okay?”

The boys all nodded, their eyes wide and terrified.

“Everyone put your hands on the waist of the person next to you. We’re not going to lose anybody. I’ll take the lead, and Jenny will be squished up right behind you. Is everybody okay with that? Good.”

Jenny knew they had to get moving, but she didn’t want to lose this moment. “Randall, I—”

An explosion rocked the hallway.

“Get behind me,” Randall said, stepping in front of Jenny and urging his chainsaw to life with a quick pull of the cord.

Moorecook

MORTIMER spat out the last of his fangs, watching it drop onto the tile floor. He tore at the remnants of his underwear, and his naked, gore-slicked body doubled-over.

His distended belly—laden with blood only moments before—began to flatten. He screamed as his spine twisted, the vertebrae cracking like exploding popcorn.

Water. He needed water, and a place to hide while his body continued to change into its new form.