Draculas (24 page)

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.

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.