Draculas (43 page)

He put one round center mass, and the thing stopped, wavering amid the rubble...but kept stumbling toward him.

Got-damn.

He'd never seen a .50 round fail to stop anything.

Seen them bring down bulls with one shot. Fuck up the entire engine blocks of civilian cars.

Rogers aimed again, this time a hair higher, and squeezed off three quick rounds.

The monster's head disappeared.

As it toppled, others emerged out of the rubble behind it, some of them beginning to run toward the parking lot.

He opened up, took a dozen rounds to bring down six of them, and even still some continued to drag their gut-strewn selves across the ground.

Fuck!

He'd missed this one--one of the infecteds climbing through a pile of debris just on the edge of his peripheral vision.

He swung the fifty as far left as it would go, the infected a half second from escaping his range.

One squeeze and in the brilliance of the closest spotlight, a red cloud blew out the side of the thing's head as it crashed to the ground.

Fuckin'a it felt good to be back behind the big fifty, almost made him miss Iraqistan. Crazy thing, but while cruising those insurgent-infested shithole neighborhoods, it had occurred to Rogers that war hadn't felt like war at all. Not that he'd had--

Shit!

Four rounds practically cut the monster running toward him in half at the waist.

--any real inkling of what it would be like, but certainly not what it had turned out to be, all so surreal and horrific, like the best videogame you ever played--ridiculous and fun and profoundly sad, and after awhile, like nothing. Beyond computation.

Here came a pack of them now, all streaking toward him and hissing, and he let them get close this time, inside of thirty feet, before he cut loose, and knowing he still had four 100-round belts, he went a little crazy, barrel blazing until those monsters had practically dissolved into red mist in front of him.

Fuck, that felt good!

He was just getting going now, sweeping the rubble back and forth, jonesing to go again, but the fifty-high was fading fast.

Then it was gone.

Nothing moved in the ruins.

Come on! He was just getting warmed up.
One more. Please, God, send one more. One more of those fucked-up creatures for me to kill, and I swear I won't even fucking swear any more.

But still nothing moved. Nothing except that TV helicopter, coming down to land on the grass a few dozen yards from his hummer. Rogers hoped it was filled with monsters--lighting up a chopper would be hella-good--but when it landed some children piled out.

Rogers felt something inside him deflating. That emptiness that had always filled him after a recon--

Wait.

There.

Forty feet ahead, a piece of blackened cinderblock shifted.

Thank you, God.

He sited up the movement, felt his heart starting to beat a little faster now. No headshot this time. Not even center mass. He was going to savor this one. Take it slow, start low, work his way up the legs, do the knees one at a time.

Now several pieces of cinderblock were thrown aside and a creature slowly came to its feet.

Rogers smiled.

Can't believe they pay me to do this shit.

He aimed at one of the feet as the monster started toward him across the rubble, and his finger has just begun to ease back on the trigger when he stopped.

This thing didn't move like those monsters.

It wore blue scrubs, partly singed, but it moved...like a man. An uninfected man.

"Don't shoot!" the man said as he approached, his hands lifted.

"Stop right fucking there!" Rogers screamed.

The man stopped. "I'm not one of them. I swear to--"

"Don't matter."

"I'm one of the few survivors of this massacre, soldier. I would imagine you have some people who need treatment. I am a doctor here." He glanced back at what was left of Blessed Crucifixion. "Or I used to be."

Rogers finger twitched. All he could think about were Halford's orders.

Shoot anything that tries to crawl out, I don't give a good goddamn if it's your mother, mow that bitch down.

He signed up to do some killing, for fucking sure, even killed some civvies in Iraqistan, but those had all been accidents. Dumbasses reaching for a cell phone at the wrong time, buenas noches, muthafucker.

"Come closer," Rogers said.

The doctor stepped into the illumination of the spotlight mounted to the roof beside the 50 cal.

He was scratched up all to hell. Young doctor, too. Thirty-one, thirty-two tops.

"What's your name?" Rogers asked.

"Dr. Cook. Look, it's an infection spread by biting. I'm not bitten anywhere."

Dr. Cook lifted his hands, turning in a slow circle.

I should just fucking put two rounds through his chest right now and call it good. If Halford finds out I let someone through, I'm in for a serious ass-fucking.

Rogers was about to let the gun eat the unlucky doc up, but those damn TV folks from the helicopter, with the damn kids and their damn camera, came running up. Then the damn pilot handed the damn doctor a baby.

Shit. Live on Channel 6, lone soldier massacres seven civvies. After the networks and CNN got tired of it, the clip would be on YouTube forever.

Rogers flicked on the safety.

"Getcher ass behind the perimeter line," Rogers said, "By the trailer in the lot."

"Sure thing, and thank you...what was your name?"

"Doesn't matter. Fact, don't even tell them you talked to me. I'm supposed to kill anything that moves."

"What about serve and protect?"

"That's the police, brother. Marines just break shit."

The doctor smiled. "I won't breathe a word."

Then Dr. Cook led the group through the Humvee's headlights, heading for the perimeter. Rogers climbed off the mount. He had to piss. Another symptom of combat. Some reason, after a firefight, his bladder felt like it was the size of a grape.

He made sure the TV guys weren't taping him, then took three steps away from the hummer and unzipped, getting things going with a grunt, then streaming urine onto the grass.

He heard something behind him.

CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK CLICK...

Rogers spun, reaching for his sidearm, pulsing urine all over his boots.

He pointed the .45 toward the hummer but didn't see anything.

"Who's there?"

No answer. Not that the enemy would answer. Could those monsters even talk? Rogers didn't know, and didn't care. It wasn't his job to ask questions.

His piss had dwindled to a trickle. Rogers still had to go, but instead chose to check-in and await orders. He didn't like being out here alone, even armed to the teeth. But keeping a perimeter around five acres of property, coupled with their casualties, had stretched their unit thin. He holstered both of his weapons (this is my rifle, this is my gun, this is for fighting, this is for fun) climbed into his Humvee, and picked up the radio. Just as he pressed the button to talk, he heard the sound again.

CLICK CLICK CLICK...

But it was closer this time.

Closer, and coming from the back seat.

His eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror.

Staring back at him was one of those monsters, its face burned, some parts right down to the white bone beneath. One eye missing, pink goo dripping out. Sitting back there,
click click clicking
its horrible teeth as a rope of drool slid out of its jaws.

Rogers immediately reached for his .45, but the creature was on him before he cleared his holster, biting into his neck, so deep that Rogers felt its fangs dragging across his vertebrae.

The pain was instant, blinding, and, strangely, infuriating. Even as his blood gushed out and his vision faded to black, Rogers was royally pissed off that one of these things had gotten the drop on him. Two fucking tours in the Middle East, only to die in Colorado.

It was fucking embarrassing.

Rogers reached blindly for his utility belt, freeing an M67 frag grenade. He pulled the pin with a flick of his thumb, and it dropped it onto his lap just as his consciousness slipped away.

Semper fi, muthafucker.

Private Rogers never heard the explosion.

Joe says:
Jeff deleted this joke that I inserted into one of Paul's scenes, in Dr. Lanz's POV, during the ER massacre in the beginning. He said that Lanz wasn't the type to think up a joke like this. He's right, and I was okay with cutting it. But I did cry for two days straight.

"He bit his arm off, doc!" the bearded one said. "That animal bit his fucking arm off! And he bit
me
in the ass!"

As the pair struggled past, Lanz saw that the man's ample right buttock was missing a sizable chunk--mostly fat, but a little of the gluteus was exposed.

Talk about a half-assed injury.

Joe says:
This was as close as we got to any outright disagreements while writing this. And I gotta give big props to FPW, because it was totally unfair to him. We established early on that we'd all have POV characters, and we could end up doing what we wanted with them. I met with Jeff in Florida and we discussed how the Jenny/Randall dynamic would end up--they were star crossed lovers, with Randall's love strong enough for him to fight for Jenny even after he became a dracula. I'd also discussed Adam and Stacie's fates with Blake, and since he grooves on nihilism and tragedy, he decided to go the tragic route.

Paul had free reign to do what he wanted with Shanna and Clay, though we'd all discussed letting Shanna live. Clay's fate, however, changed often during our email discussions. He lived and died and lived and died, back and forth, over and over. The problem was Clay turned out to be one of the most memorable, and likeable, characters in the book.

We all knew going into this that we wanted a Night of the Living Dead type of ending. So Paul did what each of us did--he killed his main character in a spectacular fashion.

But I really didn't want Clay to die. Paul had created such a fun character, and the rest of the climax was such a downer, that I really believed Clay should live.

Happily, Paul was big enough to allow it, even though it was uncool of me to be such a whining little bitch boy. We compromised with the new, happier ending that appears in the manuscript.

Paul also introduced another mysterious character in these scenes named Dr. Driscoll, who seems to understand what's going on. This hints at a deep government conspiracy. We all liked this idea, especially if we do a sequel, but it confused some of our beta readers. If we do wind up writing Draculas 2, no doubt Dr. Driscoll will be a key figure.

SHE stood by Clay's suburban, watching the dark, blocky mass of the hospital. A faint, faint glow lit some of the windows, probably backwash from the emergency lights in the hallways, but for the most part it looked dead and deserted. But looks were deceiving. She knew it crawled with--what had Jenny's ex called them? Draculas. Right. Jenny and her ex were in there--still human, she hoped--and so was Clay.

She prayed for his safe return. Yes, she was going to break his heart when he did return, but she wanted him back. Because somehow the world seemed a better place with Clay than without him.

Ten minutes ago the army had roared in and heavily armed soldiers had piled out of their trucks. A large black trailer had followed the soldiers into the lot but had parked away toward the rear. The people who had emerged were civilians.

And then something scary: The army set up spotlights at the emergency entrance, around the main entrance, and at each stairwell exit. Then they'd positioned soldiers with flame throwers at each point. Looked like they'd been convinced it was contagious. She'd expected officialdom to scoff at the stories of what had gone on in the hospital, but she guessed the recording Clay had insisted on making had convinced them.

Well, she'd never said he was a dummy, just not on her wavelength.

Just then, to her right at the corner of the building, flames lit the night. A scream echoed and then died.

Her heart stumbled over a beat. That was the door she and Clay had used to escape, the door he'd re-entered. They wouldn't have burned him by mistake, would they? No...that scream had had an unearthly quality. Had to be one of those draculas trying to escape the building. Still...

She took a step in that direction to go check, just to be sure, when she noticed movement on the ground, not too far from her. She looked closer and saw one of the supposedly dead state troopers moving--one of the pair Clay hadn't shot.

Oh, God. As it lifted its head and looked her way, glow from the army headlights glinted off rows of long sharp teeth.

"Hey!" she called. "Hey, somebody! We've got trouble over here! Hey!"

Nobody seemed to hear her. The noise from truck motors revving, soldiers shouting to each other, giving and taking orders, swallowed her cries.

"Hey!" she called, raising her voice to its limit. "A little help over here."

She backed up a few steps, readying to run, fearing it was coming for her, but it veered away, toward the empty darkness.

Confused? The side of its skull looked bashed in. Too damaged to know what it was doing? Well, that was fine with Shanna...

Except if it got away and bit someone, the plague would be loose and there'd be no stopping it.

She screamed. "Will somebody please--oh, crap!" He was going to get away and no one was paying her a bit off attention.

She glanced in the rear of Clay's Suburban and saw his super shotgun, his beloved AA-something. She didn't want to touch it...she remembered Marge back in the chapel, but
somebody
had to stop that thing.

She grabbed the gun and went around the other side of the car in time to see the dracula passing. How hard could this be? She raised the shotgun, pointed it toward the thing, and, closing her eyes--she couldn't look--pulled the trigger.