Draculas (8 page)

All of the drawers were shaking, rattling, the cacophony so loud it drowned out her wail of fear. Then the hissing started, spliced with that horrible shrieking, Nurse Winslow's brain telling her to move, get out, but by the time her legs received the message the first door had burst open, and along with a blast of cold air, a clown popped out onto the floor, landing on all fours. Awful teeth, black eyes, fright wig, its fangs already chomping as it stared across the room at Winslow.

Now, finally, Janine's legs were moving, and she was sprinting toward the exit. She collided into the door and jerked on the handle out of pure instinct, but it didn't budge.

Behind her--

SQUEAK.

SQUEAK.

SQUEAK.

The clown, on its feet now, its comically oversized shoes fitted with joke squeakers, which got louder as it plodded closer.

Winslow's fingers found the lock, and as she turned the deadbolt, pulling the door open, she heard a flurry of squeaks as the monster ran at her, crushing her with its bulk, and her last thought as its fangs sank into her face...

I've always hated clowns.

FOUR hours earlier, Benjamin Jamison Southwick had been sitting in a cheap motel room, a gun in his mouth. Most clowns were crying beneath their painted-on smiles, and Benny the Clown was flat-out suicidal under his.

After deciding that, yes, he was finally going to do it this time, Benny the Clown had spent a while trying to figure out if he should do it in his clown costume. It would get a lot more attention if he did.
Local Clown Blows Brains Out, Declared Unfunny.
But he came from a long line of clowns, and did he really want to disgrace the Southwick name?

He'd thought about it, weeping much of the time, and then decided that yes, he would kill himself in his clown suit.

But he couldn't do it. Couldn't pull the trigger.

Just like the last three times.

Finally he'd checked his watch. He was scheduled to do a birthday party in half an hour. Might as well keep his commitment.

Getting bit by the birthday girl made him sad.

Having her braces get stuck in him made him sadder.

Sitting in the hospital with the girl and her awful mother, Benny the Clown had never been so sad in his life. If he'd had the gun with him, he thought he could have pulled the trigger, no problem.

He didn't remember any of that now. Because now, with the taste of blood in his mouth and much of the nurse's cheek between his teeth and no thoughts beyond how to get
more more more MORE MORE MORE,
Benny the Clown was happier than he'd ever been.

WHY had Mom never told her that people were filled with delicious red candy? It was better than jelly beans. Way better. She'd only gotten a taste of it, but she needed more. Right now. That mean, brown-skinned nurse had punched her in the face when she'd bitten her arm, and then everyone had rushed out, leaving Oasis alone in the treatment room.

She looked down at her hands--they weren't really hands anymore. They looked like monster claws.

The pain in her face was going away.

She could hear a lot of screaming on the other side of the door.

Screaming meant people.

People meant warm red candy.

Oasis jumped down off the gurney and opened the door.

Candy everywhere! On the walls, the ceiling, people covered in it, and straight ahead, two monsters were licking it off the floor by the nurses' station.

She bounded over and crouched between them, but she hadn't even touched her long, spongy tongue to the puddle when one of the monsters hissed at her and swung its claw at her face.

The blow knocked her back into the wall, and Oasis screamed,
It isn't fair, you stupid dumbhead!
But the words came out as a loud hiss, and now that monster was moving toward her.

She leapt away and exploded through a pair of double doors, sprinting now--faster than she'd ever run before, faster than she imagined possible--down a long corridor.

She came around a corner and skidded to a stop.

A man in pale blue scrubs stood before the closed elevator doors, pushing the UP button over and over and saying bad words.

When he noticed Oasis staring at him, he said, "Holy fucking shit," and backed away.

Oasis asked him if he would share some of his candy, but again, her words came out hissing, and the man screamed, "Get the fuck away from me, little girl!"

She was moving toward him now. He was so tall and big she figured he probably contained more red candy than most. She could smell it through his skin, and the odor made her legs crouch, and before she'd even considered it, she was jumping toward him, her claws outstretched, screaming with pure joy at the thought of sinking her pretty new teeth into the man's--

A metal trashcan connected with the side of her head and she slammed into the elevator doors.

She cry-hissed. Why was he--

The trashcan crashed into her head again.

She screamed, "Stop hurting me!"

The man hit her again.

Why was he beating her? She only wanted his--

That third blow was the hardest. Felt her skull crack open.

She blacked out and came back as the elevator doors were closing, the big candy-filled orderly gone.

All she could think about was her thirst for that candy, her head throbbing with her need for it.

She leapt to her feet.

Heard noise coming from the emergency room, and she wanted to go back, but it was full of adults.

Adults were strong and mean. They would fight her, maybe hurt or even kill her.

Her black eyes fell upon a placard between the elevators:

3
rd
FLOOR

Cardiovascular Services

Endoscopy Registration

The Birthplace

The words were too big for her to read except for the last line.

T-h-e B-i-r-t-h-p-l-a-c-e
.

She smiled, and her huge teeth split her cheeks the rest of the way to her earlobes.

Maybe there would be babies there. Smaller, yes, not as brimming with red candy as adults, but...

How could they fight back?

AS the doors closed and the elevator began to ascend, Randall frowned.

"What's wrong?" Jenny asked.

"The elevator music. I think it's a Metallica cover."

She listened for a moment, then nodded. "I think you're right."

"When did it become okay to do that to Metallica? There's no more decency in the world."

Jenny didn't reply.

Honestly, Randall didn't care about the elevator music--he was just trying to distract himself from the fact that his feelings were hurt.

Yes, in a hospital full of flesh-eating, blood-drinking creatures, moments after being responsible for a bludgeoning death and a decapitation, Randall's feelings were hurt. So what if he couldn't spell
pediatrics
? He could spell
most
of the word, and even in a time of crisis, even after he saved her life, Jenny seemed to go out of her way to make him feel dumb.

Of course, Jenny had never made fun of him before he started drinking. He guessed that was the only way she could get back at him. Since the divorce he'd tried to smarten up. He'd read books--
real
books--but he had to admit that while he sort of understood them while he was reading, the words weren't staying in his brain.

But just like getting sober, he kept trying. Because he loved her.

He'd always love her.

And maybe someday--

The elevator doors opened.

Focus.
Time to save the kids.

Randall held the non-running chainsaw out in front of him. He could hear screams coming from several different places, but at least there weren't any draculas in the hallway.

A dracula ran around the corner into the hallway.

"Get behind me," said Randall, though Jenny had already done that. The dracula was absolutely drenched in blood--it even dripped from his hair--and he wore a black leather jacket and a pair of jeans that you could sort of tell had once been blue. He clearly wasn't a patient or a doctor; it was probably somebody visiting a friend or relative.

The dracula rushed down the hallway toward them, mouth wide open.

The elevator doors started to close. It was hard for Randall to believe that he was in a situation where he
didn't
want heavy metal doors to close between him and a bloodthirsty monster, but those kids needed to be saved. He bumped the doors with his elbow and they slid back open.

The dracula extended his arms and opened its mouth even wider.

"Hold this," said Randall, handing Jenny the chainsaw. As she took it from him, he slid the hatchet out of his belt. Though he wanted to shout a battle cry and rush to meet the creature, he couldn't run on his injured leg, so he clutched the hatchet tightly in his fist and steeled himself for the creature's approach.

He let out the battle cry.

The dracula let out an animalistic screech.

Randall stepped forward and swung the axe as hard as he could. Perhaps he couldn't spell "arterial spray," but he could sure as shit make it happen. The blade of the hatchet wasn't large enough to completely sever the dracula's head, but Randall's aim and the force behind the swing were inarguably fantastic. The blade went completely through the dracula's neck, bursting out the other side, and its head flopped to the left, dangling by a small strip of meat.

The dracula was knocked off its feet, landing hard on its back.

Randall slammed his good foot onto its head, crunching through its skull. Its body twitched. He stomped it again to make the twitching stop.

"F-U-C-K Y-O-U," he spelled out.

So, the draculas had a weakness: they didn't know how to duck out of the way of a goddamn hatchet.

He glanced over at Jenny to see whether she was amused, horrified, or impressed. She was horrified. Not because of the gore, but because two more draculas--one in a hospital gown, one in a dress shirt--were running toward them.

Randall stepped forward to keep Jenny out of harm's way and out of the splash zone. He ignored the jolt of pain in his leg, let out another battle cry, and swung the hatchet so hard he thought he might have popped his shoulder out of socket. The blade slammed into the dracula's chest and smashed the creature into the one behind it. The bloody handle popped out of Randall's grasp as both draculas hit the floor.

The first dracula got up more quickly than Randall would have anticipated or hoped. It stood, blood pouring down its chest. Randall yanked a screwdriver out of his utility belt. A very small screwdriver. One designed for screws instead of skulls.

The second dracula grabbed the first dracula's foot, pulling it to the ground. It wrenched the hatchet out of the first dracula's chest wound, tossed the weapon aside, and then bit down into the bloody gash.

Randall knew that he shouldn't be standing there, staring at them in horror, but he couldn't help himself. Those bastards would drink
each other's
blood, too? That was messed up.

Jenny nudged him forward. "Let's go!"

As the two draculas wrestled on the ground, Randall and Jenny rushed past them, with Randall quickly grabbing his hatchet on the way. There would be more draculas to chop up, that was for sure.

He winced as they ran.

"How's your leg?" Jenny asked.

"Crappy. But I'll live. Where're the kids?"

"Just around the corner."

There was a terrible scream as they rounded the corner, but Randall couldn't see the source. His leg was really, really starting to hurt. If he wasn't careful, they'd have to find the place where the hospital kept its wheelchairs.

Jenny pushed open a door marked "Pediatrics."

Randall was an optimist at heart, and he wasn't one to envision ghastly scenes of carnage. That said, he fully expected to see a giant room full of child parts, tiny arms and legs strewn everywhere, bloody, ripped-off faces sliding down the walls, and a shredded teddy bear at his feet to drive home the tragedy of it all.

Instead, the first room in the wing was filled with sobbing children, but none of them were dead or even bleeding.

"We have to get them out of here," Jenny said.

Randall shook his head. "You can't lead that many kids through this place. We need to keep them here and defend them."

"You're right, you're right, I'm not thinking straight." Jenny squeezed her eyes shut, then re-opened them. They widened as she looked at something behind Randall, in the direction from which they'd come.

He spun and caught a glimpse of a dracula, a really old fucker. The dracula disappeared from sight and Randall returned his attention to Jenny. "It's okay. He's not coming after us."

"No, I think he's the one who started this."

"What do you mean?"

"He was the first one to transform into one of those things."

Randall frowned. "So you mean he's...I dunno...the leader or something? Kill the queen and the rest die, like ants?" Randall hoped that didn't sound stupid. He didn't mean that he'd expect the rest of them to suddenly burst into dust if he killed the leader, but what if the leader
was
giving them signals? Was that dumb?

He stared into Jenny's eyes. He couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"I don't know," she said. "I just...I don't know."

"I'll be right back," Randall said. "I'll kill him. If it doesn't do anything...well, he should be killed anyway, before he kills somebody else. Barricade yourself and the kids in here as well as you can. Here, I'll trade you." He handed her the bloody hatchet, took back his chainsaw, and turned to go.

"Randall!"

He stopped. He'd never heard Jenny so upset before. When he turned and looked at her, she seemed close to tears.

"I need you here. Please don't leave me."

She held out her hand to him. He took it, the warmth of her touch penetrating his rough, calloused hands and working its way through his whole body.