DRACULAS (A Novel of Terror)

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