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.