Randall

RANDALL was all in favor of the crippled. Not in favor of them being crippled, of course--that would be deranged--but of their rights and stuff. They definitely deserved their own parking spaces and ramps and everything that would let them live normal lives. So when the legless dracula wheeled itself toward him, he felt bad that his first reaction was to laugh.

Not a belly laugh or a "laughing and pointing" type of thing, but it was still a very definite laugh. He couldn't help himself. The creature just looked so...ridiculous.

As the dracula reached him, Randall stuck out his good foot, stopping the chair from bashing into him, and then gave it a nice big shove. The dracula wheeled backward, jaws snapping.

Randall laughed again.

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 could handle herself. Probably had a six-foot-tall pile of dead draculas in the room with her. And if there was any chance that she was still alive, even a tiny sliver of a fraction of a percentage of a chance, then Randall was going to find her.

He could still hear the legless dracula struggling behind him.

Randall ignored it. He shoved the image of Tina's corpse out of his mind, then left the Rehabilitation Therapy area. He didn't care how many of those creatures stood in his way, he was going to get through them--a thousand of them if he had to--until he found his way back to pediatrics and the woman he so desperately...

Randall stopped for a second. Looked to the right and then to the left.

Fuck.

Which way had he come from?

Despite what many people said about him, Randall was not an idiot. But when you were losing blood from popped stitches and carrying a kid on your back and wandering around in barely existent lighting with monsters all around you, it was easy to lose your sense of direction.

All of that for nothing. Jesus. He should've just let Tina run off and get eaten by draculas. At least then he'd still be with Jenny, there to protect her from whatever interrupted her intercom message.

Or, he would've been there to helplessly bumble around while those things tore his wife apart. That was probably more likely. God, he was pathetic.

No, wait--he wasn't lost at all. There was a stairwell right next to the swinging door to the rehabilitation area. He hadn't passed one of those. Good, good. He was back on track. Ha! Those bastards could kill a little girl, but they couldn't get him lost!

Actually, you killed the little--

Shut up.

He started to turn around, but maybe the stairs were the way to go. Instead of backtracking where he knew there were draculas, he should find a different route back to pediatrics. Up the stairs, across the hall, down the stairs, and get back just in time to put his fist through a dracula's stomach. Good plan. Solid.

Going up a flight of stairs was gonna hurt.

So what? More pain? Quite honestly, he could barely even feel his injured leg. So long as it remained attached to his body and didn't collapse like an accordion, he could deal with it.

Accordion music sucked.

He pushed open the door to the stairwell and took his first step up.

So far, so good.

His second step was less good.

He bashed his jaw on the edge of the step as he fell forward. He lay there for a moment, hurting and trying to work up the energy to try again.

Had he lost consciousness?

Nah.

No, wait, yes he had, because now a clawed hand was wrapped around his ankle.

He twisted to see what it was. Holy shit. The legless dracula, covered in blood and with at least one visible internal organ, was still after him. He hadn't squished it enough.

Randall yanked his foot out of its grasp, kicked it in the head, and then began to crawl up the stairs. He could hear it crawling after him. This had to be a hallucination. No way could he actually be in this situation. This was absolutely batshit insane!

Move! Move! Move!

His leg wasn't cooperating at all, and the dracula, pulling itself from step to step just using its arms, kept pace with him all the way up to the first landing. Then it grabbed his foot again.

I'm losing a race with somebody who doesn't have any goddamn legs!

The dracula snarled, opened its mouth wide, and bit at Randall's foot just as he pulled it free. With those jaws, Randall had no doubt that the creature could take off his entire foot. Maybe not in one bite, but two or three would do the trick for sure.

Can't get bit. Don't wanna turn into one of those things!

Randall scooted backward, his butt squeaking against the floor (squeaking just like that damned clown) until his back struck the wall. The dracula, several ropes of bloody drool dangling from its fangs, crawled after him.

Fuck it. He needed to make this problem go away.

Not giving a shit how bad it hurt, Randall forced himself to stand, grabbed the dracula under the shoulders, then heaved it. It bounced on the stairs twice before it hit bottom, where it lay with its neck twisted at a grotesque angle.

Still trying to come after him.

Jesus Christ. He'd just thrown a cripple down a flight of stairs. Dracula or not, Randall was pretty sure that hellfire awaited him in the afterlife.

And now he most definitely gave a shit about how bad it hurt to stand up. Wincing the entire time, Randall made his way up the second half of the stairway, wondering if any hidden cameras would see him should he decide to curl up and cry for a few days.

Finally he made it to the third floor. He stepped out into the hallway, expecting to see something that continued his streak of bad luck. Maybe two, three thousand of those things, all charging him, desperate to avenge their legless brother.

Aw, for God's sake...

Randall couldn't honestly say that he'd rather have had two or three thousand draculas waiting for him, but, c'mon, Clay Theel? Really? The dickhead who'd thought that his gun and badge gave him the right to stick his nose into Randall's business?

Clay was with a frightened-looking woman. Neither had seen him yet. Randall took a deep breath. He couldn't let that guy see him looking weak. Had to act casual. Maintain his dignity. Nothing he could do about the blood and the ass-exposing hospital gown, but he certainly wasn't going to let Clay know that he was mourning his failure to save a five-year-old girl.

He steeled himself, tried to think of something sarcastic to say, then walked forward.