Clay

THEY made it down to the ground floor without meeting any draculas. Despite the fact that it was Randall's term, Clay's brain had latched onto it for the monsters--a perfect fit. The door carried the usual emergency-exit/alarm/blah-blah-blah warning. Well, son, if this wasn't an emergency, he didn't know what the fuck was.

Sure enough, bells started ringing as soon as he pushed it open.

He and Shanna stepped out onto a walk on the north side of the main building. No dracula-filled lobby or ER to blast through. Dumb-ass. He should have remembered that the corner stairwell opened directly to the outside.

Free. Safe.

Shanna leaned against him and started to cry. To tell the truth, Clay felt his own throat tightening. He took a deep breath and swallowed a sob of relief.

Shanna was safe. The ER parking lot was just around the corner.

"Let's find my truck and get you the hell out of here."

They turned that corner and walked into a circus.

The first thing he saw were three empty state police cars, stopped with their doors open and lights flashing. Parked a short distance away, a white van emblazoned with KDGO with a dish on its roof. A guy with a camera on his shoulder was shooting a woman speaking into a mike.

How the hell--?

Then he realized what had happened. Crime reporters always monitor the police frequencies. They must have heard the sheriff call the staties for help at the hospital. Whatever they said must have sounded newsworthy because they'd sent a video team.

Wup-wup-wup overhead: A KREZ helicopter flew by.

Must have sounded real newsworthy.

He spotted an emergency rig on the far side of the state units. Two EMTs were pulling an empty stretcher from the back of their rig. Why?

Then he saw the six bloody lumps scattered before the ER entrance.

"Oh, shit."

"What?" Shanna said.

He pointed to the TV truck. "Wait over there."

He rushed over to the bodies and reached them the same time as the EMTs.

"Stay back!" he yelled.

They froze. Normally they would have ignored him--they had their duty to the injured--but people tend to listen to a bloody man carrying a semi-auto shotgun.

"They need help," one of the EMTs said, a stocky Hispanic woman.

"They're dead."

She pointed. "No. Some of them are moving."

Clay turned and checked them out. All state cops, all bloodied. Two of them were torn up something fierce and sprawled like rag dolls, but the other four were still breathing and twitching.

"Okay, they're gonna be dead."

"You a doctor?"

"No."

"Then how can you say they're going to die?"

"I'm not just saying it, I'm guaranteeing it."

"Listen, we need to get them--"

Clay wriggled his badge holder from his back pocket and flashed his tin. "Deputy Sheriff Clayton Theel. Who called you in?"

The male half of the team pointed skyward at the copter. "The KREZ pilot saw the bodies and radioed it in."

He pointed to their idling rig. "I'm ordering you to withdraw."

They glanced at each other, then complied. He turned and saw the reporter and her cameraman approaching.

A good-looking brunette. Clay had seen her on the tube, but usually looking more composed. "I'm Carmen Ro--"

"Yeah, I know. I want your guy here to keep his camera trained on these cops."

"Why aren't you letting the EMTs help them?"

"Because in a few minutes, we're the ones who're gonna need help."

"I don't under--"

One of the staties coughed and lifted his head. He spat half a dozen teeth. Another rolled over, also spitting teeth.

"Here we go." Clay looked at the cameraman, a young white guy with fuzzy, dirty-blond dreads. "You filming this?"

"It's not film," he said with the hint of a sneer. "It's digital."

"Whatever. What's your name, son?"

The sneer vanished. "Um, Tony."

Clay didn't have that many years on him, but asking a guy his name and calling him "son' often took the starch out of them.

"Well, listen, Um-Tony, since you can't film these guys, your job right now is to digital them."

Carmen said, "We can't broadcast victims injured like this, especially police."

"Well, fine, but it is being recorded somewhere, right?"

Tony nodded.

"No matter what happens," he told him, "you keep digitaling or whatevering. Got that?"

Another nod.

Clay knew people would think he was crazy if he told them what was going on inside Blessed Crucifixion. So he was going to show them.

A picture was worth a thousand words, right? This video would be worth millions of them.

When the first fangs began ripping through lips and cheeks, Clay heard Carmen cry, "Oh my God!" and the cameraman say, "Holy fucking shit!"

Without looking at them, he said, "Back up, but keep rolling."

He removed his eyes from the newbie draculas only long enough to check the AA-12's magazine. Only a dozen shells left. Very little slack. Had to make every shot count. No wastage. He raised it to his shoulder and waited.

Didn't take long.

The first statie--fully-fanged now, with all ten talons extended--pushed itself to its feet, looked around, then charged the nearest fresh blood--Clay. Much as he disliked state cops, he'd never imagined shooting one. Well, okay, maybe once or twice. The uniform caused Clay to hesitate just a second, then he emptied two twelve-gauge shells at the new dracula when it was two feet from the muzzle. The proximity concentrated the cone of the #4 shot and literally dissolved his head into a spray of blood-and-brain Slurpee.

Behind Clay, Carmen screamed long and loud while something went splat! on the pavement. A quick glance back showed Tony losing lunch.

"Keep filming or you're next!"

The guy straightened and his camera wobbled as he raised it to his pasty face. "It's not--"

"Yeah, I know. It's digital. Just do it."

He turned back in time to see the second statie dracula leaping through the air--but not at Clay. It landed on its headless fellow and began tearing into it with loud grunts and greedy slurping noises. Clay stepped closer and aimed at the top of its lowered head. Two more twelve-gauge blasts pulverized the brain inside and popped one of its eyes from the socket. Clay took out the next two just as they were starting the change. One blast each did the trick for them. The remaining pair were still down and gave no sign that they were going to change.

Carmen had lost all her reportorial cool. Tears streamed down her cheeks. "Wh-wh-wh-what just happened here?"

"The same thing that's been happening all over Blessed Crucifixion." He pointed to Shanna, approaching with tentative steps. "I don't think anyone can explain, but this woman here can background you some. You'll have to catch up to her later, though. Right now, she's on her way home."

"In what?" the cameraman said. "Check out the tires, man."

Clay did just that, and found every tire in sight flat.

"Oh, Christ."

He hurried over to his Suburban and saw that it hadn't been spared. Four brand-new Goodyear Wrangler SilentArmor tires, ripped to shit.

He kicked at one of them until his leg got tired, then turned and saw Shanna walking his way. Carmen stood back by the truck on her cell phone. He calmed himself and then looked at the hospital. He was going to have to go back in. He didn't want to, but...

"It's okay," she said. "Carmen said I could stay with them."

"I want you gone."

"But I can't go. And help is on the way."

"What? Another TV crew?"

"No. The news director at the station saw what Tony was recording. He's calling the state police, the National Guard, even the governor. I told Carmen to tell him to call the CDC too. This has got to be contained."

Okay, maybe Shanna would be okay. Another look at the hospital. But what about him?

This could be their last time together--ever. He might not make it back from his next trip inside. Had to do this now. Might not ever get another chance.

He dug into his pocket as he turned back to Shanna.

"I want to give you something."

She shook her head. "I told you: I can't do it. I can't shoot anyone."

"Not a gun." He held out the ring box. "This."

Looking confused, she took it and opened it--and gasped when she saw the sparkler.

He didn't want to die with the ring in his pocket. If it came to that, better she had it, to remember him by.