Free Draculas by F. Paul Wilson, Blake Crouch, Jeff Strand, Jack Kilborn, J. A. Konrath

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.