The bloody nurses' union tried to fight him on it, but Lanz had ultimately prevailed by threatening to walk. A bluff, but he knew the hospital needed him more than it needed some know-it-all nurse.

But she'd gotten back at Lanz. She'd burned him good.

No matter. Even as he peeled off his face and neck and shoved them into his toothy maw, he could feel the skin regenerating, regrowing.

I'm invincible. You think you can stop me, Nurse Bolton? I know how to deal with your insubordinate ass.

Gliding down the stairs, Lanz reached the basement. He'd brought Winslow down here a few times, let her blow him near the furnace. Even with the lights off, Lanz's vision was perfect. Yet another enhancement, courtesy of the virus. He hurried past the boilers, chewing on the charred flesh of his right hand, until he found what he sought.

The circuit breaker.

I can see in the dark, Nurse Bolton. Can you?

Randall

"HEY, kid!" Randall shouted. "Little girl!"

Crap! He limped down the hallway after her, cursing silently with each step. He couldn't blame a five-year-old kid for freaking out, and yet...okay, maybe he could. She was going to get both of them killed. If his leg wasn't so messed up he could've scooped her up in about three seconds, but she was already halfway down the hall, sobbing and screaming as she ran.

"Little girl!" he repeated, trying to use his friendliest tone of voice. "It's going to be okay! I can keep you safe!" Also, little girl, there's a Santa Claus and an Easter Bunny and a Tooth Fairy.

He wasn't going to let her get eaten. No way in hell. He was going to return to Jenny with a safe little girl on his shoulders, no matter how many draculas he had to splatter to do it.

Though she was a fast little fucker, his legs were a lot longer, and he'd almost caught up to her by the time she rounded the corner. She darted into an open doorway, then screamed. Randall limped in after her.

He was in an office. A pretty nice one. Clearly the guy who used it worked with numbers instead of patients. Randall thought that might be him behind the desk, a bald middle-aged man with a dracula chewing on his neck.

The dracula's face was buried in its meal, and it didn't see them. Randall grabbed the little girl's hand and tugged her back out into the hallway...

...where six or seven creatures emerged around the far corner. Randall yanked the little girl back into the office and slammed the door shut.

Shit! Shit! Shit!

The dracula twisted its head and looked over at him, its mouth so laden with gore that Randall could barely see its fangs. It regarded him for a moment, then slammed its mouth back onto the number-cruncher's wound.

So they weren't homicidal. Just...hungry.

The door had a push-button lock on it. Randall quickly locked it but didn't feel all that much safer. He had no idea if those things in the hallway would come after him or not.

"It's okay," he told the little girl. "They can't break down a door."

He was saying that based on absolutely no proof. For all he knew, they were wandering around the hospital kicking down doors left and right. The little girl seemed to have gone from pure panic to frozen terror, which made things a little easier for him. He hoped her mind wasn't permanently damaged.

Randall still didn't know much about how these things behaved, but he figured this one was unlikely to finish guzzling the blood and then settle down for a long nap. He had to take the offensive instead of waiting for it to come after them.

Damn, he wished he still had his hatchet. Though the chainsaw had worked nicely before, it really wasn't intended to be used as a club, and he didn't want to ruin it before he had the opportunity to find some gas. He'd have to think smaller.

Screwdriver through the back of the head? That should do it.

He set the chainsaw on the floor and pulled the screwdriver out of his belt.

What if the change was only temporary? Randall hadn't felt any guilt about slaughtering the other monsters, but what if they could be saved? What if the dracula that was slurping blood right in front of him was a nice guy, with a wife and two kids at home, and this change--this horrific creature he had become--was reversible? Didn't that make Randall a murderer?

A fountain of crimson jettisoned from the office man's neck as the dracula opened a new vein. The dracula lapped at it greedily, letting it spray all over its face. Randall decided that he'd rather have a bothered conscience than his own body parts strewn across the hospital.

"Close your eyes," Randall told the little girl.

She squeezed them shut immediately. Good. She was still hearing him, at least.

Randall slowly walked over to the desk, clutching the screwdriver in his fist, looking for the best place to jam it. Probably the forehead. The dracula seemed aware of his approach, but was apparently not concerned enough about the threat to risk losing some of that scrumptious blood. What was the appeal?

The dracula made a soft, almost inaudible sound, like a lion protecting its kill. It thinks I'm gonna steal its dinner.

It was time to move fast. Randall stepped forward...and his leg, which he'd abused so relentlessly this evening, finally couldn't take it anymore. It twisted, popping some more stitches, and Randall hit the floor, several trickles of blood streaming from his calf. He gritted his teeth and winced but didn't scream.

The dracula pounced.

Randall swung the screwdriver at it, bashing it in the fangs. Unfortunately, none of them broke off. The screwdriver popped out of his hand and fell to the floor.

The dracula, jaws open wide, jerked its head toward him. Randall punched it between the eyes, knocking a spray of blood out of the side of its mouth--the number cruncher's blood that it hadn't swallowed yet.

He slammed his hand against the creature's neck and held it tight, trying to keep its jaws away from his flesh. Some droplets of blood fell from its fangs and pattered onto his cheek. Shit! What if it was infectious? He pressed his lips together as tightly as he could and prayed that none of it would drip into his eyes.

He squeezed its neck with one hand while feeling around for the screwdriver with the other. He'd seen this trick work remarkably well in a zombie movie, although in that case the guy had actually been able to find the goddamn screwdriver! Where had the stupid thing gone? It's not like it was round and would've rolled away!

A large drop of blood hit his lips.

Forget the screwdriver. He reached for his belt and grabbed the first thing he touched: a pair of pliers. He opened the pincers, pounded them against the creature's throat, and squeezed them shut. Then he yanked, tearing off a chunk of the dracula's neck. A shower of blood poured down upon him.

He did it again, getting one half of the pliers into the hole he'd just created, and tearing off an even larger strip.

The dracula flailed and spasmed and helplessly clawed at its throat but remained very much alive.

Randall ripped out two more pieces of its neck. Then he bashed it in the nose.

It struggled quite a bit less now.

After the next chunk, the dracula gave up the fight. Its lifeless body collapsed on Randall. He rolled it off him and pushed himself up to a seated position.

He had blood all over his face, but none seemed to have gotten into any orifices as far as he could tell. He at least wasn't snorting blood. He lifted his gown and used it to mop off his face, although it was difficult to find a part of the gown that wasn't already wet.

He couldn't feel too bad for the creature. Even if it could revert to human, its face would be all mutilated from where the teeth broke through. Nobody would want to live like that.