"I'm...I'm just wondering if she'll change back, now that she's dead."

He shook his head. "Wouldn't hold my breath. Once you become a pickle, you can't go back to being a cucumber."

"I feel so bad for her."

"Us or them, Shanna," he said. "Who do you want to walk out of here?"

"Us, of course."

"And who are the attackers here?"

"Them."

"So we're going to walk out of here, and along the way we're going to leave them alone. But if they try to kill us, we need to do what we have to do to protect ourselves--and that means kill them first."

Yeah...she could see that, but doing it was something else.

He pointed to the Taurus. "I'm sorry she knocked you down."

She? Oh, the gun.

"It's okay, Clay."

"No, it's not. Alice is too powerful for you." He took it from her. "I'll give you my Glock and--"

"And what's its name? Janet? Sophia? Rhianna?"

He gave her a strange look. "No. It's just a Glock."

"But I thought--never mind. I don't want it."

"You've got to. We'll--"

She backed away a step. "I said no, Clay, and that's what I mean: No."

A mixture of anger and dismay flashed across his features. "You're making a big mistake."

"No."

He sighed. "All right, but--"

The lights went out.

Stacie

SHE stood in the corridor, the floor cold against her bare feet, staring at the blood and glass around the double doors leading into the maternity ward.

Screams--awful, tortured screams--had drawn her out of the room, and now she was staring at Adam who had a look on his face like a seven-year-old boy debating whether to jump off the high dive for the first time.

Nurse Herrick looked even worse, her skin a pale gray, and she'd wet her pants.

"What's going on?" she asked.

Adam came over, catching himself, reapplying the strong face, but she wasn't having any of it.

"Darling--"

"No." She stepped back. "You tell me right now what's happening. The truth. Every bit of it."

He stopped in front of her. "Let's just go back into the room, and you can focus on--"

"No! Stop treating me like a child!"

"All right. All right. These...things...they're people, or they were, and they're running through the hospital, killing everyone they see."

"Why?"

"For blood, I think."

Nurse Herrick walked over.

"Look," she said, opening her hand. "One of the teeth broke off when it tried to come through the window."

Stacie lifted it out of the nurse's hand.

A two-inch fang.

Still slimy with blood and a pungent-smelling saliva.

"They have a mouthful of these," Adam said. "And their hands are like a bird of prey's."

Stacie turned the fang over in her hand.

She was a biology teacher at the local high school, and she could feel that inquisitive, scientific current coursing through her, despite the horror.

"This is a fang," she said. "And it's hollow. See the opening at the end?" She tossed the tooth away. "We should wash our hands. The saliva is probably brimming with neurotoxins. I bet it's how they transmit the disease."

She could feel something inside her solidifying, this primal need to be someplace dark, quiet, and warm. It reminded her of her favorite calico she'd had as a little girl. Whenever she was carrying a litter of kittens, Samantha became a different animal altogether. More guarded. More apt to lash out. And when it came time to give birth to the kittens, she always retreated to a corner of the deepest closet in the house.

Three words kept rushing through her brain, on a loop like a stock ticker--This isn't happening This isn't happening This isn't happening This isn't happening This isn't happening This isn't happening

But it was.

And she couldn't curl up into the fetal position and cry and wish things weren't the way they were. She had something more important than herself to protect.

"I'm going back to my room now," she said.

"We're going to barricade the doors," Adam said. "I'll come be with you when we're done."

As Stacie started back toward her room, she felt the first rumblings of a new contraction coming on.

Adam

THEY pulled the dressers out of two private rooms and pushed them up against the double doors. Nurse Herrick grabbed several sheets of paper from the printer and stapled them over the square windows.

"There's no other way in here?" Adam asked. "No stairwell? No--?"

"Just the windows, but we're three stories up."

"Do you keep any firearms in this wing?"

She shook her head.

"No weapons or--"

"Nothing. We deliver babies here, Pastor. We bring life into the world."

"How are we supposed to defend ourselves?"

"I suppose we could check the operating room."

Scalpels.

Retractors.

Scissors.

Forceps.

Clamps.

It was something, but not much.

"Where are the saws and the drills?" Adam asked, staring at the cold, steel operating table.

"First floor, orthopedics. That's where all the fun is."

Adam lifted a small scalpel, tried to imagine defending himself, his wife, his unborn child, from one of those monsters.

"How' the single-mom-to-be doing?"

"Scared."

He slipped the scalpel into the side pocket of his jeans.

"Shanna? Shanna Davies?" A twangy, male voice boomed over the hospital paging system. "Shanna, if you're in the hospital and can hear this, please call extension two-seven-nine-four. Shanna Davies call extension two-seven-nine-four."

A soft, female voice inside Room 12 said, "Come in."

Adam smiled and opened the door, left it open as he walked over to the bed where a young woman--nineteen, maybe twenty--sat propped up against a mountain of pillows.

"How are you feeling?" he asked, stopping at the foot of the bed.

She didn't have to answer. Her face said it all--terrified.

"Are we going to die?" she asked.

He didn't know how to answer that, so instead he gestured to a chair.

She nodded.

He pulled it over to the side of the bed.

"My wife's two doors down."

The girl smiled. "What are you having?"

"We haven't found out yet. We're going to let it be a surprise."

"I'm having a boy."

"How wonderful. Do you have a name picked out?"

"Tristan. What about you?"

"We're thinking Matthew if it's a boy, Daniella if it's a girl."

"That's pretty."

"I'm Adam, by the way." He offered his hand and she took it.

"Brittany."

"You're here alone?"

She nodded. "My baby's father...he left six months ago. My parents didn't want me to keep it, said if I did they wouldn't be involved. I didn't think they'd actually keep their word on that, but..." She gave a wry smile and he caught a whiff of the sass Brittany sported underneath the present fear. "...here I am, alone."

"You aren't alone."

"Oh, because God's with me?"

"I believe He's with all of us."

"Even those people who are getting slaughtered out there?"