Lanz tore off the remnants of his lab coat and shirt and examined his left shoulder. He could have bitten his arm off without much difficulty, but he wouldn't be able to get close enough to the glenohumeral joint with his giant teeth. Instead, he awkwardly picked up the scalpel and decided to make his first incision just above the acromion, on the end of the clavical bone. With a deft, precise stroke, he parted the skin and sliced into the deltoid.
When the wound filled up with blood, Lanz's tongue extended on its own volition and lapped it up.
Even better than a suction hose, he mused.
Cutting deeper, his blade sliced through the coracoacromial ligament, then scraped tender cartilage. Continuing to slurp up his own blood, he wielded the bone saw and nestled it into the wound, between the humerus and the glenohumeral ball joint.
The pain was exquisite, causing him to scream in between bouts of sucking at his own torn flesh. When he finally cut through the ligaments and joint capsule, he finished off with the scalpel, severing the infraspinatus muscle on the underside.
Blood squirted like a fountain, and his insane hunger tempted him to stretch out his own brachial artery and suck it like a straw. Instead, he used the bulldog clamps to seal off the brachial, as well as the cephalic vein.
Once the bleeding was under control, he shoved his severed arm into his mouth, chewing and sucking and drinking every last drop of moisture from it. Then he fell onto all fours (actually all threes) and vacuumed up every bit of blood he'd spilled onto the tile.
Momentarily sated, he examined his handiwork. The wound's edges were ragged, but already beginning to heal. He decided to leave the clamps on for the time being, fearing that taking them off would make him lose his self-control and drink himself to death.
Lanz had no idea how long it would take his limb to grow back, but he wasn't concerned. He had plenty of time.
With his arm gone, he'd be able to fit through the tiny window in the storage closet door.
He figured the blood of one adult and four children would sustain him for quite a while.
Benny the Clown
"ISN'T that burning your lips off?" Benny the Clown had asked, in another life.
Rupert shook his head. His lips were cracked and covered with blisters. Either his fire-spitting trick was indeed burning him, or it was a ghastly case of herpes. "It's not that bad."
"It looks painful."
"Sacrifices must be made in the name of show business. Stick with me, Benjamin, and you'll learn a lot."
Benjamin hesitated. Rupert had gotten him this gig, and though it didn't pay anywhere near what he'd made at Office Depot, he didn't want to risk destroying his career as a children's entertainer before it even started. But still...
"Y'know, Rupert, most fire eaters don't use rubbing alcohol. They use something like lamp oil. I mean, your lips are...they're...I don't want to tell you how to do your job, but what you're doing could actually...you could get...can I see your tongue?"
"No, you may not. I know it's unsafe. I'm not stupid. But let me ask you a question, Benjamin: when was the last time you crashed on somebody's couch and found a bottle of highly purified lamp oil in their bathroom?"
"Never, I guess."
"Damn right, never. Now how many times have you found a bottle of rubbing alcohol?"
"I don't think I've ever looked."
"Well I have, and let me tell you, if that house has a woman, it has a bottle of rubbing alcohol. I spend four or five nights a week crashing on a stranger's couch, and when I leave, they may check their jewelry case, but they aren't saying 'Uh-oh, better check the bathroom cabinet to make sure our rubbing alcohol hasn't been pilfered!' If you want to be successful at this business, you have to learn to cut expenses. So you go buy your fancy lamp oil if you want, but I'll stick with a good old fashioned bottle of stolen rubbing alcohol."
"I'm sorry. Do you really need that much?"
"Tell me, Benjamin, how many chainsaws do I juggle in my act?"
"I haven't seen it yet."
"Three. Three chainsaws. What do you think chainsaws run on?"
"Gasoline?"
"Have you seen the price of gas? It's obscene. Flat-out criminal. But do you know what makes a chainsaw run just as well?"
"Uh, rubbing alcohol?"
"That's right. You try to siphon gas from your neighbor's car, you're going to jail. You steal rubbing alcohol, nobody ever notices."
"Is it safe to juggle chainsaws that are fueled by...y'know, something that wasn't really meant to fuel a chainsaw?"
"Haven't lost a limb yet."
"Yeah, but that can't be good for the engine, can it?"
"You need to quit worrying about that kind of stuff," said Rupert. "Trust me. I'll groom you into the funniest clown the world has ever seen."
Benny the Clown licked the last of the blood from the chainsaw blade.
He hurt, but he was happy.
He walked around for a while.
He couldn't smile any more, but he wanted to smile when he saw what was on the shelf.
He took down the bottle. Stared at it for a while. Tried to remember.
He remembered.
He filled the chainsaw.
He couldn't wait to use it. It would be funny.
Adam
STANDING on the other side of the double doors, he heard Nurse Herrick locking him out.
Adam started down the corridor, making the sign of the cross as he passed what was left of the nurse in black scrubs who'd been chased down and slaughtered an hour ago.
Felt like so much longer. Like days had elapsed.
The only lights in operation were those over the doorways, and this left long, deep shadows in the spaces between.
Already, he was breathing so fast he had to stop and lean against a wall and close his eyes, slow everything down until the lightheadedness receded.
He went on, down the long, empty hallway, until he came to the waiting area at the end.
Only the thought of Stacie and the blood she needed bolstered him enough to peer around the corner.
Empty.
Dark.
Absolutely quiet.
The rubber soles of his shoes were deafening on the recently-buffed linoleum, so he took them off, abandoned them, and continued on in sockfeet.
End of the hallway, take a right, go to the end of that hall, take a left, on your next right, four doors down, you'll see a door leading to a stairwell.
He was coming up on the end of this corridor, and he stopped two feet from it.
Listening.
No sound but the lights humming over a doorway just ahead.
He peeked around. There was movement at the far end, two hundred feet away...something dragging itself across the floor.
Adam stepped out into the new corridor, jogging in his socks.
Four doors down, you'll see a door leading to a stairwell.
He passed the first two doors, perfectly quiet save for the swish of his socks sliding--
Wait.
He slid to a stop.
Footsteps. That's what he heard. A pack of them pounding the floor, and he'd just started moving again when the first...demon, no other word for it...came tearing around the corner at the far end of the corridor, followed by a dozen others, and they all began to scream and hiss when they saw him, Adam running now, door number three up ahead, then flashing past, door number four still twenty feet in the distance, and it occurred to him that he was actually running toward these things as they momentarily disappeared into a long black shadow.