He torqued his feet to the side like he was making a full stop on skis and skidded just past the door.
The demons close now, getting louder.
He pulled open the door and bolted through, slamming it shut behind him.
Harsh, blue fluorescent light flickered overhead.
Spun around and looked at the door, praying for a lock, but there was none.
He raced down the steps, taking them three and four at a time, hands sliding down the rails, his footfalls clanging on the metal steps.
Go all the way down...
He made it down four flights of stairs, to the ground level, before the door to the stairwell burst open above him, the noise of numerous taloned claws filling this cinderblocked-column with scraping metal and the echoing clang of those demons taking entire flights in a single jump.
The stairs ran out and Adam tore through the door leading into the basement floor...
...into pure and total darkness. No emergency lights, no exit lights, nothing.
When you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor. You'll see the sign for the lab. The refrigerators are in back. Grab at least five units of O-positive.
He could still hear those things rushing down the stairwell, and he hurried along for several steps in the dark, expecting at any moment for the basement doors to bang open.
And he kept expecting...
And kept waiting...
A minute passed.
Then two.
He stopped moving.
He could still hear them, but the sounds of their snarling and hissing were fading away.
They'd all run into the hospital lobby.
Thirty seconds later, the silence was back, humming again inside his head.
His legs trembled, and he slid down against the wall until he was sitting on the cold floor. Unshouldered his backpack, hands shaking so badly he could barely unzip it.
He pulled out his Kindle. He'd been reading through the Book of Acts on it, and he couldn't help but smile at the bible verse on the screen as he turned on the small light that was clipped to the top of the device.
Your word is a lamp unto my feet. A light unto my path.
Oasis
NONE of this was fair! Her Mommy always gave her everything she wanted when she wanted it how she wanted it and as many times as she wanted it and now all these stupid big people like that nurse--
Ooooo. Red candy. She'd missed a drop that was now congealing around the blades of the scissors still sticking out of her chest.
--who wouldn't let her have any red candy, and you weren't supposed to run with scissors much less throw them at people!
She crouched under the operating table. Strange how there was no light in the room, and yet she could see everything so perfectly in shades of gray and green.
There was red candy at the other end of this corridor. She was sure of it. The smell was better than cookies baking in the oven.
It called to her.
And in that moment, something occurred to the thing that used to be a little girl, something she'd heard her Mommy tell her Daddy a thousand times before Daddy went to live in Texas.
If you want something, you have to go out and get it. Stop asking people for things. Start taking them. It's called initiative.
Maybe that's what she needed.
More initiative.
Quit asking for red candy like a goooooood little girl.
Start taking it.
She had big sharp teeth and razor claws.
She just needed to be a little bit smarter, a little bit braver, and a whole lot meaner.
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?"