"Don't matter. Told him I'd be back to help him find Jenny. And Jenny's good people. You know that."
Yeah, she did, but...
"You said you're almost out of ammo."
"For the shotgun, yeah." He opened the back of his Suburban and reached inside. "But I've still got my biggest and baddest."
He pulled out some contraption that looked like a sawed-off shotgun from outer space.
Shanna blinked. "What is that?"
"An MM-One--a semi-automatic grenade launcher."
It looked familiar.
"Wasn't that in one of your movies?"
"Good memory. Christopher Walken carried one in Dogs of War." He leaned closer. "That's just another reason we belong together--we love the same movies."
She felt her eyes roll of their own accord. "Did it ever occur to you that--hey, wait. Did you say grenades?"
"Sure did."
"Isn't that kind of extreme? I mean, aren't you afraid you'll blow yourself up?"
Clay laughed. "Not a problem." He patted the gun. "It's designed to hold a dozen grenades, but I've got 'er loaded with 40-millimeter M576 buckshot rounds. They don't explode. They're like giant shotgun shells. Each one unloads twenty-seven balls of double-ought. I don't expect to have to shoot any of those draculas twice with this baby."
He transferred his backup ammo for the MM-1 from the duffel to a small backpack and slipped his arms through its straps.
She felt the ring box in her hand and realized this was why he'd given it to her now--he didn't know if he'd survive. No way she could give it back. At least not now. Send him back inside feeling he had nothing to lose? Uh-uh. She wanted Clay Theel to have every reason to survive.
A brave, decent man stood before her--one of the good guys. And she loved him for that. And, well, for the good sex too. She might not want to marry him, but he'd make someone else an amazing husband.
She'd tell him when he came out.
She hugged him. "Come back to me, Clay."
He smiled. "Do my damnedest."
For some reason, as she watched him trot toward the hospital, she began to cry.
Adam
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 must have mixed up one of his rights or lefts, because Adam was lost, wandering through a pitch black corridor guided only by the faint glow from the light, which was fading quickly, its battery drained by some recent sleepless nights spent reading.
Figured he could see, at most, ten feet ahead of him. Same claustrophobic creepiness as driving in dense fog with no idea what might emerge at any moment from the mist.
He passed radiology, coming up on another blind corner.
Adam stopped, because something was coming--a faint scratching noise just around the bend.
He extended his Kindle and in the glow of the light, watched a skinny, gray rat waddle around the corner.
It stopped, sniffed the air, then turned to face Adam.
He tripped over his feet backing away from the rat, which was scurrying toward him now, its head nothing but massive brown fangs that were snapping shut with increasing ferocity the closer it got.
Adam climbed to his feet, thinking, Don't miss, on the verge of stomping the rat when he realized he only wore socks.
So he kept backing away as the thing came toward him, squeaking and hissing, and after twenty feet of this, he was starting to feel ridiculous. He had the scalpel in his pocket, but that didn't seem feasible.
"Oh you stupid, ugly rat!" he said.
There were a few chairs along the wall outside of radiology and he picked one of them up and lifted it over his head and brought a wooden leg down on the rat's rear haunches with a juicy crunch, blood and entrails exploding across the floor.
He lifted the chair again, the rat still scrambling toward him with its forepaws, albeit slower, and crushed its head and teeth and brains, over and over, until it was nothing but a soup of furry, gray-pink globs.
Adam charged on ahead, rounded the next corner, the realization coming that if he didn't find the lab in the very near future, his wife was going to die.
He was running now, suddenly found himself at the end of the corridor, staring at the word LABORATORY in block letters over a door inset with glass.
He rushed in, past a waiting area and reception desk, through an exam room, until he reached the lab.
Almost no light remained.
He negotiated several desks, work stations and tables boasting microscopes and centrifuges, until he came to a tall refrigerator in the back, still humming off some battery power.
He pulled open the doors and knelt down, letting the weak light fall upon the trays of blood bags, labeled by type.
A+...A-...B+...B-...AB+...AB-...O+
O-positive, yes!
He slid out of his backpack and ripped open the main pouch.
Loaded in six units of chilled O-positive.
He zipped up, stood up, started out of the lab, then stopped.
Hmm.
Ravenous as these things were, maybe it wouldn't be such a terrible idea to stock up on a little more blood.
No.
A lot more blood.
He transferred the units of O-positive into a smaller pocket, started loading the main pouch with as many blood bags as it would hold, and when he finally zipped the backpack and hoisted it onto his shoulder, it sagged with the weight of thirty units.
Adam started running, made it out of the laboratory and halfway through reception, when his Kindle light finally faded to black.
He froze, waited a moment, thinking his eyes would adjust, that he would be able to see something, but it never happened.
His first instinct was primal, animal panic, a sense of the walls both closing in and spinning until he'd completely lost his bearing.
No. You haven't lost your bearing. You can't see, but the doorway is straight ahead. Take it in ten step increments. You can do this. You have to do this.
He left his Kindle on the floor and moved forward with his arms outstretched until they touched the glass inset of the door. Fumbled for the handle, found it, pulled the door open.
When you come out, go left, right, left, and then right again, all the way to the end of the last corridor.
So reverse that.
He stepped out into the corridor, turned left, wandering down the hall with one hand outstretched, the other trailing along the wall. Seemed to take forever to reach the end of it, but his hand finally touched the intersecting wall.
One down, three to go.
He prayed as he walked in the darkness, prayed Stacie would hold on just a little longer, prayed for the safety of his new daughter, prayed for his own--
He stopped.
A noise echoed through one of the corridors behind him--a snarling-hissing, soft at first but getting louder, and then the click of footsteps--no, not footsteps, talonsteps--became prevalent.
These weren't rats, and there were more than one.
A legion of them.
The fear paralyzed him, his first instinct to run, that sightless disorientation setting back in, his heart racing as they drew closer.
Think, think, think.
He slid out of the backpack.
Clickclickclickclickclickclick...
Felt around for the main pouch's zipper in the dark, ripped it open, pulled out one of the cold blood bags.
Clickclickclickclickclickclick...