He followed Adam to a rectangular room that ran twenty feet by thirty. Multicolored lights flashed against the outside windows. Clay stepped to them and glanced down at the parking lot. He thought he could pick out troop lorries among the vehicles and milling people. Either the army or the National Guard had arrived. Good. They'd keep Shanna safe.
Couldn't think about her now...
He turned back to the room. It had windows onto the hallway as well. Good thing, because the hall had the emergency lights. None of those in here.
In the lowlight he picked out rows of folding chairs--a bonus.
"Perfect. Now I need the blood--lots of it."
"You're in luck," Adam said. He pulled open the backpack, revealing dozens of units. "All types."
Clay had been thinking about killing a couple of draculas for their blood, but this was easier, safer. Despite the gravity of the situation, he couldn't help smiling. "You're a regular Boy Scout, aren't you."
"I made Eagle."
"Well, you sure are prepared."
"I'm not prepared to turn into one of those things." He held up his bloody arm. "You said you could solve that problem and make it count--really count."
Clay fished one of the two 40mm M433 grenades out of his backpack. A couple of days ago someone had emailed him about carting an old wrecked car out into the wilds during the gun show and shooting the shit out of it. He'd figured on administering the coup de grace with these babies. But now he had a better use. He handed it to Adam.
"This is a high explosive grenade. It's got a kill radius of fifteen feet. That means a thirty-foot circle of death. I don't know if that'll apply to the draculas since they're so damn hard to kill, but two will definitely do the job."
Adam was nodding. "I see where you're going. If we can fill this room with them, and set off both rounds, we may be able to turn the tide."
Clay looked at him. "What do you mean, 'we,' kemosabe? This is going to be your show, padre, your Alamo."
"But--"
"You're gonna die, padre. And real soon. You can die here as a man and meet your maker without a mouth full of fangs, or you can die as a dracula when I blow your head off at the first sign of change. Take your pick."
Adam's face had turned a light shade of green. "As a man, of course."
"Good for you. And what better way to go out than taking a bunch of draculas with you? But that's only going to happen if I can modify these rounds."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, they've got a minimum arming range of forty-five feet."
"Sorry?"
"They're designed not to detonate until they're like forty-five to ninety feet from the launcher. I need to hack the arming mechanism if this is going to work."
"You can do that?"
"Pretty sure..."
Clay's gut clenched at the prospect. He'd modified the buckshot rounds, changing the gauge of the shot and such, but the H-E grenades were lots more complicated. He hadn't ventured into one of them yet. No point in letting Adam in on that. He had enough on his plate.
"Okay," he said. "While I do my tinkering, I want you to stack all these chairs in a circle in the center of the room, but leave enough space for you in the middle."
"Why?"
"Coupla reasons. I'll explain later, because we don't have a lot of time and it won't matter if I can't arm the grenades. So circle those chairs, then get every drop of blood you can find and pour it around them like a moat. But you've got to keep the door closed as you do that. When those draculas smell blood they're like sharks in a feeding frenzy. Let's get to work."
Clay left him there and went in search of a quiet cubbyhole to work on his H-E grenades, hoping he could pull this off without turning himself into Bolognese sauce.
Jenny
SHE was sitting there, exhausted, devastated, clutching her husband's lifeless hand, when she heard the whine of propellers.
Jenny glanced up, thinking the TV helicopter had returned.
But it hadn't.
This was something different.
Adam
HE battled with his conscience as he unpacked the transfusion bags in the lecture room.
Suicide was a sin. The bible said so. The Lord gave each of us life and only He could take it away. Suicide was self-murder, and "no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." The meaning was pretty clear: no eternal life meant banishment for all eternity from the presence of God. Adam didn't believe in the old-school Lake of Fire, but he did believe in hell.
The inner debate continued as he closed the door and began arranging the chairs as Clay had instructed.
But wouldn't it be worse to allow himself to become a foul, murderous abomination? To kill indiscriminately and, far worse, turn others into similar abominations? Wouldn't that earn him hell just as quickly?
With the chairs circled in a double stack, he began creating the "moat," slicing open the transfusion bags with the scalpel, and dumping their contents around the chairs.
You weren't allowed to take your own life, but you were certainly allowed to sacrifice it for your fellow man. And woman too, of course. John 15:13 said it alclass="underline" Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Was any act more noble?
That was what he wished for himself.
He was feeling funny and didn't know if it was the smell of the blood or the first symptoms of something worse. He was just squeezing the contents from the last bag when Deputy Theel slipped quickly through the door. He didn't look so hot himself.
"Something wrong?"
Clayton shook his head. "Had a couple of bad moments there, but I'm still in one piece." He shook his head. "Man, it stinks in here."
Adam had been thinking that same thing for a while, but now it didn't smell so bad.
Dear Lord, was he starting to change?
"Let's not waste any time," he told the deputy. "What do I do?"
"First thing is you put yourself in the middle of those chairs."
As Adam squeezed between two double-stacked pairs, he said, "Care to tell me about the chairs now?"
"They're gonna make excellent shrapnel."
Adam's knees softened but didn't give way.
The deputy stepped over the blood moat and handed one of the high-explosive grenades through the chairs.
"This one goes on the floor. Do not drop it--it's armed. You're right handed, so--"
"How do you know that?"
"Habit. Always know a guy's handedness. Put it by your right foot."
Adam complied. "Now what?"
The deputy hesitated, started to hand his grenade launcher through the chair maze, then pulled it back. He cradled it, hugged it, actually kissed it, then handed it through.
"You have no idea what it took to find one of these, and what it cost me when I finally did."
Adam took it but didn't know what to do with it. His confusion must have shown.
"See the pistol grip there?" the deputy said. "Hold it by that but keep your finger outside the trigger guard. Do not touch that trigger till you're ready to squeeze it."
Adam did as instructed.
"Good. Now, lower the launcher until the muzzle's pointing at the floor."
He did.
"Position the muzzle directly over the round on the floor."
Again, Adam complied.
"Okay. Now, you're ready."
"Ready for what?"
"I'm going to open the door and run like hell. The draculas are going to catch this stink and come in like sharks. They're going to start lapping up the blood. They're going to start fighting with each other, which will bring more. Eventually they're going to run out of blood and notice you. That's when you pull the trigger. You've got one H-E round in the chamber and the other on the floor. The former will hit the latter and they'll both explode."