Draculas

So, Adam stood ready with his elbows hooked under the backs of Stacie's knees. Clay, with Daniella in his left arm, the MM-1 in his right, and the tab atop the blood bag clamped between his teeth, led the way up. As long as he stayed higher than Stacie, gravity would keep the blood ru

"Stay close, padre," he said through his clenched teeth and over the baby's wails. "We've got four flights to go and then we're home free."

The baby had to be hungry--no one left on the OB floor to feed it, and she sure wasn't going to get much from her mother. He just hoped its cries didn't attract any draculas. Spraying double-ought shot in a stairwell was a last resort.

He heard a door squeak open below, turned and looked over Adam's head. A dracula leaped through the doorway onto the landing below, followed by another. They'd heard Daniella.

"Shit!"

Keeping Daniella in his left arm, he gripped the barrel of the launcher with his left hand and used his right to take the blood pouch from between his teeth and shove it between Stacie's chest and Adam's back. Then he pressed against the railing to let Adam pass.

"Keep on going. Move your ass. I'll slow them down."

"But Daniella--!"

"I've got her. You've got all you can handle. Just keep moving!"

The minister lacked the wind to say much else, so he kept on a-trudgin'. As soon as he was past, Clay clutched the MM-1 by its rear pistol grip and dangled it over the railing. A heavy sucker--especially with a full cylinder--designed for two-handed use. It kicked and all of its weight was forward of the trigger--hence the second pistol grip on the front end of the stock. Clay had only one free hand. He had strong wrists, but not strong enough to fire the launcher one-handed--unless he was firing it downward.

"Hey, ugly!" he shouted to the lead dracula as it spotted him and rushed up the flight below.

It looked up, its face not twelve inches from the muzzle of the launcher.

"Say hello to my leetle fren'."

Clay fired, splattering its head all over its torso and the stairs with virtually no shot scatter. The second leaped upon it and began feasting. Clay didn't want to leave it there, because he heard more coming, so he started shouting at the top of his voice, and when the second looked up, it got the same as its buddy.

Daniella had probably increased her screaming, but Clay couldn't hear her over the ringing in his ears. He carried her halfway up the next flight and shouted for more draculas. He'd leave a combination buffet and obstacle course all the way to the roof.

Adam

"MOVE, Padre!" the man named Clayton screamed, and Adam was moving--moving as fast as he possibly could, one step at a time, his wife strapped to his back with several rolls of adhesive tape. He sweated buckets, his legs cramping, and two flights of stairs still to go, warm blood--Stacie-blood--sluicing down the back of his legs.

The deputy fired that freakishly huge gun again, the noise so loud it jogged his fillings, and when his hearing faded back in he heard the deputy screaming, "Come on! Come on! Come and get it, fucker! Come on! I don't got all day! Come on!"

Boom!

"Come on, you bastard! Yeah, you! You want some of this? You got it!"

Boom!

They rounded another landing and at the top of the next flight, he saw a door with a sign above it glowing under the emergency light--HELIPAD.

It gave him a burst of energy, small to be sure, but enough to push him those last fifteen steps, the deputy firing behind him and screaming to go, and then Adam buried his shoulder into the door and burst out into a cool, dark night.

Made it fifteen feet before crumbling to the concrete.

He'd lost Stacie's blood bag on the ascent.

A man with a chainsaw stood with a woman and four kids on the far side of the helipad, and they were waving their arms toward a sea of headlights, spotlights, flashlights, ambulance light bars on a steady burn, highway patrol cruisers sending out a manic frenzy of blues and reds. Every law enforcement and first response agency in the Four Corners had to be out there.

He reached back and began ripping the tape from his shoulders as Clayton broke through the door and then spun around and kicked it shut.

"Bolton!" he screamed. "Get your ass over here!"

Adam watched the man with the chainsaw limp quickly back across the helipad, the woman in tow.

When they reached Clayton, the woman took Adam's swaddled little girl out of his arms.

"Incoming," Clayton said.

"How many?"

"More than we can handle."

Adam ripped off the last bit of tape and eased Stacie onto the concrete. She shivered under her hospital gown and the insides of her legs were streaked with blood.

So, so much of it.

Adam had brought his backpack along, carrying it on the front of his chest. He unzipped it and grabbed another unit of O-positive, plugged Stacie's IV line into the bottom, then held it up so the blood ran down into her veins.

"Baby?" he said. "Can you hear me?"

Stacie's eyes opened.

Barely.

Slits.

"Where's Daniella?" she asked.

Adam glanced back toward the door, saw the woman who held his child hurrying over. She knelt beside them.

"That's our baby girl," Adam said.

"She's beautiful. I'm Je

"I'm Adam. This is Stacie, my wife."

Even in the lowlight, he saw the concern darken Je

"Here, would you take her?" She handed the sleeping infant--its neurological system shut down from all the mayhem--to Adam.

"Hi, Stacie, I'm a nurse. My name's Je

Adam heard the sound of metal clanging nearby, saw Clayton and the man he'd called Bolton kicking one of the huge air conditioning units mounted to the roof.

Je

"Postpartem hemorrhage?"

"That's what Nurse Herrick called it."

Je

"She's bleeding again," Je

"I think so."

"Can I hold my baby?" Stacie whispered.

"Sure, sweetie." Adam laid their daughter in the crook of Stacie's arm.

Je

"What about this bag?"

"It's okay. You can put it down."

He laid the blood bag on the concrete and followed Je

Je

Like someone had shovel-punched him in the gut.

Je

Adam felt a rush of emotion coming on.

Fought against it.

"How long does she have?"

Je

Adam turned away from her, stared down at his wife lying on the helipad, stroking Daniella's head with her fingers. He had never been more scared, including the previous hour.

He walked back over to his family, sat down beside his wife.

"She's beautiful," Stacie said.

"She looks like you. Your eyes for sure."

Clayton and Bolton were muscling another unit toward the door, metal scraping against concrete. Thought he could hear inhuman screaming echoing from inside the hospital.