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Mike gave the school a bleak stare but felt no real sense of loss. He had never been happy there, and he’d not expected to ever go back. In his heart, he did not expect to live through the night. He gripped the handle of the sword tightly and said nothing.
As LaMastra reached the far side, he glanced by force of habit into the rearview mirror. “Uh oh,” he said softly. “We have company. ”
They all turned to see several cars following.
Val and Mike turned to watch. “Vampires? In those cars?” Val asked.
The detective grunted. “That’d be my guess. ”
“They’re after me,” Mike said.
LaMastra glanced at him in the mirror. “I thought they couldn’t kill you. ”
“No, but they can run us off the road, kill you guys, and just tie me to a telephone pole or something. ”
“Vince,” Crow said, “this would be a good time for reckless driving, wouldn’t you say?”
“Way ahead of you, Boss. ” LaMastra scraped through the gate and made a hard right, kicked down on the pedal, and shot down the street at sixty miles an hour. Crow yelled out the turns and Val and Mike watched the dark street behind them. The pursuing cars had vanished into shadows now that they were on streets unlit by fires, but they all knew they were there.
They reached A-32. To their right the road led fifty yards to a twisted tangle of smoking metal that had been the Crestville Bridge; to their left the hardtop cut through shadows toward the farmlands and the forest. LaMastra made a hard left.
As they left the town proper the moonlight bathed the road in a cold light. Far behind them the first of the cars emerged from shadow.
“There’s five of them now,” Val said,
“Persistent sonsabitches!” LaMastra groused. He pressed his foot down even harder and the H1 seemed to laugh with the freedom of speed and power. The big car shot up the hill, gathering speed despite the steep climb. The pursuit cars fell behind. “Crow, this is pretty much a straight run from here to Dark Hollow. I doubt I can lose ’em. ”
“Do what you can. ”
The H1 clawed its way to the top of the hill, crested it, and began the long plunge. “CHRIST!” LaMastra yelped and stood on the brakes and the Hummer smoked to a stop. A hundred yards ahead three cars were jammed across the narrow road, blocking it entirely. Hungry white faces leered at them through the windows, and a handful of vampires stood on the road. As the H1 rocked on its springs from the sudden stop, the creatures began running toward them.
LaMastra stared at the road. On either side of the obstruction was a narrow verge and then a sheer drop into a drainage ditch. “I’ll take suggestions,” he said hastily.
Crow racked the slide on his Berretta. “Ramming speed. ”
LaMastra threw him a tight smile. “Okay, kids, buckle up for safety. ”
The running vampires had almost reached the car when the H1 lunged forward. Crow leaned out his window with his pistol and emptied the clip into the pack. Three went down with holes in chests and stomachs, and two more were smashed into the shadows by the grille and weight of the H1, but these two got up and began chasing the car as it rolled toward the roadblock. Behind the H1, the five pursuit cars crested the hill and swooped down like predatory birds. The lead car did not even try to veer around one of the running vampires and the creature was smashed down and then crushed by each succeeding vehicle.
LaMastra bellowed like a bear as the muscular H1 smashed into the roadblock at the point where two smaller cars, a Fiat and a Saab, sat nose to nose. With all the weight and momentum behind it, the Hummer punched through, swatting the smaller cars aside. Crow leaned out the window with his shotgun and fired round after round of the metal-vaporizing Shok-Lok rounds into the lead pursuit car, hitting the grille and turning the engine instantly into junk. The car lost control and slewed sideways into one of the barricade cars, catching a vampire between the two machines and crushing him from crotch to knees. The other pursuit cars tried to jam on brakes, tried to swerve, but they were going too fast, and they hit, one after another in a collapsing accordion of torn metal and ruptured gas tanks.
Behind the H1 the world erupted into towering flame as a fiery fist of smoke and burning gasoline punched upward into the sky and shock waves chased down the hills.
“Goddamn!” yelled LaMastra in triumph. Crow was nodding as he reloaded the Remington. Val and Mike were twisted around backward, watching the tower of flame.
2
Jonatha led the way, the shotgun’s unfamiliar weight heavy in her sweating hands. Behind her was a straggling line of patients, staff, and visitors she’d gathered from the top four floors. Many of the visitors were dazed and followed her with glazed eyes and vapid smiles. One tried to give her some candy corn, but Jonatha had long since lost her appetite. A staff nurse—whom Jonatha had found hiding in a utility closet—had tried to take charge of the exodus, but after a good look at Jonatha, who was covered in blood, over six feet tall, and carrying a shotgun, the nurse just shut up and helped round up the survivors.
For as busy a hospital as Pinelands Hospital, there were pitifully few ambulatory survivors, and of those fewer still would be any good in a fight. Even so, it didn’t take a lot of strength to pull a trigger, so Jonatha handed out handguns to the weakest and the long guns to the strongest.
The elevators were out, but the nurse told her that there was a zigzag ramp in the back of the east wing, which had long sloping ramps for use during fires or other emergencies when the elevators were out. Jonatha led her charges that way, gathering other survivors along the way. Newton was on the front gurney, crowded in with an old lady who had just had her knee replaced; Dr. Weinstock’s heavy pistol was clutched in his hands. At the end of the line was a farmer who had come to the hospital to visit a friend and who now carried Eddie Oswald’s service Glock, the spare magazines stuffed in the pockets of his bib overalls.
Every floor of the hospital was a shambles, but there did not seem to be anything moving, alive or dead, except the people who joined her parade.
The nurse leaned close to Jonatha, “We can get to the old triage unit—it’s where they do seminars on ER techniques. It’s not used for patients except if we get overflow. It’s on the next floor down and it will have been closed tonight. ”
“Sounds good,” Jonatha said, “let’s get everyone in there and barricade the door. ”
