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feel like shit alla sudden."

    He rubbed a hand across his face and Lanz noticed that one of his fingers was red and swollen to twice its size. Hadn't he said he'd been bitten by Moorecook? Cellulitis already?

    "Sit down before you fall down."

    Christ, was the EMT going to wind up a patient too? What else could go wrong?

    He turned back to the kid. She began squirming as he injected the local--burned like hell for a few seconds going in, then the area went numb. He heard a hiss off to his right and glanced over to where the EMT slumped in a chair with his head lolling back. His mouth hung open and he was breathing funny.

    Lanz had heard that sound before...just a little while ago--

    Suddenly the EMT choked and bent forward. He hacked and spit. Not mucous.

    Teeth.

    He looked up at Lanz, his eyes tortured...and
red
. "Doc, I feel like sh--
aaagh
"

    A claw exploded from his infected fingertip, and then his other fingers followed.

    Just like with Moorecook.

    And then huge fangs extruded from his jaws, ripping through his cheeks and lips.

    Just like Moorecook.

    Oh, Christ, was it contagious?

    Another hiss, closer. He looked down at the girl. Her red-rimmed ebony eyes were wide open, and she was spitting teeth, but rows at a time, the braces linking them like bloody little fence posts.

    Lanz backed away. Both bitten, both changing. It
was
contagious.

    Oasis ripped her clawed hands free of the restraints as fangs ripped through her face. The EMT was up now, approaching the gurney as Oasis sat up. Both had their eyes fixed on Lanz and Rodriguez. The LPN was backing away too. She bumped into Lanz. Instinctively he grabbed her and shoved her toward the gurney. She screamed horribly when the claws pulled her forward and fangs tore her flesh. As blood sprayed, Lanz turned and ran.

    Out of the treatment room, into the ER proper. Ignore the terrified, questioning faces. Find a place to hide. A door--SUPPLIES. The handle won't turn. Locked. Of course. But he has a key. He fumbles it free, unlocks the steel door, ducks inside, closes and locks it behind him.

    Safe! OhgoodChrist, safe!

    Lanz slumped to the floor and leaned with his back against some shelving. Gradually he controlled his breathing, felt his heart slow.

    He got a grip. He had control.

    Okay. Assess the problem.

    Some sort of contagious agent--viral, chemical, whatever--had invaded the hospital. Moorecook seemed to be patient zero, at least in Blessed Crucifixion. The two who'd changed had been bitten by him, which was a good indicator it was blood or saliva borne.

    He quickly checked himself for cuts or scratches. None. Good. He was infection free. He had a steel door between him and the contaminated. He--

    Something in his mouth. He spit it out.

    A tooth.

    No!

Randall
    AS Randall marched down the corridor, it occurred to him that limping out to his truck to retrieve a chainsaw in order to cut up a feral beast that gobbled intestines was exactly the kind of "acting without thinking" behavior that had caused so many problems in his marriage. Well, that and the drinking.

    He was in no shape to be walking around like this--he was, after all, hospitalized with a severe leg injury. He didn't actually
need
his chainsaw--it was a hospital, so they probably had giant bone saws or other tools for dismemberment that were closer than the parking lot. Not to mention that by the time he actually limped out there, got his chainsaw, and limped all the way back, somebody else probably would have already dealt with the dracula creature issue. And hospital security was probably not inclined to let a gown-wearing, stitched-up lumberjack enter the facility with a chainsaw, even in a time of crisis.

    But when Randall got set on an idea, he saw it through. No matter what. He wasn't going to turn around and sheepishly say, "Ummmm, changed my mind." Jenny had little enough respect for him as it was. Whatever respect he'd earned before their marriage he'd pissed away during