Clay, on his way to Jenny and Randall, encounters Adam and Stacie. He helps to kill Oasis, and they join Randall to save Jenny.
Okay.
They do save Jenny, but Randall gets bitten. Jenny refuses to let Clay kill him, and Clay agrees, but will be ready when Randall turns. They decide the way to survive is to get onto the roof and flag down the TV helicopter circling the hospital.
They’re chased to the roof. (Can we put this off?)
Clay is down to his last few rounds. Randall becomes a dracula. But his love for Jenny is so strong he doesn’t attack her—he attacks all the draculas coming after them. He wipes out a bunch in a killing frenzy, but is mortally wounded. (Have this happen in the hospital?)
Clay can either die heroically, or else get off the roof and wind up with Shanna
for a happy ending.
We don’t need no stinking happy ending. A wounded Clay will die creating an explosive diversion for Jenny’s escape to the roof.
Adam dies heroically, but gets his wife and child into the TV helicopter, which lands on the helipad on the roof.
The army arrives. Jenny stays with a dying Randall on the roof. Just as they’re surrounded by draculas, the army blows up the hospital.
A young, bloody man survives. He’s Mortimer, who changed back into something resembling a human—the real Count Dracula who is now going to turn the world. This is a reverse Night of the Living Dead ending. Rather than the rescuers killing the hero, the rescuers save the villain.
I want the media and the army to come. There’s no need to keep them at bay. The secluded area, and the local cops dead, mean it will take some time for the army to show up.
Paul
• • •
The media, etc. showing up is what I’d expect, so that alleviates my believability concerns.
Looks like Shanna is the only survivor. She can lead the charge into the next book. I’m already visualizing her visiting Clay’s father, him teaching her to shoot…
Paul
• • •
Nice! I love it…just a thought, What if both Stacie and Adam die, but a young man offers to save their baby at the end, and they let him. We of course, are interested and instantly sympathetic with this guy, and only in the last sentence/paragraph of the book, do we realize the young man is Mort, walking out of the hospital with a baby in his arms, a protégé who will help him conquer the world.
Blake
• • •
If you need to kill Clay, I understand. But he’s probably the most fun character in the book. I wouldn’t be adverse to having him live. Or maybe doing the classic: He’s probably dead, Shanna cries, then she sees him tangled up in the fire escape when he jumped off the roof.
Jeff and I have already discussed Jenny and Randall dying. Stacie should survive, with her baby, but Blake and I discussed killing Adam.
I love the idea of the kid becoming a dracula on Randall’s back.
Joe
• • •
I’m not adverse to Clay living, but I had such a neat death idea: He’s got 2 high explosive 40mm grenades. They’re designed not to explode within 90 feet of the launcher. He can modify that. I see him wounded, bleeding, luring a whole bunch of draculas into some sort of enclosed area and detonating both, turning himself and them into meat confetti.
Paul
• • •
First of all, “Meat Confetti” needs to be the name of a thrash metal band.
If Adam is mortally wounded, Clay could teach Adam how to set them off. Being a man of God, Adam would rather die than become an unholy abomination like Randall had become. And let’s say his wife also died. So Clay could give him a lesson, then do a dramatic escape with the baby.
Then when Clay makes it to safety, he (inadvertently) hands the baby off to Mortimer, who is now a young man (and flirting with Shanna, as he’d wanted to in the beginning.)
Joe
• • •
I LIKE IT!
Paul
• • •
For Jeff: I put up a first draft of the Clay and Randall scene. Hit that sucker and do what you want with Randall’s dialogue or whatever.
Oddly, I couldn’t get them to fight. Maybe you can. They just trashed talked for me. Might’ve got to fighting if the Aliens references hadn’t come up. (I found a couple of colorful ones.)
Paul
• • •
I won’t be able to read it until this evening, but Randall is in such lousy physical shape by that point that it would completely make sense that he’d resort to trash talk over violence when dealing with Clay. Especially since Clay has guns.
Jeff
• • •
Loved the Clay and Randall scene, Paul.
Jeff, to get Randall to that point, he’s gotta ditch the wheelchair dracula, and get the circuit breaker back up.
Joe
• • •
Did I miss the “Jenny on the intercom” scene? I’m going to use that during the Randall vs. Wheelchair Dracula scene.
Jeff
• • •
I’m doing the “Jenny uses the intercom scene” right now. Her message is:
“Randall, I’m still in pediatrics with the children. I need you to…oh my God!”
This will be while the lights are still out.
Joe
September 10, 2010
Since Jenny is using the Intercom with the electricity still off, I see no reason for Randall to put the lights back on. We can finish the novel in the dark. Scarier, more suspenseful.
Get your flashlights, lighters, and torches…
Joe
• • •
I’ve added Clay and Randall 3.3 to Paul’s folder.
Jeff
• • •
A new file up — Just shy of 3k in length. Clay gets Shanna to safety, meets a TV crew there, offs the dead staties as they become draculas, gives Shanna the ring, hauls out his MM-1, and heads back inside.
Paul
• • •
Sorry, that was just shy of 2.3k
Paul
• • •
Fuckin’ A Paul Wilson. Awesome scene.
I’ve got a Jenny/Lanz back and forth going on that will probably be the grossest scene in the book, then she’ll be all ready to be rescued. She also has four kids with her, who should also be rescued.
Clay’s gonna have his hands full.
Joe
• • •
Jeff 5.0…is done.
I’m going to do another short Randall chapter where he’s stumbling through the hospital, really out of it (which lets us “cheat” the timeframe a bit because it’s not specific about how long he’s wandering around) and then I’ll link it up to the Randall Meets Clay scene.
Jeff
• • •
All - can’t wait to read the new pages…I’ve been quiet this week b/c I’ve been trying to wrap up edits on AMERICAN GENOCIDE but I should be back into DRACULAS Saturday or Sunday.
Blake
• • •
Awesome scene, Jeff.
I’m guessing Randall will get stuck at the stairs because of his injury, and have to crawl, and the legless dracula will be right behind him in a death race. Won’t be so funny anymore when the dracula is closing the gap.
You also need to do a Benny scene where he finds gas. I did some research, and a two cycle engine like a chainsaw should be able to run on isopropyl alcohol. In other words, rubbing alcohol, which is everywhere.
Benny would know this because his chainsaw juggling buddy used to also spit fire, and used rubbing alcohol to both blow flames and power his saws.