"Ingrid. Just one more push!! One more and it will be out," Dan assured.
He was nervous with excitement as he watched his wife giving birth to their baby. He coaxed her some more as he was taught in their classes together. She screamed in pain as the contractions just became so unbearable. She had to keep going though, Dan thought, not just for him, but for their first born.
"Come on Ingrid. I can see it!!"
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!No, no more!!" Ingrid's cries were hysterical, but finally after one more push, it was over. The baby was out. And Ingrid went from a hot red to a pale pink.
She could now relax. The pain was over.
It was a boy the doctors announced happily.
Dan was so glad it was a boy.
He could hardly hold in his joy for the occasion and felt a euphoria take over him. Ingrid was still sweating from her forehead, and saw now, that she was being overcome with emotion and fatigue.
She started to cry.
The nurse handed their newborn covered in a blue blanket to Ingrid as she gently held it to her bosom, and cradled it. The baby instinctively started suckling on Ingrid's nipple; the baby appeared famished.
Ingrid weakly smiled at Dan. " I love you."
Dan kissed Ingrid on the forehead and then the baby's. It was soft and warm. He could almost feel the blood underneath the skin pulsing with life as it flowed. He touched the small hands and was in awe of their smallness and complexity.
"Ouch,"Ingrid snapped. "He bit me."
Dan could see a faint drop of blood dribbling down Ingrid's breast.
The baby continued to suckle.
He cajoled Ingrid, trying to coax a smile out of her.
"He must be really hungry."
Ingrid laughed in spite of her exhaustion and pain.
"Did you decide what you are going to name him?"
"Thaddeus."
"After your great grandfather," Dan questioned. "Why not like Bob, or Eddie or something?"
"Because it's got character, " Ingrid exclaimed. She smiled back to Dan implying to change the subject. Once Ingrid knew, she was set in her ways.
That was fine with Dan.
He petted Thad's head feeling like everything was finally right with the world. And knew he would be a better father than his had ever had been and believed the future would hold something brighter for them both, and finally, their new addition to the family.
"Welcome to the world Thad," he said, with a fatherly tone.
Thad was silent and continued to suckle. Dan could already see the baby was getting rosy cheeks.

* * *

six hours passed.

The maternity ward was cold. Dan slept on the chair with a blanket over him standing vigil over his fatigued wife, who was now a proud and hopeful mother.
She was passed out. It seemed like nothing could wake her at this moment. Dan knew though, she needed the rest after giving birth. The nurse came in and quietly took the baby away. Thad would be with the rest of the other newborns in the infants ward while mommy recuperated for the next
twelve hours.
Dan yawned and cleared his eyes. He looked at his watch as it was approaching midnight.
He felt dry in the back of his throat and decided to get a cup of coffee and possibly do some reading as he awaited for his wife to come around. He walked to the bed and gently kissed his wife's lips; looking her over, he could tell she had been mildly sweating on her forehead. He grabbed a napkin by the bedside and wiped the sweat off her brow. He walked out into the hallway first noticing the lights were dimly illuminated overhead. Probably to help the patients sleep better was his first thought as he strided passed the reception desk and then around the corner down near the vending machines.
The clinic was small; not like your normal hospitals in the big cities where they ran around the clock with staff working a tumultuous schedule. This was Wichita. And everything here was laid back like a fat southern belle in a wheel chair.
There was a nurse on duty. A doctor on call. A janitor sloshing the mop back and forth in rythymic swirls.
Dan pushed a few quarters into the coffee machine and then decided on a coffee with no sugar; he watched the dispenser as the cup came down and filled up with the aromatic java. It was hot as he sipped on it slowly.
It was starting to snow outside.
Dan could see the sidewalks slowly accumulating small white patches from where he stood. He saw a car pull up in the driveway.
It was black.
It almost looked like a hearse and he curiously wondered what a hearse would be doing at a hospital. The thought jolted him a bit but he figured, it was just his eyesight fading and needed to see an eye doctor or something.
He wanted to see Thad at the moment.
Just to make sure he was okay.
In addition, it would make him feel better as well.
Dan strolled down the hall to B12, going through the double doors and then turned left. The babys ward was not far. He looked through the glass to see where Thad was and could see other infants in there. There were four others from what he could tell.
Dan could not see Thad anywhere. The other babies were dead quiet except for one.

The tag on her crib said: MELISSA
Dan saw that the infant was definitely disturbed by something and seemed the infant had been crying on and off, but to no luck, no nurse was around to pick up on it.
There was some clamoring inside the ward. A bed pan fell to the ground and something like a high pitch squeal permeated out into the open.
There was a long slurping sound with a soft rumbling; like the sound a stomach makes when it is in need of nourishment.
Out of the dark, something flew right into the window where Dan tried to make heads or tails out of in the sudden dimness of the ward. Dan jerked back. A soft splat against the glass.
Horrified, Dan dropped his coffee cup no longer thirsty anymore. He was more revolted by the thing that cracked the glass.
It was a newborn.
The life blood drained out of it. Now a simple husk of skin. The flesh clinging to the glass like glue now painting a crimson canvas as it slowly peeled off the window pane.
There was no eyes.
They were gone too.
Dan couldn't scream or move. Nothing would come out but a small stuttering.
The baby in the ward,Melissa bellowed out.
the Crib smashed to the floor as if gravity had took hold and crushed it.
Melissa went silent. A crack heard, and once again, a long slow weezing sound.

Dan felt his stomach churn with sickness; a white pale ghosted sweat cropping his brow. He moved away; his foot being reluctant to follow him.
Get the nurse he thought. There is a monster in there. It's killed my baby. My beautiful baby..you sick BASTARD!!!
The door started rattling. It was locked. Something was pulling at it fiercely from inside. Dan couldn't see anything. No face in the window, just that persistence noise that said:
LET ME OUT!
There was a roar. The door pounded. Dan could see the door bending outward; the hinges coming undone with such tenacity that Dan had to move quickly.
Get the Nurse. Get the Nurse he thought.
Dan ran down the hall like a Banshee. He felt the safety of light fall upon him and an EXIT which was not far away. As he turned the corner, through the double-doors and back out into the main reception hall, he saw the Nurse laid out behind the desk; behind her usual chair at her usual
desk and dead silent except for the overshadowing figure that had it's mouth attached to her skull like some probe or chatheter tube.
Dan felt his heart skip two beats as he gasped.
The jaw retreated back. The eyes started to come in focus. A human face formed as the hair slightly receded back to it's pepper salt colors. The ears shortened; and then finally the wings retracted back into the shoulders.
The nurse crumpled to the floor in a remaining sack of skin.
The thing pulled out a handkerchief and wiped it's mouth clean of the blood. It patted it's belly after such a large meal.
"Ahhhhh! That just hit the spot! Haven't ate in days."
The thing was dressed in black. All black. The eyes crystal blue.
Dan wanted to say something but could hardly focus, as he saw what this thing did to the nurse. Sort of like that thing back in the ward, he admonished himself.
"Oh, sorry, where are my manners. The name's Dracula."
He gave out his long claw like hand to Dan. He could see the blood under the finger tips congealed to a brown like substance. Dan was horrified to the bone. He could not move or speak.
"Yeah, I know this must be strange to you old chap, but you need not worry. I am not here to hurt you. Thought I would take a peek at the little old bugger of a grandson of mine."
"Wh-wh-what are you talking about?"
"Just politics Dan. Plain old politics."
"How do you know my name?"
"I keep track Dan. As you can see. I am very old and pretty much have all the time in the world."
Dracula smiled. Dan was starting to lose it. The fangs glistened red and yellow where pieces of sinew and flesh hung from the monster's teeth. His smile grew wider. His eyes like silver tinted snow flakes with a hint of crimson red. Dan didn't know if he should run or fall to the floor in fright. His heart beated like a racehorse. The tension closing in and suffocating his very will and thoughts to hold on to survival or face extinction. He could smell the man caped in black who called himself "Dracula". It was an earthy aroma, very heavy and thick. As the man or thing drew closer, he took a long sniff in the air smelling Dan's scent.
"Your fear is so exquisite and...appetizing. It makes my mouth water."The man in black said as he moved in closer on Dan. " I would like to get to know you better."
The thing licked it's coarse lips. Dan had to stifle himself as the man lurched in close enough that Dan could smell the fiend's foul breath.
"Pl-please, don't hurt me. What are you? What do you want?"
"What I am is beyond your comprehension Dan." The man in black gently stroked Dan's neck with his fingertips, drawing an invisible line down his neck to his collar bone. "What I want, is history".
"W-what are you talking about. I don't know you!" Dan shouted.
"Yes, how could you." Dracula replied snickering feeling the thirst draw near.

There was a loud scream.
"Sounds like the misses is finally awake. You should go tend to her while I find the little one."
"Th-Thad?"
"Oh, is that what you call him? How wonderful."
Dan ran back the other way following the scream. Ingrid was in pain. He had to get Ingrid away and find Thad as fast as he could and find a way to escape this nightmare. This was only a dream he thought.

The room was cold. Ingrid was flopping on the bed. The sheets soaken wet. Dan could see the whites of her eyes as they went back into her brain. Dan quickly grabbed her off the bed, not having any time to explain but only, the need to get away. Ingrid mumbled incontrollably a language he could not understand. Saliva ran down the side of her cheek. Her hair matted firmly to her head.
"Hold on baby. I'll get you out of here," Dan assured.
Dan ran toward the darkness with the weight of Ingrid in his arms.

He was starting to panic and shake. He needed to find a safe spot. He checked all the doors and then headed for the stairwells. There was a crash from somewhere behind. Something was following them. Dan figured it was that thing who called himself Dracula. A monster. A hideously decrepit
beast posing as myth. Fairy tales. Stupid stories that were not even real.
Oh God.
He went upstairs to the second floor. All the lights in the hallways were out. The power fuse was blown, ripped apart. The wires were still somewhat sparking. The pungent stench of sulphur hitting his nose.
That thing from the ward was up here. Dan felt it. Dan went to the right.
He found a room that was open and went inside. He placed Ingrid down on the bed there, and then tried to find something he could use as a weapon. He saw an IV drip rod in the corner. He pulled the tubing off and the IV bag and grabbed the pole in both arms like a lance.
This would have to do.
Ingrid muttered barbarically. She was not herself.
Dan had to go back out. He didn't have a fighting chance by staying locked up in the room. He had to find Thad.
If he was still alive.

Dan prowled back out the door trying not to make a sound. There had to be a phone around somewhere. Something he could call the police on. The fire department. The goddamn National Guard.
He moved in the dark swiftly. There was nothing but rooms and doors. He could hardly see anything at all. He heard a roar from afar. It was at the end of the hall, inside a room. Whatever people or patients were up here were now long gone.
Dan could feel a cold breeze. He assumed there must be a window open from somewhere.
Something ran down the hall. footsteps fast and clumsy.
A black mass fell to the ground, both palms spread outward as if clinging to the marble floor.
The shadow begged and whimpered.
Dan realized it was the janitor that he had seen earlier; he was flat on his stomach crying for help before something from behind mercilessly grabbed him and pulled him back into the darkness; the squeaks of his palms like puppies being drowned by unknown forces at work.
Dan bolted in the opposite direction as furtively as possible, but in his own hastiness hit something as it went crashing to the floor. His knee throbbed and burned as the pain shot right to his skull. He held his breath to stifle the cursing under his tongue and continued to move as instinct took over for survival. He knew the thing would hear and come after him making him the next target for a sizeable meal.
There was a gutteral sound moving in the air, and the thing was beginning to advance.Death was rampant tonight and the stench of it was putrid and ghastly. Dan ran faster. His heart was racing and his adrenaline surged. He turned the corner clingling tightly to the wall trying to find escape, where escape did not seem possible as he gasped for air. He touched cold steel and turned the handle and felt the momentum of his body push him through the barricade. The cries of predatory hunger were closer than before. Dan stifled himself to utter silence, praying the sound of his
rampant breathing would not give way.
Don't shit your pants, Dan thought to himself.

There was not much light in the room; only the stillness of the moon as it glowed ominously and bold through the curtains overshadowing the bed and the small bathroom thinly coveted by a veil of somekind. Dan saw a fire-extinguisher mounted on the far corner of the room. Dan scurried to it on his hands and knees; it seemed overly heavy as he lifted it from it's saddle and held it closely to his chest like some assault rifle.
The air shifted. As the night stood calm and imposing Dan could hear the thing outside sniffing at the crevices and under the door where it could feel the air come through. Dan heard it growl, but low, almost inaudible, almost like it was trying to communicate curiosity - or more like a cat playing with it's food before devouring it whole.
"Baba! Ba..baa." The sound came from behind the door. Low and child-like. Almost like a voice somewhere distant and faint, "Ba!Ba!Baba!"

The door started shaking. The thing behind it was trying to chew through it as chips of wood were being torn apart bit by bit; it was the sound of the cracking and supernatural strength boring through that only made Dan realize the utter gloom he was about to face in the midst of
darkness.

Jump Dan, jump.It's your only way out now,he shrieked to himself in thought.
The door ripped. The snarls of the beast echoed closer than before. And in the dark madness at the height of the frenetic cacophony, the object leaped forward. Dan heard the hard klang as the claw took a swipe to his forehead. Dan struggled against the corner. In the moonlight he got a
glimpse of the thing accosting him. The eyes were bluish-green, tinted like a cats'eye. The forehead was big and bulging; the veins protruded like asymetrical scars. The thing was no bigger than a cat; a large cat, but it had no hair; it was soft and fleshy almost like a newborne - baby?
"Baba...baba...baba!"
The thing chomped into Dan's wrist and bit down hard. Dan let out a howl and reflexively grabbed the head and pulled it back while gearing to asault it with the fire extinguisher,cursively using it as a ramming blunt object trying to smash it at the same time. The thing pierced it's talon into his skin as it tried to crawl up his stomach. The jabs like pitchforks cutting into every nerve fiber of his being firing adrenaline into his brain.
Dan managed to fling the thing against the far wall. Dan stood up up by the window overlooking the night. He unclipped the safety pin and and began to fire the extinguisher at the thing to try to keep the monster at bay. He could feel his left hand go numb, his heart palpitating, and a cold viscious sweat forming; his head swirled as the blood drained out of him. He could hear Thad scream, or whatever that thing was he saw in the corner persisting howling and hissing like a tomcat.
"Daddy! Noooo!Ba, baddd!" The thing growled.
Dan paused. The foam from the extinguisher fizzling out.
Before he could react the thing jumped at him biting at his jugular. The force so great that he fell back and through the window hearing the glass giving underneath the inertia. Gravity instantly took over and ferociously yanked at Dan back toward the earth; all four stories of it. The thing tore at his neck sucking out his remaining energy; what he had left to fight with.
NO good Dan thought solemnly to himself, just die for your own sake. That would be best now. Just die Dan.
Dan held his breath. clenched his eyes shut as the last bits of blood left him. The thing bit down hard and drank heavily not taking notice of their mid fall to the cold snow sheeted concrete below. The fall would hopefully kill them both Dan prayed.

As Dan counted the seconds to impact, the wind shifted automatically and suddenly Dan felt himself being lifted by a force that was dark in shadow. He could hear the wings flap and the earthly smell of decay took over his senses in his final moments that he could notice his
surroundings.
He was not dead.
His head was not crushed.
His body was neither splattered on wet pavement.
Thad (The monster) was no longer on top of him. What seemed to be his whole life before his eyes was just mere seconds. He focused and stared into the omnipotent, daunting eyes of the shadow (the man in black) that held him in his arms like a stack of hay -- floating.
"Welcome back Dan. Good to see you again. I see you found my protege-to-be. He is quite a killer isn't he?"
Dracula smiled. And tossed Dan to the ground like a ragdoll mocking Dan as he did before.
The snow fell over him like a light mist. The moon glowing down in a pure beam of radiance. drips of red fell through the cracks of street admonishing Dan of his mortality. His strength ebbing away with the hour of
midnight fast approaching.
Ingrid appeared. Walking languidly toward him. Her beauty revitalized by her pale ivory skin. Her eyes blank. Her lips like the color of satin red roses. Her gown flowing behind her though no wind seem to be blowing.
"Hello Dan," Ingrid whispered softly. The voice almost angelic as she spoke. She held their son in her arms acting as most babies normally do.
"Family gatherings are such a treat," Dracula commented. "I am sorry you had to be the last to know this, but as I was saying, before we were interrupted, it is really just about history. Nothing more."
He turned to Ingrid in acknowledgement." Isn't that right Mrs. Helsing?"
She nodded in agreement. "Yes our son. A beautiful boy. And a Helsing." She smiled. Her fangs glistening animosity.
"NOw my mortal enemy over the centuries who longed to see me destroyed now must destroy his own if they are to persue me ever again, thanks to you, Dan." He stated. " A Helsing by blood you are."
"We will miss you Dan." Ingrid stated.
"Ba, ba, ba baba," Thad cajoled. Waving his hand.
"Don't worry we will take good care of Ingrid and the little Helsing here. It will be like starting fresh all over again. And after three centuries I am finally able to see my revenge come to it's fruition."

Dan felt the darkness move in and could almost make out the moon grimacing down on him as death reaped in. The laughter in the background sending him to his final resting place. The fluttering of bats rising into the night as death laughed.