When he reached the top and opened the door he had a good view of the big glass doors that fronted the building. Like the stairwell doors they could be opened from the inside without a keycard. He was just in time to see the fake vampire throw them open and stride out into the night. And before David could even begin to follow he saw a blur of motion from the landscaped bushes that flanked the doors. It was Robert, leaping at the madman in an attempt to ambush him. An instant later Derrick attacked from the other side.

The tactic almost worked, but the madman managed to turn partially around and squeeze off a shot at Robert. Robert was thrown back from the impact. Even before the sound of the shot had faded, Derrick tackled the madman. He flew backward, tripping over the shrubbery and landing with a splash in one of the ornamental pools that flanked the doors. His gun went flying, hitting the ground on the far side of the pool. By that time David had reached the door. He dashed to where Robert lay sprawled on the ground. The scent of cordite and blood hung in the air. There was blood on Robert’s shirt, but not as much as David had feared. The bullet had only grazed his shoulder. The wound was bleeding, but not heavily. David breathed a sigh of relief. When he’d seen the gun go off he’d been sure his friend and co-worker had been killed.

He looked up to the Derrick picking himself up off of the ground. The “vampire” was crawling out of the pool on the far edge, making his way to where the gun lay in the grass.

“Come on,” said David, helping Robert to his feet. “We need to get out of here fast, before he gets to that gun.”

With Robert’s unwounded arm over his shoulder and Derrick at his side, David hurried around the building, wanting to turn a corner as quickly as possible and get out of the “vampire’s” line of sight. They made it around the corner unscathed, though Derrick, who was a bit overweight, was panting from the exertion. Robert was pale looking, and David worried about blood loss and shock, but there was no time to stop, they needed to keep on the move.

“I told you guys to get the police!” said David. “If you’d gotten away he wouldn’t have shot Robert.”

“Yeah, he would have killed you instead,” replied Robert.

“I can take care of myself.”

“We can go to somebody’s house,” said Derrick, between gasps. He pointed to a row of darkened houses whose back yards bordered on the far side of the parking lot from them. “We can call the police from there.”

“Not with that crazy right behind us we can’t. We’d be killed standing on somebody’s doorstep while they got out of bed. Or worse, someone would answer the door just in time to get killed along with us. We’ve got to lose him first. Come on.”

“Where are we going?” asked Robert.

“To the construction site,” answered David. Just a block from the Techrene office building a new hospital was being built. It was still months from completion, just an empty concrete shell really. “It’s a regular maze, we’ll be able to lose him there and go for help.”

“Are you crazy?” said Robert. “He couldn’t ask for a better spot to kill us in, with nobody around.”

“Yeah well, do you really think we could walk all the way to the police station with him on our tails? With you bleeding all over the place and Derrick as out of breath as he is? Honestly? I don’t think so. We have to lose him and I can’t think of anywhere else around here to do it. Maybe he doesn’t want witnesses, but I don’t want innocent bystanders.”

“All right, all right. But if I get killed I’m blaming it all on you,” said Robert with a shaky little laugh.

The trio made their way along the side of the building into the parking terrace. David spared a moment to wish that one of them had parked there instead of the more convenient parking spaces directly in front of the building. With a car they could have gotten away easily. But to get to their vehicles from where they were now would take them right past the front of the building where the faux vampire was presumably again in possession of his gun. It was dark in lower level of the terrace and their footsteps echoed strangely back to them, making it impossible to hear if the fake vampire was pursuing them. Robert and Derrick both kept jumping at shadows, half expecting the madman to have somehow gotten ahead of them and be lying in wait.

At last they got out of the parking terrace and crossed the deserted street to the lot where the hospital stood. Derrick kept glancing back and it wasn’t long before he said, “He’s coming.”