Play Book Tag discussion

An elderly multi-millionaire financier who is nearing the end of his life in hospice care, has purchased the skull of what is supposedly that of a long-dead vampire. The skull is misshapen and laced with multiple enormous fangs. Surprising his nurse Jenny and his assistant Shanna, the man quickly presses the fangs to his neck piercing the skin. Quickly he begins to convulse violently and he is rushed to a nearby hospital. Of course he manages to bite at least one of the EMTs and thus begins the vampire epidemic. By the end of the story there are hundreds of these blood-thirsty monsters in the medical complex. Shanna's boyfriend Clay, a gun-loving local sheriff, wades into the fray with enough firepower to put down a small revolution. Jenny's ex-husband Randall, a lumberjack who has been hospitalized after a chainsaw accident, retrieves the saw from his car and plunges in hoping to save Jenny and win back her love. Heroes and villains abound: a sweet Lutheran minister and his wife who is giving birth to their first child; a coldhearted chief surgeon who once fired Jenny; a clown (yes, a clown); kindly doctors, nurses and police who fall victim to the rapidly spreading disease and their thirst for blood. The 4 lead characters have quite a problem on their hands.

This novel was written by four gifted horror writers: Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn, Jeff Strand and F. Paul Wilson. This is one scary bunch of authors! I do think I prefer psychological horror more than a full-out gore fest, but this was pretty good anyway. The action did not let up from beginning to end and even then there seems a possibility for a sequel. Not everyone has a happy ending but with all of those 'draculas' around, it's not surprising.

I used to have a copy of this but never read it... I wonder if I still have it.