The Look of Danger

prologue; the story so far

I was in a coma for most of it, so you'll have to take my sister's word for it that it all really happened this way, not mine. I'm just the messenger.

I entered my coma eighteen months ago. Almost to the date. Something about severe head trauma, where my brain started swelling and damaged the part that makes me, you know, not fall into a coma. The reasons and causes and hospital dramas aren't important, but the effect: I'm supposed to be dead. 

My sister is the one who saved me. She knew about the bloodsuckers before anyone else did. She dated one. It was her last request to her hot undead boyfriend to save my life,  so he force-fed me his blood while I was unconscious. Pretty thankful he didn't have AIDs. By the time I woke up, healed of all major swelling, he was gone and the world had gone to shit. 

***

The first word on my tongue was Sicily. Because of course it was. When I woke up, both my parents stood over me like some sort of vengeful gods, checking my forehead for a fever like it was a common side-effect of a coma or something. Even though I was clearly awake twenty minutes ago, they were still shocked to see my eyes fly open, and the first voluntary shot of air swell my lungs, my chest soaring with the promise of life. Stimulation. My brain stem was no longer mush, hooray! My body cried as the doctor fluffed my pillows, sitting me up to face the fluorescent-strip-light-eyeballs of God. 

"Oh my God, my baby!" My mother sobbed tears of freakin' joy, smothering me with her tight grasp. She smelled like apple-cinnamon candles, the kind she puts on the porch to read her Danielle Steele. My dad awkwardly joined in from the other side of the hospital bed, disjointedly placing his knee to get closer for the hug. 

The pretty female doctor gently eased them off me, cooing in a soft voice that I was basically malnourished and the weakest I had ever been in my whole life. My mother nodded, wiping away tears from her face with the sleeve of her sensible cardigan. I looked at them together; they were such a perfect match, like a jigsaw puzzle. An older cop with salt-and-pepper hair, wearing his uniform and holster and all, and a stay-at-home piano teacher with a short haircut and a soft gaze. They were clear, in focus, and not at all the garish nightmare parents they should have been for letting me run into traffic that night. That is what happened, right?

"Hi mom, dad," I said weakly, the most awkward greeting I've ever spoken. They disregarded it, hugging themselves tightly, occasionally giving each other therapeutic brushes on the back. Tears kept spilling from my mother's eyes, and she broke into a smile occasionally at nothing. My father kept his gruff disposition, but replaced the off-putting grimace with a melancholy smile. Looking at them made me feel like I was in Twin Peaks. 

"Right," the doctor said, interrupting our frankly creepy staring session. "Let's talk facts." She gestured to the chairs beside them, and they complied, sitting down rather awkwardly. 

"She's going to be alright, right?" my mother burst into tears, the doctor and I watching helplessly as my father consoled her with a few soft shhhs. 

The doctor eyed me nervously. "Well, we have to be rational here. Lots of comatose patients die within the first month of their awakening." She cleared her throat, waiting for my mother to be done with her loud sobbing. "It doesn't mean anything yet, ma'am. And besides—your daughter is super healthy. Freakishly healthy. When we checked on her just last night, you could see the veins networking under her skin. Now she looks like she took a too-long nap." The doctor laughed awkwardly. 

My father nodded, cushioning my mother's tilted head with his forearm wrapped around her neck. She continued. "Best case scenario, your daughter will be out of here by tomorrow midday." 

"Worst case?" my father asked, speaking up for the first time. 

The doctor looked uneasy. "Worst case, she passes tonight." 

My mom squeezed her eyes shut, gripping my father's arm around her. She nodded, sniffling. "Alright," she said, and then again louder. "Alright. Thank you so much, Dr. DuBois, you're our hero." 

She smiled fondly, clutching her clipboard to her chest. "Anytime, ma'—" she was cut off by the door in front of me swinging wide open. 

A male nurse stood huffing outside her door, bracing himself with the frame. "Dr. DuBois, we need you to ER. Pronto." 

She furrowed her brows. "Excuse me, Mr. Bradley, I'm sort of in a meeting right now." 

He nodded impatiently. "I'm fully aware. Some freak accident on Broadway, the hospitals are filling up. We need all hands on deck." 

My father looked confused. "Freak accidents...you don't mean...?" 

"A group of cultists are ripping people's throats out with their teeth, sir. That's what I mean." 

My father unwound his arm from the neck of my mother, standing up. "I've got to go." He kissed my mother on the cheek fondly. "Love you, sweetheart." 

She nodded indifferently. "Go," she said weakly, sloping down in her uncomfortable chair. 

"Where's Sicily?" I asked, the very force of air coming out of my throat worsening my pain. 

My mother looked at me idly. "She left for college shortly after your accident, and then dropped out. Neither of us know." 

I didn't respond, or make an effort to let her know I heard her. I fixed my gaze on the open window, watching the birds solemnly as the shouting of EMTs drowned out their listless song. A piercing shriek rose from the crowd, followed by the sound of bubbling blood. That would be the last most painful thing I had ever heard in my sixteenth year.