So I'm a Vampire... Now What? - Book 2 (Original Version)

Chapter 8.1 - Night of the Vampire

There is no graceful way to wake up in a body bag.

If you think that being jolted awake and seeing the open zipper of a black bag right in your face, is any fun, you have my permission to try it sometime and prove me wrong. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Satisfied now? Great!

So yeah: first thing I saw was the zipper, and I somehow knew that it was a body bag, but truthfully, it was actually the furthest thing from my mind. I didn't even have time for mortal terror or any kind of proper panic over realizing where I was. I was sitting bolt upright, right out of the bag, feeling the pain in my leg and adrenaline surging through my veins, my heart pounding in my chest as if it was about to explode--

"HOLY FUCKING SHIT!"

That was the subtle scream of me being as graceful as you can be while waking up in a body bag. I was one hundred percent awake, my mouth flooding with saliva that I couldn't seem to control, and I could hear the THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of my rapidly pounding heart in my ears. I also appeared to be the newest owner of a searing headache that made it difficult to even have my eyes open; unironically, the adrenaline wanted to force my eyes open. Oh, and there was the sense that my entire body was one giant itch.

"Oh, fuck me," I groaned. "That sucked."

My heart was slowing now trying to resume something that felt more normal, and with that, the pain was fading.

"Welcome back Bobbikins," Beatrice said, and through all of the pain and misery, there was a surge of relief that it was Beatrice waiting for me.

I managed to crack one eye open and tried on a smile, but the muscles in my face weren't cooperating. I flopped a hand uselessly in a completely failed wave.

Beatrice was in a comfortable looking leather armchair in what appeared to be a basement, definitely not the comforting and professional rooms of Madame Vera's morgue. For some reason that sent a spike of alarm through my already aching head, but I brushed it off as I tried to take stock of my surroundings.

"Try not to move too much," Beatrice said. "Let the medicine do its job. Normally we'd just wait a day to let your body flush the poison out, but we don't have that kind of time, so you're just going to have to suffer."

"I feel like I got hit by a truck," I complained, and Beatrice nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, that sounds about right," she said.

Someone else screamed a few feet next to me, and I flinched reflexively as I turned my head to look. Frankie was sitting upright in what looked like a black body bag, his lower body still inside. He was still covered in blood, but the crossbow bolts were no longer sticking out of his chest, and his system was no doubt already at work healing the worst of the damage.

I looked down at myself, and yep, I was also sitting in a body bag. I vowed to get out as soon as my head stopped trying to explode with every movement.

"What the fuck happened?" Frankie groaned.

A woman in a white coat kneeled on the floor next to him, an obvious professional. This observation was me judging the way she extracted the needle of the syringe from his leg; she immediately disposed of it in the case next to her.

"She's right man, don't move too much," Stanley said from the other side of me. I turned my poor aching head to look at him.

"Dude, you look like shit," I said upon seeing Stanley's slightly swollen face and blackened eyes.

"You should see the other guy," he mumbled.

"I did," I mumbled. "She wasn't very nice. Very much the shooty-shooty stab-stab type."