On the Edge of Humanity

MY EYES FLUTTERED OPEN AND blinked a few times. I shivered. Where was I? The temperature in the room felt like a walk-in freezer. I wiggled my feet to wake up my toes. I couldn't tell if they had fallen asleep or if they were frostbitten under the thick layer of blankets on top of me.

I drew in a breath, the air burning my insides as it seeped deeper into my lungs. The scent of alcohol hung in the air. I tried to raise my upper body, but the pain on my left side stopped me. I tried again, only this time I lifted just my head and scanned the room.

As the cloud of haze grew thin, different noises peppered the room. A beeping sound dominated my left ear and voices whispered somewhere near me.

Am I in a hospital? How did I get here? Where's Sam?

Two people stood at the bottom of the bed, their backs toward me. From what I could tell it sounded as if they were arguing.

The man in the doctor's coat said, "No, it can't be."

"I ran it three times," said the nurse in blue.

"Well, run the test again. It's impossible. Her blood type can't be 'AF' negative." The man speaking wore a red and white cap that covered his head and his voice had a velvety tone as if I were listening to a song by Josh Groban. A sliver of a tattoo peeked out on the back of his neck just below his cap.

I squinted. It appeared to be some sort of symbol, but I couldn't quite make it out. My eyes were still adjusting to my surroundings.

"Dr. Case, I'll have her blood tested again, but the outcome will still be the same," the nurse said.

Were they talking about me? Were they talking about my blood type? I think I was the only one in the room. A brown door with the word bathroom on it appeared in the distance. An alcove framed a small window to my left with blinds that were creased together. On my right, a curtain separated the room in half and an IV pole stood tall next to me. The only people in the room I could see were the doctor and the nurse. Maybe Sam was on the other side of the curtain and they didn't want me to see him.

Then it occurred to me. Was Cliff dead? Maybe he was in the bed next to me. Oh shit! I tried sitting up, slowly this time, but the pain in my ribs was still there. I took in a breath and another burning sensation slithered down inside me. I touched my left side, then my right. I was wrapped in a thick layer of bandages. Blood rushed to my face. The pain on my left cheek pierced through me as if the knife were slicing through me all over again. I winced and my heart raced as if it were trying to beat an opponent to the finish line.

Suddenly, the monitor near my head accelerated and chirped frantically. The nurse approached.

An object in the distance thudded to the floor. The room went silent except for the monitor, which was still belting out a fast cadence in line with my heartbeat.

A door opened. The heels of someone's shoes scuffed against the tile floor as leather rustled together. A tall black man appeared around the curtain dressed in dark blue pants, a light blue shirt and a leather jacket with a badge on the outside.

"Is there a problem in here? I thought I heard a bang," the officer said. He walked up to the bed, scanning the room, and his gaze rested on the bathroom door.

I silently recited the Hail Mary, praying Sam wasn't in the room. The monitor slowly decelerated. My heartbeat slowed and my brain screamed, Amen.

Why was there a cop outside the door? I didn't do anything wrong. Maybe Hilda told the cops something different. But how would she know? She didn't come to my rescue.

I closed my eyes and dipped back into my memory. The sensation of Cliff slicing the knife through my cheek sent a chill down my spine. I opened my bottom jaw and moved it side to side. As I moved my jaw to the right, the tightness eased and warm liquid seeped out. It soaked the edge of the bandage near my mouth and a drop of blood dribbled in.

The blood touched my tongue and it danced around my palate. Visions of what happened earlier tonight came soaring back. My mind blurred. The desire for blood overwhelmed me, and I screamed.

Everyone turned and looked at me. The cop sprinted over to the bed. The doctor just walked, as if he didn't care. The EKG machine picked up speed again and my breathing grew shallow.

"What's going on?" asked the cop.

"Please wait outside, Officer Bradley." Dr. Case's voice had a stern tone to it. "Nurse Grey, please get me two ccs of diazepam, stat.

It was weird how one minute the doctor didn't seem to care and the next minute he was barking out orders.

The nurse's brows lowered and she squinted at Dr. Case. "But, Doctor, you don't know how it will react-"

"Get it now, Ms. Grey!"

As I savored the drop of blood, I watched the nurse run out of the room behind the cop. The doctor looked at his watch as if he were late for an appointment. This dude is one weird doc! Is he nervous about something?

Then Dr. Case grabbed his stethoscope. "Where does it hurt, Ms. Mason?"

I looked up and our eyes met. A look of terror was etched on his face.

Now I was convinced he belonged in a hospital but not this one-one for the insane, and he should be the one behind bars.

As I stared at the crazy doctor, I reached up to touch my face, just to be sure Cliff hadn't carved a Frankenstein look on me. All I could feel was the bandage on my left cheek and smooth skin on my right.

So, if not that, what were his brown eyes silently trying to tell me?

My insides were about to burst with the desire for blood, and the pain in my chest was about to explode.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

I ran my fingers through my hair and two of them got caught in-between strands, which I assumed were coated with dried blood.

He knitted his eyebrows together and stepped away from the bed, his hand clenched around his stethoscope.

Is this guy crazy? I think he's losing it.

"Dr. Case?"

"Your eyes... They're...they're changing colors. It's like a colorful storm swirling around, with silver clouds rolling in, flashes of blue and green sparking in the background. Who are you?"

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

"What are you talking about?"

He was scaring me. Between his weird mannerisms and what he had just revealed about my eyes, I was beginning to think I was in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

He tilted his head to the other side like he didn't hear me.

"Hello?" I called.

The man was frozen in place. I imagined I looked horrible with the blood and the bandages, not to mention that my hair was probably disheveled from the dried blood. But something told me that wasn't what was causing his freak out.

Then Dr. Case walked closer to the bed and stood at the bottom, still staring at me.

I wanted to take something and throw it at him.

"Where's my brother? Is he in the bed next to me? Sam? Sam, are you there?" I lifted my left arm over my head and twisted my body to reach for the curtains. The pain knocked me back down. I really need to stop doing that.

"The police are searching for your brother." Dr. Case stepped around the bed and pulled back the curtain. The bed sheets were tucked neatly in place and the pillow fluffed, waiting for the next patient. The air in my lungs deflated.

"Your bandage will need to be changed. You must've torn a stitch," Dr. Case said.

Wow! One minute he was acting as if he had just escaped a mental institution and then the next minute he was playing the caring doctor.

He walked over to the nurse's cart and dropped his head, pulling out a bin. More of the tattoo on the back of his neck jutted below his red and white cap. From what I could see, it looked like the letter 'L.' The rest of it wasn't visible.

He opened a few bins and grappled with a handful of bandages. A few fell to the floor. He bent over to pick them up when his prescription pad fell out of his coat pocket. He picked up his pad then wheeled the cart over to the bed. He fished around in his lab coat, and as he did his eyes gravitated towards the door.

I followed his gaze. "Why is there a cop outside?"

"Ms. Mason, the police want to ask you questions about what happened tonight."

"But I didn't do anything wrong."

"It's not for me to judge. My concern is for you to heal properly."

I silently laughed. His actions didn't match his words.

"The help you need aside from that is no concern of mine. Now turn towards me." He slowly peeled away the tape from the gauze. I flinched as he did this three more times. With my skin exposed, the warm air tickled the wound. "Just as I thought. You tore a stitch."

His hand shook as he threaded the needle. Why was he so nervous?

"I need you to sit still."

I was planning to with the way his hands were shaking.

"This will sting a bit. I'm numbing the area around the wound," he said.

As he inserted the needle, I winced. A warm sensation flowed over the left side of my face. I closed my eyes, hoping his shaky hands could complete the job.

When he finished stitching, I let out a sigh, thanking God Dr. Case hadn't done more harm.

He placed a clean bandage over the cut. "You're lucky there's no major damage." He deposited the needle in a plastic bag hanging from the nurse's cart. "No sudden movements for a few days," he said.

"Thanks." I made a mental note not to move my jaw too much. The last thing I wanted was the taste of blood filling my senses. I wanted to ask him if he knew anyone who wasn't adverse to the taste of blood, but he would probably think I was crazy and call for an orderly to wrap me in a straightjacket.

"Did you say my blood type was 'AF' negative?"

His eyes widened. "The lab must have made a mistake," he said.

Again, his expression didn't match the words rolling off his tongue. It didn't seem he was telling me the truth.

He gathered the bandage wrapper off the nurse's cart and crumbled it in his hands.

"Is there such a type?" I asked.

"Aside from the typical A, B, O and AB variations, there are some rare blood types in this world." He paused and took in a breath, then he continued. "For example, there are people who have Pk type blood and some who have CDE blood types." His voice quivered and he kept looking at the door. "Blood types are classified by the antigens, which are specific substances on the red blood cells. There are more than six hundred other antigens that have been identified around the world. I wouldn't worry though. You're normal."

I chuckled. The word normal resonated in me and I trailed off thinking, What's normal? My life had never been normal. Foster homes, bullies in school, cops, attempted rape and now this-blood fascination, eyes that change colors and abnormal blood type. What's next? As my brain belted out the last two words, a bright light blurred my vision.

Dr. Case had a penlight in his hand. "I'm going to check your eyes."

"My eye color is unusual," I said.

He gently grabbed the bottom of my left eyelid and moved the light from side to side. "You're right. Your eye color is different. But even more surprising is how your eye color changes." He repeated the same move on my right eye.

"My eyes have always been silver. I wasn't aware they changed colors though."

The door opened and Nurse Grey walked in.

"Here's the diazepam, Dr. Case."

"We don't need it now," he said.

Nurse Grey looked at me and then at the doctor. She let out a deep sigh and placed the needle and the sedative on top of the nurse's cart.

Dr. Case finished my eye exam.

"Get some rest, Ms. Mason," he said. "I will be back to check on you in the morning.

Nurse Grey followed Dr. Case to the door.

"What about her blood?" Nurse Grey asked.

"Send the sample of her blood over to Patrick..."

They left the room and I couldn't hear the rest of the name as they left the room. Who was Patrick? He must be the lab guy.

Alone in the room, I poked around for the remote to lower the bed. It had fallen between the rail and the mattress. I plucked it out and as I did, the door opened. The swishing of leather grew louder as the cop approached my bed.

"Good evening, Ms. Mason. I'm Officer Bradley and I need to ask you a couple of questions about this evening." He pulled out a notepad and flipped it open.

"I didn't do anything wrong," I blurted out.

The EKG machine beeped faster as my heartbeat accelerated.

He looked at the monitor then at me. "I didn't say you did. Tell me what happened."

I wasn't sure where to begin. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to tell him anything. But it was probably best to get this over with.

"The asshole tried to rape and kill me. What more do you want to know? He's a pervert."

"What about your brother? Mrs. Birch said he tried to kill her husband."

My jaw dropped. "You're kidding, right? My brother tried to save me. Where's Sam?"

"We don't know. Mrs. Birch said he disappeared after the ambulance left the house. We need to ask him some questions."

"Is the pervert dead?"

"No, but Mr. Birch is unconscious at the moment."

I let out sigh. Secretly, I wanted him dead, but I didn't want my brother in jail. Cliff should be castrated for what he tried to do to me. How many others before me did the asshole try this with? It figured Hilda was blaming this on Sam and probably me as well.

Officer Bradley snapped closed his notepad. He pulled out a business card and left it on the table next to the bed. "If you can think of anything else or where your brother might've gone, my cell phone is listed on that card. I'll be outside until my replacement shows up."

"Why do you have to stand outside my door if I didn't do anything wrong?"

"Because you're in foster care we have to wait for the state to send someone over in the morning. It's just a formality since you don't have a guardian." He turned on his heel and walked out.

I lay in bed, anger building. Hilda was accusing Sam of trying to kill her beloved, asshole husband. Was she serious? The cop also said the state would be here in the morning. There was no way I was going to another foster home. I would rather live on the streets than be shipped off to another stupid family.

My eyes were getting heavy and I wanted to sleep, but I was worried about Sam. Where could he be?

I tried to make sense of what happened. But all that kept flashing in front of me was Cliff with the knife in his hands staring at me, telling me how beautiful I was, and how he liked my silver eyes. Ugh! I hated the color of them.

Then another picture flashed by, and this time my eyes were closed. My head was tilted back. Blood was flowing out of my nose into my mouth. I shook my head once. The image was still vivid. I shook my head again and another slide flashed. This time Sam was swinging the bat at Cliff. I shook my head violently this time and mumbled, "Stop, stop, stop."

"Stop what?" a voice asked as a hand touched my forehead.

I opened my eyes and Sam was standing at my bedside.

"How did you get in here?" I asked.

"Shh." Sam raised a finger to his lips. "I was in the bathroom."

"This whole time?"

"We need to go."

"There's a cop outside. They're looking for you."

"No cops. Not right now. They'll throw me in jail," Sam said.

He was right. The last time my brother was in trouble, the police were called to the school after he knocked out Blake Turner for pushing me up against a locker. After that incident, Blake's dad decided to press charges and Sam spent the night in jail. That fight was nothing compared to what Sam did to Cliff.

He walked over to the window and peered through the blinds. He touched the window casing to see if it opened-no luck. He walked back to the bed and sat down.

"Hey, are you okay?" He raised a hand and gently touched my bandaged cheek. "I thought I'd lost you." He let out a heavy sigh.

"What now?" I hiccupped, trying to swallow back the emotions that were about to overwhelm me.

"They bandaged you pretty good, but you're going to have one nasty scar."

"Bad enough to scare people?" I hiccupped again.

"Hopefully it will. Your pretty face got you into to this mess. It always does," Sam replied.

I wrinkled my nose and stuck out my tongue. "Ow!" I shouldn't have done that. I touched my left cheek just to be sure I hadn't damaged the stitches.

"The cop said that they're sending someone over tomorrow from the state. I'm not going back to another foster home."

"We're not," Sam said. "We're getting out of here."

"But shouldn't you talk to the cops? We didn't do anything wrong."

"You know how that's going to go. I talk to the cops, maybe go to jail, then the state comes in and then what? Another home, another asshole to fight off you. No way."

Sam traipsed into the bathroom and came out with a paper bag. "Here, put these on." He tipped over the bag and a pile of clothes fell out onto the hospital bed. He walked to the door and peeked out.

"Where did you get these?" I asked.

He glared back at me, a scowl forming on his forehead.

"Never mind."

The jeans looked new and the sweatshirt looked as if it could fit a gorilla. I slipped on the jeans first, then removed the hospital gown. I inspected the bandage around my chest. It was wrapped tightly and I figured I would leave it for now. As I pulled on the sweatshirt, a hint of musky cologne drifted in, filling my senses. This is definitely a man's sweatshirt.

"Um...Sam, where are the shoes?"

"Sorry, you're lucky I found the clothes." He kept watch like a soldier guarding the president.

"It's cold outside. You expect me to walk in my bare feet? You're out of your mind." Glancing around the room, I didn't see anything I could use on my tootsies.

As I tried to do something with my hair, Sam stepped back from the door and pulled out a cell phone from his jean pocket along with a sticky note, which had a phone number on it.

When he punched the first button, a loud bang sounded in the hall. Sam froze.

I tiptoed to the door and gently pulled on the handle. Through a small crack, I peeked out. A tall man wearing a blue bandana around his head had Officer Bradley pinned up against the wall. The cop was squirming, trying to reach for his gun. Then the tall man jerked his head in my direction as if he sensed my stare. His pitch-black eyes bored into me as his mouth curled on one side, exposing a long canine tooth.

I gasped as I slammed the door. Maybe I was seeing things. I swallowed and cracked the door open again. This time the beast was smiling, showing not just one long canine but two. I couldn't move. One of them was stained red. My brain tilted. There was something about him that screamed predator, something far more monstrous than human. I shook my head a few times, trying to remove the cloak of fear that blanketed me. Did I just see a man-with fangs? No, I didn't! No way. My mind was playing sick games.

I blinked several times. When I cleared the picture from my brain, I stole another glance. The large beast of a man threw the cop down the hall. I closed the door with shaky hands as my heart slammed against my chest. What was he? He looked human, but there was something otherworldly about him.

"Um, Sam, we need to get out here. Like, now." I rolled up the sleeves of the sweatshirt, blowing out all the air in my lungs.

"I know. Is it a guy wearing a blue bandana?"

"Yeah. How'd you know?" I couldn't tell Sam what I just saw. He would never believe me. Heck, I wasn't sure I believed myself. Maybe it was all the sterlising alcohol in the air making me hallucinate.

"After the ambulance left the house and the cops were questioning Hilda, I heard her accusing us of trying to kill that asshole, so I snuck out. When I got to the hospital, that guy was in the ER asking which room you were in."

I didn't want to tell Sam the man I just saw looked like he had just stepped out of a vampire movie.

"Why?"

"I don't know," Sam said. "You ready?"

What the fuck is going on? Can this night get any worse? Can my life get any worse?

The noise stopped outside the door. I prayed the cop was okay and we didn't run into that man-or whatever he was.

Sam peered out. "They're not there."

"What? Where'd they go?"

"We probably have a second to get out of here. Come on," Sam whispered. "Take my hand."

"Wait." I scurried over to the table, grabbed the cop's card and shoved it in my pocket. I didn't know if I would need it, but if anything, I could contact him later to make sure he was okay.

Sam looked both ways as we left the room.

I glimpsed at the clock in the hallway. Both hands rested on the twelve. A gurney sat outside in-between my room and the next.

I turned around. The hall was empty. What happened to the cop? Were the nurses okay? It was eerily quiet.

In the distance ahead of Sam, a red sign above the double doors spelled the way out. We walked at a fast pace. The exit seemed miles away. It was as if we were walking against the wind, pushing our way through every step.

Sam pulled me and my body screamed in pain, my lungs burning every time I inhaled.

"Faster, Jo."

"It hurts."

Footsteps broke the silence. Shit!

I glanced back and a shadow crept along the floor and up the wall. I didn't know if it was the cop or the bandana guy stalking our way.

"Jo, we need to run. Don't let go of my hand."

Sam squeezed my fingers as we ran through the double doors-our destination unknown, at least to me.