Braced to Bite Read Online Free PDF

through the looking glass and made a lot of hmmm and ahh sounds.
    She pointed out a bruise to my mother where I was pinched and then identified two small incision marks, barely visible in the bruise.
    My mother looked down at her hand, the one I’d sucked on, and showed it to my great-aunt, then proceeded to tell her what I did when I entered the kitchen. I squirmed in my seat, wishing I could run away and hide. I hear people do really odd things when they are in shock, but I doubted they nibbled on their mothers’ hands and helped themselves to a blood cocktail.
    Then Aunt Chloe wrapped a wide medical gadget on my wrist and turned it on.
    “What’s this?” I asked curiously, my wrist getting squeezed uncomfortably.
    “It’s my blood-pressure band. It helps me keep track of my high blood pressure—which is why I need those pills.” She gestured to the overflowing Baggie.
    I nodded and looked at the large digital face of the wrist band, which stayed suspiciously blank.
    “Is it broken?” I asked when the LED registered only one pulse the entire time it was on my wrist.
    “Don’t think so. Marilyn, let’s do you.” She took the cuff off of me and put it on my mom.
    Mom’s reading showed an unusually high blood pressure, which was understandable considering the situation, and a decent pulse rate.
    They both looked at the cuff, then me, pursing their lips in speculation. At that moment, I saw the family resemblance perfectly.
    “Let’s take her temperature,” Mom suggested as she picked up an ancient-looking thermometer. She took it into the bathroom to wash. She walked back shaking the mercury down and put it under my tongue.
    I sat obediently, the glass stick placed awkwardly under my tongue. After a minute, they read the thermometer and then stared at me strangely.
    “Ninety-eight point six?” I asked hopefully.
    “Uh, no,” my mom replied, less than helpfully.
    Aunt Chloe took her stethoscope out and listened to my heart and lungs. She nodded in satisfaction, putting her tools of the trade back in the bag. She took her time tidily arranging all of her things. Mom sat down next to me again and held my hand. When Aunt Chloe was done straightening things up, she stood up and made her medical pronouncement.
    “Well, technically you’re dead,” she announced with flourish.

Three

    “ B ut you’re obviously not dead, or you wouldn’t be walking around and talking. So you must be undead. My guess is a vampire.”
    “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed incredulously. Surely ol’ Aunt Chloe had lost it.
    “Nope. Seen it before. In the war. We’d get those boys in with a toe tag but when we tried to move them they would sit up and grab the nearest person and have themselves a drink.”
    Mom and I gaped at her.
    “Course, we couldn’t have our dead lads feeding on our orderlies so we would have to, uh, make the toe tag official, so to speak.”
    “You mean you had to kill them? Again?”
    “Stake through the heart. Wasn’t an easy decision to make but when you have so many men who are alive that need you and one who is beyond your help that could hurt them, well, the decision is obvious.”
    “Were there a lot of vampires?” I asked uneasily, still not sold on this hypothesis.
    “No, I only came across three in my war days. Of course other units may have seen more. Some things we all understood but didn’t talk about. I mean, back in the States, who would believe one of our soldiers had turned vampire?”
    We both nodded our agreement. After all, it was far-fetched even to me, and I was supposed to be one.
    “I thought vampires couldn’t go out in the sunlight.”
    “They can’t. Them toe-tagged boys arrived covered in a sheet, and we didn’t just get wounded during office hours. It was war, Colby. People killing each other at all hours of the day and night.”
    My aunt looked so ferocious at that moment I could easily see a younger version, snapping out orders and operating on