Black

Chapter one

      BAM! The fragile pistol backfires, sending the all to familiar shock up my right arm. The bullet flies through the head of the snarling vampire, and it lands face first onto the ground with a loud plop! Glancing over my shoulder, I find my little sister, Evie, slashing menacingly with her silver dagger. Heads of the unlucky mutations are piled around her like snowballs. She catches my eye and grins a little. Vampires may be fast and vicious, but they sure aren't smart. When the government experimented on them, it killed the part of the human brain that makes decisions for you, so all these assholes are programmed to do are kill, and maybe eat and follow simple commands. Otherwise, they're about as smart as a two year old teething. 

       Camo clutches my elbow, and I get back into "fighting mode" as I call it. One after another, vampires fall all around me, screaming and growling as they die. I have gotten used to the sound of these mutations dying, screeching and twitching and moaning. The sounds often creep back into my nightmares, and I end up waking myself with a gun in my right hand, ready to fire. Or I have my bow, my preferred weapon of choice. 

"DUCK!" 

      Camo shoves me down to the freezing earth and I detect a bullet whizzing over my head. I feel myself being lifted back up and I continue with our killing spree. 

      More and more vampires come. We shoot. Eventually, Evie starts to run out of steam, swaying side to side as she stumbles towards me, almost fainting. Camo catches her as she passes out from exhaustion. C'mon, I think frantically. We only have a few left to kill! And it's true! I count only five vampires lurking in the coming darkness. They are especially good hunters in the dark, and we are not. If we stay out here any longer, they will pick us off.

        Breathing in heavily, I force the pistol back into my belt and take my bow and one arrow from the pack swinging on my back. I notch it into place carefully, and curiously, the vampires peak out from behind the oak trees, snarling and growling like wild animals. "Get back to the truck," I command, my voice a mere whisper. "Arrow, no. I'm staying-"

      "Go back to the fucking truck! If I'm not there in ten minutes, assume Im dead and take Evie to shelter. Don't look back. Remember our deal."

        Camo, tears glistening in his eyes, says nothing. He spins around on his heel and sprints in the other direction. I turn back to the vampires, who have gathered in a pack. I take another deep breath, embracing my heroic death to save my sister and my best friend. I imagine my parents, before the wolves attacked them both and left my sister and I to fend for ourselves. I think of my mothers golden blonde hair identical to my own, and a tear streams down my face. I squeeze my eyes shut, open them again, and aim my arrow. 

      I let go. It buries itself in the middle of the vampire's white forehead. The others scream, and launch themselves at me. I burry another arrow into a vampire's throat, and blood gushes out all over my hand. I notch an arrow, fire, notch an arrow, fire, letting the pattern I know too well take over. After all this, I am left with one huge vampire about six feet taller than me, an ugly scar running across its left eye to the right corner of its mouth, and ruby red lips with fangs dripping blood. This one had managed to scratch me as I pulled out an arrow. 

      My entire body shakes with fear and anxiety. This is my last good angle until it leaps out at me. Usually, when there is only one vampire left standing, its brain sends signals to its body to wait a minute before it randomly leaps and sinks its teeth into peoples' throats. Trust me, I've seen it happen before, when The War broke out. Evie and I came across vampires a couple occausions, and didn't really realize why they did this until months after we had come in contact with them.

       I count down in my head. Five....four....three....two....one.... it snarls and jumps on me. I struggle in its grasp as it sinks its claws into my biceps. I scream murderously, the searing pain bringing tears to my eyes instantly. I elbow it in the jaw and manage to roll out of the way for a couple seconds. I try to leap for my bow and arrow, but it attacks me again, throwing me against a tree. The bark flies all over, and I am dizzy. 

      Again, it digs its claws right into my rib cage. I scream so loudly birds fly out of the trees, sqwaking and chriping warnings. Using the last bit of my strength, I reach for an arrow. I grab one firmly and stab the top of the vampire's bald head. It gurgles, blood spurting from its mouth and onto my face. I am too tired to care, though. Even though I feel like falling asleep, i drag myself along the forest floor, bruised, bleeding, and stabbed. How original.

       This is what the Haze does to people. Beats them to a pulp and commands them to rise above expectations and survive. What if I don't want to survive anymore? What if I am done fighting a war that wasn't even mine to begin with? Two years ago, I watched my mother be ripped to shreads by a pack of genetically mutated werewolves, and my father wasn't seen again after he went to work, so I assumed he had died somewhere in D.C, since he had traveled there for business that week. My little sister and I were starving, desperate, and unable to fend for ourselves.

      That is how we found Camo. He was on the side of the road dressed like a metal garbage can. He had a pretty bad case of amnesia, not being able to remember his own name or where he was from. All he could muster was when he woke up on the twentieth floor of a Holiday Inn in Alexandria, Virginia. He walked all the way up to where I am from, Bowie, Maryland, and we found him a couple miles outside the city D.C. He did remember how to shoot any type of gun, fortunately. From then on, he became like a brother, comforting me when I woke up screaming from nightmares, or took care of nine year old Evie when I was too depressed to speak. 

       We all gave ourselves nicknames so people wouldn't find out our real identites (not like they could look us up online, all internet is shut down). Camo didn't remember his name, so we called him Camo after his stunt with the garbage can. Evie's real name is Evelyn, but Mom called her Evie, so she nicknamed herself what Mom said. I am very good with a bow, and sharp and stubborn, as Camo describes me, so I nicknamed myself Arrow. I am determined to kill and survive, just like an arrow would be, you know, if it was living and talking and breathing.

      For two years we've tried to survive, to find a cure that will help these innocent orphaned children and adults who have been mutated into something horrible that the government wanted for "protection." When America started to revolt against them, the government got out of hand, and unleashed its army upon the world. More than half the population is dead or in an underground lab somewhere in D.C. We stay as far away as possible from Virginia as we can. 

Now, I am dragging myself to my death, with Camo and Evie long gone. 

        Suddenly, a pair of white lights blind me, making me reach out towards it, yelling "I'm good enough to go to heaven! God's forgiven me! He's proven His prescence! I'm free! God save me!" Two figures run towards me, one taller than the other. The taller figure scoops me up in its arms and carries me to the back of my pick-up truck. Heaven is inside my truck? I wonder to myself, but no one ever answers my question. The world fades peacefully into darkness.

The last thing I hear is a boy's voice. "I will always be here for you, Arrow."