Fear of the Dark

It was a nice day in Long Beach, California. The arena was full, lots of screaming fans going crazy. An organ started playing, the lead singer of the band playing the right keys to the beginning of the song. The fans went even crazier when the lead guitarist started to play. He stood on top of a monitor, the rhythm guitarist and bassist doing the same on the other two monitors on the stage. And everyone lost there heads once the singer began to scream the intro to Critical Acclaim. Brian Haner jumped from the monitor and walked to his stand, continuing to play the song, and he smiled watching the crowd head bang, scream and sing and go crazier than before. He watched the pit that was going on, and he smiled. His part came and he sang every lyric perfectly. Brian loved to do this, it was his life. It was a rush of excitement for him, for everyone. They were all best friends, and that made their life even more amazing. Smoke began to fill the stage, making it quite hard to see, but they managed. It was getting a little hot, the sun was up high in the sky, but it was still a beautiful day. Avenged Sevenfold was back to their hometown.

Brian finished the last note of the song, and the drums finished the touch. The band members took some time to drink beer or water. The lead singer, Matt Sanders looked at the bassist, Johnny Seward, a smile on his face. He loved to see crowds like this.

"And here we are in Southern California, my favorite place to be in the goddamn world." He said to the crowd. He smiled even bigger when he heard the crowd respond. He loved Long Beach, the crowd was amazing. "Long Beach, are you ready to rock and roll tonight?" He yelled.

Brian and Zacky Baker played with their guitars, earning great responses from the crowd.

"So being from Orange County, from Southern California, I know we got a lot hardcore, dedicated fans here tonight." The crowd yelled. "We got a lot of kids who know all the stuff, the new stuff. Let's play something old for them right now. I wanna see if we can get this friggin' circle pit started. Can you do that for me Long Beach? This one's called Second Heartbeat of off Waking The Fallen!" Matt yelled.

Brian started to play the beginning riffs to the song, along with Zacky. Jimmy Sullivan began to play the drums, getting lost, like he usually did. It was his thing, and when he played, he played with passion. Matt screamed the lyrics to the song, walking around looking at the crowd respond. Johnny and Brian looked at each other as they played. Matt continued to sing and make his hand motions. The lead guitarist walked back to his spot, and began to sing the backing vocals. The crowd cheered, all of them knowing the lyrics to Second Heartbeat. It was an amazing song, along with amazing lyrics and great harmonies, it drove the crowd insane. The circle pit grew bigger and they all head banged to the exact rhythm of the song.

"The ones who I confide, gone in the black of the night." Matt sang, Brian and Zacky signing their backing vocals.

"Long Beach, my boy, Synyster Gates!" Matt yelled as Brian's guitar solo approached.

Brian stood in front of the stage and played the guitar with so much passion, even the crowd felt how he felt. He frowned when he made a wrong note, but it didn't matter. To the crowd it also didn't matter. Brian continued to play his guitar solo, and soon it came to an end. As it finished, Zacky played the beginning chords to Afterlife, Brian following. Jimmy played his drums perfectly. Johnny walked around playing the bass.

"Let me hear you now Long Beach!" Matt yelled, and watched as Brian and Zacky played their guitars next to each other, both eyed the crowd.

The cameras and photographers took pictures of the two guitarist, others pictures of the singer, the bassist and the drummer. They were filming their concert for a DVD they were planning on releasing soon along with an album full of b-sides from their recent self-titled release. They wanted to give the fans something they would love, and they were sure this would be it. They continued to play until the song was over, and they were a little exhausted, but with the crowds reaction, they were starting to get amped up and were now full of energy. The crowd continued to scream. Brian took his beer from the amp and drank some getting more hipped up to play the next song. The singer walked to where Brian was and took his jacket off, already feeling the heat of the sun make his clothing stick to his skin. He threw it and walked back to the front of the stage.

"Amazing," Brian said into his microphone and then looked at Matt. The lead singer smiled, his microphone in his hands and looked back at the lead guitarist.

"I like how we got, uh, the 'welcome home' sign over there. That's very nice, thank you very much. Thank you." Matt said looking at the girl with the sign.

Jimmy hit his drums. Matt walked towards Zacky. "We got the uh, 'Zacky is the man for me' sign." Zacky said smiling.

"Yep." Matt said.

"I sure am, baby." Zacky smiled and heard the girls cream at his response.

"Zacky is the man for me." Matt repeated. He grinned at Zacky. "Wow. And we got video cameras, everywhere filming all you beautiful people for a DVD tonight."

The crowd screamed louder at the news. "And you guys do look good." Brian commented.

"Ya know what I love about Long Beach? It's kinda like- Well everything yeah, but that's what I'm getting to." Matt said when Zack told him he loved everything. It was true. Long Beach was a place the boys loved to play shows at. They loved the people there. "It's kinda like it's own City of Evil over here, man. Lots of crazy stuff happens in Long Beach, in fact, The Rev used to live in Long Beach for a little bit." He looked back at Jimmy, and smiled. Jimmy began to play the beginning to Beast Of The Harlot. "Let's play some Beast And The Harlot for ya'll."

And they began again, playing a song that got the crowd going crazy again. Zacky and Brian played the chords to the song, and Brian eyed the crowd, earning smiles from girls here and there. He was good lookin', and he always got flirty smiles from girls in the crowd, just like the rest of his band mates. He looked at Matt, and watched when he stopped signing. He frowned and looked at Johnny who was now behind him.

"What is he doing?" He asked Johnny.

"He probably forgot the lyrics." Johnny responded. But when Brian looked at Matt again, he was staring at something.

He followed Matt's gaze, and saw something far in the distance. Brian stared at the thing and watched as it got closer by the second. Soon enough he was able to see it clearly. Deep grayish, thick smoke approached the area at a very unbelievable speed. Brian scrunched his eyebrows together and watched when Matt stepped back, and Jimmy walk away from his drums. Johnny was now next to him, he also eyed the smoke. It was now closer to the arena and it descended, catching the guys off guard. Brian dropped his guitar as he watched the smoke take over some of the crowd. Stepping back, he noticed some of the front row had black eyes. He looked at Johnny.

"What the hell?" Johnny said. They watched as some of the fans made their way through security and got on the stage. A security guard grabbed the girl's leg, trying to get her out of the stage. She turned around, and snapped his neck quickly, dropping the now dead body on the ground, causing everyone to scream. The girl along with other three guys walked closer to the band members.

"Oh damn." Jimmy said. The five of them were now standing next to each other. Brian turned around and looked at his left. Two people with the black eyes were getting closer to them. He turned to his right, another two.

"Crap." Brian said and stood closer to Johnny. They were backed up to where the drums where at. Brian looked past the four people in front of them, only to see innocent people being murdered by the rest of the black eyes. He and the guys were about to run, but were stopped. Brian flinched at the sound of people screaming for help. They wanted to go and help, get the police and get out of there, but the ones that surrounded them weren't letting them. Zacky tried to run, only to get punched in the gut. Matt managed to catch him and helped him stand up straight.

"Hello boys," the girl said. Her black eyes eyed the five best friends, she was smiling showing two rows of straight, white teeth. "We finally find you. It took some time. Well actually a lot of time. Being stuck in Hell was starting to get boring. We wanted some fun! And now look, we're out!"

Brian eyed the girl as her eyes turned to her normal set of eyes. He flinched at another scream from the crowd. Hell? Why was she talking about Hell? What was happening?

"Who are you?" Matt asked, still grabbing onto Zacky to support him.

"We're your worst nightmares," the girl laughed. "We have plans for you boys. But first-"

Brian closed his eyes, opening them quickly and watched in horror as the black eyes covered their faces from the water that had fallen over them. He turned to look at Jason Berry, along with some other people. They dropped the buckets and hollered for the guys to run. They didn't hesitate and began to run back stage. Brian stopped and looked at the slaughtering happening in the crowd. Oh how much did he want to help. He heard his name being called and then turned around to see the black eyes running towards him. He took off. Brian caught up with the guys, going inside the tour bus. Jason Berry eyed the diabolic beings running after them, he closed the door and the tour bus took off.