Pitch Black

Guns were disassembled all over the rickety table top. The metal of the guns gleamed in the makeshift torchlight on the wall, casting an orange glow to it. Using a soft cloth, I worked it over the barrel of a shotgun, cleaning every inch of surface. It was routine for me to clean the guns, making sure that they were oiled with palm oil we had found. If I didn’t take good care of them, it ran the chance of having one of the guns malfunction, and that just couldn’t happen. We couldn’t afford it.

In the back of the cave we had as our temporary home, I could hear my sister Ashling muttering chemical equations to herself. She was going over her stained notebook again, looking at the weathered pages where she kept her failed and decent attempts at figuring out how to solve the problem going on in the world: vampires.

A few times, she had come moderately close to figuring out how to reverse the disease that had infected so many of us. But whenever she took a few steps forward, she didn’t just take a step back- she got dragged back to the beginning, having to rework whatever she did. But she was smart, and I trusted that she would figure it out, someday.

Setting down the cloth, I looked at all the weapons in front of me. There were three guns; an old pump shotgun, a glock, and a rifle. Each gun was important to our survival, more so than the many knives and stakes that we carried on our persons. Knives couldn’t kill a vampire unless you took of their head with a machete, and a stake only worked if you were close enough to the heart to pierce it through. Usually by that time, you were done for.

Quickly, I put the taken apart pieces back together like a pro, just like my father had shown me. Everything he had ever taught me was still fresh in my mind, as if it were yesterday. I had been a daddy’s girl, learning everything there was to know about defense and weapons. Ashling was the smarter one of us, taking after our mother. She was absolutely brilliant, whereas the only thing I knew how to do was kill things.

Clicking everything back into place, I leaned back in the makeshift chair. It creaked in protest, and before I could lean forward to get my weight off, it snapped, making me topple backwards and hit the hard, compacted ground, a grunt leaving my mouth.

Liam’s loud laughed assaulted my ears as he came around the corner of the orange-glowing gave. His laughed echoed off the walls and I growled at him, shoving myself off of the ground and dusting off my already dusty jeans.

“Are you attacking chairs now, Blakely?” he joked, setting down the box of food he was carrying, his strong arms flexing as he let go of the heavy crate. That was one of the plus things, about having picked up Liam as a family member. He was strong and quick, a good person to have. “I assure you, it won’t bite.”

“You never know in this world,” Danielle joked, coming around the corner behind Liam. Danielle was a beautiful girl with caramel curls pulled out of her face, putting down her box as well. She was amazing at making food from dirt, something I was forever thankful for. “You might even want to watch out for that damn rock.”

“Who needs to watch out for cock?” I rolled my eyes as Louis walked around the corner with my little sister, Samantha, but who we called Sam. Louis was really only useful for humor, wit, and quick thinking. He was an escape artist, and had saved us from blood thirsty feral vampires more than once.

“Can you not?” Ashling called from the back, her voice echoing forward. The disapproval was evident in her voice. I had to strain my eyes to see the fire red of her hair. Her back was to me, but I know that her cat green eyes were focused on the handwriting in her book, straining to see by the small candle she had back there. “That’s really not appropriate for a twelve year old to here.”

“Oh please,” Louis answered, patting Sam on her strawberry blonde hair. “Have you heard your sisters mouth when she’s running around slaying vampires like a modern day Buffy?”

We, of course, had no idea what he was talking about. Louis had been born two years before we had, in the time when only the virus existed, as opposed to the vampire run world. He had 9 years of knowing that humans were slowly dying, but they hadn’t been totally killed off yet, of knowing what Buffy was or something he called Twilight. When he was 11, the mass murder started. Ashling and I were 9, since we were fraternal twins. Sam had only been the very small age of 2, never knowing anything but a world of death.

Louis often spoke of things that Ashling and I were around to see, but to young to remember. It was the same for Liam, and sometimes Danielle. She was a year older than we were, and she often remembered vaguely what Louis was talking about. That was another thing Louis was good for; telling us what he remembered from the old days. We of course shared too, but it paled in comparison to his elephant memory.

“Right,” Liam joked, patting Louis on the back and giving him a grin. “Because we all know who Buffy is. Another one of your childhood girlfriends, I suppose?”

Rolling his blue eyes, Louis shoved Liam off. “Liam, the only thing you know about girlfriends, is Danielle.”

Both Liam and Danielle flushed. The couple was new with one another, and even though we gave them privacy as much as we could, it was still sometimes strange for them. We were all so personal with one another, and we knew things that we didn’t like the others to know. But that was the way it was. We were as intimate as a family could get.

“Leave them alone, Louis,” Ashling called. I heard the sound of her brushing her pants off as she stood, leaving her work for a while. Coming into the light of the torch, I saw that her red hair that resembled fire was tied up out of her face. The red in her hair was in stark contrast to the sandy brown of mine. Same had some sort of mixture of our hair. “Glad someone is getting some love around here.”

“Awe,” Danielle cooed, pinching Ashling’s cheek as she walked by. “I love you, Ash, I promise.”

“At least someone does,” Sam muttered sarcastically, going to the small roll she called a bed and sprawling out on it. For a twelve year old, she sure had a sarcastic streak. We had no idea where it came from, but we were assuming Louis was teaching her snide remarks.

“How close is the sun to setting?” I asked, pulling out a round of new bullets Liam had found for the pistol and taking out my knife. Using the sharpened point, I began carving crosses in them very carefully while muttering different prayers over them. Though I wasn’t really sure how faith worked all the time, something about this process made the bullets lethal. Vampires were abominations to nature, so anything holy harmed them. It’s why the churches had been the first things to go. “I’d like to finish these before sleep. I only have three left in the clip right now.”

“About thirty minutes,” Danielle informed, standing with me and removing a knife herself. She gestured to the pack of bullets and I smiled, sliding them over. I had just taught her how to fix the bullets so that they would work, and she often liked to help me. Louis never bothered, leaving it for me, and Ashling was busy picking his knowledge for her equations. “But you have me on your side, so you can get some sleep.”

Most humans, if there were any left, would probably move during the night, since that’s when a vampire attack would most likely happen. They burned up in the sun like gasoline meeting a match, making day safer to sleep. But after ground breaking technology, it seemed they had come out with suits that could block the sun, making them far more dangerous if you were sleeping in the day, when they expected.

From experience, we knew that most attacks happened when groups were sleeping. Though our senses were now trained to hear anything in sleep, vampires were way too quiet for the human ear to pick up, and often we were just too exhausted to sleep lightly. So we traveled at day, and though it was easier to be spotted, it was easier to avoid them too.

Finishing marking the rounds, I loaded the gun and put my knives away. Tossing the shotgun to Louis, he loaded it easily and cocked it, ready to use it if need be. Danielle took the rifle, shoulder it and walking over to where her makeshift bed was. Liam relied on his sheer strength and agility, keep stakes and a sharp machete on his persons at all time. My twin was all about the holy water and stakes as well, trusting them too do more damage.

Judging by my exhaustion, the sun was just setting. Since we had no watches, we had to judge time by exhaustion and by the suns position. It became easier, the longer we lived life that way.

Laying out next to Ashling, who was facing the ceiling I sighed. Louis was finishing up shoving boxes in a corner before he put out the torch, bathing us in total darkness. We had been in this cave for a week, and though it was comfortable, we would have to leave soon again.

As if sensing my thoughts, Ashling reached her hand over and found mine, giving it a squeeze. She knew how much moving stressed me out, knew that it was the part that I hated the most. Moving was almost always the worst part.

Sam shifted behind me, rolling closer to my back. I smiled at the movement. She always switched between sleeping against my back or Ashling’s. Something about it made her feel protected, made her feel less afraid. For a child, she was very brave. But here, it was be brave or find a grave.