Pitch Black

Third Person

“Do you really think this is going to work?” Liam murmured to Blakely as they sat on the floor of the living room, loading bullets into their guns. All around them there was motion, not a single person sitting down. Everyone was preparing themselves for what they were about to do. “This plan… it’s insane and has a lot of room to go wrong.”

“Do you want my honest opinion?” she asked him, cocking her gun and putting it in her holster. Blakely began sliding knives into her pockets as well. Niall had even pulled out grenades from their weaponry. “Or do you want me to give you my prayers?”

Liam seemed to mull over that. He knew that if he wanted the absolute truth of what was going to happen, he would ask Blake. If he wanted all the positives to the situation and the hopes of what we could do, he would go to Ashling. She put a positive spin on most things. “The honest to god truth.”

Blakely nodded once, sliding the last knife in her boot before looking at him dead in the face. “This won’t go as planned,” she said firmly, looking into his brown eyes. There was fear there, but there was determination and bravery too. Everyone began to slow their movements as the girl began talking, wanting to hear her take on it. “We’re counting on too many things to go in our favor, and we’re hoping to outsmart them but we can’t. They will expect us, they will wait for us. The best possible situation is that we get Sam out alive. At least her and maybe one or two of us.”

The room was heavy and silent. Everyone had stopped moving completely, minds going over Blakely’s words. Everyone knew that they were sentencing themselves to death for one girl, one little girl who meant more than life at this point. Everyone knew that there wasn’t really a way to come out of this.

Licking her lips, Blake looked around, waiting to see someone change their mind. it was a lot to ask for, someone’s life. To go into a situation knowing that you were going to die or be farmed was something that was going to take a lot out of these people. They all had been running from them their entire lives. And now they were walking to the vamps door.

Everything that they all had fought against, hid from and ran from, they were going to challenge now. Years of starving, scavenging and surviving all going to waste because they were going into the wolves den. They were trying to hunt the hunters, but they were prey and they knew it.

“If anyone wants to back out,” Louis said very lowly, and very quietly, “do it now. Because this is asking a lot of anyone. They won’t kill you. That will be asking for to much luck if they do. They will turn you or farm you.”

“Louis,” Eleanor said, her voice strained. She was giving him a silencing look, as if to tell him they already knew that. He was just voicing the things that no one wanted to voice themselves. “We know.”

“Do you?” Blake asked, looking at her. She was still pale, but she had a set look in her eyes. Everyone mirrored that same look. “Do you know? Because I think if you knew, you would not go. This plan is a good one, but it is not without fault. It will go wrong, and when it goes wrong, people will die.”

“Don’t you think we know that?” Harry asked finally, setting down his weapon and looking at Blakely. She glanced up from her spot on the floor, his green eyes fierce and beautiful. “There is no sense in telling us what we already know. But we’ve decided, and we’ve made this plan. We’re going to do it, Blakely.”

Louis, who still hadn’t said a word to the girl walked by her and held out his hand. In that moment, his anger was gone, and there was a brother who Blakely had not been born with, but who she had been blessed with. She took his hand and he pulled her to her feet. “Whatever it takes.”

She nodded once. “Whatever it takes.”

*

It was dry outside. The air was thick with the dryness, and there was no moisture. Tall in on the gleaming watch towers, vampires stood. It was black as pitch outside, just touching midnight. The city was alive with activity on the inside, vampires going to work and children going to school.

On the towers, watchful eyes scanned the area around them. They had been put on alert, told that a group of humans had been discovered. Walking along rim of the tower, a young vampire man looked out, tired of his shift already. It was the same thing every time: they saw nothing, or they found a single human straggler, too tired and near death to do anything.

Walking, he looked out into the dark distance. The clouds were over the moon, making the nick thick with darkness. But his eyes could pierce into the darkness, and they saw movement. He narrowed his blood red eyes and he felt his fangs stretch in alert.

“Captain,” he said when he was sure he could see a figure darting across the area in front of them, moving behind an old building in the distance. “There someone out there.”

The commanding captain of the tower picked up high-tech binoculars, holding them to his already trained eyes. He did in fact sense movement. It only took moments for him to call the command to send out armored cars.

Four armored cars left the night city, roaring their way at high speeds across the barren land, kicking up dust in the night, looking like dark clouds hovering above the ground as they went, determination in the sound of the engines.

When they reached a decrepit, old building, the engines on the machines were killed, soldiers of a fashion filing out, the creatures moving with grace and absolute, predatory stealth. They could not be heard, as they fanned out, weapons raised and sniffing as they went along.

The smell of warm, human blood was in the air. There were certainly people around. There had to be, the scent was too fresh. As they moved quietly around a town that had fallen long ago, they kept watching, waiting. Whoever had been seen moving could not hide forever.

A single, loud wail of anguish and fear went up into the air then, echoing off the empty buildings and causing all vampires to whirl, bolting towards the noise. It had come from a building that had not been inspected, a vampire kicking the door down and shining a light inside.

The noise had come from a young man who was bawling, tears falling down his face as he sat in the middle of the floor, trying to escape the grasp of a young woman who was yelling at him in a whisper to quiet down, begging him to be silent. She whirled around and the boy ran from her, clearly distressed and mumbling incoherent words.

Fear was written all over her face as her eyes darted wildly from vampire to vampire, the room flooding with them as they held guns and tranquilizers at her. She stood in a shower of flashlight glow, pale, frigid and fearful. She looked tattered, like she had been tired and had a long journey.

Slowly she raised her hands in a surrender, bottom lip trembling with the fear the creatures instilled. Some of them let out soft growls, smelling how close she was to them. It made her flinch. “D-don’t hurt him,” she stuttered out, her voice quaking uncontrollably. She was shaking from her toes to her fingertips. “H-he doesn’t know any b-b-better.”

An officer moved forward towards the younger boy, but he let out a wild shriek, throwing himself against the wall and screaming out words that did not make sense, that were strung together into incoherent babbling and cries for help. The girl was begging him to be quiet, but nothing could console him.

“What’s wrong with him?” the vampire in command demanded, stepping forward and shining the light in the girls face. She flinched away from it, looking at the vampire who towered over her. He was dress in all black, but his face was reveal, skin pale and beautiful. “Where do you come from?”

“He-he is not right minded,” she said slowly before words began tumbling out of her mouth. “Please don’t hurt him, he is not right in his mind. He is but a child, in his own sense. We’ve been traveling for a year from town to town…”

The vampire studied her before nodding. “Will he remain calm?”

She looked at the boy. “I don’t know, please just let me talk to him and-"

“I can’t trust you,” the vampire cut her off. With a raise of his gun, he pulled the trigger, a tranquilizer hitting her in the chest. The boy let out a wail before another dart was let out, hitting him to and instantly dosing him with medicine, his body crumpling to the ground. “Take them both to the sick bay. I want to know what’s wrong with him and if she’s healthy enough to send to the plants.”

Carrying the two bodies, the vampires left the seen. Both humans remained still, their breathing even and deep. The girls brown hair was splayed over her face and her blue eyes were shut, though her hand lay on her brothers, as if comforting him in drug induced sleep.

That was how Eleanor and Andy were stolen into the city.

*

“How long have we been waiting?” Louis growled, bouncing up and down on his heels. It was obvious to Blakely that he was nervous for Eleanor, who had split off with her brother. She just hoped that everything went correctly and that Andy didn’t get them into trouble. “It’s been for fucking ever, Blake.”

“Calm down, Louis,” Harry muttered quietly, looking through a pair of high-tech binoculars. They could switch into both night and heat vision, stolen from a raid he had gone on long ago. “Eleanor will be fine. She’s done raids long before you came along.”

“This isn’t a raid,” he answered through his teeth, bouncing up and down still. Harry, Blakely and Louis were in a group of three, while Niall, Liam and Ashling had paired up and Perrie, Zayn and Danielle had paired up. “This is a god damn suicide mission.”

“What happened to all that ‘whatever it takes’ bullshit?” Blakely snapped, glaring at him through the darkness. They were high on top of a building, one of the few that had stairs still leading to the tops, giving them a decent view of the twinkling city. But they could not see the portions of the city where the others were supposed to be, which was not convenient. “Now stop bouncing, you’re going to put a whole in the floor.”

“What a shame that would be.” Blakely punched Harry in the side, and she knew it had hurt when he sucked in a breath, his silhouette turning to her. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness, but his shadow didn’t look happy, if that was possible. “Can you refrain from doing that, love? You kind of shove a knife into my skin.”

Blakely grimaced, reaching out in the darkness and brushing his cheek with her fingers softly but quickly. “Sorry.”

He hummed in response before turning around. In the distance, the city shone like a thousand stars in the sky. It would have been beautiful, if the city hadn’t been vampire ridden. Blakely hated the entire place, and looking at it at night only made it worse. “Let’s go.”

Louis and Blakely jumped into action, following Harry down the steps, their footfalls muted and very silent. They were not loud people. They were the predators now, on the hunt and looking for prey. In the street, they moved carefully and quiet, weapons in their hands.

As they rounded a corner, they began to near the edge of their city, slowing. Harry was looking at the ground near a building, trying to find what they wanted. Louis and Blakely kept moving quietly, letting Harry do his thing.

“I know it’s here some-“ Harry stripped suddenly, falling flat on his face, arms outstretched as his palms slammed into the pavement, a curse leaving his mouth as the skin broke. But his curse was drowned out by the sound of sirens wailing, a trip wire near the building hit. “Oh.”

Blakely ran over to him and ripped him up to his feet, covering her ears with the sound of the wailing, lights bursting on. All of them raised guns as trucks came roaring towards them. The three looked at one another before a silent agreement passed between them.

The three humans broke off into a sprint in different directions, Blakely running to the heart of the city, Louis running towards the west side and Harry running to the east. Gun shots began ringing out behind Blakely, making her heart thud as she pumped her legs faster, aware that the trucks were there and that vampires were running after her.

Blakely’s feet skid on the concrete as she turned a tight corner, only to leap through a shattered window when she came face to face with fangs. Inside she threw chairs behind her as she went, the vampire behind her screeching.

Running down the hall she turned her head over her shoulder, aiming and pulling the trigger hitting the vampires that were coming after her. They hissed and bellowed, the crosses carved into the bullets and the prayers murmured over them taking affect as she ducked into another room, coming to an abrupt stop.

The room had no doors and there was no way out. Blake’s heart was thudding against her chest as she wiped the gun around, holding it with both hands and setting her jaw in a firm position, squeezing the trigger as the four vampires tried to under the room.

One ducked with blinding speed, charging her and crashing into her at waist level, making her scream out. The gun was cast from her hand and she grabbed a knife from her sleeve, plunging it into the vampire woman’s neck, blood spewing from the metal onto her hands, the vampire screaming in her face, fangs extended and eyes dilated.

Blakely shoved with all her might, trying to get the creature off of her, but the vampire had an iron grip, pulling the knife out of it’s neck and glaring, hissing in Blakely’s face. But just when Blakely thought it was going to sink it’s fangs into her, the weight was gone.

Blinking in surprise, she rolled her head to the side, Harry pinning down the vampire and sticking a stake through her, reducing the vampire to a lifeless body. Blakely was panting and glanced at the door, where the blessed bullets had ruined the other vampires, their bodies dead on the ground.

Rolling off his kill, Harry ran to Blakely yanking her up by the hand, examining her face with his green eyes quickly. She nodded at him, answering his silent question if she was okay. As if to confirm it he grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her hard, desperation and wildness in his lips.

“Don’t do that again,” he warned her, panting and pulling her along. “There wasn’t a window for me to go through to get in here.”

“Huh, you used the door fine.”

Their misplaced banter came to a stop as they ran out the building. Louis was standing in front of them, facing them and looking at them as a single dart, filled with knock out medicine hit him in the back of his neck. Whatever words were on his lips faded as his eyes rolled back into his head, his knees buckling as sleep over took him in stages.

“Louis,” Blakely whispered, stepping forward and reaching and hand towards him. She felt a sharpness in her hand and she over turned it, seeing an identical dart sticking from it. Instantly she felt the drug through her veins and she began growing heavy, but she continued to stumble to her brother, her best friend, falling to her knees but remaining erect. Louis was still swaying on his knees. “Louis.”

“Blakely,” he muttered, swaying violently as he fought the drug. Before they knew it, Harry was clinging to Blakely’s shoulder, a dart in his collarbone. All three of them had hooded eyes, swaying dangerous and fighting the drugs.

“Shoot them again,” another voice commanded as the three teenager were on their knees, clinging on to one another for support, for dear life. “They’re strong. Hit them with another round.”

The sound of three separate tranquilizers went off. They fell asleep together.