To Light up the Dark

It's been seven years since R'lyeh was risen from the deeps of the black embraces of the ocean When it emerged from the deeps all sorts of horrors and monsters came from the depths and started slaughtering humans in droves. In one day we lost 70% of the human population when it emerged right off the . The U.S evacuated as many as they could but when is anyone ever ready for something like this? We left so many behind that it should have broken our spirit from the first day. However we got a trade off: it seems that with the arrival of dark ones some of humanity gained "superpowers".

Kyle, for example, suddenly could shoot laser beams out of his eyes. They're actually pretty effective for the occasional demon that we wander too close to. Stan suddenly was stronger and faster, plus he could control metal and manipulate it however he wanted. Tupperware, Token if I haven't mentioned it before, was suddenly made of metal. Organic metal that managed to heal itself even when damaged. Mosquito grew wings and could fly, they're rather insect like and hard to look at but we aren't judging Clyde all that much. The Coon didn't get anything, but we're glad because Cartman wouldn't have shut his fat fucking mouth if he had gotten them.

Since then we've picked up some new "superheroes" or "angels" as the rest of the populace likes to call us. The survival rate for the first three years is 15%, once you pass that then somehow it shoots up to nearly 90%. I wish I could say that I could look them straight in the eye and tell them that we're winning the war. But we're short on everything, food, hope, people. We need a miracle, anything, even if it is a longshot. If we get that then…

The door to the room that I was sitting in opened. I stopped scribbling in my journal and tucked it away in my pouch.

Looking up I noticed it was Red. She was dressed in pink scrubs, something I didn't even know they had on hand anymore, holding a clipboard in her small hands that her nails drummed against. Since this shit went down she had been studying medicine and helped out at the hospital that housed the sick or wounded. A place that always seemed filled to the brim with someone with some weird, noncontagious sickness or visions of insanity that left him or her as drooling vegetables that couldn't do much more than shit their pants and occasionally mumble something about some mountains and madness or some other type of weird thing.

"So what's the damage this time Kenny? And take off the hood, you're home now." Red asked as she pulled a first aid kit out of a shelf that was placed over a sink.

"Cultist tried to stab me, I had no other choice but to grab the blade." I told her while pulling my hood out as she pulled out: a needle, thread, peroxide, some wipes, and bandages.

"You and your crazy antics, you're going to get yourself killed one of these days."

"You have no idea." I told her as I stood up and walked over to the sink so she could clean my wound.

Red grabbed a few cotton balls from a small container and lightly took my hand and held it underneath the faucet. She turned the water on and the cold stream fell from the tap and onto my hand, which washed the blood and grime away. I took the chance to look up and admire Red's perfectly sculpted face. She had blossomed quite well when she hit puberty. I had always had a thing for Red but I never could gather the guts to ask her out. I couldn't die so that never occurred to me for a reason not to ask her out, I guess I was just chicken. Even then there was always something off about her, even if the whole world was off and I always thought someone had a knife behind their back to stab me.

"How do you mess yourself up like this? I swear one of these days I'm going to have to make a house call." She told me as she put some peroxide on a cotton ball and dabbed it on my cuts. The cuts fizzed with white foam and stung causing me to wince for a quick second.

"You know I always make house calls." I told her in a half assed and futile attempt to hit on her. I about contemplated pulling the pistol out of my holster and shooting myself in the head for that terrible pick up line.

"Ha, ha." Red replied and didn't push it further.

As soon as she was done cleaning the wound she pulled out the needle and the thread and began to sew up the cuts. I kept my hand up as I struggled to find something to say to her.

Something skittered through the vents; I about jerked my hand away while Red was in mid-sew. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the sound but it had disappeared. Strange.

"Oh come on, you've had this done countless times." Red chided me.

"Thought I heard something." I replied.

After that we were silent and the silence continued until she was done with the stitches. Once she was done she cleaned her equipment and looked at me. "You're free to go," she told me as she turned to leave.

"Hey, Red." I called out, hoping she heard me this time. When she turned around I felt my stomach drop into my shoes. "I was wondering if…" I began but would never get to finish as I a piercing help that rang through my head.

Sighing, I looked down at my feet and waved my hand to establish it was nothing important before I pulled my hood up, put my glove back on and rushed out of the hospital. Only one thing would cause me to get that message and it was Karen. If she sent me out something like that then she was in trouble.

Using my grappling hook I swung across town, ignoring to the cheers and the awe from random passerby's that saw me. Karen lived with Kyle's dad and Ike: Kyle's mother and my family except for her had died when R'lyeh emerged. But now she would be on her way home from school. I scanned the route that she normally took to get home and saw three people in an alleyway corning a terrified fourth person. I stopped and twirled onto a roof, landing on the balls of my feet and leaning forward to quiet my landing.

I peeked over the edge and stared at the three people corning the fourth. The fourth was Karen, the other three looked young. Probably some school bullies or something. After looking at the group I figured out exactly who they were, vampire kids.

One was tall and lean; she was a girl who tried to look attractive after putting a pound of makeup and lipstick on. Her hair was black with a stripe of green running down the middle like a skunk. She was dressed up like every goth, vampire, punk wannabe. Attempting to be different because most of them didn't realize how to act like the rest of society. While difference is good, sometimes people stretch it too far.

The second one was rather short and stocky, but he was muscular and probably could have punched a hole through me if he tried. He was wearing all black and glitter across his forehead so he sparkled when the light hit him the right way.

The last one was young, only about ten or eleven. He looked about ready to piss his pants, if I could take out the leader and the heavily built one I knew that he would run him and his pink tipped hair away crying.

"All right McCormick, we gonna do this tough or easy?" a tall, vampire kid asked her as she licked over her really fake, plastic teeth.

"Leave me alone Druella!" Karen yelled.

I figured I would wait a second or two before jumping down. I want my sister to be safe, but I'm not going to put her and myself in a situation that could land one of us dead. The vampires rarely were armed, they like to fuck shit up with their talk of the undead and shit like that, but I've died a few times because they've had a switchblade hidden up their sleeve and gutted me right in the stomach. I bled out four or five hours later.

When my opportunity arose I grabbed a string of firecrackers out of my belt and lit them. Tossing them in the middle of the three vampires they exploded and startled them enough that I could jump down behind the stocky one. I wrapped my arm around throat and cut his windpipe off, choking him out until he collapsed in my arms. I chucked him off to the side and braced myself for the other two.

The leader had pulled a large Bowie knife out of her boot, who the hell kept their primary weapon in their boot? I knew the armor I wore to help block some stabs and bullets while maintaining could stop it for as long as she hit me in my chest. That's why I kept the question mark on my chest, similar to the yellow batman logo for 70's Batman; it gave my opponents a target. A target that was armored and therefore harder than balls to punch through.

She launched forward and wildly slashed as my arm, she missed narrowly and I delivered a punch to her solar plexus that had her reeling over and gasping for breath. I then brought a kick from my steel reinforced boots to the side of her legs, the pop I heard reassured me that I had popped it out of place. Finally I gave her a right hook that sent her to the left and knocked a tooth out.

I smirked, thinking I was done, when I heard the sound of a revolver hammer being pulled back. I turned to look at the kid with the pink tipped hair. He was shaking so much that if the gun did go off it probably wouldn't hit anybody, but that was a risk I couldn't take.

"Put the gun down kid, we can all work this out." I told him as I slowly walked towards him.

"Stay back! We need her!" he told her as his eyes darted towards Karen.

"No. You don't, what you need to do is go back home and spend time with your family."

"Shut up!" he yelled, I knew he was seconds away from pulling the trigger. I darted forward and stood in front of him as the gun went off. I grabbed his hand and squeezed until I could wretch the gun out of his hand, I punched him with my injured left hand. It hurt like a motherfucker.

The kid started crying as he dropped the gun and ran off. He wasn't important, needed to make sure that Karen was okay. Turning around I began to ask if she was okay before I felt something warm running down my ribs. A sharp pain greeted me as I fell backwards against a wall.

"Kenny!" Karen yelled as she ran over to me as I gritted my teeth in pain.

"Call an ambulance." I ordered her as I put pressure on the wound to stop the bleeding.

I laid there as Karen dialed up an ambulance. Wondering, if tonight I would feel the sting of death once again.