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Chapter 3- Karlie

Bip...bip...bip...bip..bip..bip.. . !

I almost screamed at the goddamn alarm clock. Instead, I powered out of bed, grabbed it, threw it out the window and listened to the screeching machine end with a crash.I grinned evilly to myself as I head it meet its untimely demise(hehe get it?untimley?). I hastily dressed in something really warm, packed a bag full of food, a radio, a lighter, a sleeping bag, and a few more jackets. I quickly snatched a look at the time- wait, no I didn' I packed, I couldn't hear my family packing, even though they were supposed to be going with us.

I slung my bag over my back, slipped some gloves on and checked in their rooms. Snore…snore. Damn. They weren't up. I was going to have to call Soph to cancel the climb. As I groaned and reached for my phone, an idea struck me hard in the head. I'd just leave a note with my parents, and still go on the climb, because they know I'm familiar with the track, so I'd be alright. And if weren't okay with that, well they could go jump off a cliff.

Tap...taptaptap...taptap...tap...tap. Sophie. She was here, knocking our code on the door. We had a code in case there was a serial killer outside instead of Soph, so I know it's her (it is midnight). I silently slid in my socks over to the big wooden door at the front of my house and unlocked it, standing back as it swung inwards. I almost jumped out of my skin as Sophie opened her mouth to grin widely, shining her torch on her teeth only so I saw nothing but her enormous cheesy grin.

"Geez, Soph! Don't do that, it freaks me out!" She answered with an even bigger smile. Creep. "C'mon, let's go, we'll have to walk there now."

"What about your family? Aren't they coming too?" Sophie looked confused at my statement. We were supposed to be driven to Mt Rushmore by my parents and climb with them to the top to watch the sunrise, but no, they were still making spit bubbles in bed.

"They're still sleeping." Lazy butts. "We're just going to have to do the climb by ourselves. Doesn't really matter, I know the way, and besides, it's not a very steep climb."

We arrived at Mt Rushmore at about 12:30. It was only a short way from our houses, since we lived in Keystone, the closest town to the mountain. The walk was pretty cold, and we knew that the cold would only get worse as we climbed. We reached the entrance bit with the presidents carved out of the side of the mountain, and started to ascend a little further round the back, because on this slope, you don't need a rope to get up. We climbed for about 2 hours before we needed a little rest for water and food. We were almost at the very top and it was 2:45 in the morning. We found a little flat clearing just big enough to lie down in and slipped our bags off our tired backs.

"Hey Soph, do you think we should have a little nap now, or nap on our way down?" Sophie looked at me with sleepy eyes and said simply,

"Now." We dug our sleeping bags from our packs, lied them down on the ground and had some tinned food before bed. Well, before sleep, since we weren't using beds. As I scraped the last of the tomato soup out of the can, Soph removed her shoes and snuggled into her sleeping bag for the night. I dumped the empty tin in the rubbish bag and seconded her actions, firmly closing the sleeping bag around my neck to stop any cold night air from getting to me.

"Goodnight, Soph." I murmured to her. She said something back that sounded like 'G'nie, Kar-ie.' We both closed our eyes and fell asleep straight away.

At 3:27 (don't ask, my watch was still on my wrist), I was woken up by something rustling around in the bushes. Hmm, creepy. Maybe Soph had gone looking for a bird or something to take pictures of? She's always doing stuff like that. I looked at her sleeping bag and saw she was still encased in it, looking straight back at me with wide eyes. By the sound of the something, it was used to the environment and quite huge. Suddenly another rustling creature joined the first. Now I could hear two somethings, but couldn't see them. I struggled to release myself from my sleeping bag, fumbling with the zipper in my shaking, white-knuckled hand. Why were my parents so cheap? I looked desperately over to where Sophie was wrestling with her sleeping bag as well, my heart pounding faster and faster every second, the mysterious creatures creeping closer and closer, almost at us.

I finally managed to undo my zipper, and burst out of the bag, Sophie just ahead of me. We both scrambled to our feet and sprinted out of our clearing, the wolf-like creatures just inches from us. A piercing scream echoed through the mountainside and I whipped around to see Sophie struggling under a wolf-human mutant. Unfortunately, I gave a creature just enough time to pin me to the ground and pull out a chemical-stained cloth.

"Well this is going to be fun isn't it, little birds." One of the mutants whispered menacingly. They each then held the soaked cloths over mine and Soph's mouths, pinching our noses and forcing us to breathe in the chloroform-scent of them. As the world blackened, I remember a needle of some sort being thrust deeply into my side and emptied of its silver contents, but nothing else. I remember no more, no less, just that.

Cliffhanger! Hope you liked it, please review. Feel free to give advice or ideas.