Chapter 1

It was another beautiful day at the house. Rosy and I were sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee debating going into town.

We lived about 10 minutes outside of Missoula, Montana. Our parents were gone. They had passed a couple years prior. When they died, they left us the house and the property. It was a nice 2 story home with 5 bedrooms and 2 baths. Both of us smoked, so we had put on a new enclosed front porch the previous year.

Neither of us worked as our parents were billionaires and had left their fortune to us. But we didn’t live in luxury. We had what we needed and some of what we wanted.

The last thing we wanted to do was draw attention to ourselves. To the civilian world we were just 2 females in their early 20s.

What they didn’t know was that we were Guardians. The dead did come back to the land of the living, but with malicious intent. They used Portals, aka Crossing Points, to come over. Their goal was to kidnap the nearest living person and take them back to the land of the dead. The Crossing Points were in fixed positions, which made our job easier. Our parents had the house built 200 yards from one of these crossing points to ensure that we would always be there when it opened.

Rosy and I spent most of our days chilling, drinking coffee, and making sure our weapons were sharp. We couldn’t use guns on them as the bullets went straight through them. We used knives, bows, swords, and crossbows to take them out. After we “killed” them, we had to burn the bodies. This was to ensure that they would not reanimate and

attack us again.

It was a typical hot Montana summer day, on a Tuesday afternoon. Rosy and I sat at the kitchen table wearing matching black leather vests that came just short of our belly button piercings, black shorts, and black knee high boots with a 2 inch heel.

While our outfits matched, we looked very different. Rosy was 5’9” with dirty blonde hair that

came halfway down her back, green eyes, and long legs that made her look like a model.

She also had a flawless complexion that most females would have killed for.

I was 5’3” with bleach blonde hair that didn’t even come to my shoulders, but

covered half my face, icy blue eyes, a long torso riddled with muscle giving me a 6 pack, and a resting bitch face. Most people would never have guessed we were twins. We were considered fraternal twins.

As we sat there drinking coffee the air shifted, like it almost felt sticky and humid. Rosy and I exchanged a look before grabbing out weapons and racing out the front door.

There was a reason we wore the outfits that we wore. Our knives fit into our boots and into the front of our vests. I had my sword strapped to my hip, Rosy had hers on her back, and we charged out the front door with crossbows, booking it to the backyard.

Out in our back field, behind the house, there was a circle spiral about a foot off the ground, which was the portal, showing it was open. We stopped roughly 25 yards from the opening and stood ready. Moments later they started flowing through, one by one.

The dead looked similar to the living, however they differed in complexion and eye color. Their skin was pale, like they had never seen the sun, and their eyes lacked all color. They were all pupil.

We watched as 14 dead walked through the portal. We took out 8 from our distance, but the others reached us before we could reload.

Rosy and I had similar fighting styles and threw our crossbows, while drawing our swords.

Rosy had 3 dead facing her, as did I. They had swords and 1 of them had a lead pipe. The largest man swung at me with a grunt, and the other 2 followed suit. I blocked him quickly and then countered by swinging my sword across his chest, causing him to die in seconds.

A pipe connected with my back, knocking me to my right knee. I twisted to my left and swung my sword behind me, slicing across the other’s stomach. He collapsed as the third tried to strike me. I flung myself to the side trying to dodge him,

but his sword sliced a clean line from my ear, across my cheek, to my lips. It wasn’t too deep, but it caused blood to run down my face. I looked up at him menacingly, a growl escaping my lips. My eyes flashed gold, and he took a wide eyed step back.

I smiled, and summoned all my strength to shift. In only seconds, my bones stretched and my claws extended. I had shifted into a giant black tiger. I glared at him as he went to swing his sword again. I leapt over his sword and landed on him, pinning him to the ground under my massive paws. With one smooth move I ripped his head off with

my razor sharp teeth.

I whipped around to assist Rosy only to find her standing over 3 dead bodies. Her

once white coat was now riddled with red, from the blood of them, as well as the injuries

she had sustained.

Are you okay? I asked through our mind link.

She nodded, I’m fine. They got the worst of it. She gestured to the dismembered bodies at her paws.

I smiled, Let’s get these bodies to the pit.

Together we drug all the bodies to our backyard and threw them in our burning pit. After all the bodies were accounted for, we shifted back into our human forms, lit the pit, and covered it. To the unknowing eye it looked like a bonfire. We always had to make sure we threw logs and branches over the top to ensure that it didn’t look

suspicious.

The fight had only lasted about 30 minutes, if that, but the cleanup took about an hour. The benefit of being a Cataclypse, which is what we are called, is that we shift with our clothes and shift back with them. So at least we weren’t naked. Afterwards we both gathered up our weapons out of the yard, took them inside, placed them on the kitchen

table, and went to take showers. We had changed into sports bras and basketball shorts.