When Arrows Fly by Emma Kraus

In this polished excerpt, Emma Kraus’ main character, Riley, and her family find themselves being chased by creatures from the past. For their own safety, Riley and her twin brother, Logan, have to understand the minds of their pre-historic pursuers. The only way to stop the chase is to let the arrows fly.

When Arrows Fly

An Excerpt by Emma Kraus

“Ready to go?” my dad asked, as he checked his watch.

That watch had belonged to my great uncle, the one we no longer talk to, nor talk about. He was the one who was making us leave our home. The fear of thinking he is the only family we have left creates nightmares that even adults can’t sleep through.

“Yeah,” I said. “I'm ready.”

I climbed into the old VW bus next to my brother as my dad locked the door to our house.

“You know,” my brother said, “we will never walk into that house again.”

“We might if this ends soon,” I said with hope.

“We won’t,” he said, sharply looking me in the eyes.

We have the same blue eyes, same brown hair, and the same face for that matter. I guess that’s what happens when you share the same womb.

I turned and looked out the window at the woods.

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“Hey,” my dad yelled from the front. “Can one of you be in change of the GPS until your mother has a free hand?” She was braiding her hair.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

“No, I’m older. I’ll take it,” Logan said grabbing it from my dad.

I just smiled and looked out the window. He always liked to play the “I’m The Older Twin Game.”

I put my ear buds in and hit “Shuffle.” I ended up skipping a bunch of songs until I found the one I was looking for. We pulled out of the driveway onto the small gravel road we had been down countless times.

My song started to fade as we turned onto Main Street. No one said a word. At least, I don’t think so. I couldn’t hear much over the upbeat song that had started playing. As we passed the fields of northern New York I saw the farmers bringing their cows in for the night. I leaned my head on the rough headrest and closed my eyes.

I woke to something sharp grazing my leg.

“Owwww. Oh, my God,” I cried. I grabbed my leg as my blood started to make an exit.

“Dad!” Logan yelled. “Pull over. An arrow got Riley!”

I winced in pain, and looked over to see a flint head sticking into the side of the bus across from me. My mother was now at my side. She rolled up my pants. 

“You all right?” asked my dad from the driver’s seat.

“I guess so,” I said in a whimper.

“Are you sure?” my mom asked while she wiped away the small streams that had trickled down my face.

I nodded and put a fake smile on for her.

I have a high pain tolerance, but this did make me accept the tissue my mother extended to me.

“Come on, Lisa,” said my dad. “We need to get out of here. Logan can bandage Riley up.”

My mother climbed back into the front, and we were moving again.

“Tell me if it’s too tight, and I’ll rewrap it,” Logan said giving me some pain medicine.

I grabbed the canteen next to me and washed it down. I hated taking pills. I almost gagged.

“Thanks,” I said after swallowing.

Logan nodded and buckled himself in.

“They’re definitely here,” said my dad. “They’re definitely here.”

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I must have dozed off for a while because the next time I looked out the window the clouds were deep red. It looked like someone had shot the sky with an arrow, like they had done to me. I moaned in pain and shifted my body to face Logan. He was asleep and so was my mother. She was passed out on the pull out bed in the bus. Her hair swirled around her pale face from the wind that came from the broken window. It looked like seaweed flowing in the ocean as the waves crashed over and over.

“Hey, Kid,” a voice said, from the front. “How’s the leg holding up?”

“Really sore,” I replied to my father. “It’s starting to bruise around the bandage.”

“It will hurt for a while, Riley,” he said.

“I can’t believe that arrow got through the window,” he said turning onto a highway marked 29 West. We passed a strip mall.

“They weren’t able to break through the glass last week,” I said looking at all the hit marks on the windows around me.

“So, what does that mean?” he asked. I could tell by his tone he already knew the answer.

It was silent besides the infrequent sounds of the motor.

“They’re evolving,” I said in a whisper.

“Yes,” he said running a hand through his hair. “Yes, they are.”

Every time we thought we were in control of them something new happened. The more sense my father had tried to talk into my uncle, the more out of control things got.

The feud started about three years ago. My father had been researching an archeological dig for work. He studies Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens. The scientific name is too long for me to remember, so I just tell people that he studies really old dead people. Logan always reminded me that they weren’t “people” but neither of us really knew what they were.

My dad and uncle worked on the digs together. Their arrangement was perfect. My dad liked to be outdoors digging up the bones, whereas my uncle wanted to be working with the DNA in the dirt free environment of the laboratory. He and my dad spent a lot of time together.

Well, until that day my dad came home three hours late for dinner. He walked in the house silently.

My mom looked up from washing the dishes.

“Lisa,” my father said. “A moment in the other room, please.”

She wiped her hands dry.

“What’s wrong?” she asked in a concerned tone.

He didn’t answer.

She followed him into the living room and shut the door behind her. Logan stood up next to me and closed his math book.

“Come on,” he said pulling on my arm.

“Stop it, Logan. I have homework to do,” I said, annoyed.

“Don’t you wanna know what’s wrong with Dad?” he asked.

We made eye contact, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. I jumped to my feet. We walked over and stood with our ears pressed against the door.

The conversation went like this:

“You know how Parker was trying to figure out how to make the solution and DNA work together?” said my dad.

“Yeah, I remember,” my mom replied.

“Well, he did,” my father said breathlessly. “There’s no way of stopping him. If I knew he was taking it this far, I would have tried to talk him out of it. I thought he was just doing an experiment.” My dad sounded helpless.

“He is modifying their brains.”

“Why?” my mother asked.

“Because Neanderthals have a more intellectual brain than humans do. They went extinct not because of being less skilled than the Homo-Sapiens, but from other causes. It just happened that the Homo-Sapiens evolved into humans and the Neanderthals died out. If they were still alive today they would outsmart any human.” my father spilled the words out.

Logan and I looked at each other, wide eyed.

It was silent after that.

That was the moment we found out what our uncle was really doing in the laboratory. He was trying to make a more intelligent human, trying to see what would have happened if the Neanderthals had survived instead of the Homo-Sapiens. That’s why we were here in the bus and not at home in our beds. It had gotten so far out of control that the only thing standing in the way of his evil plan was our lives.

We turned off of an exit and pulled into a abandoned gas station. The light from the moon shone on the broken windows of the store. Trees overlooked us instead of buildings. My dad cut the engine. We were still the only two awake in the bus.

“Can you make sure the windows are bolted down?” my dad asked.

I checked the back windows as he checked the front. They were all secure, except for the one the arrow had gotten through earlier. I set one of our moving boxes on the ledge to cover the hole.

“All set, dad.”

“Thanks,” he said as he set the car alarm.

The bus had a special sensor that would set off a beeping sound whenever something human sized or larger entered a thirty-foot radius around us. This gave us enough time to react to our unwanted visitors.

“Get some sleep, Riley. You need to be rested for tomorrow,” he said.

“Okay, ‘night, Dad,” I said and pulled a blanket over me. I closed my eyes.

I heard the squeak of the driver’s seat as he put it down to sleep.

“Goodnight, Riley.”

In spite of the possible threats around us, I fell asleep. The sounds of a nearby creek added harmony to my dreams.

About the Author

Sixteen-year-old Emma Kraus is in her tenth year of publishing the monthly “The Dog paper. Each month of the paper is represented by a different dog, and each issue contains fiction or travel pieces that Emma writes herself.

Though still in high school, Emma is taking some college courses and has definite plans to continue her writing.