Dystopian Girls 2

by Rodzil LaBraun

  "I can't blame them," Jada replied. "Mason?"

  "We'll have to go up," I told her. "We just need to plan this carefully."

  "I'll go first," Riley offered.

  "No," Jada snapped back. "You're supposed to be the baby machine. We can't lose you."

  "Enough of the jokes, please!" I said. "I'm obviously going up first. I just need a new magazine. Riley, change the clip for Stella. She's coming with me."

  I expected complaints, but there were none. Stella didn't object despite her lack of battle experience. She had apparently come to terms with her role in this situation. Jada and Riley did not fuss about me choosing her over them, either. The evidence of her accuracy lay piled up in the floor at the bottom of the stairs.

  "Alexa? How closely can you pinpoint positions of the people above us?" I asked as a plan began to form in my mind.

  "I don't know," she answered. "Why?"

  "He wants Riley and I to shoot the rifles through the floorboards right before he gets to the top of the steps," Jada answered for me.

  "Who is the mind reader now?" I asked. "Can you do it, Alexa?"

  "I don't know how accurate I'd be. And what if they move?"

  "Even if we don't get a kill, the distraction will help," Riley said. "You can use the security app to help, too. Just point and we'll do the rest."

  Stella and I got reloaded and headed for the stairs. Alexa confirmed that the intruders had taken positions elsewhere, waiting for us to exit the stairwell before taking their shots. I told them to count to five after I left their view, then fire into the ceiling.

  The little schoolgirl look was completely gone. Stella was still obviously scared, but a confidence had grown in her newfound ability. She had also witnessed again my power of deflection. Staying close to me would keep her safe. I did my best not to look as afraid as I was. No matter how successful I had become at being bulletproof, it was always hard to walk into gunfire. History was full of occasions when someone's overconfidence got them killed.

  As we approached the steps a shotgun blast hit the basement door from the outside. Then another. Fortunately, there was no visible change to the interior. We had screwed nine two-by-fours to that door frame, over a sheet of plywood. I didn’t expect a shotgun to be able to get them in.

  "Can they get through?" Stella asked, aiming her pistol in that direction.

  "Eventually," I replied. "But we'll all be upstairs before they do."

  "Go," Alexa rushed us. "Before they start moving around upstairs."

  I urged my little helper to stay close as I proceeded up the steps. Before I reached the top, I heard Riley and Jada's rifles fire into the basement ceiling. One person in the living room screamed, and the others began to scramble. The plan had worked.

  I rounded the corner to get full view of my opposition. I decided to angle my left hand so as to deflect the oncoming shots to the wall, which was the opposite side as Stella as she exited the stairway. There were seven people waiting for us ambush style. Due to the distraction provided by the girls downstairs only two of them began firing in time.

  I leveled my assault rifle to aim about waist high and began sweeping the room from left to right. The rapid fire I was spitting it out made it difficult to hear anything else, like the popping from Stella's pistol. It was actually easier to see the evidence of her work instead.

  A strong looking young man wearing a ball cap was the first enemy that my bullets ripped through. He was busy telling everyone else what to do and never got a shot off with his pistol.

  Next were three women standing way too close together for a tactical situation in my opinion. Their sizes ranged from chunky to fat to super obese. All had on the green pants and gray t-shirt uniform that we had seen on the women storming the basement. I was surprised to see the biggest woman able to find something her size that closely matched the others.

  The chunky one was holding her foot which caused her to be bent over. She must have been the one that screamed when the girls below shot upwards. Two of my bullets took her in the head and the chest.

  The super fatty was bald and extremely angry looking. She let out a battle cry as she pulled the trigger on her shotgun. One of the many pellets that blasted toward us got through my protection and hit me in the shin. I felt the impact, but not the pain. I cringed more at the potential of Stella getting shot as well. Three of my bullets took her in the gut, seemingly causing little harm immediately. The familiar bloody hole between the eyes, though, silenced her. Credit goes to my little helper.

  More shots fired up through the floorboards near the enemies as I continued my violent arc of deadly projectiles. The remaining big girl had turned to run, taking two of my shots in her ass before the very top of her head flew off. Stella again.

  Two teenagers were by the front door, poised to run for it. I immediately recognized them both. The girl had a limp from the injury that we gave her that day in a driveway. We met Riley shortly after that. The boy was another survivor from a fight with us. That time was when we discovered Seiko. From what I could tell, they both exited the house before getting shot.

  The big guy that had been shouting out orders to the group stood the farthest away. I was able to deflect the first shot out of his shiny double barrel rifle before making eye contact. He wore dirty black work pants with a gray tank top that allowed his white chest and back hair to go wild. He had to at least be in his fifties and had a long beard that told me that he'd rather be in the mountains drinking moonshine.

  The trance that he put on me with his emerald green eyes caused me to stop all movement instantly. My trigger finger stayed as it was, firing off rounds into the wall as my rotation slowed. Only the last three shots took him in the belly but appeared to have no effect.

  Another shot through the floorboards got him in the foot, briefly breaking the spell. Before I could react, he fired another shot that hit the floor in front of where Stella was crouched. She had taken a one knee down stance to fire off her most important bullet, striking the man in his left eye this time.

  Stella rested there shaking as I swept the main floor of the house, placing a bullet center mass on any attacker that was not clearly dead. As I was about to call for the others to join us upstairs, I heard the basement door blow apart. I rushed down the steps without Stella on my heels this time.

  Gunfire was exchanged before I reached the bottom. Once there, I took in the scene in minor disbelief. One woman rested again the wall with a hole in her chest, thanks to Jada. The other one, both wearing the green and gray uniforms by the way, was still standing for the moment. Riley had used her speed burst to place her by the woman's side, her Weatherby under the woman's chin.

  The trigger was pulled just before I they came into view, and the victim's brain scattered on the ceiling. Though appreciating Riley's special battle capabilities, that kill was particularly gross. I had just told myself that we were in for some surprises from Riley. This one was totally unexpected. And more than a little disturbing.

  "Where's Stella?" Alexa yelled at me as she eyed the bottom of the stairs. She had frantic look in her eyes like she was struggling with her ability to sense people.

  "I'm right here," the girl replied for herself, two steps behind me. She had collected her wits well enough to follow me after all.

  "The cameras!" I called to Alexa as Jada covered the basement entrance expecting another intruder. But no one else attempted entry. Alexa pulled up the cell phone to check the security monitor.

  "It looks like they are bugging out!"

  I took a deep breath and relaxed just a bit. At least the immediate threat was gone. The pain in my shin finally got my attention, but it wasn’t bad enough to make it examine it before my friends.

  "Who's hurt?" I asked.

  "I'm fine," Jada replied as she checked the bloody sleeve on her left arm. "Just a scratch. But your leg looks bad."

  Ignoring her comment, I visually checked Riley and Alexa for injury. They appeared to be unharmed.
Turning back to Stella I was happy to see her in the same condition.

  "That was actually easier than I expected," I said. "Only the leader appeared to have a special power. He was a trancer. He may have also had some type of armor ability. Bullets striking his skin appeared to have little to no effect. It was Stella’s shot to his eye that took him down."

  "Maybe they were mutant haters," Riley offered. "What about Seiko?"

  "Dead," I replied solemnly. We did win a big battle against a much larger force, but not all of us survived. She was new to our clan, yet her free spirit would surely be missed. Maybe we could arrange a burial after things settled down.

  "We need to clear the house and the property," Jada announced, drawing our minds back to the current situation. So, we did just that, after reloading once again. We paired up and searched for remaining bad guys. There were several dead bodies in the yard, and more in the house. The rest of them must have retreated. We carefully began looting the bodies for weapons and ammunition.

  Taking a look at all the damage to the house made me almost as sad as losing Seiko. The place was shot up bad. It would take much longer to fix up securely than it did originally. Once in the backyard I noticed that the pool house seemed untouched. I knocked at the door and announced myself, which would be incredibly stupid if one of the attackers was hiding in there. Luckily, it was Jamila's cheerful face that I saw when the door opened. She gave me hug before I could stop her. They both survived the battle unscathed by hiding. Next time, we'd have to gear them up as well, assuming that they continue to improve in health.

  "Mason!" someone called out. I looked toward John's house to see a pair of cat eyes approaching in the dark. I readied my weapon but hoped that it was one of our neighbors calling me by name.

  "It's Bianka," the beautiful lesbian called out. I lowered my rifle and watched as her and Ling ran up to me. Bianka's eyes changed back to normal once she was close to the light supplied by the couple lanterns we were using in our search. She must have a special night vision ability. That could be useful.

  "Are you all okay?" I asked.

  "We are," Bianka replied solemnly, indicating just the two of them. "But John, Corinne and Nadia are dead for sure. I haven't seen Camilla, though."

  That was dreadful news. We had all that we could handle on our side. Helping our neighbors hadn’t even occurred to me until the end. Corinne’s death was a huge loss. I was really starting to like her. John’s passing left me as the only male once again. This time with a lot more women to take care of. That’s if Bianka and Ling decided to join us. I would think that would be a logical move on their part. Hopefully, Camilla would turn out to still be alive.

  I guided everyone back into the house, including Jamila and Hedy. No sense taking a chance on getting sniped after winning an epic battle like we did. Sadly, the casualties were already much higher than we had hoped.

  The survivors shared some war stories as I watched the cameras, but Stella went back to her shy, quiet self. When Bianka asked who got the most kills, I turned to the innocent looking young woman.

  "Me?" Stella replied timidly. Alexa was right about this one. She had her own special type of flirting. And I could already tell that I had a big weakness for it.