The day after: An apocalyptic morning (137 page)

              No sooner had the scream come out of his mouth then the door slammed open hard enough to nearly rip it off of its hinges. Cindy and Laura bursting through it, their weapons ready for action.

              "It's all right," Jessica told them before they had a chance to get more than three feet into the room. "Staleworth just had himself a little accident. Go back out."

              "Are you sure?" Cindy asked, seeing the naked, curled up Staleworth on the floor, writhing around.

              "I'm sure," she smiled. "It won't happen again. Now leave us."

              Once again they reluctantly exited the room and closed the door, where they immediately began speculating on just what was going on in there.

              "Stand up," Jessica told him.

              "I... can't," he whined. "My balls..."

              "Will be cut off and fed to you if you don't stand up right now. Now do it!"

              He pulled himself to his feet, standing before her once more, his legs somewhat wobbly. He was no longer erect.

              "You ever get a hard-on watching me again, I'll twist those fucking things right off your body," she said. "How dare you. And if you make so much as a squeak again, I'll let those guards take you out to the scaffold and execute you just like Barnes. Do you understand?"

              "Yes," he grunted, feeling agonizing pain still coiling in the pit of his stomach.

              "What?" Jessica said.

              "Yes, ma'am," he corrected.

              "Good," she said. "Now fill up my bucket with water so I can wash my hair."

              He filled up her bucket - walking somewhat with a limp now - and, at her direction, poured it over her head, thoroughly wetting her blond with brown roots hair. She then had him pour shampoo onto her head and massage it into her scalp. He felt himself starting to get erect again despite the pain but his mind, fearful of another attack on his balls, quickly countered with a burst of adrenaline from the sympathetic nervous system. In only one episode of testicle twisting, a Pavlov type response had been formed.

              "Now rinse me off," Jessica told him, closing her eyes while he brought a fresh bucket of water. She kept them closed for two rinses, confident that he would try nothing violent towards her. He was in her power now.

              Once her hair was free of lingering soapsuds she picked up the shampoo container and looked at it. It was cylindrical, about three inches in diameter and about nine or ten inches in length. The lid was bullet shaped. She held it in her hand for a moment, testing its weight and girth, hefting it up and down a few times. She smiled.

              "Turn around and bend over," she told Staleworth.

              He looked at the container in her hand nervously. "What are you going..."

              Her hand shot out as quick as lightning and grabbed him by the testicles once again. She gave a little squeeze, just enough to get his attention. "Do we need another little lesson in obedience?" she asked him.

              "No, ma'am," he said instantly, feeling those powerful fingers ready to grind and squeeze again.

              "Then do as you were told," she said, releasing him.

              Shaking and trembling, he turned around and bent over.

              "Spread 'em," she said next.

              He spread them, revealing his hairy, quite unattractive anal opening for her perusal. Jessica was not entirely without heart. She opened the shampoo first and squirted a considerable amount of it in the crack of his ass before she crammed the shampoo container up there. She inserted it in one brutal stroke, the same way that Stinson used to insert himself into her back passage. Staleworth grunted in pain at the intrusion but held still.

              Jessica slammed the container in and out of his ass for the better part of five minutes, until he was weak-kneed with pain and blood was dripping down on the floor. She sincerely hoped that Stinson would survive the battle of Garden Hill and the subsequent battle with her own forces (she was already thinking of them as her forces). She wanted to repeat this action with him, only with something bigger and less smooth.

              Finally she pulled the container free and dropped it on the floor. It was bloody and fecal stained.

              "Pick that up," she told Staleworth, "and clean it off with your mouth. Isn't that how you used to make us women clean your cocks when you were done?"

              Wordlessly he did as he was told, once again almost vomiting several times.

              "Now get your clothes back on," she told him when he was finished. "Once you're dressed, you can return to your normal duties. Be sure to come back in here and clean up the mess later."

              "Yes, ma'am," he said, his voice barely audible.

              "And get yourself a tampon out of the supply room," she told him helpfully. "It works good to stem up the blood. I should know."

              "Yes, ma'am," he said, picking up his jeans.

              Once he was gone, Cindy and Laura came back in, looking at their leader a little strangely. Both noted the drops of blood on the floor and the fecal odor in the air.

              "Is everything okay?" Cindy asked carefully.

              "Everything is just perfect," Jessica said with a smile. "I was just showing one of the assholes his new place in this town."

              "I see," Cindy said, not failing to note the shampoo bottle on the floor as well. She had a pretty good idea of what had been done with it.

              "I'm going to be in here for a while," Jessica said next, leaning back and submerging everything but her head. "Is there any of that canned tomato juice left in supply?"

              "Yes, ma'am," Laura said.

              "Good," Jessica told them. "Can you mix some of it with the vodka in the supply room for me? I can use a bloody Mary about now. And be sure to put in some of the ice from the freezer. I hate warm drinks."

              "Right away, ma'am," Cindy said.

              Hatchling two, commanded by Paula, had been in place atop of their hill for a little more than an hour when the first of the militia came into view. Their position was a good one. An anonymous looking hill covered with fallen and standing trees as well as mud hills and berms. It was directly in the path of the enemy advance although far enough to the edge of it so that the soldiers would not pass on both sides. It stood three hundred feet above the ground where the enemy was marching.

              It was the third drop of a team that day, although, if successful, it would only be the first attack. On day nine of the war, with the militia little more than halfway to Garden Hill, it was becoming increasingly difficult to keep up the pace of killing that they had enjoyed in the beginning. The militia had learned and adapted somewhat to the forces opposing them. They were now well beyond the first mudfall but they had not angled back towards the Interstate, where the pickings would have been absurdly easy. Instead, they were sticking to a northeasterly course through the thickest of the woods, spreading themselves widely out and frequently zigzagging around to make predicting their march difficult. It was now taking at least two recon drops before an optimum attack position could be found. Though the attacks still continued, they were more difficult to pull off and took much more advance planning - planning which was becoming more difficult to do with the factor of their own fatigue thrown in.

              In addition to the difficulty in planning and execution that the fatigue caused, it was also taking its toll on the accuracy of the shooting that they did. Hands trembled a little more on weapons and eyes found it harder to focus through scopes. Target assignments were not always completely understood and occasionally two people fired at the same man (on a few occasions, both of them missing him). This, coupled with the fact that militia were now hardened veterans of the hit and run attacks and therefore much quicker in hitting the dirt and diving under cover, meant that the body count was steadily dropping day by day.

              But still, the two ambush teams kept their spirits high and carried on. Though they were tired and somewhat disconcerted with their decreasing effectiveness, they still were making hits and steadily decreasing the numbers of troops that would eventually attack their town. The difference that they were making could easily be seen whenever the full force came into view during the morning recon drops. Though an accurate count was impossible to achieve due to how widely spread the Auburnites kept themselves, it was plain that well over a hundred of the original four hundred were no longer in the march.

              "All right," Paula said, watching through her binoculars and stifling a yawn, "it looks like we have good positioning for this one. If I'm reading right, the closest of them are gonna pass a little under two hundred yards from us."

              "Just inside the safety margin," Hector said, telling her nothing she didn't know.

              "If they're too close we'll abort," she said. "There's always Christine's team on the next hill."

              "Where are we going to hit this time?" asked Leanette, gripping her rifle and peering through a gap in the logs.

              "We'll hit about three-quarters back this time," Paula answered. "We've pounded on the point squads and the rear guard and the middle pretty consistently. Let's shift a little and throw them off guard even more."

              "Good idea," said Doris, stifling a yawn of her own. "Those in the middle of the middle might be thinking they're safe."

              "Exactly."

              Paula updated Skip over the radio with their intention to attack, giving an ETA of approximately fifteen minutes. She promised that she would give another update when they were less than five. She talked in code of course but they had long since figured out the either the militia was not capable of monitoring their radio frequency or it had just not occurred to them to do so. Probably the former. Though the Auburnites clearly had radios of their own (Skip and Jack were able to routinely monitor their transmissions on the citizen's band) they probably did not have a VHF scanner with them that was capable of picking up the fire department tactical channel that Garden Hill used for their communications.

              Group by group, squad by widely spread squad, the militia marched by. Some of them came very close indeed, well inside the hundred-yard range as they passed the hill. But as the formation continued to go by, its outside elements were a little tighter, putting most of them about a hundred and eighty yards distance.

              "All right," Paula said as one squad passed and the next started closing. "Let's hit that bunch there. Any disagreement?"

              There was none so Paula radioed to Skip that an attack was imminent and that he should fire up the engine and lift off for the pick up. The pre-arranged extraction point was still valid and she let him know this as well.

              "Target time," Paula said once this was done. "Hector, you take that guy on the far left, closest to us. Leanette, you take the man to his right and behind him. Doris, you have the guy immediately behind him. Everyone clear?"

              Everyone was clear. They continued to wait, watching as their targets grew closer and closer. The men they were planning to attack edged to within one hundred and sixty yards, well inside the safety margin, while those that would be supporting them, stayed about one hundred ninety to two hundred twenty yards out, right on the safety margin.

              "Be sure to hit your men," Paula intoned in the final seconds. "They're a little too close for comfort."

              Three faces that were glued to three riflescopes replied that they would.

              Paula, gripping her own weapon and ready to unleash her barrage, counted to three. When the magic number was reached, three rifles were fired, sending three .30 caliber bullets out at supersonic speed towards three men.

              As had been happening increasingly frequently lately, the targets saw the flashes and tried to dive to the ground before the bullets came in. They did not have as much time to react however since the range was closer and only one of them made it. Paula clearly saw one of the men's head rock back in a spray of blood and the other take his shot in the upper chest. The third - Doris' target, managed to get down quick enough so that the bullet intended for him passed less than five inches above his head. His reprieve from death was only temporary however. Before he could even fire back, the bullets from Paula's M-16 riddled his face and upper body.

              Paula switched fire to the man closest to Doris' target. She expended the rest of her clip taking him out and then rolled her left, popping her magazine out and cramming it into her waistband. Above them the return fire was just starting to come in, the sound of bullets whizzing through the air reaching their ears. The militia was getting very fast indeed at responding to the attacks.

              "Let's get the hell out of here," Paula said, reaching for a fresh magazine. She slammed it into place and then began to crawl down the protected side of the hill, confident that her team members were doing the same.