The Sleeper Cells: A Terrorism Story

Chapter 6: It's Life or Death

Their guns are black. Their eyes are even darker. It's the absence of anything good. The way they walk. The way they don't waste a second to lock their guns on us. It's evil. Everything about them is haunting.

Titus and I slam to the walls of the house, ducking for protection. We move around the corners and closer to the door. We figure we would have a better shot at them. Maybe we can take them out...before they get us.

I flash a look of terror at Titus; I'm trying to tell him I don't know what to do. His wide blue eyes just stare back at me. A bullet shoots through the wall above my head with more to follow. Splinters of wood rain from the walls. Titus and I both launch from the wall and into the floor crawling and grabbing for anything. Titus checks his gun and tells me it's empty.

A man outside screams, "inside!"

I don't know how to check the gun for ammo, and I don't think I could with the way my hands are shaking. Not just my hands, my entire body is shaking in terror. I don't know what to do.

One man runs through the door looking straight down the hallway and into the kitchen. He takes a single step deeper into the house, keeping his gun pointed out. He doesn't even notice Titus and me to his sides. I raise my shaking hands to align the barrel of the gun with the man's head. I notice Titus behind him, silently yet aggressively nodding his head at me and mouthing the word 'yes'. I pull the trigger, taking the risk of it also being empty like Titus'. The loud gunshot rings throughout the house, echoing outside and into the yard. The lifeless man hits the floor. Titus, wearing blood-splattered clothes, grabs the larger gun from the man's dead fingers.

"Stay here," he yells at me. He leans against the wall, just next to the opening. I look up from the floor, outside the door, to see the other two men running into the house. I raise my gun and shoot again, this time, getting one of them in the leg.

"Ahhhh!" the man screams and grabs his injury, falling to the ground. The man behind him ignores it and leaps over him. They work together but have no sympathy for each other. They see themselves as soldiers without souls.

Titus reveals himself and unloads the gun on the two men. They shoot at us at the same time. I still can't stop myself from shaking. I can't focus enough to fight back, forcing Titus to do all the work, shooting at both of them. All three of the attackers are on the ground, without a heartbeat. Without air-filled lungs. Without life.

"No. There's no way we just killed them," I say. Not believing what we had to do.

"We did. We had to."

"There was no other way?"

"No. We have to fight... or we die."

I drop my gun, feeling safe, but ashamed. I lean on the wall and slide to the ground. I look behind where I was lying to see bullet holes in the wall. Had I been standing, each and every one would have hit me.

"Stand up. Pick your gun up. We're not back yet. We're never safe," Titus tells me.

Snap out of it, I tell myself. This is what it has come to. I guess you have to deal with horrible situations to get out of horrible situations. Honestly, we still don't have a clue what exactly we're dealing with or even why they are after us. Who are they? Why is this happening? What do they want? Where are they? I pick up my gun and nod my head at Titus.

We peek outside, looking around for more. "Be ready," he tells me.

"Always," I lied.

Titus grabs the other two guns dropped by the men, "Assault Rifles—This is interesting." He puts them into his bag, and we go back to the ditch where we use our decorated backpacks as cover.