The Sellout by Aaron Solomon (reading e books TXT) 📕

Rail Warriors

The Sellout

Chapter One

I awoke to a ring of the doorbell and slowly turned my head over to the clock to read the time of only 9:46 PM. Strange. I thought. Aaron couldn’t possibly be home from his shift this early now could he? I pushed the covers of the bed off and padded out of the bedroom and made my way down the spiral staircase past the living room where I gradually undid the lock and slowly pulled open the front door. “Knock, knock.” A strange masked and black cloaked figure, a lioness by the looks of her, said maliciously before sending a violent kick to my stomach with such a force that I flew back nearly three feet across the room and collided head over heels with the sofa and got up just in time as she walked towards me and prepared to slash at me with the large buck knife she held tightly in her right paw. I rose up the current in my fist and delivered an electrically charged right hook to her jaw, making her quickly release the knife with a yelp of pain and then continued on with four more punches to her shoulder and torso that just as I planned, stunned her long enough to approach her and popped the main question that was on my mind the entire moment she came waltzing up to me in my house. “Who the hell are you?” The lioness smirked menacingly and replied, “You’ll soon see, Kiri. For this isn’t over till only one of us is left standing. Goodbye for now.” And with that, before I could even say another mumbling word, she was gone and soon disappeared out the door into the misty, moonlit night.

Chapter Two

“Damn, girl. You musta really had it rough last night.” My assistant engineer, Lauren Murphy said on shift the next morning as we steadily made our way down the line on train MX-12, headed for the yard in Elkhart, Indiana. She was a jovial fennec fox with golden brown and cream fur who had this ultimately rare trait of having two different colored eyes, one a deep sea green and the other a chocolaty mud brown. She was considerably younger, most likely just two or three years under my current age of twenty four but that most of all definitely didn’t stop her from being singlehandedly one of the best coworkers and best friends I could ever imagine of getting the pleasure to know within my entire five years of being in this career field and at this railroad in general. “Tell me about it.” I responded in agreement. “And she had some sort of lust toward me like I’ve somehow seen her before. Yet, as a matter of fact, I believe I have.” “Probably just all in your imagination.” Lauren said. “Maybe it’s just too much work is getting to your head. Have you ever asked Jackson for some time off?” “I would” I replied. “But I used up the last of my vacation days nearly last week or so ago. There’s no way I can just slip the hook now all of a sudden.” “Well then, thank god it’s Friday.” Lauren said with a smile. “I guarantee you’re bound to get the weekend off as soon as we get back. You’ve sure enough got the seniority to do so.” She was right. Even though I was among the group of the very few young full-fledged engineers along with Aaron, Shadow Iki, and a few others, we still had the experience here longer than any other of our coworkers had which in turn granted us a few extra benefits including selection of paid vacation days and maybe taking weekend or other furloughs if our little organization required us to when there were about hundreds of thousands of lives to preserve around the mountain of a city and typically around the whole railroad itself as a whole. We spent a few more hours chatting on about various other things and so on until our twelve duty hours came to a head and we hunkered down at the nearest Holiday Inn in Connellsville, Pennsylvania for a good day’s rest. However, the thought of the so called “Mystery Midnight Stranger” who’d almost broken down the door of my house just to get at me bared ever so heavy on my mind.

Chapter Three

I returned early the next day, tired and weary and edgily made my way up the doorsteps of my house before turning the key in the lock and loafing my way inside, nearly tripping over my own feet as I took my boots and socks off at the door and trudged up the long spiral staircase to my room and collapsed facedown onto the queen sized bed. Thankfully, Aaron was for once home from his shift at the same time to greet me cordially as I was just beginning to enter the wonderful world of dreamland and smiled wryly at me before chuckling slightly and saying, “Ah. Evening sleepyhead. How were things over at the old grind today?” “Exhausting.” I replied simply with my face buried deep into my pillow. “They had me working three commuters in nearly all three quarters of just one shift. I’m just glad the Memorial Day weekend is finally here for most of us to get some quality relaxation.” “I heard that.” Aaron agreed. “I’ve been working the long hauls all the way through since spring first started. Good to finally have plenty of down time with the very one who I forever hold oh so dear.” He draped his paw around my body and pulled me in a little closer just as we both fell into an easy, tranquil sleep. We were both awakened sometime later by the rather loud ring of the doorbell and were both confused as to who it could be, as it was now just on the cusp of 11:00 PM. I yawned loudly and stretched as far and high as I could before dragging myself slowly down the stairs and steadily making my way over to door and then slowly but surely taking the lock off and pulling it open, only to reveal the same strange black suited and masked lioness from two days before. I was surprised and stared up the figure with wide horror filed eyes as she began to speak in her gruff and venomous female voice. “We meet again young Kiri. Aww. And I see you’re a little surprised to see me. How joyous. I’ll make sure to have a little fun time with you before you go six feet under.” She drew a razor sharp blade from a sheath on her belt and I quickly took a step back and ducked as she swung it so fast and with such precision that it nearly took a chunk out of my left ear, had I not been fast enough. I charged up my paws and delivered an electrically charged strike directly to her right arm, making her yelp in pain and almost immediately release her grip on the knife as I heard it clatter to the floor. At the moment when she least expected it, I unleashed a strong combo of punches to her face and jaw with shocks so powerful she flew a couple feet across the living room floor and landed on her back hard and stunned enough to the point where I walked over and gave a firm tug on the mask to see just who it was who had the gall to come picking a fight with me and think they would live to tell the tale. Then, almost immediately, I wished I hadn’t. There, looking up at me with the most piercing and hatred filled yellow eyes was my old friend and caretaker, Misses Judy Copeland.

Chapter Four

“You let her get away?!” Iki burst out as he and Aaron stared at me shocked due to the situation unfolding beforehand. “I had to.” I replied simply, staring down at my feet. “After… after mom died she was really the only one I knew who treated Hailey and I as if we were the lights of her soul. But her daughter, Tamara grew jealous of that fact and from that moment on up to the present day, resented me and swore that one day she would bring that all to an abrupt end. Fortunately, we never allowed that but now with the death of her daughter looming over her head, Miss Judy has now turned on me as the target of her revenge and was blind to see the hatred that had built up for so long in her daughter’s body in her years of living and now thinks I and everyone else around me should suffer for her cause. I can never even think about letting that happen.” “But, Kiri. Didn’t you hear?” Aaron cut in. “Judy Copeland took over her daughter’s position as leader of one of the most powerful gangs in Baltimore City and in the entire state of Maryland and east coast alone. She’s willing to unleash her vengeance on all of it. If we don’t stop her and her crew now, there’s no telling how many good animals of the whole city and surrounding areas will perish at the paws of her destruction.” “Oh god.” I said, putting my paws on my head and pulling my fur in anguish. “Yeah. I know.” Iki said. “It’s pretty bad but luckily we did some digging and found a location on where your mother hen might have gone into hiding. There’s an old hostel on the inner harbor the gang uses as some kind of club room and housing for most of its remaining members there. If we could somehow make our way in without getting discovered, we’ll have a good shot at nabbing her quick and clean.” “We can go at midnight. Aaron suggested. There’s a curfew now in place for a riot that happened some years ago. We’ll just have to let the police force know we’re coming in.” “Not a problem.” I replied. “I’ll just call Shadow and let him know to give them an early warning before he joins us on the way there.” “Alright. You heard the lady, my brotha.” Aaron said, giving Iki a friendly slap on the back. “Let’s get ready for some action.”

Chapter Five

We pulled up on the inner harbor hostel at around 12:06 AM and after affixing the recently acquired suppressors on all of our weapons, slowly and silently made our way to the front entrance and Iki began working his ever so hidden talent of lock picking which both Aaron and I were only just now finding out. In only a matter of seconds, he cracked the door open and we carefully made our way inside, silently putting two rounds into the two guards’ skulls that were patrolling the kitchen and living room area. We made our first sweep in the downstairs bedroom, only to nearly be spotted by two more gang members and about seven more sleeping ones in the row of bunk beds scattered throughout the room. I took aim with my glock and began putting rounds into each of the unwary gang members’ craniums until soon there was little to no life in the room and we crept gently up the stairs to the upstairs bedroom where we then found our prize. There, standing in the absolute darkest corner of the room and watching us with cold yellow eyes was my former adoptive mother, Misses Judy. For what seemed like many moments on end, we stared each other down, weapons drawn and carefully focused on each other and our eyes never once even for a second breaking our hard