Emma: Part Two (Outpost Nine Book 2) Read online

  EMMA

  Part Two

  OUTPOST NINE

  LOLITA LOPEZ

  Night Works Books

  College Station, Texas

  Copyright © 2014 by Lolita Lopez

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Night Works Books

  3515-B Longmire Drive #103

  College Station, Texas 77845

  www.roxierivera.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  Edited by Julie Naughton

  Book Layout ©2013 BookDesignTemplates.com

  Cover Photograph © 2013 The Killion Group, INC.

  Quotes from Fox in Socks by Dr. Seuss

  © 1965 Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LP

  EMMA: Part Two (Outpost Nine)/Lolita Lopez. — 1st ed.

  ISBN 978-1-63042-472-5

  For the Viking and Moon Baby

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  About the Author

  1 Chapter One

  Of all the damned times to have to fight off zombies, it had to be now! Max couldn’t believe their ridiculously shitty luck. Emma deserved to be held close and pampered after losing her virginity. Her questions about the Outpost and the cyborg laws that ruled life there would have to wait. He hoped she wouldn’t pull back and put up emotional fences again before they could explain the facts.

  The plan he had cooked up with Jack had just imploded. So much for showing Emma a night of passion and pleasure and then offering her a chance to build a new life with them! If they survived this attack, Max knew he wouldn’t be able to leave her here. One way or another, she was coming with them.

  The unbearably loud clang of the alarm made Max’s head ache. “Can you turn that off, Emma? I can’t think.”

  “Yes.” She skittered from the room. Any other time he would have appreciated the view of her perfect ass but right now sex was the farthest thing from his mind.

  Finally, the alarm stopped. Jack tossed Max’s boots at him as they both quickly dressed. When Emma didn’t immediately return, Max worried. “Emma?”

  “Just a sec,” she called back. Seconds later, the house went dark. “Don’t worry,” she shouted. “I’m just diverting power away from non-essential systems so I can power the fence and the video cameras.”

  “Smart,” Jack murmured as he gathered up Emma’s clothes and left the room. Max followed close on his heels. They found her in the living room at the control panel near the large transceiver. She had clamped a small flashlight between her teeth as she flicked switches and plugged in various cables

  “Oh, God.” Emma’s stricken voice drew Max’s attention to the pair of TV screens displaying the feed from the gate they had used to enter her property. There were dozens of zombies waiting outside the fence. Fried zombies littered the ground and clung to the chain link. “They shorted the system,” she said in disbelief. “Look.” She pointed to the piles of dead zombies. “They drew enough juice to disable that section and render it harmless.”

  “And now they’re coming over,” Jack finished for her.

  “How long, Emma?” Max snatched the shorts from Jack’s hand and dropped to his knees in front of her. He tapped her left ankle, prompting her to lift her foot so he could slide her shorts into place.

  “A few minutes,” she said, her voice wobbly. “Depends on how fast they can run. There are another set of perimeter sensors five hundred and two hundred yards from the house. Those sensors turn on automatically at nightfall.”

  As if on cue, a buzzer sounded. Max’s gaze jumped from Emma’s stomach to the far wall where a small bulb flicked on and off. “Is that tied to the sensors?”

  “Yes.”

  Max stood and took the shirt from Jack’s hands. “Here, Emma. Put this on.”

  Wordlessly, she yanked the shirt down over her head. Max could see she had put it on backwards and remembered that Emma didn’t have ocular implants for night vision. “Hang on,” he said and reached out to help her fix it. “Emma, do you have night vision binoculars.”

  “No. They’re too expensive and hard to find. Besides, the plan was always to hole up in the house and defend from the high ground if they got over the fence. I’m not brave enough to run out there in the middle of the night alone.” She returned to the control panel and flicked on her flashlight. “I can route power to some flood lamps along the roof if they get over the fence.”

  “No,” Max said with a definitive shake of his head. “Jack and I are equipped with night vision. We’re not going to waste your power unless it’s necessary.”

  “But how will I see to help you once they get here?”

  Max smiled and cupped her face. Always so brave and strong, he thought as he stroked her cheek. “You will stay inside where it’s safe. We’re here to protect you, Emma. It will be easier for us if we’re not worrying about you.”

  “Besides,” Jack laughed, “we’ve got a score to settle with those rotting bastards. Emma, how many rifles do you have? Any long range? My sniper rifle was ruined in the wreck.”

  “Oh, I can do much better than just a rifle.” She crooked her finger. “This way.”

  Max and Jack trailed her to one of the bedrooms in the hallway. It was the locked door Jack had stopped him from jimmying earlier. Emma knelt down, whacked a floorboard and removed a key. She stepped aside after unlocking the door and motioned them inside. Max paused a few steps into the room. “Holy. Shit.”

  “Jesus Christ, Emma,” Jack said, his voice tinged with disbelief. “Are those gas masks?”

  “Yep.” She flicked on a light that nearly blinded Max. “My father was a bit paranoid.”

  “Hell!” He closed his eyes for a moment to let his night vision disengage. “I thought you cut the power.”

  “To non-essential systems,” she said. “This is an essential room.”

  Max opened his eyes and looked around the room. Shelves loaded with weapons greeted him. Emma’s arsenal put some of the smaller Outposts to shame. She could have launched a successful insurgency. He started to wonder about this supplier of hers. Where the hell were the Keatons getting their hands on this kind of firepower?

  Jack went straight for the shelf loaded down with high-powered rifles. Max’s interest lay elsewhere. He wanted automatic firing ability. Once those undead monsters got close to the house, he planned to mow them down. They weren’t getting anywhere near Emma.

  Mine. He glanced at Emma as she piled boxes of ammo close to Jack’s boots. Ours.

  As if reading his mind, Jack glanced at him and nodded. They couldn’t exchange transmissions with all the interference from the poorly insulated electricity on her property, but they easily communicated everything that mattered with one look. Come hell or high water, they would survive this night. No matter what, Emma was leaving here alive.

  Max and Jack loaded up as if going to war and hustled o
ut of the room. Jack headed for the window he had crawled out of earlier to pop the antenna onto the roof. He paused just long enough to grab Emma and kiss her. It was a deep, passionate kiss that left her swaying on her feet. “Stay put with Max. He’ll keep you safe.”

  As Emma nodded, Max moved over to the window and held Jack’s weapons and ammo while he climbed out the window and got into place. He leaned out the opening to hand up the gear. “Be careful, man.”

  “Will do.”

  Max slipped back through the window and discovered Emma staring at the screens. He watched as a seemingly endless trail of zombies climbed up and over the fence, often using their dead comrades for footing. Max was momentarily stunned by the sight. Where they hell were they coming from?

  “They’re like cockroaches, Max. It’s like someone shined a light on their nest.” Emma reached for his hand and gripped it tightly. Even in that desperate moment, Max’s heart fluttered wildly. She had reached out to him for comfort and reassurance—and it meant the world to him.

  He squeezed her hand and kissed the top of her head. “We won’t let them touch you, Emma.”

  She glanced up at him and smiled weakly. “I believe you.”

  Max brushed his mouth against hers. “Grab your shotgun and stay here by the radio. Do you think there’s enough juice left in the batteries to send an SOS to our Outpost?”

  “Yeah. Probably.” She jumped as the crack of a rifle shout ripped through the night. Less than ten seconds later, there was another and then another. Her gaze flicked to the ceiling. “He’s fast.”

  “It’s what he does best.” He patted her backside and gave her a gentle nudge toward the radio. “Get moving on that transmission, honey.”

  “Yes, sir!” She mockingly saluted him before scurrying toward the transceiver.

  Shaking his head, Max snorted, grabbed his gear and headed out toward the porch. He used his knife to slit open the screens and create some open spaces for shooting. Up on the roof, Jack continued to fire repeatedly. Max engaged his long-range sight and was suddenly very glad Emma was mostly blind in the house. No matter how resilient and tenacious she was, the sight of the undead horde rushing the house would have rattled her.

  Max opened fire as the first zombies came into range. Being cut off from internal communications with Jack felt so strange. The ability to strategize silently set them apart from Original humans and allowed them to attain such of high levels of success when engaged in battle. Tonight, he and Jack would have to wing it old school and shout back and forth.

  “Goddamn!” Jack swore loudly. “Look at ‘em, Max. They’re like cockroaches.”

  Max laughed and raised his voice. “That’s what Emma said.”

  He heard Jack chuckle before he went back to picking off the zombies in the far distance. Max opened up with his automatic rifle again and cut down a large swath of them. His rifle bucked, and he cursed up a blue streak. “Jam!”

  “Give it to me.” Emma popped out onto the porch with her flashlight. He noticed the way she kept it pointed toward the floor and away from his face. He appreciated the forethought. A few seconds of blindness weren’t going to do any of them any good.

  “I told you to stay put,” Max reminded her even as he handed over the jammed rifle and picked up on of the others he had brought with him.

  “Soon enough, you’ll figure out that I don’t listen very well.” She expertly cleared the jam. Max watched her out of the corner of his eye as he emptied the magazine on the rifled he had grabbed. She loaded another magazine into the previously jammed rifle and set it next to his feet.

  “You get through to the Outpost?” Max asked in between bursts of fire.

  “Yes, but they—. What the hell is that?” Emma’s excited tone pulled his gaze away from the zombies in front of him. She stood off to his left and pointed into the distance. “There! See! Is that a truck? No, wait! Two trucks?”

  “Friends of yours maybe?” Max hoped to hell it was someone from her Chain riding to Emma’s rescue.

  “We’ve got a big problem,” Jack shouted from his rooftop perch. “Those aren’t friendlies.”

  “What?” Max tried to zoom in on the cab of the oversized cargo truck but they were just out of his range. With his sniper scope, Jack could see much more clearly. “What is it, Jack?”

  “I think Emma’s intel about training was right. Fucking zombies are driving that truck. It’s loaded down with more of them in the back.”

  Emma slammed up against Max’s side. “Why are they here, Max? What in the world did we do to draw this much zombie interest?”

  “I don’t know, Emma,” Max admitted and slid an arm around her waist. “Jack, how much time?”

  “Not enough to make a run for it,” Jack replied honestly.

  “If they ram the house,” Emma said, her voice wavering.

  Max felt her trembling next to him. He turned and grasped her chin. “Emma, I want you to go back in the house and put on your boots.”

  “Okay.” Even though she must have known what that meant, she didn’t break down or protest. She hustled off to do as instructed.

  “Jack?”

  “I’ll try to take out the tires and the engine block. It’s the best I can do. Those rims are heavy-duty. They could keep running on those and still cause a lot of damage.”

  “I know, Jack. Do what you can.”

  As Jack’s rifle shots ricocheted through the night, Max headed for the radio and made contact with the Outpost. He gave the orders for air support and exfiltration.

  “Emma?”

  “Yeah?” Hopping on one foot, she appeared in the darkened living area with a backpack slung over her shoulder. She jammed her other foot in her boot and started to lace it up. “What do you need?”

  “What are the coordinates of this house?” She didn’t ask why he wanted them. She rattled them off, and he repeated them on the live mic. The soldier on the other end of the radio gave him a new set of coordinates for exfiltration. Without a map at hand, Max had no idea where the hell that was.

  Emma slapped a map down in front of him. “Here.” She tapped a spot on the northeast corner of her property. “It’s right here.”

  “That’s where we need to go.” Max folded up the map and tucked it into his back pocket. “You all done in here?”

  “No. I need to make one more transmission.”

  Understanding her desire to protect her friends, he left her at the radio. Max sized up the situation. There weren’t many options. Some of the zombies had already gotten into the animal pens and chicken coop. The squawks and squeals of the dying animals pierced his eardrums. Some of the undead bastards were trying to climb the slick poles supporting they house but they weren’t coordinated enough.

  Max lifted his rifle and started firing again. There was nothing to do but dig in and hope for the best. They would either get the air support they needed in time, or they wouldn’t.

  Emma was back on the radio, this time to someone on the Chain, when the first truck neared the house. He and Jack concentrated all their firing power on the truck but it did little to slow it down. The vehicle had built up so much speed that even with the driver nailed between the eyes and his body slumped forward on the wheel, they were going to slam into the house hard.

  “Emma!” Max turned toward the living room and spotted her in the doorway, gaping at him. She had never heard him yell like that, and it had obviously scared her. He grabbed her around the waist and cradled her smaller, more fragile body with his own in preparation for the impact. “Hold on, honey.”

  “Max!”

  The fear in her voice tore at him. He had only known this incredibly brave young woman a few hours but already he would lay down his life for her. He embraced her tightly and hoped Jack had a good hold up top on the roof. Emma screamed as the first truck rammed the house supports. The jarring collision sent Max scooting across the porch. Emma buried her face against his chest as the house clattered and clanged and shook wildly.r />
  “Max, get her on the roof. Now!”

  Jack’s urgent tone spurred Max into action. He picked Emma up and ran through the house, back toward the window. The floorboards shifted beneath his feet and made him nervous. The whole house would collapse if they took another hit—and there was still one truck out there.

  “My backpack and shotgun!” Emma screeched as they neared the window. She reached out toward the radio table and grabbed her weapon and a smaller bag than the one she had been carrying when she rescued them.

  The sound of moaning and growling and hissing reached his ears. Zombies scratched on the floor and sides of the house. They were using the truck as a platform for breaching the house. Max handed Emma out the window and right into Jack’s waiting hands. She gasped as Jack took her under the arms and lifted her up onto the roof.

  Max made a mad dash into Emma’s stockpile room and loaded up the empty duffel bags on the nearest shelf with shotgun shells and rifle rounds. He ran back to the window and handed up the bags to Jack. Seconds later, Jack’s hands reached down and helped him up onto the roof.

  Emma stood next to Jack, her chest heaving and hair blowing wildly in the cool night air. “What now?”

  Jack shoved a shotgun into her hands. “Shoot, Emma.”

  She nodded and racked the weapon before stepping toward the edge of the roof and firing down at the zombies trying to invade the house. There was enough moonlight to illuminate their work. Max took up a position on the opposite corner and blasted them with his automatic rifle. The rat-a-tat-tat of his weapon competed with the shotgun’s boom and the crack-crack-crack of Jack’s rifle. Max glanced away from the zombies down below just long enough to see the second truck racing toward the house.

  “Jack,” he said loudly.

  “I know, Max.”

  “Here,” Emma said, popping up next to Max like a groundhog. She pressed two things, cold and metal, into his hand. “I grabbed these when I went for my boots. I thought they might come in handy as a last resort. How far can you throw?”