AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Emma mouthed, Adopted?
With a grin, Juan cracked the water bottle open. He took a swig, then leaned over again to answer, his breath frosty against her ear. “All my kids are adopted. All four of them.”
“Oh. Wow.”
Emma’s approval of the Latino man climbed upward.
A tall, striking older woman with silvery-blonde hair and fine lines on her tanned face emerged from the hotel entrance. She wore her jeans, cowboy boots, and a short-sleeved plaid cotton shirt over a black tank top like a uniform. Dark sunglasses covered her eyes, and there was a distinct military bearing to her stride. Emma noticed people straightened their spines and looked attentive the second she appeared. Motioning to Jason, the woman held one hand out. The teenager tossed her a water bottle. Barely glancing at it, she plucked it out of the air.
Leaning over again, Juan said, “That’s Nerit.”
The woman walking toward them exuded strength like no one Emma had ever met before. She suspected she’d experienced things that would shake most people.
Keeping her tone low, Nerit addressed her. “Emma, welcome to the Fort. Rune told me you had arrived and what he said about your history was impressive. You’ll be a great asset to our community.”
The accent Nerit spoke with sounded familiar, but Emma couldn’t place it.
Emma was bewildered. “How does he know about me?”
With a hint of a smile, Nerit replied, “He has inside information.”
Emma gave Juan a questioning look. “The ghost thing?”
“Yup. The ghost thing.”
Juan had told her that Rune was a medium, a man who could see and speak to the dead. In a zombie-infested world, he would definitely have unique access to information most people wouldn’t have. Emma completely believed in ghosts. She was convinced one had told her to come to the Fort. She vividly remembered the beautiful woman with the long black hair and soulful dark eyes urging her not to kill herself, but live. Of course, the dream had occurred while Emma was drunk as a skunk, but the Fort did exist right where the woman said it would.
Gesturing for Juan and Emma to follow, Nerit strode toward the collapsible stairs that led over the inner wall. Falling into step behind Juan, Emma shivered despite the heat. The eyes of the people of the Fort were trained on her, probably curious about her after hearing Rune’s stories. She fought the impulse to respond to the inquiring looks and explain that she was no one, just a young woman who killed all the zombies in her town while seeking to put her baby to rest. In this horrible new world, those actions couldn’t be too unusual, she surmised. Everyone surviving had to have similar stories.
The wooden steps led to a platform encased in camouflage netting. Nerit slipped under the entrance flap with Juan at her heels. Emma took a second to observe the view of Main Street. The town blocks in either direction ended with a concrete wall. The street was dotted with piles of lumber, bags of soil and fertilizer. Groups of people were huddled in the shade alongside one building, taking a break. It appeared they’d been making planter boxes before the call to stop working.
Emma stepped into the sentry outpost and the netting fell behind her.
Two people stood with Nerit. One was a man with a reddish-brown complexion and indigenous Mexican features. The other was a redheaded white woman slathered in sunscreen to protect her freckled face and the bare bony shoulders sticking out of her army green tank top.
Emma shrugged beneath her red top to alleviate some of the tension in her shoulders, the fabric clinging wetly to her skin. Tendrils of her chestnut brown hair stuck to her cheeks and she tucked them behind her ears to keep them out of the way.
Keeping her voice at a low volume, Nerit said, “Enrique says we have runners. What’s the status, Katarina?”
“I’ve spotted maybe a dozen runners down at the end of Second Street. They’re definitely hunting us, but haven’t spotted anyone living yet. They’re doing that jerky back and forth dance they do when they suspect the living are around, but can’t spot ‘em. Martin,” Katarina pointed to the man next to her, “has the lowdown on what happened when they first appeared.”
If Nerit was scared or worried about the brewing, she didn’t show it.
Emma was impressed.
“Juan, ask Martin for details, please,” Nerit instructed.
Juan turned to the shorter man and asked him a question in Spanish laced with a West Texan accent. It was a combination that Emma found amusing. The twang didn’t faze the shorter man, who nodded, and answered. Martin explained to Juan in Spanish what he’d witnessed on the far end of the Fort. Gesturing as he spoke, the construction worker was surprisingly calm considering he’d just eluded the undead. His white T-shirt was drenched with perspiration and he was covered in the ruddy dirt native to the area. Emma caught a few words here and there, but her high school Spanish had faded from memory soon after she graduated. She did capture the gist of what was being said. The zombies had appeared abruptly, sprinting at top speed toward the tracks.
With a nod, Juan patted the man on the shoulder, then conveyed the story to Nerit. “His crew was clearing the traps and doing zombie body removal when they saw the runners coming out of the tree line.” Juan pointed to the nearby foothills that bordered the west side of town. “The zombies hit the tracks and headed straight for them. I don’t like it. Fresh dead means we missed survivors h
eading our way probably needing help.”
Martin spoke up again. Emma picked up more than half of what he said this time, her old Spanish lessons sparking to life. The news sounded bad and Juan’s reaction was a confirmation.
Visibly pale, he swore in Spanish then dismissed the other man.
After Martin left, Nerit asked, “What is it? What’s wrong.”
