Lights Out (Book 3): Front Lines

by Cal, Sarah

  Of course, it would be all over anyway, if the women decided to talk before any action started and let it slip. The police hadn't gone to her house, thank goodness, after she'd told them her grandmother and her sister both had mental health issues and were too distressed to see any strangers. It was all true, but it got her out of the problem. Because all it would have taken was them making it to the kitchen and seeing the shed out back, seeing the newly boarded up doorway, with the broken pieces of the door leaning on the side of it. They might have asked questions, and she might have given the game away

  Besides, she didn’t want to live in fear of a bunch of psychos. She'd had the idea before, that if this didn’t end here, it would go on for too long. It worried her that the woman just stood there, the car left idling while the other women stayed inside. She wondered what they were thinking, what their plans were. Could they really be talked down?

  But no. In the tense silence, one more person broke out of their hiding place and ran for their door. She watched as the woman raised her gun to aim at whoever it was, but they had the door closed before she could make the shot. These women could not be reasoned with.

  Emma wasn’t the only one left not backing down. Chase didn’t move, and neither did her neighbors. In fact, when Emma looked around, she noticed both of them with their guns at the ready and taking aim.

  Kellen shouted "Now!" and fired the first shot.

  Chapter Five

  The gunfire began, and Emma was shocked by how loud it was.

  Once Kellen called out and made her own shot, others followed her lead. The woman that had been standing outside fell to the ground, but then the others were shooting from inside their van, only a few of them coming out. The silent stillness was quickly lost in so much noise Emma had to curb the urge to cover her ears so she wouldn't have to hear it all.

  Emma had to hand it to them, though. Either they were all very brave, or very stupid, that their first thought was to shoot back instead of just driving the car away and going back where they came from. Of course, that would be bad for them, so Emma knew they wouldn’t be allowed the chance to flee if possible. Emma watched, and heard, glass from the car windows and windshield shatter under heavy gunfire.

  The ones that stepped out of the car went down in a short time. Shots were coming at them from all sides when they couldn’t even see well, and everyone on her side was hidden while they sat like comfortable targets in the middle of the road. Still, more of them came out of the car, but never more than one or two at a time.

  Cries came from all sides, some shouted instructions that she couldn’t make heads or tails of. The situation escalated so quickly, and all Emma could do was sit back and wait for an opening to jump in. Like he was afraid she would do it immediately anyway, Chase's hand was suddenly wrapped around her upper arm to keep her right next to him.

  Emma could have told him not to worry, but she feared she would have to shout to be heard, and she didn’t want any of the women in the van focusing in their direction. Her heart was beating hard in more fear than excitement and her limbs had frozen in place. There was no way she was moving away from safety to get her body riddled with bullets. She wasn’t that stupid or desperate for revenge.

  Still, his hand on her arm was a little tight, and she thought he might have even cut off the feeling in her arm. Since it was attached to the hand holding the knife, she touched the back of his hand and got him to let go. She rubbed at her arm, clenched and unclenched her hand around the knife handle. She held herself at the ready anyway, prepared for the moment she would have to jump into the fight. But the noise kept distracting her.

  She remembered the first time she'd heard a gunshot was the reason she'd found herself locked behind bars and put under trial in the first place. She was volunteering services for the town and got sent out on patrol. So Emma had gone, and she'd ended up accidentally firing a shot, from a gun that she shouldn’t even have, at someone trying to do a bad thing. She'd tried to hide it, until the woman met her again and tried to blame her completely for everything.

  The situation had been resolved eventually, even though the woman had come after her with her knife, and she'd had Merry outside with her at the time. There had been other situations, like the time she, Chase and Brian went to visit a different town to find out what their situation was like, only to be chased off by gunshots. But she barely heard those, because she'd been falling unconscious from a blow to the head at the time.

  This time, there was no way to hide from it. Shots came from their side, from the women, in all directions, and Emma found herself afraid of moving from her spot, in case she got caught in the line of fire.

  She found she was useless—she knew she couldn’t run out and use her knife without being shot. Considering there were other people around actually doing something worthwhile, it made her feel just as bad as she had last time, worse even.

  What was she even doing there? Because this had been her idea to begin with and yet all she could do was watch? She might as well have stayed inside the house, then, and watched the whole thing from the window upstairs. It wouldn’t make her feel better, but it would make her feel better if she were closer to her sister and grandmother in case they needed anything.

  When she couldn’t take the sound anymore, she covered her ears and watched the scene unfold, because it was all she could do.

  Several of the invaders had already been shot down, but more were coming out of the van and she couldn’t see any casualties on their own side yet. She itched to move, to do something, but self-preservation kept her where she was. Chase stuck close to her side, and she could sense some of her own restlessness inside of him, too. Only, knowing him, he'd want to do the rational thing and run into the house instead of closer to the danger.

  Not long after, she got her chance, and it had everything in Emma freezing and slowing to a stop. If she'd stopped paying attention, let the noise overcome her, she might not have noticed before it was almost too late.

  One of the invaders took a run at Emma's group, probably in some desperate attempt to finds a position to hide herself; she didn't think the woman had caught sight of them yet. Emma was almost surprised the woman didn’t get shot down before she got too close. Their car was parked closest to her house, and they must have been aiming for her place, because she thought she recognized this woman from last night.

  When Emma caught sight of her face, the shock and surprise of seeing someone run at them suddenly washed away. She definitely remembered the woman as one of the ones that searched her house and pointed a gun at her sister and grandmother. She pulled her hands from her ears as time almost seemed to slow down. A burst of adrenaline in her blood had her body vibrating, and her hand tightened on the knife to the point of pain.

  This was her chance, the reason she had wanted to do this. To look at these people as they fell, after what they'd done to her family while smiling and having their fun. She wanted to see them suffer, and she was seeing it, but she hadn't done anything to contribute to it, and even beneath her fear, the thought grated on her mind.

  Emma saw her opportunity to get involved as the woman drew near, and she readied herself to strike. She'd never attacked someone with a knife before, she didn’t have any combat experience at all, but she moved almost on instinct as the woman came so close she might as well have been on top of them. Her gun was clutched in her hand but she wasn’t aiming, leading Emma to think she hadn't caught sight of them yet. Emma stabbed at the woman's legs, pushing as much force in the swing as she could while maintaining accuracy in her aim, and felt the knife connect to something, at the same time someone shoot the woman in the back. There was a short scream from the stab that broke off in a gurgle.

  She knew the woman was going to fall, she'd never seen someone get shot before, but her legs were stumbling, her whole body looking like a puppet that had all its strings cut all of a sudden. The body fell on top of Emma, body because she didn’t need to look to know the woman was
dead with the whole weight of the body pinning her down. She struggled to move the woman off, feeling blood staining her shirt, nose crinkling at the scent. She'd lost sight of Chase, he was supposed to be beside her, but she couldn’t even think about why he hadn't helped her; she didn’t give him more than a passing thought, really.

  The smell of blood was a familiar smell from her time at the hospital, though nothing anywhere near as overwhelming. It wasn’t enough to put her down as she got out from under the body, determination renewed as something like triumph lit up her chest. She might not have delivered the killing blow, but she had done something, had been useful, and she was going to ride on the success of that for as long as the fight lasted.

  She wasn’t going to think about the body she'd tossed off herself, the sticky blood soaking through her shirt to her chest and smeared on the top of her arm as she'd slid the body off to the side, until she absolutely had to.

  Emma was lit by a surge of adrenaline, and she finally came out of her hiding spot. She didn’t notice Chase reaching for her, or hear him calling after her under all the noise still in the atmosphere. She wasn’t the only one out and fighting in the open either, by then a few people on her side had come out of hiding while still shooting, and realizing this only made her move faster.

  The invaders seemed to have realized they were cornered. She glanced at them through the broken window of their vehicle and caught a few panicking faces, but she didn’t stop. A few of them were still left in the car, but the rest of them must have been hit with the desire to run, only to realize they had nowhere to go and were trying to avoid getting shot as they made shots of their own.

  In that moment, Emma didn’t feel any fear. She should have, considering what she was jumping into, but her feet only moved faster. It was a short distance to cross from where she'd hid to where the car was, but it felt like it took more than a minute to make it there, an effect of the adrenaline she assumed.

  After what these people had done, and what they had come back out here to do, there was no way Emma was going to show them mercy. A voice in the back of her mind whispered how they knew her secret. She wasn’t sure how many of them, but she didn’t need the police investigating her house. If this all ended here, she would be all the happier for it, and go to home feeling so much safer.

  She paid no attention to her thoughts as she ran out to the thick of the fight. She didn’t need to know how to fight, because none of the women even paid her any attention, too focused on the threats that had guns. She managed to stab at someone before they could shoot another civilian coming out of their hiding spot. There was a scream, as she pulled her arm back and stabbed forward again, feeling resistance in her hand as the knife connected again and sunk through skin.

  Emma felt hot blood pour on her hands and was snapped back to the real world. It was warm, and it made her hold on the knife a little slippery, even as she tightened her hand around the handle. None of the enemies had noticed her yet, but there wasn’t anyone else on the outside still standing for her to stab, and even hyped up on adrenaline, she wouldn’t get near the car.

  "Emma! Get out of the way!"

  She didn’t know who shouted the, but she could suddenly hear things besides the gunshots and incorrigible shouts and yells.

  Emma didn’t stop to think, just listened to the voice, and that alone should have told her who it came from. She dived for her front lawn as someone shot at the car. She could heat the impact of the bullets on the metal of the car before she was too far away. She could hear more breaking behind her, but she didn’t turn to look as she crawled away on hands and knees to get further away. She didn’t know what they planned to do, but instinct told her it was going to be something she didn’t want to be too close to.

  There was more screaming, and shouting, and yelling coming from all sides. Emma could see more people from their side out in plain sight, almost everyone left after some of them ran in the beginning, and when she looked over her shoulder, she could see more of the women had been shot down, some of them a distance from the car like they'd attempted to run away. The few still in the vehicle had nowhere to go. They were backed into a corner, but still none of them thought to start the car and drive away, as riddled with bullets and sans windows and windshield as it was.

  From her safe vantage point, Emma watched it all happen. She couldn’t tell how many women were still in the vehicle, she could see at least three, though they were mostly keeping out of sight now, at least one of them still coming up to shoot.

  Rapid gunfire sounded, from several directions, aimed right at the car, and Emma watched as it went up in flames and killed the remaining attackers.

  The force of it was enough to make her feel like she'd gotten too close to naked fire, he heat almost too unbearable on her skin, and she thought her eyebrows might have gotten signed. The sudden brightness made her throw her arm over her eyes and squint. She didn’t look away, though. She wanted to see this. Needed to, to assure herself it was all over, and the enemy was gone.

  Emma was stunned by the sudden silence after the attack. The fire from the car had gone down a bit, and there was a low roar coming from the flames as the car burnt, but with no more shots being fired, she was left a little disoriented.

  She looked down at the bloody knife in her hand, at her soaked shirt. She let go of the knife, wiped her hand on her chest and pushed it out of her mind. Even though, with everything quieting down, she felt a little sick because of the warmth and stickiness from the blood on her skin, making it somewhat difficult to ignore. But she would have time to groom herself and clean up later.

  Her legs shook as she stood up, her ears ringing as she surveyed the scene. There were bodies littered on the ground, and she let her eyes pass over each one, seeing their stillness and dismissing them as dead or beyond her help. Besides, they weren't who she was worried about.

  She went around to look for any injured. The adrenaline was still flowing through her, and she just had to keep on moving. If she stopped, she would start to think, and she didn’t know what would happen then, but she wanted to be alone when it happened. Besides, she would crash eventually. While she still had energy, she would continue to lend some aid.

  There were only two people injured on their side, and both suffered only minor injuries. She had to admit, considering the numbers they had been up against, and how many people had left, it was something of a miracle that it hadn't been worse.

  Emma found someone standing around, looking lost on what to do and caught their attention.

  "Would you be able to go into town?" she waited patiently for a nod. "All right. Can you make your way to the hospital and ask for a woman named Carol? Also one or two other nurses to look after the injured."

  She relayed the instructions slowly, watching their face to be sure they got the message, and then turned to other work once they were off to fetch Carol to keep herself busy. But inside, she was rejoicing their victory.

  Chapter Six

  Emma had a feeling she was going to lose sleep for a second night.

  Who could possibly sleep when there was so much to do? The nurses were just coming in to help the injured, giving a wide berth to the guys clearing up the scene. But once they arrived, there wasn’t much she could do, because the officers sent everyone that didn’t need to be outside back into their homes. So now, she didn’t think she could sleep, but she had to find something to keep her occupied. She dragged her feet reluctantly all the way to her house, though it was only some few feet away.

  There were those that went freely, obviously relieved to have the whole thing resolves already. Everybody else was probably exhausted, after the time they'd spent waiting, but also because of having the tension broken after the intense fight. Emma wished to stay and help out more, but it was an order, so she couldn’t exactly go against it.

  She was still expecting to crash from the adrenaline at some point, but besides a light trembling in her limbs from all the excitement, she felt f
ine. She didn’t even think she was going into shock, and after what she'd just gone through, she felt like she should have.

  Now that it was all over, Emma didn’t know what to think. This had been burning in her chest ever since those women had left her house last night, and now it was all over. There might be a chance that some of them weren’t there, and were replaced by the extras that decided to join—though it was a stupid move on their part. They'd left stuff before because they didn’t have room, but they decided to bring more of them while considerably reducing the space available? She was getting side tracked. Maybe they didn’t get them all, but they did get most of them, and Emma got to see one of them fall and be a part of it herself. She probably shouldn’t be so flippant of murder, but there was some relief that the whole thing was over now.

  It was something to worry about, though. At least with this, the word could spread that they had a fighting chance if any other invaders come to their town. Because the attack had opened up the possibility for them. It was entirely possible the women were part of their town, but Emma didn’t think so, or someone would have known about the working car already, and the last time she checked, the police didn’t have any.

  Well, whatever. The situation was taken care of, so she put it all out of her mind and went looking for better things to do. The police would do their own investigation into the matter later.

  Actually, now that she thought about it, where had her best friend gone off to? It surprised her that she had taken this long to even remember him. She walked over to where they had been hiding to find him not there, and looked around at the people still milling outside.

  She couldn’t see Chase or her neighbors anywhere, but then she remembered. Her sister and grandmother were still in the house, hiding, probably scared and waiting to be told everything was all right.

  Emma cursed herself. How could she have forgotten to go back and tell them when the threat was gone? Janice hadn't liked that she would be going out at all to do something so dangerous, and had only agreed to it when she told her Chase would be with her. Merry had acted completely unaffected, but Emma had seen how she'd trembled as she sat with their grandmother.