Night Forbidden

by Joss Ware

  The other member of their strange group, Wyatt, seemed to also have been overlooked when they passed out superhero abilities. So although he and Fence had finally begun to grow stubble again in the last few months, just like the rest of their companions—which, along with Lenny’s unfortunate death, at least proved that they hadn’t become immortal or remained frozen in time—they hadn’t been altered in any other way.

  “Three of those women are from around here,” Vaughn said, glancing over at the table. “I don’t recognize the other two.” He slid his gaze to Fence, a smile lurking in his rugged face. “You want me to introduce you?”

  Fence snorted. The day he needed to be introduced to a woman was the day hell froze over. And since, even though the world had ended, hell obviously hadn’t frozen because there were still assholes and evil in the world, he didn’t need the help. “Naw. Just wondered.”

  Speaking of assholes and evil in the world . . . Fence’s jovial mood faltered. He turned to include Elliott in the conversation. “I just got back an hour ago and haven’t been down to the computer lab yet,” he said, referring to his two-day trip helping move some Envyites to a new settlement. His guide and survival skills were in great demand since he’d arrived in Envy, for people rarely traveled more than a few miles beyond the city’s protective walls. There weren’t many navigable roads, nor were there convenient methods of transportation, hotels, or even that many settlements. “Any updates from Theo or Lou?”

  Theo and Lou Waxnicki were computer geek twins who’d lived through the Change and over the last fifty years had used their knowledge of 2010 technology to try and piece together what had happened to the world, and how. They had long suspected the Strangers—an elite group of men and women who wore crystals that made them immortal—either had something to do with the devastating events or at least had prior knowledge of them. Either way, through Theo’s expert hacking into their communications network they knew that the Strangers had used the destruction of the world for their own benefit—obtaining immortality while keeping their fellow humans controlled and relatively helpless.

  Meanwhile, the Waxnicki brothers had secretly begun to build their own post-Change version of the Internet in order to have an underground network for their silent, insurgent group called the Resistance, and to harvest and organize whatever data could be culled from the caches of surviving computers and mainframes. In fact, Elliott’s main squeeze, Jade, traveled from settlement to settlement as an itinerant singer in order to secretly collect computer components. Theo and Lou were currently in a settlement called Yellow Mountain, more than a hundred miles away, where they’d found a well-preserved collection of electronics from one of the members of the Strangers’ inner circle. Nevertheless, they were still in communication with the Resistance members in Envy via their network.

  Elliott’s face looked grim, and he exchanged a quick look with Vaughn before replying. “Theo’s getting some information from the Strangers’ communications network, but there doesn’t seem to be as much chatter since Quent stole that crystal from them. The bastards are obviously aware that someone is a threat to them now, though, so Theo thinks that might be part of the reason they’ve quieted down. They don’t know what we know and what we don’t.”

  “Hell, we hardly know what we know and what we don’t,” Fence said grimly. “Except that those motherfuckers are into some evil shit, trying to sell kids into slavery and turning people into zombies and God knows what the hell else.”

  “Not to mention what they did to Jade those years they had her imprisoned,” Elliott added with a glance up at the sexy redhead onstage. Her eyes met his over the microphone, and even from where he sat, Fence could feel the sharp, hot sizzle between them. No doubt about it . . . Elliott Drake was one fortunate dude. Jade wasn’t just a pretty face and a curvy body—she was smart and brave too. Fence wondered what it was like to have a woman with the whole package.

  “I don’t like it,” Vaughn put in, his face sober. “It’s too quiet . . . I keep waiting for them to storm the walls or attack us here or something. It’s as if we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop. But none of the patrol have seen anything suspicious, even though I’ve increased their numbers and sent out a few scouting parties. You didn’t run into anything suspicious?” This last was directed to Fence.

  He shook his head. “And I was looking. It’s almost . . . eerie.” He couldn’t explain how he did it, but he’d also paid close attention to the natural world—the birds and other animals, watching for signs in their behavior as well as tire tracks and campsite locations. Nothing seemed out of place or off.

  “Even when I got the Mullinses to their new place and tried talking to the others in the village, no one had anything unusual to share. They hadn’t seen a Stranger in months. Zombies, yes, but the Strangers and their Humvees . . . no.”

  “But they’ve got to be looking for that crystal Quent took—hell, they saw him escape with it—and they’ve got to know he’s here in Envy,” said Elliott, grim frustration in his voice.

  Fence nodded, but there was no need to speak. They all understood the threat, and they all knew it was only a matter of time until something happened. If only they had an idea what to expect. The only thing they could do was wait, watch, and be prepared. All of which they were already doing.

  Ready for a distraction, he glanced over at the group of women again, trying to catch the eye of the one who’d snagged his attention. She sat at the side of the table, so he had a good view of her profile except when she looked toward the stage. Then he got to see her face full-on—but she still wouldn’t look at him.

  She couldn’t be more than twenty-seven or so, and the fact that he was technically . . . oh, seventy-nine; no, eighty, hell, he’d had a birthday back in February . . . didn’t bother him a bit. For all intents and purposes, he was still twenty-ni— No, thirty.

  The woman looked as if she lived outdoors. Even in the low light of the pub, he could see the rich golden color of her skin and long brown hair streaked different shades of blond by the sun. She had a long, oval face and a long slender nose; wide, full lips; and from what he could tell, a killer body. Another guy might imagine her lying on a beach, tanning on the sand as the waves splashed up next to her—but that was not a fantasy Fence enjoyed. He had her soft and mussed in a bed of white sheets, the sun spilling over her body in its golden glory.

  If she’d just look his way, he could catch her eye and hopefully start something.

  “I thought you and Marley were . . . uh . . .” Vaughn said, setting his beer glass down, watching Jade onstage but talking to Fence.

  “Marley and me? Nah,” he said, holding back on making the obvious joke. Vaughn might not get the movie reference, being a guy living after a good portion of the world was destroyed, and Fence didn’t like it when his jokes fell flat—it felt like his shield had been shattered.

  Although he wasn’t strictly speaking the truth. He and Marley had . . . but it had been a temporary thing for both of them. That was the only way Fence wanted it anyway. At least until he figured out what the hell he was doing in this world and how to live here. Aside from that, there were other things he’d jump off a tall mountain before he told anyone about. Only Lenny had known, and understood—as much as he could.

  And that, Fence thought wryly, was why he’d never found—or looked for—a woman with the whole package: looks, brains, humor, strength. Because a woman like that wouldn’t understand.

  He looked at Vaughn, who was still watching Jade, but whose attention was clearly on Fence’s explanation. “Marley and I hung out for a while, but we’re just friends.”

  It had been Marley, in fact, who described the mayor as a cross between the Marlboro Man and David Beckham, with a little bit of Barack Obama’s serious political persona tossed in when he was doing mayoral things. Fence was pretty sure it had been a compliment, and he wondered why the two of them, who clearly noticed each other, hadn’t hooked up.

  Where there w
as smoke, there could be a whole blazing fire if you didn’t waste time beating around the bush. He grinned to himself.

  Jade finished her set, took a bow, then left the stage, Elliott following her. In her wake came recorded music, bar music. Some things never changed.

  Vaughn lifted a finger, and Cindy reappeared with three more beers for the table as Fence shifted in his seat to look over again at the sun goddess. And lo and behold, she was laughing at something one of her companions said, and she looked even more glorious and enticing.

  And then, as her laughter subsided and she settled back in her seat, humor still lighting her features, her gaze scanned the room and she looked right at him.

  She almost caught him by surprise, but he was good at this. He met her eyes purposely and gave a little nod of hello, followed by a smile. To his satisfaction, she tipped her head in that way women did, lifting her chin as she held his gaze for just long enough to acknowledge the interest. And then she looked away.

  He wasn’t certain if that was a little smile playing about the corners of her mouth or was just a trick of the low light. Either way, he liked it.

  “She’s not from around here,” Vaughn said, obviously noticing the exchange. “I think she comes from up the coast, a ways on the northeast curve.”

  “Wonder what she’s doing here. And for how long,” Fence said, considering his next move. Send a drink, or take himself over and strike up a conversation? If she was leaving soon, he didn’t have time to waste.

  “I could go on over and do my duty as a good public servant and welcome them to our town,” Vaughn said. “And you could go with me.”

  Got your eye on one of them yourself? Or do you just want to keep me away from Marley? Either way, he’d play. “Sure.”

  His fingers curled around the cool glass, and he and Vaughn wove their way through the heavy round tables and the assortment of mismatched chairs that clustered between them. Whether it was a sign or not, “California Girls” was the tune of choice blaring through the speakers—the Beach Boys’ version. An oldie but a goodie . . . but every single track on whatever CD or iPod that had been found was an oldie to the people here. To them, it was all the same: ancient history.

  Fence swallowed the lump in his throat along with a big swig of beer and focused on the here and now as they approached the table.

  “Mayor Rogan,” said one of the ladies, who seemed more than a little thrilled about their visitor. “And you’re the one named Fence, right?” She had to shout to be heard over the music.

  Before Fence could reply, she was leaning over to her friends to explain, “He’s one of that group who saved Sam Pinglett’s kid from the gangas when those teenagers got lost. It was a few months back, remember? They’re practically heroes here in Envy,” she added with a big, welcoming smile. “All five of them.”

  Fence took that as an invitation to sit, and since time was a-wasting, he snagged a chair from a nearby table and straddled it backward, resting his hands on the back. Since there wasn’t a seat directly next to the sun goddess, he sat so he was across from her. “Well, I wouldn’t say heroes,” he said, a little niggle of discomfort trickling down his spine. “We just did what anyone would have done.” Some of us, anyway.

  He took another drink of his beer and pushed away the sour thoughts that threatened to ruin his evening. Yeah, he’d nearly fucked up . . . but he hadn’t, and he’d gotten Benji back from her zombie abductor in the end.

  The sun goddess was looking at him from behind the rim of her glass, and he was itching to talk her up. But his mama had taught him manners, so instead Fence smiled at the woman sitting to his left, who was one of the teachers in Envy’s hundred-pupil school. “How’s it going, Donna? You working on trinomials yet? Or still only on those boring binomials?”

  She laughed and patted his arm, leaning closer. “What, you have a strong preference?”

  “The way I look at it, anything with three is always better than something with two, you know, sugar.” He grinned. He’d always been really good in math, and found that ability helpful in his navigation with the sky charts, as well as plotting with geographic maps—particularly now, in this horribly altered world.

  The devastation had not only shifted the Earth’s axes, but it also changed the climate of the Nevadan desert, and somehow a landmass the size of Texas had appeared in the Pacific Ocean not too far off the coast of where California once was. Any compasses or maps he’d had or could find, as well as his knowledge of astronomy and the geography of the western United States, had become frighteningly fallible.

  “Well, we’d love you to come back and do that talk about constellations and how to recognize and navigate using the stars again. The students really enjoyed it, and the ones who missed it have been begging us to have you back. When you started arranging them in the position of the Big Dipper, and made Andrew the North Star, they thought that was the funniest thing.” She was shaking her head in amused affection.

  “No problem,” he told her, noticing with delight that the sun goddess seemed to be listening to their conversation. “Just let me know when.”

  “All right. And I heard you got up there and sang with Jade one night,” Donna said, quickly changing the subject, as if to keep his attention on her. “Too bad I missed it. I heard you were really good.”

  “I can carry a tune,” he said with a smile, thinking about Lenny’s mournful harmonica accompaniment over many a campfire. “As long as it’s the right one.”

  To his relief, the waitress came over with a tray of drinks and stepped between their chairs, giving him an opportunity to shift his attention to the sun goddess.

  “So you’re not from around here, Vaughn tells me,” he said, noticing the very faint sprinkling of freckles over her high cheekbones, and the blond tips of her dark eyelashes. She had green-brown eyes and long, slender hands, but her nails were bitten down short. She’d probably be almost as tall as he was when she stood. Tall and lithe, but not skin and bones, judging from the peek of collarbone from behind her scoop neck shirt.

  “No, just visiting for a few days,” she replied. “I’m going home tomorrow.” She settled back a little bit in her chair and gave him a bold, speculative look. “So you’re a hero, are you? And a math whiz? And an astronomer. Oh, and you can sing.” A little smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Is there anything else?”

  “What can I say . . . I’m multitalented. And that’s not even the half of it.” He smiled, long and slow, the way the ladies liked it.

  “So how’d you get a name like Fence?”

  He shrugged and leaned a bit closer. Mmm. She smelled good too. Sunny, like lemons. Warm, like something else. “I never tell that story on a first date,” he said. “But maybe I could make an exception.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t want you to make an exception for me,” she replied, giving him back a lethal smile of her own. One that sent a surprise little twinge darting deep in his belly. “But how about if I guess how you got the nickname, and if I get it right, I win?”

  “Well, now, sugar, it would depend what the prize is. But I’m certain,” he said, dropping his voice into its lowest range of bass, “we could agree on something.”

  She continued to contemplate him, and Donna was left to gape, her attention ping-ponging between them.

  “I could really use a new saddle for my horse,” the sun goddess said, and he swore she gave him a look.

  Fence almost swallowed his tongue. “So you do a lot of . . . riding?” he asked. He couldn’t help it. It just slipped out. But he stopped himself from making any further comments about horses and being hung like one.

  “Okay then . . . well, let me think,” she said, interrupting the runaway train of his thoughts. Probably a good thing. “The first thing that comes to mind regarding a nickname like Fence is that you’re really good with a sword,” she said, her voice smooth with dusk, her eyes meeting his.

  It was all he could do to keep his expression cool.

&nbs
p; “But,” she continued before he could speak, “that’s sort of obvious. And you don’t seem like an obvious sort of guy, Fence, so . . .”

  Was that a compliment or a little parry and thrust of her own? Fence couldn’t hold back a smile this time, and he felt his eyelids go a bit droopy with an edge of seduction.

  “ . . . maybe you can’t ever make up your mind about things? That you sit on the fence all the time?”

  Ouch. That was definitely another parry and thrust, but instead of being offended, he still found her wit amusing. A smart woman with a killer body, who held her own. “I don’t know . . . there are certain things I’m pretty sure about,” he replied, holding her gaze. “No fence-sitting here.”

  Her eyes danced. “All right, then, am I getting warm?”

  “Smokin’, baby,” he said, and liked the way her eyes widened briefly.

  “A guy with a name like Fence,” she said, mulling, her fingers drumming on the table as she copped a speculative look. “Could it be because you build a lot of fences around you? Close people off, keep them away?”

  Okay, that was a direct hit. Di-rect. He felt a little breathless at her accuracy, and at the same time stimulated in all the best ways. “What, are you psychic?” he replied, allowing a bit of seriousness into his joke. “But who doesn’t have secrets, walls of protection built around them?” he asked, sinking into a more sympathetic tone, making certain he didn’t sound defensive. “Don’t you?”

  Her eyes flared again, and he felt her withdraw a bit. Hmmm. A direct hit of his own.

  “Maybe,” she said, recovering. Her eyes narrowed and he could almost see the wheels turning. “Could be you weren’t watching where you were going and you ran into a fence?”

  He shook his head, chuckling a little. Closer, but still way off. “Can we go back to the sword part?” he asked, reaching out with one of his large, brown fingers to caress her slender, golden ones. “I kinda liked the direction you were going there.”