Night Forbidden Read online

  Night Forbidden

  Joss Ware

  Dedication

  To Erika Tsang,

  for always making it happen

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Romances by Joss Ware

  Also by Joss Ware

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  “There’s nothing more I can do for him, Fence,” said Elliott. “The septic infection . . . it’s too strong, too deep.”

  Fence could see that even in the flickering light of the fire, safely contained in an old sink, Elliott’s face was as strained as his voice. Nevertheless, the doctor’s elegant hands continued to move over Lenny’s limbs and torso as if searching for some other option.

  He blinked away a sudden stinging. An EMT himself, Fence had already suspected the truth even before Elliott spoke. He’d been watching what started as a simple cut on his friend’s arm, which had then gotten infected, for a week now. He opened his eyes and tightened his grip around the warm, clammy hand of his best friend and business partner. Lenny: the marketing brains behind Fence’s adventurous brawn, the rear-end guard to his bold lead. He’d been the Michael Scott to Fence’s Jim Halpert, the Harold to his Kumar.

  “If only I had even some penicillin,” Elliott, who’d been an emergency surgeon, muttered in frustration. “Or . . . something. Anything.”

  But there was no help—nothing in this new and horrible world of 2060 they’d somehow found themselves in.

  Nothing even remotely like hospitals or pharmaceuticals or even cell phones to call for help. Not even roads or vehicles or even—son of a bitch—not even very many people. Few had survived the catastrophic events of half a century ago.

  Fence still didn’t understand how it had happened. He couldn’t explain it, and he sure as hell couldn’t accept it.

  On June 10, 2010, he and Lenny had taken three men on an expedition into the cave he called the Ballbusting Bitch—more commonly known as Ferrester’s Pocket.

  Elliott and his two friends were on a weekend getaway, and they’d hired Fence and Lenny to take them deep into the most dangerous and unpredictable cave—hence the nickname—in Sedona, Arizona. Fence and Lenny had been enjoying the hell out of being with a crew that actually knew what the hell they were doing in the ink-black, twisting, close caverns. Elliott and his friends were well-prepared and well-equipped . . . but nothing could have prepared any of them for what happened that day.

  While they were inside, all hell broke loose: earthquakes, storms, and cave-ins, and they were knocked unconscious in the depths of one of the tunnels. A sixth man named Simon was also caught inside the cavern with them. When they woke back up—or whatever they did, because it was looking more and more like they hadn’t just been doing a Sleeping Beauty—and came out of the cave, they found themselves in a completely fucked-up world.

  Fifty years later.

  Which explained the vast expanse of stars skirting the sky through the hole in the tattered ceiling of the building they were staying in—stars that were no longer smogged out by the remnants of man’s love for machines.

  And now, instead of the constant rumble and whoosh of cars, planes, and other technology, there were the vivid howls of wolves and lions, and the cries of owls and other nocturnal creatures.

  And there was the deep, awful groaning “Ruuu-uuuthhh” that came from horrible, orange-eyed, staggering monsters with flesh falling from their bones. Zombies.

  The devastated towns, cities, neighborhoods, highways . . . everything that had been normal in 2010 was now overgrown, broken, and lush—like the ’hood being plopped into the middle of a jungle and left to live or die on its own.

  One thing was sure: Mother Nature was going to win the arm-wrestling match over man’s bricks, mortar, and metal.

  Fence hoped like deep hell that his mama and dad had gone quickly. And his brothers and sisters and the rest of his family and friends and everyone else he’d ever known.

  Everyone else. Gone. Erased like a motherfucking line in the sand.

  It was simply . . . inconceivable.

  But it was real.

  It had been three months since he and his five companions, who now included the quiet man named Simon, left Sedona behind them. They traveled in a small band, searching for answers that were supposedly to be found in someplace called Envy. The few people they encountered had been born long after the Change, as they called it, and only had stories about the apocalyptic events told to them by survivors and their children.

  But if they could get to Envy without getting torn apart by zombies, they’d find a few people who had actually lived through the earthquakes and tsunamis and the raging storms that went on for days.

  They had to have answers. They had to have answers about what happened, and how they’d traveled fifty years into the future—or been suspended in time, or whatever—to find that everything was gone.

  Lenny groaned and his eyes fluttered. His lips moved.

  “What is it, bro?” Fence asked as he adjusted the pillow beneath Lenny’s head, which was nothing more than a folded-up blanket he’d scavenged from an old JCPenney.

  Still wrapped in plastic fifty years after being put on the shelf, the quilt was pristine and as fresh as new. Mother Nature might be able to beat back the concrete, metal, and glass of the twenty-first century, but the man-made plastic was giving her hell.

  They’d been here in this overgrown apartment building for two days. While Elliott did what he could to help Lenny, who’d become too weak to walk, the others scavenged for tools, clothing, and other necessities during the day. A plastic-wrapped pair of briefs was just as much cause for celebration as an unbroken bottle of whiskey. And rolls of duct tape . . . Fence salivated at the prospect.

  At night they were forced to hole up above ground level in order to avoid the zombies. Now, Quent, Simon, and their sixth companion, Wyatt, were sitting in the corner, talking quietly as they prepared for sleep.

  Fence forced his lips into a smile, made himself chuckle deeply. It sounded rough. “Whatcha need, Lenny? Wish I had a cold one to offer you—I bet that’d get you back on your feet.” He gave his friend a gentle nudge. “A beer, and maybe a thick, rare steak to go with it? Remember that time we seared that fresh venison, up in Montana, after we gave our last rations to those kids who lost their packs?” They’d helped the group of Boy Scouts find their way back to the Scout meeting point, then continued on the second day of their three-day hike without any food, knowing they could live off the land. “That steak was so damn bloody, I thought it was gonna bound right off the plates. Man, I’ve never had anything so good in my life.”

  Lenny stirred, and in the flickering light of the small fire, Fence was sure he saw his lips twitch in something like a smile.

  “Yeah, you remember that . . . and the time we had those two old ladies who wanted to go down Lutchner’s Canyon? They had to be at least sixty apiece.” Now he chuckled for real. “I’da been willing to pay them for the experience—it was one helluva weekend, wasn’t it, bro?
The sassy one who nailed the rattler with a stone from ten feet away—dude, if she’d been thirty years younger, I’da wanted to nail her. She was mad crazy. Remember how her friend roasted the snake meat on a spit over the fire, putting her own damned seasoning on it? Who the hell brings shit like that on an extreme camping trip? And it was hot as hell—musta been ancho chilis or something. I swear, I started sweating the minute she slapped it on my plate. I’m still wondering why they bothered to pay us to guide them out.”

  Fence forced another chuckle—they’d reminisced over that, and other scenes, many a time with a cold brew in hand. He knew just what Lenny would be saying, if he could speak. If he could even hear him. “Yeah, I know . . . they just wanted a coupla big, ripped mo-fos in the pictures with ’em so they could show their friends back at the retirement community.”

  Lenny gave a little shiver that could have been an attempt at a chuckle . . . or maybe just a wave of pain. Fence swallowed hard and got serious. “You know, bro . . . I couldn’t’ve done it without you. I mean, you were the one who got the whole business off the ground. Hell, I’d’ve just been happy to go on weekend trips, take a few people now and then, drive the ambulance during the week . . . but you were so fucking determined to get it up and running, and smart about the whole marketing thing. Extreme Adventures on Tap. What dude could resist that?”

  Lenny closed his eyes and his face slackened.

  For a moment Fence thought he was gone, but then he felt the shallow, rough movement of his chest. Resting. Just resting. The twinge in his belly eased.

  Not yet. He wasn’t ready yet to lose the last connection to his old life.

  Suddenly needing fresh air, Fence pulled himself to his feet, ducking so his six-foot-five frame could pass beneath the low ceiling without collecting cobwebs or bat guano on his head. He avoided the random piles of rubble and rodent shit as he walked in bare feet to the window. This one actually had a partially intact pane of glass covered with mildew, layers of dirt, and even a wayward branch of vine. A large pyramid-shaped piece had fallen away from this living room window in a sixty-year-old building, and he was able to look down and survey the outside without difficulty.

  As he looked out over what he was fairly certain had once been part of Nevada, Fence smoothed a hand over his bald head—which for some reason hadn’t sprouted the least bit of stubble in the last six months since they came out of that cave. Nor had he or the others grown any beards. Beyond weird.

  Below and beyond there weren’t any glowing orange eyes announcing the presence of the zombies. That was good, but since the motherfuckers couldn’t climb up stairs or ladders, he and his companions were safe up here on the second floor anyway. All around, the ragged, bushy outlines of caved-in, overgrown buildings were bathed in moonlight. He could make out the once-familiar yellow M on a McDonald’s sign, outlined in the distance by starlight.

  There were no other lights: no streetlights, no headlights, no lamps burning in homes. It was dark and unnervingly silent without human noise.

  The others had gone to sleep. Fence heard Elliott murmuring to Lenny, and the soft rustle of blankets, the quiet slop of cleansing, nourishing water.

  There’s nothing I can do.

  He hardened his heart against the pain.

  More pain. Uncountable losses. Beyond any grief he’d ever experienced—beyond even when he couldn’t save Brian.

  Fence nodded to himself, straightened his spine, drew in a deep breath, and turned back to continue his vigil.

  He’d get through it, find something on the other side, as he used to say to his dad. “I’ll see ya on the other side,” he’d promise when he had a test or a game or was going on a trip or whatever.

  The problem was, he was living in a world nothing like his old one—a world where daily survival was as uncertain as a roll of the dice, where, without Lenny, he was with a bunch of guys he didn’t really know but who expected him to guide them safely through this postmodern wilderness, and where he had a liability as wide as a Mack truck.

  A world where there was no fucking “other side.”

  Just this hell.

  Chapter 1

  The City of Envy

  Eight months later

  Fence took a healthy gulp of beer. That was, at least, one thing that hadn’t disappeared since the Change. Man hadn’t forgotten the important things in life.

  As beer went, this was pretty damn good too. Ice cold, solid and dark like he was, bold and strong—like his sense of humor. Fence grinned to himself and took another drink. Damn, I’m a fucking comedian.

  It had been a year. An entire year since he and Lenny led a bewildered group of men from deep in the caves into a world straight out of I Am Legend.

  A world complete with zombies, and Fence playing an even more ripped, and bald, Will Smith. No shit. And if the glances from that table of fine-looking women on the other side of the pub were any indication, they’d appreciate it if he’d do a few pull-ups. Shirtless. Just like his man Will had done in the movie.

  “What can I get you?” asked the waitress, leaning in close so she could make eye contact and provide what he called a glimpse of Happy Valley: a good, solid view right down her shirt. To be fair, Cindy also had to get close to be heard over the live music coming from the stage next to them, but her girls looked as if they were dying to pop out and say hi.

  “Depends what’s available, sugar,” Fence told her, giving her his long, slow grin. An old girlfriend had told him it was like sliding into a steaming hot tub. Cindy giggled and ogled back at him.

  “Oh, just get her number and be done with it,” Elliott said with a roll of the eyes and the twitch of a smile.

  Easy for him to say. Elliott’d been shacked up with Jade, the smoking hot redhead currently singing an old Bonnie Raitt song, within two weeks of their arrival here in Envy.

  Which, as Fence had learned, was actually N.V. Or New Vegas. Because they were currently sitting in what had once been a little Irish pub in the New York–New York casino, one of the random buildings that survived the Change.

  And by “number,” Elliott meant room number. No one had phones anymore, or even email, and definitely not Facebook. They didn’t drive cars. Even here in Envy, the largest settlement of humanity, there was limited electricity, with only an occasional DVD player and flat-screen TV that had survived for half a century. The disks of movies, music, and other shows were hoarded and protected like a national fucking treasure.

  As it turned out, the casino/hotel had become sort of a commune for what was left of a good portion of the human race, at least here in New Vegas. Everyone lived in their own rooms, but most people ate (and took their turns working at or otherwise contributing to) the communal restaurants. It was sort of like Cheers on steroids: literally, everyone knew everyone’s name, because they saw each other every day.

  That didn’t include the pub, however. The establishment was like pretty much every other sports bar Fence had been in, except there were no televised live-action sports. Once all the hell that broke loose during the Change had settled into something resembling normalcy, the guy who cleaned up and scavenged the space had learned to brew beer after the kegs that survived were emptied. (Fence figured, what with the world going to shit and everyone thinking it was the Apocalypse, that had probably happened within a few hours.) His kids and their spouses still ran the place. They were paid in casino chips, which were the only currency available, or through barter.

  According to Lou Waxnicki, one of the guys who lived through the Change, Jody Stearns’s first few attempts at brewing ale had tasted worse than horse piss . . . but apparently he’d gotten better at it. Or at least his kids had, because, here they were, fifty years later, drinking a dark, nutty beer that rivaled Guinness.

  Fence settled back in his chair and gave the waitress a sidewise look, but he didn’t ask for her room number. Not yet. They had all night to get to that point . . . and there was that table of women in the corner. He had his eye on on
e of them, if she’d ever look his way.

  “Yo, Vaughn, do you know those ladies over there?” he said, shifting closer to the mayor of Envy, who was nursing his own beer.

  In this world, Fence figured being the mayor of the largest settlement of mankind was akin to being the President of the United States back when it still existed. Vaughn Rogan, who looked like a cross between the Marlboro Man and David Beckham—not Fence’s words—was a guy who took his position seriously. He was also one of the few people in Envy who knew the truth about the guys from the Sedona cave: that they’d somehow time-traveled or slept through fifty years without aging.

  Vaughn also knew that some of the men had acquired an array of odd, superhuman abilities—and some of them hadn’t. Fence was one of the ones who hadn’t, and he figured he was one of the lucky ones.

  Not long after Lenny died, Elliott realized he’d somehow obtained a healing touch—except that every time he healed someone, it came back to kick him in the balls and created even bigger problems. He’d confessed to Fence that because he hadn’t understood—or even realized the existence of—his new ability, he might have accidentally contributed to Lenny’s death. Poor son of a bitch, Fence thought, to have that guilt on his conscience along with everything else they had to accept.

  And Quent, the British guy who’d been the one who hired him in the first place, could touch something and tell its history. That wasn’t so bad as long as he didn’t get sucked into a comalike state of memories that made him not only vulnerable, but also threatened to keep him in that infinite vortex . . . which had almost gotten him killed once or twice.

  Then there was Simon, who somehow learned to become invisible—now that was something Fence figured he could use. He chuckled deeply to himself at the thought, then shook his head. Probably the reason the good Lord hadn’t seen fit to bestow that particular skill on him. He knew him well enough.

  And, hell, with Happy Valley Cindy trying to hypnotize him with her girls, he guessed it was a moot point.