Abandon The Night (20 page)

“Fifty years ago, some friends of mine and I went into some caves in an area called Sedona. There was an earthquake or something and we blacked out. When we woke up, it was five decades later and the world had changed.”

“So you’re really from that time, before the Change?” Zoë’s voice was rife with skepticism. “That’s how you know her?” She thumb-pointed toward the backseat.

“Yes.” He looked over at Zoë again. “But there’s more.”

“I’m listening.”

“Since I’ve come out of the cave, I’ve discovered that I have a special power.” Quent gave her the details about his psychometric capability. “Which is what had happened when you found me in the alley in Envy that night.”

Zoë didn’t respond after this speech, and he presumed she was digesting the information. Perhaps for someone who’d grown up with Strangers and
gangas
, having a paranormal ability wasn’t so unbelievable.

When she spoke again, it was to give him directions. “Over there, behind that big building with the Star-M on it.”

He drove past an old Wal-Mart, the Star-M, as she’d called it, for that was all that remained of the letters on the building.

“You do realize that Marley was the bounty that the Marcks were taking back,” she said at last. The words came out reluctantly, as if she were admitting some great fault. “Did you notice that the
gangas
were moaning differently last night? They were saying ‘Marley Huvane’ not ‘Remington Truth.’”

“And why would an Elite be a bounty? Don’t they control the bounty hunters and the
gangas
?”

“Not if they’re running away from the Strangers. Then they’re a bounty,” came a rusty voice from the back of the truck.

He looked into the rearview mirror and saw that Marley had sat up. Her thick brown hair, streaked with highlights, was tousled around a face that was still dirty and a bit bruised. How much of their conversation had she heard? Over the rumble of the truck, and with him and Zoë in the front, she probably hadn’t heard much.

“Hey,” Zoë said, turning around to face her. “Lay down or put a blindfold on.” Then, to his surprise, she added, “Don’t worry. There’s a big stream nearby.”

Marley almost smiled, but then she looked back at Quent and her face tightened. “We have a lot to talk about, Quent Fielding. Like how
you
managed to still be alive. Who the hell did you sell
your
soul to?”

Not waiting for him to answer, she lay back down, and there she remained for the next fifteen minutes of navigation beyond the old Wal-Mart and through an old schoolyard to what looked like a ghost town of Main Street
USA
. Every structure that lined the little street had had a brick façade. Many of them appeared to have been built well before the twenty-first century, perhaps even in the early twentieth. They would have been quaint little shops in their day; he recognized the town for the upscale clientele that it must have attracted, filled with overpriced knickknacks and high-priced martini bars and cafes.

“I don’t know where the hell you’re going to park this thing,” Zoë said. “Stop here.”

They were in front of a caved-in storefront. The roof had collapsed in the front, and its neighboring structure—with which it shared a wall—sagged on top of it.

Quent looked around and found a narrow space between buildings that wasn’t too overgrown due to low sunlight, and pulled the humvee into it.

“Watch out for Fang,” Zoë said as she climbed from the truck. “He’s not fond of strangers.”

Fang?
That sounded ominous.

Quent pocketed the keys and opened the door for Marley, who murmured, “Not exactly the Chateau Marmont, hmm?”

“This way,” Zoë said, reappearing from where she’d disappeared behind the collapsed building. Impatience colored her voice and she disappeared again.

As Quent followed, he came around the corner and met Fang. At least, he assumed the mangy-looking wolf with iron gray fur and angry blue eyes was Fang.

The canine growled low in his throat, and although he wasn’t blocking the way, he was standing off to the side with his paws planted wide and his ears tipped forward menacingly. A very big deterrent to passing by.

“Quent, what the—oh, there are you are, Fang,” Zoë said, reappearing once more. Her voice softened as soon as she noticed the wolf-dog.

Fang glanced at Zoë, but then back at Quent and Marley, as if determining it was more important to detain them than to be petted. But he did give a little flick of the tail when Zoë spoke to him.

“Fang, chill,” she said, and walked over to pat him on the head, murmuring softly. But Quent heard her say, “They’re not going to bother us for long. I’ll make sure of that.”

Right, then. He guessed he knew where he stood.

20 November 2010

11:30 p.m.

Our little community has become as comfortable and settled as it can. We’ve established permanent electrical generators by using wind and solar power, which has allowed us to live in a fashion similar to our previous lives with lights and refrigerators and other electronics.

Of course, the power is limited—but we find it easy to live more simply. We are much busier outside, too, growing our food, rebuilding what makes sense to rebuild, and searching for any useful items we can find within a few mile radius of the community.

The change in climate is a great blessing, for if it had remained desertlike or become colder and more wintry, many varieties of plants may have been lost to this earth forever. As it is, I continue to seek out new ways to propagate everything from nuts to berries to herbs, spices, and vegetables.

Three nights ago, we were awakened by an odd sound. A low, anguished moaning that was almost human. We’ve become accustomed to the surge in wild animals—everything from wolves and mustangs to escapees from petting zoos, farms, and even circuses—and so we take care at night.

Devi insisted the sound we heard was not an animal, and he feared someone was injured. But he took a rifle with him and we went outside to look. We saw glowing orange eyes that belonged to some tall, bulky creature that was much too large to be a human. And it was sighing or groaning something like
“Ruu-uuth”
over and over again.

I confess, neither of us wished to investigate further. We went back into our house and closed and locked the door.

And even as I write this, I hear the same mournful
“Ruu-uthh”
sound again. I suspect I know what it is, but find it impossible to believe.

—from the diary of Mangala Kapoor

Zoë’s hideaway turned out to be inside the collapsed building, with the entrance through a rear courtyard, well tended and flush with herbs and vegetables. Quent walked in and was immediately struck by the amount of light that made its way through the four large windows that Zoë was in the process of uncovering from heavy tarps and simple shutters. Because of the way the little building and its neat garden was situated, hemmed in on all sides by other structures, and its roof buckling, no one would suspect that anyone lived here.

Inside, the asymmetrical space was clean and smelled of cinnamon, of course, and other spices. Bright fabrics draped like canopies from the uneven ceiling and hung on irregular walls—orange and crimson and rust, along with indigo and violet. Large round cushions surprised him, for they mounded in the corner and were so feminine and tidy-looking that he could hardly assimilate this luxurious, cozy place with his hard-assed Zoë. The floor was covered with a variety of braided rugs and what could only be a bed was piled with fur pelts, including that of a white tiger that he knew wasn’t faux. In the corner by the cushions sat a low square table and rows of books on neat shelves.

Beads and shells, irregular and random, hung in long tails over an entrance to some other dark space beyond. A bathroom? A kitchen?

“That’s my forge,” she said, seeing him glance at it. There was an element of pride in her voice. “Where I make my arrows. I cook in there too. Don’t need a fire in more than one place.”

She walked over and turned on a small light.
Electricity too?

“You live here alone?” Marley asked, looking around with wide eyes. She was the dingiest, most disheveled part of the room, an anomaly for a woman who had once worn only designer clothes and had a weekly spa appointment.

“Fang and I.” Zoë pointed to a corner with one flat cushion and two bowls. More books lined the walls behind it. “He comes and goes, but that’s his place.”

“This is beautiful. I haven’t seen anything this warm and inviting for…oh, God, for decades.” Marley’s voice broke and without being asked, she sank down onto a low, square ottomanlike chair.

“My grandmother was a mechanical engineer,” Zoë said, that pride still coloring her voice. “She and her husband survived the Change and they built their own place to live and farm afterward until he died two years later. She taught me how to do everything.”

Then she seemed to snap into attention, to realize that she had softened, and her demeanor became more abrupt. “I’m going to get something to eat. Stay here.”

Zoë breezed out, but Fang remained, as if to keep an eye on them. Quent, intrigued and more than a little turned on, wandered over to the bookshelves. What would a crusty woman like Zoë read when she came back from her hunting trips? Before he got here, he would have guessed her passion to be…well, not books. And if books, then they’d be nonfiction, about wars and weapons and hunting. What was that magazine?
Field & River
?

But after seeing her cozy abode, Quent thought maybe she’d lean toward lusty romance novels. With harems and sheikhs.

He was wrong. Zoë’s library consisted mostly of murder mysteries. Many of the books were hardcover, with the dust jackets either missing, or with plastic protectors that identified them as library books. Some were familiar to him, others weren’t: Christie, Anne Perry, Kellerman, Cornwell, Robb, even Hammett.

Right
. He could definitely see her reading Sam Spade.

Quent noticed multiple copies of many books, and saw that, as was to be expected, they were in a variety of conditions. Water stained, mildewed, warped, missing or obliterated pages. Burned or scorched.

“Some of those were my
naanaa
’s,” said Zoë, emerging with a few empty dishes from between the clicking beads. The waft of something that smelled delicious followed her. “Others I found over the years. I was damned pissed when I got to what I thought was the end of one and the last few chapters were unreadable. It took me three fucking months to find another copy, so now I don’t start a book until I have more than one of them.”

She put the dishes on the low table and Quent had the presence of mind to ask, “Do you want me to help you with anything?”

Zoë looked at him as if contemplating his ability in the kitchen—which, truth be told, was rubbish—and shook her head. “I don’t need anyone in my way.” And disappeared into the back with a swish of beads.

Surreal
. The whole thing was beyond surreal.

Here, in this oasis of warmth and comfort with the brittle, foul-mouthed woman who was literally cooking dinner in the back room as if it were a dinner party. And Marley Huvane, sitting here with a goddamn crystal in her skin.

The reminder brought all of Quent’s anger and disappointment rushing back to the front of his mind and he turned to Marley.

“She’s a real piece of work,” she said with a breath of admiration. “To have put this all together herself. For God’s sake, I didn’t last two weeks in this wilderness.”

Whether or not she meant that as an entrée into the subject that had plagued Quent since he recognized her, he decided to take it as one. “You were running from the Strangers for two weeks?” He tried to keep the snideness from his voice, but wasn’t certain he succeeded.

As inconceivable as it had been to know that his father, that hated, narcissistic man, had been a member of the Cult of Atlantis, it was beyond comprehension that Marley had also been one of them.

But she reached for him, her fingers closing over his arm. “Quent, I don’t know how you came to be here, what you did to live through it all, but you have to understand.
I didn’t want this.
My father didn’t tell me what was going to happen. He just told me we were going into hiding because there was a nuclear war.” Her voice stretched and thinned and she looked up at him, eyes burning with anger. “When I figured out what happened—that’s why I ran away.”

He gave a sharp, hard laugh and pulled from her grip. “Fifty years later, you took a stand and ran away? It took you half a bloody century to realize that your cult destroyed the entire human race so they could live forever? Fifty years to realize that was a mistake?”

“It’s not my cult!” she cried. “Dammit, Quent.” She lowered her voice, but it still shook with emotion. “How do you think I felt when I finally figured it out? Yes, it took me a long time—almost thirty years before I realized it was all a lie. Everything was a lie. And it took many years for me to confirm my suspicions, and to figure out how to escape.”

“Escape?” Quent said, forcing skepticism to flavor his voice. But it was becoming harder to do so. He believed her. He knew Marley, and in spite of his need to lash out, he believed her.

“Yes. Did you think they were just going to let me walk away and tell everyone what I knew? Not that it’s that much.” She laughed bitterly. “And even then when I got out, I didn’t get very far.” Her voice turned grim and she looked down at her filthy shirt.

“And the worst thing is…” Her voice fell to a pained whisper. “God, Quent…I have this damned crystal. This horrible,
horrible
crystal
inside me.
I can’t take it out, or I’ll die. And if I don’t…I’ll live
forever
.” Tears filled her wide, anguished eyes. “I didn’t ask for it, I didn’t want it. I simply woke up one day with it in my body.”

“That’s how they did it?” he asked, horror filtering over him. Horror and renewed revulsion.

She nodded, composing herself as she tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t have any idea what was going on. They—my father, and…” She stopped and looked up at him as her voice trailed off.