Tempted by the Night (7 page)

Kissing him and running her hands all over those firm slabs of muscle had been just as amazing as she'd always imagined in her deepest, darkest fantasies. Even now, she was hot and fluttery inside, full and throbbing elsewhere. Shaky-kneed. Out of breath.

Then, suddenly, she was brought back to reality. The terrible, eerie cries carried in on the night air once more, reminding her of the task ahead of them.

“
Rrrrruuthhhh…ruuuuthhhhh…
”

The zombies were coming closer. Searching, always searching…

And here she was, fog-headed and butterflied in the belly, and making out with Luke Desmond.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

What must he think of her? Although…Luke had seemed to be more than a little interested in what was going on. He certainly wasn't ambivalent. But then again, what man wouldn't be at least a little turned on by a woman who lunged into his arms at the slightest provocation?

Partly because of his blond good looks, Luke had always been known as a player—a guy who liked women, many women,
all
women—even when he was with Lainey.

Oh boy.
Lainey.
That felt like an even colder shower than realizing how desperate Marisa must seem to him…her sister's former fiancé…

No. Forget about everything else. Just focus on now.

And the fact that you're going outside the city walls when the zombies are out.

Oh God. What was wrong with her?

But she couldn't let him go alone. She couldn't let him get caught—by either Ian Marck or the zombies. He was still weak, and injured, and…well, she didn't want anything to happen to him.

“This way,” she whispered, tugging his hand. A quick glance behind confirmed no one was following them as she led him between the buildings that made up the living spaces for the settlement of River Vale.

At one time, before the Change, the buildings had been a cluster of homes and small shops in a little downtown square. Grandma Nell used to describe it as Main Street, U.S.A.—though Marisa couldn't quite picture what that meant. Now, whatever buildings had survived the earthquakes and storms had been maintained and turned into homes for the hundred-fifty people who lived here. Those usable structures had been enclosed by a protective wall decades ago. Beyond the barrier were other places that were vacant, either structurally unsound or simply uninhabitable.

Caved-in roofs, ivy- and moss-covered walls, broken and mildewed windows, cracked pavement and bricks, curling siding—those buildings were part of the landscape now, which included a jungle of trees and grasses, wild tomatoes, berries, and other vegetables, along with vestiges of twenty-first century America. Old mailboxes, rusted-out vehicles, street lamps, buckled-up sidewalks, sagging billboards, obliterated signs and grass-veined roads showed off fifty years of decay and the muscle of Mother Nature.

The barrier encircling River Vale was more than ten feet high and five to ten feet deep in places, because it had been partially constructed of whatever massive objects the survivors could gather and wanted to remove from the midst of the settlement: billboards, train cars, vehicles. There were other materials too, like bricks, metal roofing, and even pieces of wrought-iron fence. A team maintained the wall, ensuring there were no weak points, no openings through which the crooning, crying zombies could struggle.

Not that they were smart enough to do so, the orange-eyed creatures who stumbled and staggered and had the motor skills of an eighteen-month-old, but no one wanted to take the chance.

“Here,” Marisa said as they came to an old piece of gate. It looked as if it were merely propped and fastened against the train car behind it, but it wasn't.

“I didn't know this existed,” Luke said in a hushed voice as Marisa unlatched the gate. “How long has it been here?”

“I don't know. Dad showed it to me before he died.”

The gate gave a soft sigh and a faint whine as she pulled it open. Behind it she pushed on the boxcar wall, and then yawned an opening—the old door—in the train car. “In there. There's a tunnel—like a passageway. It goes through the right end of the car there, and then under a piece of metal and through a truck. We come out next to the big oak.”

“We? I think not.” He made as if to push past her, but Marisa grabbed his arm.

“I'm coming with you. Someone needs to keep a lookout. And you've been hurt. Where is your bag hidden?”

Before he could respond, she heard it. The soft sound of a footstep, crunching on stone. A murmured comment wafting through the night. A shadow coming around the corner.

They both froze, then he shoved her through the open door just as she pulled him by the arm. Marisa had the presence of mind to drag the wrought-iron gate closed behind them, and Luke reached out to help it settle into place without a telltale clank.

Silently, they slipped into the pitch-black interior of the train car, Luke's strong hand guiding her up and inside. There were no words between them—only her hand tugging his as she tried to feel her way through to the trap door on the other side without tripping on anything or banging her foot against the metal floor or wall.

“I heard someone over here,” came a voice from outside. Stronger, very certain, and much too close. And it sounded horribly familiar.

Luke and Marisa stilled for a moment, bodies close enough to feel the other's unsteady breathing, and waited. She was cold and stiff, her stomach jolting unpleasantly.

“They went this way,” replied a voice recognizable as Ian Marck's. “We'll find them.”

“Let's go,” Luke breathed ever so softly into her ear. Prickles accompanied the warmth of his voice. “Okay?”

She nodded once, her head bumping his chin. Better to put distance between them and the—what did he call them? The snoot.

Marisa had been through the tunnel only once before, and in the daylight, and then under the guidance of her father. But she knew the path, she just had to avoid—

Ugh.
It was all she could do to keep from gasping when something bounded over her foot, brushing past her leg and streaking (but fortunately not slithering) away.

Luke squeezed her hand as if to say, “Steady,” and she continued on, holding her glasses in place just in case. Cobwebs and dust stirred, indicating that few, if any others, knew about this escape route. She stepped on something crunchy, then something soft and oozing that made her stomach lurch—and then lurch again when the foul stench reached her nose.

But she navigated to the corner of the car where the side door was. There was a low ridge around it to mark the spot, and she easily found the metal ring that opened it. With her hands and a very few soft words, she explained what had to be done.

Then, together, they pulled open the heavy door slowly, silently, carefully, even as the sound of the bounty hunters' continued search made its way through the walls of the train car.

Things went more easily after that, for they found themselves outside the boxcar—where illumination from the night sky helped light the way—and then navigated along the tunnel that ran through the wall.

The voices of the snoot had become more distant, but the sounds of the zombies were unhappily drawing nearer. The huge oak tree loomed just outside the wall, and its wide-spreading branches scraped the dark blue sky, brushing the stars and moon.

Something moved there, high among the branches. An owl? A wild cat?

Marisa stopped along side the old truck that acted as the last part of the passageway. “Climb through here, and that's it. We're outside.” She reached for the door handle and pulled on it gingerly, but it was soundless. Someone kept it well oiled.

“Wait.” Luke pulled her hand back and looked down at her. “You've brought me this far—there's no reason you need to go out there too. No reason for you to put yourself in that sort of danger.”

“What's so important
you
need to go out there, then?”

Their voices were still very low, and they stood in the middle of the deep barrier surrounded by old vehicles, pieces of metal sheeting, and other junk piled carefully in a strong protective fence. The moon shone down from above, but the walls rose to at least ten feet high on either side. They were safely hidden…for now.

“I…well, Marisa…I haven't been completely honest about—”

It was all she could do to keep her outraged reaction to something less than a shout. Clamping her teeth together, she glared up at him and gave him punctuating shoves in his oh-so-solid chest. “Why—am—I—not—surprised! Have you been honest about
anything
?”

“Okay, look,” he whispered, lifting his hands. “It's not what you think. And I'm trying—it's just a little complicated, and dangerous. Marisa, what I'm involved in is really…it's dangerous.”

“I'm getting that,” she muttered, and removed her hands from his chest before they got too settled there. The light filtered over his thick blond hair, giving him a moonbeam halo. A silvery glaze touched his nose and chin and kissed his lips. Damn, it was difficult to ignore how gorgeous he was in the uneven light—dark and shadowy and powerful, yet soft and glowing and sexy. And earnest, as he began to talk her off the ledge.

“The thing is,” he explained in a low, rapid-fire tone, “I sort of alluded to this earlier. I'm not back here by chance. I was sent here by some guys I know from Envy. They wanted me to do something, and since I'm from River Vale and know the area and the people, they thought I'd be the best person to do it without—er—drawing attention. And so, when I got here, I left the equipment—it's contraband, Marisa; dangerous stuff that if the snoot were to find, well…there'd be a lot of shit hitting the fan. So I left it outside in case I got nabbed, and besides—I didn't want to leave it with anyone here at River Vale and put them in danger as well.”

“What is it?”

“It's called an NAP—network access point. It's for a… Dammit, Marisa, the less you know, the safer you are.”

“
Tell me.
I let you into the secret room—against my better judgment—even though you weren't nearly as injured as you led me to believe. I'm the only one living besides the Waxnickis who know about—”

“Did you say Waxnicki?” Luke grabbed her arms, gaping at her. The whites of his eyes glowed large in the low light.

“You know them?” She fixed her crooked glasses.

“They're why I'm here.
They're
the ones who sent me.”

“Lou and Theo sent you?”

His lips twitched. “How many Waxnickis do you think there are?” The tension seemed to leave him, his grip on her arms relaxing into something more like a caress. Then he released her abruptly. “So you know the Waxnickis. Well, I guess that makes things a little easier.”

“They built the safe-room for Grandma Nell and Dad. He was…he was part of something called the Resistance.”

Luke gave a soft laugh, shaking his head. “I should have known. That secret door contraption has Lou and Theo Waxnicki written all over it.” He paused, then reached up to touch a lock of her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “So you've known about them all along. You're just full of surprises, aren't you?”

Marisa's heart tripped a little at the way his voice dropped. “What did they send you here to do? Are you part of the Resistance too?”

He nodded. “They sent me to set up the NAP. It's a weatherproof device that sits high on a building—usually on a rooftop—and runs on solar power. It's hardly larger than a dictionary, so no one would see it from the ground. It will help the Waxnickis connect computers to each other in what they are calling the new internet. Sort of a communication system.”

Marisa knew, at least in theory, what the internet had been. But the whole idea of being able to talk to anyone, anywhere, at any time, was mind-blowing. And while she knew the Resistance existed, she knew few details. Her father, like Luke, had wanted to protect her.
The less you know, the better.

Yeah, well, that was bullshit—but what could she do about that now?

“So you hid the NAP outside the wall? And now you want to go get it.”

“Right. I'm going to…I want to set it up on top of the Shelby. And then I want to take something—it's a photograph I stole from Marck—back to Envy.”

Something metallic clanged softly, the warning ringing with foreboding through the night. The hair shot up on the back of her neck, and Marisa nearly lurched into Luke's arms.
They're coming,
she mouthed.
They found us!

Let's go
, he replied silently, and tugged her quickly into the truck…then scrambled through, pulling her out into the darkness.

Out beyond the walls of safety.

Out where orange eyes glowed in the shadows.

Chapter Seven

 

Luke could smell them.
The creatures Lou Waxnicki called
gangas
.

The sound of their mournful cries filtered through the night, and he couldn't help but shiver deep inside. In the distance, perhaps only a half-mile away, he saw several pairs of glowing orange points moving closer with jerky but determined intent. The monsters' eyes.

He knew the horror of the creatures from being in their close proximity: the stench emanating from their destroyed bodies, the sight of the gray, rotting, sagging flesh, the horrible tone of their desperate moans.

He'd nearly been carried off by one of them. A female monster, he thought…though Luke wasn't certain what had given him that impression. Something about the way she moved, or her hair?

And if a potty-mouthed woman with a bow and arrow hadn't appeared from nowhere and nailed the creature with one of her weapons, he had no idea what would have become of him, because the zombies didn't tear into blond people. They didn't crack their skulls and devour their brains and flesh.