Free Night Beyond The Night by Joss Ware Page B

perhaps not.
    Perhaps something else had happened to them.
    “Is that a lake over there?” Fence asked, pointing toward the setting sun. They were standing on a high point just beyond the mountain pass.
    Elliott turned and saw nothing but gray-blue ridges of low mountains; but, then, he wasn’t Fence.
    “I don’t see nothing,” said one of the boys. “But Envy’s right by the ocean.” He pointed. “See that bit of light? That’s Envy.”
    Elliott saw the patch of lights. From the size of the cluster, it looked like a fairly large settlement. And if they wanted to get there before dark, they’d better hurry.
    “The ocean,” Fence murmured. Elliott, who walked just behind him, could almost hear the wheels turning. “But that’s not right. It can’t be.” He looked at the boy who’d answered him. “How do you know it’s an ocean?”
    “Salt water,” Geoff said. His voice held a cocky edge that Elliott could relate to from his own youth.
    Apparently even the apocalypse hadn’t changed teenaged attitude.
    “The Great Salt Lake maybe?” Fence murmured, mostly to himself. He’d paused walking and Elliott saw that he’d closed his eyes. “That might make more sense. But no . . . we’re too far west.”
    “It’s an ocean,” Geoff said. “Not a lake. Seashells.” The
duh
remained unspoken, but hung there nevertheless.
    “We’re not that far west,” Fence replied.
    Before they could continue, a strange trumpeting sound filled the air. Elliott turned toward the noise. No way.
    “Bloody hell, that sounded like an elephant,” said Quent.
    “Yeah. There’s a big herd of ’em,” said Marcus, one of the other boys. “They live here.” As if a herd of elephants were as common as deer.
    “No fucking way,” Simon replied.
    “Where the hell are we, Fence?” asked Elliott.
    They reached the bottom of the incline and one of the girls stopped and pointed to the southwest. “See?”
    And there, silhouetted by the orange ball of sun were the very definite outlines of four elephants, looking like something out of
The Lion King
. They trumpeted again, and in what became clear was a warning, they began to stampede into the darkness, trumpeting and thundering and stirring up dirt.
    Fortunately, they were running away from their path . . . but the distant roar that overrode the sound of elephantine steps had Elliott stopping cold. No way.
    “Tiger?”
    “That or a lion,” said Wyatt. “And I’m not thinking mountain, though I wouldn’t want to meet an angry one of those either. Christ. Elephants,
gangas
, tigers. Where the hell are we?”
    No one mentioned Kansas. That joke had become old six fucking months ago.
    The lights were closer now, for they’d kept up their pace despite the fascinating zoological sights.
    Was that the . . . Statue of Liberty?
    It was crooked as all hell. And bent.
    But, unfuckingbelievable, it looked like the damned Statue of Liberty.
    The small cluster of lights around and below it glittered like gems of red, blue, yellow, green, and white. This was definitely the largest—or at least, the most well-lit—settlement they’d seen in their year of wandering.
    “Holy shit,” Fence said. “The Statue of Liberty? No fucking way, man. I’m not that confused.”
    At that moment, Elliott saw the shape of a massive golden lion, looming like an off-kilter shadow in the darkness, beyond the lights. And a collection of huge toy-castle turrets, silhouetted against the orange sun.
    Then suddenly Simon started laughing. A little crazily.
    “It’s Vegas, you ass-wipes. We’re in fucking Las Vegas.”

Chapter 6
    New Vegas, N.V, or Envy—whatever the hell you wanted to call it—wasn’t exactly Sin City.
    It was half of Sin City.
    Less than half.
    Elliott blinked again and resisted the urge to rub his eyes.
    According to Geoff, the same devastation that had annihilated pretty much all of California also destroyed most of Las Vegas.
    Which explained the ocean.
    The ocean that now