Ex-Communication: A Novel

by Peter Clines

  An ex reached for St. George. He grabbed the claw-like hand and swung the dead thing into the air, bringing it around like a club. He swung it once to the left and once back to the right, knocking down a dozen zombies as he did. The ex broke apart on his third swing, its cartilage crumbling like old jerky.

  He spread his arms wide and marched away from the truck. He caught three exes against himself. The one by his face was a Latina with chalky eyes and no helmet. The dead woman tried to bite his face and its teeth scraped off his nose. St. George snapped his head forward to crack its skull.

  The ex slumped against him and was pinned there when he walked it back into another one. He was pushing six exes at two steps, ten of them at four, and by the time he shrugged them off almost twenty exes were knocked to the ground.

  They were already closing back in around him. He leaped into the air and they reached after him with withered fingers. He pushed himself through the air, back to the truck, and a half-dozen exes tipped over as they tried to twist and follow him. A tall one latched onto his boot and he dragged it a few yards before it dropped away.

  “Son of a bitch!” shouted Jarvis. There was a sharp edge to his voice. The older man kicked his leg and swung his rifle down to shoot something on the ground. At point-blank range, its helmet did nothing against a rifle round. St. George got a quick look at the twisted thing before its head exploded. It was the ex Big Blue had run over, still wearing the red-flecked glasses. It had used its one good arm to crawl under the swerving truck to where Jarvis stood.

  The salt-and-pepper man swore again. A wet stain blossomed on his left calf, just above his boot. He stumbled and grabbed the edge of the lift gate as the truck shifted gears again.

  He’d been bitten. Bad, from the look of it.

  “Get him in the truck,” shouted St. George. “Now!” He flew down, grabbed another ex that had gotten close to Jarvis, and hurled it away.

  Taylor had been part of the same super-soldier program that had given Captain Freedom his enhanced physique. He wasn’t anywhere near as powerful as Freedom, but he was still three or four times stronger than most of the people in Los Angeles. He grabbed Jarvis by the collar, heaved, and set him down in the back of the truck. Bee leaped down from the top of the cab and pulled a first-aid kit from her shoulder bag.

  Big Blue lurched back and Cerberus stepped up onto the lift gate. The truck’s suspension sagged and squealed. “Go,” shouted Ilya, banging on the back of the cab.

  St. George hurled back a last few exes as the truck surged forward. He grabbed one ex by the throat, a dark-skinned woman with a gash in her cheek. The corpse smirked at him.

  “Still feel smart, dragon man?”

  It let out a coarse chuckle. The hero brought his fist around and shattered the dead woman’s jaw. The laugh echoed from a dozen exes around him. He lashed out and destroyed four more. Legion laughed at him the whole time.

  Big Blue was a block away and picking up speed. St. George flew after the truck and landed in the bed next to Cerberus. “How bad is it?”

  “Just a scratch,” Jarvis said through clenched teeth.

  “It’s bad,” said Bee. “Think it might’ve hit a vein.” She was crouched next to Jarvis. Hector de la Vega was across from her. He’d slashed open the bloody jeans to expose the bite and held the leg up in the air.

  The ex hadn’t taken any meat, but it had sunk its teeth in deep. Bee washed the wound clean with a bottle of water and half the liquid ran down to stain Jarvis’s crotch. For a moment the ragged bite pattern was visible on his calf and some of the loose flesh flopped back and forth like a dying fish. Then more blood streamed out and splashed onto the wooden planks that made up the back of the truck. She pulled a second bottle from her pack, hydrogen peroxide, and the wound sizzled. Jarvis hissed and twisted his face.

  Bee tore his jeans open more, felt her way up his leg, and pushed her fingers into his inner thigh. The salt-and-pepper man grunted and set his jaw. “Sorry,” she said. “Got to slow the blood flow.”

  “Cheer up,” said Hector. “Least they’re not cutting limbs off anymore.”

  “Yeah,” said Bee. “Now first aid just means I grope you for the ride home.”

  Jarvis forced a grim smile. “It too late to request the amputation?”

  “Watch it,” she shot back. She slapped a wad of gauze over the bite with her free hand and pressed down hard. The gauze turned red under her fingers.

  The truck rolled past a grocery-store parking lot. A few exes between the dusty cars turned their heads to follow the vehicle. They took staggering steps to chase it but it had already driven on before they covered a few feet.

  St. George’s eyes went from the older man’s grimace to the puddle of blood. Drops rained into it. It was the size of a dinner platter and still growing.

  Cerberus loomed over the operation like a statue, held steady in the swaying truck by her gyros. “It’s going to take us at least an hour to get back,” she told St. George.

  “I know.”

  “You’re going to have to fly him.”

  “I know.” He set a hand on Lady Bee’s shoulder. “Tie it off,” he said.

  She nodded and let go of the gauze. In a moment she’d pulled a rubber tube from her kit and wrapped it around the wounded man’s thigh. She pulled it tight and knotted it. The bloody gauze sloughed off and splatted into the puddle.

  St. George bent down and gathered the wounded man into his arms like a child. Bee pressed two fresh pads against the bite and wrapped them with a bandage. It took a little longer for them to turn red. They all knew that could be good or bad.

  “Jesus, this is embarrassing,” said Jarvis. He sounded drunk.

  “Could be worse,” said St. George. “You ever ride a motorcycle?”

  “Not since I was a dumb kid.”

  “Just keep your eyes closed. It’s going to be cold up there but it’ll only take us a few minutes. We’ll be moving fast, so the wind’ll be the worst part.” He glanced up at Cerberus and back to the scavengers. “You guys going to be okay?”

  “We’ll be fine,” said Ilya.

  St. George shot up into the sky. He carried Jarvis up above the buildings, until they were higher than the hills and could see Hollywood proper on the other side. He took a moment to orient himself off the larger landmarks, found the Cinerama Dome, and followed the street another block to the corner of the Big Wall.

  The same corner he’d beat Legion back from a few nights earlier.

  “Damn,” said Jarvis. He shivered in the chill air. “Forgot to tell you I’m scared of heights.”

  “Yeah,” said St. George, “you should’ve brought that up. Hang on.”

  He focused between his shoulders and the Valley rushed below them like a speeding river. Jarvis tensed in his arms, and the older man’s white-streaked beard flattened against his face. His skin looked pale, but St. George wasn’t sure if it was from the flight or the wound.

  He raced past the NBC Universal building, over the Bowl to Hollywood and Highland, and then dove toward the Wall. He caught a quick glimpse of the sentries and then he sank through the air to the Hollywood Community Hospital.

  Churches and apartments weren’t the only thing the people of the Mount had gained when the Big Wall went up. They had a real hospital now, a six-story white building with full facilities and offices. It was another symbolic structure, even if it was undersupplied and understaffed.

  The guards looked up when they heard his jacket rustle above them and focused on Jarvis in his arms. After the outer walls, the hospital was the most guarded place in the Mount. Armed men and women stood ready for when a patient died. It was their job to put a bullet between the eyes of each dead body before the ex-virus reanimated it.

  “Wounded man,” called St. George. “Make a path.” His boots touched the pavement and the guards stepped aside, pulling the doors open as they did. He marched past them.

  The lobby was dominated by the large warning sign they’d brou
ght from the old Zukor building, listing potential symptoms of infection. Another symbol. St. George shouted for a doctor while he headed for the emergency rooms.

  Jarvis looked up at him. “Boss,” he said, “you got to promise me one thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You know what.”

  “Yeah, don’t worry about it. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I don’t come back. Don’t let it happen.”

  “Nobody comes back. You know that.”

  “I don’t want my body stumbling around drunk, embarrassing me. Hurting anyone. Y’all make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “It won’t happen if you don’t get drunk next weekend.”

  “I ain’t joking.”

  “Neither am I,” said St. George. “Nobody comes back.”

  SERGEANT EDDIE FRANKLIN, sometimes called Doc Ed despite all his protests, took in the ragged jeans with a glance and peeled the gauze pads away from Jarvis’s leg. The skin around the bite was pale and clammy. “How long ago?”

  “Maybe ten minutes,” said St. George.

  “Did he hook onto you, sir,” the doctor asked Jarvis, “or’d you get him off quick?” Like most of the former soldiers, Franklin was still formally polite with most people. He’d been a combat medic with the 456th Unbreakables, which made him close enough to a doctor for most people at the Mount.

  “Not even two seconds,” said St. George. “He kicked it right off.”

  “And then shot it,” added Jarvis.

  Franklin had two fingers against the salt-and-pepper man’s throat and a palm on his forehead. “You’re cold.”

  “I was just a thousand feet up in the air doing a hundred miles an hour. Damn right I’m cold.”

  Franklin nodded and pushed the gurney down the hallway to a room. St. George followed for a moment, but knew he’d only be in the way. He found Jarvis’s eyes. The older man gave him a smile and a thumbs-up. Then the doors closed and he vanished.

  One of the guards outside tapped his headset. “East Gate’s calling for you, boss.”

  The hero bit back a sigh and nodded. He dug his earpiece out of his pocket and looped it over his ear. “Go for St. George.”

  “Hey, boss,” said a voice. It took him a moment to recognize Elena, one of the regular wall guards. “Heard chatter you were back. Got a minute?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What do you need?”

  There was a brief pause. “I think it might be better if you came out here to see. East Gate.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there in five.” He pulled the earpiece off. For a moment he thought about crushing it. Then he thought about setting fire to every ex outside the Big Wall. And then he thought about just finding Stealth and curling up in bed for a day or two.

  Someone cleared their throat. “Jarvis going to be okay?” asked one of the men in front of the hospital.

  St. George met his gaze. “I don’t know. Maybe. He was bitten.”

  The guards sighed and shook their heads. “Damn,” said the man. “That sucks. I really liked Jarvis.”

  “Everyone likes Jarvis,” said St. George. He thought about crushing the earpiece again. Instead he focused and soared up above the buildings.

  The East Gate was a misleading name. It was still just a solid line of stacked cars running north to south through the center of Melrose and Western. Where the gate would someday be was marked with a few bright lines of yellow spray paint. Since the scavengers had done most of their work on the east half of the city already, the East Gate was the last side of the Big Wall scheduled to get a working entrance.

  Elena, Derek, and a bald man St. George didn’t recognize waited on the wooden platform at the top of the stairs. They had an oversized umbrella and a few big chairs from the nearby furniture store set up there. All three of them looked out at the intersection of Melrose and Western. A few hundred exes staggered in the street between a bank and a storage center. Building the Big Wall had used up so many cars the roads around the barricade were wide, empty spaces.

  His feet thumped on the platform and they turned. “Hey, boss,” said Derek.

  “What’s up?”

  “Something kinda weird,” said Elena. Her finger stretched out and pointed down Melrose. “See the white building a block down on the right, just after the red one?”

  St. George nodded. From his angle, the building looked like a large house or maybe a small apartment building. Curved bars that looked more decorative than functional stretched over the windows.

  “Okay. Keep an eye on it.” Elena took in a deep breath and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey!” she shouted. “You still there?”

  Her voice echoed down the street and the exes at the base of the Wall shifted their focus to her. Their heads leaned back and their hands stretched up toward her. Their snapping jaws got more frantic. Another two dozen or so moved toward the wall and joined the mob flailing for the humans on the platform.

  A block away, an arm stretched out between the bars of one of the second-story windows. It waved up and down a few times. “I’m here,” a voice yelled back. It sounded female. “They’re still all around the door.”

  “Hang on just a little longer!” Elena shouted back. “Someone’s coming soon.”

  “Okay.”

  St. George watched the arm slip back into the building. “Why didn’t you send a team out for her?”

  “We almost did,” said the bald man. “Then Derek noticed the exes.”

  The hero glanced down at the crowd of undead. “Are they doing something odd?”

  “Not exactly,” Derek said. “They’re not doing anything.”

  St. George looked out at the street for a moment and then his brow furrowed. His eyes went from the flailing exes below the platform to the ones down the street. There were at least a dozen of them in front of the white building, still milling around. “They aren’t, are they?”

  “At first we thought it might be acoustics or something, the way her voice echoes between the buildings,” said Elena. “Maybe it was confusing them. But we’ve been talking to her for two hours now, and it’s been a good hour since we started watching the exes for reactions.”

  Derek nodded. “Someone shouts at the top of their lungs, waves their arms around, and not one single zombie heads in her direction. Just seemed wrong.”

  “Yeah,” said St. George. “Good call, not going to check it out.”

  “You think it might be Legion setting up another trap?” asked Elena.

  “Doesn’t sound like him,” said the bald man. “He always talks with an accent.”

  “It better not be,” said the hero, “if he knows what’s good for him.” He took a few steps and launched himself into the air, sailing across the street. Some of the exes reached up and made feeble attempts to grab at him, even though he was well out of their reach.

  He drifted over and above the storage building so he could come at the white building from the back. The curved bars were only on the street side of the building, and it took a moment to find a second-story window that had been smashed at some point in the past few years. He spun in the air and slid into the building feetfirst.

  He was in a bedroom. A withered body stretched across the bed. It had been there for a long time, long enough St. George couldn’t tell if it had been a man or a woman. He guessed the pistol and the dark stain on the far wall had been there just as long. Had they lost someone they couldn’t live without, the hero wondered, or just decided they didn’t want to risk the exes getting them? How long were they living here after the dead rose?

  It crossed his mind that whoever it was could’ve been here even while the heroes were setting up the Mount. Someone just a hair too far away to hear the sounds of safety, or too scared to raise their voice and call for help. He wondered, not for the first time, how many other people he’d just missed saving during the outbreak.

  The bedroom door was open and he walked out into the hall. The carpet muffled his boots. It was
a small apartment. Bigger than the one he’d had before the Zombocalypse, less than a mile from here, but not by a huge amount. The far end of the hall looked like a bathroom, across from him was a kitchen. At the front of the house was a living room, or maybe another bedroom.

  A stairwell down to a ground-floor door had been blocked with an upended table and a few chairs. They weren’t dusty. It was a recent barricade.

  He heard something move, and the shadows in the living room shifted. A few strides carried him down the hall. He peeked into the room, then took a single step in.

  Across the room from him, staring out the window, was a small woman. He guessed woman from her hips and general build. She had on two or three layers of ragged, mismatched clothes, and another layer that was pure dust and dirt. Some long locks of dark hair hung out from under a Red Sox cap she wore backward. A sequin-covered sneaker dangled from her waist and glittered in the afternoon light streaming in the window.

  Sitting near her on a coffee table was an overstuffed duffel bag. It had just as much dirt on it as she did. The shoulder strap had been padded with an old towel and wrapped in duct tape. She’d spread a sleeping bag across the couch.

  “Hey,” said St. George.

  The woman shrieked and spun around. A pair of oversized sunglasses hid her eyes, the square ones elderly people wore over their regular glasses. She’d tried to hide her size and age with the layers of clothes. St. George bet she was twenty, absolute tops. Probably not even out of high school. If high school was still in session anywhere.

  When she saw him standing there she fumbled at her belt and pulled out a revolver. It was huge in her hands. “Where did you come from?”

  He tipped his head back down the hall. “Through the bedroom window.”

  The girl took another deep breath and calmed herself. She leveled the pistol at his head. “We’re on the second floor,” she said. “I’ve been watching the street. Where did you come from?” Her lips curled down. “Have you been here all along? Were you watching me sleep?”