by Peter Clines
“Maybe because she’s conscious,” St. George suggested. “His powers may need the … the space of an empty mind.”
“Perhaps she doesn’t count as a regular ex,” said Freedom. “Some tweak to the virus or something similar. If Legion’s possession ability is very narrow-ranged, she might fall outside its parameters.”
“According to everything we know,” said Stealth, “the virus never mutates.”
Madelyn tapped her fingers on the tabletop. The rhythm was from a song, something popular before the outbreak, but Freedom couldn’t place it. “So,” she said, “what happens now?”
St. George cleared his throat. “If you’re up for it, I think the doctors want to run some tests on you and try to figure out why you are … well, the way you are.”
“What does that mean?”
“To be honest, I couldn’t tell you. I’m not a doctor.”
“Am I … am I under arrest or anything?”
Freedom straightened up from his chair and shot a look at Stealth. “I don’t think so.”
Madelyn stood up, too, and swayed side to side. She was smaller than all of them. “Can I go out and walk around? It’s been a while since I could just, y’know, walk and not worry about bumping into exes or anything.”
St. George caught the shift in Stealth’s body language. “Maybe we should ease into that,” he said. “Most people probably won’t react well to seeing a dead person inside the walls. Just for now, you shouldn’t go anywhere without an escort.”
“And until we are certain why you are the way you are,” said Stealth, “we should make running tests our main priority.”
Madelyn’s face dropped. “Yeah,” she said, “I could see that.” She looked at St. George. “Where am I going to stay until then?”
“We shall have a room prepared for you here,” said Stealth. “Captain Freedom will set up a liaison for you to take care of whatever needs you may have.”
The dead girl glanced at Freedom and her lips twitched for a moment. “You mean, a guard to watch me.”
“To protect you,” said Freedom.
Madelyn looked ready to say something else when St. George’s earpiece squawked loud enough for them all to hear. He slapped his hand up to block the sound, then yanked the plug out. He held it an inch from his ear. “Calm down, Barry,” he said. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be right there.” He looked at Stealth and Freedom. “You didn’t hear that?”
She shook her head. “What does he need?”
“He says we’ve got to talk in person. It’s urgent.”
St. George found Zzzap in Stage Four, pacing in the air outside the electric chair. Is it true?
“Yeah,” St. George said. “We’ve got an intelligent ex and it’s Dr. Sorensen’s daughter. But we’re not sure how she—”
The other hero shook his head. No, not her. Jarvis was bitten?
The reminder hit St. George in the chest. “Yeah, he was. Sorry. I thought you would’ve heard by now.”
Only rumors on the radio. He glanced at the entertainment center and gave a little nod. His hands did something in front of his chest, a motion lost in the glare of his body. Is he going to make it?
St. George shook his head. “There’s a chance, but probably not. Sorry.”
Zzzap nodded and continued the odd motion with his hands. St. George realized the wraith was tapping his fingers together. He glanced at the television again.
Okay, this is going to sound a little weird but … we need him.
“We need him for what?”
No, not you and me “we.” I mean—yeah, shut up. I’ve got this.
“What?”
His body. When he dies, you can’t destroy his brain. Just strap him to the bed or whatever and let him change.
St. George took in a slow breath. “What the hell are you talking about?”
We just … I need you to trust me on this, okay? Don’t let them put him down.
He looked at Zzzap and tried to inhale the wisp of angry smoke around his nostrils. “How can you even ask something like that?”
Because … The gleaming wraith looked over at the television. Yeah, said Zzzap. I think it’s time we told him.
“Told who what?”
Told you. No, just let me do this my way, okay?
“Okay.”
Zzzap waved a hand at him. Not you, George. Sorry. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while, but we agreed it’d be better to keep it quiet until the opportune moment, so to speak.
St. George felt something twist in his gut. His shoulders slumped. “You’ve been keeping something from me.”
Yeah. I figured you’d notice. Or Stealth.
“She did.”
Zzzap nodded. I really suck at secrets, he admitted. It’s a good thing the world ended or I would’ve blown the whole secret-identity thing inside of a year.
A moment of silence passed.
“So,” said St. George. “Are you talking to … people on the radio again?”
Yeah. No. No, this is me and you.
“You sure?”
What? Yeah, of course.
“Okay. So what’s going on?”
Zzzap stopped tapping his fingers and started pacing in the air again. Okay, he said, you know I don’t really “see” anymore, right? Not when I’m like this, at least. Not the way you do.
“I think so, yeah.”
The wraith nodded. I take in a lot of material from across the spectrum and my mind’s sort of figured out how to process it all as visual information. Visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, radio, television, microwaves, gamma rays … I see all of it.
“Right.”
Okay. Well, see, sometimes, all these things I can see come together in certain ways—certain alignments, you could say—and I can see even more.
St. George crossed his arms. “More how?”
Like a lot more. About a year ago I realized I can see stuff no one else can. Not with any equipment or lenses or anything, because no one’s ever been able to look at the world the way I do.
“Barry, what are you getting at?”
The wraith paced in the air for a few more moments. He made a buzzing noise like a sigh. Then he turned to face St. George.
I see dead people.
I’D BEEN IN the chair for about eight hours when Max came in. I didn’t scream this time, even when he walked through the wall and then through the table my stereo system was on.
I didn’t scream the first time he showed up, either. That time he just walked in through the door and started chatting. It took me a couple minutes to recognize him, and then I just assumed he’d survived somehow and nobody’d ever told me. I mean, it’s what superheroes do, right? We absolutely-for-sure-no-way-out-of-it die and then a few months later we’re back with some miraculous tale of survival. And it had been about four months since George put the demon down, soooo … perfect timing.
I think we’d been talking for fifteen minutes that first time when I realized he wasn’t actually there. And then another minute or two before I realized I was talking to a ghost.
And then I screamed.
People told me I blew out a dozen walkies and five headsets. Stealth was pissed. I told her I’d been watching The Orphanage and gotten freaked out by the old woman who got hit by the bus. One great advantage of the energy form—I’m the only person in the Mount who can lie to Stealth and get away with it. No real body means no real body language.
Anyway, Max.
I’ve got to be honest, I met Max two or three times when he was Cairax, but I always thought all this magic and demons stuff was just some gimmick he had. I mean, there was Nautilus out in Hawaii and a guy over in Iraq who could turn into a dragon, so turning into a big purple, scaly thing wasn’t hard to believe. I figured he had some sort of mass hypnosis or psychokinesis power, made up this sorcerer story, and then was just one of those people who refuse to break character, even on their downtime. Like Schreck in Shadow of the Vampire.
Needless t
o say, being a ghost gave Max’s sorcerer story a lot more weight in my book.
Anyway, hanging out for the past three months had killed all the thrill of talking to a ghost. Today he showed up and he was bored and chatty. It was a common thing for us. People could see and hear me, but I was trapped in the electric chair all day. He could go anywhere, but nobody could see, hear, or feel him.
He glanced at the racks of DVDs. “Do you have anything new?”
George brought over a couple things the other day.
“Well, let’s start the show.”
One problem, I told him. I’ve still got the third season of Smallville in the player. The new stuff’s not loaded yet. And since neither of us can touch anything …
“Damn it.” He reached up and scratched his head. It was always a little disturbing when he did that, since he didn’t have a head or a hand to scratch it with. I figured it was like how I could see radio messages.
You could just go watch somewhere else, I offered.
“Nah,” he said. “It’s weird just sitting there with people. And they never laugh at my jokes.”
Your jokes aren’t that funny, I said.
“So, no movie.” He twiddled his fingers in the air. “You want to practice the symbols again?”
I know we should, but not really.
“Y’know, I’ve told you before, you don’t have to do the whole buzzing-air thing for me. Your thoughts are pretty easy to pick up when you’re like this.”
Yeah, and that’s not weird at all.
“Says the man who gets radio messages beamed straight into his brain.”
That’s different.
“Not by much,” said Max. “I mean, it’s pretty much what we’re doing now.”
Well, I said, I’m still getting used to it.
“It’s been a couple of months now.”
You have to admit, this isn’t exactly an everyday thing. And I say this as a guy who more or less turns into a small star.
“Which is why I’d think you’d have an easier time adjusting to it than someone like Geor—ahh, speak of the devil.” Max’s eyes moved past me and he started to chuckle.
I turned around. George was standing halfway between the door and the electric chair. It looked like he was wearing a Prince Valiant wig. Then I realized it was his hair. I remembered today was the day of the big haircut.
Wow, I said. They really did a number on you.
“I feel like I should call him Christopher Robin,” said Max.
“Who were you talking to?” asked St. George.
Nobody, I said.
“Not suspicious at all,” snorted Max.
I shrugged and waved my arm at the air. People. On the radio.
George nodded and ran a hand through his hair. “So, how’s it look?”
You know what’s big after the Zombocalypse? I told him. Hats.
“Seriously.”
“It looks like you got mugged by a hairdresser with some mother issues,” said Max.
I glanced at Max and tried not to laugh. Remember when you were a little kid and your mom always made you get that page boy–looking haircut?
George blinked. “How’d you know?”
It’s what every mom did.
“So it looks like that?”
“It’s so much worse than that,” said Max.
Yeah, it’s a little worse, I agreed. It’s like a blind person tried to do a page boy with a pair of hedge clippers.
Max chuckled. George sighed. “Great.”
I stretched in what I hoped was a casual way and fed some power into the electric chair. You still heading out?
“Yeah. You still nervous?”
I shrugged and Max caught my eye again. He was walking around George, examining the Prince Valiant look from every angle. “Doing this to his hair rated giving out raffle tickets?”
It’s a big thing, I said.
Max chuckled.
I looked at George. You and I have been over to the Valley a few times but really no one’s gone there in almost two years. Hell, I think Danielle was the last one there when she came over with her Marines.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to call them ‘her Marines.’ ”
Whatever.
“We’ve got to go sometime,” said George. “We’ve cleaned out everything we can find on this side of the hills. Now it’s either the beach or the Valley, and the Valley’s got a lot more resources.”
“A lot of exes, too,” said Max.
I know, I said, not really sure which of them I was answering. You have to admit, though, it’s just kind of weird. I’ve gotten used to the Valley being “somewhere else,” y’know?
George nodded. “There seems to be a lot of that going around,” he said. “We’re getting … insular, I guess. Is that the right word?”
Max nodded and I copied him. Yeah.
“Plus I just had a talk with Billie about the Seventeens. We’ve got to start including them more, starting now. She’s going to have one of them come out with us.”
Really?
Max scowled. “Seriously? Why not just park the truck and open up the back so the exes can get in?”
I remember I thought hard about Max shutting up. He was so lonely and so excited to have someone to talk to, it was tough for him to stop talking sometimes. And sometimes it made it really hard for me to hide the fact there was someone else in the room. So I thought about it really hard, and maybe one or two folks in the area even heard “Stop talking” come over their walkies.
Max heard it. “Sorry,” he said, because we’d talked about it before. He turned away and went to examine the CD collection he’d memorized a month ago.
I tried to remember the last thing George had said. Something about the Seventeens. I went with an easy cover. You sure you don’t want me coming out with you?
George shook his head. “We’ll be fine. This way you can keep Danielle powered up here and still make it out to us if anything goes wrong.”
Assuming you have time to set off a flare.
“If we don’t have time to set off a flare, there’s not much you’d be able to do anyway.” He held up his hand and counted off three fingers. “Remember, red is trouble, blue we need you but it’s not urgent, white means we’re spending the night over there.”
The thought of sleeping with exes all around creeped me out. When I get to sleep, I’m out cold. And when I’m human, I can’t feel anything from my thighs down. An ex could chew on my legs for an hour and I could sleep through it. That’s vulnerable in a way lots of people don’t get. It was a recurring nightmare for a while, right after we started fighting the exes but before everything collapsed.
Better you than me, I told George.
He nodded. “Hey, it’s my last choice, too.” He knew about my nightmares. I’d shared them a few months ago during a Freddy Krueger marathon. He told me he had one now and then where zombie children were overwhelming him.
That’s the sort of guy George is. He trusts you. You trust him.
Actually, I said, do you have a minute?
He nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.
Max perked up.
I’d seen enough movies to know this was the point where so many people get ignored. They’ve got something important to say and they come up with the dumbest possible way to say it. I didn’t want to be one of those guys.
Okay, I said, a couple months ago I saw something weird—
And suddenly Max was there between us. “Please don’t,” he said.
Trust me, I told him.
St. George nodded. “Something weird. Got it.”
“He’s not ready to hear this, Barry,” said Max. “And you’ve got no way to prove it.”
I started to say something and bit my lip. So to speak. I think it makes a little sizzling sound in the air.
“You’ve got no physical evidence I’m here,” the ghost said. “None at all. And you know
Stealth is going to demand proof once St. George tells her. So at best they’re going to think you’re making it up and wasting their time.”
I knew he was right. We’d had this conversation a dozen times already. This was the second time we’d done it one-sided in front of George. Once it was in front of Danielle. Heck, I’d just been having it in my own head.
“At worse, they think you’re losing it,” said Max. “And once they start thinking that, we’ll never convince them when we’re ready to do everything else.”
Yeah, I said without thinking.
“We’ve got to wait until we can prove it.”
George was still waiting.
You know what, I told him, you’ve got stuff to do.
“Sooooo … you didn’t see something weird?”
It was just … just a movie. I wanted to tell you about it. It can wait.
Max sighed in relief.
George nodded. “Okay. Maybe if we find some microwave popcorn out there we can do a movie night or something this weekend. We haven’t just hung out in a few weeks.”
I smiled, even though it’s wasted in the energy form. Well, I’ve been hanging out, I said with a wave at the electric chair.
He smirked. “Got to go. I’m supposed to check in with Stealth before we head out. We’re trying the chain mail today.”
Excellent, I said. If it works out, tell everyone I’m going to be pushing for a reenactment of Lord of the Rings. With all the stuff Peter Jackson left out.
He chuckled and stepped outside. I could see him through the walls. His aura flared and he sailed into the sky. I’ve always meant to tell him it does that.
And then I remembered the other important thing. Damn it, I mutter.
“What?”
I forgot to have him put the new DVDs in.
Max laughed. “Thanks for not telling him,” he said. “I know it’s a pain, lying to him.”
It’d be easier if you’d stop trying to butt into every conversation.
“Sorry.”
I nodded. So, we’ve got no new movies, I said. Let’s start figuring how we’re going to prove you’re real.
“Sounds good to me.”
Two smart guys like us, I said, how long could it take?
