An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  Cairax Murrain didn’t blink. It lashed out with its talons and followed through with a swing from its tail. The stinger tore through the air and missed Zzzap by inches. He let off another bolt of raw power that singed the demon’s horns.

  The monster laughed at him. The needle-like teeth sounded like knives being sharpened. “Poor little cripple,” it said, “do you think your pale heat is anything compared to the fires of the Abyss?”

  Apparently not, said the gleaming wraith. So I guess there’s no reason to hold back.

  He threw both palms forward and the night turned to high noon.

  The blast washed over the demon like a tidal wave. The pavement around it turned to liquid tar and boiled away. A manhole cover melted to slag. So did a nearby car.

  Freedom threw his arms across his face. So did Madelyn. St. George clenched his eyes shut and felt the heat of a sunburn on his face. Even Stealth and Max paused.

  The world turned white as light and heat poured out of Zzzap. The paint on the buildings caught fire, and then the concrete itself. The air roared. A dozen nearby exes charred and collapsed into dust that was whipped away by superheated winds.

  When it was over the wraith sagged in the sky for a moment. His brightness faded. Then he seemed to take a deep breath and straighten up in the sky.

  What was left of Cairax Murrain swayed back and forth in a crater stretching across four of the street’s six lanes and part of the sidewalk. Steam boiled from a few long-dead sewer pipes that glowed red-hot. The gravel and sand beneath the road had fused into a glassy surface.

  The body was a twisted thing of gristle and charred bone. Three of the horns were blackened stumps. One eye had boiled away, the other had taken on the dull hue of an ex. The molten floor of the pit had cooled around its ankles. Zzzap wasn’t sure if the faint hiss was breathing or the sound of sizzling meat.

  Then the scraps of muscle bubbled and expanded. Flesh wrapped around the skeletal frame. A new eye swelled up and filled the empty socket.

  Son of a bitch, said Zzzap.

  Cairax Murrain shook its head as the last patches of purple skin healed across its frame. The floor of the crater shattered as it pulled one leg free and then the other. It looked up at the gleaming wraith and its face split in a grin of tusks and fangs. “A valiant attempt, my poor little cripple,” it hissed, “but this is such a marvelous host Maxwell has found me.”

  The demon stalked forward, its long legs carrying him up and out of the pit.

  Captain Freedom tossed aside his cracked helmet. He knew he’d never get another one in his size—double extra large was custom headgear and there were no more quartermasters. He shook his head, blinked a few times, and glanced around. The arm of his coat was singed and smoking. Zzzap was fighting Cairax Murrain—the demon had Regenerator’s powers, all right. And then Freedom saw what he wanted by the rear tire of a truck.

  He snatched up Lady Liberty. There was no sign of the drum he’d been loading. Depending on where it had landed, the whole thing might’ve cooked off during Zzzap’s light show. He pulled a fresh one from his belt. He only had one more drum left after this one. Half his ammo gone already.

  The drum locked into place. Freedom leaped into the air and his boots slammed into the demon’s back right between the shoulder blades. He grabbed one of the long spikes running down Cairax’s back to steady himself and slammed Lady Liberty’s muzzle against the scaly neck.

  He pulled the trigger and the demon roared. The twelve-gauge rounds, blessed and anointed by the last known priest left in the world, ripped huge gouges out of the purple flesh. The kickback was enormous. No firearm was meant for continuous point-blank fire. A normal man would’ve lost fingers to the bucking weapon, and possibly shattered his wrist.

  Then Cairax reached up and wrapped its spidery fingers around Freedom’s arm. The demon twisted the huge pistol up and away. The captain held on to the spike for a moment with a steel-like grip, but the demon tore him away. It pulled Freedom off its back.

  Freedom dangled by his arm for a moment, then lashed out with a kick that cracked two of the demon’s teeth. He pulled his boot back and lashed out again with his heel. It connected, but the demon pulled him away, holding him at arm’s length.

  Cairax’s wounds were already healing, bubbling shut. New teeth pushed up through its gums to replace the broken ones. “Tell me, bright little soul,” it said, “how does it feel to fail yet again?”

  “I’m with the U.S. Army,” snarled Freedom. “We don’t know how to—”

  The demon slammed the huge officer into the ground and flung him away. Freedom smashed into the charred remains of a bus and tumbled to the pavement next to the glassy crater. He didn’t move.

  Then Cairax turned and glared up at Zzzap. Cold flames boiled out of its eyes. “This game bores me, little cripple. It is time to end it.”

  “Oh, God,” said Madelyn as Freedom crashed into the ground.

  “Get back,” St. George told her. He thrashed at his bonds again.

  “Hold on,” she said. “I’m going to try cutting them with the swor—”

  “No, get back!”

  Madelyn looked up and saw Max racing at them with Stealth right behind him. The dead girl twisted to get behind St. George, but the sorcerer had her by the wrist. She swung around and punched Max in the nose. He snarled and wrenched her arm back behind her. Madelyn fought but he grabbed her other shoulder and dragged her around to block Stealth.

  “Back off,” he snapped. His tattooed hand came up and he pressed his palm against her throat. Two of his fingers curled under his hand to touch her collarbone.

  Stealth halted a few yards from him. Momentum carried her cape forward to wrap around her and swipe at Madelyn’s legs.

  “I’ll break her neck,” said Max. “Internal decapitation. You’re fast, but I can sever her spine in half a dozen places before you reach me. She’ll be an undead quadriplegic.”

  Madelyn tried to twist away but he pushed her arm up even farther behind her back. It was a sharp pain that made her dead nerves spike into life.

  Stealth’s batons spun in her hands and collapsed. She slotted them back into their holsters. Another flick of her wrists and the Glocks were back in her hands.

  Max put pressure on Madelyn’s arm and placed himself a bit more behind her. “You have no idea how desperate I am,” he said. “Don’t try anything.”

  The cloaked woman’s fingers moved between her pistols and her belt as she exchanged spent magazines for fresh ones. She did each weapon one-handed. It was the quick, effortless motion of someone who’d practiced something thousands of times and then done it a thousand more. She never looked away from him.

  “Let her go, Max,” shouted St. George.

  “Drop the guns and step away,” the sorcerer told Stealth. “I’m counting to three, and if you haven’t I’m going to—”

  Her left pistol came up and shot Madelyn three times in the chest. The dead girl’s eyes went wide. So did Max’s.

  “What the hell?!” shouted St. George.

  Max let go of Madelyn and staggered back. Blood stained the front of his shirt. He tried to speak and coughed up a few dark red drops.

  “She was already dead,” said Stealth.

  Madelyn wheezed twice and reached up to touch her chest. “Okay,” she squeaked, “that felt really weird.” Air whistled out of the holes in her shirt when she spoke. She poked a finger at one of them.

  Stealth stepped past the dead girl and swept Max’s wobbly legs out from under him. He hit the pavement and coughed up more blood. She reached down, pushed his arms out of the way, and pistol-whipped him across the jaw. One of his teeth skittered across the pavement and he slumped.

  The cords holding St. George turned to liquid. He hit the ground as they splashed on the street. He shook his wrists and took a few awkward steps. “You okay?”

  Madelyn looked up from her bloodless wounds. “Yeah,” she beamed. “Try telling me this isn’t a superpower.”


  He looked at the cloaked woman. “Kind of risky.”

  “Not at all,” said Stealth. “His abilities are most likely some form of psychic projection. It stood to reason their effects would cease if he lost consciousness.”

  “Yeah,” said St. George. “About that …”

  The clicking of teeth rose up over the sound of Zzzap’s superheated energy bolts. Hundreds of exes shuffled across the line of Max’s barriers. Their jaws snapped open and shut as they headed toward the heroes.

  CAPTAIN FREEDOM SAT up and felt something flare in his side. A broken rib, maybe two. Fractured at the very least. He’d had enough of them over his career to know the feeling.

  The sky flared with blue lightning and he heard the clicking of teeth beneath the rumble of thunder. Whatever had been keeping the exes off this city block had vanished, and now they were shambling toward him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some of them stumble toward the demon. Cairax was swatting Zzzap and didn’t seem to notice.

  Freedom risked a glance behind him past the glassy crater. Stealth and Madelyn had St. George free. The sorcerer was down. They were about ninety seconds from being overrun with exes themselves.

  Lady Liberty had maybe five or six rounds left in her, plus one drum on his belt. He didn’t want to waste the ammunition on the undead, but he also wasn’t sure how much longer he’d need to hold off the demon.

  The first of the exes closed in on him. It was a noseless man in a gore-splattered lab coat, a former doctor or scientist. Then Freedom saw the grocery store name tag and realized the dead man had been a butcher. The ex reached for him and he grabbed both its wrists in one hand. It bent its jaws to his knuckles and he cracked its forehead with one punch. He swung the withered body around and hurled it at Cairax Murrain.

  The demon was still looking in his direction, even while fighting Zzzap. The knife-like talons lashed out and caught the corpse in midair, slicing it in half.

  Freedom looked at the approaching wave of undead. The cracked ribs flared as he turned. His legs flexed and he hurled himself away from the crater.

  As he landed a dozen exes reached the edge where he’d been. They tumbled in. The first few hit the glassy floor with the loud cracks of breaking jaws and noses. The dead made no attempt to break their fall. Some of them crawled away before the second wave fell on top of them, but not many. In a minute the pit had become a mass of undead limbs and chattering teeth.

  Three other exes reached Freedom. He lashed out with his massive fists, breaking teeth and skulls and glad for his Kevlar gloves. The zombies dropped around him, but there was a small pack of six or seven headed his way. Two of them wore bloodstained police vests, even though only one was wearing a uniform.

  There was another hiss of superheated air from off to his left. Cairax Murrain was saying something to Zzzap, but Freedom couldn’t understand it over the sounds of shuffling feet, clicking teeth, and sizzling pavement. He glanced right and saw St. George scoop up the sorcerer’s body.

  Freedom pulled out Lady Liberty and fired off two bursts at the pack of exes, emptying the drum. He aimed low. The shells blew out knees and shattered shins. Four of the zombies collapsed, and two more fell on top of them. It gave him a few moments, but there were still more coming.

  Stealth caught his eye as he reloaded. It was hard to be sure with her mask and cloak, especially in the dark, but the woman seemed to be staring at him. She made a series of quick gestures and Freedom realized she was using Army Field Manual hand signals. And at least two unique to the Unbreakables.

  She repeated her instructions. He signaled his understanding.

  St. George leaped into the air. He set Max down on the roof of Trader Joe’s. The sorcerer was safe from exes, but he’d die if they didn’t get him to a hospital soon.

  “You can’t beat it,” wheezed Max. A few drops of blood came up with the words. He looked pale. “You don’t have the tools.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  Max shook his head. It was a loose gesture without much control behind it. “No chance,” he muttered. “Why bother?”

  “Because if we didn’t try,” St. George said, “we’d be no better than you.”

  He floated down to the ground. Madelyn and Stealth held their own against the swarm of exes. The dead girl tripped and shoved the exes as they got close. The cloaked woman had her batons out and battered skulls and jaws.

  St. George ripped a parking meter out of the sidewalk. He spun it once in his hands and then swung it like a bat. The lump of concrete at the end crushed half a dozen exes into jelly. The impact sent another dozen flying back. He glanced over at Freedom battling more exes and Zzzap dodging the cars Cairax threw at him. “I hope the plan went past getting me free,” he said over the click-click-click of teeth.

  “It does,” Madelyn piped up. “You just need to grab the demon.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “You must distract Cairax Murrain,” said Stealth, “and then pin it so it cannot move.”

  St. George swung his oversized club again. The weight of the concrete bent the pole in the middle. He sent it spinning into the exes. “I don’t understand.”

  “And it needs to be facing me,” the cloaked woman added.

  “Are you serious?”

  “There is no time to explain,” she said. She whirled and drove her heel through the jaw of a dead construction worker. “You must trust me.”

  He nodded. “Got it.” He glanced down at his bare arm and the cobweb of scars stretched across it. “Taking on the demon again.”

  St. George rose into the air, took a deep breath, and hurled himself at Cairax.

  Zzzap still felt cold. Most of the effect of the demon’s claws had worn off, but there was a chill at the center of the energy form. He wondered if it was all just in his head, then realized when he was Zzzap everything was just in his head.

  Freedom leaped up to the roof of a car. The back half of the vehicle was melted to slag, a victim of Zzzap’s megablast. He leveled his huge pistol at the demon.

  Then St. George shot forward and tackled Cairax. They tumbled across the street, over a low wall, and struck the corner of a Ralph’s grocery store. The brick facade crumbled around them and a few last shards of glass in the picture windows dropped and shattered on the ground.

  The building exploded in flames as St. George poured fire onto the demon. Scraps of paper bags and cardboard signs ignited around them. When Cairax tried to push its way out of the rubble, St. George punched it twice in the face. He seized two of the demon’s large horns and slammed the creature’s head down into the floor again and again. He found a chunk of concrete ribbed with rebar, raised it up, and smashed it over the demon’s skull.

  Cairax lay still just long enough for the hero to relax. Then St. George caught a backhand with enough force behind it to knock over a bus. He sailed into the intersection, bounced twice off the pavement, and crashed into the side of a street sweeper.

  The demon stalked out after him. “This is most welcome,” Cairax hissed. “My defeat at your hands was a gnawing insult. How pleasant it will be to right those accounts.”

  Zzzap blasted the demon in the chest. Freedom hit it with two bursts from Lady Liberty. Cairax glared at them, cringed away from Freedom’s shots, but didn’t slow its march toward St. George. Blue flames sparked behind its teeth as it roared.

  The hero was waiting for it. St. George tore the door off the street sweeper and flung it at the demon. The amount of raw force behind his throw made up for his lack of finesse. It struck Cairax in the shoulder, sprayed dark blood across the pavement, and knocked the monster back a few feet.

  Freedom leaped over a dozen exes to land on the roof of an SUV. It crumpled under his impact. He winced as his ribs shifted in his chest.

  Zzzap circled around to the monster’s far side and let his feet drag through a crowd of the dead.

  St. George yanked the plastic seat out of the cab and hurled it at Cairax. The demon p
ut up a hand and shattered it in midair.

  The plastic shrapnel sprayed back over Captain Freedom, and he threw up an arm to protect his eyes. When the rain of fragments stopped and his arm came down, the demon’s tail was a foot from his neck. He spun and the barb tore at his shoulder instead of his throat, but the move made him slip on the uneven roof of the SUV. He grabbed the closest thing he could. It was rough and scaly, even through his glove, and writhed in his grip. When the scorpion tip whipped up he let Lady Liberty tumble away and grabbed the tail with both hands.

  Cairax glared over at the huge officer and St. George slammed a fist into the side of the demon’s head. It was like punching a statue. He threw two more punches, scratching his knuckles on the barbs and horns covering the creature’s skull.

  The demon hissed at the hero. Its tongue snapped out between long teeth and lashed at St. George’s face. It drew blood at his temple. The long arms lashed out in wide swings, but the hero soared back and out of reach.

  Stealth charged forward. Her batons cleared a path through the exes. She leaped into the air, sheathed the batons, and drew both Glocks as she landed next to Freedom on the SUV. Bullets tore through the meat of the tail.

  Cairax shifted its hips and its tail slashed through the air, yanking Freedom off the SUV and away from Stealth. The tail smashed the huge officer against the pavement, then flipped him into the air. Freedom’s hands slipped and he spun into the sky, then back down.

  It met him halfway. The barbed tip speared him in the side, just under the ribs, and the impact knocked him back into the air again. He slammed against the roof of a bus and the recoil tumbled his body down the street and into the crater full of exes.

  The barbed tail curled around Cairax like a snake. A good six inches of it dripped Freedom’s blood. The demon chuckled.

  A tall ex, a dark-skinned man with a bullet-ridden torso, reached across the roof of the SUV for Stealth’s leg. She stomped down on the dead man’s hand, pinning it to the roof, and then shattered the wrist with a swipe of her pistol. A snap kick sent the ex stumbling back into the swarm. She looked back up and bullets tore through the air, pinging off Cairax’s horns and teeth.