Ex-Heroes

by Peter Clines

  From the rooftop they could see Buzzcut’s grin as they dragged the man away behind the pen of exes. A moment later he reappeared, and both heroes realized what they’d missed on the far side of the pen the night before.

  Buzzcut dragged the older man to the top of the stairs. They stood on the small platform above the cage and the Seventeen yelled to the crowd. There were three or four hundred people in the street and still more drifting from the buildings.

  “You know how this goes,” repeated Stealth. “Sentence has been passed. If the boss wants, he will still be spared.”

  St. George took a breath and shifted on the gritty roof.

  The old man shouted something and Buzzcut clubbed his head.

  “He is a monster,” echoed Stealth.

  The Seventeen turned the old man toward the cage. The exes were clawing at the air. Their clicking teeth were like a speed typist gone mad.

  St. George went to stand up and Stealth slammed her hand onto his arm. It would’ve broken bones in a normal person. “No,” she snapped.

  “They’re going to--”

  “You cannot save him.”

  “I have to try.” He shrugged off her grip, rolled to his feet, and saw Buzzcut push the old man.

  She was a blur, spinning, sweeping his legs, knocking him back down. His head cracked into the rooftop and she was on top of him, straddling him, her forearm pressed into his throat.

  He heard the screams and the gasp of the crowd.

  “He is too far,” she hissed. “He is already dead and you will reveal us for nothing!”

  He grabbed her arms. She weighed nothing and he knew he could throw her clear across the roof and there was nothing she could do to stop him.

  “The old man will still be dead and you will fail the Mount. Everyone there is depending on you.”

  The screams broke into a wet cough. All they could hear was the murmur of the crowd and the wailing of the man’s wife. Beneath it were clicks and the sound of tearing meat. Someone, Buzzcut, was laughing.

  “Get off me,” St. George said.

  She slid to the side. “We had no choice.”

  “I know.” He stared up at the sky. “Just... don’t talk to me for a while.”

  “It is always unfortunate when sacrifices must--”

  “Don’t,” he said.

  The old man’s wife kept sobbing until someone led her away.

  NOW

  Twenty One

  “Something’s going on.”

  It was almost three in the afternoon, and a crowd gathered at the wooden stage. Die-hard Seventeens were closest to the platform, sporting weapons and showing their tattoos. Others drifted in behind them forming a loose outer ring. Within an hour the broad intersection was filled with thousands of people.

  “Cairax,” he whispered with a nod. The demon ex had stopped its slow struggle against the chains. It grew still and sat. Its tail fell limp.

  Even from here he could hear the low thuds echo from within the ivy covered building. It was a sound he knew from armored battlesuits and movie dinosaurs. The footsteps came closer, and something moved in the darkness of the building.

  The hunched figure stepped through the double-doorway with its head bowed low. Once the sunlight hit its skin it straightened up and added another three feet to its size. Then it stepped out of the sunken entrance and added another two. A quartet of Seventeens flanked it, three men and a woman, each with a rifle slung over their shoulders and a machete tucked in their belt. The crowd howled and cheered and the giant threw two gang signs over its head with long fingers. A green bandanna crisscrossed each wrist and palm.

  Its whole body was distorted. The arms were too long and thick, the chest and shoulders too broad beneath the tight wifebeater. It was bigger than Cerberus by at least two feet. St. George checked it against the man standing next to it.

  “Eleven and a half feet tall,” whispered Stealth. “I would estimate seven hundred twenty-five pounds.” Her finger danced on the camera’s button.

  And it was dead. After all this time, St. George knew that skin tone at a glance. He spun the dial of his monocular, pushing the lens as tight as it could go.

  A tattoo of a cross decorated its right temple running into the black buzzcut. On the opposite side of its head were a few flaps of inked flesh where the ear had been ripped away to show sinew and ivory. Beneath the dark eyebrows the bone had swollen and bulged, like some museum-exhibit caveman. The thick brow made the sunken eyes look even deeper, pearls of cloudy white in skull sockets. It had enormous teeth, the size of matchbooks, and its jaw pushed out to hold them all.

  “It looks like a gorilla,” he muttered. “Zombie Mighty Joe Young.”

  It lumbered across the street and onto the makeshift stage. Applause, cheers, and hollers echoed back and forth across the street. The ex held its monstrous arms up to the crowd like so many rulers before it.

  “Look,” she murmured. “The ones in the pen.”

  Across from the platform, three hundred exes had stopped milling in the cage. Now withered salutes rose over their heads. A few blocks away, the exes in the second pen did the same.

  “Jesus,” he said. “What the hell is going on?”

  Mighty Joe leered at the crowd and pumped his fists in the air. The exes thrust gaunt hands upward again. He brought his palms down to quiet the crowd and hundreds of dead arms flopped to their sides.

  “They’re responding to him,” Stealth said.

  “DIECISIETE!” shouted the monstrous ex. His voice echoed out of the swollen chest and down the block. “Forever and always!”

  Most of the crowd echoed the cheer and howled. The exes opened their mouths in a silent shout.

  “Eight more youngbloods,” he roared. “They done their duty, shown their loyalty to the SS. They’re in!”

  A small line formed at the edge of the stage. Three Latinos, two Asians, two African-Americans, and a white girl. They were bare-chested except for the woman in her bra.

  The first one walked onto the stage, very small next to Mighty Joe. The ex unwound one of his bandanas as a bodyguard grabbed the young man’s forearm. Beneath the green cloth, the huge palm was pitted and slashed. He made a fist, shook his hand a few times, and the wounds glistened wet.

  The female bodyguard pulled out her machete, cleaned the edge between two fingers, and pulled it across the fledgling Seventeen’s hand. The man gritted his teeth as blood swelled up. The monstrous ex reached down and the bleeding limb vanished within his huge fingers. “One of us,” he rumbled. He took the hand away and slapped his palm down on each of the man’s shoulders.

  The youngblood’s legs trembled under the impact and he nodded his head. They guided him past the giant to an old woman who washed out the wound and sponged the gore from his shoulders. Her peroxide foamed on his skin. The bodyguard was already slashing the next palm.

  “Deliberate infection,” mused Stealth. She lowered the camera.

  “Followed by immediate disinfection. If this is patient zero, maybe he’s got some purer strain of the ex-virus. Could be why some come back smart. He obviously is.”

  “Perhaps. I do not think it is an ex,” she said. The infrared monocular was pressed up to her eye again. “Its body temperature is seventy-one degrees. Twenty degrees higher than the average ex.”

  “And almost thirty lower than the average human,” said St. George. “What the hell is he, then?”

  “I am not sure.”

  “Doesn’t look like he’s got universal appeal, either.” Half the mob shifted on their feet, not cheering with the hardcore Seventeens near the stage. The crowd members toward the back studied the ground or cast wary eyes at the ritual the huge ex was conducting.

  “I would guess many of them did not realize they were sheltering with a street gang, let alone one led by a monster. They were looking for safety.”

  The ex turned to the group that had crossed the stage. Each of them had tied their hand in a swatch of green even as he
rewrapped his own. “You’re in forever now,” he bellowed. “All of you. Even if you die, even if you come back, you’re always a Seventeen.”

  He slammed his hands together once, twice, three times. The crowd picked up the applause. The youngbloods caught dozens of backslaps, headrubs, and arm punches.

  “Getting close to two years since I got this.” Mighty Joe continued. “Two years since I became the biggest boss in the city. Getting bigger and badder every day.” He flexed arms like beer kegs and the crowd whistled and shouted.

  “Everybody went down except us. The Bloods, the Crips, the XV3s. The police caved, the Army caved, even the fucking Marines went down. And we’re still here and we’re deep!”

  He punched the air again. The Seventeens in the crowd howled and raised their weapons. A few shot at the sky. The exes threw up their arms. A low chant worked its way through the crowd and faded just as quick.

  St. George tilted his head. “What are they saying? Ammo?”

  “I believe they were calling him master of Mary. I am not sure of the refer...” She paused and her body stiffened. “That is not patient zero.”

  “How do you know?”

  “A connection I should have seen earlier.” Her words were almost lost in Mighty Joe’s next bellow.

  “We’re the best, the strongest, the fucking chosen of God,” the ex told the crowd. “It’s why we lived, they died, and now they’re with us.”

  He threw an arm out to the caged exes. They returned the salute.

  “We’re the rulers of the new world. This whole city is going to be our turf. There’s only one thing keeping the SS from being absolute kings of southern California--that fucking fortress of freaks holding down Hollywood.”

  St. George shifted.

  “You all know I’ve got business with one of them. A lot of you do, too. I’m gonna carve my name in his chest, gouge out his fucking vampire eyes, and wear his skull as a necklace for my two-year anniversary.” He pounded his chest with a fist like a gallon milk jug. Hundreds of dead hands slapped their ribcages in solidarity.

  Stealth’s eyes went from the stage to the exes and back.

  “This is it. I want everybody gunned up and good to go. Tonight our army marches north. We’re throwing down and wiping out the last of the old world.”

  “What army?” muttered St. George. “Most of these people are kids and grandparents.”

  Mighty Joe threw up one last salute and stepped down from the stage. He drifted through the crowd, giving knuckle punches and backslaps as he went.

  In the cage, the walking dead performed an odd dance. Their legs shifted like a massive, macabre chorus line. Their arms raised, swung, and shifted. Three hundred moved as one.

  “The exes are not copying him,” Stealth said.

  “What?”

  “They are in perfect sync. All of them. They are not copying him, he is controlling them. He is exerting some level of control over every ex here. At least a two-block radius.”

  St. George watched as Mighty Joe turned his head to speak to one of his bodyguards and the cagefull of exes did the same. Three hundred heads shifted to the right.

  “That is why they do not need strong cages.” She nodded at the dispersing crowd as she slid the camera back into her utility belt. “Amo de la marioneta.”

  “What is that?”

  “What they were saying. Puppet master. He is controlling all of them.”

  “Damn straight I am,” bellowed the dead giant.

  The clatter of rifles filled the air. Stealth and St. George dropped below the ledge.

  “Who is that up there, anyway?” he shouted. “The hot bitch is Stealth, I’m thinking. That you, Gorgon? You finally grow some stones and come to give yourself up?”

  St. George glanced at her. “When did he spot us?”

  Stealth shook her head. “More importantly, how did he hear us?”

  “I knew you’d show up sooner or later,” Mighty Joe yelled. “Once I told you two about the Boss of LA, it was only a matter of time.”

  St. George furrowed his brow. “What the heck is he talking about?”

  “The puppet master. He was speaking to us in the cell.” Stealth looked across the rooftop. The severed skull had stopped moving its jaw and stared back at her. “He sees through all of them.”

  “He knew we were coming,” said St. George. “Remember the exes last night?”

  She slid across the tar paper, threw her leg into the air, and brought her heel down. The dried skull shattered under her boot. “Suggestions?”

  “Get ready to run,” he said.

  “And you?”

  “I’ll catch up.”

  The hooded woman nodded and skittered across the rooftop. Once she was a few yards away she rolled and came up in a crouch with her cloak on. She gave him a nod and vanished behind an air conditioning vent.

  St. George counted to five and pushed down against gravity. His boots scraped on the roof ledge as he swung up. Hundreds of searching eyes locked on him. Shoulder slings rustled, gunmetal scraped on holsters, and rounds slid home. He couldn’t guess how many weapons were aimed his way.

  “The Mighty Dragon,” said the ex. “Not who I wanted but still cool.”

  “Always glad to please a fan,” he called back. “You should reconsider this.”

  “Why?”

  He waved at the crowd. “These folks don’t want to get hurt.”

  “There’ll be plenty of hurt. Not for us, though.”

  “You people,” St. George shouted to the crowd. “You know who I am. You know what I can do. You know how foolish attacking me or my friends would be.”

  “Oh, yeah,” bellowed the giant. “You’re strong and invulnerable. But your friends aren’t. You’ve got a fearsome rep and that’s it. We’ve got an army and a plan.”

  “Is part of your great plan to announce strategy with the other side listening in?”

  “I wanted you to hear,” yelled the giant. “I wanted you to know and be scared.”

  “You don’t scare me, big guy.”

  “You’re not the only one hiding in there, though, are you? If your people hadn’t killed my man, I would’ve had him tell them.” The giant’s face split in a toothy grin. “You know what though? You’ve always got all those exes piled up at your gates, right? Time to start thinking big.”

  The enormous ex took in a breath, and all the dead things around him did the same.

  * * * *

  Derek checked his watch and looked at the crowd of exes pushing on the bars. Three more hours until his shift ended and he went to Mark Larsen’s funeral.

  The dead things reached and groped. He’d counted one hundred and sixteen of them earlier. Their jaws opened and closed as they stretched hands and bloody stumps through the gate. There were shiny patches where constant flailing had scoured paint down to metal.

  Elena nodded at the watch. “What time is it?”

  “Almost five o’clock,” he said.

  “Damn.”

  “What are you up to tonight after the funeral?”

  “Some new DVDs from the library,” she said. “Think I might stay in and finish off a bottle of Matt Russell’s moonshine.”

  Makana, the other guard looked up from his book. “Is that crap any good?”

  She smirked. “Christ, no. But it makes me forget the day.”

  He mulled it over. “You want company?”

  “Depends.”

  The rustle of dry skin on metal, the endless clack of jaws, it all stopped. The exes froze in the sinking sunlight. Their collective arms dropped to their collective sides.

  Derek straightened up and raised his rifle. “What the fuck,” he murmured.

  The eerie silence stretched over five seconds. Then ten.

  “TONIGHT.”

  Hundreds and hundreds of them spoke with one leathery voice that echoed across all thirty acres of the Mount. Some of it was clear. Some was just hissed air. Everyone understood it.

  �
�TONIGHT THE SEVENTEENS ARE COMING TO KILL YOU ALL.”

  * * * *

  The exes in the cage stared up at him. Their announcement echoed off the buildings. Even some of the Seventeens looked shaken.

  St. George let a long breath of black smoke curl out of his nostrils. “We don’t have to fight.”

  “Pussy.” The giant ex chuckled.

  “What’s the point of all this?”

  “The point?”

  “Why fight? Why aren’t we working together? With your power we could’ve had Los Angeles cleaned out months ago. Why didn’t you join us?”

  “Join you?” Mighty Joe furrowed his thick brow and glared up at the hero. “Motherfucker, you just don’t get it. Why didn’t you join us?”

  St. George blinked.

  A huge finger stabbed up at him. “Why you think we all wanted to kneel down and be your bitches? Life is good as long as you’re in charge, huh? We don’t kneel to no one, pinche. We’re Diecisiete! SS always and forever!”

  The Seventeens roared.

  They opened fire.

  Rifles. Pistols. Machine guns. Hundreds of firearms all aimed at him.

  St. George closed his eyes and let one leg settle off the ledge to brace himself. The bullets were heavy rain beating on his body. They hit every inch of him. His skin rippled. His muscles stung. His third leather jacket in a week became tatters, torn away in the high caliber wind that tried to drive him back.

  Under the percussion of gunfire he could hear the screams. Civilians pelted with hot casings as they tried to plug their ears. There were elderly people and children in the crowd. They were terrified.

  It was going to get worse for them.

  The hero ignored the bullets slapping him and sucked in air. Short, quick breaths filled every inch of his lungs. His chest swelled and he felt the warm sizzle in the back of his throat.

  It took a few moments for the rain to stop. St. George opened his eyes and looked down; saw their fear of the man who stood through all their bullets. The Seventeens were pulling magazines from belts and pockets while empty ones rattled on the ground in drifts of spent brass.