Peter Clines - Ex-Communication

“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?”

“I’m telling you, I came in through the window,” he said again. “You called for help, so I flew over to check it out.”

She took another deep breath. “I know how to use this,” she said, dipping her chin at the revolver. “It’s loaded and I’m a pretty good shot.”

“I’m serious,” he said. “I used to be called the Mighty Dragon. Maybe you’ve heard of me?”

“Get over yourself,” she said. “You’re way too skinny to be the Dragon.”

He smiled. “Afraid not.”

She used both thumbs to pull the hammer back on the pistol. It made a loud clack in the room. “Last chance.”

St. George took in a deep breath. He felt the tickle in the back of his throat, and let it sigh out. The flames trickled from his mouth and lapped up and around his head.

Her brows went up above her dark glasses and her mouth fell open. Her grip slipped on the pistol and it shifted in her hands. The weight settled on her trigger finger. The hammer slammed down.

There was a thunderclap of noise in the small room and the bullet punched St. George in the shoulder. He yelped. The girl shrieked and jumped back against the window. The deformed round clattered on the floor.

“Ohmigod!” she said. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said. He rubbed the top of his arm and patted the smoking hole in his jacket. “I’m fine. It just stings a little.”

“Boss,” shouted a voice in his ear. “You okay? We heard gunfire.”

“No problem,” he said. “Just a misunderstanding. Everyone’s fine.”

“It’s really you,” she said. Her arm went down and the pistol slipped from her fingers. It thudded on the carpet. “You’re the Mighty Dragon.”

“Told you.”

“Oh my God,” she said. Her body slumped with relief. “Oh my God. I just … you don’t know what it’s like out there.”

“I’ve got a pretty good idea,” he said.

“I’ve barely seen anyone in ages, and the people I did see kept trying to make moves on me. One guy stole some of my food and another one was this creeper who wanted me to do him and some people just shot at me and I …” She paused to breathe, dipped her head, and something like a smile crept onto her face. “I haven’t been able to trust anyone for a while now.”

“You can trust us,” he said. “Inside the Wall’s clean and safe. We’ve got food, electricity, and …”

Her glasses slipped down her nose when she lowered her head. She met his eyes and rushed to push the oversized lenses back up. “Please,” she said, “just let me ex—”

St. George marched forward and snatched the glasses off her face, crushing them to splinters in his hand. She tried to turn her head and close her eyes, but he saw them again. There was no mistake. They were gray and chalky. The veins were dark against her pale irises.

“Don’t hurt me,” she said. She skittered back across the floor with one arm up, trying to hide her face. “Please! I’m not one of them.”

St. George marched after her, grabbed the dead girl’s shoulder, and tossed her across the room. She hit the wall and fell onto the couch. “Rodney, I swear to God, after what you did—”

“Please don’t!” she shrieked.

“—the last thing you should be doing is wasting my time with another stupid …”

He stopped.

The girl was crying. A single tear made its way down her cheek. It left a path of clean, pale skin behind it. She was taking in raspy breaths as she cried, her chest moving up and down. Her cloudy eyes had gone wide with fear.