Peter Clines - Ex-Communication

The exes at the gate tripped over their fallen brethren. Jefferson moved in and slid the fallen weapons away with his foot.

Then he turned and his rifle settled on Madelyn.

She threw her hands out and shouted, “Hey, whoa!” Even as she did, she saw her sunglasses on the ground. She really needed to get a strap or a lanyard or something for them. She blinked, then closed her eyes. “Call St. George,” she said. “Or Captain Freedom. I know what I look like but I’m not one of them.”

“It’s her,” murmured someone. “It’s the corpse girl I heard they were keeping at the hospital.”

Madelyn opened one eye. Three of the guards up on the Wall were still watching the exes beyond the gate. The rest stared at her with awe. Jefferson lowered his rifle a bit. She guessed if it went off now, it would hit her in the gut instead of the head.

She took in a breath and cleared her throat. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m from the hospital. And I need to get back or St. George is going to be angry with me.”

“She’s still got her soul,” said a woman on the Wall. She pulled a string of rosary beads from her pocket and crossed herself. “It’s true. They can come back.”

The guard by the shack murmured something. Madelyn realized he was praying. She looked at Jefferson. He glanced at the others and back at her.

Then she heard fast, heavy footsteps—someone running up behind her. Jefferson’s face relaxed even as his shoulders squared up. “Sir,” he said, “this young woman claims you know her, sir.”

She turned and looked up into Freedom’s face. He gazed down at her and set his jaw. “I do,” he said, “and I’ve been looking for her.”

Nineteen

Now

ST. GEORGE STOODin the air and examined the symbol burned into the pavement outside the West Gate. Even with a dozen exes meandering over it, he could see it was different from the one up on Bronson Avenue. That one had been an hourglass, but this looked more like a pair of overlapping triangles. He tried to read some of the words scribbled out along the lines, but the walking dead made it hard to see anything more than a few syllables here and there. It wasn’t English, and it didn’t look like any of the Spanish words he knew. If he had to guess, he’d say it was Latin.

The edge of the circle was twenty feet out from the Big Wall, past the crosswalk and across from a dust-covered bus stop. For a moment he thought about flying up and looking at it from above. Then he remembered the dead woman twisting and exploding at the North Gate. There were two stains on the far edge of the circle where the same thing had happened here. He decided he could see it well enough from where he was.

He looked at the swarm below him and picked an ex at random. It was an emaciated woman with blond hair and clothes that had been stylish before the end of the world. She’d probably been pretty when she was alive. Now the skin was stripped from its chin and half its neck. Its bottom lip was gone and the teeth were yellow and cracked.

He wondered if the wound was how the woman had died. Maybe an ex had torn off part of her face with its teeth, letting her get away only to die and rise. Or maybe it was something someone had done trying to put the dead woman down, a blow to the skull that had missed.

St. George swooped down and lifted the dead thing by the back of the neck. It twisted in his grip as the ground fell away beneath its feet. A few nearby exes made awkward grabs at him as he rose back into the air with his catch. He drifted across the Wall and settled down in the open space inside the gate.

His boots tapped the pavement but he kept his arm up. The dead woman saw Cerberus, Jefferson, and another guard named Derek standing in a loose semicircle. The ex stretched out its arms and made awkward grabs at them. It swung back and forth in St. George’s grip.

Madelyn shifted behind Cerberus. She’d been skittish around the guards since Freedom left. St. George shook his head and gestured for her to come out in the open. “You’re safe here,” he told her. “No matter what happens, you’ll be safe.”

Jefferson stepped forward, his rifle braced in one arm. He batted away the grasping fingers, and gave the ex a quick pat-down with his free hand. “Clear,” he said.

“Can’t believe we need to start watching them for weapons,” said Derek. “I mean … a zombie with a gun? It sounds like a joke.”

“Not anymore,” Cerberus said. She pointed at a pair of exes in camoflaged helmets. “Legion got to the armory out in Van Nuys. Weapons, ammunition, helmets, body armor.” Her head shook back and forth. “For all we know he’s got a dozen exes out there watching the walls through telescopic sights.”

Derek grimaced at the thought. So did a few guards on the Wall within earshot. The casualness faded from their movements.

St. George gave the ex a shake and raised his voice. “Rodney,” he shouted. “Time to have a talk.”

His voice echoed out across the street for a moment and then the dead woman stopped thrashing. The clicking teeth stopped and its face shifted from a blank mask to a surly grimace. It reached back to swat the hero with one hand. “Told you plenty of times, dragon man,” the ex said, “it’s Legion now.” Without a bottom lip, its voice was a drunken rasp, like the words were being dragged into the air across sandpaper.

Cerberus leaned forward with a hiss of servos and scraping armor.

St. George set the dead thing down. It shrugged a few times and turned to glare up at him. The ex had been a tiny woman, a good six inches shorter than the hero. “Got a question for you,” he said. As an afterthought he added, “Legion.”

The dead woman snorted. “The answer is fuck you.”

“All that time you were hiding out at Krypton, while Dr. Sorensen was covering for you, were you ever going to keep your side of the deal you made?”

Madelyn stiffened at the mention of her father. Her face got hard and she took a bold step away from Cerberus. Her sneakers slapped hard on the pavement, almost a stomp.

The ex didn’t even glance at her. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” it said to St. George.

“The one where you told him you’d find his family for him.”

The dead woman sneered as best it could. “What’s it to you?”

“Think of it as your big chance to prove you’re better than I think you are,” said the hero.

Madelyn took another few steps forward. The only person closer to the dead woman now was St. George. Madelyn stood up straight in front of the ex.

Legion tried to spit at St. George, but without a lower lip it just leaked thick oil over its chin. “Yeah, my word matters,” it growled. “I looked for them, just like I said. Didn’t make any difference. His old lady’s dead and walking. Never found the girl’s body. Figured it was easier to let the old guy think I was still looking.”

“And it gave you a place to hide,” said Cerberus.

The ex turned to the armored titan. Its gaze passed right through Madelyn. She even stepped to the side to stay in front of the dead woman’s face. “Fuck you, puta ,” Legion spat at Cerberus. “I don’t hide from nothing.”

“Except me,” she said. The titan held out one massive gauntlet at head height and squeezed it into a fist. The ex gave her the finger.

St. George nodded. “So you looked for his daughter and never found her?”

Legion returned the nod while Madelyn waved both hands in front of the ex’s face. “Yeah. Never saw any sign of her. What’s it to you, esse ?”

St. George smiled. “Okay,” he said, “I think that answers that.”

“Answers what?” growled the ex.