Peter Clines: Ex-Communication

“ THIS IS THEnorthwest corner,” shouted a man on the radio. A gunshot blasted over the open channel. “Twenty … something. We’re under attack! Two maybe three hundred of them. We need help!” The call was punctuated by another shot.

Captain John Carter Freedom of the 456th Unbreakables, considered temporarily on leave from his post at Project Krypton, was only a few blocks from the northwest corner of the Big Wall. He heard two more sharp pops echo between the buildings. Rifles, but unfamiliar to his ears. Civilian weapons. That lined up with the voice’s confusion at radio protocol. Freedom was pretty sure it had been the wall guard who went by the name Makana.

He looked down at the kids in front of him. Two boys and a girl, barely into their teens. All three of them sat on the curb with their hands zip-tied together behind their backs. They’d been trying to steal a car for a quick joyride when he found them. They’d been cowed by his appearance and surrendered without a fuss.

Most people were cowed by Freedom’s appearance. He was a bald giant of a man, almost seven feet tall and over three hundred pounds of solid muscle. A leather duster hung open across his broad chest, and a silver sheriff’s star sat on one lapel. Underneath the duster he wore a tan T-shirt and pants checkered with digital camouflage. Strapped to his thigh was a holster the size of a loaf of bread. He rarely had to draw the pistol it held.

A third and fourth shot rang in the air. The kids’ heads swiveled back and forth from Freedom’s face to the direction of the sound. One of the boys had gone wide-eyed with terror. They knew what the shots meant. They were aware of how vulnerable they were, tied up on the ground.

“You’ll be fine,” Freedom told them. “There’s a deputy on the way to take charge of you.”

Three more gunshots. And between the rounds he could hear a growing noise. The click-click-click that made life near the Big Wall so rough for some. The sound of teeth.

The girl opened her mouth to say something, but it vanished under the snap of his leather duster as he spun and bolted for the northeast corner. The captain had been quick for his size before joining the Army’s super-soldier project. Now he could run a three-minute mile without breaking a sweat, do five of them before he even started to feel winded.

The gunfire was near constant by the time he reached the northeast corner. It made Los Angeles sound like Iraq. He could see the half-dozen guards on top of the wall. Four of them were shooting down into the area beyond the barrier. The other two were pushing back the figures climbing onto the upper deck.

Freedom never broke stride. His legs flexed and hurled him twenty feet into the air. His duster flapped around him, and he steeled himself for combat.

The top of the Big Wall was a continuous platform made from old pallets and plywood. A double line of rope served as a railing. It was a temporary fix until a more permanent bastion could be built. Freedom hit the wood surface just south of the large square that was the northwest corner and took in the situation as he straightened up.

This corner of the Big Wall sat at the intersection of Sunset and Vine in downtown Hollywood, right at the center of the road. A Borders bookstore and a vandalized Chase bank stood just outside the barrier.

Almost a thousand exes stood outside the wall, too. Thirty months since the world ended and people still called them exes rather than zombies. “Ex-humans” was just easier to deal with somehow. Even the military had used the term.

Back when there had been a functioning military, the captain reminded himself.

The former citizens of Los Angeles crowded the intersection beyond the wall, filling the air with the endless sound of chattering teeth. Even when there was nothing in their mouths, their jaws gnashed open and closed like machines. Some of those mouths were lined with gray teeth. Others held a mess of jagged stumps that splintered even more as they banged together. Most of them were coated with blood and gore. Their flesh was the color of old chalk, spotted with dark bruises where blood had pooled inside the skin. Most of their eyes were dusty and dull, but more than a few had empty sockets gaping in their faces. Many of the exes had deep cuts or punctures that would never heal but also didn’t stop them. Some were missing fingers, hands, or whole limbs.

Something was different about the horde, though, and Freedom couldn’t put his finger on what.

The wall guards fired into the crowd with their motley collection of weapons. Rifles scavenged from personal collections or motion-picture armories. A dreadlocked man he recognized as Makana was trying to keep them organized, but there was an air of desperation around the guards. One of them swung his rifle like a baseball bat and clubbed a thin figure off the platform. The guard turned and swung again. The blow was wild, but it caught his next target in the side of the head and tipped it back off the wall.

The guard was scared. Now that Freedom was on top of the wall, he could see that all the guards were scared. He wasn’t sure what had them so spooked. He drew his massive sidearm, a modified AA-12 shotgun that had been cut down to a pistol for his huge hands. The armorer had nicknamed it Lady Liberty. His gaze went down to the horde again.

Some of the exes were moving quicker than the others. They ran at the Big Wall and lunged up. They grabbed handholds and kicked with their feet, pulling themselves up the barrier. A handful of exes had turned their attention to Freedom as he landed. Behind their dead eyes, Legion glared out at the giant officer.

Over the years, the people of Los Angeles had developed methods and procedures for dealing with the undead. The mindless exes were still a threat, but it was a contained threat. One they had lots of practice with.

Legion had changed everything. The exes were pawns for him to control. He could slip from zombie to zombie, using them as his puppets. They could be his eyes and ears. Or his hands and teeth. He made them smart. He made them unpredictable.

Freedom pulled back his boot and kicked a climbing ex just as its head rose above the top of the wall. The dead man flew back into the crowd. It took Freedom’s mind a moment to register what he’d just seen, and then he realized what had caused the panic.

Most of the exes storming the Big Wall were wearing helmets.

Several of them wore motorcycle helmets with Lexan visors. A few looked like SWAT or National Guard issue. Freedom saw a few football helmets and hard hats. Even a few gleaming bicycle helmets, useless as they were.

Killing exes had always been a numbers game. Legion had shifted the numbers more in his favor and shaken the guards in the process. Their practiced methods and procedures were crumbling. They were hesitating and second-guessing shots.

Freedom had to restore morale and get their fire focused before things fell apart. The Big Wall was on the edge of being overwhelmed. The attack was spread across a section almost forty feet long and, from the look of it, another twenty or thirty around the corner. Legion had at least four hundred exes under his control. Half a dozen civilians to defend seventy feet of ground against a few hundred opponents.

Not great odds.

A dead man wearing a red construction helmet climbed onto the platform. Its fingernails clawed at the wooden platform. Freedom stomped on one of the hands and took the ex’s head off with another kick.

Makana and another noticed him and he saw their shoulders relax. The sheriff’s star and his Army uniform still had that effect on people.