Peter Clines: Ex-Patriots

The big truck rolled past the parking lots for the Hollywood Bowl and the long-dead marquees for the amphitheater. On the center island stood a concrete memorial to the Bowl, surrounded by long, brown grass. The electronic screens in it were smashed to bits. Lady Bee’s gaze drifted over to the large marquee on her left. There were two half-eaten bodies at the base of it, gray and shriveled from the sun. Dueling vandals had rearranged the letters and numbers into Bible passages or obscenities. “Why are people always so determined to arrange numbers into six-six-six?” she asked aloud.

“Because if this is hell,” Lee said, “it means things can’t get any worse.”

A handful of exes staggered between the mess of cars in the lot and stumbled towards the sounds of life. “Hey,” said Jarvis. “One of them’s in a tux.” He slipped his rifle off his shoulder and into his hand.

Paul looked where the bearded man pointed. “Yeah, so?”

“Might be someone famous.”

“Or it might be some poor bastard who bit it on his wedding day,” said Ilya.

Jarvis pulled a small pair of binoculars from his bag. “Can’t tell who it is,” he muttered. He held them out to Ilya. “Check it out for me.”

“No.”

“If it’s someone famous I need the points, man.”

Ilya smirked. “If you can’t tell they’re either not famous or you’re out of luck.”

“Bastard.”

“It’s nobody famous,” said Paul. He was looking through a small telescope. “No one I recognize, anyway.”

“Damn it,” said Jarvis. “Haven’t seen a good celebrity in over a month.” He gestured at an alabaster statue looming over a stagnant fountain. “Is the statue supposed to be someone famous? Would that count?”

“It’s just a piece of rock,” said Lady Bee. “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not just a piece of rock. Same guy who made the Academy Award made it.”

They all looked at Hector. Ilya and Paul both raised their eyebrows.

“What? I got ink so I can’t read a book?” The tattooed man shook his head. “Fuck all you guys.”

The truck rolled to a stop. The road split ahead of them. The right two lanes ran beneath an overpass and up onto the freeway. The left two lanes were Cahuenga Boulevard. Two roads into the Valley. The scavengers moved forward to look at the mass of concrete.

“Sailors beware,” said Lynne. “Here be dragons.”

St. George gave a black sports car a firm shove, knocking it into the overgrown plants on the side of the road. “Just like we planned,” he called to Luke. The hero pointed up the left lanes to the Cahuenga Pass. “When I scoped it out earlier, the southbound side seemed to be clogged the least. I’ll clear a path through the cars. Stay about ten yards behind me.” He looked at the scavengers on the roof of the cab. “Bee, Ilya, Lee, keep me covered, but hold off shooting unless you’re sure I need the help. Everyone else watch our back, make sure we don’t get blocked—”

“Watch it!” shouted Hector.

They all saw the blur coming out of the sky at St. George before he did. Rifles snapped up. He spun and raised his fists just as the ex crashed into the ground. The hero leaped into the air and gore splattered across the pavement.

“Fell off the freeway,” said Hector. He pointed up at the overpass.

“You okay, boss?” called Ilya.

St. George settled back onto the pavement. “Been worse,” he said. He shook a few wet clumps of meat and hair off his boots.

“You need a moment?” asked Bee with a smile.

“I’ll survive,” he said. “Everyone ready?”

They nodded and saluted as he turned back to the road. Luke revved the engine again. St. George took a few strides forward, wrapped his arms across the hood of a green Hyundai, and swung the car off to the side.

They headed up Cahuenga, over the hills, and into the San Fernando Valley.

* * *

The northbound side of the road was two solid lanes packed with cars, and the south side was only marginally better. St. George shoved trucks and cars out of the way and tossed motorcycles up into the bushes and trees on the south side of the pavement. It would take him a moment to get a good grip, but he could lift the smaller cars and stack them on top of the bigger ones. Sometimes, if he had a clear shot, he stacked them on top of exes.

To their right, between the automobiles that packed the northbound side, the scavengers could look down onto all ten lanes of Highway 101. Thousands of vehicles clogged the Hollywood Freeway in both directions. Some had ended their existence in crashes. Others had been gridlocked and abandoned. They were faded and grainy, painted with over two years of dust.

Thousands of exes stumbled between the cars. Their skins were withered from months and months in the sun. In at least a quarter of the vehicles, dead things pawed at windshields or clawed the air from open doors. They’d been left prisoners of seat belts and child locks. The endless sound of teeth echoed up from the freeway.

The scavengers went forward yard by yard. The sun was high overhead when they reached the top of the pass and the road started to slope down again. Just past the crest, the burned-out remains of a garage stood behind a fire-blackened fence. The cinderblock walls had cracked from the heat. A charred corpse lay near the gate, dressed in the remains of a mechanic’s coverall. St. George hopped the fence, tapped the corpse with his boot, and walked through the ruins.

Next door to the garage was a small fire station, the near side seared and blackened. The rolling door had been torn off the runners and the fire engine was gone. While St. George checked the garage, Jarvis, Paul, and Lee searched the building. It had been cleaned out by either civil servants or looters. Paul found an ex in the back and took its head off with a wide swipe of his machete.

A little farther down the road a mom-and-pop style gas station was crammed into a tiny strip mall. There were eight cars in a line, a pathetic attempt to barricade the plaza’s miniscule parking lot. Both of the pumps had been vandalized. Lady Bee pointed to the three numbers on the price signs and winked at Lee. There was a restaurant and what looked like a psychic’s shop. All the windows had been used for target practice until they collapsed under their own weight. The red tile roof was shot up, too.

Road Warrior pulled up alongside the line of cars and half a dozen scavengers leaped out, their armor jingling. Billie, Ilya, and a baby-faced man named Danny moved around to check the back of the building. Jarvis, Paul, and Lady Bee headed for the mini-mart behind the gas pumps. Through the broken window they could see something tall swaying back and forth in the shadows.

St. George landed on the rooftop deck of the big truck and waited. Under his watchful eye, a scruffy guy slipped from the cab and moved to the loading ports for the station’s underground tanks. He pried the metal covers off and fed a weighted line into the opening.

Lee and an older guy named Al slid out on the opposite side and took Hector with them. They watched up and down Cahuenga for movement. Hector started to line up on an ex down the road, but Lee put his hand out and guided the rifle’s barrel down. “Hold off shooting outside until you have to,” he said. “Noise attracts them.”

“I know that,” grumbled the tattooed man.

“How long since you’ve been out?” asked Al. He had leathery skin, dark eyes, and a few streaks of steel in his iron hair.

“Out?”

“Out of the Mount. Out from behind the walls.”

“Nine months,” said Hector. “Not since the war.”

“You go out a lot before that?”

“On and off. When I had to.”

“It’ll come back to you,” said Al. “Just don’t get anyone killed before then.”