Peter Clines - Ex-Heroes

He took a quick step back just as John grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled. They stumbled through the narrow door, tripped over each other’s legs, and fell. The ex shuffled out after them and tripped over a swollen crack in the pavement. It dropped onto John’s leg with its mouth open and began to chew.

“SHIT!” Blood blossomed through his jeans, as John tried to shake the zombie off.

Mike rolled to the side and drove three hard kicks into the ex’s skull. His sneaker slapped and bent on its head, but knocked it off his friend. The jaws flung a few red drops as they clacked together.

John dragged himself back and Mike fired one last kick at the dead thing. He tried to scamper away and the ex followed him. It crawled on all fours and bits of fresh calf dropped from its mouth.

“HELP!” screamed John. He tried to hold his hand over the wound as he pulled his skinny frame back. “EX! Ex inside the wall!”

Mike threw another kick and caught the dead thing across the jaw. Its teeth snapped on the sole of his Converse and gnawed at the slab of rubber. He shook his foot, but the ex hung on like a pit bull. It reached up and wrapped its arms around his leg. The hands didn’t grab so much as press together on his knee.

The jaws snapped open and shut and now the teeth were on the ball of his foot. His little toe was in the Seventeen’s mouth. He could feel the incisors through the canvas, like a chisel pressing down hard. A bone snapped and Mike screamed as his eyes watered up.

He heard the drumroll of boots on pavement. A blue and gold blur landed on the ex and pushed it flat against the ground. The figure wiggled, bent down, and the ex’s head jerked back. Mike felt his foot slip just a bit free of the teeth. The blurry shape yanked again as the jaws tried to swallow more sneaker. The dead man’s skull twisted back and Mike’s heel banged against the pavement. He dragged himself away and wiped his eyes clear.

Lady Bee rode the ex like a horse, her heels on its spine and her studded belt circling its throat. She held an end in either hand, steering the jaws away from her. “Put it down!”

Derek, the Melrose guard, leapt across John with a sledge. The handle slid through his grip and he brought the weight up and over in a high arc. The ex’s skull collapsed and dark blood spurted from its ears and nose.

The belt slithered around the limp neck. Bee looked at the splatters of gore on it, sighed, and dropped it by the corpse.

John shuddered. His pant leg was balled at his knee and his wide eyes were stuck on the ragged bite in his calf.

“You people,” Derek shouted at an approaching group. The guard pointed at John while he reached for his walkie. “He’s been bitten. Get him over to Zukor. Carry him. Melrose gate?”

“Go for Melrose,” buzzed his headset.

“Ex down over by the Lansing Theater cells. Need a cleanup crew.”

“Got it.”

Bee pulled off Mike’s gummy shoe and sock. His arch and half his toes were bruised and twisted, but there was no blood. She whistled.

“You’re shit-lucky,” said Derek. “Broke your foot but it didn’t break the skin.”

“Oh thank God,” cried Mike. “Thank God.”

“What the hell were you thinking?” said Bee.

“It was a prisoner. They said he was a smart one, that he could talk and everything. We were trying to find out if he wanted anything for breakfast.”

She and Derek each got an arm under him and lifted him to his feet. “And he attacked you?”

“Yeah, he attacked,” Mike said. Bee was too short on one side, Derek too tall on the other. His foot swung and he winced. “It was just another fucking ex. It came at us, tried to bite me in the cell, and we tripped.”

“Did he say anything? Did you piss him off?”

“It’s an ex,” said the hobbled man. He shifted to put his arm across her shoulders. “No talking, no thinking, just eating.”

Derek looked at the corpse. “You sure?”

“Why don’t you go ask John? I think he got a better look.”

“Come on, smart guy,” said Bee. “Let’s get you to the hospital. I know you’ve been dying to get your hands on me.”

“Dream on, slut.”

“See, that’s what a woman loves to hear.” She gave the broken foot a light tap with her boot and he bit back a moan. “Why’s it so hard for most of you guys to figure that out? You got this?”

Derek nodded, and Bee and Mike limped away.

* * * *

They’d found a comfortable spot on a rooftop that gave them a view. The elevator tower made a bit of shade from the late morning sun. Stealth had slid out of her cloak just before sunrise, making a sniper’s nest for herself on the gravelly roof. St. George tried very hard not to look at her painted-on bodysuit and think about how easy it was to picture her naked.

She peered over the edge of the roof and down at Olympic Boulevard. From here they could see the triangular intersection that seemed to be a central plaza. People walked the streets in large groups that looked like work gangs. Her fingers produced the monocular from her utility belt, and she aimed the lens at the bound thing across from them. St. George pulled one of his own from a side pouch of the backpack.

The dead thing that had been Cairax was chained to the front railing of the Pavilions grocery store. It was a two inch pipe, sunk deep in the concrete, and the bright, chipped paint clashed with the demon’s bruisecolored hide. Its arms were stretched wide, and St. George guessed there were over fifty feet of thick steel links keeping those limbs tight against the rail, with maybe another fifty crossing back and forth over its chest and neck. The spiked tip of the long tail was bound to another pipe. Its head leaned forward, and the oversized fangs gnashed together like a slow-moving kitchen appliance. A pair of Seventeens stood a lazy watch at a small table.

Without looking up, Stealth asked “Is that enough to hold it?”

“Probably.” St. George had teamed up with Cairax a few times in the old days. He knew the monster was at least as strong as he was before becoming one of the tireless undead. “If he still had a brain, and some leverage, he could get out, but I’d say he’s pretty safe like that. His tongue’s been cut out, too.”

“Or bitten off.”

At the triangular center of Beverly and Olympic dozens of thick plastic pallets had been piled together into stacks a yard tall. Particleboard sheets crossed back and forth on top to make a platform fifteen feet square. A dirty section of carpet had been thrown across the center. It was backed up against a tall, spiraling monument of some kind. A severed head was speared on top of the metal center pole.

“Could be a stage,” offered St. George. “Maybe they do live concerts.”

He felt her eyes shift to him from her monocular even though her head didn’t move. “There are bloodstains on the rug. I do not think it is from a musical performance.”

“Depends on the band.”

Another group walked by, this one armed with farm implements.

“All in all, it doesn’t seem too different from how we’re living.”

“Except our guards watch the exes,” she said, “not the civilians.”

The cage measured thirty feet on a side and took up the short turning lane. It was made of the portable fence sections used for concerts and county fairs. Each panel was bolted together, plus extra chains had been wrapped around each connection. Braces reached down to buttress each section, and shiny white sandbags weighted each leg. A dozen sheets of fraying plywood were bolted against the walls. A similar structure could be seen a few blocks west on Olympic, past El Camino.

“I count approximately three hundred exes in the closest pen,” murmured Stealth, “but I have yet to see one walking about.”