Peter Clines - Ex-Heroes

* * * *

Derek checked his watch and looked at the crowd of exes pushing on the bars. Three more hours until his shift ended and he went to Mark Larsen’s funeral.

The dead things reached and groped. He’d counted one hundred and sixteen of them earlier. Their jaws opened and closed as they stretched hands and bloody stumps through the gate. There were shiny patches where constant flailing had scoured paint down to metal.

Elena nodded at the watch. “What time is it?”

“Almost five o’clock,” he said. “Damn.”

“What are you up to tonight after the funeral?”

“Some new DVDs from the library,” she said. “Think I might stay in and finish off a bottle of Matt Russell’s moonshine.”

Makana, the other guard looked up from his book. “Is that crap any good?”

She smirked. “Christ, no. But it makes me forget the day.”

He mulled it over. “You want company?”

“Depends.”

The rustle of dry skin on metal, the endless clack of jaws, it all stopped. The exes froze in the sinking sunlight. Their collective arms dropped to their collective sides.

Derek straightened up and raised his rifle. “What the fuck,” he murmured.

The eerie silence stretched over five seconds. Then ten.

“TONIGHT.”

Hundreds and hundreds of them spoke with one leathery voice that echoed across all thirty acres of the Mount. Some of it was clear. Some was just hissed air. Everyone understood it.

“TONIGHT THE SEVENTEENS ARE COMING TO KILL YOU ALL.”

* * * *

The exes in the cage stared up at him. Their announcement echoed off the buildings. Even some of the Seventeens looked shaken.

St. George let a long breath of black smoke curl out of his nostrils. “We don’t have to fight.”

“Pussy.” The giant ex chuckled.

“What’s the point of all this?”

“The point?”

“Why fight? Why aren’t we working together? With your power we could’ve had Los Angeles cleaned out months ago. Why didn’t you join us?”

“Join you?” Mighty Joe furrowed his thick brow and glared up at the hero. “Motherfucker, you just don’t get it. Why didn’t you join us ?”

St. George blinked.

A huge finger stabbed up at him. “Why you think we all wanted to kneel down and be your bitches? Life is good as long as you’re in charge, huh? We don’t kneel to no one, pinche . We’re Diecisiete ! SS always and forever!”

The Seventeens roared.

They opened fire.

Rifles. Pistols. Machine guns. Hundreds of firearms all aimed at him.

St. George closed his eyes and let one leg settle off the ledge to brace himself. The bullets were heavy rain beating on his body. They hit every inch of him. His skin rippled. His muscles stung. His third leather jacket in a week became tatters, torn away in the high caliber wind that tried to drive him back.

Under the percussion of gunfire he could hear the screams. Civilians pelted with hot casings as they tried to plug their ears. There were elderly people and children in the crowd. They were terrified.

It was going to get worse for them.

The hero ignored the bullets slapping him and sucked in air. Short, quick breaths filled every inch of his lungs. His chest swelled and he felt the warm sizzle in the back of his throat.

It took a few moments for the rain to stop. St. George opened his eyes and looked down. Saw their fear of the man who stood through all their bullets. The Seventeens were pulling magazines from belts and pockets while empty ones rattled on the ground in drifts of spent brass.

St. George sucked in a last mouthful of air and sent a cone of fire down onto the street. The tongues of flame lashed down and spun in the air. He swung his head and let it wash across the mob.

He couldn’t actually reach them. The burning chemicals went a few yards from the rooftop and sputtered out a dozen feet above the ground. He didn’t have the lung power for anything more. But it got their heads down and let him leap across the street to the top of the ivy-covered building. He sent another curtain of fire over the intersection and the crowd scattered a bit. Some of them fired into the air.

The flames died and their eyes found him. His bare chest gleamed in the sun above the dark, bullet-scarred jeans. The wind spread his hair behind him like a mane. “If you come to the Mount,” St. George roared, “we will fight.”

He reached down, never taking his eyes from the crowd, and tore a basketball-sized chunk of brickwork from the edge of the building with one hand. He held it up for them to see and then brought his fist around to shatter it.

“All of us will fight you. And we will not hold back.”

The hero let the red dust run through his fingers before he hurled himself up into the air.

Cerberus stomped across the streets of the Mount and keyed her microphone. “Sun’s going down. People are panicking.”

“And this surprises you?” Zzzap’s voice was crystal clear over her helmet speakers.

“Just the level of it. We’ve kept them safe for over a year—”

“And now they think they’re not safe. What have you done for me lately, eh?”

“Nothing, apparently.”

“I could come out and brighten things up.”

“No,” cut in Gorgon’s voice. “The last thing we need right now is for the power to go out and everyone see you flying off into the air.”

“Fair point.”

“I’m trying to get generator crews out, but until they’re up and running you stay put. Got it?”

Cerberus keyed her mic. “Who put you in charge, anyway?”

“I did. One of you guys want it instead?”

A long silence filled the airwaves.

“Yeah, that’s what I figured.”

She tried to come up with something clever and the motion sensors went mad. “Hang on a minute. Got a big crowd.”

A crowd of a dozen families, couples, and individuals was jostling its way up through the long shadows of 3rd Street. Their bodies were wrapped in backpacks and duffel bags. Their arms were filled with bundles and suitcases. One little boy clutched a cat carrier that shifted and yowled.

In public address mode, the voice of Cerberus echoed down the street. “Everyone stay calm,” she thundered. “There is no need to panic, no need to rush. Calm down.”

She switched back to standard volume and singled out one man, fortysomething with a dark ring of hair. A special effects expert who’d become a repairman inside the Mount. “Where do you think you’re going, Henry?”

The nearby crowd stopped to see who she was talking to, and he glared up at her. “Are we prisoners here? Do I have to answer to you?”

She shook her armored head. “Of course not. You’re free to go where you want.”

“Damn right I am.” He pulled his wife and son in tight. “And we want out of here. We all do.”

The crowd murmured and barked in agreement.

“I understand,” Cerberus said. “I just think you need to step back and think for a minute.”

“Don’t tell us what to do!”

“I’m just telling you to stop and think, that’s all,” the titan said. A few blinks raised the suit’s volume by three decibels. “Everyone calm down, stop for a minute, and think. Yeah, what happened a little while ago was scary as hell. I don’t understand it either and I’m scared too. The Seventeens are coming and there’s going to be a fight. A big one.”

“All the more reason not to be here,” the repairman snapped. He tried to shove past her and she blocked him with a hand twice the size of a hubcap.

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “How can you be safer outside the Mount, Henry? In here you’ve got guards, lights, and walls. Out there the sun’s going down and there are five million exes waiting to eat you.”