by Peter Clines
Danielle turned. “It’s close to the skeletal structure of a human foot. You’re just not used to seeing it without skin.”
“I still think it looks like a dinosaur.”
“A big T. rex fan?”
Kennedy shrugged.
The sound of teeth seemed louder, somehow. Danielle’s fingers curled into fists, and she forced them flat against her sides again. “Was there something I could do for you, First Sergeant?”
Cerberus and Gibbs reached the far access road and headed for the southern fence line. Johnson and Truman traded positions and went back to pumping iron. Johnson muttered encouragement while he spotted.
Kennedy put her hands behind the small of her back and turned away from the soldiers. “I was wondering if we needed to talk about what happened this morning?”
“What about it?”
“Is there anything…I should know?”
Danielle looked past the first sergeant, at the crates, at the exercising soldiers, at the garden plots on the far side of the main building. A half dozen people plucked small shapes off plants and tossed them in buckets. Another trio crouched and tugged at weeds. One of the weeders reached back to throw a clump of dirt and grass into a wheelbarrow, and she recognized Javi the loudmouth.
She glanced up at Kennedy, then toward the corner of the building that blocked her view of the fence line. “It was nothing,” she said. “Just a little panic attack. It’s been a while since I was outside in an area this big, you know?”
Kennedy’s mouth pulled to one side, as if words had tried to pass her lips and she’d yanked them back. “It seemed like a little more,” she said after a moment.
“It wasn’t.”
Kennedy let her own gaze drift. Truman puffed out his fifteenth rep and let the barbell clang back onto the holders. He hung his arms at the sides while Johnson added two more Frisbee-sized plates to the bar.
“My second tour in Iraq,” said the first sergeant, “I set off a booby trap. We were clearing a building, I opened a door, and it pulled the pin on a grenade.”
Danielle’s brows went up. She glanced at the first sergeant’s face, then down her body.
Kennedy shook her head. “I was lucky. Not all the Al Qaeda guys over there were tactical masterminds. We all heard the pin drop, realized what it was, and had a three-count to scatter. They hadn’t planned for that. I wasn’t on top of it when it went off, but I still got thrown and caught some shrapnel in the side.” She ran her hand down her body. “Thirteen scars. Two that look like spider bites up to one on my hip about as long as a pen. That was the serious one. Chipped the bone. Took twenty stitches to close it up.”
“You’re lucky,” Danielle said. Her fingers started to curl and she forced them flat again.
Kennedy’s mouth tugged into a tight, brief smile. “I ended up in the hospital for a week. But as soon as I was up and moving around, I realized I couldn’t get near a closed door without the hair going up on the back of my neck. And if I had to open one…” She shook her head. “I’d get cold sweats and my heart would start pounding. I knew it was stupid. I knew nobody’d booby-trapped the bathrooms. But there were so many times I came close to pissing my pants because I couldn’t open the door.”
Truman puffed away under the barbell again.
“Anyway,” said Kennedy, “one of the doctors noticed and they signed me up for ten sessions with a shrink. We just sat in his office and talked for fifty minutes a day. About my dad and why I signed up and movies I liked. All sorts of random crap. And on the second-to-last day we ended up talking about baseball and I said something about three strikes and you’re out. And then he mentioned the old story about not lighting three people on the same match.”
“Snipers,” nodded Danielle. “Ready, aim, fire.”
“Right. Anyway, we’re going on about trouble always coming in threes, and then it hit me. That was the second time I’d walked away from an explosion, a really bad one this time. Part of me was convinced that I’d used up all my luck.”
“Kind of makes sense.”
“Yeah. And realizing that…I mean, the only thing I ever wanted was to be a soldier. It’s a family thing. And now it took me an hour to get out of the cafeteria if someone let the door close. I just saw my whole future collapsing. I figured I was going to get drummed out with PTSD or something.
“I told the shrink and he smiled. Said it was a common thing. Happened to a lot of soldiers after a near-miss. He was impressed I’d made it through two before needing to talk to someone.”
Danielle leaned in a little. “So what did he do?”
Kennedy looked her in the eyes. “Nothing. He could give me some guidelines, some exercises, but it was all up to me. He couldn’t make me better, only I could. And just knowing that…it was just what I needed to hear, the way I needed to hear it.”
The air slipped out of Danielle’s lungs. “And it worked?”
Kennedy shrugged. “I’m still in the Army,” she said, “and I’m not wearing a diaper.”
“Good for you.”
Kennedy looked over at the soldiers on the weight bench. “My point is, you can get past things like this. I don’t know what happened to you—I don’t know how bad it was—but from what I’ve seen I think you’re tough enough to get past just about anything. So if it’ll help you out, if you ever just need to…to talk to someone about it, or about anything…well, I know what it’s like.”
Danielle pursed her lips and nodded twice. “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Good.”
Truman and Johnson had traded positions again. Something about his form—about both of their forms—nagged at Danielle, but she couldn’t put a finger on it. She watched Johnson’s arms flex for a moment.
Then she took a few steps away from the corner of the building, toward the courtyard entrance. She glanced back over her shoulder. “You sure you’re not wearing a diaper?”
Another tight smile crossed Kennedy’s face. “You can check if you want.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
THE BIG WOMAN aimed one pistol at St. George and one at Madelyn. “Who are you?” she asked. “Where did you come from?”
“Hey,” said St. George, “let’s take it easy.”
“Answer the question,” growled the black man with the beard. He had his shotgun trained on the hero, but from his angle it would be easy for him to shift to Madelyn. He glanced up at Zzzap.
“We’re friends,” said St. George. “I’m hoping we’re all friends here.”
The woman looked over the barrel of her pistol at St. George. She was an inch shorter than him. “Where did you come from?”
“Any chance we could talk about this without guns pointed at us?”
“No,” she said. “Answer the question.”
Want me to take them out? Zzzap hung in the air behind St. George and Madelyn. The bald man with the biker beard and the leather-skinned woman had their shotguns trained on him.
St. George glanced up at the gleaming wraith. “Hang on.”
The big woman glanced up at Zzzap, then back to St. George. “Were those words? What did he say?”
“He’s hard to understand until you get used to him,” said Madelyn.
“Shut up,” snapped the woman. She glared at St. George. “What did he say?”
St. George took in a slow breath. It hissed out of his nostrils as dark smoke. “He wanted to know if he should take out your weapons. I told him to hang on.”
A murmur swept through the crowd as the trails of smoke curled up into the air and were broken apart by sea breezes.
Zzzap waved his hand and twiddled his fingers. The bald man’s shotgun trembled. Farther back in the crowd a few people raised hoes and narrow shovels. One woman even had a pitchfork.
The big woman raised her pistol so it was aimed right between his eyes. “Where,” she said, “did you come from?”
He raised his arm and pointed east. “My friend saw y
our ships out here the other day. We flew out to say hello and see if you needed any help.”
The leather-skinned woman blinked. “You have a plane?”
St. George smiled. “No.”
“Helicopter?”
“Shut up, Alice,” said the square-shouldered woman. “How did you fly out here?”
“We flew,” said Madelyn. She tipped her head back at Zzzap. “Just like he’s flying right now.”
The gleaming wraith waved again.
“I told you to shut up,” said the woman.
“Okay,” said St. George, “I think it’s time to calm down and stop being rude.”
“In case you didn’t notice,” said the woman, “we have the guns. That means we’re in charge unless you feel like getting shot.”
Zzzap chuckled. Madelyn smirked.
“What’s your name?” asked St. George.
“I ask the questions,” said the woman. “That’s how this works. I ask, you answer.”
“I’m just trying to be friendly.”
“Eliza,” said the bald man with the biker beard.
The woman—Eliza—gritted her teeth.
“Eliza,” St. George said. “Pleased to meet you. Short for anything?”
“None of your business.”
He nodded once. “Eliza, most people these days call me St. George.” He looked past her to the crowd. “I’m guessing some of you may have heard of me as the Mighty Dragon.”
Another murmur went through the crowd, this one closer to a rumble.
Eliza set her jaw. “Nice try,” she said. “Now who are you and how did you get here?”
“I told you,” said St. George. “I’m the Mighty Dragon, and we flew out here to see if you needed any help.”
“They flew,” said Madelyn. “I just sort of piggybacked.”
“You are too young to be the Dragon,” said someone in the crowd, a Middle Eastern–looking man with one of the narrow shovels. He was just holding it at his side, though, not up like a weapon.
Zzzap looked down at St. George. You do look good for your age.
“You’re not helping.”
Sorry.
St. George looked at Eliza. He took in a slow breath and let it mix in the back of his throat. The flames crawled up out of his mouth and rolled over his face to dance in the air.
Her eyes went wide. The bald man’s jaw hung open. A few gasps came from the crowd.
St. George focused on the spot between his shoulder blades and rose three feet into the air. Eliza swung the pistol up to keep him in her sights. He managed to hang there for a few seconds before his lungs emptied out and the flames flickered away. Then he took a deep breath, tilted his head back, and shot a cone of fire into the sky.
People shouted. A few screamed. The bald man’s shotgun sagged to point at the helipad.
St. George sank down and landed in front of Eliza. “The Mighty Dragon,” he said. “Really. Or you can go with St. George. I’ll answer to either of them.”
The pistol relaxed a little. “We’ll see,” she said. She looked at the others. “Who are these?”
St. George tossed a glance over his shoulder. “The glowing guy is Zzzap. I think you’ve seen him a few times in the past couple of days. You’ve probably heard of him, too.”
Hey, everyone, said the wraith. Nice man-made island.
Alice, the leather-skinned woman, snorted.
“And this is Madelyn,” said St. George, “who sometimes goes by Corpse Girl.”
The black man with the shotgun frowned. Eliza’s brow furrowed. “Why?”
“Y’know,” murmured Madelyn, “I’m really not sure this is such a good idea.”
St. George looked at her. “Go ahead. It’ll be okay.”
“You sure?”
He took a small side-step and moved closer to her. “Yeah.”
She sighed, shrugged, and pushed her goggles up onto her forehead. It pulled her hair back from her face, and her white skin gleamed in the sun. She squinted and blinked against the brightness, but managed to get her eyes open. They were dry and chalky after most of a day with no eye drops.
“Zombie!” bellowed the black man. His shotgun shifted from St. George to Madelyn. St. George stepped to block it. “Out of the way!”
The cry echoed through the crowd. People panicked and surged away. They clogged the stairs, and some jumped off the helipad down to the deck. A few stepped forward with their farming tools raised.
One, he couldn’t help but notice, was the woman with the pitchfork.
Alice swung her shotgun between Zzzap and the dead girl. The bald man took a few steps back. Eliza had both pistols on St. George, one lower than the other.
Madelyn sighed.
“Calm down,” said St. George. “She hasn’t attacked anyone. She’s not doing anything.”
“Move out of the way,” said Eliza. “She’s infected. She has to be put down.”
“I’m not infected,” said Madelyn. “I’m just dead.”
St. George smiled. “She talks a lot for an ex, doesn’t she?”
“Hey!”
“Mister,” said the black man, “this is your last chance. Move away.” He pushed past Eliza and lowered his shotgun toward the Corpse Girl.
George…?
“I’ve got it.” St. George reached out and wrapped his fingers around the weapon’s muzzle. His palm blocked the barrel. “Again,” he said, “I think you just need to stop for a minute, calm down, and consider what’s going on here.”
The man stared at St. George with cold eyes. “You do not want to be playing this game with me, mister.”
“I’m not wor—”
The roar of the shotgun echoed across the helipad, and then the open space swallowed up the sound. The blast knocked St. George’s hand away from the barrel. More people shrieked. Madelyn was one of them.
St. George glared at the man. Then he held up his hand. Smoke curled off the cuff of his leather jacket. He opened his fingers and let the buckshot clatter and ping down onto the deck. “I’m fine with it if you want to keep playing this game,” he said, “but I think my turn’s going to go very differently than yours.”
About twenty people were left up on the helipad. They stared at St. George with wide eyes and open mouths. The Middle Eastern man with the shovel studied the hero’s face.
“You rock,” said Madelyn.
Sure, sighed Zzzap, take all the cool moments for yourself. I’ll just hang back here with the power of a star and make sure you’re well-lit.
“We’ve been polite,” St. George told Eliza, “but I think at this point either we start talking, we start fighting, or we leave. Your choice.”
She didn’t take her eyes off St. George, but she holstered one of the pistols she’d been pointing at him and made a point of fastening the strap over it. Then she raised her hand. “Everyone stand down for the moment.”
“For the moment?” Madelyn raised an eyebrow.
Eliza turned her head, still keeping her eyes on St. George. “Steve,” she told the black man, “stand down.”
Steve still had his shotgun up. His wide eyes flitted back and forth between the barrel, St. George’s hand, and the pellets being pushed along the helipad by the breeze. He looked at Eliza and lowered his weapon.
She turned her full attention back to the heroes. “We’ll talk more once you’ve cleared inspection and we’ve established who you are.”
“I told you who we are,” said St. George. “The Mighty Dragon. Zzzap. Corpse Girl.”
“So you say.”
Madelyn shook her head. “You’re telling me you never heard of the Mighty Dragon?”
“Of course I have.” Eliza tipped the pistol aimed at St. George. “Doesn’t mean I believe you’re him.”
“Who else could I be?”
“I don’t know,” she said, “but you’ll understand if I don’t believe you’re the Mighty Dragon.”
“No,” he said, “not really.”
She took a step back and murmured some quick commands to the bald man with the biker beard. He glanced at the heroes, nodded, and jogged away. His feet clanged down the helipad stairs and he was gone.
I think this was a Twilight Zone episode, Zzzap said. One day you wake up and nobody knows who you are.
“They know who I am,” said St. George, “they just don’t believe I’m me.”
“Is that a line from a song?” Madelyn asked. “It should be if it isn’t.”
Eliza stepped back to them. “Here’s how it works,” she said. “You get a full exam to make sure you’re not infected. We hold you in quarantine overnight. If you pass, tomorrow we’ll talk.” She stared at Madelyn.
“I’m not an ex,” said the Corpse Girl. “I’m just like all of you, I’m just…dead. It’s my superpower.”
“Not much of a superpower,” said Eliza.
Madelyn smiled. “It all depends on what you do with it.”
Do you have a big problem with the ex-virus out here? asked Zzzap.
The square-shouldered woman furrowed her brow at the wraith, and he repeated himself. She shook her head. “It was bad at first, on different ships. We lost a lot of people. Once we all came together, we got strict about who could come aboard. We haven’t had someone turn in almost ten months.”
Steve stared at St. George. “Why do you call yourself the Mighty Dragon?”
He shrugged. “It seemed to make sense. I could breathe fire and sort of fly.”
“No, I mean, why didn’t you pick your own name? It’s disrespectful.”
“What is?”
“Using his name,” said the big man. “A lot of people looked up to him.”
“It’s my name,” St. George said. “I made it up.”
Steve grunted.
Eliza gestured at the red gym bag with her pistol. “What’s in there?”
“Some supplies for the trip,” said St. George. “Food, water, some clothes. There’s a bag with about a thousand vitamin C tablets. We thought you might be suffering from scurvy out here and figured they’d make a nice gift.”