by Peter Clines
“Where’d you get those?” Eliza asked.
We make them, said Zzzap. It’s a little time-consuming, but it’s pretty easy once you’ve got everything set up.
“Where the hell are you people from?” asked Alice. “I mean, how’d you dodge everything and end up with all this stuff?”
“It took a lot of time,” said St. George. “For a long while we were struggling and scraping by. But we managed to get a lot of survivors together and we’re doing…okay. Not great, but okay.”
“And where is this?”
Hollywood, said Zzzap.
Steve looked at the wraith. “What was that?”
“We’re in Los Angeles,” said St. George. “If you know the city, our main complex is near Hollywood, heading toward downtown.”
Eliza’s lips flattened out. Steve lifted his shotgun and held it across his chest. Alice’s face came close to a snarl.
St. George looked at each of them. “What?”
“It isn’t that bad,” said Madelyn. “I always heard bad things about LA, too, but it’s nice. The Mount is huge. There’s tons of room, and you can just walk around without worrying about exes.”
Alice brought her shotgun around. It wasn’t pointed at the Corpse Girl, but it wasn’t far off, either. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“No.”
Whatshisname is back, said Zzzap.
The bald man with the biker beard came up the steps to the helipad. He took a few deep breaths and nodded. “Rooms are ready. Thirteen, fourteen, sixteen.”
Eliza nodded. “Last chance for you and your people to get lost,” she told St. George. “Our home, our rules. Everyone gets checked. No exceptions.”
He looked at his friends. “I think we’re all okay with that, yeah?”
Madelyn shrugged. Zzzap nodded.
“Okay, then.” Eliza holstered her other pistol, but the shotguns and spears stayed up. “Follow me.” She scooped up the red bag and headed for the stairwell. Steve, Alice, and the others stepped aside and gestured for the heroes to follow her.
“Welcome to Lemuria,” said the Middle Eastern man as they walked past him. His flat tone made it less a greeting and more a statement. He didn’t meet their eyes.
Lemuria? Zzzap glanced back at the man.
“It was a made-up continent,” Alice said as they walked down the steps. “Some guy made it up back in the 1800s to explain where lemurs came from.”
“That’s stupid,” said Madelyn.
No, actually, that’s pretty much the truth, said the wraith. He drifted down from the helipad and followed alongside the dead teenager. I was just expecting you would’ve gone with Atlantis or Lost Island or something.
“We’re not in the Atlantic,” said Alice.
They walked along one of the gardens. People stared. Most of them were adults, but there were a few teenagers.
The garden was a raised bed, about twenty feet wide and a hundred long. There was another one a few yards past it. There were lots of plants growing that St. George recognized, but none he could name. The soil was dark and wet. Thin streams of brown water leaked out from the edges. He wrinkled his nose.
“Whoa,” Madelyn whispered. “Even I can smell that. Kinda like a sewer.” Her nostrils flared and her lips tightened up.
No, I get that, Zzzap said to Alice, drowning out the Corpse Girl. Lemuria’s just a little more obscure than most people would’ve chosen. You have my geeky approval, believe me.
“We don’t need your approval,” said Steve.
I’m just saying—
“If you don’t want to tell us the truth, just keep your mouth shut,” the big man said. “Got it?”
“What’s the problem here?” asked St. George. “Why is it so hard for you to believe we are who we say we are?”
“Because you’re lying,” Eliza said over her shoulder.
“But he’s not,” said Madelyn. “He’s the Mighty Dragon. He used to be, anyway.”
Steve turned and glared at them. “The Mighty Dragon’s dead,” he snapped. “Everyone knows that.”
St. George stopped walking. “What?”
“He’s dead,” growled Steve. “He died when they nuked Los Angeles to contain the virus.”
I THINK I saw Kathy earlier. Way up on Western, past the freeway. It was just a thin figure in white, standing in the middle of the road about a mile and a half away.
It could’ve been a zombie altar boy, I guess. Anybody in a white outfit. There’s probably a few hundred people in white staggering around Los Angeles right now. It might’ve just been light gray that looked white because of the distance. The odds of it being my dead girlfriend are pretty slim.
Some people think I’ve got all kinds of eye powers. Telescopic sight. X-Ray vision. But the goggles don’t make my eyes better, they just keep everyone else safe. Truth is, I’m not much better off than anyone else when it comes to seeing things at a distance.
I’m pretty sure it was her.
I wanted to quit being Gorgon after she died. I just wanted to curl up in my apartment for a month. Or punch something. Punching won out.
One good thing about the zombie apocalypse—there’s lots of stuff to punch. Idiot gangbangers. Looters. Hysterical people. And zombies.
Lots of zombies.
Stealth had me on escort duty. Getting some of the better-armed groups into her film studio fortress. The ones who can travel on their own without too much help.
Today’s group was twenty-three people. Two extended families out of Hancock Park area and four loners we’d picked up on the way. Mostly adults. A few kids. One baby keeping its trap shut. A few old people. One woman was in a wheelchair. I figured she was a goner. Her grandson pushed her, never fell behind once. He had Grandma’s chair leaning back in a wheelie the whole way. They’d been hiding out six blocks away from the studio, so the decision was we could make it on foot safer and faster than driving a truck with a loud engine. I’d taken a quick hit off the group, enough to get me up to tier-two strength so I could deal with any problems that showed up.
We passed Wilton, worked the whole group around an abandoned SUV, and I saw the corner of the studio half a block up ahead. I also saw about half a dozen exes between us and that corner. With the thirty or so dead people trailing us since we passed Western, that added up to some of my group dead if I didn’t take care of things.
One thing Kathy and I learned fast. Standing still is how they get you. Except for the Mighty Dragon, everyone who’s tried to stand their ground against these things has been overwhelmed and died. Everyone. Police, soldiers, stupid punks with guns. Hell, they even took down Blockbuster. Eight feet tall, seven feet wide, and it just didn’t matter when there’s one of you and a hundred of them.
I heard the Dragon had to break his neck.
I was still at a solid tier two, and seeing Kathy earlier made me want to break something. I headed for the closest ex. There were four more behind it and a fifth a little farther back. The click-click-click of their teeth was a Geiger counter telling us we were close to something dangerous.
The ex saw me coming. It had been a woman, maybe in her forties when she was killed. Dark hair, sharp chin, messy bite in the left shoulder. It started to raise its arms, but I smacked them back down and grabbed its head in both hands. One sharp twist up and back snapped its neck. It went limp and dropped. The jaw kept snapping open and closed. Even if you take the head clean off, they won’t stop biting until the brain’s destroyed.
I tossed the head, raised my arm, and pointed out the fallen ex to my group. Didn’t want anyone getting too close to those teeth. I’ve heard some people call them anklebiters when they’re down but still active.
My arm came down and broke the wrist of the next ex before it could grab at me. I would’ve broken both of them, but its other arm ended at the elbow. Looked like it had been chewed or twisted off. Maybe both. No question how that guy bought it. A solid backhand spun its head to the side as its teeth scrape
d against the outside of my gloves. I put one hand on its jaw, one on its shoulder, and twisted it around even farther until I felt cartilage tear and heard bones snap. It fell, and I kicked it in the head as I walked past.
Two down and I’d already bled off some strength. Not much, but I could feel it. I’d have to put the rest of them down before I ran out of power.
I don’t like fighting like this. I got spoiled, being able to drain strength from people. Exes don’t have any life to drain. It’s like trying to fight a punching bag, and I didn’t adapt fast enough. That’s why Kathy had to fight them alone so many times.
That’s why she died.
Guilt’s a great motivator. Who would’ve suspected?
A dead man reached for me. I kicked its legs out from under it and stomped on its head. The skull cracked on the second stomp, and its teeth stopped moving. I grabbed the next one by the arm, spun it around, and slammed it headfirst into a phone pole. Its face caved in with a crunch, and I let it drop in a pile.
I heard a guy gasp behind me. They’d all stopped to stare. Seeing four exes put down in a minute can be pretty brutal. I didn’t care if they were shocked as long as they were alive. “Come on,” I said. “No stopping, remember?”
One of the loners we’d picked up—Ivan? Ilya? Something Russian-sounding—was watching the rear. He had a pistol, a rifle slung over his shoulder, and an aluminum baseball bat. In the past four blocks he’d put down two exes that got too close, and he’d been smart and used the bat every time. No extra noise to draw in more of them.
He’d have to put down more soon if we didn’t get moving. More likely he’d get killed and all these people would panic. The ones with guns would start shooting and attract more exes. And then we’d all die.
Just like she died.
I took a few steps back and grabbed one of the guys by the collar. He tried to flinch away, his eyes locked on the stains and bits of gore on my gloves. “Move,” I hissed at him. “Do you want your family to get eaten?”
I dragged him forward a few feet and shoved him toward the film studio. He took the hint. So did the rest of them.
I marched past the guy and drove my fist into a dead woman’s face. I aimed low and shattered the jaw. The ex staggered back and gave me time to move in and twist its head around. Neck broken, body dead, mouth flapping back and forth on broken bones.
I waved at the families. “Come on,” I said. “Move!”
We ran past the intersection. There were a few scattered exes here, but when they’re alone they’re easy to dodge. A dead kid with no lower jaw and an AC/DC shirt headed toward us, stumbled off the curb, and fell facedown in the street. A female ex in a blazer and slacks limped forward, but we were past it before it could shuffle more than a few feet.
We passed Bronson, the blocked gate, and the entrance was coming up. There were a dozen or so exes past that, maybe twenty, but they were pretty far back. Exes weren’t fast. We could get in the gate before they reached us.
Provided we got past the next three. They were all together. A small pack. There was a dead woman with a torn shirt. A dead police officer with one arm ripped up so much it couldn’t even raise it. The third looked like it had been dragged facedown for a few blocks, or maybe burned. It had a few long black hairs and wide shoulders.
I grabbed one of the dead woman’s outstretched arms, pulled her close so I could put a hand on her shoulder, and spun around. She whirled into the air, and I slammed her into the cop. The impact dropped them both in a heap in the middle of the road. Not down for good, but it’d take them a few minutes to get untangled and back to their feet.
And that was the last of my strength. Back to normal human levels. No better than any of the civilians following me. And I didn’t even have a fucking baseball bat.
The faceless zombie lumbered at me. I kicked it hard in the gut. Lots of soft tissue to absorb a blow, but it’s a hinge point. Bodies fold there.
Faceoff staggered back, but it didn’t fall.
Dammit.
“Go,” I yelled over my shoulder. I pointed past Faceoff to the studio’s big main entrance. “I’ll keep it busy. Get to the gate!”
In the back of the group, I got a quick glimpse of Ilya urging them on. The big group of exes behind them was getting closer. I could hear chattering teeth. Lots of them.
Then Faceoff bit my arm.
It’s not a big deal. I’ve been bitten two or three times. They can’t make it through the leather sleeves on my duster. In a way, it’s a good thing. Once an ex has a mouthful of people, it’ll stop fighting.
It hurts like all hell, though. Especially when they start gnawing. For someone who looked like they’d been dead for at least a month, Faceoff still had some pretty impressive jaw muscles.
I let the zombie chew on my sleeve while the rest of them ran past me. Even the kid pushing Grandma in her wheelchair. I was going to have some serious bruises on my arm when this was done.
Ilya stopped for a second and raised his bat, but I waved him on. They needed someone watching their back. Depending on how this went, it might not be me.
The sound of teeth got louder behind me. Got closer. I wasn’t going to have a lot of time.
Once they were a few yards away, I punched Faceoff in the forehead. It didn’t flinch, so I punched it a second time. And a third. On the fourth I felt something crack under the mess of its face.
For a few seconds it felt like it was looking at me. Its eyes kind of flickered, like it knew who I was and what I was doing. What would happen if it didn’t respond. It was just a second, but man…I could feel hate in that look. Like it knew me.
Then the moment passed and I hit it again. This time the punch knocked it off my arm. One of its front teeth popped out, tumbled over my sleeve, and bounced off my chest.
The teeth-clicking was loud behind me. Less than twenty feet away loud. I didn’t have much time.
I slammed my fist into the lack-of-face again and felt its nose collapse. The impact knocked it back again and let me kick its legs out from under it. I left it there and ran to catch up with the group. I didn’t waste time looking behind me. They weren’t close enough to bite, so they weren’t close enough to matter.
I caught up to the group just before the gate. The exes farther down the street had seen them coming and staggered forward. Three of the men had stopped to shoot at them. I grabbed two of them and shoved them toward the gate. “Idiots,” I shouted. “Just—”
The third one spun around with his pistol up. One of the dads, Jorge, I think. His eyes were scared. Somewhere on our little jaunt he’d snapped. Maybe right here.
No time to deal with panic. My goggles snapped open as soon as I saw his eyes. Just for two seconds. I felt the strength pour into me as it leeched out of him. Not much, but it was something.
The pistol dropped and he stumbled. A lot of people have told me seeing my eyes is like getting hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat. It makes dealing with people very easy. Living people, anyway.
“Help him inside,” I told the other two. “Now.”
They looked at him, then at me. One of them glanced back at the mob of exes. There was a walking corpse with a Nike logo on its shirt about twenty feet from us.
“Now!”
The two men grabbed their friend and ran for the gate. The guards inside had opened it about five feet, and the big robot, Cerberus, stood out in front. There were half a dozen exes flopped around its feet. One or two of them were still snapping their jaws. The robot had two more, one in each hand. She threw one at the approaching mob, then the other.
I stepped forward, grabbed the Nike lady by the shoulders, and hurled it back at the crowd. Three of the exes went down in a heap. And that was pretty much it for my borrowed strength.
The entrance to the studio is this big cobblestone driveway up through a double arch. Very old-California, old-Hollywood classy. The wheelchair was stuck in the ruts. Six blocks the kid makes it pushing Grandma and the
chair gets stuck fifteen feet from the gate. Almost everyone else was inside. The two guys dragged Jorge right past Grandma and her wheelchair without stopping. The kid couldn’t get her free and another quartet of exes was closing in, with a lot more behind them.
I flicked open my goggles and drained Grandma until she passed out. It gave me the boost I needed. A good tier two. I threw her over my shoulder with one hand and flung the wheelchair at the exes with the other. When the kid tried to say something I grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the gate.
Cerberus smacked away two last dead people, stepped through, and the gate clanged shut behind her. A pipe slammed down into a set of brackets they’d welded across the entrance. About twenty seconds later the clicking got louder and the arms started reaching through the bars to claw at the air. Some of them had expensive watches or rubber bracelets or rings. A few of them were missing fingers or whole hands.
The family surged forward and caught Grandma as I set her down. I know enough Spanish to know they were worried she was dead, but she started moving and mumbling while they talked. They shot me some angry looks I ignored. Another plus of wearing the goggles.
Then the guards closed in and started moving them toward quarantine and screening. A couple of the people freaked out a bit, but they all knew it was coming. I’d explained it to them before we’d left their safe house, and the bilingual folks had translated for the three or four of them who were bad with English.
It’s a smart procedure. The guards walk them about a block down one of the studio roads to the quarantine building. Gives them time to see who’s limping, favoring arms, or just acting funny. It’s a way to spot people with bites they’re keeping quiet about. They all know they’re going to be found out eventually, but they still hope for the best.
Quarantine’s a big movie theater at the far end of the studio lot. It can hold a couple hundred people, but I don’t think there’s more than fifty or sixty in there at a time. Everyone stays there until they get checked out. It sounds like a recipe for disaster, I know, locking a bunch of untested people in a room together, but it isn’t. Unlike the movies, exes don’t reanimate in seconds. No one falls down dead and then jumps up as a zombie thirty seconds later. It takes a couple of hours for the ex-virus to get someone back on their feet.