Ex-Isle

by Peter Clines

  Counting these people, I’ve helped get almost two hundred people inside so far. Two hundred people saved in less than a week.

  It’s been seven weeks since she died. Since Regenerator screwed up and didn’t save her. He said we had more time, she’d be fine for another day or so, he needed to focus on more serious cases. Then she started convulsing. And bleeding out.

  By the time someone found him she was already dead. There was nothing he could do. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me how sorry he was.

  I think if the Dragon hadn’t shown up, I might’ve killed him. Or I would’ve found out just how fast he can heal. How many times can you crush someone’s hand in five minutes?

  When I found out he’d been bitten, I almost laughed. Four weeks to the day after Kathy died. Irony. It’ll get you every fucking time.

  The robot walked over to stand near me. I know it’s armor, not a robot, but I can’t help it. First impressions and all that crap.

  “Close one,” said Cerberus. The words had a sharp, harsh edge. I think she had something set in the speakers so she’d sound tougher.

  “Shouldn’t’ve been,” I muttered. “If they’d just kept moving it wouldn’t’ve been a problem.”

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s get you cleared.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  Every time I come back in, I have to go through a full exam. That’s the big procedure right now. It’s why all the people I brought back are in quarantine. One by one they’re brought out, taken somewhere secure, and stripped naked. Every inch of you gets checked for cuts, scrapes, stabs, bites—anything that means you could be infected. They even look at your tongue. I know Stealth wanted to shave people’s scalps, but the Dragon thought that’d be pushing it.

  Plus, head wounds bleed like mad. You can’t hide one. Even an old one’s going to have a big scab, and if it’s older than that…well, it’d be clear you’re infected.

  We walked down the road to one of the four white pop-up tents that had been set up near the quarantine building. Two for men, two for women. The guards were leading a teenage girl with messy brown hair into the farthest tent while we approached. She hadn’t been in my group.

  Cerberus stopped a few yards away from the tent and let me walk in on my own. One of the few privileges of being a superhero. I can cut in line for the naked test.

  An older guy with a beard was waiting in the tent. He’d checked me four or five times before. I think his name started with a J. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to introductions these days. He had two folding tables on either side of him.

  Two guards with rifles flanked the tent’s entrance. One of them wore a camo jacket with a Marine badge on the shoulder. I knew there were a couple real Marines here, but there were also people floating around who’d found or looted military clothes. This guy’s posture didn’t scream military.

  Some people freaked out during the test. That’s why there were armed guards. A few of them had reason to freak out. I’d never asked what happened when they found somebody with a bite. To be honest, I didn’t care.

  The bearded guy smiled at me. “Y’all want to admit anything up front, save us some time?”

  I shook my head and pulled my gloves off. They had some slime and a bit of blood on them. I dropped them on the left-hand table. Questionable material. No one was sure how the ex-virus spread, so anything questionable got doused in disinfectants, washed, and doused again. I’d get them back just in time to head back out again.

  I shrugged out of my duster and draped it over the table on the right. Then I unbuckled my body armor and pulled it over my head. Arm guards were next, then my utility belt, and my shirt. All piled on the right.

  “Goggles,” said the guard in the Marine jacket.

  I stopped unbuttoning my jeans and looked at him. “What?”

  “Take your goggles off,” he said.

  Nobody else said anything. I felt my mouth twist. “Are you new here or just fucking stupid? The goggles don’t come off.”

  His jaw tensed up. He started to raise his rifle, but the other guard pushed it back down. “Sorry, Gorgon. He’s new and stupid.”

  I shook my head and let my jeans drop. I was a boxers man for years, but over the past few weeks I’d switched to briefs, just to speed this whole process up and spare myself a little dignity. They hide a lot less.

  “Got a big bruise there,” said the smart guard. He gestured with his chin at my forearm. His hands stayed on his rifle.

  “Ex tried to bite me through my jacket,” I said.

  “It break the skin?” asked the bearded man.

  I shook my head. “Didn’t even scrape the sleeve.”

  He nodded, glanced over at the duster, and then studied the bruise from a few angles. “Hold your arm out,” he said after a minute, flicking his fingers at it.

  I did. He peered at it some more, then nodded. “Looks okay,” he said. He twirled his fingers and I turned around. He started high, and I heard his boots creak as he crouched to look at my thighs and calves. A lot of people get bitten on their calves. Anklebiters.

  “Step your feet out a bit.”

  I moved each foot out eight or nine inches. Another minute passed.

  He tapped my shoulder and I faced front again. “All looks good to me,” he said. He glanced back at the guards. “Y’all see anything?”

  The smart guard shook his head. The idiot seethed for a few seconds and then shook his head, too. “Nothing,” he muttered.

  “Good to go,” the bearded guy told me.

  I got dressed. Everything but my gloves. I knew the drill, and so did the bearded guy. Last thing was my duster. I swung it around and let it settle on my shoulders. I looked at the idiot and thought about opening the goggles for a few seconds. Instead I just walked outside.

  Cerberus was waiting for me. Could’ve been a statue. Didn’t look like she’d moved an inch. “All good?”

  I didn’t answer. She tried to talk to me a lot. It struck me I had no idea what the woman inside the armor looked like. I’d never met her face-to-face. I didn’t want to meet anyone. Especially not any women.

  We walked back toward the main gate. There was a cafeteria on the other side of the lot where they had some basics. Canned soup. Oatmeal. They were trying to go through all the stuff in the freezer before it went bad. There might even be some meat. I could get some dinner, grab a few hours of sleep somewhere, and be back outside at sunrise.

  Cerberus was talking about defenses. Walls, gates. I didn’t pay much attention. None of this stuff involved me. I just wanted to be alone.

  I think there’s a good chance that one day I’ll head out and not come back. I don’t know where I’d go. Maybe I’d try to find Kathy. Whatever was left of her. Maybe I’d just go back to my apartment and curl up. One or two people had told me it’d pass. I’d get over it.

  They were idiots.

  I didn’t have any reason to stay here. The Dragon and Stealth and robot-lady could handle all this without me. I wasn’t needed here. I just wanted to—

  “Stop pushing me, asshole,” someone shouted.

  A new group was heading down the cobblestone street toward us. Maybe a dozen people. Not sure who brought them in. I didn’t see the Dragon or Stealth anywhere.

  There was a big guy in a gym-gray T-shirt and jeans off to one side of the group. He had a shaved head and a face full of stubbly whiskers. His body was thick. Not muscular or fat, but that solid midpoint.

  One of the guards was saying something and pointing toward us. Toward quarantine. The guy shook his head. The people around him looked nervous, and he wasn’t helping.

  “No,” shouted the guy. “I’m not going to no death panels! Let me out of here.”

  The guard tried to calm him, but out of nowhere the guy threw a wild punch. The guard stumbled back. People screamed. The guy ran.

  After being on edge and alone for a few months, some people couldn’t deal with the idea of being safe or being told wha
t to do. Sometimes they freaked out. A few of the freak-outs were small, but most were like this guy—loud and convinced they could do something about it.

  I had a bit of extra strength left from Grandma. Enough I could take a few leaping strides and get ahead of the guy. He looked at me, raised his fists, and I opened the goggles wide.

  He stood there for a moment. Then his legs wobbled and he sagged. He dropped to his knees in front of me, still trapped by my eyes. I held him in my stare. Strength was just pouring out of him into me. His eyes were watering, and he started to shake.

  I heard something heavy walk up behind me. “I think you got him,” said Cerberus.

  The goggles snapped shut. Death-panels guy toppled over. From the way my skin was tingling, he’d be waking up in an hour or so with a serious headache.

  The guards came and dragged him toward quarantine. Being unconscious didn’t get you out of an exam, and this guy had just gotten bumped to the front of the line.

  “Stupid,” I said. “They should’ve been expecting something like that.”

  “Probably,” said Cerberus. “What do you want? Most of these guys aren’t trained military or police.” The big helmet head moved side to side. “Hell, we’re lucky when we can find a mall security guard.”

  “Well, they better find someone to put in charge. Things are going to get ugly in here fast if it keeps going like this.”

  I watched them haul him into the same tent I’d been in a few minutes ago. When he woke up he was either going to be naked or his underwear’d be sitting funny. Either way, he’d probably keep his head down for a while.

  I decided to be in the area when he woke up. Just in case.

  For now, I turned and headed for the cafeteria.

  “ERRRRRR…Nobody nuked Los Angeles,” St. George said.

  “Yeah, they did,” said Steve.

  “No, they didn’t. And I’m not dead.”

  “The Dragon is,” the tall man with the shotgun said.

  “He’s not,” said Madelyn. “I’d know, believe me.”

  So would I, said Zzzap.

  “Are you stupid or something,” asked Alice, “or is this part of some plan?”

  “Okay, hang on,” said St. George. He came to a halt near the end of the muddy garden. Alice almost bumped into him. “You think someone dropped a nuclear bomb on LA?”

  “They didn’t drop it,” said the bald man with the biker beard. “I heard they drove them in on trucks.”

  “Them?” Madelyn echoed. “More than one?”

  “No,” Steve told the bald man, “they dropped it.”

  St. George waved his hand. “Not the point.”

  “Point is, don’t act like idiots,” said Steve. He made a little move-along gesture with his shotgun. “It doesn’t help your case.”

  I’m a part-time idiot, Zzzap said, although I’m considering taking the leap to full-time. Maybe you could explain it to me?

  The bald man chuckled.

  Steve took a breath. His fingers squeezed the barrel of the shotgun. “This isn’t funny,” he said. “At all.”

  “We just…” St. George glanced at the others. “We’re all a little confused here.”

  “Hey,” shouted Eliza. She was a dozen yards ahead, already at the top of the long walkway. “Move it. Now.”

  They started moving again.

  St. George took a quick step to be a little closer to Steve. In the corner of his eye he saw Madelyn do the same, staying near him. “So,” he said to the tall man, “they dropped a nuclear bomb on Los Angeles.”

  Steve looked down at the hero and shook his head. “You’re a piece of work.”

  “Just trying to get some answers.”

  They reached the bottom of the walkway. The sides were tight canvas, not as white when seen up close. The floor of it was scuffed down to bare metal in most places. The wheels on the end slid back half an inch as the deck shifted beneath them.

  Steve waved St. George up the ramp, then Madelyn. He followed behind them. Zzzap floated through the air alongside the walkway. St. George glanced back and saw the bald man frowning at the glowing wraith.

  The ramp ended at a doorway in the cruise ship’s hull. A stairwell on the other side led them up to the main deck. Zzzap floated up the side of the ship and met them there. Eliza shot a look at St. George, another one at Steve, and then started off across the open space. The tall man nodded for St. George and Madelyn to follow her.

  Big plastic drums stood along the railings. Two long strings of colored flags had been converted into clotheslines. There were tables and chairs cluttering every space, and even a few beds.

  And no people at all.

  “Where is everyone?” asked Madelyn. “I saw a lot more people when we were looking for a place to land.”

  “They’re safe,” said the bald man.

  “Safe from what?”

  “From you,” said Alice.

  “I’m not an ex,” Madelyn said with a sigh. “Talking’s the big clue.”

  “We’ll see,” said the leather-skinned woman.

  Something else didn’t look right, but St. George couldn’t put his finger on it. He’d never been on a cruise ship. Never even visited the Queen Mary down in Long Beach, just an hour south of LA back when traffic had been an issue. His total experience could be summed up with a few Love Boat reruns when he was little and the occasional Disney cruise ad.

  But something wasn’t right here.

  He cleared his throat and looked up at the tall man. “The bomb?” he asked again.

  “You don’t quit, do you?”

  “I’m just trying to find out how I died.”

  Steve snorted and shook his head. “Telling you now, there are people here who’ll smack the shit out of you for talk like that.”

  “Not you, though?”

  “Not until the boss tells me to.”

  St. George glanced ahead at Eliza. “Until then…why don’t you tell me what happened? Why do you think they nuked Los Angeles?”

  “Because it’s all gone.”

  “The city?”

  “All the cities.” he said. “Los Angeles. San Diego. San Francisco. Seattle. New York. Boston. Houston. Dallas. Every major population center. All gone. It was the only way to contain the virus.”

  “Of course they didn’t drop one on Washington,” said Alice. “Fucking politicians, always covering their own asses before anyone else’s.”

  “Look,” said St. George, “I don’t know where you got all this but…Los Angeles is fine.” He glanced up at Zzzap. “I think all those cities are fine. Relatively speaking.”

  The wraith nodded. I was just in San Diego about a week ago, and New York last month. There’s a pretty good-sized group of survivors in Queens.

  “Don’t joke about shit like that, man,” said the bald man. “My brother and his family were in Queens.”

  I’m not joking. There’s almost three thousand people living in the Queens Center Mall.

  They headed up a broad staircase. Laundry dried on the railings. There was a diagram of the ship sealed behind a scratched Plexiglas plate. The small YOU ARE HERE star stood out in the bottom corner. They reached a new deck, and Eliza continued up onto another set of stairs. On the next level they headed down a long walkway that stretched along one side of the ship.

  “When do you think this happened?” St. George asked the tall man. “Or, when did it happen, I guess. The bombings?”

  Steve glared at St. George. He opened his mouth, his lips pulled back, and then he just shook his head. He turned away from the hero and stomped down the walkway, pulling ahead of the group. He muttered something to Eliza, and she glanced back at the heroes.

  St. George turned, but the bald man and Alice had dropped back a few paces.

  Guess no one wants to talk about it. Zzzap floated alongside them just outside the walkway.

  “Nobody got nuked, right?” asked Madelyn in a lower voice. “That’s not just you being nice to them.”
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  St. George shook his head. “The only thing I know about is one bomb that went off in Hawaii long after everything fell apart. About four months after we got everyone into the Mount.”

  Christmas Eve, added Zzzap.

  “Stealth thought it was some survivor messing around with a submarine at Pearl Harbor,” said St. George, “that they set off a missile or something like that.”

  It took out the harbor, the airport, and half of Honolulu, said Zzzap. The other half burned. Well, about half of the whole island burned, really.

  Madelyn’s eyes went wide. “How many people were there?”

  The wraith let out a buzzing sigh. A few hundred, he said. Hawaii didn’t do so well when the Zombocalypse hit. There weren’t a lot of survivors.

  The Corpse Girl mulled on this as they walked. “But no one ever did it deliberately? Nuke somewhere?”

  “I never heard of it happening,” St. George said. “Stealth told me once it was a fallback plan, using nukes to sterilize the cities, but the virus was everywhere before they decided to do it. The bombs wouldn’t’ve made a difference. Never heard of any being dropped anywhere else, either.”

  A lot of people in the military kept expecting North Korea or China to do it, said Zzzap. Either nuke themselves or nuke someone else. But they never did.

  “Are you sure?” Madelyn asked.

  Yeah. Even with a small explosion like the one on Honolulu, I’d still be seeing radiation flares from something like that today. Never seen anything.

  “Do you think they saw it?” St. George looked up at the glowing figure. “Maybe they saw the Honolulu nuke go off, or the aftermath of it, and just figured it happened everywhere?”

  Maybe? It’s closer than the mainland. Timeline doesn’t seem right, though.