Ex-Isle

by Peter Clines

  Eliza led the group a third of the way down the length of the cruise ship, where they came to a pair of wide double doors. They’d probably looked glamorous at one point, but now the glass was smudged and the handles were tarnished. She pulled one side open and revealed a dark hallway. It ran the width of the ship, and at the far end sunlight shined through a grubby window.

  Ummmmm, said Zzzap, hang on. He waved a hand up and down his brilliant silhouette. I don’t do well in small, enclosed spaces.

  Eliza turned back to look at him. “Can you…turn it off?”

  Zzzap turned his head to St. George. What do you think?

  The hero took in a breath and let it curl out through his nose as streamers of smoke. “Can we trust you?” he asked Eliza.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “We’re here as friends,” said St. George, “but so far you haven’t been too friendly back. Pretty much aggressive and unhelpful. So can we trust you, or are things only getting worse from here?”

  Eliza stared back at him. Her eyes flitted up to look at the curls of smoke as they thinned out in the air. “Once you’ve been cleared and quarantined,” she said, “and we’ve cleared up who you are—”

  “We’ve told you who we are,” said Madelyn.

  “—and what you are,” Eliza continued with a glance at the Corpse Girl, “I don’t think we’ll have any more issues.”

  St. George looked at Barry. The wraith shrugged. Would you ladies mind turning around?

  The broad-shouldered woman frowned. “Why?”

  Because I’m about to suffer a slight case of nudity and I wouldn’t want you to get exposed to it.

  Alice snorted and half turned her head. Zzzap turned his head to Eliza. She set her hands on her hips, just above her pistols. “I said you could trust us,” she told him. “I didn’t say we trusted you yet.”

  Can I at least trust you to give me my robe out of the bag?

  The gleaming wraith slid into the narrow walkway. He sank low to the deck and spread his arms to catch himself. Steam crawled out of the deck boards. His brilliant form dimmed, the faint hiss of heat and static faded, and the air was shoved out of the way. Barry fell out of the air and landed on the hardwood with a thunk and a yelp.

  “Dammit,” he muttered, rubbing his elbow. “Funny bone.”

  “Looked like you whacked your knee pretty hard,” said the bald man.

  “Yeah, but I can’t feel my knee,” Barry said.

  “You numb?” asked Eliza.

  Barry nodded. “For about thirty years now.” A few minutes later he was wrapped in his robe, and St. George carried him into the hallway.

  The group moved to a crossing hallway. This one was lit by a few random open doors. Barry glanced up at one of the light fixtures.

  Eliza walked a few yards down the dark hall to the first open doorway. The next pair were another twenty feet down the hall. “One for each of you,” she said.

  St. George glanced into one of the rooms and saw two men with guns. A plaque near the door read MOTHER OF PEARL and right below it, in smaller numbers, 13. “The exam?”

  She nodded. “Should take ten or fifteen minutes if you all cooperate.”

  Madelyn crossed her arms. “What are you looking for?”

  Eliza looked down at the dead girl. “Signs of infection.”

  “Like being dead and still moving?”

  St. George stepped next to the Corpse Girl. “Madelyn’s dead,” he said, “but she’s not an ex.”

  “So you keep saying,” said Steve. His fingers stretched on the pump of his shotgun like someone playing the frets of a guitar.

  Eliza held out a hand. “Steve,” she said, “you take the handicapped guy. Sand Dollar.” She turned to Alice. “Take the…the dead girl over to Jewel Box. Look for signs of bites, cuts, anything that could mean infection.”

  “I don’t have any,” said Madelyn.

  Eliza turned her gaze to St. George, but kept talking to Alice. “If you find anything, if she attacks you…you know what to do.”

  “You people are dense,” said the Corpse Girl.

  “We’re submitting to your exam on good faith,” said St. George. He let more smoke curl out of his mouth. “Don’t make us regret it.” He cleared his throat and let a few sparks of flame tumble from his mouth.

  The bald man stared at the licks of fire. So did Alice.

  “Okay,” said Eliza, “everyone’s clear, then.”

  Steve stepped forward and held out his arms. St. George locked eyes with the man, then set Barry into the other man’s embrace. “Good?”

  “I’m good,” said Barry.

  “I have him,” said Steve. The tall man’s eyes relaxed a little as he shifted his arms under Barry’s weight. “You’re heavier than you look.”

  “You’re the first person to say that in a couple of months,” Barry said. He glanced back at St. George and threw a two-fingered salute from his temple. “See you on the other side, Ray.”

  Madelyn smiled. Alice gestured with her head, and they walked down to the open door across from Barry’s. Madelyn looked back, gave St. George a confident nod, then vanished inside. The door closed behind her with a click that echoed in the hallway.

  Eliza pointed at the entrance next to them. “This one’s you,” she said.

  St. George walked into the room. Two big picture windows in the far wall showed the sea outside and the orange light of the setting sun. He couldn’t see any closets or anything that looked like a bathroom. Nothing but bare walls and the kind of over-patterned carpet only hotels and casinos could get away with. And apparently cruise ships. He guessed Mother of Pearl had been a room for conferences or events.

  The two men he’d glimpsed earlier watched him. Each one wore a sidearm. The scruffy Asian man on the left had tattooed arms and a sidearm in a clip-on holster. The one on the right was a rail-thin white man with dense brown dreadlocks and a shotgun. They waved him into the center of the room.

  “I’m going to go check in with Maleko,” Eliza said to the bald man with the biker beard. “You got this?”

  “Yeah.”

  She closed the door.

  St. George stood there. The three other men stared at him. “I’m guessing you haven’t had a lot of visitors?”

  “Strip,” said the bald man.

  “What’s your name, anyway?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  St. George unbuckled the safety harness. “Just trying to be friendly, remember?”

  The man looked him in the eye. “Devon,” he said. “I’m Devon.”

  St. George rolled his shoulders and let the webbing straps fall off him. His tendons popped as he did it. He looked over at the other two men. “And you guys?”

  The Asian man muttered something in a language St. George didn’t understand. The other man shifted his shotgun so the barrel was pointed more at the hero than away from him. “My name is get your damned clothes on the floor before I blow your head off.”

  The hero glanced back at Devon. “You want to tell him how useless that thing is, or should I?”

  “He blocked Steve’s shotgun,” the bald man told the others. “With his hand.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, he caught it. The buckshot.”

  “Bullshit,” said the dreadlocked man.

  “Swear to God,” said Devon. “He did it right there in front of me. Steve tried to shoot the zombie girl they brought with—”

  “She’s not a zombie,” said St. George. He unzipped his biker jacket and set it on the floor. “She’s just…dead.”

  “He’s bulletproof,” said Devon, “he breathes fire, and he flew out here with the others.”

  “Bullshit,” the dreadlocked man said again, but he looked at the hero with a critical eye.

  “Swear to God,” Devon said again.

  St. George crouched to untie his boots. “It’s true,” he said.

  “So, you’re…what?” said Dreadlock.
“A Mighty Dragon knockoff or something?”

  St. George pulled off one of his boots and looked back at Devon. “Actually,” he said, “I am the Mighty Dragon. But most people just call me St. George these days.”

  Dreadlock’s jaw tightened. His eyebrows knotted. “Bullshit.”

  “I am.”

  The shotgun shifted again, moving even closer to St. George.

  He sighed and pulled off his other boot. His utility belt came off next, and then he slid off his pants. He added them to the pile.

  “That supposed to be some sort of super-suit?” asked Devon.

  St. George looked down at himself. “It’s a wet suit,” he said. “I flew two thousand miles across the ocean to get here.”

  “Flew,” muttered Dreadlock. The Asian man smirked and added a few syllables. Dreadlock responded in the same language and they both chuckled.

  St. George reached behind his back, and after two tries he grabbed the thin strap on the wet suit’s zipper. It slid down with a low razzing noise. He pulled it away from his neck and enjoyed the cool air that rolled down his chest.

  The three men shuffled their feet as he peeled off the wet suit. He had a pair of damp boxers on underneath, and a faint chill swirled around them as they hit the air. He kicked the neoprene suit off his legs and stretched his arms out wide.

  The Asian man stepped forward. He leaned in close to St. George and focused on the thin flesh of his hand and wrist. The intense gaze worked its way up his arm to his shoulder. The Asian man kept one hand near his holster the whole time.

  After ten minutes of poring over St. George’s skin, the man barked out a few sharp syllables. “Boxers,” said Dreadlock. “Lose ’em.”

  “Seriously?”

  Devon shifted behind him. “Lots of people into weird stuff before the zombies showed up. We don’t know you. Who knows what you’re into.”

  Dreadlock’s hands twitched on the shotgun. “There some reason you don’t want to take them off?”

  “Aside from being naked?”

  “What are you hiding?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Everything off,” he said. “That’s the rules.”

  St. George looked over his shoulder at the bald man. “You saw me catch a handful of buckshot with my bare hand but you still think something might’ve bitten me and broke the skin?”

  Devon shook his head. “No exceptions, man.”

  Madelyn stood in the center of the room and stared down at the pile of clothes. Jacket, shorts, sneakers, wet suit. She was glad she’d worn a sports bra and boxer briefs under the wet suit. It was uncomfortable enough standing in front of the male guard. It would’ve been worse in regular underwear.

  The room was cool. It was probably cold. She couldn’t tell. She wondered if most people would be cold standing there in their underwear. She couldn’t remember enough about her life before to be sure.

  The woman, Alice, had a pistol one of the other guards had handed her. She pointed it in Madelyn’s face while she examined every inch of skin. She stayed a few feet away. The pistol wavered a bit, but stayed more or less on Madelyn’s head.

  She’d never been shot in the head. If she had, she didn’t remember it. She wasn’t sure if it would hurt her or not. It would probably put her down, but for how long?

  Alice batted Madelyn’s left arm up. She grabbed the wrist and twisted the arm back and forth. She pinched the flesh once or twice at a few points. It wasn’t hard enough to be malicious or soft enough to be concerned. Then she did the same with the other arm. She pried Madelyn’s fingers wide apart and examined the skin between them.

  “I don’t see any bites on it,” said Alice. She gave a quick glance over her shoulder to one of the two guards. Both of them had rifles aimed at Madelyn. One of them, the female guard, didn’t look much older than her.

  “Because I haven’t been bitten,” Madelyn said.

  “Jesus, it almost sounds like it’s alive,” the younger guard mumbled. She had dirty blond hair like St. George and a sharp chin.

  “It might be one of those automatic things,” said the man. He had a thick, cowboy-type mustache that spilled over the edges of his mouth. “Maybe enough of its brain’s still active and it’s just spitting out words.”

  “You’re talking about yourself,” said Alice.

  Madelyn snickered and smiled. As soon as her lips pulled away from teeth, Alice stepped back. Three weapons rose to point at the Corpse Girl.

  “Hey,” said Madelyn, “just laughing. You made a funny.”

  “Mouth shut,” the cowboy said.

  She thought about banging her teeth together, just to see if he flinched, but he looked a little too trigger-happy as it was.

  The pistol went back up to Madelyn’s head. “Foot up.”

  “What?”

  “Lift your left foot.”

  Madelyn brought her knee up and wobbled. Alice yanked the foot up and twisted it side to side. The Corpse Girl flailed at the air, reached for Alice’s shoulder, and the shotguns loomed in her face.

  “Gimme a break,” she said. “She’s pulling on my foot.”

  “Don’t,” said the female guard, “move.”

  Madelyn looked down at the leathery woman. The eyes looking over the pistol were cold. They could’ve been staring at a paper target or an old can or an ex-human, just something that needed to be shot.

  She sighed and straightened up. Her arms went out for balance, and she tried to focus all her weight onto her other leg. “You people are jerks.”

  “And stop looking at me,” said the cowboy. “Your eyes give me the creeps.”

  Madelyn made a mental note to never blink when she looked at the cowboy-mustached man. She repeated the note silently to herself three times.

  Alice bent the foot in different directions. She checked between toes, squeezed the calf, examined the knee. Then she made a few quick gestures and Madelyn switched feet, holding the other one out. More twisting, more prodding.

  “Take the rest of it off,” said the leathery woman.

  “What?”

  “The rest of the clothes. Off.”

  Madelyn looked at the guards on either side of her. “But he…I mean, shouldn’t this be a girls-only thing?”

  Alice glared at her. “You hiding something?”

  The sports bra and boxer briefs suddenly didn’t feel like enough clothing. “I just…do I really need to take everything off?”

  “Why not?”

  “I just…” She looked over at the jerk cowboy, and then back at Alice. She leaned forward and the other woman leaned back, but didn’t shift her feet. “I’ve never been naked before,” said Madelyn. “With a guy. In the same room.”

  The leather-skinned woman rocked back on her heels and gazed at the dead teen. “Now,” she said. “Or we put you down.”

  Madelyn stood there. She looked at Alice. She looked at the man with the cowboy mustache. She looked at the girl with the dirty blond hair. They all had flat expressions. None of them were looking at a teenage girl. They were all looking at an it. At a thing.

  She sighed, pressed her lips together, and pulled her sports bra up. Her hair snagged, and for a moment she was caught in a tangle of arms and spandex wrapped around her head. She wiggled free and dropped the bra on the pile of clothes. She hooked her thumbs in the waistband of the boxer briefs and pushed them down until they dropped to her ankles.

  Alice gestured for her to lift her arms again. Madelyn raised them out to her sides. She waited what felt like a cool and confident amount of time while the other woman examined her, then glanced at the cowboy.

  He smirked. Madelyn stared at him, not blinking, until the smirk faded. At least she didn’t have to be the only uncomfortable one in the room.

  “I can’t find a bite anywhere,” Alice said.

  “I told you,” said Madelyn, “I haven’t been bitten. Exes can’t even see me.”

  The leathery woman walked around to face her. “What’s that suppose
d to mean?”

  “Can I put my clothes back on?”

  “Answer the question.”

  Madelyn shifted her thighs, put one arm across her boobs, and waved the other one up and down herself, at all her pale skin. “They don’t see me as food because I’m like this. They just don’t notice me. Like, aggressively don’t notice me.”

  “Because you’re one of them,” said the younger woman.

  “I’m not an ex,” said Madelyn.

  “But you’re dead.”

  She took in a breath. “I’m dead, yeah,” she said, “but I’m not an ex.”

  Alice still had her pistol up. “So what are you?”

  “I’m kind of naked. Could I please put my clothes back on?”

  “After you answer the question.” The leathery woman reached out with her foot and swept the pile of clothes away from the Corpse Girl. “If you’re not an ex, what are you?”

  Madelyn watched the clothes retreat. Her other hand drifted down to settle between her legs and cover herself as best she could. “Nobody knows,” she said. “My dad was a scientist and I think he did something to me, but…I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  “Oh, real convenient,” said the cowboy.

  “Not really, no.”

  Alice frowned. “Did something to you how?”

  “I don’t know,” said Madelyn. “When I was little he’d give me shots sometimes, or things in IV bags. I was sick when I was a kid. I think whatever he did then made me like this after I died.”

  They looked at her again, their eyes going up and down her body.

  “How did you die?” asked the young woman.

  Madelyn bit her lip. “Ahh,” she said. “Well, I don’t really remember it. I have memory problems sometimes. There’s a lot of stuff I’ve forgotten.”

  “So you don’t know how you died?” Alice’s brow knotted up.

  Madelyn looked at the pile of clothes. “Could I just put my underwear back on, at least? The exam’s done, right?”

  “How’d you die?” asked the cowboy.

  She sighed and looked down at the floor. “I think I got torn apart by a bunch of exes.”