Ex-Isle

by Peter Clines

  Some of the muttering died, but not all of it.

  Maleko’s eyes never left St. George’s. “I’d be inclined to believe you,” he said in a stage whisper that carried across the crowd. “If anyone could’ve survived the blast which incinerated Los Angeles, it would’ve been my friend. But even he couldn’t.”

  “Your friend…?”

  Now the tattooed man did smile. A tight curve of his lips that didn’t reach his eyes. “The Mighty Dragon.”

  Madelyn and Barry looked between the two men.

  “Ummmm…,” said St. George. “Do I know you?”

  The man turned to the crowd. “Your little flight was very impressive,” he said before looking back at the heroes, “but you missed one important detail. The Mighty Dragon couldn’t fly. He could only jump and glide through the air.”

  The low rumble wasn’t low anymore. The crowd looked between the two men. Their suspicious eyes lingered on St. George.

  “I’ve had a lot of time to practice,” said St. George. “I got better. I can fly. I’m stronger. I’m—”

  “You’re a fake!” Maleko spun and jabbed a finger at him. “An imposter. The Dragon is dead. He died a hero, trying to save people ’til the very end.”

  “I’m not an imposter.”

  “Seriously,” said Madelyn. “How many flying guys do you know?”

  “The guy in Iraq,” said Eliza. “Marduk. He could fly and breathe fire, just like you’re doing.”

  “No offense to anyone here,” said St. George, glancing at the Middle Eastern man, “but do I look like I’m from Iraq?”

  “Not every terrorist is from Iraq,” said Steve.

  St. George stared at the big man. “What?”

  Barry shook his head in amazement. “Now we’re terrorists?”

  Steve shrugged. “You said it, not me.”

  “Liar!” the call came out of the crowd. The faces were angry now.

  “Really not liking this,” murmured the Corpse Girl.

  “Same here,” said Barry. He shifted to the edge of his chair, ready to launch himself off.

  “We’re not lying,” St. George said to the crowd. “I am the Mighty Dragon. This is Zzzap. We came here from Los Angeles.”

  “You are not,” said Maleko. His voice echoed in the ship’s courtyard. “And you did not. You made a mistake by saying you were from Los Angeles when we all know Los Angeles is gone. You made a mistake by flying in front of all these people when we know the Mighty Dragon can only glide. And you made a mistake by claiming that name, because if you were really him…you’d know who I was.”

  St. George stared at the man. “I’ve never seen you before in my life.”

  “See?” roared Maleko. “He admits it.” He turned to glare at St. George. His nostrils flared with three quick breaths.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Maleko’s jaw trembled. He took in three more short breaths. The muscles in his arms and neck tensed. He inhaled three more times, his face darkened as if he was holding his breath for too long, and he closed his eyes.

  St. George realized the man hadn’t let any air out yet.

  Veins bulged on Maleko’s arms and chest and neck and face, like a bodybuilder at the peak of his workout.

  Madelyn leaned forward. “Is he…is he having a seizure?”

  St. George glanced at the crowd. They’d calmed down. Most of them looked relieved. A few, like Steve and Alice, looked excited. Eliza tilted her head down and crossed her arms.

  Dark bruises burst across Maleko’s skin. The flesh under his eyebrows puffed up. Hives broke out across his bare shoulders, flowed together, and bubbled up even more.

  He opened his eyes. They were all black. Black and oily. He bared jagged teeth in a snarl.

  St. George and Madelyn both took a step back. “Oh, frak,” said Barry, hopping in his chair. “He’s a Zoanoid!”

  Maleko grew.

  He threw his head back, and by the time his ponytail settled he was a foot taller. His chest swelled inside the baggy clothes until the silk shirt was tight at the seams. The cord he’d been using as a belt snapped, and then the ragged slacks were tight, too. His arms and neck thickened under the bulging veins.

  His hands spread wide. The palms widened, and the fingers shrank to little stubs with one knuckle. Then the hands flexed again, and St. George realized the palm hadn’t grown at all.

  The fingers were webbed.

  He glanced down and saw Maleko’s toes had stretched out. Just enough that the webbing there was apparent. The toenails curled into short claws.

  The growths on his shoulders rippled and continued to swell. The bruised skin paled, but to a glossy blue-gray, not the golden brown it had been. His shoulders lost even more color and hardened until they were like bone.

  Or shell.

  “Whoa,” said Madelyn. “Nautilus.”

  Maleko twisted his head in a slow circle until his neck popped. His black eyes gazed down at St. George, shaded by a Neanderthal brow. “Your pet ex knows who I am,” he said. His voice rumbled in his chest.

  “Hey,” she snapped, “don’t be a jerk.”

  “We thought you didn’t make it,” said Barry. “I flew out to Hawaii twice, but we never saw any sign of you.”

  “Still keeping up this game?” Maleko—Nautilus—lifted one hand and made a fist. With the webbed fingers, it looked like a boxing glove. “I’ll give you one chance to come clean. Tell me who you are and you won’t be harmed.”

  “I’ve told you who I am,” said St. George. “I’ve told you. I told your guards. I’ve told everyone here.” He waved his hand at the crowd. “My name is George Bailey. Most people have been calling me St. George. And for about two years before the ex-virus appeared, I was known as the Mighty Dragon.”

  Nautilus hit him.

  It was a powerful backhand, one that would’ve shattered the jaw of a normal person, if not killed them outright. St. George had been expecting it, though, and he wasn’t a normal person. It knocked him back toward the stained glass doors, but he managed to focus on gravity and made it more of an upright flight than a tumble.

  A blinding flash, a hiss of air, and the crowd’s screams told him Barry had changed into Zzzap. The light shifted as his friend darted up, away from the people and into a better position. Okay, he called out, let’s all stay calm.

  St. George leaped back, fists up, and came to a jerking halt.

  Nautilus held Madelyn up in the air with both hands. One was wrapped around the back of her neck. The fingertips of the other hand sunk into her thigh. He kept her between himself and Zzzap like a living shield.

  Madelyn’s goggles sat crooked on her forehead, pushing her hair in random directions. She was squinting against the sun, but her chalk eyes were plain to see, and more than a few people in the crowd were pointing at her. She twisted her hands back to claw at the arm holding her neck, and her free leg kicked back at his chest.

  “Put her down,” said St. George. “I don’t know what the hell your problem is, but it’s with me, not her.”

  “You disgust me,” said Nautilus.

  He took a few steps back and shook Madelyn for emphasis. When her head stopped moving her eyes went from St. George up to Zzzap and back. “Kick his ass,” she wheezed. She didn’t need to breathe, but she still needed air to talk. “Don’t worry about…”

  Her lips twisted up in frustration as she ran out of words.

  “Let her go,” said St. George.

  “The Mighty Dragon was one of the greatest men I’d ever known,” said Nautilus. “When the dead rose, he fought to save human lives. Not to protect these things.” He glared at St. George. “He knew how to deal with ex-humans.”

  Nautilus flexed his shoulders and tore her apart.

  Madelyn’s neck stretched, snapped, and her head swung around. Her arms flailed. Her hips cracked. The wet suit pulled tight and burst as her stomach ripped open. Gray intestines spilled out onto the deck, and lumps of meat and muscle fell
after them.

  Nautilus let the two halves drop just as St. George slammed into him.

  The punches echoed across the small courtyard, the sound of a sledgehammer hitting a punching bag. The sledge struck three more times, driving the blue-gray giant back with each blow. St. George leaped into the air, bringing his knee up to smash the other man’s jaw—

  There were kids behind him. If Nautilus went down he’d crash right on top of a little girl and boy. St. George hesitated and the other man grabbed his leg.

  The world spun and the deck rushed up to strike St. George in the face. Two of the planks cracked. He pushed himself up and Nautilus yanked on the leg, swinging him up, around, and back into the deck. Another plank split. One more heave and he was in the air, spinning. The crowd whizzed by, the captain’s chair, a quick glimpse of Madelyn’s arm, and then wind ripped at St. George’s hair as he flew away.

  He focused and came to a stop in midair. The ship was off to the side and a bit below him. He looked back and forth, spotted the open area of the courtyard, and then saw the figure growing in his vision.

  Nautilus slammed into him. One thick arm wrapped around St. George’s back, squeezing his ribs. The other one came down again and again, driving punches into his face. They wrestled in the air before St. George realized the ship’s hull was next to them. Nautilus twisted around, and the Pacific Ocean crashed into St. George’s back.

  Much like he’d heard, hitting the water from a great height was like hitting pavement or concrete.

  The waves closed over him, and the sound of wind vanished. Nautilus grabbed the lapels of St. George’s biker jacket and dragged him through the water. The cold pressed in on him. The sunlight dimmed.

  They were going deeper.

  St. George threw a punch that churned the water around them. It bounced off one of the other man’s armored shoulders. He lashed out again, connected, and the hand holding his jacket let go.

  Nautilus slipped back through the water. He glared at the hero. Then his legs kicked twice, and he vanished in a whirl of bubbles.

  St. George thrashed in the water, trying to get his bearings. The same dim blue-green stretched in every direction. There were no shafts of sunlight or a mirror-like surface.

  Bubbles. Follow the bubbles. Bubbles go up.

  He tried to relax and his lungs gave him a burning reminder he needed to get back to the surface. A few precious grams of silver air flew from his lips. They went off to the side of his mouth and raced away to his left.

  Left was up.

  He twisted himself around and swept his arms through the water. A few strong strokes carried him up enough that he saw daylight in the distance.

  Something huge and dark loomed off to the side. St. George watched the gigantic chisel-shapes grow in his vision and realized he was seeing the underside of the ships. Three long wedges surrounded by smaller ones.

  A long shape drifted beneath them, dwarfed by the monstrous hulls. It was hard to see in the shadows, but it looked like a whale. It didn’t seem to be moving, and he wondered if it was dead or—

  Nautilus came rushing at him like a torpedo. He caught a glimpse of the shark grin before the boxing-glove fists slammed into his gut and the last of his air erupted from his mouth. The cloud of silver bubbles flew away and Nautilus grabbed his collar and dragged him in the other direction.

  The tightness in St. George’s chest crawled up into his throat, pushed at his jaw, clawed at his throat. He grabbed the merman’s wrist, flung him away, but Nautilus spun around and came at him again. St. George batted away a punch, took another one in the jaw, and took in a sharp breath through his nose without thinking.

  Water gushed through his sinuses and clogged his throat. He tried to cough it out, and more poured past his teeth and down his throat. He coughed again, choked, spat, and the ocean filled his mouth, his nostrils, his lungs, his chest.

  Nautilus released him and he drifted away. He thrashed in the dim light. He needed to find the surface. He needed to follow the bubbles.

  There weren’t any more bubbles.

  In the back of his throat, the burning itch of flames was smothered and went out.

  The water dimmed. He was sinking deeper. He had to move in the other direction. He…

  He realized the darkness wasn’t the water.

  His jacket pulled tight under his arms as the ocean went black around him.

  “LIZA,” SHOUTS STEVE.

  I turn, hear a few more yells, and see one of the new arrivals just over a yard away from me. He’s crossed a third of the Pacific Eagle’s deck in just a few seconds. He’s lucky no one’s shot him. There are lots of itchy trigger fingers here.

  It’s the big guy from the end of the line. One of the eight people we found adrift on what looks like a Discovery Channel research ship. All Asian, except one of the women who looks like she may have mixed ancestry. She and one other woman speak some English. They say they ran out of fuel seventeen months ago, started drifting, and have been living off fish, kelp, and distilled seawater.

  I’d pegged the big guy as the twitchiest of them. When he hadn’t tried anything after fifteen minutes or said anything all through the speech, I figured he’d wised up and gotten his nerves under control. I’m usually good at reading people, but it’s not the first time I’ve been wrong. Over the past three years since Lemuria came together, I’ve guessed wrong a few times. Some people I thought were clean had hidden bites. A few I thought were safe and sane—as sane as Mitchel, at least—turned out to be complete head cases.

  I’ve survived all of them. Mostly because I don’t care if they kill me or not. Not being scared if you’ll die lets you be a lot gutsier as a fighter.

  I haven’t been scared for a while now.

  My left hand goes up to warn the big guy, to hold him off, even as the fingers of my right hand flick the strap on my holster. He doesn’t seem to notice either. I hear shouts and late warnings. He slams into me and takes us both down to the deck.

  Just before we land I crack my forehead against his. It’s not a great head butt. Too much of it gets spread between us. But it keeps me from slamming the back of my head on the deck and it catches him off guard.

  He’s big, but not as heavy as he looks. Who is these days? He has a beard and breath that smells like the worst parts of the ocean and the tiny scabs of early scurvy across his scalp.

  I hear footsteps. Steve yelling commands. People are coming to drag the big guy off me. He’s not doing much past shouting and keeping me pinned. I don’t think he thought it through past “knock down the woman in charge.”

  If Maleko was here, if he was Nautilus, the big guy would be sailing through the air right now. He’d hit the water a hundred or so feet away from Lemuria. Probably break an arm on impact. And then he’d drown. Slowly. Painfully.

  The pistol settles in my right hand. If I shoot him at this range, I’ll be covered in his blood. And we don’t know if he’s infected or not yet. If any got in my mouth or eyes or if I’ve scraped an elbow on the deck…

  Everyone else realizes this, too. It’s why they haven’t shot him yet.

  I keep my finger off the trigger, stretch my arm up around his back, and let the pistol’s barrel crack against the back of the guy’s skull. He jerks his head back and it lets me get back under his arm and smash him across the jaw with the pistol.

  He’s twisting off me, trying to get away, but I follow him. I spin the pistol in my hand and swing my arm. He rolls over, brings his own arm up, and the butt of the .45 catches him right below the wrist, right on the bone. He howls. The pain’s sharp and fresh and he thinks it’s broken.

  The fight’s over, but there needs to be an example.

  I stand back up and bring the butt down hard on his shoulder blade. The same side as the hurt wrist. He howls. Like the wrist, it isn’t broken, but he’s going to feel that for a couple of days. I kick him in the ribs, just for good measure.

  “He was stupid,” I tell his shipmates, rais
ing my voice so it’s almost a shout. “And he just made all your lives worse. Now we can’t trust any of you.” I wave my free hand at Steve. “Get them all cleared and then quarantine them. Be thorough.”

  He nods.

  “And for Christ’s sake,” I tell him, “don’t call me Liza.”

  “Sorry,” he says. His mouth twitches into that almost-smile he does sometimes.

  I wave him away. He turns back to the new arrivals. Steve and I have worked together for two and a half years now. If I trusted anyone here on Lemuria, it would be him and Maleko.

  But I don’t trust anyone.

  The new arrivals file past me, flanked by Steve, Devon, Alice, and a few other faces I don’t recognize. Because I’m looking at the woman at the front of the line. Forty, weathered, black hair with a single thin line of gray.

  The woman wears a frayed red T-shirt, almost pink it’s so faded, with a stylized black mask across the chest. I’m pretty sure it’s the superhero from Los Angeles, the Mighty Dragon. The one Nautilus is always talking about. The one John was so sure would fix everything.

  I’ve never been a superhero fan. Not as a kid. Not as an adult. Even when real superheroes started showing up across the world. Stealth. The Dragon. Midknight. The super-samurai in Japan. Some people never get into sports or game shows, no matter what amazing thing’s going on. I never got into superheroes.

  John was into all that stuff. He believed in heroes. Comic books. Movies. All the real ones. He kept saying they’d save us. They’d save the world.

  He’s been dead for almost three years now.

  I stop at the base of the ramp and look up at the Queen’s logo. More than half of it has been scraped away. Some by time and the elements. Most of it by time and me. Back when I cared, I spent the better part of eight months chipping at it with knives and deck tools. I didn’t want a reminder looming over me.