Ex-Isle

by Peter Clines

  “We’ve seen schemes like this before,” said the merman.

  “Pirates and raiders stumble across us out here,” said Eliza. “They see what we’ve got, and they try all sorts of things to get it. They try to turn us against each other. Divide and conquer, right?”

  “What you’ve got?” echoed St. George. He looked out at the rusty ship and foul-smelling garden beds.

  “And now you’re here,” said Nautilus, “telling us blatant lies about who you are and where you’re from. Trying to convince us you’ve got some amazing film studio fortress in Los Angeles where everyone can be safe and live like they used to. What would you think, in our position?”

  “I’d at least give people the choice of finding out,” Barry said.

  Nautilus shook his head. “We’re living on the edge out here,” he said, waving his tattooed arm at the garden and the workers. “Not even a week’s worth of supplies to fall back on. We can’t have people daydreaming about a world that doesn’t exist anymore and abandoning their jobs. We depend on each other. All of us. If even a dozen people decided to leave, to see if you were telling the truth, so much of this would collapse.”

  “So the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” said Barry.

  “Of course they do,” Nautilus said. “They always have.”

  St. George opened his mouth…and paused. He closed his lips. Trails of smoke streamed from his nostrils. It struck him that this was what Stealth felt like all the time. Being two steps ahead.

  “You’re soooo missing the point of that quote,” Barry said. “Spock would be very upset with you right now.”

  Nautilus shook his head. “Do you accept my offer,” he said, “or are you going to make us keep you in the cage? Make us keep these children in the cage?”

  St. George stared at him.

  “Well?”

  “We never said the Mount used to be a film studio.”

  The expression on Nautilus’s mouth froze, but his eyes widened. Just a bit. His words died on his lips.

  The silence spread out across the deck.

  “Yes, you did,” he said.

  “No,” St. George said. “No, we didn’t.”

  “Frak me,” said Barry. “You’ve known all along.”

  The silence was replaced by low murmurs.

  Nautilus took a breath, and his eyes calmed. “It came up during the examination. One of you mentioned it, and someone repeated it to me.”

  “I didn’t mention it,” said Barry.

  “Neither did I,” said St. George.

  “Your pet ex, then.”

  “You mean Madelyn, the girl you ripped in half?”

  “She was a monster.”

  “She was a teenager,” said St. George. “And I don’t think she was in a very talkative mood during her ‘examination.’ ” He let his eyes drift off Nautilus to settle on Mitchel.

  Nautilus turned to stare at the man.

  “What?” said the mustached man. “It’s not like I touched her or anything. Alice was in there, and so was—”

  Nautilus smacked him.

  Mitchel dropped like a sandbag. His shotgun clanged on the deck an instant before his shoulder and his head. He didn’t stop breathing, but he didn’t get back up, either.

  “I apologize,” said Nautilus. “That should not have happened. We have laws out here. He’ll be punished for his—”

  “You ripped her in half, but you’re upset some pervert watched her undress,” said St. George. “Very noble of you.”

  “Noble attempt to change the subject,” muttered Barry.

  “Did you know?” Hussein asked the merman.

  “What?”

  “Have you known all along that we could go to land? That there was shelter?”

  “They’re lying,” said Nautilus. “That’s all they’ve done since they got here.”

  “So you say. But then how did you know about their base?”

  “Shut up, Hussein,” Eliza growled.

  “They’re lying about it,” the merman said. “They’re trying to divide us.”

  “A moment ago it was part of their story that slipped out,” said Hussein. “Now it’s a lie?”

  “Their whole story is a lie!” roared Nautilus.

  “Who are they?” Hussein demanded. “Where are they from? The man has all the powers of the Mighty Dragon. His friend has the powers of the electrical man, Zap.”

  “Zzzap,” said Barry. “Let the Z buzz on your teeth for a second.”

  St. George elbowed him.

  The merman rolled his shoulders. “Are you telling me I wouldn’t know the Mighty Dragon if I saw him?”

  “No,” said Hussein, “but I am beginning to wonder if he would know you.”

  The murmurs had grown into whispers, in a range of tones. Some echoed with awe and disbelief. Others were sharp and heated.

  Nautilus glared down at the Middle Eastern man. “How dare you…”

  “You told everyone at the meeting you knew St. George was a fake because he could fly,” interrupted Barry.

  The merman refocused his glare. “What of it?”

  “So how’d you two hang out?” asked Barry. “He was in LA, you were in Hawaii, right? He couldn’t fly, so did you just swim back and forth all the time?”

  Eliza’s snarl faded. Her stare lost some of its certainty as it shifted over to Nautilus.

  “No one has ever seen the mainland except you,” said Hussein. “No one has seen any signs of the bombs except you. No one alive, anyway.”

  The words hung in the air.

  “We’ve seen it,” said St. George.

  “I’ve seen most of the planet,” said Barry. “There’s only been one nuclear detonation. Honolulu. Christmas Eve 2009. That’s it. Which is kind of amazing, really, when you think about it.”

  Nautilus looked at Hussein, then Devon, and his eyes settled on Eliza. “You all know what it’s like out there.”

  “No,” Hussein said. “None of us do. We know what you tell us it is like. For years you have asked us to have blind faith that you are telling us the truth.” He took a deep breath. “Why don’t we just go look?”

  The merman took a deep breath of his own. His barrel chest swelled up, then eased down. “Hussein,” he said, “I understand your frustration. I do. But we cannot risk lives going to shore. The journey will take days. The radiation will be dangerous.”

  “But it’d be the truth,” said Devon. “We’d all know for sure.”

  Nautilus looked at each of them again, then at Barry and St. George. His shoulders slumped. “Then we’ll do it,” he sighed. “If you need the assurance that badly, we’ll go to the mainland. To Los Angeles.”

  Hussein breathed a sigh of relief. “Really?”

  “Of course,” said Nautilus. He took another breath. “If it’s what needs to happen for you to trust me again, to believe in Lemuria, then that’s what we’ll do. We could take the Sushi Express. It’s still solid, yes?”

  Eliza nodded. “It is. But how will we power it?”

  “I can push,” said Nautilus. “It wouldn’t be hard.”

  “The Sushi Express?” murmured St. George.

  “I think it’s one of the smaller yachts,” said Barry. “I remember it from one of the flybys I did.”

  “We can take as many people as you want, although…” The merman paused. His tight smile faded. “We should warn them of the risk. Perhaps people with families should not come.”

  “No,” said Devon. “I’m asking the question. It’s only fair I go.” He looked at Ash in the cage. “I want to do this for my son.”

  St. George cleared his throat. “And what about us?” he said. “Maybe we should go back, too?”

  Nautilus ignored him. “Each mate should pick a few people to come,” the merman said. “If our goal’s to assure as many people as possible, to calm as many doubts, we should have a larger pool of witnesses. Eliza, you could pick two or three other guards.”

  The do
ubt that had lingered on the big woman’s face was gone. She nodded and shifted her weight, leaning closer to Nautilus.

  “Seriously,” said Barry, “I would love to leave.”

  “There’s only one favor in return, Hussein,” said the merman.

  “Yes?”

  “The imaginary radiation doesn’t scare me at all,” Barry added.

  “Trust me for now,” said Nautilus. “If I’m right, if what I’ve told you all these years is true, these two men are liars. Liars who brought an ex onto our home. Don’t help them escape until you’re sure you know the truth.”

  Hussein’s eyes went wide. “I would never…”

  Nautilus tapped his ears. “I heard you,” he said. “I hear everything. You know that.”

  “You don’t hear everything,” murmured Barry, “or you would’ve smacked me a couple times now.”

  “I was not—,” Hussein began.

  “You’ve done nothing but talk,” said Nautilus. “I don’t blame you for wanting to know the truth. I never considered how hard it is for all of you. I…I’m sorry.” He reached out a hand, hesitated, then set it down on the Middle Eastern man’s shoulder.

  Hussein nodded and let out a breath. “You have kept us safe this long,” he said. “I have my doubts, but I can trust you until I see Los Angeles with my own eyes.”

  “Thank you. Once you’re all convinced, we can figure out what to do with these two.”

  On the deck, Mitchel groaned and shifted his arms.

  “That’s it?” St. George said. “Fifteen minutes ago he was a dictator, now you’re listening to him?”

  “He has heard our concerns,” said Hussein, “and he is going to address them.” The Middle Eastern man winked at St. George.

  “He’s got your kid locked in a cage,” Barry said to Devon.

  “Just to keep you in,” said the bald man. “He’s tough. He can take it. Right, Ash?”

  Ash didn’t look as sure, but he nodded.

  “Eliza,” said Nautilus with a glance at the groaning man, “make sure the guards continue to keep a close eye on them. The cage system is still in effect. Mitchel can stay on guard duty for now, but we’ll be discussing his indiscretions in the very near future. Make sure he understands.”

  “Of course.”

  Hussein and Devon headed back the way they’d come as Mitchel pushed himself to his knees. Eliza slapped the man on the back of the head, a move that reminded St. George of Billie Carter, and dragged him to his feet. She prodded him back to his post.

  Nautilus waited by the cage until they were gone. Then he stepped closer and looked at St. George and Barry through the cage bars. “I want you to remember,” he said, “I gave you a way out. I’m sorry it came to this. I truly am. I never wanted to do it. But I can’t risk everything we have out here because of you.”

  The merman turned and walked away.

  MITCHEL KIRBY WITH one l knows a good thing when I see it. I’m not stupid.

  My pop told me that he and Mom argued for two weeks about my name. She didn’t want to use the regular spelling, Mitchell. She said I was special so I needed a special name. Pop tried to tell her he was all for that, but why not just give me a special name rather than messing up a perfectly good one? I’d just spend most of my life telling people how to spell my name. Plus, what was so special about knocking one letter off it? Why not add something to it?

  But Mom won. She always won. And then she claimed “abuse” and left Hawaii. Took off with some businessman or banker or something, moved to Las Vegas. Crushed Pop, but he tried to be a man about it.

  You want to know what abuse is? Abuse is getting stuck with some stupid-spelled name you’ve got to explain every time you open your mouth. Every. Single. Time.

  Fucking good thing I’m rock solid, or I would’ve snapped years ago.

  You want to know what was awesome? The end of the world. One day I’m doing delivery runs. Next day my boss tells me to take the day off. I think it’s ’cause I caught Mrs. Slattery sunbathing with her tits out again, but before I can say anything he tells me everyone’s sick and there’s no work. First bit of good luck, and it just went up from there. Fucking zombie plague spreads everywhere, and suddenly names don’t matter no more.

  I’m not stupid. When things got bad I waited inside, ate up all the food in my apartment. After a couple of days I banged on Nikki’s door across the hall. Little drug-dealer skank wasn’t home—maybe she was already dead. But she had some more food and a sweet Sig pistol. Even had seven bullets for it.

  Stole a car and headed for the marina. Killed three zombies on the way. Used up all my bullets, but found two dead cops and got their guns and stuff, so I was good.

  I wasn’t surprised a lot of the boats were gone. Figured I wouldn’t be the first person to realize zombies couldn’t swim. Lots of dead people on the docks and walkways. Had to shoot a couple of them, but then I had my boat.

  I knew a little bit about boats. Crewed one or two tourist things when I was in my twenties. It’s a lot easier when you don’t care about scraping some paint off or bumping into something. By the time I was out of the marina, I could handle it okay.

  I always knew rich people liked boats, but I never really got it until then. Go anywhere. Do anything. It’s an awesome feeling, knowing you can do anything.

  I found a couple others a little farther out. Most of ’em were abandoned, or filled with dead people. No problem for super-sniper kill-shot-maker Mitchel Kirby with one l. For the next couple months, I just circled around the islands again and again. Whenever I needed food or fuel or booze, I’d just find another boat.

  You want to know stupid? Fucking zombie apocalypse is going on, and you know how many times I just waved somebody down and they’d come right to me? Then pow-pow, bang-bang, I got a new boat for a couple of weeks. Maybe a new lady friend, too. That happened two or three times.

  Yeah, I killed some people. So what? Zombie apocalypse, anything goes, right? We all did some stuff we normally wouldn’t’ve.

  Okay, honest. June 2009 to March 2010, best almost-year of my life. I did it all. Y’know that thing, the one where you know the end’s coming and you’re gonna die, so you just do all that stuff you always thought about trying but were too chickenshit to do any of ’em? The fuck-it list? I crossed a lot of stuff off my fuck-it list that year.

  I think I killed about two dozen people altogether. I was keeping count for a while, but then there was this one drunken binge around Christmas and I lost track. I was sure I killed three, but there were only two bodies on the boat when I sobered up.

  Watched Oahu burn somewhere in there during the binge. Was twenty or thirty miles off of Kahuku, I think, and I heard this big noise. Like thunder and a wave crashing at the same time and echoing off the mountains. Headed in and everything was on fire. The whole island.

  I burned up a boat a little bit after that. Poured gasoline all over the deck, shot it with a flare gun, and moved over to my new yacht. Sat there with the old owner’s girlfriend tied to the railing and watched it burn all night. Spring bonfire.

  She was named Nikki, too. Just like my old neighbor. She was really into me for a while. Wild chick. Let me do anything to her. Then she kind of snapped. Had to shoot her when she tried to kill me. She was number fourteen out of the about two dozen.

  Then I had to kill her again when she got back up. Fucking zombies.

  Had a teenaged boy, too. All those stories about rich businessmen flying to Hong Kong or Singapore or whatever to have sex with boys, there had to be something to it, right? But there wasn’t. Bunch of weirdo pervs, all those rich guys.

  I let the kid jump overboard when I was done. Tossed him a life preserver and pointed him toward land. It was only twenty-something miles. He probably made it. I could’ve.

  Tried eating human flesh. Heard lots of people talk about it. Cooked up part of a leg and had a few mouthfuls, just enough to be sure I wasn’t really missing out on something. Tastes like chicken,
just like everyone says, but it feels a little more like fatty pork in the mouth, y’know? Then I thought it might be infected. I know cooking’s supposed to take care of that, but maybe I hadn’t heated it enough. So I puked all that up.

  Necrophilia wasn’t really my thing. Still isn’t. Only some really fucked-up people would be into that. But I’d had a couple drinks one night and the woman wasn’t too ugly. Still pretty fresh, too. Don’t need to ever do it again, but kind of proud that I did it, y’know? Another one of those things everybody thinks about.

  A couple weeks after that, though, had a chance to do it with an ex. Nikki again, just for a couple of minutes. Held her down with my foot on her chest, took one last look at her sweet tits and ass. But one dead chick was enough for me. It’s not like I’m some weirdo or something. So I shot her twice in the head.

  Over the course of the almost-year, I crossed a lot of shit off my fuck-it list.

  I got pretty bored, though. I liked to tell myself I was some pirate king of zombie Hawaii, but I was just bored as hell. I had one bullet left in one of my pistols. Not the cop guns. Those were long gone. This was some rich prick’s big chrome revolver. Something like Dirty Harry or the Lone Ranger would use.

  Anyway, I’d saved one bullet. I’d told myself it was for if I got bit or something, so I wouldn’t have to change. I could go out on my own terms, like Pop did. Honest, though, I knew the right day was going to roll around and I’d just suck the big hard one. I mean, that’s the whole point of the fuck-it list, right? When you’ve done everything, it’s time to check out.

  And then he showed up.

  I heard all this water dripping, and the boat rocked a bit. Just enough to feel it. It was a pretty good-sized yacht, but he’s pretty fucking big.

  I saw him standing there by the back ladder. Seven feet tall, five across, and blue as a goddamn Smurf. It was like some kind of man-shark crawled up out of the ocean to get me. A were-shark.

  Nautilus. The hero of Hawaii. I’d seen him on the news a couple of times. Rescuing lost boats or swimmers. One time he fought off a shark, and another time he caught a couple drug smugglers using a sailboat.