Ex-Communication: A Novel

by Peter Clines

  I don’t remember writing any of that. It’s pretty clear in each one I don’t remember the one before it. So if I thought it was the 28th for three days in a row, then today must be the first of August.

  Unless there were days I didn’t write in my diary and I can’t remember them, either. But each one seems to begin where the last one ends, even if I didn’t remember it then.

  I wonder if I had a head injury. Dad said short-term amnesia’s kind of common with head injuries. I think I’m fine now, and I don’t feel any bumps or blood or anything. Maybe I got knocked out of the car (truck? jeep? They told me the name of it but I don’t remember) and hurt my head and wandered around for a couple of days.

  Why didn’t they come get me, though? If I fell out of the car wouldn’t they come back for me? Unless they couldn’t for some reason.

  And how did my old clothes get ripped up? Could that happen just from falling out of the car? Maybe if I rolled through some bushes or something? Or crawled out of a car crash?

  There was a duffle bag in the Mini. I took out some of the jeans and bigger-cut clothes and filled the empty space with food and water. Was I looting? Stealing? When does it become okay to take other people’s stuff? I couldn’t find any sign of anyone else there. When I first saw the bloody shirt I thought it belonged to the car owner, but my diary says I found it in an SUV miles away.

  I spent today heading north, away from the Mini.

  There were a couple zombies, but I saw them before they saw me. They’re pretty easy to dodge. I think they need to be in big groups to be dangerous.

  I passed a few more cars. They all have different license plates. Arizona. New Mexico. California. Nevada. There aren’t enough of any one type for me to figure out where I am. Some of them have dead people in them. Some of the dead people are moving, but they can’t figure out how to open the doors. They don’t react to me when they’re in the cars. I figured that out pretty quick.

  In some of the safe cars I found some more food and water. Some clothes closer to my size. Still no shoes or underwear. I hope this bra holds up because it’s thrashed.

  I need to find a new phone or maybe a watch or something. That’ll help me keep track of what day it is. And I need to find Mom.

  July August 1st 2nd, 2009

  Dear Diary,

  This is going to have to be qui

  August 1st 3rd???, 2009

  Dear Diary,

  Dammit, I know yesterday was the day I found out it was August 1st. I remember it. But there’s another entry. Part of one. I stopped writing and I don’t know why. Did something interrupt me? Did I fall asleep?

  I think I have that Memento disease. The special amnesia that guy had. I shouldn’t’ve been making out with Rick all through the movie. And we even skipped back so we’d have more time. First time at second base doesn’t seem quite as important anymore in the big scheme of things.

  Should I start writing stuff on my arms like he did? I remember that part. Maybe I should try sleeping with the journal in my lap so I always read it when I wake up.

  I woke up in a drainpipe under the road. It was pretty dry. I don’t think it’s rained out here in a while. I was using the duffle bag as a pillow. I had one of those tinfoil space blankets I don’t remember picking up anywhere. There’s nothing in the journal about it, but it says I found cars with stuff in them. Maybe I found it and didn’t write it down.

  I found a road sign. It was right above the drainpipe. Now I’m wondering if I might’ve found a bunch of them and just didn’t write them down.

  It’s a green shield that says 95. Interstate 95 is on the East Coast, but I’m not sure where highway 95 is. Maybe there’s more than one? I’m supposed to be in Arizona and every car I’ve seen is from a Southwest state, except for one from Virginia I saw this afternoon. It had a dead family in it—a man and woman and two little boys. They were rotting and dead and I was really glad they had their windows rolled up. Their car was off the road but pointed south.

  It still feels like yesterday was the day I was in the car with Mom. Like when you have a long day and you think “Wow, was that only yesterday?” Except for me it wasn’t yesterday and it feels like it was.

  I wonder if Mom made it to Dad? I wonder if they’re looking for me. I’ve got to figure out where I am so I can try to find them. Got to be smart, though. Dad always says to think first, think second, and then act third. If I keep heading north I’ll find something I can locate on a map, and then I can figure out how to get where I’m supposed to be.

  I need to find a new phone, or a watch, or something. That’ll help me keep track of days and stuff better.

  I need to find Mom and Dad. It’s been almost a week. They’re probably worried sick about me.

  February 15th, 2010

  Dear Diary,

  Okay, WTF?! I have no idea how but it’s February. Halfway through February. How did seven months go by and I didn’t know? Yesterday was August 1st 3rd! I know it was! I woke up and I remembered to check my diary. I remember writing that page. Today was August 4th. I knew it was the 4th because yesterday was the 3rd. But this watch has hands and a digital readout. The time matches up on them. The date on the digital part says 2-15-2010.

  I missed Valentine’s Day. Dammit.

  I wonder if I only remember the 3rd because I wrote it down. Maybe I did a lot of stuff yesterday (the real yesterday) and the day before that and the day before that, but I didn’t write them down, so I can’t remember them.

  I woke up in the back of a pickup truck. There were some blue quilted blankets in it and a couple tarps, so it was kind of comfy. It had really huge tires—Janice calls them “compensation tires”—so nothing could see into the back if it walked by. It seems like a good place to sleep. I don’t remember finding it and there’s nothing here in the diary about it.

  There were a couple zomb exes wandering around outside the truck. I ducked down quick and none of them saw me. I opened a can of beef stew and tried to eat. All the potatoes and carrots tasted wrong and slimy, like the beans in the pork and beans. There was a can of P&B in the truck with all the beans left behind.

  I remember Dad said the ex-virus did something to the exes to make them last longer. Maybe it’s doing something to the meat, too? But how did it get in the cans? And does that mean I’ve been eating meat filled with virus?!?!

  The exes wandered off after an hour or so and I slipped away. I walked north for two hours before I found the watch. It was on an older guy, lying on the side of the road (lying or laying? Honors English student but I can never get that right). He had silver-gray hair and a beard and glasses. His skin was all dried out, but it was still creepy touching him. There’s another journal entry that says I took a shirt off a dead woman because my clothes were ripped up and I was practically naked.

  The watch is this big, gold thing. A retirement watch, I think. It’s like a bracelet on my wrist, even when I make it small. It looks expensive.

  February still doesn’t make any sense. Dad said the desert was freezing in the winter. It’s cold, but I don’t think I could’ve been walking around half-naked and with no food for three days. Although it doesn’t feel really cold now. Maybe the date on the watch isn’t right? Do digital watches go fast when they start to run out of power? That doesn’t make sense. Things go slower, right?

  My feet hurt and they look bruised. I think I’ve been walking a lot. For a long time. But they’re not cold. Shouldn’t they be cold if it’s really February?

  I just had an awful thought. What if it really has been seven months somehow? I was looking back through my diary and the last entry said I was going to keep heading north. But what if I found something and started heading south again? Or east or west? If I didn’t write it down I’d just wake up and head north again. I could’ve been walking back and forth for seven months now!!!

  Mom and Dad might think I’m dead!! They don’t know I’m wandering around out here with a head trauma or something!


  I’m on top of a Ford Explorer tonight. It’s all locked up tight and there’s a body behind the wheel and another one in the backseat. The one in the backseat is twitching but it can’t smell me, so it isn’t really reacting.

  I think there’s a city a couple miles north of here. There’s a big sign another two miles down the road from here. I can’t make out a lot of details. Far away things look hazy, like there’s thin clouds in the air or something. Or maybe it’s me. My eyes hurt like I’ve got a couple cat hairs stuck under my eyelids or something. I tried rubbing them all morning and it didn’t help. The old guy with the glasses and the watch had a little bottle of eyedrops. They helped a lot, but the far stuff is still hazy.

  Can a head injury make you nearsighted?

  February 23rd, 2010

  Dear Diary,

  This is messed up.

  I woke up and found a big gold watch on my arm. It said it was February 23rd, which I knew was wrong because yesterday was August 3rd. But then I sat down tonight to write in here and the last entry was dated the 15th. And I read it and I remembered the truck and finding the watch and that was yesterday. I’m sure it was yesterday and I’m only remembering days wrong.

  I think this watch might be broken. I read the last entry, but I just can’t believe five days slipped by without me knowing about it. I need another watch. That way I can tell if this one is right or not. A control watch, that’s what Dad would say.

  It’d be easy to find a watch in a city, but there’s no sign of that city I mentioned in the last entry. I climbed up on the roof of this big-rig to look for it. I’m back in the middle of the desert again. No sign of any big population centers. No road signs.

  I wonder if I should start making a list of cars and trucks. Or just their license plates. I could use them as landmarks so I can tell if I’m doubling back over somewhere I’ve been before.

  I wonder if I got into the city, wherever it was, and didn’t have time to write anything. They’re all probably overrun with exes at this point. I might have just been dodging undead the whole time.

  I wonder if I should try to find a gun. Maybe a shotgun or something, or some pistols so I can go all Milla Jovovich on any undead I find. I’ve never fired a gun before. I mean, I’ve played GTA and some Call of Duty, but I don’t think that counts.

  I wonder where Mom and Dad are. I wonder if they’re looking for me. I hope they’re okay and not too worried.

  February May 21st ???? 23rd WHO CARES?!?

  Oh God!!! Oh God this can’t be right!! I can’t be one of them. They don’t have minds! They can’t think or feel or anything. That’s what Dad told me. He said they were just corpses. Just corpses walking around because of a virus.

  There was a gas station and I thought I could spend the night because there’s no exes here except. There’s a big mirror by the register so you can see people behind you.

  I can see the mirror. I’m looking at myself in the mirror right now. I can see my skin and my eyes. I look like them.

  I want Mom and Dad! They’ll still love me. Dad can fix this. He’s one of the smartest people in the world. That’s why they hired him. He can fix it!

  I CAN’T BE DEAD!!!!!!!!!!

  “BOSS,” ILYA SHOUTED over the gunfire, “it’s worse!”

  He pointed behind them, to the north side of the street. More exes were stumbling out of a nearby storefront that might have been a Blockbuster at one point and a pizza place on the south corner. Exes wearing helmets. Some of them even had tactical vests and other scraps of body armor.

  There were another hundred of them, at least. Maybe even two hundred. With the ones already swarming around Big Blue, that meant close to a thousand. The sound of clicking teeth almost drowned out the truck’s engine.

  The scavengers had driven into the valley through the Cahuenga Pass and followed the road all the way into Sherman Oaks. St. George and Cerberus were along as escorts. There hadn’t been any problems until they passed the pair of gas stations flanking Van Nuys Boulevard. There was a minor pileup of four or five cars down the road at the next intersection—nothing compared to some of the trainwrecks across Los Angeles—and the armored titan had gone ahead to deal with it.

  Cerberus had tossed two of the cars against the side of the road and the noise had attracted a handful of exes. Two of them staggered over from a street-side patio and another pair stumbled out from behind an oversized pickup truck. She batted one of them away with the BMW she was holding and dropped the car on another. A quick kick from the battlesuit sent a motorcycle skidding and sparking across the pavement to knock down the others.

  Then more had staggered out of the Second Spin store to the south, and some pushed out of the comic shop to the north. A lot more than should’ve been in such places. They piled out of the novelty gift shop with the tattered banner and the Panda Express and the Sprint store. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Far too many with military helmets protecting their skulls.

  Most of the scavengers were in the back of their truck. Billie, Jarvis, and a former Project Krypton soldier named Taylor stood around the half-lowered tailgate. Taylor was swearing between every shot. They’d started calling out targets as they fired, but the calls came slow as people took more time to line up. More than a few were called out twice as bullets flicked off the exes’ headgear or lost too much force to penetrate.

  Cerberus had tried to use the stunners built into her gauntlets but with the slow gunfire from the scavengers the dead overwhelmed her faster than she could put them down. St. George leaped over Big Blue to land near the titan and the two of them battered the exes back. They’d held back the tide as best they could.

  And then Ilya had seen all the other exes pouring into the road behind them.

  No question about it, St. George thought. Legion had figured out how to set a half-decent trap. He wasn’t supervising it, but he didn’t need to. It wasn’t difficult to predict what would happen when a bunch of exes surrounded a dozen or so humans.

  The hero soared back over the truck and landed a few yards behind it. A bullet smacked into his shoulder and he glanced back. “Sorry, sir,” shouted Taylor. “You got in my shot.”

  “Striped suit,” shouted Ilya from the truck, lining up on his target.

  “Teenybopper,” called out someone else.

  “Red shirt,” Lady Bee yelled from her perch on top of the truck’s cab.

  “Press pass.”

  “Parking enforcement,” called Jarvis with a bit of glee.

  St. George brought the edge of his hand around like an ax and chopped through an ex’s neck. Its head wobbled in the air and dropped to the pavement. He whipped around just as a teenage boy in a camo-wrapped helmet grabbed his other hand and started to gnaw on it. The dead thing’s teeth broke against his skin and clicked against the pavement. He grabbed it by the shoulder and hurled it at the crowds spilling out of the Blockbuster.

  A trio of exes stumbled toward him, their jaws snapping open and closed. A pair of gunshots rang out and thudded off the Kevlar helmets. The dead men stumbled for a moment from the impact, then lurched forward again. The hero heard Taylor swearing behind him.

  He drove his knuckles through the closest one’s face and it dropped off his fist. One of the stumblers, a dead woman, grabbed at his arm. Two of its teeth—implants, probably—were still whole and brilliant white among the cracked gray stumps. He slammed his hand against the ex’s chest and sent it flying back. The body knocked down three or four others before it hit the ground. He slammed his hands together and crushed the skull of the last one, helmet and all.

  There were too many of them. He’d put down two dozen, the scavengers had dropped another forty at least, and they hadn’t made a dent in the horde. The body armor was making them harder to kill. Just hard enough. He didn’t think it was going any better at the front of the truck.

  He backhanded another ex away. “Cerberus,” he shouted. “Get back on board.”

  From this angle, St. George could on
ly see the titan’s blue and platinum skull and its broad shoulders over the truck. A little over a foot of bulky, armored spine was visible on its back. Cerberus grabbed an ex in either hand, slammed them together, then looked back at St. George. “There’s too many up front,” she bellowed.

  Billie hopped up onto the tailgate and stomped twice. “Turn us around, Luke,” she shouted.

  “Fucking comic-book guy,” growled Taylor. He put a round in an overweight ex in a Superman T-shirt and cracked its helmet. The zombie fell over backward.

  The truck’s engine revved and it lurched forward. An ex that had made it past Cerberus, a bulky man with blood-splattered eyeglasses under its helmet, dropped under the bumper and the large tires crushed its legs and one arm. Taylor and Jarvis took a few steps, keeping close to the tailgate while they called out more targets.

  St. George grabbed a dead man by the neck and waist, lifted the ex up, and marched forward with it like a battering ram. Other exes tried to reach past the body and became a tangle of grasping arms and snapping jaws. He heaved and sent a score of them sprawling back. Their bodies tripped another dozen heading for the truck.

  A quartet of the undead wrapped their arms around St. George in a group hug. The hero shrugged them off and hammered his fists down hard on their helmets. The impact cracked helmets and crushed three of their skulls. The fourth, a girl in a soccer uniform, he batted away. She plowed into another ex and they both tumbled back into a third.

  Big Blue was halfway through a three-point turn. Taylor had leaped up onto the tailgate. Jarvis was still walking alongside it. The truck surged back again and knocked down another ex with the edge of the tailgate.

  The air tingled and St. George heard the crackle of electricity over the chatter of teeth. Cerberus was firing up her stunners again. Arcs twisted around the titan’s gauntlets and exes dropped at her touch.