by Peter Clines
“They’ve got Cerberus.”
“You should go.”
He sighed. “Fine. I’ll radio ahead and tell them I’m half an hour out. Should get there just in time to drive back with them.”
“Thank you.”
He gave a nod to Josh as he walked out.
“You know,” said Gorgon, “that felt a lot like you were getting rid of him for the afternoon.”
“I was.” She turned to him. He couldn’t see her eyes, but somehow she could still project that cold stare. “We have prisoners. I want them interrogated.”
His smile was grim beneath the goggles. “My pleasure.”
THE PAVEMENT SHIMMERED in the sun. Mean Green and Big Red were side by side. Ty, Billie, and the rest of the guards had spread out to deal with the occasional ex while Luke and the mechanics replaced the tires of the crippled truck. The front end was done and they had both wounded wheels off on the passenger side.
The guards had split into four teams of three, watching the road in all directions. Whatever exes got too close were dispatched by one guard with a pike while the other two spotted with their own spears and rifles. They tried to avoid noise.
Cerberus walked a slow perimeter around the two trucks, followed by Jarvis. She paused at each cardinal point to stare as far as she could down the road. Her radios scanned back and forth across the wavelengths, listening for any sort of traffic amid the static.
Jarvis sighed after their fourth circuit of the tandem trucks. “So Mark got Trebek?”
Cerberus looked down at him. “Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Culver City, nine months ago,” she said. “Someone said they filmed Jeopardy! over there. At Sony.”
“And you’re sure it was him?”
The armored shoulders shrugged and turned back to the street. “Looked like him. We didn’t stop to check his wallet or anything.”
“So you’re not sure?”
Another massive shrug. “It looked like him to me. I mean, his mouth was all bloody and everything, but it still looked like him. The shape of his face and all.”
“Damn.” He kicked at a scrap of old newspaper. “Alex Trebek. That’s tough to beat. Ty told me he got Sulu and Chekov from Star Trek and that seemed pretty big. The real ones, not the ones from that remake.”
Across from them, Billie put her pike between the legs of a one-armed ex and levered them apart. The dead thing staggered, spun, and fell on its side. She drove the weapon down through its ear and the steel point clunked against the pavement.
“I got a bunch,” continued Jarvis, “but no one really huge. Megan Fox. Chris Rock. Veronica Mars. Scott Bakula. The little blonde from Smallville. On the same day I got the bad guy from Heroes and the fat guy from Seinfeld. Oh, and that morning newswoman on Channel 11 who always shows too much cleavage. I’m pretty sure I saw Lindsay Lohan once, but we were driving and couldn’t stop to get her.”
“Too bad,” said Cerberus. She toggled lenses and peered along New Hampshire Avenue past Ty. Almost six blocks up the street, an ex with dark hair and white clothes stumbled toward them.
“You got any big names?”
“I don’t think so,” she said without looking at him. “I never kept track of actors.”
“How’d you live in LA and not keep track of actors?”
“I didn’t live in LA. I lived in Virginia.”
“So how do you visit LA and not look for celebrities? That’s all anyone does.”
She turned her head to the east and the armor focused its sensors down Melrose. “Most of the time I don’t know if no one tells me. They’re just exes.”
Ty spun and cracked an ex in the head with his spear, then reversed his spin to sweep its legs while it staggered. He made a show of twirling the pike and driving it through the ex’s mouth. A few teeth spun free when he yanked the weapon out.
“So, do you know anyone you got?”
Cerberus sighed. It was a raspy noise over her speakers. “A few television people,” she said. “I don’t remember any of their names. The lead actor from House. Apparently he was impressive. So was the woman from the assassins movie.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know. The one with the husband and wife. They’re both assassins but they don’t know it. The Smiths?”
“Mr. & Mrs. Smi—holy fuck! You got Angelina Jolie?!”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“No way!” He kicked the side of the truck. “No fucking way!”
“Hey!” Luke glared at him.
He threw a finger to the driver and glared up at the battlesuit. “How the fuck did you get Angelina Jolie?”
“I broke her neck. It was pretty straightforward.”
“I got to get out of the Mount more,” muttered Jarvis. “All y’all’s got better celebrities than me.”
Gorgon marched across the lot to the holding cells by the Lansing Theater. In earlier years the little rooms had held reels of archive film. Now the solid doors kept things in instead of out.
The hero was a few yards away when he saw the puddles. Notches had been cut out of the bottom of each door, just high enough to let in air, some light, or a tray of food. Now something like cheap wine was spilling out from two of the slots.
He yanked open the nearest cell. The Seventeen had slit her wrists. Classic side-to-side, none of that new-age, up-and-down-the-arm nonsense. The left gash was clean and deep, the right a bit ragged. The floor was wet and red, and the red seeped up into her shirt. A single-edged razor blade rested in her hand, the type grocery clerks used in box-cutters. The type that was supposedly hard to get after 9-11, because they were so easy to hide.
Gorgon slammed the door and opened the next cell. The kid, a teenager, had started to cut his throat and chickened out. The razor was on his cot and his hands were pressed tight over the slash in his neck. “I need a doctor,” he said as he squinted against the sunlight. “Please, I’m hurt bad.” The blood on his hands was thinned with tears.
“You’re not dead,” snapped the hero. “You’ll be fine for another half hour.” He reached forward and grabbed the blade.
“No, please! Please, I need a doctor. I think I’m gonna die!”
Gorgon locked the cell and moved to the next. The third had done both wrists, too, but he was still standing. No, Gorgon thought. Not still standing. He’s already back on his feet. Doc Connolly’s right about people carrying the virus.
The ex turned at the waist in a smooth arc, its feet shuffling to follow. Its limbs were still fresh and flexible. It stared at him with gray eyes and pulled its lips back from its teeth. One of the front incisors had a pentagram engraved on it.
Thirty seconds passed before Gorgon leaped from the cell and slammed the door. He double-checked to make sure the ex was locked in while keying his walkie. “Stealth, I know you’re always listening in,” he announced. “I need you down at the cells. Now.”
“Cerberus,” called Luke. “Another lift?”
She thudded over and gripped the lower edge of Big Red. Luke gave the steel fingers a few nudges and shot her a thumbs-up. The battlesuit’s exoskeleton hummed and lifted the passenger side of the truck a foot into the air. Two of the mechanics slid the heavy stands across the pavement, tapping them with mallets. Luke talked her down and Big Red settled back onto the steel jacks. “Thanks,” he said as the mechanics attacked the dually tires.
“Not a problem.”
“We should be ready to go in about half an hour.”
Cerberus nodded and looked over the truck. The ex in white was just over a block away, close enough to see without magnification. It was an Asian girl sporting a long braid and a bloodstained karate uniform with rainbow trim. “Ty,” Cerberus called, “heads up.”
“I see her,” he said. He saluted the titan, turned back to the street, and the ex was in front of him.
It lunged and he just got the pike up in time.
Andy dove in with the blunt end of his own spear, shov
ing the Asian girl over. The ex spun, twisted, and was back on its feet reaching for Ty. His pike slammed up and the creature bit down on the shaft while it lashed out at him. He thought of horror movies and the twisted things that moved too fast.
“What the fuck is this?”
Ty gave a hard shove and knocked the ex back a few feet. It caught its balance again. He held out the pike to trip it as it stalked toward him. The wooden shaft slipped between the dead woman’s knees and he gave the weapon a yank to the left.
The ex stumbled, caught its balance, and took another step toward him.
He took a few quick paces back and reached forward again to trip it, batting the woman’s foot away as it took a step. The ex swayed for an instant before it swung the foot back and lunged again.
“Shit,” muttered Ty. He heard his spotters shift their weapons, knew their rifles were coming up, and felt his heart thudding. “No firing,” he told them. “I’ve got it.”
The pike lined up with her slack mouth and he lunged forward, ready to break through teeth and palate. His hands slid up the immobile wooden shaft and caught three splinters. Cerberus’s gauntlet was clamped on the rear of the pike. “Don’t.”
“Why not?”
She stepped forward and settled one hand on the ex’s shoulder. It was enormous against the dead girl. “Because Gorgon would kill you if he found out.”
The creature’s fingers clawed at the steel digits as it tried to gnaw through the armor.
“Why would he …” Ty closed his eyes and sighed. “Shit, that’s her, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“Pretty damned nimble for a zombie,” said Andy.
“You should’ve seen her when she was alive. It was like watching a superball bouncing in a closet.” Cerberus shook her head. The ex flailed in her grasp like a scarecrow in the wind. “Last I heard she was wandering around Griffith Park somewhere. It sucks she made it back down here.”
Andy shrugged. “So what do we do with it? I mean, if we can’t kill it, are you just going to stand here until the truck’s done?”
“Got an idea. Something I heard someone say once.”
The battlesuit reached out and her hand wrapped around the ex’s head like a spider. Just for a second she considered crushing the skull. She could still see one of its eyes staring out between the huge digits, and its teeth scraped on a metal fingertip. Then she picked the dead thing up and turned it around, pointing its eyes back up the street. “Keep quiet for a minute or so.”
The ex thrashed a few times against the grip, becoming more and more lethargic each time. Its arms settled down and were limp at its sides.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” whispered the titan. Her fingers opened with the faint hum of electronic motors and the Asian woman stumbled forward. Everyone stayed silent until it was halfway up the block, except for the crunch of Billie impaling another ex with her pike.
“So Mark got Trebek and you got Angelina Jolie.” Jarvis spit on the pavement. “Now my only hope for a great one is Jessica Alba.”
Cerberus shook her head. “That one’s down. Cairax killed her. St. George told me the story.”
“The demon guy? I thought he was an ex now.”
“He is, but he wasn’t then. She’s the one who bit him. Killing her’s one of the last things anyone saw him do.”
“How’d she bite him, anyway? I thought he was all scaly or something. Lizardy.”
“He’s fireproof. And tough enough to shrug off Tasers and shotguns.”
“So how’d she bite him?”
Cerberus pivoted her head, locking him in her sights. “He’s not all scaly.”
“What’s that supposed to—No!”
“Yeah.”
“You mean they … he … when she was dead?”
“I never met the guy, but Zzzap and St. George both say he was kind of messed up in the head, way past the whole magic-sorcerer thing. Multiple personalities or something. Didn’t always make the best decisions.”
“Fuck no, he—”
Her hand shot up, silencing him. Luke looked up from the side of the cab and stopped the two mechanics with their sockets. A moment passed as the steel skull panned to the south. “Can you hear that?”
Luke cupped his ears.
“Something big,” said Cerberus. “Heading this way.”
Jarvis shook his head and then froze. “Wait a sec.”
They could all hear the engines now, and the low cries running alongside them. In the odd acoustics of the dead city, the sounds echoed and growled. Luke stood next to Cerberus, his ears still cupped. The mechanics were spinning the lugs on for the last set of tires. Ty, Billie, and the rest threw the pikes in the truck beds and swung their rifles into their arms.
Inside the battlesuit, she watched long-range sensors begin to light up. Her arms itched with the lack of cannons. “This is Cerberus,” she barked into her microphone. “We have incoming hostiles, request immediate reinforcements. Zzzap, Gorgon, Dragon.” She looked at the mechanics. “Are we going to be done in time?”
“Just need another minute.”
“Everyone mount up! Zzzap!” she shouted into the microphone. “Damn it, Barry, I know you can hear me!”
Luke pulled himself up into the cab and Big Red rumbled to life. “We got another jammer?”
“No.”
“Is he supposed to be flesh?”
“No, of course not.” She thudded back to the lift gate. Mean Green’s engine gunned as the mechanics threw their tools in the back. “You done?”
“It’ll get us home.”
Down Melrose the trucks swung around the corner. There were two oversized pickups and a garbage truck with steel bars across the wide windshield. Something large and purple was stretched across the massive grille. Seventeens swarmed and howled on each vehicle.
“Raise the gate,” Cerberus said.
Billie’s hand froze on the switch as Jarvis swung himself over the side of the truck. “How will you—”
“No time. Raise it and get out of here.”
“You heard her,” bellowed Harry, Mean Green’s overweight driver. “She’ll hold ’em off. That’s what she does, right?”
The Seventeen vehicles roared closer. The thing chained to the front of the garbage truck moved, thrashing against the bindings. The armor’s lenses punched in, swelling the image in her view. “Shit,” Cerberus hissed, recognizing it. “Go!”
Mean Green dropped into gear and lunged down the street. Big Red was a beat behind it. Bullets pinged off the steel lift gate. One of its new tires blew and the big truck kept going on the dually.
A few rounds bounced off the battlesuit as she thudded over to a phone pole. She grabbed it, yanked, and felt the wood splinter under the armor’s fingers. The thick beam crashed down across the street. She scooped up an Accord near the sidewalk and flipped it out into the street, too.
Mean Green was out of sight. Big Red was just reaching the overpass. The Seventeens were a block away.
She threw her legs forward and ran.
“Why do I need to see this?” asked Stealth.
Gorgon stood by the cell doors. “Because you won’t believe me if I just tell you.”
“What could be so impossible for me to believe?”
“Just come over here.”
Her head tilted to the puddles of blood. “Suicide.”
“Two of them. They smuggled in razors, but only two went through with it.”
“Regrettable. Call a cleanup crew.”
“That’s not the problem.” He gestured her to the last door.
“Did they rise? I am sure you can deal with them one at a time, and Doctor Connolly would probably like to see them. I have things to do.”
“Not more important than this.”
She glared at him. Gorgon unlocked the door and swung the cell open.
The suit could run. It could hit forty-five miles an hour on pavement, less on dirt, gravel, or sand. She hated doing it because s
he could watch her power levels drop with every stride. It wasn’t cheap to make twelve hundred pounds of armor and electronics move fast.
Behind her there was a crash she could feel. A quick blink shifted her screens to the armor’s rear-view cam. The garbage truck had dropped the two huge arms that caught and flipped dumpsters, battering aside the phone pole. They speared the Acura like a pair of metal tusks, barely slowing the enormous truck at all.
She switched back to the main view. The battlesuit had caught up with Big Red. Forty percent of her power was already gone. She could see abandoned cars shake as she ran by. An ex stumbled into her path and she plowed over it, crushing it to a pulp.
“Turn,” she bellowed to Luke. “North on Western. We can cut across Santa Monica and circle down Gower.”
“What about Harry and Mean Green?”
“Fat bastard’s probably back at the Mount already,” she shouted. “They’re fine.”
Luke spun the wheel and Big Red lurched onto Western, weaving between dead cars. She stomped after them, cracking the blacktop with each footfall. The freeway ramp was up ahead and Sunset a few blocks past it.
“SHIT!!” Luke tensed and stood up in his seat. Big Red squealed, tires smoking as it slid forward another twenty feet. Shouts came from the back as the guards were thrown forward.
Cerberus tried to dodge and smashed her shoulder into the driver’s-side corner of the truck. Big Red lurched, the fiberglass sides crumpled, and the battlesuit spun away, stumbling over a low sports car and crashing down on the sidewalk on top of a crawling ex. Her screens went gray for a second as the computers tried to keep up with the whirling images.
Inside Cerberus, Danielle tried to clear her head. Even with the armor it had been a hard hit. She blinked a few times and the suit tried to interpret the subtle commands, racing through half a dozen views and status reports as it tried to get the cameras back online. The flashing screens didn’t help her throbbing skull.
“Chains,” shouted Luke. “They’ve got the whole road trapped!”
Big Red’s tires sent up white smoke as the truck reversed. Cerberus pulled herself up with a parking meter, crushing it in the process. “Where to?”