An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  The applause grew for a moment and then stumbled. A few people kept clapping, but the sound was off. St. George followed the dull thwack through the shifting crowd to the gate.

  The East Gate was two big arrays of vertical steel pipes just inches apart. It was strong enough to stop a speeding car. The goal was to eventually get both sides of it covered with chain-link fencing to keep the undead from reaching through. A double set of bars stretched across the panels to hold them in place, one at chest height and the other two feet off the ground.

  On the other side of the gate, a baker’s dozen of exes slapped their hands together. They all wore the same expression, wide eyes and a grin that was close to a sneer. As St. George got closer he could see the unhealing wounds marking all of the undead. One of the men was missing an eye. Another one slapped his hand against the ragged stump of his other wrist. There was a woman with gorgeous features who only had a few scrapes and bruises, and another who was little more than bones wrapped in papery skin. All of them had pale flesh and dull eyes. They kept clapping.

  “Things are lookin’ good in there, esse,” one of them said to St. George. It was the dead man with the missing hand. The ex beat the stump against its palm. “Lookin’ really good.”

  Twin trailers of smoke rose out of St. George’s nose. “You want something, Rodney?”

  The applause stopped. “I told you,” said the dead man before the other exes joined it in one voice, “DON’T CALL ME RODNEY. IT’S LEGION, DAMNIT!”

  “Whatever.”

  Half of the exes wandered away from the gate and milled about like the rest of the undead. Their jaws moved up and down, banging their teeth together. The ones left glared at St. George. The one-handed man tapped his knuckles against one of the pipes, and the other exes mirrored the gesture along the gate. “Someday soon, dragon man, I’m gonna get in there. You know it’s coming. You won’t be acting so smart then.”

  “Someday isn’t today,” said St. George. He spat out a burst of flame through the fence.

  The exes took a step back, then held their ground. It wasn’t enough fire to do more than singe them, but the one-handed man lost his eyebrows. They all glared at the hero and bared their teeth. Then their expressions went slack and their teeth started clacking against each other. They pushed their arms between the pipes and tried to reach St. George with slow, clumsy grabs.

  A couple people gave halfhearted laughs and cheers, but the mood was dead. The crowd scattered. Guards turned to watch the streets outside the Big Wall while others walked up the wooden staircase to join them.

  St. George turned away from the gate and saw that two people had stayed behind to speak with him. The first was Billie Carter, the nominal head of the scavengers, the people who headed out once or twice a week to search the city for whatever supplies they could find. From a distance, the Marine sergeant sometimes got mistaken for a teenage boy with a buzz cut. Up close, it was clear she was a woman who shouldn’t be messed with.

  The second was Jarvis. No one was quite sure where Jarvis fit into the scheme of things. He went out with the scavengers, but it wasn’t uncommon to find him walking the Wall. He pulled shifts as a hospital guard and even spent time weeding in the gardens. His willingness to do whatever needed to be done meant everyone liked him, so they all tended to listen to him when he spoke. St. George found the man to be an endless source of cheerfulness and common sense without ever crossing the line that made cheerful people annoying.

  “So,” said the hero, “are we still on for tomorrow?”

  Billie nodded. “Assuming Legion hasn’t messed up the roads too bad, we should be able to make Sherman Oaks in an hour. There’s lots of little shops out there that might be worth checking out. If we can make it all the way to Sepulveda there’s a ton of apartment complexes.”

  “Probably too many to hit on the same day,” said Jarvis, “but we can get a sense of how things are looking out that way.”

  “There better be something,” said Billie. “We’re getting close to the point this isn’t worth it.”

  St. George glanced at her. “Meaning what?”

  She shrugged. “Basic logistics. If we burn ten gallons of fuel to bring ten back, we’re pretty much right back where we started. There’s still a lot of gas stations out there, but we’re getting near the point it’s going to cost us more to go looking than we’re going to get out of it. Especially with Legion making us fight for every mile we travel.”

  “Always nice to get out, though,” said Jarvis.

  “I’m serious,” Billie said. “Every time we head out we’re tied to the Mount, and we’re running out of rope.” She crossed her arms. “I think we need to think about setting up a forward base or two farther out. Something out in the valley, or over in Burbank. Maybe just a dozen or two people in a secure area. Someplace we can scavenge from without trucking what we find all the way back here.”

  St. George bit back a smile. “Stealth suggested something similar a few weeks ago,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how the idea would go over.”

  “You could’ve asked us,” said Billie.

  “She said if I waited you’d probably come up with the idea yourself. You specifically, Billie.”

  “’Course she did,” smirked Jarvis.

  “What if we try this? I can do a few scouting runs out into Van Nuys or maybe out toward Glendale. Maybe there’s another small studio out there we could use, or a school.”

  “There’s a National Guard armory out in Van Nuys,” said Billie. “We had you check it out once. You said it still looked secure. We could definitely use whatever ammo’s there.”

  The hero nodded. “We’d need to check it again. It only had one fence, right?”

  She nodded.

  “There’s also downtown,” said Jarvis. “We’ve avoided it till now, but maybe it’s time to think about heading that way.”

  The hero shook his head. “Downtown’s still a death trap,” he said. “Stealth figures there’s still at least six or seven hundred thousand exes down there. Plus it’s wall-to-wall cars and tons of barricades the National Guard left behind. We wouldn’t get five blocks before we were overrun, even if we had Cerberus and all of Freedom’s soldiers with us.”

  “You could do some advance scouting and pave the way,” Billie said. “You’ve made it down to the toy district three years now for Christmas.”

  He nodded. “That’s why I know downtown’s a bad idea. It’s hell to grab a few trash bags full of Barbies and knockoff Transformers all on my own.”

  “One other issue,” said Jarvis, “if y’all don’t mind me bringing it up.”

  “Depends,” said St. George. He gestured up the street and the three of them walked north along the Big Wall.

  “Elections,” said the bearded man. “We still shooting for six weeks from tomorrow?”

  “Last I heard,” said the hero. “Why?”

  Jarvis shrugged. “Still time for someone to throw their name in the hat for mayor.”

  St. George shook his head. “I told you, not me.”

  “You should,” said Billie. “You’re the natural choice.”

  Jarvis nodded in agreement. “Everybody knows you,” he said. “Pretty much everyone likes you. Only ones who don’t still have to admit you’ve saved us all a dozen times over. You’re a natural, boss.”

  “Same holds for you and Billie,” the hero said.

  She snorted.

  “I’m serious,” he said. “Jarvis, you’d make a great mayor. Why aren’t you running?”

  “To tell the truth,” said the salt-and-pepper man, “I couldn’t stand the cut in pay. Got me a pretty extravagant lifestyle to keep up.” He raised his chin and straightened the lapel of his threadbare coat. “All kinda besides the point, though. If someone else don’t step up, it’s going to come down to Christian and Richard. And Richard just ain’t mean enough for politics here in the big city.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m just s
aying, if nothing changes in the race there’s a good chance six weeks from now things are going to be real different around here. Might be best to get stuff done earlier than later, know what I mean?”

  St. George shook his head. “We can’t start making this an us-and-them thing,” he said. “It took us over a year to get the Seventeens integrated. Last thing we need is to start making up political parties and dividing everyone that way.”

  “People are already divided, boss,” Jarvis said. “Just the nature of the beast. Some folks want to go forward, some folks want to try to go back. There’s all the religious nuts, too.”

  “Hey,” said St. George. “Tolerance.”

  “Sorry, boss,” said Jarvis. “Seriously, though, have you listened to some of this A.D. stuff?”

  “It’s all classic Book of Revelation,” said Billie. She tipped her head at the Big Wall. “It’s not that out there, all things considered. Pretty easy to think we’re living in the end of days.”

  “I never knew you were religious,” said St. George.

  “I’m a Marine and I was in Afghanistan for a year and a half,” she said. “I’m religious enough, I just don’t push it on anyone. You know they all back Christian, right?”

  “The A.D. folks?” asked the hero. “Not too surprising. She’s been with them from the start, hasn’t she?”

  Billie nodded. “Someone told me she lost a niece when everything went to hell.”

  “I think I heard that once.”

  “Still,” said Jarvis, “y’all get my point. Still a lot of work to do and we ain’t quite the unified front we were a couple years ago.”

  “Yeah,” said St. George. “I was saying something about this the other night. Is it a good thing or a bad thing that we’ve gotten big enough for people to start splitting apart?”

  “What’d you decide?”

  “That we’d have to wait and see.” He shrugged. “Anything else?”

  Billie shook her head. “I was going to put together a weapons detail tonight, make sure everything’s good for tomorrow’s mission.”

  “Did that yesterday with Taylor,” said Jarvis. “Double-checked everything.”

  Billie shrugged. “So I’ll have them triple-check it. What else is there to do?”

  St. George shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat. “Maybe we should just relax.”

  “Sorry,” said Billie, “you used some word I don’t know.”

  “I’m serious,” St. George said. He gestured at the Big Wall and let his hand swing back to the gate. “Things are tight, but we’re at the point that we have to start living again. All of us. We can’t make every minute of every day about survival.”

  “Legion’s still out there,” Billie said.

  “Out there,” said St. George. “Not in here.”

  Jarvis shrugged. “Okay.”

  Billie looked at him, then at St. George. “That’s it?” she asked. “We’re just supposed to do … nothing?”

  “Not nothing,” he said. “Just take a night off. Have a beer with some friends, play a game, watch a movie, hook up with someone. Go … I don’t know, do whatever you used to do on your nights off.”

  Her lip twisted toward a frown, but he saw her force it back into a flat line. “What if I go work on some ideas for that forward base? Some basic supplies and requirements?”

  St. George sighed. “If it’s what you want to do, fine, but you don’t have to. You can just take the night off. It won’t be the end of the world.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Jarvis. “End of the world happened years ago.”

  IT WAS A little over a block from the West Gate down to the church, maybe two blocks from where St. George left Billie and Jarvis. He knew flying there was silly, but it was always good for people to see one of the heroes during the day.

  Plus, it just felt cool to fly. Breathing fire and bending steel bars were great, but pushing himself away from the ground and hanging in the sky was just amazing. He’d never felt so free in his life.

  He soared up a good thirty feet above the trees and spun once in the air. Far to the north, up in the hills, stood the letters of the Hollywood sign. It was getting gray after years of neglect. The thought crossed his mind of going up there with a few gallons of water and washing it. It’d be a big boost for everyone to see the whole thing bright and white up above them.

  Two blocks west were the walls of the Mount, their original fortress. From here he could see the huge globe of the Earth balanced on one corner of the studio wall. Just past the globe and the stages there, he could see the top floor of the Hart Building. He knew he had to head over there soon, but wanted to make another stop first.

  To the south, just inside the Big Wall, was the church. It wasn’t the only church inside the barriers. They’d found a dozen of different sizes, denominations, and languages—but not one synagogue or mosque, which had caused a fair amount of grumbling. The one at Rossmore and Arden was the one St. George always thought of as the church, though. It was a large, Gothic building, with arched facades in the front and back and a cross on the high rooftop above the doors. He wasn’t a particularly religious person, but he understood the need for symbols.

  He landed on the steps. The big square doors were open to let in the breeze. He walked inside.

  The church was lit by windows and a few candles. A dozen people were scattered through the pews. Two men stood near the back of the church, right by the door, speaking in hushed tones. One of them glanced at St. George and gave a faint tip of his head in acknowledgment.

  Andy Shepard, former scavenger, was now Father Shepard, although he’d at least gotten most everyone to go with Father Andy. He tried to argue that he’d never been ordained, but eventually he broke down under the realization it was him or nothing for the practicing Catholics left in Los Angeles. They’d even found him a collar.

  And the number of practicing churchgoers had gone up since the Zombocalypse. There’d been prayer and spiritual guidance inside the Mount, but it was a huge thing for many people to set foot in a church again once the Big Wall was finished. Especially if it had been their church before the end of the world. St. George had noticed how many people headed to the different services each Sunday morning. Not surprising, all things considered.

  Father Andy exchanged a last few words with the other man and they shook hands. Then he stepped over to St. George and extended the hand again. “A bit weird to see you here,” he said. “What’s up?”

  “Just checking in,” said the hero. “I was flying by, realized I hadn’t talked to you in a while. How are things going?”

  Andy shrugged. “Not bad. The confessional’s been busy. There’s a lot of people who’ve been burdened by things they’ve done, stuff they want to get off their chests.”

  “Anything I should know about?”

  Andy shook his head. “It’s survivor’s guilt more than anything else. That’s why all the churches are so popular. Hell, my last sermon was standing room only. Can’t tell you the last time I saw that in a church.”

  “Are you allowed to say ‘hell’ now that you’re a priest?”

  “I have to say ‘hell.’ It’s part of the job description. Although, technically, if I’m the last one left I think it makes me the Pope.”

  “Pope Andy the First does have a ring to it,” said St. George.

  The priest shook his head. “I’ve got to be honest. After all we’ve seen, I’d be tempted to take the name Thomas.”

  St. George smiled.

  “Nothing else?” asked Father Andy.

  The hero looked up at the big cross above the altar. “What can you tell me about the A.D. folks?”

  Andy let out a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. Then he shrugged. “Well, they’re following general Christianity, for the most part,” he said. “More of an oversized prayer circle or Bible study group than an actual religious sect. I mean, in the big scheme of things, they’re like all of us. They’re trying to understand God’s pl
an and establish a set—”

  “No,” said St. George. “I’m not looking for a polite religious comparison. I want to know what you think about them.”

  The priest took in a slow breath, leaned against the back of a pew, and lowered his voice. “Look, I know every religion thinks every other religion’s got it wrong, so anything I say they could probably say against me, but still … these people are grasping.”

  “How so?”

  “How well do you know your Bible?”

  St. George shook his head. “Not at all really. I mean, I know a couple of the stories, but …”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Andy crossed his arms. “The After Death folks go through the Bible and cherry-pick verses that fit what they want to believe. Thessalonians, a fair amount of Revelation, one of them even spouted a few verses of Ezekiel at me once. They just pull stuff from anywhere without considering context. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘When there is no room in Hell, the dead shall walk the Earth,’ or some variation on it?”

  “A few times, yeah.” He took an educated guess. “Is it from Revelations?”

  “Revelation, singular,” said Father Andy. “And no, it isn’t. It’s just the tagline from an old zombie movie.”

  “It’s not even based on one?”

  Andy shook his head. “But they’re still treating it like the word of God. They just clutch onto anything that lets them cope with what’s happened to the world. More to the point, they try to spin all of it their way, no matter what the context or classical interpretation is. These days, I’m pretty damned liberal in interpreting the word of God, but I still can’t see any way to resolve their beliefs with what the book actually says.”

  “You can say ‘damn,’ too?”

  “Yep. Seriously, we all need to cope in our own way, but their whole mind-set is just a little too zealous for my liking. And I’m saying that as a Catholic priest.”

  “Yeah.”

  Father Andy uncrossed his arms and set them down on the back of the pew. It was a very relaxed pose. “I would’ve thought Stealth would’ve had all this down in a file somewhere already. With much more precise references.”