An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  “Gun!” bellowed Jefferson. He leaped back and swung his rifle around. At the same time he grabbed Madelyn by the arm with his free hand and yanked her away from the gate. He was strong. Really strong. It crossed her mind he was one of her dad’s super-soldiers just as her feet left the ground and she sailed through the air. If Jefferson hadn’t held on she would’ve tumbled across the road. As it was her hat went flying and her hair spun in every direction. The landing shook her and knocked her sunglasses to the ground.

  The guards up above looked confused. Some of them shot down into the exes outside the Big Wall. Jefferson fired through the gate. The ex with the pistol slumped with a hole in its head.

  A dozen sleepwalking exes woke up. Their posture shifted, their eyes became alert beneath their helmets. Pistols and rifles appeared from under shirts and coats. Some of them aimed at the guard shack. A few leaned back to aim at the guards on top of the Wall. At least three aimed at Jefferson, enough to make him hesitate for a moment. Shots echoed across the street and one of the guards howled and grabbed at his arm.

  None of the exes aimed at Madelyn. None of them even looked at her.

  She lunged past Jefferson again and grabbed a pistol from the dead man holding it. The gun flew over her shoulder and she reached through the gate to yank a rifle away from the next ex.

  The exes looked confused. “WHAT THE HELL?” they all roared at once.

  The rifle was heavier than Madelyn thought it would be, so she let it clatter on the pavement halfway through the bars. She took two quick steps and grabbed a pistol with each hand. She tried to think of it like a game. The weapon-grabbing game. One of the handguns went off as she grabbed it, and another shot thundered near her head. She cringed away but didn’t feel any pain.

  “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?” The exes looked past her at Jefferson. Then up in the air and all around them. Their heads moved in sync, like dancers or those Olympic swimmers. They were so confused they’d only fired a dozen shots so far.

  She smacked a pistol out of withered fingers and brought both palms down on a soldiery-looking rifle with a curved clip. The dead man holding it fought back and snarled at the weapon. Her fist flew through the bars to punch the ex in the nose and she twisted the rifle away. She threw a clumsy kick and another pistol spun into the air.

  More gunfire exploded around her. She flinched away from the exes, and just as she realized the sound was coming from behind her Jefferson dragged her clear again. He held his rifle in the other hand, snapping off shots like it was an oversized pistol. The guards from the shack joined him.

  A dozen exes dropped across the width of the gate. They roared and fell and the ones behind them picked up the roar. The guards up on the Wall fired into the mob of exes. There was some return fire but it didn’t last long.

  Madelyn took a few deep breaths. It had all happened so fast. She glanced at the watches on her wrist and guessed maybe five minutes had passed since she walked up to the gate.

  The exes at the gate tripped over their fallen brethren. Jefferson moved in and slid the fallen weapons away with his foot.

  Then he turned and his rifle settled on Madelyn.

  She threw her hands out and shouted, “Hey, whoa!” Even as she did, she saw her sunglasses on the ground. She really needed to get a strap or a lanyard or something for them. She blinked, then closed her eyes. “Call St. George,” she said. “Or Captain Freedom. I know what I look like but I’m not one of them.”

  “It’s her,” murmured someone. “It’s the corpse girl I heard they were keeping at the hospital.”

  Madelyn opened one eye. Three of the guards up on the Wall were still watching the exes beyond the gate. The rest stared at her with awe. Jefferson lowered his rifle a bit. She guessed if it went off now, it would hit her in the gut instead of the head.

  She took in a breath and cleared her throat. “That’s right,” she said. “I’m from the hospital. And I need to get back or St. George is going to be angry with me.”

  “She’s still got her soul,” said a woman on the Wall. She pulled a string of rosary beads from her pocket and crossed herself. “It’s true. They can come back.”

  The guard by the shack murmured something. Madelyn realized he was praying. She looked at Jefferson. He glanced at the others and back at her.

  Then she heard fast, heavy footsteps—someone running up behind her. Jefferson’s face relaxed even as his shoulders squared up. “Sir,” he said, “this young woman claims you know her, sir.”

  She turned and looked up into Freedom’s face. He gazed down at her and set his jaw. “I do,” he said, “and I’ve been looking for her.”

  ST. GEORGE STOOD in the air and examined the symbol burned into the pavement outside the West Gate. Even with a dozen exes meandering over it, he could see it was different from the one up on Bronson Avenue. That one had been an hourglass, but this looked more like a pair of overlapping triangles. He tried to read some of the words scribbled out along the lines, but the walking dead made it hard to see anything more than a few syllables here and there. It wasn’t English, and it didn’t look like any of the Spanish words he knew. If he had to guess, he’d say it was Latin.

  The edge of the circle was twenty feet out from the Big Wall, past the crosswalk and across from a dust-covered bus stop. For a moment he thought about flying up and looking at it from above. Then he remembered the dead woman twisting and exploding at the North Gate. There were two stains on the far edge of the circle where the same thing had happened here. He decided he could see it well enough from where he was.

  He looked at the swarm below him and picked an ex at random. It was an emaciated woman with blond hair and clothes that had been stylish before the end of the world. She’d probably been pretty when she was alive. Now the skin was stripped from its chin and half its neck. Its bottom lip was gone and the teeth were yellow and cracked.

  He wondered if the wound was how the woman had died. Maybe an ex had torn off part of her face with its teeth, letting her get away only to die and rise. Or maybe it was something someone had done trying to put the dead woman down, a blow to the skull that had missed.

  St. George swooped down and lifted the dead thing by the back of the neck. It twisted in his grip as the ground fell away beneath its feet. A few nearby exes made awkward grabs at him as he rose back into the air with his catch. He drifted across the Wall and settled down in the open space inside the gate.

  His boots tapped the pavement but he kept his arm up. The dead woman saw Cerberus, Jefferson, and another guard named Derek standing in a loose semicircle. The ex stretched out its arms and made awkward grabs at them. It swung back and forth in St. George’s grip.

  Madelyn shifted behind Cerberus. She’d been skittish around the guards since Freedom left. St. George shook his head and gestured for her to come out in the open. “You’re safe here,” he told her. “No matter what happens, you’ll be safe.”

  Jefferson stepped forward, his rifle braced in one arm. He batted away the grasping fingers, and gave the ex a quick pat-down with his free hand. “Clear,” he said.

  “Can’t believe we need to start watching them for weapons,” said Derek. “I mean … a zombie with a gun? It sounds like a joke.”

  “Not anymore,” Cerberus said. She pointed at a pair of exes in camoflaged helmets. “Legion got to the armory out in Van Nuys. Weapons, ammunition, helmets, body armor.” Her head shook back and forth. “For all we know he’s got a dozen exes out there watching the walls through telescopic sights.”

  Derek grimaced at the thought. So did a few guards on the Wall within earshot. The casualness faded from their movements.

  St. George gave the ex a shake and raised his voice. “Rodney,” he shouted. “Time to have a talk.”

  His voice echoed out across the street for a moment and then the dead woman stopped thrashing. The clicking teeth stopped and its face shifted from a blank mask to a surly grimace. It reached back to swat the hero with one hand. “Told you p
lenty of times, dragon man,” the ex said, “it’s Legion now.” Without a bottom lip, its voice was a drunken rasp, like the words were being dragged into the air across sandpaper.

  Cerberus leaned forward with a hiss of servos and scraping armor.

  St. George set the dead thing down. It shrugged a few times and turned to glare up at him. The ex had been a tiny woman, a good six inches shorter than the hero. “Got a question for you,” he said. As an afterthought he added, “Legion.”

  The dead woman snorted. “The answer is fuck you.”

  “All that time you were hiding out at Krypton, while Dr. Sorensen was covering for you, were you ever going to keep your side of the deal you made?”

  Madelyn stiffened at the mention of her father. Her face got hard and she took a bold step away from Cerberus. Her sneakers slapped hard on the pavement, almost a stomp.

  The ex didn’t even glance at her. “Don’t know what you’re talking about,” it said to St. George.

  “The one where you told him you’d find his family for him.”

  The dead woman sneered as best it could. “What’s it to you?”

  “Think of it as your big chance to prove you’re better than I think you are,” said the hero.

  Madelyn took another few steps forward. The only person closer to the dead woman now was St. George. Madelyn stood up straight in front of the ex.

  Legion tried to spit at St. George, but without a lower lip it just leaked thick oil over its chin. “Yeah, my word matters,” it growled. “I looked for them, just like I said. Didn’t make any difference. His old lady’s dead and walking. Never found the girl’s body. Figured it was easier to let the old guy think I was still looking.”

  “And it gave you a place to hide,” said Cerberus.

  The ex turned to the armored titan. Its gaze passed right through Madelyn. She even stepped to the side to stay in front of the dead woman’s face. “Fuck you, puta,” Legion spat at Cerberus. “I don’t hide from nothing.”

  “Except me,” she said. The titan held out one massive gauntlet at head height and squeezed it into a fist. The ex gave her the finger.

  St. George nodded. “So you looked for his daughter and never found her?”

  Legion returned the nod while Madelyn waved both hands in front of the ex’s face. “Yeah. Never saw any sign of her. What’s it to you, esse?”

  St. George smiled. “Okay,” he said, “I think that answers that.”

  “Answers what?” growled the ex.

  “It makes sense in a way,” said Cerberus. “I remember the military tried using dead bodies as bait for a while, but the exes only react to living people.”

  “Yeah, I remember something about that,” said St. George. “The bait thing.”

  “Bait?” echoed Legion. “What the fuck you people talking about?”

  “Doc Sorensen ran some tests out at Krypton, sir,” offered Jefferson with a polite nod to Madelyn. “He said it’s some kind of perception thing, like how the T. Rex in Jurassic Park can’t see you if you don’t move.”

  “Jurassic Park?” echoed Cerberus.

  Legion’s eyes flitted between them. “What the fuck you people talking about?”

  Jefferson glanced at the talking ex, then back to the heroes. “I remember it because the T. Rex scared the piss out of me as a kid. Pardon me, ma’am,” he added to Madelyn. “He said it was something to do with the reptilian brain. They see everything, they just process it different than we do. Living things get priority over dead things, moving things get priority over still things, things they see get priority over things they hear, like that. He said that’s why they run into walls and stuff.”

  “They don’t need it, so they don’t register seeing it,” said Cerberus. She looked at the dead woman. “And he’s in the exes, so maybe he’s stuck using their senses. Or not using them, I guess.”

  “And she’s dead,” said St. George with a glance at Madelyn, “so she’s not a priority.”

  Legion looked down at the body he was wearing. One of the hands flexed open and closed. The ex’s brow furrowed in confusion. “She who?”

  “We know he can see nonliving things,” said Cerberus. “Maybe it’s a focus issue?”

  Madelyn took her cap off and waved it in the air in front of the dead woman. “So, you’re saying I’m not invisible, I’ve got a perception filter? Like on Doctor Who?”

  St. George, Cerberus, and the guards all looked at her.

  “Doctor Who,” she repeated. “It’s this sci-fi show from England.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of it,” said St. George.

  “Heard of what?” said Legion.

  “Okay,” Madelyn said, “well, there’s this thing they use on it called a perception filter. It’s like a force field that makes things inside it less interesting so you can’t focus on them. So you’re sort of invisible but not really. You’re just … very forgettable.”

  She waved the cap in front of the ex again for emphasis.

  “Well, there’s one way to be sure.” St. George took a few steps back and looked at Madelyn. “Go ahead and hit him.”

  “Her?” asked Madelyn, nodding at the ex.

  “This some game, pendejo?” asked the dead woman. “Who you people keep talking to?”

  “Yep,” said St. George. “Go for it.”

  Legion looked up at St. George. “What?”

  Madelyn let the cap drop from her hand. It hit the ground and Legion’s head shifted to glare at it. The dead eyes went wide for a moment. “The fuck?” he said.

  “See?” said Cerberus. “He saw that.”

  “That’s the big guy’s hat,” said the dead woman. “Where’d that come fr—”

  Madelyn slammed her fist into the ex’s shoulder. It wasn’t a great punch, but Legion staggered back a step and spun around. “What the FUCK!” he shouted. The ex reached up to probe its shoulder with its fingers. It glared at the heroes.

  “He can feel getting hit,” Madelyn said, “I just don’t think he knows I’m doing it.”

  “Maybe it’s because he doesn’t know what to look for,” mused Cerberus. “He can’t prioritize you because he doesn’t know you’re there. It doesn’t even seem like he hears you.”

  Madelyn leaned into the ex’s ear. “Hey!” she shouted. “I’m right here!”

  “Hear who?” said Legion. The dead woman looked up at Cerberus, then past Madelyn to the roof of a nearby building. “Stealth up there somewhere? This her idea?”

  “Hit him in the face,” said Cerberus. “For science.”

  Madelyn grimaced, but threw another punch. It caught the dead woman on her bare jaw. Legion stumbled and spun around, clawed hands missing Madelyn by a good three or four feet. The ex spat out a mouthful of Spanish swears and curses that made St. George’s mouth twist into a smile. She poked the dead woman a few times from different directions, making it twist around, then placed her hands on its back and shoved it toward the gate. The dead thing stumbled and tried to get its balance back.

  “Oh my God,” said the armored titan. “Once again, science makes the world a better place.”

  Jefferson snorted out a laugh.

  “This feels kind of mean,” Madelyn said. “I mean, I know he’s the bad guy, but he can’t fight back or anything.”

  “You’re not doing anything he doesn’t deserve a hundred times over,” said Cerberus.

  “True enough,” said St. George, “but I think we’ve learned what we needed to know, anyway.”

  “What is this?” snarled Legion. “Got someone invisible now, that it? Pushing me around and taking my guns?”

  “Something like that,” said St. George. “Might want to keep it in mind next time you try rushing the walls.”

  “I’ll remember it,” grunted the dead woman. It took in a hissing breath and so did a dozen exes pressed up against the gate. They all spoke with Legion’s voice. “I’LL REMEMBER IT THE NEXT TIME YOU’RE OUTSIDE.”

  “Y’know, you’re starting to
overuse that trick,” St. George said. “It’s not as scary as it used to be.”

  The dead woman made another messy attempt to spit at him and then her jaw started chomping up and down again. Madelyn hopped away from the ex. The teeth clacked together half a dozen times before St. George grabbed the dead thing and pitched it over the top of the Big Wall.

  “Game’s changing again,” Legion said from the gate. Now it was a dead man with a helmet and a series of silver loops running along each lip. “I got guns. I got armor. Next time we do this it’s gonna be big.”

  St. George walked up to the gate. “Try it,” he said. “One of these days—”

  “What, dragon man?” The ex grinned at him. Half its teeth were cracked from banging against each other for months. “You can’t stop me. Can’t do anything. Go ahead and beat up a hundred stiffs. Two hundred if it makes you feel all macho. Can’t touch me, and you know it.”

  Smoke curled out of St. George’s nose as he glared at the dead man through the fence. He could feel things twisting at the back of his throat and swallowed the flames down. His fingers curled into fists and he had to fight the urge to drive one of them through the ex’s face.

  Someone stepped next to him. Madelyn reached out and poked the tip of the dead man’s nose. Legion growled and stepped back from the gate.

  “I can touch you,” she said, “and you’ll never know it’s coming.” She stood up straight and crossed her arms. “Damn it, that was totally cool and he couldn’t even hear me.”

  The dead man squinted at the air next to Madelyn. Then its gaze flitted to the left and locked eyes with her. She took a quick step back.

  “There you are,” the ex growled. “All fuzzy and blendin’ in, but I see you.”

  St. George snapped his fingers. Legion glanced at him, and when the pale eyes swung back they went past Madelyn. The dead man scowled and took a few more steps back.

  “I’ll figure that one out, too,” Legion said. The exes stepped back, clearing a path for him as he marched away from the gate. “You go ahead and keep thinking I’m stupid. How many people that cost you so far?” He looked back over his shoulder. “How’s your buddy with the beard doing? Jarvis?”