by Peter Clines
“He didn’t yell,” smirked Danielle. “He screamed like a little girl.”
“Hey,” snapped Madelyn.
“No offense,” Danielle said.
“You’re not that little,” said Freedom.
Stealth raised a finger. “What condition was the cab in?”
“What do you mean?” asked the huge officer.
“Was it damaged in any way? Exterior or interior?”
Freedom looked at Danielle. She shrugged. “It looked like it might’ve been sideswiped,” he said. “The driver’s side was pretty banged up. The tires were flat, but I think that was just from dry rot.”
“Nothing else?”
He shook his head.
Stealth closed her eyes for a moment, as if she’d been struck with sudden pain. She looked at Barry. “Explain from your point of view,” she told him. “Use as much detail as you can.”
He looked at St. George. The hero shrugged.
“I got a cab from the airport, like you said,” Barry explained. “I asked the driver how far out of the way Universal Studios was. He said not far—which turned out to be a big lie—and I asked if we could drive past it. We came down the freeway and he was pointing all sorts of stuff out to me. Then he got off in Hollywood and we were going along the streets and all of a sudden there was this … I don’t know. It was like the world switched channels.”
Stealth glanced at St. George. “For how long?”
“Half an hour,” he said. “Maybe forty-five minutes. I wasn’t checking my watch for any of it.”
“That’s not right,” said Freedom. “It was ten minutes at the most.”
Barry shook his head. “Half an hour at least.”
“In high-stress situations, it’s not unusual for time to seem to slow down,” the captain explained. “It may have felt like half an hour, but—”
“Half an hour at least,” repeated Barry. “I don’t know what you guys saw, but I know what I saw.”
Stealth focused on St. George. “You still insist there was no shift at all?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Inside the hotel,” she said, “the shift was at least ninety seconds. I am not sure it continued after I left the room.”
“After you dove out the window, you mean,” said St. George.
“Yes.”
“That was so cool,” Madelyn said.
Stealth came to a stop as the light changed to red. A row of cars turned in and drove through the crosswalk behind her toward a towering parking structure. Madelyn looked back and forth from Stealth, still facing backward, and the stoplight. “How did you—”
“On the opposite corner the crosswalk signal has a beeper for sightless pedestrians. The sound is distinct, even beneath the traffic noises.”
“But you couldn’t know which way the light was changing off the sound.”
“She can’t,” said St. George, “but she can see the flow of traffic on this—”
The road flickered and the cars slammed to a halt as a wave of dust and decay washed across the street. Cars lost tires and windshields. Buildings lost windows and signs and one even lost a wall. Half the pedestrians vanished and the city went silent.
St. George opened his mouth to yell and took two steps forward, but Stealth was already whirling. The ex behind her caught a strike in the throat and one in each knee. She ducked, grabbed its calves, and flipped the dead man over backward. It struck the pavement head-first and went still. She lashed up with the heel of her hand and caught the second ex under the jaw, spraying its teeth into the air. They clicked and pattered on the pavement while she drove three more hammer blows into the sides of the creature’s skull, each one cracking bone. The ex wobbled and then slumped to the ground.
A dead woman with stringy hair grabbed Danielle by the arm. Its fingers had been worn down to bony tips. She shrieked and yanked her arm away, but its claws caught at her sleeve.
Freedom shifted Barry in his arms and slammed his boot into the ex’s side. The kick crushed the dead woman’s pelvis and rib cage. It flew away from Danielle to crash against a rust-spotted truck. The ex slumped to the pavement and flailed, trying to move limbs that had nothing left to support them.
St. George took two steps and shoved a muscle-bound ex in workout clothes. The dead man flew across six lanes of street and slammed through the side of a bus stop. It tried to get up, but its legs were hooked up and over the steel framework. Too much thought was needed for it to free itself.
“Well,” said Barry, “that all looked pretty easy.”
“We’ve had a lot of practice,” said St. George.
“It was very cool,” said Madelyn. She smiled at him from Freedom’s shoulders.
“Thanks.”
“Oh frak,” said Barry.
St. George turned. Danielle shook as if she was cold. There was a gash in her sleeve. The bony fingers had torn through the camouflaged material as it was hurled away.
“Oh no,” she muttered. She thrashed her way out of the coat. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”
“There’s no blood,” said St. George. “I don’t see any blood.”
The Army jacket hit the ground and Danielle held her arm up. Her shirtsleeve was already rolled up, and they could all see the white scrape on her arm. There were a few small curls of loose skin around it. She poked at it and they all waited.
The scrape turned pink. At a few places it was almost red. But it didn’t bleed.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said. Her eyes were wet. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Barry grabbed her hand. “You’re okay,” he said. “That’s all that matters. You’re going to be fine.”
“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” said Freedom. “I didn’t mean for it—”
“This is getting ridiculous,” said Danielle. She squeezed Barry’s hand. “How are we supposed to do this? We’re not even halfway to the Mount.”
“We’ve got to,” he said. “They’re all counting on us back there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“The armor’s back there,” said St. George. “The Cerberus suit’s waiting for you.”
She bit her lip. Then she swiped the jacket off the ground and fought her way back into it.
Behind them, Stealth spun on her heel and snapped an ex’s neck with a high kick. “Let us be on our way, then,” she said.
Danielle muttered something under her breath and started walking. St. George fell in next to her. Freedom helped Madelyn adjust herself on his back, switched Barry to his other arm, and brought up the rear.
The heroes walked for another hour and put down twenty-three exes. They’d passed Highland and were heading into a more residential area when the world glitched, giving them a quick glimpse of a bustling Los Angeles at rush hour. Then it reverted back to the devastated city they knew. Two-thirds of the cars on the road vanished as quickly as they’d appeared. The rest became wrecks with cracked windows and flat tires. The one closest to them, a BMW, had a dead woman with tangled brown hair in the passenger seat. The ex pawed at the glass between them. It was wearing a faded yellow sundress that had popped too many buttons. Bright red sunglasses were perched above the ex’s forehead.
Danielle stared at the creature. “This is going to sound weird,” she said, “but I think I remember her.”
The zombie smacked its head against the side window. Danielle hopped back and her arms pulled in close. She forced them back out.
Madelyn pulled herself a little higher on Freedom’s back. “Was she a friend of yours?”
Danielle shook her head. “I mean, I remember this ex. Trapped in the car with the sundress. She’s wearing combat boots too, right?”
St. George stepped up and peered through the window. “Yeah.”
“It was a run, a month or two before we met you guys,” she said to Freedom. “It might’ve been one of the times we were gathering cars for the Big Wall. I remember a couple of the scavengers making guesses about the sundress
and boots combo. Ilya, Al, maybe … Billy? Did we have a Billy? I can kind of picture someone with short blond hair …”
“Billie Carter,” said Freedom. “Not a he, she.”
“Ahhh.”
Stealth looked up at the sky. “We are within half a mile of the Mount and we have seventy-five minutes of daylight left.” She gestured them down the road.
“Doesn’t sound bad,” said Barry. “I mean, as long as we don’t think about the few thousand exes outside the Big Wall any given day.”
Danielle’s back went stiff so fast she staggered. She shot an angry look at Barry.
“Sorry,” he said, “just thought I’d voice it because I haven’t heard anyone else bring it up.”
Stealth lashed out with her foot and sent an ex staggering back. It was a dead man with silver hair in a deep red UMass sweatshirt. As it wobbled, she stepped forward, brought her palm up, and caught it under its jaw. The dead man’s head tilted back and it tipped over. The back of its skull hit the curb with the sound of an egg cracking.
She glanced back at them. “We shall get as close as possible and signal the Wall guards. There are several apartment buildings and other structures near that corner of the Big Wall. We shall take shelter there until a vehicle can be sent out to retrieve us.”
“That still doesn’t really answer the question about the thousands of exes,” Danielle said.
“An actual question was not asked,” said Stealth.
They walked on for a few more feet. “Okay, fine,” Danielle said. “How are we going to deal with all the exes outside the Wall? They’ll tear us apart before we can get into a building.”
An ex stumbled out from between two cars and reached for her. St. George lunged forward, grabbed it by the neck, and heaved it up and over his head. The dead thing sailed through the air and crashed down on the street behind them, a few feet from the BMW imprisoning the sundress ex.
“Please note,” said Stealth, “the ex went after you, Danielle.”
“Yeah,” she snapped, “I noticed.” She clenched her fists again and again.
“It went after you,” Stealth said, “even though Barry and Captain Freedom were closer targets.”
Their eyes all drifted between Freedom, Barry in his arms, Danielle, and the gap between the two cars where the ex had been lurking. They looked back at the broken ex in the street. They looked at each other again.
And then they all looked up at Madelyn, still hanging on the huge officer’s shoulders.
“The ex in the car also did not react to Freedom when he moved past it. It remained focused on Danielle and St. George. The sensory filter that renders Madelyn near invisible to ex-humans has been active for some time now, most likely since her true appearance began to register in our conscious minds again.”
“Yay, me,” said the Corpse Girl, smiling.
Stealth turned and continued east. “Her abilities extend to those she has contact with, and it would seem Barry’s proximity keeps him included as well. If she can include Danielle as well, that makes the four of you free to reach a safe position near the Wall while St. George and I hold off the exes.”
“And if her powers can’t cover us all?”
“Then you will have to move quickly.”
Danielle sighed and muttered something. Stealth ignored it.
Another two intersections went by. They passed Las Palmas. A handful of exes came after them. Stealth broke several necks. Freedom backhanded one through a wooden fence with his free hand. St. George threw a few of the zombies at the trios and quartets following behind them. They sprawled in the street and cut down on pursuers. He knew it wouldn’t be good to have a few dozen exes stumbling up behind them when they reached the dense numbers around the Big Wall.
Freedom paused for a moment. “Pardon me, sir,” he said to Barry. He shifted the smaller man into his other hand. “I just need to shake that arm out for a bit.”
“Just tell me you wiped your knuckles off. You’ve been smacking zombies with that hand.”
“It’s okay, I’m wearing gloves.”
Madelyn snickered.
“And I’d just gotten comfortable on the other side.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“I’ll let it slide since you’re doing all the—What the hell is that?” Barry tried to raise himself up in Freedom’s arms. “Was someone playing Jumanji or something?”
Ahead of them the sides of Beverly were wrapped in green. Branches and leaves reached out to surround some of the nearby houses.
Tendrils and vines had grown out along the long-dead power lines. The vast expanse of green looked like the entrance to an oversized hedge maze. Or a cave.
“The Wilshire Country Club,” said Stealth.
“Looks like management gave the groundskeepers the last four years off,” said Barry.
She ignored him and pointed down the road. “Beverly continues straight through for five blocks. There are no intersections or exits.”
“So it’s a killing floor,” Freedom said.
“That would depend on how many exes are along this stretch of road. The lack of intersections limits their access as well. However, you and George both retain enough strength to tear though the fences on either side if we require an emergency exit.”
“Assuming there’s nothing on the other side of the fence,” said Danielle.
St. George looked at the green tunnel. “Are we sure we want to go this way?”
“It is the most direct route. The exit is by the southwest corner of the Big Wall. Anything else would require that we detour around the country club, at least eleven blocks in either direction.”
Stealth paused to spin and shatter an ex’s jaw with her boot. The boot came back around to strike the dead woman in the chest and knock it back over the hood of a low-slung sports car. The ex tumbled out of sight and hit the ground with a loud crack.
“It is not a favorable choice,” she continued, “but at the moment it is the best choice. We have less than an hour of daylight left. We must move.”
She headed toward the tunnel of green.
They followed her.
On either side of the street plants grew thick and wild. Branches curled through the fence and over the sidewalk. A few had found street signs and wrapped around them like vines. Some had even reached around broken cars, wrapping them in green and making them part of the walls. It made the street feel enclosed. Constricted.
St. George could see movement ahead of them, but it was hard to break it down into individual figures. There was just enough distance to make the stretch of road blur at the end. He seemed to remember an odd jog in the road, one of the many places where the old neighborhoods of Los Angeles hadn’t lined up when they joined together. They wouldn’t be able to see the Big Wall until they were right on top of it.
The click-click-click of teeth rolled down the tunnel of greenery. The leaves muffled the sound, but not much. Just enough to make it hard to guess how far away it was.
St. George moved to the front to walk alongside Stealth. Danielle stayed behind them. Captain Freedom brought up the rear with Madelyn and Barry.
They’d gone a hundred feet in when the first pair of exes staggered out at them. Two dead men. One wore a blue shirt with a plumber’s logo on it. The other was bare chested and missing an arm. Its shoulder was a ragged, half-burned mess.
St. George grabbed the plumber’s outstretched arm and yanked the ex close. Its teeth snapped at his face. He grabbed the dead man by the seat of the pants, tried to ignore the soft mass beneath the denim, and hurled the zombie up and over the wall of green.
Stealth dodged the one-armed ex, tripped it, and pushed down hard on its head as it fell. The dead thing’s forehead took the full impact of the fall. She kicked it in the back of the skull, just to be sure it stayed down.
Danielle shook her head. “This has been right outside the Mount all this time?” he asked. “How?”
“Nature runs wild,” said Madelyn. “I saw
a really cool special about it once on the History Channel.”
“Well, what I meant was why didn’t we do something about it?”
“We didn’t have any lawn mowers?” said Barry.
“I don’t even remember seeing all this,” said St. George.
“It is unlikely you would,” said Stealth. “For the most part, neither you nor Barry leaves the Mount on foot. You are more used to an aerial view.”
“That’s true,” said Barry.
Another ex, a woman, stumbled toward them from down the street. St. George could see two more past her heading their way, and another four past that. “They’re picking up,” he said. “At least half a dozen.”
“Half a dozen’s not many,” said Freedom.
“We haven’t even gone one block yet,” said Danielle.
“Let none of them past us,” Stealth warned St. George. “If a significant number get behind us, we will not be able to defend ourselves on two fronts.”
St. George took a few steps, swung his hand like an axe, and crushed the side of the dead woman’s skull. The ex slumped to the ground. The next two banged their teeth together as they closed in on him. He let them get close enough to grab at his outstretched hands. They gnawed at his fingers and he slammed their heads together.
An ex pulled itself free of the vines that had hidden it and staggered at Danielle. She stumbled back and Freedom stepped forward, his free hand curled into a fist the size of a football. Before he could strike, Stealth grabbed the ex by its collar and yanked it back. As it fell over she grabbed its skull and twisted. The body thumped to the ground. Its teeth scraped on the pavement as its jaw continued to work back and forth.
Four of the walking dead blocked the road. George grabbed one by its heavy coat and swung it into the air. He slammed it against the other three, battering them to the ground, and then hurled it as far as he could. Three blocks away the ex bounced off the wall of greenery and crashed onto a truck.
One of the others tried to crawl to its feet as they walked past. Freedom brought his boot down hard between the dead man’s shoulder blades. The zombie’s spine cracked and it slumped back down on the pavement.