An Ex-Heroes Collection

by Peter Clines

  “This said by a man who is hovering eighty feet above the ground.”

  She took one arm away from his neck and slid off her mask. He kissed her again. The wind shifted and wrapped her cloak around them.

  IT TOOK CESAR most of the day to find her a drafting board, a tall chair, and a full set of tools. Paper had been harder, but just before sundown he’d appeared with a dozen large sheets rolled into a cylinder. They’d been used on one side, but not much. Just a few simple line drawings and diagrams. He promised to get her more tomorrow.

  Danielle hadn’t done any drafting with pencil and paper since her undergrad years. Everything had been CAD and 3-D modeling since then. But her laptop didn’t have any of the right software, and the screen was too small anyway.

  She taped down the first sheet and set her straight edge over it. A few quick passes with the pencil gave her a border. A few more passes using the edge and a triangle gave her a title box in the bottom right corner. She filled out her name, the date, and then the project title. It had been a while since she’d had to do the Gothic letters by hand.

  CERBERUS MK. 2

  Danielle looked at the words for a moment. Then she set her pencil to the paper and began to work.

  IT WAS IN the second draft of Ex-Patriots that I came up with a bare-bones idea of how I could bring back Agent John Smith. I almost didn’t use it, to be honest. At the time, Ex-Communication was a sure thing, but it was already pretty full of story with the return of Max and Cairax, not to mention introducing Madelyn as the Corpse Girl. I didn’t want to waste Smith’s reappearance, so I knew there was no way I’d be able to tell that story until at least the fourth book. And I’m enough of a realist to know that nobody should be planning on any books past the ones they’re contracted for.

  By the end of the second draft, though, there it was. A set-in-plain-sight clue that Agent Smith and Christian Smith were somehow going to be up to no good together. By the time I sat down to write Ex-Communication, it looked like there was a good chance I might get a fourth book … so I peppered in a few more clues. I have to admit that—as I write this—it’s been two months since that book came out and I’m two-thirds thrilled/one-third disappointed that no one’s noticed them. But I take solace in the fact that you’re probably all going back looking for them now.

  Now here we are at book four, with the possibility of a fifth Ex-Heroes story dancing in the road up ahead. And maybe a few clues and hints for that one planted here and there. Maybe some of them set in plain sight …

  Needless to say, I couldn’t’ve made it here without help from a few people. So, I offer some very heartfelt thanks to the following folks.

  David, my agent, made this book a reality, and made sure I was in a place where I could work on it without pressure or panic. Well, not any more than the usual amount, anyway, when you’re re-launching an entire series with a new publisher.

  Julian, my editor at Crown, offered many tips, suggested a few things, caught mistakes, and overall made sure I didn’t fall back on the whole logic-cheat of “it’s all just imaginary.” Or that I had really good reasons when I did. If this book impresses you at all, it’s because he didn’t let me get lazy.

  Ilya answered some firearm questions for me. Marcus talked at length one afternoon about military hearings, courts martial, and punishments. Mary helped me with emergency-room procedures and terminology. Any straying from the facts in these areas is my own and not theirs.

  John and CD read early drafts in record time when my schedule got tight—they’re both amazing.

  And of course, many thanks to my lovely lady, Colleen, who continues to offer advice, to listen when I need to think out loud, and to put up with me while I worry and stress out (again) about how I’m definitely going to screw everything up this time.

  —P.C.

  Los Angeles, September 7, 2013

  PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING St. George could see was on fire at this point, including most of the zombies.

  The fire had started a block south of the Big Wall about four hours earlier, just before sundown. Nobody knew how. The flames had crawled north across a dozen overgrown lawns that hadn’t been watered in five years or rained on in five months. Then they’d climbed a few trees, and a light wind had pushed embers into the houses.

  Now three city blocks of inferno lit up the night. The blaze reached for the Big Wall as it looked for more to consume, and the people of the Mount fought back as best they could. Half of them ferried buckets of water out to the flames or beat down the lawns with damp blankets. The other half—and St. George—pulled guard duty, keeping the firefighters safe from the exes.

  The zombies—the ex-humans—had first appeared years ago. The undead had overrun cities, then countries, then whole continents. In the space of a year, the population of Earth dropped by more than ninety percent.

  The living population, anyway.

  Now millions of exes walked the streets of Los Angeles, and hundreds of them stumbled through the flames around the Mount. The click-click-click of their teeth meshed with the pop and crackle of burning wood. Sound and movement attracted them. Sound and movement and food.

  The one St. George held by the throat pawed at him and clicked its teeth. It flailed at his face and scraped against the black leather of his biker jacket. The dead thing had a better chance of getting through the leather than through St. George’s stone-like skin. Two of the ex’s gaunt fingers hooked in his long hair but slid free as fast as they’d gotten tangled.

  Yellow-orange flames raced across its body, burning away clothes and hair. It could’ve been a woman once, or a slim man with long hair. Too much of its body had burned for him to be sure. Ex-flesh didn’t catch fire easily, dried out from years in the sun, but their hair and clothes could burn. Sometimes, when it did, what little fat they had left became fuel, just like a candle.

  St. George flicked his wrist and the ex sailed across the street, its spine wrapping around a parking sign’s squared-off steel pole.

  Off to his left, two teams of people slapped at the fire with quilted blankets. Others kept the fabric soaked with water from buckets. They smothered the flames a few inches at a time. It was a slow, steady process, perfected after four or five similar fires over the years.

  Two more exes lurched toward one of the firefighting teams, and a figure loomed out of the smoke to meet them. Captain John Carter Freedom, leader of the 456th Unbreakables super-soldier platoon, stood just shy of seven feet tall and almost half that wide. The flickering firelight gleamed across his dark scalp. He reached out and grabbed one of them with a gloved hand that covered the zombie’s shoulder. A flex of his tree-trunk arm sent the dead woman sprawling. His massive fist came around and shattered the other ex’s skull.

  St. George grabbed a zombie and flung it back the way it had come. He tossed another one after it. The second one ended up draped in the branches of a burning tree, biting at the air.

  A sound brushed against his ears. He’d almost missed it under the crackle of the burning lawns and bushes. He focused on a spot between his shoulder blades, felt an itch, and pushed himself up into the air. His boots went up a foot, then a yard, and then he was twenty feet over the pavement, looking out at the burning buildings and trees.

  A mob of ex-humans stumbled and staggered up the street. At least another two hundred of them. Men and women and children, all reduced to dead things with end-less appetites.

  St. George had been expecting the sounds of the fire and shouting humans to attract the dead. There were probably similar groups closing in from the east and west. He’d expected them much sooner, truth be told.

  He went higher. A few hundred feet up the smoke thinned out and he could see for a few miles in every direction.

  The city of Los Angeles had been dark for almost five years now, even more so on moonless nights like this one. Downtown was a shadowy hand stretching up toward the starry sky. To the west he could see the black expanse of the Pacific.

  The
only real light came from below him. The Mount, formerly just a refortified film studio, had expanded out from the studio’s original boundaries. Now it was a huge square that stretched over a good chunk of Hollywood. Surrounding it was the Big Wall, shining lights out into the surrounding streets.

  The undead filled those streets. Hordes like concert crowds shuffled through the shadows. There were always a few hundred around the Wall, but now four or five times that were closing in, drawn by the flickering firelight and the noises that came with it.

  St. George tapped his radio. “Captain? Company’s coming. Time to go.”

  “Freedom to St. George. Copy that, sir. What direction?”

  “All of them. Pull everyone back inside the Wall. We’ve got maybe five minutes.”

  “St. George,” shouted a voice behind him. “Drop’s ready.”

  He flew back to the triple-stacked cars of the Big Wall. People dashed back and forth across the series of platforms that topped the structure. A dozen of them prepped water drops for him—trash cans and tall recycling bins, all doubled up so they wouldn’t burst when he lifted them. Usually rainwater filled them, but that went fast in a big fire like this one. The crew had hoses and filled the containers as fast as they could from the weak streams.

  The rest of the Wall-walkers, armed with rifles and pistols, watched for exes. Many of them also carried baseball bats, golf clubs, and other blunt instruments. If an ex slipped past the firefighters, the guards made sure the dead didn’t get any closer.

  St. George dropped down next to a plastic trash barrel. A man with scruffy blond hair yanked his hose away and stuck it into the next container. “Should have another one ready in about two minutes,” he told the superhero, gesturing at one of the other barrels.

  St. George nodded and worked his fingers underneath the trash barrel. He grabbed the rim with his other hand and heaved. His feet lifted up off the Big Wall and he soared back to the flames, water sloshing out as he went.

  A nearby lawn with a medium-sized apple tree burned. He swooped down through the air and shook water out of the barrel. It splattered through the leaves of the tree and smothered most of the fire. He made another pass and dumped the rest of his water across the tall grass. The lawn wasn’t out, but it was enough for one of the firefighting teams to leap in with their blankets and pound out the last licks of flame.

  A blackened, steaming ex lumbered toward the team. St. George dropped down and slammed it with the barrel. The impact knocked the dead thing back into a gaunt zombie in a charred business suit. Both of them tumbled to the ground.

  He flew back to the Wall and swapped his water barrel for a full one. He could empty all twelve faster than the teams could fill them back up, so he’d drop a few hundred gallons, then keep the exes away from the firefighters until the water team got three or four more refilled. Then the whole cycle would begin again.

  He dumped the water across the fire line’s right flank. Fifteen gallons crashed down onto an ex, a scrawny teenaged girl with a bloody, mangled shoulder, and slammed it to the ground. He emptied the next two barrels over the roof of one of the burning houses and heard the flames hiss as they fell back. Another fifty gallons of water spread across the house’s yard. The last one he sloshed across the left flank, soaking a pair of burning grapefruit trees and the lawn behind them. The fire retreated for a moment, then lunged forward again.

  Below him, he saw a pair of firefighters swing a wet blanket down on a patch of flames with a thump. Air and dirt blasted out from either side as the fabric struck the ground. They dragged the fabric back into the air and brought it down again. Their feet stomped out the last few licks of fire.

  A gust of wind cleared the smoke and St. George saw a trio of exes heading toward the firefighters. The weathered thing in front wore denim shorts and a T-shirt blackened with old blood. He was pretty sure it had been a woman at some point.

  When he could, he still tried to identify them. It was important to remember them as victims, not just as a threat. He knew it wasn’t a popular view.

  He dropped down to smash the exes with the water barrel. As he did, a slim form raced out from behind the fire line and tackled the dead woman, driving it back into the smoke and knocking down the pair of zombies behind it. The ex clawed at the air, unable to comprehend what was happening. The two figures stumbled back a dozen feet before plowing into a shrub. The attacker stepped back and left the ex tangled in the branches.

  “Hey,” yelled St. George. “You’re not supposed to be out here.”

  The pale-skinned girl looked at him with chalk eyes. “You’re not my dad,” she called back with mock anger.

  “I’m serious. There’s a ton of smoke out here.”

  Madelyn Sorensen, the Corpse Girl, shrugged and looked around at the black-and-gray clouds. “It’s not like I need to breathe or anything.”

  He landed next to her, stomping on a small tongue of flame as he did. “I’m not talking about breathing,” he said. “I’m talking about you getting shot because someone thinks they saw an ex moving in the smoke.”

  Her lips pressed together. She glared at him.

  The undead woman dragged itself out of the shrub. Its sightless gaze swiveled past Madelyn to lock onto St. George. Teeth clacked together four times before he slammed the heel of his palm against its forehead. Its skull caved in and the woman’s body toppled back into the shrub.

  “I’m not an ex,” the Corpse Girl muttered.

  He stepped past her to stomp on one of the fallen zombies. Its skull collapsed under his heel. “Everyone knows that. But right now there’s a lot of noise and a lot of yelling and someone might take a shot before they realize it’s you. Since you’re not supposed to be out here.”

  “St. George,” yelled a voice behind him. “One minute to barrels.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the Big Wall, then back at the pale teenager. “Come on.”

  “I can help!”

  He held out his hand. “Now, Madelyn. Or you can go explain to Captain Freedom why you’re outside the Wall.”

  She sighed and wrapped her cold fingers around his wrist. He returned the grip and launched himself back into the air. She threw her other arm up and held his wrist with both hands.

  They flew up to the wall of cars, and he let her drop onto the platform before he landed. Two of the crew members saw chalk skin and flinched back. Water from one of the hoses splashed over the plywood.

  “Hey,” St. George said. “We can’t waste that.”

  “Right,” said the man, with another glance at the Corpse Girl. He shoved the hose back in the barrel. “Sorry. Didn’t realize it was her. You.”

  “Whatever,” said Madelyn. She looked at St. George as he hefted the next barrel. “Can I at least help up here?”

  St. George turned his head to the man with the hose.

  “Yeah, sure,” said the man. “We can use another body. Person. Sorry.”

  St. George nodded and pushed himself back into the air. He soared over the houses and soaked another rooftop on the far side of the fire. They still had a chance of containing it. Last year one had scorched its way through a large chunk of the Sunset Strip, almost sixty buildings, before burning itself out.

  He circled back to the Big Wall and saw Freedom punch his way through a quartet of exes that threatened the retreating firefighters. The giant officer turned, grabbed a pair of outstretched hands, and hurled another dead man back. A fifth stepped forward, and Freedom brought one of his huge fists down on its skull like a hammer. He crushed its skull and turned to a sixth.

  St. George dropped the barrel off at the Wall and soared back to the center of the fire line. “Time to go,” he said to Sally T. “How are we doing?”

  The woman wore a yellow helmet with a red rag tied over her mouth and nose. She’d been a firefighter before the Zombocalypse and ended up in charge of the volunteer fire department for the southern half of the Mount. Nobody knew what the T stood for, only that she insisted
on it.

  “It sucks,” she said, raising her voice over the crackle of fire and teeth, “but I think we beat the worst of it.” She pointed at a few houses. “We’re going to lose those four, and all the trees around them. Don’t waste any more water there. But other than that we’re looking good.”

  Her eyes flitted past his shoulder and went wide. He turned and backhanded an ex, shattering its jaw and hurling it back. “What about the grove?”

  She shook her head. “Not a chance.”

  “Dammit.” He bit his lip. “What else can I do?”

  Sally T shook her head. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

  St. George nodded. “Get back to the Wall,” he told her and leaped back into the air.

  A handful of exes stumbled toward what was left of the fire line’s left flank. One of them, a woman, had a burned scalp and wore a smoldering tweed jacket. Another one, he noted with a grim half-smile, had a fireman’s coat and helmet. Its face was hidden behind a mask of grime-smeared glass.

  He arced down and lashed out with his foot. The kick caught the dead fireman just under the edge of its helmet, lifted it off its feet, and slammed it into a phone pole. The others stopped their advance and turned to him. The click of their teeth was almost a hiss against the noise of the fire.

  St. George landed between them and drove his fist into a bearded face coated with dried blood. The face collapsed, then the ex. Another punch put down the dead woman in the tweed coat. He drove his elbow into an ex’s chest as it grabbed his arm, feeling the ribs splinter apart. The zombie wobbled for a moment and folded over on itself.

  The last one got its mouth on his wrist. It bit down again and again. Each time knocked a few more teeth free of its withered gums when they failed to go through his stone-like skin. Or even scratch it.

  He raised his arm and the ex rose up with it, still gnawing on his wrist. He brought his other hand around like an axe and smashed through the spine and the cords of muscle around it. The body dropped. The head managed one more bite before it slipped off his wrist and fell. It looked up at him from the ground, its jaws still gnashing away.