Ex-Purgatory: A Novel

by Peter Clines

  “Please explain,” said Stealth.

  “I mean, there’s some wrecks and stuff. Abandoned cars. That what you meant?”

  A yellow Volkswagen pulled away as the Hyundai dipped into its lane. A woman on a motorcycle shot them an angry finger as Cesar slipped past and forced her close to the curb. The engine revved and they shot through a red light into a corridor of greenery.

  “Donner Pass,” muttered Freedom.

  Madelyn touched his arm. “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  St. George tapped the steering wheel. “So you’re telling me there’s nothing else on the road?”

  “Nothing moving,” said the voice on the radio.

  They roared out of the green corridor, past a gas station and the Beverly Hilton. The Hyundai cut across two lanes, ran a red light, and made a wide turn past a fountain. More cars honked and a siren wailed to life behind them.

  “Cops,” said Danielle.

  “Where?” Cesar asked.

  “Right behind us,” said Madelyn. “You are busssssssted.”

  “There’s no cops,” said Cesar. “We’re the only ones on the road.”

  St. George glanced in the rearview mirror. “You don’t see or hear anything out there?”

  “I’ve told you, man, it’s not like that. When I’m in here, I’m kind of seeing things by … like, by comfort. The same way, like, when you’ve had a car for years you know if the rear end’s near the curb or another car.”

  “It would seem,” said Stealth, “that the Driver’s unique senses in this state allow him a different perception of the world around us, much as Madelyn’s mind allowed her to resist the false memories.”

  The Hyundai drove past a crowd of people waiting for a crosswalk. All of them had chalk-colored skin. St. George got only a quick look, but it looked like two of them were missing limbs. Their heads swiveled to watch the car go by.

  Cesar said something else, but St. George didn’t hear it. His head whipped around to look at the people on the sidewalk. He glimpsed a dead woman dragging a small, shriveled shape on a child leash, and Stealth bracing herself against the back of the passenger seat.

  The steering wheel hit him hard in the chest and snapped off as he folded around it. He heard a crash of glass and saw Freedom catching Madelyn and Danielle. Momentum threw them between the front seats and into his arms. All of them were ringed with sparkles, and St. George realized the small lights were little cubes of glass reflecting in the sun just as he bounced off the hood of the car and was thrown into the street.

  He hit the pavement head-first, rolled onto his shoulder, and then his knees cracked down against the road. The car appeared for an instant before momentum flipped him over again. The ground slapped him in the temple, the back, the ankle, the forehead, and then he was stopped by a concrete barrier. He sprawled with his face against it for a few seconds before he slid down. It was very gritty on his cheeks and nose. Some of the barrier crumbled away and fell with him.

  St. George stayed on the ground for a moment. The sky was very blue above him. The city was silent. He wondered if he’d broken anything, and then he remembered he was bulletproof and nigh invulnerable.

  He sat up. His jeans and the fleece jacket were ripped. His shirt had survived unscathed. He flexed his fingers and brushed some gravel and glass out of his hair, then looked down the road.

  Thirty feet away, a dust-covered red Taurus sat on four flat tires. Most of the windshield was scattered over the hood and in front of the car. The passenger side was primer gray and looked lumpy.

  He saw Freedom shift in the passenger seat. The officer had a gash where his forehead had hit the dashboard. Madelyn shook her head next to him. St. George didn’t see any injuries on her.

  “Everyone okay?” he called out. He rolled up onto his feet and brushed some more glass off his clothes as he walked back to the car. There were some fragments of windshield in the back of his jeans, but a few hops sent them tumbling down the inside of his pant leg.

  “We appear to be uninjured for the most part,” said Stealth. She stretched past Danielle and folded down the driver’s seat. Danielle pushed the door open and the two of them slid out of the car. Freedom’s door opened with a squeal of forced metal. The huge officer climbed out. He kept Madelyn cradled in one arm.

  There were a few other abandoned cars on the road. One was nothing but a blackened frame. Two of the others had bodies in them. In one of the cars, the body behind the steering wheel pawed at the windshield. The sound of teeth echoed in the air all around them.

  St. George tapped the hood of the Taurus. “Cesar,” he said. “You okay?”

  The car was silent.

  He walked around and leaned in the door. “Cesar?”

  The radio was long gone. A rectangular hole gaped in the middle of the dashboard.

  “He is not here,” said Stealth.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Cesar’s abilities allow him to possess mechanical devices with a certain amount of functioning electronic circuitry. Based on the dust layer and the degree of fading in the various materials, I would estimate this vehicle has not functioned in at least four years.”

  St. George looked at the car. “What’s that mean?”

  “Is he dead?” asked Madelyn. “If he switched over into a car that didn’t work, would that … I mean, could it kill him?”

  “I do not know,” said Stealth.

  “But it’s the car he said he was in,” said Danielle. “The red Taurus.”

  A few yards behind the car, a crowd of undead staggered out into the street. One of them fell off the curb and hit the pavement face-first. The others wobbled but kept their balance.

  “We can’t stay here,” said Freedom. “We’ve got to get moving again.”

  “Are we just going to leave him here?” said Danielle. She stood with her arms wrapped tight around herself and watched the mob of exes. There were at least fifty of them now, and more in the distance. The closest were a dozen yards away.

  “There is no evidence he is here,” said Stealth. She glared at the car as if it offended her. “If we are shifting between realities, perhaps he has been left behind in the other one.”

  “Except he could see this one,” said Madelyn. “He saw the car and the dead people.”

  “There is too much conflicting data to make a solid hypothesis.”

  There were scrape marks around the trunk lock, and a dent that could’ve been from a crowbar. St. George yanked and it swung open with a squeak. “Damn it,” he muttered.

  Danielle looked at him. “What?”

  “Maddy’s wheelchair is gone,” he said.

  Maddy tried to sit up in Freedom’s arms. “What?”

  St. George looked down at the empty trunk. It had been stripped down to the frame. “Gone,” he said.

  An ex fell on him from behind and bit his shoulder. Its teeth sank into the fleece and grated on his skin. St. George shrugged the dead man off, grabbed it by the shoulders, and shoved it back at the approaching crowd. It knocked a few of them down. A few more stumbled over the fallen ones.

  “We should be on our way,” said Stealth.

  “I agree,” said Freedom. “We might move quicker without the wheelchair.”

  “Yeah,” said Madelyn. “Piggyback?” The huge officer lifted her up and she swung around to hang on his broad shoulders.

  Freedom settled Madelyn on his back. “We’ll need to cut back and forth through side streets,” he said. “We need to start throwing them off our trail before their numbers get any larger.”

  St. George took a last look at the car. He wondered if Cesar was somewhere else right now, wondering how everyone had vanished out of the car. Or maybe he was in some limbo, not even aware he’d ceased to exist.

  Stealth started walking. They all fell in behind her.

  They headed up Santa Monica Boulevard. Exes trailed behind them. St. George and Stealth beat aside the undead and crushed skulls. Freedom gra
bbed one that got too close and hurled it back across the wide road. After half a mile Stealth guided them onto a road heading east. Half a mile and seven more dead exes after that, St. George saw the hotel stretching up above the skyline.

  “It’s getting into the afternoon,” he said.

  “I am aware. From the shadows, I would put the time at twelve-thirty.”

  He glanced at the shadows. “Is this going to be a long stop?”

  “I hope not.”

  The air rippled and the white noise of chattering teeth vanished. Stealth stepped back and pushed Danielle out of the way as an SUV roared by at twice the posted speed limit. It missed George by inches.

  “Jerk,” shouted Madelyn.

  “Not much of a choice, is it?” said Danielle. “We stay on the sidewalks, we get attacked by random exes. Walk in the streets and we get hit by cars.”

  “They seem to be happening faster,” said Freedom. “The shifts. It feels like we can’t go more than an hour without one happening.”

  “They are,” said St. George.

  When they were across the street from the hotel, Stealth stopped. “St. George and I shall go on from here,” she said. “The rest of you should remain at this location and attempt to locate Barry.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” Danielle’s brows made twin arches over her eyes.

  “Which part of my statement was unclear? Depending on traffic and his possible experiences during the shifts, he may have been here for as much as ninety minutes.”

  “Are you actually saying we should split up?” asked Madelyn. “Have you ever seen a horror movie?”

  Stealth’s nostrils flared. “On an average day the hotel has over nine hundred occupants. The hallways are less than six feet wide, leaving us very little maneuvering room. If we experience another shift and even half of those individuals were revealed as exes, there is no way a group of this size would escape without suffering losses. Infection at least, although there is a strong chance at least one of us would be killed.”

  She let the words sink in.

  “I guess we’re staying out here to look for Barry, then,” Danielle said.

  “This places a great deal of responsibility on you, Captain,” said Stealth. “Do you feel recovered enough to accept it?”

  Freedom’s enormous chest swelled, and he lifted his head higher. “Yes, ma’am,” he said. He managed to keep most of the annoyance out of his voice.

  Stealth turned and stepped out into the broad street. Each step was paced to avoid the cars that went back and forth. St. George followed a few feet behind her. He dodged cars until he caught up. They reached the far side of the street and headed for the hotel entrance.

  “I shall go in,” she said. “I need you to keep watch outside.”

  “So we’re splitting up even more?”

  “I shall be fine, George.”

  “What about your … ummm, your dad?”

  “I shall be fine.”

  “Are you sure? The guy who’s supposed to be your father is … pretty intense.”

  She looked at him. Her face seemed especially calm and stoic. “He is my father, George. Almost exactly as I remember him.”

  “Minus the whole international terrorist thing?”

  She said nothing.

  “Jesus,” muttered St. George. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “He had very little to do with my life or upbringing, or our life within the Big Wall. It never seemed relevant.”

  “Relevant? Your dad’s a borderline supervillain who’s on a few dozen top-ten wanted lists around the world and you didn’t think it was relevant?”

  “Would you have trusted me less? Would it have changed how you felt about my abilities?”

  “No,” he said. “No, of course not. It wouldn’t change anything.”

  He held out his hand. She took it and squeezed.

  “In our world,” she told him, “my father is dead. If I had any reason to believe you would have encountered him, I would have told you everything. I still will once we have resolved this current situation, if you wish.”

  St. George managed half a smile. “Are you sure?”

  “Of course. It is important to me that we are open and trust one another.”

  “I meant, are you sure he’s dead? It seems like the Quilt family is known for their toughness.”

  Her eyes dropped and her fingers loosened. “I am certain he is dead in our world.”

  There was a moment of silence between them.

  “Ahhhh,” said St. George.

  “Again, I will tell you everything, if you wish.”

  The hotel entrance was a block away. A man with a camera leaned against a car. He perked up when he saw Stealth.

  St. George looked at the man, then up at the hotel. “Maybe I should come with you.”

  She shook her head. “It will attract far too much attention for me to enter the hotel with an unknown man. Also, the Quilt of this world is still enough like my father that he will react poorly to surprises.”

  “Do I want to know how he’s not like your father?”

  “I would think not,” said Stealth, “but I will tell you if you feel it is important to know.”

  “I’ll probably sleep better if I don’t,” said St. George with another half smile.

  “You will,” she said. “Wait here. This should take fifteen minutes at the most.”

  Stealth marched onto the hotel grounds with long strides, moving past the handful of paparazzi before they could register the chance slipping away from them. A few quick cameras clicked and snapped, but she did not pause for them. She heard one man mutter about the fact she was wearing the same clothes she’d left in the night before.

  She had not been here before with her own mind and memories. It was, she could admit, disconcerting to be exposed in front of so many people. To not be wearing her mask.

  The doorman pulled open the door for her before recognition sparked in his eyes. Heads turned as she slipped out of her coat and hung it over her arm. She scanned the lobby for any sign of Barry but saw nothing. A few whispers reached her ears while she waited for the elevator. One girl, a Welsh tourist judging from her T-shirt, raised a Canon PowerShot S30 camera and took a picture.

  The S30, Stealth noted, had been new in 2003.

  The elevator pinged and the doors sealed her off from the lobby. There were thirty seconds of solitude before the doors slid open on her floor. She found the plastic keycard in her pocket and opened the suite.

  Two of the couch pillows had been moved, and so had the oversized television remote. The vertical blinds had been rotated to the left. She could smell furniture polish. From the lines in the carpet and the faint scent of an electric motor she knew someone had vacuumed the suite. A subtle odor of tobacco lingered beneath the electric scent. The vacuumer was also a smoker.

  The door clicked shut behind her. Her heart beat nine times. The only sounds were the almost subsonic rumble of the refrigerator in the kitchen area and the low whistle of central air conditioning.

  She stepped across the suite, the coat-draped arm held out ahead of her. Her feet landed toes first, and the soft carpet muffled her steps. The knob on the closet door scraped as she turned it. The hinges rustled when the door opened.

  Two flat cases hung on either side of the closet. They were bright blue, a color chosen to attract attention and thus deflect it at the same time. On casual examination, each one looked like an oversized garment bag. Against the back wall sat an oversized Versace suitcase, a pink monstrosity one would expect to find in a traveling supermodel’s closet.

  From her memories of this world, she knew each of the blue cases contained an array of frames and straps designed to keep their contents secure. One held an array of hand-to-hand weapons—knives, sais, collapsible batons, brass knuckles. The second case contained a quartet of Glocks, a pair of Colt pistols, a trio of Mk23 USSOCOM pistols, two micro-Uzis, and a Heckler & Koch G36 rifle her father had converted in
to a breakdown model. The pink suitcase held the gun leather, belts, and ammunition.

  Stealth reached out and unzipped both of the garment bags at the same time.

  Both were empty.

  There was no need to double-check. Even before she had finished opening them, the weight of the hanging cases told her everything had been removed. She prodded the suitcase. It felt full, but the contents would be useless without the weapons.

  “What are you doing?”

  She spun, her arms flying to a defensive position as her weight shifted to her back leg.

  Quilt stood six feet away. Just out of reach for a kick. His hands were behind his back. His stance appeared open and relaxed.

  They stared at each other for a moment.

  His hands came out from behind his back. They were empty. His left forefinger had a small patch of oil, half the size of a dime, alongside the nail. He reached up and adjusted his glasses. He did not blink. His eyes were on hers.

  If he’d meant to fight, his gaze would’ve been at the top of her sternum. It gave a clear view of the body without the distraction of the opponent’s eyes. Stealth was not sure why she thought the Quilt of this world would now consider her an opponent.

  She lowered her hands. Not to her sides, but low enough to show a degree of concession. “I require the weapons,” she told him. “Where are they?”

  Her father’s head shifted and he allowed himself a single blink. “The pistols are in the safe, as always,” he said. “The blades are in my room. They were due to be cleaned and oiled. Why do you need them?”

  “It would be difficult to explain.”

  He dipped his chin, a concession of his own. He turned and took a few steps across the suite toward his room. “Do you require a blade or pistol? Or a combination?”

  “I will need all of them.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  FREEDOM HAD IDENTIFIED a side door to one apartment complex at the top of some steps. The door swung outward so nothing could surprise them from behind. Exes didn’t do well with stairs, so being eight steps up gave them some safety in the front. There were three cars parked on the street in front of the staircase, forming a bit more of a barrier.