Ex-Isle by Peter Clines (electronic reader TXT) 📕

His speed tended to fall into either “ambling” or “supersonic” categories. There wasn’t much in between.

But as he circled the island for the fourth time, he tried to move slowly and study everything below him.

Truth was, he couldn’t see a damned thing. He didn’t use the visible spectrum, but it wouldn’t have helped him. A black submarine, underwater, at night, was going to be pretty much invisible to regular vision.

In his eyes—well, if the energy form had actual eyes—the ocean was a riot of temperature swirls and electromagnetic currents. Every wave and ripple sent out dozens more across the wide spectrum he could see. Plus it reflected some of his own energy back at him. It was swirling paint and clouds in coffee and lines of force and a dozen other things all at once. He’d tried to explain to people that sometimes he was almost blinded by the sheer, overwhelming excess of it all.

And that was all just on the top. If he looked beneath the surface of the water, it became layers and layers of patterns. So much movement and energy.

Zzzap swung around for his fifth circuit, expanding his range a little wider. He was almost half a mile out from the island now. More area to cover, better chance he might miss something.

He wondered if the sub might’ve already made it past him. If Nautilus was as fast and strong in the water as everyone said—and two fistfights with St. George seemed to back that up—maybe the sub was already a mile away. Or maybe it was still in his range and he’d skimmed right past it.

He wondered if Nautilus would really launch nukes at Los Angeles. And how far he’d be from the island when he did it. And if he didn’t find it soon enough, what were the odds he could catch and disable an ICBM in midflight without setting it off? Or getting dumped in the ocean like Captain America?

He couldn’t see the submarine anywhere.

Madelyn grabbed the ex by its outstretched wrist and tugged it forward. The dead man didn’t resist, barely registered her touch. It leaned toward her, toppled, and dropped onto the pile.

When the chain snapped, she’d realized the one thing she had to make a barrier out of was the exes themselves. She tripped, pulled, and shoved them together. Then the next wave tripped over the fallen ones, and then she yanked more dead people on top of that layer.

The bodies were five deep, a wall across the walkway. Random arms reached out and grabbed at the air. Bodies shifted as they tried to get back to their feet. Their gnashing teeth got caught on each other’s clothes and hair.

More of the undead hit the pile from behind. The whole thing shifted forward as the exes crawled over one another, but they were too slow and too mindless to untangle themselves. It’d take them at least twenty minutes to make it to the top of the ramp.

“Score one for the Corpse Girl,” Madelyn said. And even as she said it she realized she had to make it to the next gangplank before the exes stumbled across it. Assuming they hadn’t already.

A thump came from behind her and the walkway shuddered. An ex behind the pile tipped over and vanished. Madelyn turned around just as another impact shook the ramp.

Two men stood at the head of the walkway, about fifteen feet away. And the over-tanned woman, Alice. They had big tools, and they were hammering and prying at the edge of the ramp. Trying to knock it loose, the Corpse Girl realized. If they’d already made it to this walkway, things were looking good for the cruise ship.

“It’s okay,” she called up to them. She sucked in some air and raised her voice over the chattering teeth. “They’re down for a couple of minutes. You don’t need to rush.”

One of the men glanced up at her, then hit the end of the gangplank again. The planks shifted, and the left side of the ramp sagged. The ropes tying the ramp to the cruise ship went tight. Madelyn stumbled against the guide rail. The pile of exes rocked to one side, and one of the precarious ones on the top, a dead man in a ragged wifebeater, flopped down near her feet.

“Hey,” Madelyn called out, “wait a minute.” She put her foot on the dead man’s ribs and pushed it over onto its side. It flopped on top of two outstretched arms, each one from a different ex.

A gunshot went off up on the Queen. A big one, like a shotgun. There was some shouting. The sound of clicking teeth suddenly had an echo.

The people attacked the other side of the ramp. Crowbar and sledgehammer. The men grunted and hissed. The ramp shifted, dropped, bounced. Madelyn heard the creak of the ropes and felt the gangplank rock side to side.

One of the men had a knife and was sawing at the rope closest to him. Alice lifted a bright red axe above her shoulder.

“WAIT!” Madelyn took three long strides toward them. One of the men looked terrified. All he saw was an ex with its arms reaching for him.

The fire axe slammed down through the ropes. The floor dropped away from Madelyn’s feet. The dolphin-covered ceiling came down, the walkway spun, the pile of exes dissolved into a swarm of bodies.

They fell.

St. George brought his fist around and hammered the side of an ex’s head. The skull and spine cracked, and the impact sent it sprawling into one of the supports for the catwalk. The steel rang with the impact, and the dead woman’s head became a shapeless blob. He reversed the swing and backhanded another ex in the face. Its nose, jaw, and right cheekbone collapsed. It stumbled back, fell over, and flailed until he reached down and twisted its head around.

Two people had been killed on the tanker, plus the woman who’d been bitten but wasn’t dead yet. She