Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

so confident about the pale eyes and the torn nose, but it must’ve been his imagination. Probably from the girl, Madelyn, talking about dead people.

His Nextel chirped. “George,” it twanged. “Where the hell are you, buddy? What’s keeping you?”

He unholstered the phone. The whole half hour was gone. At this point he was running late. “Sorry, Jarvis,” said George. “I got held up. A girl got jumped.”

“Jesus. Y’all okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Just a frat boy copping feels. I got him off her.”

“Security there?”

The woman’s car started up and pulled out. She didn’t even glance at George. “Nope,” he said. “Once he was off her they both took off.”

“Y’all want to make a report anyway? Just in case?”

“I’m pretty sure it was nothing.”

“Well, then hurry it up,” his boss told him. “I had Mark punch your card for you. You know they’re getting all Nazi about overtime.”

“Yeah,” said George, “I know. I’m about five minutes away. See you soon.”

He clipped the Nextel back onto his belt and took one last look over his shoulder. The shuffler had vanished into the human traffic between buildings. It struck George that he should go after the man, that the attack wasn’t nothing, but he couldn’t say why.

I FALL THROUGH the air.

There’s a crowd of people below me, gathered in the street. It’s dark out, but there are hundreds of people. Maybe thousands. I’m not sure what’s brought so many people out at night.

Then, as one, they look up at me. Every head tips back at once, every set of eyes finds me at the same time. I see their eyes and remember I’m in the bad dream again. Dull irises stare at me. A constant stream of silent words pours from their jaws.

And there’s something else in the crowd. Something huge. An even bigger monster than the ones around me, twice as tall with mottled, scaly skin. Its arms and legs are long and thin, and its tail lashes like an angry snake. It has curling horns and dozens of long teeth, but the same dull eyes.

I hit the ground behind the big monster, feet first. Some part of my mind knows falling from that height means I’m dead. The impact shakes me, but—as things happen in dreams—I don’t break any bones. I don’t even feel any pain.

One of the monster-people grabs at me and I kick it away. Another one reaches for me and I shove it back with my foot. I turn and one of them is right in front of me. It’d been a dark-haired man with a stubbly face. One of its eyes is gone. The empty socket looks sticky.

I throw a punch that catches the monster on the jaw. Like falling from the sky, I barely feel it when I connect. It’s as if the monster’s head is just a paper sculpture. The skull bursts like a monster piñata. One side collapses under my punch and dark gore sprays out the other side. The monster crumbles to the ground. I’ve killed it.

No, I tell myself. I look at the dark stains on my knuckles. I haven’t killed it. It’s already dead. It’s dead and walking around.

There’s a name for a creature like this, but in the hazy world of the dream I can’t remember it.

One of them paws at me from behind. I drive my elbow back and hear a crunch like a breaking bird’s nest. My fist comes forward, takes the head right off another monster, and the ball of bone and flesh spins off into the horde. A second punch turns one of their faces into dark jelly. A sweeping backhand crushes two skulls.

And then the big creature’s in front of me. It isn’t just a monster, I realize. It’s a demon. A real-life, actual demon.

Past the demon stands a spiked wall with people on it. Living people. They have guns. They’re shooting the big thing and also the little ones. The instant I see them I feel like I know them, the way strange faces are familiar in dreams.

The demon holds on to the wall, on to the gate, with spider-like hands. The long fingers wrap around the spikes and pull. The gate shakes and squeals from its efforts.

I don’t think. There’s no time to think.

I grab the creature’s tail. The beast is three times my size, probably four times my weight. I throw my shoulders back, pull, and the strange physics of this world take over. The creature flies into the air. It sails over my head and crashes to the ground behind me.

I jump, dragging the tail with me, and sail over the monster like the hero in a Hong Kong action film. I lash out at another—

Who do I watch action films with? Someone explained wirework to me. Someone I watch a lot of movies with. It’s a blank spot in my dream-memory.

I lash out at another one of the gray-skinned monsters as the wires lower me back to earth. I pull on the tail again, but this time I lean back, dig my heels in, and swing the demon to the side. The wires lift it up and spin it in a wide circle. Its scaly body smashes down dozens of the dead-people monsters.

I spin it once, twice, and let go. The beast soars through the crowd, crushing skulls as it goes. It crashes into the concrete pillar of a parking structure on the east side of Lemon Grove. The impact sounds like—

Lemon Grove. The street I’m standing on is called Lemon Grove. And so is—

The gate. The people on the gate are cheering. I glance over my shoulder as I backhand another dead man. A few of the people on the wall are calling my name. My real name. The one they gave me.

My name is Saint—

GEORGE SLUMPED BACK in the driver’s seat. Another night without any quality sleep. Another red light on Wilshire Boulevard. Another crowd of pedestrians shuffling along without a care in