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

his phone. If they could get the car started in the next five minutes, he could still make it to work on time.

Two minutes later Harrison pulled around the corner in a hatchback. The car whipped past George, then backed up into the space before him. The sound equipment in the back bounced as the rear of the car bumped up onto the sidewalk. The hood popped open. Harrison climbed out and dragged a long set of jumper cables out from behind the driver’s seat. “Sorry about the lieutenant,” Harrison said as he connected the cables. “He’s kind of had a stick up his ass since he got this job.”

“He didn’t seem that bad,” said George.

Harrison shrugged and walked the other end of the cables over to the Hyundai. He stepped past George and clamped them onto the car’s battery. “I get that he’s pissed about being busted down and stuck here,” the soldier continued. “I mean, I was supposed to be in the Army band and they gave me this. Adams isn’t supposed to be here, either, but you don’t hear him taking it out on everyone else. Ready to give this a try?” He gestured at George’s car.

George slid into the driver’s seat and Harrison dropped behind the wheel of his car. Their eyes met and the soldier gave him a thumbs-up. The hatchback’s engine rumbled. George twisted the key. The starter clicked, the engine coughed once, and his car heaved itself back to life. The radio popped on and a string of Spanish came out of it. He was pretty sure the deejay was swearing. Then the voice faded away and a Beyoncé song rolled out of the speakers.

Harrison unhooked the jumper cables. “Good deal,” he said. “You probably want to drive for at least fifteen or twenty minutes, let the battery build up some charge.”

“I would,” said George, “but I’ve got about six minutes left to get to work.”

“Good luck, then,” said Harrison with a grin. He gathered up the cables into a rough ball and shoved it back behind the driver’s seat. “Might want to get your alternator looked at.”

“Thanks again.” George gave him a wave and pulled out. The car lurched once, reluctant to leave its resting spot, and then slid into the lane. The engine grumbled a few times, but he made it to work with seconds to spare.

GEORGE SIPPED SOME more milk and wrinkled his nose. The taste was off. The smell, too. He wondered if someone behind the scenes at the dining commons had let it sit out and get warm.

Lunch had been a dry cheeseburger. The salad bar had helped dress it up, but in the end it was still a sub-McDonald’s burger. The tater tots were good, at least. The server had given him an extra ladleful of them.

He’d spent the morning hauling trash out of the dorms and down to the dumpsters. The first weekend was always one of the roughest. On the plus side, most of it was dry trash, though not as dry as his burger.

Someone had left a copy of Maxim on the dining hall table. It wasn’t his usual kind of thing, but he knew if he didn’t read something he’d just nod off. There was a short piece on the President’s stylish tie collection and how his wife picked out most of them for him.

He made it halfway through an article about a “cleansing spa” before he decided it wasn’t good lunchtime reading. He failed a fourteen-question quiz about whether his apartment would qualify as a “good loving lair.”

One article made him fire off a quick text to Nick. It was just a sidebar piece about game shows, but it made something in his brain itch. He got an answer back a few minutes later.

Unless it jst happened in the past hr then no Trebek is not dead. Why?

He didn’t bother to respond. He knew it was a stupid question when he asked it. But it still nagged at him. If not Alex Trebek, who was he thinking of?

Near the center of the magazine was a six-page pictorial with a short interview. It was the dark-skinned woman from the bus stop poster. Her name was Karen Quilt. She was thirty-three and had appeared in Maxim twice before, both times on the “Hot 100” list. She had doctorates in biology and biochemistry, plus a handful of master’s degrees in other fields. Her mother had been part of the NSS, which sounded like the Somali version of the KGB the way the article spun it. Her European father had been some kind of mercenary or assassin. From the age of eight she’d been raised by an aunt and lived in New York City until she started traveling as a model.

Reading between the lines, George got the sense Karen Quilt didn’t have a lot of patience for interviews or pictorials.

“Hi,” said a voice.

He glanced up from the magazine and saw a dead girl in a wheelchair. Her eyes were dull and her skin was chalk-white. She wore a tattered collection of dusty clothes, and threads of black hair hung out beneath a Red Sox baseball cap.

He blinked and his eyes adjusted to the dining hall’s fluorescent lights. They made the girl’s skin look pale. The tubes reflected in her eyes at just the right angle to white out her irises. He shivered a bit at the afterimage in his mind.

He needed to get more sleep.

“We met a couple days ago,” she said. “I’m Maddy. Madelyn Sorensen.” She moved her wheelchair a few feet closer and held out her hand.

“I remember,” said George.

“I’ve been looking for you,” she said. “All over campus.”

“I don’t actually live here,” he said.

“I know. I probably didn’t make the best first impression.”

He bit his tongue.

“I’m sorry about that,” she said. “I was just … I kind of gushed, y’know?” Her hand was still out. She managed a weak smile.

George sighed. He reached out and took her hand. He hoped he wasn’t