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

fence, shifting as they milled and shoved. It flexed and straightened, flexed and straightened, squeaking every time. It was just high enough that the exes’ grasping hands ended up pressed back against their bodies. The click-click-click of their teeth rattled across the road.

Danielle staggered back. Her heart tried to pound its way out of her sweat-slicked chest. She couldn’t get any air into her lungs. The ACU jacket seemed to tighten around her.

Kennedy caught her before she fell. “Easy,” said the first sergeant.

“That’s the freeway up there,” said Lester, pointing up the ridge behind the exes. “A lot of these guys fall down the embankment and get stuck in the ditch. The Gardener reinforced the fence with those barrels, but it’s pretty solid on its own. And they can’t get any numbers or leverage on it because of the uneven ground back there.”

Danielle sucked in a breath. There was too much space. Nothing but open space between her and the exes.

Kennedy grabbed Danielle’s left hand and held it tight. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “They can’t get past the fence.”

Lester walked away down the road, gesturing at the mass of zombies. Cesar followed him. “We’ll have to clean them all out at some point,” continued Lester, “but for now there aren’t enough to pose a worry for us. We’ve planned to make this a regular part of all patrols for now.”

Danielle grabbed Kennedy’s arm. The first sergeant had muscles like rock. She closed her eyes and pulled in another breath, and then another one.

“It’s okay,” Kennedy said again. “You’re okay.”

Cesar glanced back and saw Danielle curled over next to the first sergeant. He cleared his throat, breaking Lester’s monologue. “You know what, bro,” he said, “can we just cut this short and go straight back? I think we’ve all seen enough.”

Danielle forced herself up, lifting her head and straightening her back. She ignored her pounding heart, her sweaty skin, the tremble that swelled in her chest, and pushed her arms down. She fought her screaming instincts and turned her back on the dozens and dozens of exes past the fence line. Two jerking steps had her back between the corn and the grapes. Three more was far enough to muffle the sound of clicking teeth.

Kennedy walked next to her. The first sergeant half carried her through the cornstalks and back into the open area. The bright purple artichokes were on her left now, and there was the ruined umbrella. Kennedy had a good sense of direction.

“Sorry,” Lester called out from the other side of the corn. “I get carried away when I talk about the garden. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.”

Cesar fell in behind them, between Danielle and Lester. They marched back through the overgrown garden. The main building stood a hundred yards away, just visible over the tall plants.

The sounds of teeth and squealing chain-link faded behind them. The pressure on her side faded, and Danielle realized her arm was no longer crushed against her. It wasn’t moving away from her body, fear still held it rigid. Kennedy still held her other hand.

The big patch of sunflowers stood next to the path ahead. Past that, the fifteen-foot swath of peas and beans Lester had pointed out during the walk. They were already halfway to the main building. Halfway back to Cerberus.

Two people worked in a plot the next row over. One of them, a black man with a fuzzy scalp, leaned on the long handle of some garden tool. His smug expression dropped as the quartet moved out from behind the patch of sunflowers and into view. The other worker also had a near-shaved head, an older white man with a heavy brow and a torn earlobe. He was kicking at something on the ground, half-hidden by the overgrowth between them. A large bag or sack or…

Dim recognition flickered in Danielle’s mind. The two men were soldiers from Project Krypton. Not Unbreakables, but some of the civilians who’d been recruited into the base’s ranks.

And she recognized what the man was kicking.

“Hey!”

The leaning man stepped back and tried to look busy. Earlobe looked up, angry at the interruption. The look slipped when it landed on the quartet. It fled when he saw Kennedy.

The first sergeant was a few beats behind Danielle. “Privates,” she bellowed. “What the hell are you doing?”

Fuzzy took a few steps away, tensing to run. Earlobe looked frozen between fight or flight. He glanced at the shape on the ground.

Kennedy let go of Danielle’s hand, took a few running steps, and leaped into the air. She sailed over the patch of vegetables and landed between the two men and the thing they’d been attacking. “I said what the hell are you doing, soldier?” she bellowed again.

The two men froze, stunned by her shock-and-awe display of power.

Danielle lunged into motion. They were just people. She could deal with people, even people in wide-open spaces. She took a few quick steps to a cross-path that let her cut across to the other aisle. Cesar’s loping footsteps followed her.

When she realized how much she’d been acting on instinct, she paused. The pressure of the open spaces pushed down on her. She looked at the figure on the ground, shoved back the thoughts she’d had, and took a breath to steady herself. “You okay?” she asked.

Christian Smith uncurled from the fetal position she’d been wrapped in and crawled away. She grabbed a fence post and dragged herself to her feet. Cesar tried to help her up, but she smacked his hands away and hissed at him. It was a soft sound with no bite behind it.

“I apologize, ma’am,” said Kennedy. “These—”

It earned her another weak hiss of air. Smith’s lips fired off a flurry of silent curses and insults. Danielle wasn’t a good lip-reader, but most of the words were short and to the point. Kennedy stayed just as silent throughout it.

When Smith was done with the first sergeant, she turned and launched another volley at