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

unable to comprehend what was happening. The two figures stumbled back a dozen feet before plowing into a shrub. The attacker stepped back and left the ex tangled in the branches.

“Hey,” yelled St. George. “You’re not supposed to be out here.”

The pale-skinned girl looked at him with chalk eyes. “You’re not my dad,” she called back with mock anger.

“I’m serious. There’s a ton of smoke out here.”

Madelyn Sorensen, the Corpse Girl, shrugged and looked around at the black-and-gray clouds. “It’s not like I need to breathe or anything.”

He landed next to her, stomping on a small tongue of flame as he did. “I’m not talking about breathing,” he said. “I’m talking about you getting shot because someone thinks they saw an ex moving in the smoke.”

Her lips pressed together. She glared at him.

The undead woman dragged itself out of the shrub. Its sightless gaze swiveled past Madelyn to lock onto St. George. Teeth clacked together four times before he slammed the heel of his palm against its forehead. Its skull caved in and the woman’s body toppled back into the shrub.

“I’m not an ex,” the Corpse Girl muttered.

He stepped past her to stomp on one of the fallen zombies. Its skull collapsed under his heel. “Everyone knows that. But right now there’s a lot of noise and a lot of yelling and someone might take a shot before they realize it’s you. Since you’re not supposed to be out here.”

“St. George,” yelled a voice behind him. “One minute to barrels.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the Big Wall, then back at the pale teenager. “Come on.”

“I can help!”

He held out his hand. “Now, Madelyn. Or you can go explain to Captain Freedom why you’re outside the Wall.”

She sighed and wrapped her cold fingers around his wrist. He returned the grip and launched himself back into the air. She threw her other arm up and held his wrist with both hands.

They flew up to the wall of cars, and he let her drop onto the platform before he landed. Two of the crew members saw chalk skin and flinched back. Water from one of the hoses splashed over the plywood.

“Hey,” St. George said. “We can’t waste that.”

“Right,” said the man, with another glance at the Corpse Girl. He shoved the hose back in the barrel. “Sorry. Didn’t realize it was her. You.”

“Whatever,” said Madelyn. She looked at St. George as he hefted the next barrel. “Can I at least help up here?”

St. George turned his head to the man with the hose.

“Yeah, sure,” said the man. “We can use another body. Person. Sorry.”

St. George nodded and pushed himself back into the air. He soared over the houses and soaked another rooftop on the far side of the fire. They still had a chance of containing it. Last year one had scorched its way through a large chunk of the Sunset Strip, almost sixty buildings, before burning itself out.

He circled back to the Big Wall and saw Freedom punch his way through a quartet of exes that threatened the retreating firefighters. The giant officer turned, grabbed a pair of outstretched hands, and hurled another dead man back. A fifth stepped forward, and Freedom brought one of his huge fists down on its skull like a hammer. He crushed its skull and turned to a sixth.

St. George dropped the barrel off at the Wall and soared back to the center of the fire line. “Time to go,” he said to Sally T. “How are we doing?”

The woman wore a yellow helmet with a red rag tied over her mouth and nose. She’d been a firefighter before the Zombocalypse and ended up in charge of the volunteer fire department for the southern half of the Mount. Nobody knew what the T stood for, only that she insisted on it.

“It sucks,” she said, raising her voice over the crackle of fire and teeth, “but I think we beat the worst of it.” She pointed at a few houses. “We’re going to lose those four, and all the trees around them. Don’t waste any more water there. But other than that we’re looking good.”

Her eyes flitted past his shoulder and went wide. He turned and backhanded an ex, shattering its jaw and hurling it back. “What about the grove?”

She shook her head. “Not a chance.”

“Dammit.” He bit his lip. “What else can I do?”

Sally T shook her head. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

St. George nodded. “Get back to the Wall,” he told her and leaped back into the air.

A handful of exes stumbled toward what was left of the fire line’s left flank. One of them, a woman, had a burned scalp and wore a smoldering tweed jacket. Another one, he noted with a grim half-smile, had a fireman’s coat and helmet. Its face was hidden behind a mask of grime-smeared glass.

He arced down and lashed out with his foot. The kick caught the dead fireman just under the edge of its helmet, lifted it off its feet, and slammed it into a phone pole. The others stopped their advance and turned to him. The click of their teeth was almost a hiss against the noise of the fire.

St. George landed between them and drove his fist into a bearded face coated with dried blood. The face collapsed, then the ex. Another punch put down the dead woman in the tweed coat. He drove his elbow into an ex’s chest as it grabbed his arm, feeling the ribs splinter apart. The zombie wobbled for a moment and folded over on itself.

The last one got its mouth on his wrist. It bit down again and again. Each time knocked a few more teeth free of its withered gums when they failed to go through his stone-like skin. Or even scratch it.

He raised his arm and the ex rose up with it, still gnawing on his wrist. He brought his other hand around like an axe and smashed through the spine and the cords of muscle around