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

down Blockbuster. Eight feet tall, seven feet wide, and it just didn’t matter when there’s one of you and a hundred of them.

I heard the Dragon had to break his neck.

I was still at a solid tier two, and seeing Kathy earlier made me want to break something. I headed for the closest ex. There were four more behind it and a fifth a little farther back. The click-click-click of their teeth was a Geiger counter telling us we were close to something dangerous.

The ex saw me coming. It had been a woman, maybe in her forties when she was killed. Dark hair, sharp chin, messy bite in the left shoulder. It started to raise its arms, but I smacked them back down and grabbed its head in both hands. One sharp twist up and back snapped its neck. It went limp and dropped. The jaw kept snapping open and closed. Even if you take the head clean off, they won’t stop biting until the brain’s destroyed.

I tossed the head, raised my arm, and pointed out the fallen ex to my group. Didn’t want anyone getting too close to those teeth. I’ve heard some people call them anklebiters when they’re down but still active.

My arm came down and broke the wrist of the next ex before it could grab at me. I would’ve broken both of them, but its other arm ended at the elbow. Looked like it had been chewed or twisted off. Maybe both. No question how that guy bought it. A solid backhand spun its head to the side as its teeth scraped against the outside of my gloves. I put one hand on its jaw, one on its shoulder, and twisted it around even farther until I felt cartilage tear and heard bones snap. It fell, and I kicked it in the head as I walked past.

Two down and I’d already bled off some strength. Not much, but I could feel it. I’d have to put the rest of them down before I ran out of power.

I don’t like fighting like this. I got spoiled, being able to drain strength from people. Exes don’t have any life to drain. It’s like trying to fight a punching bag, and I didn’t adapt fast enough. That’s why Kathy had to fight them alone so many times.

That’s why she died.

Guilt’s a great motivator. Who would’ve suspected?

A dead man reached for me. I kicked its legs out from under it and stomped on its head. The skull cracked on the second stomp, and its teeth stopped moving. I grabbed the next one by the arm, spun it around, and slammed it headfirst into a phone pole. Its face caved in with a crunch, and I let it drop in a pile.

I heard a guy gasp behind me. They’d all stopped to stare. Seeing four exes put down in a minute can be pretty brutal. I didn’t care if they were shocked as long as they were alive. “Come on,” I said. “No stopping, remember?”

One of the loners we’d picked up—Ivan? Ilya? Something Russian-sounding—was watching the rear. He had a pistol, a rifle slung over his shoulder, and an aluminum baseball bat. In the past four blocks he’d put down two exes that got too close, and he’d been smart and used the bat every time. No extra noise to draw in more of them.

He’d have to put down more soon if we didn’t get moving. More likely he’d get killed and all these people would panic. The ones with guns would start shooting and attract more exes. And then we’d all die.

Just like she died.

I took a few steps back and grabbed one of the guys by the collar. He tried to flinch away, his eyes locked on the stains and bits of gore on my gloves. “Move,” I hissed at him. “Do you want your family to get eaten?”

I dragged him forward a few feet and shoved him toward the film studio. He took the hint. So did the rest of them.

I marched past the guy and drove my fist into a dead woman’s face. I aimed low and shattered the jaw. The ex staggered back and gave me time to move in and twist its head around. Neck broken, body dead, mouth flapping back and forth on broken bones.

I waved at the families. “Come on,” I said. “Move!”

We ran past the intersection. There were a few scattered exes here, but when they’re alone they’re easy to dodge. A dead kid with no lower jaw and an AC/DC shirt headed toward us, stumbled off the curb, and fell facedown in the street. A female ex in a blazer and slacks limped forward, but we were past it before it could shuffle more than a few feet.

We passed Bronson, the blocked gate, and the entrance was coming up. There were a dozen or so exes past that, maybe twenty, but they were pretty far back. Exes weren’t fast. We could get in the gate before they reached us.

Provided we got past the next three. They were all together. A small pack. There was a dead woman with a torn shirt. A dead police officer with one arm ripped up so much it couldn’t even raise it. The third looked like it had been dragged facedown for a few blocks, or maybe burned. It had a few long black hairs and wide shoulders.

I grabbed one of the dead woman’s outstretched arms, pulled her close so I could put a hand on her shoulder, and spun around. She whirled into the air, and I slammed her into the cop. The impact dropped them both in a heap in the middle of the road. Not down for good, but it’d take them a few minutes to get untangled and back to their feet.

And that was the last of my strength. Back to normal human levels. No better than any of the civilians following me. And I didn’t even have a fucking baseball bat.

The