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

“Okay, hang on,” said St. George. He came to a halt near the end of the muddy garden. Alice almost bumped into him. “You think someone dropped a nuclear bomb on LA?”

“They didn’t drop it,” said the bald man with the biker beard. “I heard they drove them in on trucks.”

“Them?” Madelyn echoed. “More than one?”

“No,” Steve told the bald man, “they dropped it.”

St. George waved his hand. “Not the point.”

“Point is, don’t act like idiots,” said Steve. He made a little move-along gesture with his shotgun. “It doesn’t help your case.”

I’m a part-time idiot, Zzzap said, although I’m considering taking the leap to full-time. Maybe you could explain it to me?

The bald man chuckled.

Steve took a breath. His fingers squeezed the barrel of the shotgun. “This isn’t funny,” he said. “At all.”

“We just…” St. George glanced at the others. “We’re all a little confused here.”

“Hey,” shouted Eliza. She was a dozen yards ahead, already at the top of the long walkway. “Move it. Now.”

They started moving again.

St. George took a quick step to be a little closer to Steve. In the corner of his eye he saw Madelyn do the same, staying near him. “So,” he said to the tall man, “they dropped a nuclear bomb on Los Angeles.”

Steve looked down at the hero and shook his head. “You’re a piece of work.”

“Just trying to get some answers.”

They reached the bottom of the walkway. The sides were tight canvas, not as white when seen up close. The floor of it was scuffed down to bare metal in most places. The wheels on the end slid back half an inch as the deck shifted beneath them.

Steve waved St. George up the ramp, then Madelyn. He followed behind them. Zzzap floated through the air alongside the walkway. St. George glanced back and saw the bald man frowning at the glowing wraith.

The ramp ended at a doorway in the cruise ship’s hull. A stairwell on the other side led them up to the main deck. Zzzap floated up the side of the ship and met them there. Eliza shot a look at St. George, another one at Steve, and then started off across the open space. The tall man nodded for St. George and Madelyn to follow her.

Big plastic drums stood along the railings. Two long strings of colored flags had been converted into clotheslines. There were tables and chairs cluttering every space, and even a few beds.

And no people at all.

“Where is everyone?” asked Madelyn. “I saw a lot more people when we were looking for a place to land.”

“They’re safe,” said the bald man.

“Safe from what?”

“From you,” said Alice.

“I’m not an ex,” Madelyn said with a sigh. “Talking’s the big clue.”

“We’ll see,” said the leather-skinned woman.

Something else didn’t look right, but St. George couldn’t put his finger on it. He’d never been on a cruise ship. Never even visited the Queen Mary down in Long Beach, just an hour south of LA back when traffic had been an issue. His total experience could be summed up with a few Love Boat reruns when he was little and the occasional Disney cruise ad.

But something wasn’t right here.

He cleared his throat and looked up at the tall man. “The bomb?” he asked again.

“You don’t quit, do you?”

“I’m just trying to find out how I died.”

Steve snorted and shook his head. “Telling you now, there are people here who’ll smack the shit out of you for talk like that.”

“Not you, though?”

“Not until the boss tells me to.”

St. George glanced ahead at Eliza. “Until then…why don’t you tell me what happened? Why do you think they nuked Los Angeles?”

“Because it’s all gone.”

“The city?”

“All the cities.” he said. “Los Angeles. San Diego. San Francisco. Seattle. New York. Boston. Houston. Dallas. Every major population center. All gone. It was the only way to contain the virus.”

“Of course they didn’t drop one on Washington,” said Alice. “Fucking politicians, always covering their own asses before anyone else’s.”

“Look,” said St. George, “I don’t know where you got all this but…Los Angeles is fine.” He glanced up at Zzzap. “I think all those cities are fine. Relatively speaking.”

The wraith nodded. I was just in San Diego about a week ago, and New York last month. There’s a pretty good-sized group of survivors in Queens.

“Don’t joke about shit like that, man,” said the bald man. “My brother and his family were in Queens.”

I’m not joking. There’s almost three thousand people living in the Queens Center Mall.

They headed up a broad staircase. Laundry dried on the railings. There was a diagram of the ship sealed behind a scratched Plexiglas plate. The small YOU ARE HERE star stood out in the bottom corner. They reached a new deck, and Eliza continued up onto another set of stairs. On the next level they headed down a long walkway that stretched along one side of the ship.

“When do you think this happened?” St. George asked the tall man. “Or, when did it happen, I guess. The bombings?”

Steve glared at St. George. He opened his mouth, his lips pulled back, and then he just shook his head. He turned away from the hero and stomped down the walkway, pulling ahead of the group. He muttered something to Eliza, and she glanced back at the heroes.

St. George turned, but the bald man and Alice had dropped back a few paces.

Guess no one wants to talk about it. Zzzap floated alongside them just outside the walkway.

“Nobody got nuked, right?” asked Madelyn in a lower voice. “That’s not just you being nice to them.”

St. George shook his head. “The only thing I know about is one bomb that went off in Hawaii long after everything fell apart. About four months after we got everyone into the Mount.”

Christmas Eve, added Zzzap.

“Stealth thought it was some survivor messing around with a submarine at Pearl Harbor,” said St. George, “that they set off a missile or something like that.”

It took out the harbor, the airport,