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

to say that in a couple of months,” Barry said. He glanced back at St. George and threw a two-fingered salute from his temple. “See you on the other side, Ray.”

Madelyn smiled. Alice gestured with her head, and they walked down to the open door across from Barry’s. Madelyn looked back, gave St. George a confident nod, then vanished inside. The door closed behind her with a click that echoed in the hallway.

Eliza pointed at the entrance next to them. “This one’s you,” she said.

St. George walked into the room. Two big picture windows in the far wall showed the sea outside and the orange light of the setting sun. He couldn’t see any closets or anything that looked like a bathroom. Nothing but bare walls and the kind of over-patterned carpet only hotels and casinos could get away with. And apparently cruise ships. He guessed Mother of Pearl had been a room for conferences or events.

The two men he’d glimpsed earlier watched him. Each one wore a sidearm. The scruffy Asian man on the left had tattooed arms and a sidearm in a clip-on holster. The one on the right was a rail-thin white man with dense brown dreadlocks and a shotgun. They waved him into the center of the room.

“I’m going to go check in with Maleko,” Eliza said to the bald man with the biker beard. “You got this?”

“Yeah.”

She closed the door.

St. George stood there. The three other men stared at him. “I’m guessing you haven’t had a lot of visitors?”

“Strip,” said the bald man.

“What’s your name, anyway?”

“What’s it to you?”

St. George unbuckled the safety harness. “Just trying to be friendly, remember?”

The man looked him in the eye. “Devon,” he said. “I’m Devon.”

St. George rolled his shoulders and let the webbing straps fall off him. His tendons popped as he did it. He looked over at the other two men. “And you guys?”

The Asian man muttered something in a language St. George didn’t understand. The other man shifted his shotgun so the barrel was pointed more at the hero than away from him. “My name is get your damned clothes on the floor before I blow your head off.”

The hero glanced back at Devon. “You want to tell him how useless that thing is, or should I?”

“He blocked Steve’s shotgun,” the bald man told the others. “With his hand.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, he caught it. The buckshot.”

“Bullshit,” said the dreadlocked man.

“Swear to God,” said Devon. “He did it right there in front of me. Steve tried to shoot the zombie girl they brought with—”

“She’s not a zombie,” said St. George. He unzipped his biker jacket and set it on the floor. “She’s just…dead.”

“He’s bulletproof,” said Devon, “he breathes fire, and he flew out here with the others.”

“Bullshit,” the dreadlocked man said again, but he looked at the hero with a critical eye.

“Swear to God,” Devon said again.

St. George crouched to untie his boots. “It’s true,” he said.

“So, you’re…what?” said Dreadlock. “A Mighty Dragon knockoff or something?”

St. George pulled off one of his boots and looked back at Devon. “Actually,” he said, “I am the Mighty Dragon. But most people just call me St. George these days.”

Dreadlock’s jaw tightened. His eyebrows knotted. “Bullshit.”

“I am.”

The shotgun shifted again, moving even closer to St. George.

He sighed and pulled off his other boot. His utility belt came off next, and then he slid off his pants. He added them to the pile.

“That supposed to be some sort of super-suit?” asked Devon.

St. George looked down at himself. “It’s a wet suit,” he said. “I flew two thousand miles across the ocean to get here.”

“Flew,” muttered Dreadlock. The Asian man smirked and added a few syllables. Dreadlock responded in the same language and they both chuckled.

St. George reached behind his back, and after two tries he grabbed the thin strap on the wet suit’s zipper. It slid down with a low razzing noise. He pulled it away from his neck and enjoyed the cool air that rolled down his chest.

The three men shuffled their feet as he peeled off the wet suit. He had a pair of damp boxers on underneath, and a faint chill swirled around them as they hit the air. He kicked the neoprene suit off his legs and stretched his arms out wide.

The Asian man stepped forward. He leaned in close to St. George and focused on the thin flesh of his hand and wrist. The intense gaze worked its way up his arm to his shoulder. The Asian man kept one hand near his holster the whole time.

After ten minutes of poring over St. George’s skin, the man barked out a few sharp syllables. “Boxers,” said Dreadlock. “Lose ’em.”

“Seriously?”

Devon shifted behind him. “Lots of people into weird stuff before the zombies showed up. We don’t know you. Who knows what you’re into.”

Dreadlock’s hands twitched on the shotgun. “There some reason you don’t want to take them off?”

“Aside from being naked?”

“What are you hiding?”

“Nothing.”

“Everything off,” he said. “That’s the rules.”

St. George looked over his shoulder at the bald man. “You saw me catch a handful of buckshot with my bare hand but you still think something might’ve bitten me and broke the skin?”

Devon shook his head. “No exceptions, man.”

Madelyn stood in the center of the room and stared down at the pile of clothes. Jacket, shorts, sneakers, wet suit. She was glad she’d worn a sports bra and boxer briefs under the wet suit. It was uncomfortable enough standing in front of the male guard. It would’ve been worse in regular underwear.

The room was cool. It was probably cold. She couldn’t tell. She wondered if most people would be cold standing there in their underwear. She couldn’t remember enough about her life before to be sure.

The woman, Alice, had a pistol one of the other guards had handed her. She pointed it in Madelyn’s face while she examined every inch of skin. She stayed a few feet away. The pistol wavered a bit, but stayed more