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

up from her journal, but the corners of her mouth twitched a bit.

“It’s aliiiive,” moaned Barry. “Allliiiive!”

“Shut up,” she said. She closed the journal. “He could just be doing it to mess with people. That is his style.”

Barry bit his lip. “I don’t think it is,” he said, his voice a bit lower. “I don’t think he minds messing with people, but it never seems to be his end goal.”

Madelyn patted the cover of the journal three times. Then she reached for the big Ziploc and sealed the book back inside. “Okay, then,” she said. “Maybe a meteor?”

St. George looked at her. “What?”

“A meteor. Sometimes they blow up in the atmosphere. Depending on how big it was and where it came down, they might think it was a nuke.”

Barry pursed his lips. “Not a bad idea.”

“Wouldn’t we have seen something like that, too, though?” St. George mused. “I mean, if it was big enough for them to think it was a nuke, you’d think we’d see it. Maybe hear it.”

“We didn’t hear Honolulu,” Barry said.

“We’re almost two thousand miles away,” said the Corpse Girl. “It could’ve hit the water five hundred miles from here and still be a thousand miles from us.”

“It’s also possible,” said Barry, “they all just got drunk and fell asleep watching disaster movies.”

“What?”

“Y’know, just before their ships lost power. And then in the morning they had to sort out what really happened and just made some bad decisions. Now you’ve got a bunch of people saying, ‘Oh, we saw LA get nuked,’ and really they just passed out watching a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie or something.”

Madelyn blew a raspberry at him. “So,” she said, “my meteor theory is still the best we’ve got?”

“Yeah,” said St. George. “But Barry has a point. I’d understand Honolulu, but they told us some people had seen Los Angeles destroyed.”

“Sooooo,” said Barry, “my theory is back on top.” He returned her raspberry.

“Okay,” she said, “you can stop trying to cheer me up.”

“It’s not always about you, y’know.”

“Actually, I’ve got a question,” she said, looking at St. George. “Did anyone say what they did with their exes?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, all these boats, there must’ve been somebody with the ex-virus, right? Probably a couple somebodies. Are people turning and getting…I don’t know, tossed overboard? Or maybe…”

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe put in their gardens?”

“Ewwww,” said Barry.

St. George tapped his knee. “Do exes work as…well, fertilizer? How’s that work with all their diseases and everything?”

Barry shrugged. So did Madelyn.

Two quick raps sounded on the door before it opened. Eliza pushed it wide and stepped in. She had on a weathered bomber jacket and a different shirt, but the same threadbare and stained jeans. “Morning,” she said. “Hope everyone’s decent.”

Madelyn scowled.

“So what’s going on?” asked St. George. “Have we passed your quarantine?”

She nodded.

“Can we talk, then?”

Another nod. “I’m here to bring you to Maleko, our leader. He’s going to help us figure out who you are.”

Barry sighed. “Still this?”

She studied his face. “Yeah,” she said. “Still this.”

St. George managed to keep from frowning. “Is he going to be a little more open-minded about who we are than you?”

Eliza turned her gaze to him. “What do you think?”

“I’m starting to think you’re all a bunch of jerks,” muttered Madelyn.

Eliza ignored her. “Ready to go?” She gestured at the door.

Barry cleared his throat. “Don’t suppose you’ve found a wheelchair for me?”

The woman’s head shifted side to side. “No. Couldn’t find one.”

“Ship this big, all these passengers on board, they didn’t have a wheelchair in case someone broke a leg on the waterslide or something?”

“Maybe they did. A lot of things have been moved and repurposed. It could be on any of the ships. It might’ve gone overboard in the early days while people were still freaking out a bit.” She shrugged and raised her hand to the door again.

Barry sighed. “You mind lugging me around again?” he asked St. George. “Just ’til we get outside?”

“Actually, we’re going to be inside for most of the walk to Maleko,” said Eliza. “You probably shouldn’t…light up.”

Barry snorted as St. George lifted him.

A small crowd waited for them in the hall. Big Steve from the day before. Bald and bearded Devon. Sun-leathered Alice. The two men from St. George’s examination. A new man with a thick mustache. All of them were armed.

Madelyn focused on the mustached man. “You must be the cowboy,” she said.

“Cowboy?” St. George looked at the man.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “He’s nothing.”

The cowboy smirked at her.

She glared back at him and shifted her weight so she leaned closer to St. George.

“You okay?”

“Great,” said the Corpse Girl.

The group moved down the dark hall. Light came from an occasional open door. One larger room had skylights. It had been a ballroom once, but now it was piled high with open suitcases and travel bags. All of them were empty. They exited the far side, turned a corner, and headed up a staircase.

Barry leaned his head in closer to St. George. “Did you notice her face when she was talking about her boss?” he asked.

St. George gave a slight nod. “Like she was watching for a reaction.”

“You ever heard that name before?”

“Nope. Was it Japanese?”

Barry shook his head. “Don’t think so, unless I’m picturing it wrong in my head.”

“What are you two talking about?” demanded Steve. His voice echoed in the hallway.

“Just wondering about breakfast,” Barry answered, just as loud. “Where’d you get all the seeds for those gardens of yours?”

“The Queen,” said Devon. His head tipped up, indicating the ship they were on. “There were some vegetables in the galleys that survived long enough to get in pots. There were even some seed packs down in the daycare area. Y’know, little kids can plant a bean while mom and dad get drunk in the sun, that sort of thing.”

The mustached cowboy and one of the others chuckled. It wasn’t a happy sound.

“What did you do for soil?” asked St. George. “Did one of the other ships have it?”

“There were a bunch of