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

The man looked Polynesian, or maybe Asian. He had large eyes, a small nose, and a stern mouth framed by a square jaw. The ponytail pulled every strand of hair away from his face.

His clothes hung on him. The threadbare pants and silk shirt were at least two sizes too big for him. Maybe three. A leather vest that could’ve fit Captain Freedom draped over the man’s shoulders, reaching halfway down his thighs. All the loops of extra fabric made St. George think of the baggy ren faire clothes he’d seen sometimes on the college campus he used to work at, back in the days before the ex-virus.

The man was barefoot on the wooden deck. His feet were smooth. Not the feet of someone who went barefoot a lot of the time.

He held out a hand toward the chair. “For your friend,” he said.

St. George stepped forward. Madelyn fell in next to him. “Thanks,” said Barry. He shifted in St. George’s arms and tried to straighten up a bit.

“Of course,” said the man. “We’re not savages.” He had a confident, strong voice. One used in front of crowds a lot. This crowd, at least.

St. George settled Barry into the chair. Madelyn tapped his side. When he turned around, the man stood just a few yards away.

“So,” the man said, projecting the word, “my lieutenant says you claim to be the Mighty Dragon.” He glanced at Eliza.

A low murmur passed through the crowd.

“That’s right,” said St. George. “And I’m guessing you’re Maleko?”

The murmur became a low rumble.

The man—Maleko—nodded once. “I am,” he said. He studied St. George’s face the same way Eliza had, but he played his expressions big, like a stage actor. Or someone working a crowd. “Could you offer us some sort of proof of your claim?”

St. George focused on the spot between his shoulder blades and pushed himself up into the air. He went up until he was level with the walkway, then shot fifty feet higher and drifted back down. The rumble of the crowd became gasps and whispers. “Him” carried up to St. George again and again.

As he sank past the walkway, he took in a breath, let it tickle the back of his throat, and let flames drift out of his mouth again. He looked up and puffed out the last of it as a small fireball. Shrieks and cries echoed up to him.

His boots hit the deck next to Barry’s chair. A few children were sobbing. The adults were wide-eyed. Maleko glared at St. George with a stone face.

“Sorry,” said St. George. “The kids back home get a kick out of seeing me do that.” He turned to the crowd. “I didn’t mean to scare anyone.”

Adults were whispering. The murmuring had started back up. Some of the kids calmed down, but most of them were still crying.

Where were their parents? Why were all the kids standing alone? Why wasn’t anyone holding them or wiping noses?

Maleko took a breath. His face softened. “And back home,” he asked, “is where?”

St. George glanced down at Barry, then back up to the Polynesian man. “We’re from Los Angeles,” he said. “There’s a few thousand survivors there. We’ve made a large safe zone we call the Mount.”

Maleko didn’t smile, but he looked satisfied with the answer. Content. The murmur climbed back up to a rumble.

Courtyard seemed like an all-too-appropriate term for the space they were in.

“I’m telling the truth,” he said, raising his own voice to the crowd. “I’ve heard what you think happened, that there were bombs, but it isn’t true. We’re from Los Angeles. The Mount is right in the middle of Hollywood.”

“And we show movies on Friday nights,” said Barry. “Kids get in free, but the popcorn still costs way too much.”

“How can you sit there and make jokes about it?” snarled Eliza from her post. “Do you know how many people died in the bombings?”

“I’m going to go with ‘What is none, Alex,’ ” said Barry, “since they didn’t drop any bombs.”

Eliza sucked in a breath, but Maleko raised a hand to cut her off. He walked back to his big chair and picked something up. “This was in your bag,” he said. He held the desert-tan box up for the crowd to see. “Care to tell everyone what it is?”

St. George sighed. “It’s a radio beacon. There should’ve been a solar charger with it.”

“There was,” nodded Maleko. “Very small. Not much bigger than a pack of cigarettes. Easy to hide, I’m sure.”

Another uneasy rumble pushed and shoved its way through the crowd.

“More like very light,” Madelyn said. “We couldn’t carry a ton of stuff with us out here.”

Maleko didn’t look at her. He lowered the beacon so it was between him and St. George. “What were you going to do with it?”

“We were going to give it to you,” said the hero. He looked up at the crowd. “To all of you here, so we’d be able to find you again.”

“So you’d know where we were,” Maleko said. “So it could lead people to us.”

The people around them muttered and whispered. Some of them pointed.

“Oh, frak me,” Barry muttered. He looked up at St. George. “I’m all for helping out, but how much more of this are we going to sit through?”

St. George cleared his throat, and a wisp of smoke drifted between his lips. “I don’t know what’s going on here,” he said. “I don’t know why you all feel threatened, why you’re insisting I’m dead. But we’re just here to offer our help. To let you know you’re not alone.”

Some of the muttering died, but not all of it.

Maleko’s eyes never left St. George’s. “I’d be inclined to believe you,” he said in a stage whisper that carried across the crowd. “If anyone could’ve survived the blast which incinerated Los Angeles, it would’ve been my friend. But even he couldn’t.”

“Your friend…?”

Now the tattooed man did smile. A tight curve of his lips that didn’t reach his