Ex-Purgatory by Peter Clines (best book club books TXT) 📕

“I’m thinking we open the doors, I’ll push these first few back, and then we’ll loop around and head down Glendon Avenue back to campus.”

“Where Madelyn is,” said Freedom.

“Right.” He saw the officer’s expression. “She should be safe until we get there,” he added. “The exes probably don’t even know she’s there.”

“It would be safer to travel on rooftops,” said Stealth.

“It would.” St. George nodded. “But I think you’re the only one who could get up there. Danielle’s human, Freedom’s still a bit unsure of his abilities—no offense, Captain.”

“None taken, sir,” said Freedom.

“—and I still can’t fly for some reason.”

“I’m sorry,” said Danielle. “Did you just say ‘fly’? Like in, fly through the air?”

“Yeah,” said St. George. “Just like Superman. Sort of.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Says the woman with the computerized battle armor.”

She snorted and looked around the café again. “Not at the moment.”

“So we’re stuck on the ground,” said St. George.

“It is almost nine,” said Stealth. “I estimate it will take us at least seventy minutes to retrieve Corpse Girl. If our goal is to cross the city and reach the Mount before sundown, we should proceed.”

“Agreed,” said Freedom. “From what you’re saying, the last thing we want is to be out after dark.”

“Okay, then,” said St. George. “I’ll take the lead. Stealth, you follow. Freedom, watch our back. Danielle, stay between us and keep safe. We’ll have you back inside Cerberus before you know it.”

She grunted and forced her arms down to her sides.

“Everyone ready?”

They all nodded.

St. George shoved the door open.

The first ones were the easiest. He spread his arms wide as he marched out of the door and gathered them up. A few lunging steps carried the exes to the curb. It was a six-inch drop, but it was too much for the mindless dead. They stumbled and tripped and fell over. Two of them hit the pavement hard, skull first. Their teeth stopped chattering.

Out in the road, the other exes saw the movement. Chalk eyes turned to him. The dead all shifted their gait and staggered toward him.

He thought about setting fire to the pile of exes. In the back of his throat he could feel the light touch of smoke. He knew there was a trick to it, a way to make the smoke turn into flames, but he couldn’t remember it. Like getting off the ground, it was something Smith’s blocks were still keeping hidden from him.

He glanced over his shoulder. “Come on.”

The four of them worked their way down the sidewalk. St. George grabbed exes by their jackets and shirts and blouses and hurled them out into the street. Behind him he heard Stealth’s makeshift staff slice through the air twice, each time followed by the sound of breaking bone. Freedom let out two quick breaths—boxer’s breaths—and St. George heard two more bodies fall.

They made it to the corner and he looked down Glendon. There were fewer exes, but the street seemed a bit narrower. He risked a quick glance back. “How’s it looking behind us?”

“If we can keep up this pace, sir, we should be fine,” said Freedom. “We’re moving faster than they can catch us.”

St. George gazed at the zombies on Glendon. They were already shuffling in their direction. “It might be getting rough, then,” he said.

He looked around and spotted a 2 HOUR PARKING sign. He batted an ex away and heaved on the sign until something underground snapped and it came loose in his hands. He spun the square pipe once to get a feel for it. Then he brought it around like a club and crushed four skulls with one swing.

They moved down the center of the street. St. George took a few steps, shifted the pipe in his hands, and the steel sign changed from blunt instrument to edge-on blade. One swipe and it cut open three exes. A man and two women. Their clothes parted, their flesh gaped open, and their guts spilled out in front of them. Thin and thick intestines uncoiled onto the pavement. Stomachs, hearts, and other gray pieces of meat he couldn’t identify tore loose and splatted against the ground. The exes swayed for a moment, their center of balance gone, and then tripped over their own insides.

Another swing of his signpost-axe, a little higher this time, and two skulls spun into the air. They cracked against the pavement as their bodies slumped and fell. St. George swung again, aimed it better, and took off four more heads. One of the dead things, a man with an Arab scarf draped around his shoulders, was a little shorter. The metal sign smashed through its skull at eye level. Its teeth snapped three more times before it collapsed.

They passed a jeweler and a Christian Science reading room. A car had plowed into an overgrown tree. There was a skeletal body under the flattened front tire. On the opposite side of the street was a quartet of ragged pop-up tents and some cases with National Guard markings.

“Looks like a checkpoint,” said Freedom. “We should look for supplies.”

“Maybe on the way back,” said St. George said. “I don’t think we want to stop moving right now.”

“But, sir, there could be—”

“There will be nothing,” said Stealth. “The Westwood National Guard outpost was lost on July 27, 2009. Best estimates had it looted by August fourth. That was before the South Seventeens consolidated their territory to the east in Century City and looted the surrounding area.”

Freedom grabbed an ex by the arm, twisted it around, and slammed it back into two others. The trio of zombies stumbled and fell. “Very well,” he said. “Let’s move on, then.”

Half a block from the outpost, a pile of withered corpses dominated an intersection. St. George guessed there had to be at least two hundred of them. They all had head wounds. Mostly bullet holes, but a few caved-in skulls as well. The pile was marked off with bright orange cones and a handful of yellow sawhorses.

He glanced back and saw