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

at Stealth and whispered to each other. One pulled out his phone and snapped a photograph. “What’s going on?” asked Freedom.

“They recognize her,” St. George said.

“How?”

“Before the uprising,” said Stealth, “I was considered a minor celebrity.”

“And still are in this world, it would seem,” Freedom said.

“This world that we’re imagining,” added Danielle.

“Yes,” Stealth said. The edges of her lips twitched down and her brows furrowed.

They went another ten feet and the world shifted.

St. George blinked and the grass grew a foot. A construction site became a mass of rusted girders. Two nearby cars lost their windshields and faded from years in the sun. Another became the victim of a long-ago sideswipe. The sounds of the city vanished and were replaced by the white noise of clicking teeth.

A handful of exes staggered in the street. Three dead men, two women, and two that weren’t recognizable as either. One was too thin and wore shapeless, genderless clothes. The other looked like it had been scalped, and most of its face had been torn off in the process.

One of the dead women was closest. St. George shifted his grip and brought up the signpost. The first swing would crush the ex’s skull and put him in position to take out the next two. Out of the corner of his eye, St. George saw Freedom move to get between Danielle and the faceless thing.

Then a jet flew by overhead and reality came crashing down on them again. The closest ex became a living woman with an oversized backpack. The parked cars were whole again. One tried to pull out and got honked at by a truck on the road.

No, George corrected himself. Not reality. The illusion.

“Goddammit,” muttered Danielle.

The woman with the backpack gave St. George a frosty look. He realized he still had the signpost up and ready to swing. He lowered it as she marched past him. The sign scraped on the pavement.

“Just so we’re all on the same page,” said Danielle, “everyone’s seeing a non-zombie world now, right?”

“Correct,” said Stealth.

“Yes, ma’am,” said Freedom.

“Yeah.” St. George looked over his shoulder. “Everyone good? We can keep moving?” Freedom and Danielle nodded.

Stealth stared across the road at a man who looked like a young professor or teaching assistant. “Something wrong?” St. George asked her.

“I am not sure,” she said. “I am forming a hypothesis, but I do not feel I have enough data to make a firm statement.”

“Well, what are you thinking?”

Stealth stared at the man for another moment.

Then her phone rang.

She pulled the cell from her pocket and looked at the screen. Then her thumb slid across the screen and she held the phone up. “You are on speakerphone,” she said.

“Hey,” said Barry.

Danielle’s eyes went wide. She mouthed something to St. George, the back half of which looked like know that voice.

“How did you get this number?” asked Stealth.

“You called me the other day, remember? I work with high-energy subatomic particles for a living and you think I can’t star-sixty-nine someone?”

“This number is unlisted.”

“Nothing’s really unlisted,” Barry said. “You’ve just got to know where the lists are. Speaking of which, even though we weren’t, are you going to tell me your name at some point?”

“You do not know?”

“I do, I’m just checking to see if you know.”

“Is that an attempt at a joke?”

“I guess it was, yeah.”

Stealth looked at the cell for a moment. “My name is Karen Quilt,” she said. “You may remember me by the name Stealth.”

The voice on the phone chuckled.

“Something amuses you?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Did you know you’ve got the same name as a former Jeopardy! champion? I bet you hear that a lot.”

“Not often,” she said. “Four minutes ago did you experience a reality shift?”

“Sorry?”

“Four minutes ago, did your view of the world change for twenty-six seconds and then revert back to normal? Did you see the undead we spoke of last night?”

“No,” said Barry. “Maybe? Everybody always seems a little like the undead in baggage claim. Especially the TSA people.”

“You’re at the airport?” asked St. George.

“Yup. Which is why I called. Didn’t you say you were going to have a ride here for me, Miss Karen Quilt or maybe Stealth?”

“I did.”

“Did your guy take off without me or something, then? Took these idiots over half an hour to get me off the plane. You’d think they’d never dealt with a guy in a wheelchair before.”

“You are looking for a thin man with glasses. He should have a white sign with your surname on it.”

“Nope,” said Barry. “I’ve been looking for twenty minutes now. Wasn’t outside security or at baggage claim.”

“You are certain?”

“I’m in a wheelchair, not blind. Besides, I’ve always wanted to say, ‘Yes, I’m Mr. Burke,’ and get whisked away in a limo. He’s not here.”

Stealth pressed her mouth into a line. “Hire a cab,” she told him. “Go to the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills. Depending on traffic you should be there within the hour. I will cover the expense when you arrive.”

“Okay,” he said. “Does that mean I don’t have time to do the Universal Studios tour?”

Danielle bit back a snort, and St. George felt his lips twitch into a smile for a moment. Stealth said nothing.

“Okay,” Barry said after a moment. “No jokes. Got it. I guess I’ll see you in an hour.”

“You shall,” she said, and hung up the phone. She looked at George. “He does not seem to be taking the situation seriously.”

“I think that’s kind of normal for him, isn’t it?”

“He didn’t experience the shift,” said Freedom. “And he didn’t know you.”

“No,” she said. “He did not.”

“Maybe he’s just not up to speed,” said Danielle. “I mean, I think I’m eighty percent there, but I’m pretty sure there’s still some holes in my memory.”

St. George looked at Stealth’s face. “Is it something else?”

She looked at the phone, then at the street around them. Her brows furrowed again. “We agree that we are still in the real world,” she said. “Agent Smith has used his powers to affect our perceptions.”

“Yeah,” said St.