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

fumbled with the seal, yanked out the smallest piece, and crammed the whole thing in her mouth. Her jaws chomped it to a meaty pulp while she tore another piece in two with her fingers.

A thought hit her just before she shoved the next piece between her lips. Most of her digestive system was scattered across the pile. She didn’t even know if her stomach was still in her rib cage, and shuddered at the thought of reaching in to check. The jerky might be going to waste, falling out of her throat and into an empty body cavity.

Madelyn sighed and swallowed the meat in her mouth. The rest went back in the bag. After a moment’s thought, she unzipped the top of her wet suit and stuffed the bag between her boobs. If she fell asleep she might forget it in a pocket, but she’d notice it there pretty quick.

She pushed herself back up onto her hands and crawled over her legs. She turned herself around so she was facing the open wound of her waist. She could see her hips and the other half of her spine and something that might’ve been…her uterus, maybe? Gallbladder? Something smooth and slick and gray. She didn’t want to think about it too much, and she hadn’t done well in biology, anyway. One of the few sore points with her dad.

She reached out and wrapped her fingers around her intestines, half expecting to feel a squeeze in her belly. It was like holding a soft, limp garden hose. She could feel a few small lumps through the flesh and wondered what she’d eaten. Her eyes closed, and she tried to take a calming breath.

Still no lungs. Or lung muscles. Dammit.

It made sense to have all the parts in the same place.

She pulled, and the length of intestine slithered across the pile toward her. Her hands stretched out, grabbed, and pulled again. One of the loops straightened out. Another tug made a section higher up the pile shift a bit. She realized she could go faster if she pulled hand over hand. Smaller movements, but faster. She had to stop at one point when a loop of intestine got caught on a body. Four hard shakes got it loose.

Her guts slipped over the corpses as she dragged them home. A few moments later the end popped up over the far side of the pile, a lopsided bean about the size of a softball. She was pretty sure it was her stomach. It bounced and twisted across the bodies as she pulled it close.

A quick wave of dizziness ran through her head and down her arms. A minute or two at best before she passed out. No journals, either. She was going to have to figure out most of this again when she woke up.

She turned around again and then lowered herself onto one elbow. It put her at a good angle to flip herself over without sliding down the pile. She wiggled on her shoulders, reached down to grab at the hem of her cargo shorts, and tugged the two halves of her body together. Then she reached out and scooped the yards of intestine toward her. She shoved the stomach up into her body cavity and piled the rest below her ribs.

“I’m on a mission,” she said, mouthing each word. “I’m on a mission and my body’s repairing itself. I’m on a mission and my body’s repairing itself. I’m on a mission and my body’s repair—”

Madelyn woke up screaming. Or she would’ve if there’d been any air in her lungs. She wasn’t sure why she was screaming. She didn’t remember having a bad dream. She hadn’t had a bad dream in years.

She hadn’t had any dreams in years.

Her body tingled, like the pins and needles after a leg or hand fell asleep. But it was everywhere. Like her whole body had fallen asleep.

Which, granted, it did sometimes. But it never felt like this when she woke up. Not that she could remember, anyway.

And, wow, was she hungry. Starving hungry. Hadn’t eaten in days hungry.

The only lights were high above. It looked like sunlight seeping in through cracks. More than enough for her to see by. She sucked in a deep breath and sat up.

Her chest crinkled as she did. Madelyn pulled the zipper down on her wet suit and found a bag of chicken jerky wedged in her sports bra. She had no idea how it had gotten there, but she was glad to see it. She shook the bag out and looked around.

There were a lot of exes. At least sixty or seventy exes she could see, but probably more. It was a big crowd. Most of them just swayed back and forth—that weird thing they did when they hadn’t seen anything move in a while. Maybe a third of them staggered around. The closest ones were a couple of yards away. It was a big room. The sound of all their teeth echoed off the metal walls.

Solid metal walls. Big sheets of metal. She couldn’t remember seeing anything like that anywhere in the Mount.

“Ewwwwww.”

And she was sitting on a pile of dead bodies. A couple still had some meat to them, but most of them were just withered skeletons. A few moved their mouths open and shut, but didn’t have the strength for actual teeth-clicking. Some were dressed like tourists, but a lot of them were wearing dark jumpsuits.

Madelyn pushed herself up onto her feet. A few quick steps carried her down off the pile of limbs and torsos without tripping. Her boots hit the floor and she wobbled. Her core muscles felt loose, almost rubbery.

She wiggled her toes and felt them flex inside her boots. She could feel the thin spot in one of her socks. A few threads stretched back and forth across her big toe and caught on the nail. She’d meant to cut her nails before the mission, but she’d found some black nail