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

I never wanted to do it. But I can’t risk everything we have out here because of you.”

The merman turned and walked away.

MITCHEL KIRBY WITH one l knows a good thing when I see it. I’m not stupid.

My pop told me that he and Mom argued for two weeks about my name. She didn’t want to use the regular spelling, Mitchell. She said I was special so I needed a special name. Pop tried to tell her he was all for that, but why not just give me a special name rather than messing up a perfectly good one? I’d just spend most of my life telling people how to spell my name. Plus, what was so special about knocking one letter off it? Why not add something to it?

But Mom won. She always won. And then she claimed “abuse” and left Hawaii. Took off with some businessman or banker or something, moved to Las Vegas. Crushed Pop, but he tried to be a man about it.

You want to know what abuse is? Abuse is getting stuck with some stupid-spelled name you’ve got to explain every time you open your mouth. Every. Single. Time.

Fucking good thing I’m rock solid, or I would’ve snapped years ago.

You want to know what was awesome? The end of the world. One day I’m doing delivery runs. Next day my boss tells me to take the day off. I think it’s ’cause I caught Mrs. Slattery sunbathing with her tits out again, but before I can say anything he tells me everyone’s sick and there’s no work. First bit of good luck, and it just went up from there. Fucking zombie plague spreads everywhere, and suddenly names don’t matter no more.

I’m not stupid. When things got bad I waited inside, ate up all the food in my apartment. After a couple of days I banged on Nikki’s door across the hall. Little drug-dealer skank wasn’t home—maybe she was already dead. But she had some more food and a sweet Sig pistol. Even had seven bullets for it.

Stole a car and headed for the marina. Killed three zombies on the way. Used up all my bullets, but found two dead cops and got their guns and stuff, so I was good.

I wasn’t surprised a lot of the boats were gone. Figured I wouldn’t be the first person to realize zombies couldn’t swim. Lots of dead people on the docks and walkways. Had to shoot a couple of them, but then I had my boat.

I knew a little bit about boats. Crewed one or two tourist things when I was in my twenties. It’s a lot easier when you don’t care about scraping some paint off or bumping into something. By the time I was out of the marina, I could handle it okay.

I always knew rich people liked boats, but I never really got it until then. Go anywhere. Do anything. It’s an awesome feeling, knowing you can do anything.

I found a couple others a little farther out. Most of ’em were abandoned, or filled with dead people. No problem for super-sniper kill-shot-maker Mitchel Kirby with one l. For the next couple months, I just circled around the islands again and again. Whenever I needed food or fuel or booze, I’d just find another boat.

You want to know stupid? Fucking zombie apocalypse is going on, and you know how many times I just waved somebody down and they’d come right to me? Then pow-pow, bang-bang, I got a new boat for a couple of weeks. Maybe a new lady friend, too. That happened two or three times.

Yeah, I killed some people. So what? Zombie apocalypse, anything goes, right? We all did some stuff we normally wouldn’t’ve.

Okay, honest. June 2009 to March 2010, best almost-year of my life. I did it all. Y’know that thing, the one where you know the end’s coming and you’re gonna die, so you just do all that stuff you always thought about trying but were too chickenshit to do any of ’em? The fuck-it list? I crossed a lot of stuff off my fuck-it list that year.

I think I killed about two dozen people altogether. I was keeping count for a while, but then there was this one drunken binge around Christmas and I lost track. I was sure I killed three, but there were only two bodies on the boat when I sobered up.

Watched Oahu burn somewhere in there during the binge. Was twenty or thirty miles off of Kahuku, I think, and I heard this big noise. Like thunder and a wave crashing at the same time and echoing off the mountains. Headed in and everything was on fire. The whole island.

I burned up a boat a little bit after that. Poured gasoline all over the deck, shot it with a flare gun, and moved over to my new yacht. Sat there with the old owner’s girlfriend tied to the railing and watched it burn all night. Spring bonfire.

She was named Nikki, too. Just like my old neighbor. She was really into me for a while. Wild chick. Let me do anything to her. Then she kind of snapped. Had to shoot her when she tried to kill me. She was number fourteen out of the about two dozen.

Then I had to kill her again when she got back up. Fucking zombies.

Had a teenaged boy, too. All those stories about rich businessmen flying to Hong Kong or Singapore or whatever to have sex with boys, there had to be something to it, right? But there wasn’t. Bunch of weirdo pervs, all those rich guys.

I let the kid jump overboard when I was done. Tossed him a life preserver and pointed him toward land. It was only twenty-something miles. He probably made it. I could’ve.

Tried eating human flesh. Heard lots of people talk about it. Cooked up part of a leg and had a few mouthfuls, just enough to be sure I