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

suit, and had spent hundreds of hours in a simulator for it. Danielle had even let him wear it half a dozen times.

What was left of him was spread across the workshop floor. He’d been pulled in half, by the look of it. His legs and hips were missing, along with his hands, left forearm, and face. If it wasn’t for the nametag on his Air Force coat, he would’ve been a piece of meat.

The Cerberus Battle Armor System was in pieces. The first thought in St. George’s mind was old Universal horror movies, when the villagers inevitably stormed the lab and destroyed whatever they found there. At least a third of the battlesuit was missing. The sections scattered across the floor had been battered and gouged. Wiring had been pulled out in clumps. The gauntlets looked like they’d been attacked with a pair of crowbars.

The helmet sat on the table like a decapitated head. The lenses of both eyes had been smashed. The speakers had been ripped out. There was a dent in the forehead that might’ve come from a sledgehammer. Broken glass from the interior screens surrounded the metal skull. Half a dozen connectors hung limp, their ends cracked or smashed or missing altogether.

Danielle gritted her teeth. She raised her fist away from her body and then slammed it into her arm again and again.

They put down seven more exes on the way to Roddenberry. St. George knew almost all of their faces. One was too mauled to be sure. The two in the lobby weren’t familiar, although Stealth took down a third behind the reception desk before he could get a good look at it. The main stairwell was clear, but there was one more outside Stealth’s fourth-floor office. It had been Rocky, the man who made chain-mail armor for the scavengers. St. George turned the dead man’s head all the way around. The teeth kept chattering, so he carried the body to a window and let it drop four stories to the ground.

When he got back to the office, Stealth had pulled open the blinds to let in what light she could. Her office had been the floor’s main conference room once, back when the Mount was in the movie business. She’d turned it into a war room of video screens and covered the marble table with maps.

Most of the screens had been smashed. Her many maps of the city, state, and the rest of the country had been torn apart. From the ashes on the table and the soot on the ceiling, it looked like some of them had been burned.

St. George saw a piece of black fabric on the edge of the ashes and realized they’d burned more than her maps.

Danielle’s shoulders dropped at least an inch in the enclosed office. Freedom found an office chair with arms and set Barry down in it. Madelyn slipped off his broad shoulders and sat on the edge of the table.

Barry looked at the broken screens and ashes. He traded a look with St. George. “Man,” he said. “They must’ve really hated us.”

“They were scared,” said St. George. “They needed a target to take it out on. One they could beat. We weren’t here, so we were the easy ones.”

“Keep telling yourself that,” said Danielle. “Nick always had these people pegged. They were glad for us when we were here, but they never liked us.”

“We should secure the perimeter,” said Freedom. “Make sure this floor’s clear and sealed off.”

“The elevators are inoperative without power, but there is one other stairwell to secure.” Stealth looked at St. George. “Check the other offices and supply closets on this floor. Dispose of any other exes which may have ended up here.”

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a flashlight?”

Stealth paused for a moment and glanced at the others. “In my quarters,” she said. “In the second closet.”

St. George nodded and headed for the door at the far end of the conference room. It was camouflaged to blend in with the wall. He pulled it open and walked through to her spartan apartment. He did a quick check in the small bathroom and both closets. He was pretty sure they’d been cleaned out. Stealth had so few personal things, it was hard to be sure.

He found a trio of big Maglites, and also two smaller ones and an electric lantern. He clicked the button on each Mag to make sure the batteries still worked. The lantern lit up the room.

He went back to the office and handed out the lights. Stealth hung the lantern from a piece of heavy wire she pulled from above the ceiling tiles. Freedom was out blocking the stairwell door with a desk.

St. George headed down the hall. Most of the doors were unlocked, and the rooms bare. Stealth had cleaned the offices out herself back when she’d claimed the floor as her personal lair.

Four rooms away he heard a muffled click-click-click through the door. He opened the small office and saw an ex stumbling against the window. The door swung open and tapped the far wall. The corpse turned at the noise. It had been a little girl. He recognized the face, but couldn’t think of a name to go with it. The dead thing’s left shoulder was a mess of gore and blood.

The ex staggered across the empty room. Its arms reached up for him and pale fingers clawed at the air. Its little teeth tapped against each other again and again.

He let it grab his hand and it gnawed on his fingers. Some of the little teeth broke on his skin, and their shards sprinkled on the carpet like snow. He sighed, then reached down to grab it by the back of the neck. He squeezed and felt the bones splinter and crumble under the skin.

The jaws kept working on his fingers like an eager kitten. Then the weight of the limp body pulled the teeth off him and it slumped to the floor.