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

and wobbled and had trouble keeping their balance, but they were working their way back up the long ramp.

There were at least a dozen of them farther down the covered walkway. Exes as far as she could see. If it got too packed, she wouldn’t be able to knock them over again. Their own numbers would keep them standing, even on the ramp. And then they’d make it up to the Queen.

A few yards down, a thin chain dangled on the side of the gangplank. A small clip almost touched the ground. A matching chain hung on the other side. At some point it had probably held a sign warning people about wet floors or closed doorways.

The closest ex on its feet—a black man in one of the blue coveralls—was just passing the chain.

She ran down the ramp, stepped on Lowe’s back and swimsuit woman’s shoulder, and shoved the dead man as hard as she could. It outweighed her two to one, but the run gave her momentum. The big ex stumbled back, but the massed undead kept it from falling, just like she’d feared.

Madelyn grabbed the chains on either side and pulled them together. The clip slipped through one link and hung just below her waist. She stepped back and stumbled on the legs of the other dead woman, the heavy one in shorts and an oversized T-shirt.

The big ex—the name on the coverall said BERNARD—lumbered up the ramp again and the chain tightened against its thighs. It didn’t notice and kept shifting its feet. Another ex shuffled past, a dead girl a few years younger than Madelyn, and the chain caught it across the waist.

The railings trembled a bit, but they seemed to be holding for now.

She turned to the other half of her problem. The crawling exes kept moving forward. Five of them, if she counted the white-haired man near the top of the walkway.

She grabbed swimsuit woman by the ankles and shuddered. The ex’s skin was puffy and moist. All the fluids had settled low inside it, and it had been on its feet for years. It crawled forward and stumbled over its own hands when its legs didn’t move.

Madelyn heaved and dragged the dead woman back down the ramp. It left streaks on the walkway floor. She dropped its legs, grabbed Lowe by the cuffs of the blue coverall, and hauled the dead man back, too.

It wasn’t a great solution, but she figured it would let her hold the walkway until more help arrived. If she was quick, she could run and maybe do the same thing on the next gangplank.

Then, with a snap and the jingle of loose links, the chain snapped behind her.

St. George soared over the tanker. Down on the deck, a man with a shotgun put down another ex before his weapon racked empty. He pumped it two more times as St. George dove toward him, and at the last minute spun it around and slammed the butt into a zombie’s jaw. He hit it again and ignored the two other exes coming up alongside him.

St. George grabbed the man under the arms and carried him into the air. The shotgun plunged to the deck. The man screamed bloody hell until St. George dropped him onto the crane. He grabbed the railings and glared up at the hero.

“You’ll be safe up here until we get things under control,” St. George told him. He took off before the man could say anything.

He swatted three exes away from a pair of women and pointed them up onto the low catwalk running the length of the tanker.

A dead man had a woman pinned down on the deck next to one of the garden plots. She pushed and kicked until St. George grabbed the ex by the neck and hurled it across the deck. It bounced once, slammed into the far railing, and fell in a heap.

He helped the woman up and tried not to look at the bites and scrapes on her arms. “Thank you,” she cried. “Thank you. You saved me.”

He threw himself back into the air.

Most of the exes seemed to be coming out of a door beneath the ship’s bridge. The sooner he cut them off, the better. More than a hundred dead people already roamed the deck, and maybe a third of them were headed toward the gangplanks.

He landed by the door. A dozen pairs of zombie eyes turned to him. The closest was a thin, grandmotherly woman with thin gray-white hair and matching skin. It wore a gore-splattered sweatshirt with the cruise line logo. The dead grandmother reached for St. George with stubby, chewed-off fingers. A stout ex in a wifebeater and flannel shirt shuffled at him from the other direction. A gaunt thing in a stained T-shirt grabbed at him with its one good arm. The other one was pinned to its chest with what looked like a steel rod, and St. George realized the ex had been shot with a speargun. The click-click-click of their teeth seemed louder as it echoed off all the metal surfaces.

A quick flick of his wrist broke Grandma’s neck, and the ex collapsed with its jaw still gnashing up and down. His fist came around and struck the flannel shirt zombie, knocking it off its feet and a few yards down the deck. The speared ex clawed at his arm and bent its head to chew on his flesh. He swatted its skull like a mosquito, crushing it. Teeth and bone and damp meat pattered onto the deck.

He glanced over his shoulder just as an ex stumbled through the doorway. Its chest was a mass of dried blood, shredded fabric, and knotted tissue. A shotgun wound that had dried in the air—St. George had seen it before. He slammed his palm into what was left of the zombie’s breastbone and sent it flying back through the door. It struck the far inside wall and left a smear as it slipped