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

And then the cable had made this metal-scraping noise and the fence had fallen down. Ten feet away from him. If he’d been any closer the exes just would’ve had him, but he’d thrown the wrench at one and run back into the garden.

And now there were exes in Eden. They’d already drunk-walked in through some of the front plots and passed the whole firefight up front. Three staggered between him and the main building, and there were a couple more wandering through Lester’s goddamned precious peas.

Javi ran down another path between two overgrown garden plots. He remembered the safety rules. If exes couldn’t see you, they forgot you. All he had to do was find a spot to hide deep in the garden.

The assholes at the Mount may have sent him and the others up here to die, but he wasn’t going to go easy.

He turned a corner, tripped over a big plastic bucket, and went facedown in the path. Lester was always nagging people to put stuff away, and Javi blew him off most of the time, but why was everyone else so fucking lazy? They were going to get him killed.

Something rustled nearby and he froze. Dammit, the exes followed noise, too. He’d just been running and panting and tripping over goddamned fucking buckets without thinking about noise. He held his breath and listened.

There was a faint, whispery sound. Not the chattering of teeth. Almost like quick, scared breaths. It came from just ahead of him. The next row.

A little foot slid out from behind a fence of dried wood. It wore a ballet shoe. Pink with polka dots. Javi stared at it as another foot joined it. Two little feet in polka dot ballet shoes, skinny legs in white tights. The polka dots went up the tights, too, where they became long ovals and streaks.

The world slowed down. Even as his eyes went up, he knew those weren’t polka dots on the shoes. Or the tights. Or the frilly tutu that looked like it had old mud splattered on the front, like the clumps dried to its tiny fingers.

Except for a raw gouge on its shoulder, the dead girl’s skin was just a shade darker than the sun-bleached white of the leotard and tights. The ex’s mouth was a gaping hole in its face. The broken jaw hung in three or four pieces, making a ring of teeth inside the stretched-out lips. Muscles tugged the sagging jaw up and down like a gasping fish. It pushed air in and out and made the whispering noise.

The ballerina dropped to its knees and fell on him. Javi threw up an arm to protect himself, and the weight of the ex’s whole body came down on the top teeth as they struck. The broken jaw flapped against the bottom of his forearm as the dead girl tried to chew. Tiny fingers closed on his wrist and elbow.

Javi could feel its teeth scraping on his arm. Not ripping or biting, just dry edges of enamel going back and forth. Every third or fourth flap one of the bottom teeth would hit just right and jab his arm.

A scratch could do it. Just one. All they had to do was break the skin. Fever started in seven or eight hours, dead in a day or two. Desi’d tried to tell him once there was more to it than that, but he understood the basics.

He started to yank his arm away, and his flesh went tight against the little ballerina’s teeth. His heart pounded as he brought his fist around. It cracked into the little girl’s ear and knocked the tiara loose. Another punch twisted the ex’s head back, away from his arm, and he wrenched it away. The little fingers slipped off him, and he scrambled back.

The dead girl crawled after him.

Javi drove his foot into the ex’s face. Its button nose and front teeth crunched under his heel. He kicked again, and little teeth pattered onto the wood-chip path.

The tiny fingers grabbed at his shoe and tried to draw it into the ruined mouth. He pulled away and scampered a few yards back down the path. Once he had distance, he hopped back to his feet.

The ballerina dragged itself after him. Its face was a blackened mess of gore and teeth now. The ruin of its mouth twitched up and down. It stumbled on its knees once, twice, and it was back up on its feet and reaching for him.

He turned and ran. It took him a moment to realize he was heading back the way he’d come, back toward the gate. Toward the sound of clicking teeth.

An ex stepped out in front of him. Its stubbly hair and beard were extra-white against its gray skin. One of its arms was nothing but gore, fingers to shoulder, but the rest of it was clean. The ex displayed a collection of yellow teeth that gnashed at the air.

Javi skidded to a stop and changed direction again. He crashed through a trellis covered with layers of bean vines and ran deeper into the garden. He was pretty sure he was heading for the north fence now, the one by the freeway. There were the tall trees, and the…

He stumbled to a stop, his heart thudding inside his rib cage. His left arm had swung into view, and it just hit him what he’d seen. He held it up in the moonlight. “No,” he muttered.

Muck from the dead girl’s mouth was smeared on the arm. Between the dark streaks Javi could see a jagged scrape an inch long. Just deep enough for a few bright red spots of blood to swell out and mix with the dark filth on his skin.

“No, no, fucking NO!!”

Danielle took a few quick, stumbling steps to the right and put a worktable between herself and the ex. The dead man turned as she did, shuffling to intercept. Its feet dragged on the carpet. It filled the