Ex-Communication, Peter Clines [ebook reader online free txt] 📗

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2013 by Peter Clines

Excerpt from The Fold copyright © 2015 by Peter Clines

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Broadway Books, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

www.crownpublishing.com

Broadway Books and the Broadway Books colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

This book contains an excerpt from The Fold by Peter Clines. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition from the Crown Publishing Group.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clines, Peter, 1969–

  Ex-communication : a novel / Peter Clines.—First edition

    pages   cm

1. Zombies—Fiction. 2. Superheroes—Fiction. 3. Los Angeles (Calif.)

Fiction. I. Title.

PS3603.L563E93 2013

813′.6—dc23

2013007786

eISBN: 978-0-385-34683-2

Cover illustration: Jonathan Bartlett

Cover design: Christopher Brand

v3.1_r2

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue: Now

Location , Location , Location: Then

Two: Now

Three: Now

Four: Now

Like That George Romero Movie: Then

Six: Now

Seven: Now

Eight: Now

Do You See What I See?: Then

Ten: Now

Eleven: Now

The Writing on the Wall: Then

Thirteen: Now

Fourteen: Now

Fifteen: Now

Sixteen: Now

Seventeen: Now

Eighteen: Now

Nineteen: Now

Twenty: Now

Twenty-one: Now

Twenty-two: Now

Twenty-three: Now

Twenty-four: Now

Twenty-five: Now

Twenty-six: Now

Twenty-seven: Now

Twenty-eight: Now

Denial, Grief, Bargaining: Then

Thirty: Now

Thirty-one: Now

Thirty-two: Now

Thirty-three: Now

Thirty-four: Now

Thirty-five: Now

First Impressions: Then

Epilogue: Now

Acknowledgments

About the Author

An Excerpt from The Fold

“THIS IS THE northwest corner,” shouted a man on the radio. A gunshot blasted over the open channel. “Twenty … something. We’re under attack! Two maybe three hundred of them. We need help!” The call was punctuated by another shot.

Captain John Carter Freedom of the 456th Unbreakables, considered temporarily on leave from his post at Project Krypton, was only a few blocks from the northwest corner of the Big Wall. He heard two more sharp pops echo between the buildings. Rifles, but unfamiliar to his ears. Civilian weapons. That lined up with the voice’s confusion at radio protocol. Freedom was pretty sure it had been the wall guard who went by the name Makana.

He looked down at the kids in front of him. Two boys and a girl, barely into their teens. All three of them sat on the curb with their hands zip-tied together behind their backs. They’d been trying to steal a car for a quick joyride when he found them. They’d been cowed by his appearance and surrendered without a fuss.

Most people were cowed by Freedom’s appearance. He was a bald giant of a man, almost seven feet tall and over three hundred pounds of solid muscle. A leather duster hung open across his broad chest, and a silver sheriff’s star sat on one lapel. Underneath the duster he wore a tan T-shirt and pants checkered with digital camouflage. Strapped to his thigh was a holster the size of a loaf of bread. He rarely had to draw the pistol it held.

A third and fourth shot rang in the air. The kids’ heads swiveled back and forth from Freedom’s face to the direction of the sound. One of the boys had gone wide-eyed with terror. They knew what the shots meant. They were aware of how vulnerable they were, tied up on the ground.

“You’ll be fine,” Freedom told them. “There’s a deputy on the way to take charge of you.”

Three more gunshots. And between the rounds he could hear a growing noise. The click-click-click that made life near the Big Wall so rough for some. The sound of teeth.

The girl opened her mouth to say something, but it vanished under the snap of his leather duster as he spun and bolted for the northeast corner. The captain had been quick for his size before joining the Army’s super-soldier project. Now he could run a three-minute mile without breaking a sweat, do five of them before he even started to feel winded.

The gunfire was near constant by the time he reached the northeast corner. It made Los Angeles sound like Iraq. He could see the half-dozen guards on top of the wall. Four of them were shooting down into the area beyond the barrier. The other two were pushing back the figures climbing onto the upper deck.

Freedom never broke stride. His legs flexed and hurled him twenty feet into the air. His duster flapped around him, and he steeled himself for combat.

The top of the Big Wall was a continuous platform made from old pallets and plywood. A double line of rope served as a railing. It was a temporary fix until a more permanent bastion could be built. Freedom hit the wood surface just south of the large square that was the northwest corner and took in the situation as he straightened up.

This corner of the Big Wall sat at the intersection of Sunset and Vine in downtown Hollywood, right at the center of the road. A Borders bookstore and a vandalized Chase bank stood just outside the barrier.

Almost a thousand exes stood outside the wall, too. Thirty months since the world ended and people still called them exes rather than zombies. “Ex-humans” was just easier to deal with somehow. Even the military had used the term.

Back when there had been a functioning military, the captain reminded himself.

The former citizens of Los Angeles crowded the intersection beyond the wall, filling the air with the endless sound of chattering teeth. Even when there was nothing in their mouths, their jaws gnashed open and closed like machines. Some of those mouths were lined with gray teeth. Others held a mess of jagged stumps that splintered even more as they banged together. Most of them were coated with blood and gore. Their flesh was the color of old chalk, spotted with dark bruises where blood had pooled inside the skin. Most of their eyes were dusty and dull, but more than a few had empty sockets gaping in their faces. Many of the exes had deep cuts or punctures that would never heal but also