Ex-Heroes, Peter Clines [reading like a writer txt] 📗

“All the more reason to be careful,” said St. George. He glanced at his watch. “I’d love to finish this block today.”

“We can do it,” said Lee. The three men tossed out waves and salutes and marched back to the duplex.

The hero kicked off the lift gate and flew back up to the roof.

“Last apartment on this floor,” said Lady Bee. She set her swollen shopping bag down and banged on the door.

Lynne clutched her rifle. “So, that was them killing an ex?”

Mark nodded. “You find them stuck in bedrooms, bathrooms, stuff like that,” he said. “They don’t know how to work a doorknob, so they just get stuck in places. I’ve seen a lot in closets. Some people just crawled in there to hide and croaked.”

“They don’t feel anything,” Bee said. “No brain activity, no feelings, no nothing. They’re just walking corpses. Clear,” she said to Mark.

He gave the door three hard kicks and the dead bolt ripped out of the frame. He stared into the dim apartment for three Mississippis and then moved in. It was packed with dusty IKEA furniture and pillows. “Avon calling,” he yelled out.

“That stopped being funny before I was born,” said Bee, adding a gentle kick to his ass as she slid past to the kitchen.

“That will never stop being funny,” he assured her. “Lynne, watch her back. I’ve got the door.”

They banged on the small closet and discovered a plastic garbage can filled with ooze and mold. “Kitchen’s clear,” said Bee. She looked at Lynne. “Bedrooms and bathroom next.”

They tapped on doors. The bedroom was just as filled as the living room. The bathroom was barren, with faded black towels. A dark shower curtain fluttered near the open window and a swinging cord tapped out Morse code on the sill. “I think I remember this bathroom from a catalog,” said Lynne.

Bee gave her a wink. “Now’s your big chance to own it.”

“Yeah, no thanks,” Lynne said. She turned back to the medicine cabinet and an ex fell through the shower curtain.

It was a naked, swollen woman, Mexican or Indian, with folds of gray fat hanging off it. The dead thing stumbled over the edge of the tub, knocking Lynne down with its sheer mass and bouncing off the sink to fall on top of her. She screamed and got her arms up in time to block its neck and keep its mouth away from her. The teeth clacked together again and again, showering Lynne with flecks of ivory as its hair swept her face. The meaty hands reached down to paw her.

“Fucker!” Bee turned back. “Mark!!”

“Get it off me!! Help!!”

They’d fallen halfway through the door, and the ex’s bulk blocked the entrance. Mark lunged in, leaping over the writhing corpse to the bathroom counter and down behind it. He wrapped his thick arm around the ex’s neck and heaved. The ex lifted another few inches and Lynne thrashed and flailed and kicked her way out from under it into the hall.

“Bee!”

“Hold it still!”

The ex’s neck popped as it twisted its head back. The jaws opened wide and it sank its teeth into Mark’s forearm, gnawing at the heavy sleeve. The fabric darkened around its brittle lips. He howled and let it fall.

Lady Bee slammed her pistol into the back of its skull. She fired three rounds and it flopped on the carpet.

Mark fell over the corpse, clutching at his bloody arm. “I feel sick.”

ST. GEORGE LOOKED up from Vermont at the sound of shots. Ilya did the same from the back of the truck. Cerberus echoed on his earpiece, “Who fired?”

There was a long pause.

“Who fired?”

Lee, Andy, and Jarvis wheeled a cart full of supplies across the street. They stopped and looked around.

Above them a window smashed open. “Here!” Lynne shouted, waving an arm.

St. George threw himself into the air.

The last shards of glass fell from the window as he soared through. “What happened?”

Lynne had pulled some hydrogen peroxide from her bag and emptied the brown bottle over his arm. “It was on her,” Mark said through gritted teeth. “Broke its own neck to bite me.”

“Stay calm,” said Lady Bee. She slapped the side of his head. “If you work yourself up it’ll spread faster.”

Lynne tore the wet sleeve away from the bite. The shirt had taken a lot of it, but there were still bloody trenches gouged out of his forearm. The flesh was getting pale.

Mark saw the fading skin. “Oh shit,” he muttered. “Shit shit sh—”

Lady Bee glanced at the hero. “We’ve got to do it.”

St. George was already leaning out the remains of the window. “BARRY!”

In the back of the truck, Barry’s eyes snapped open, then clenched shut. He reached down into himself, found the trigger fused into his DNA, and flipped it.

Everything went white.

The blankets beneath him burst into flame as his clothing incinerated.

Arcs of raw power spat and twisted out to every metal surface. Ilya felt his skin burn and blister and threw himself off the lift gate. He blocked his eyes as Big Red’s paint seared off down to the metal and the wooden planks lining the truck bed scorched black. Two of the solar panels flared and burst.

A second sun shot into the air.

The wall crumbled to ash as the blazing wraith passed through it. The shadows fled the room. “Bite,” said St. George. “Left arm.”

Zzzap nodded. Understood. Do you have him?

Lynne’s eyes were wide and wet. “What are you doing?”

St. George grabbed Mark by the shoulders and pushed him flat on the floor. Lady Bee grabbed his wrist and stretched the arm out straight.

“What are you doing?!” Lynne tried to pull St. George away. He shoved her back against the wall with one hand.

Sorry, man, buzzed Zzzap. This is going to hurt like hell.

Mark gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and nodded.

The gleaming outline dropped its hand. The fingers swung down and passed through the man’s biceps. There was a hiss,