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

shoving the Asian girl over. The ex spun, twisted, and was back on its feet reaching for Ty. His pike slammed up and the creature bit down on the shaft while it lashed out at him. He thought of horror movies and the twisted things that moved too fast.

“What the fuck is this?”

Ty gave a hard shove and knocked the ex back a few feet. It caught its balance again. He held out the pike to trip it as it stalked toward him. The wooden shaft slipped between the dead woman’s knees and he gave the weapon a yank to the left.

The ex stumbled, caught its balance, and took another step toward him.

He took a few quick paces back and reached forward again to trip it, batting the woman’s foot away as it took a step. The ex swayed for an instant before it swung the foot back and lunged again.

“Shit,” muttered Ty. He heard his spotters shift their weapons, knew their rifles were coming up, and felt his heart thudding. “No firing,” he told them. “I’ve got it.”

The pike lined up with her slack mouth and he lunged forward, ready to break through teeth and palate. His hands slid up the immobile wooden shaft and caught three splinters. Cerberus’s gauntlet was clamped on the rear of the pike. “Don’t.”

“Why not?”

She stepped forward and settled one hand on the ex’s shoulder. It was enormous against the dead girl. “Because Gorgon would kill you if he found out.”

The creature’s fingers clawed at the steel digits as it tried to gnaw through the armor.

“Why would he …” Ty closed his eyes and sighed. “Shit, that’s her, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty damned nimble for a zombie,” said Andy.

“You should’ve seen her when she was alive. It was like watching a superball bouncing in a closet.” Cerberus shook her head. The ex flailed in her grasp like a scarecrow in the wind. “Last I heard she was wandering around Griffith Park somewhere. It sucks she made it back down here.”

Andy shrugged. “So what do we do with it? I mean, if we can’t kill it, are you just going to stand here until the truck’s done?”

“Got an idea. Something I heard someone say once.”

The battlesuit reached out and her hand wrapped around the ex’s head like a spider. Just for a second she considered crushing the skull. She could still see one of its eyes staring out between the huge digits, and its teeth scraped on a metal fingertip. Then she picked the dead thing up and turned it around, pointing its eyes back up the street. “Keep quiet for a minute or so.”

The ex thrashed a few times against the grip, becoming more and more lethargic each time. Its arms settled down and were limp at its sides.

“Out of sight, out of mind,” whispered the titan. Her fingers opened with the faint hum of electronic motors and the Asian woman stumbled forward. Everyone stayed silent until it was halfway up the block, except for the crunch of Billie impaling another ex with her pike.

“So Mark got Trebek and you got Angelina Jolie.” Jarvis spit on the pavement. “Now my only hope for a great one is Jessica Alba.”

Cerberus shook her head. “That one’s down. Cairax killed her. St. George told me the story.”

“The demon guy? I thought he was an ex now.”

“He is, but he wasn’t then. She’s the one who bit him. Killing her’s one of the last things anyone saw him do.”

“How’d she bite him, anyway? I thought he was all scaly or something. Lizardy.”

“He’s fireproof. And tough enough to shrug off Tasers and shotguns.”

“So how’d she bite him?”

Cerberus pivoted her head, locking him in her sights. “He’s not all scaly.”

“What’s that supposed to—No!”

“Yeah.”

“You mean they … he … when she was dead?”

“I never met the guy, but Zzzap and St. George both say he was kind of messed up in the head, way past the whole magic-sorcerer thing. Multiple personalities or something. Didn’t always make the best decisions.”

“Fuck no, he—”

Her hand shot up, silencing him. Luke looked up from the side of the cab and stopped the two mechanics with their sockets. A moment passed as the steel skull panned to the south. “Can you hear that?”

Luke cupped his ears.

“Something big,” said Cerberus. “Heading this way.”

Jarvis shook his head and then froze. “Wait a sec.”

They could all hear the engines now, and the low cries running alongside them. In the odd acoustics of the dead city, the sounds echoed and growled. Luke stood next to Cerberus, his ears still cupped. The mechanics were spinning the lugs on for the last set of tires. Ty, Billie, and the rest threw the pikes in the truck beds and swung their rifles into their arms.

Inside the battlesuit, she watched long-range sensors begin to light up. Her arms itched with the lack of cannons. “This is Cerberus,” she barked into her microphone. “We have incoming hostiles, request immediate reinforcements. Zzzap, Gorgon, Dragon.” She looked at the mechanics. “Are we going to be done in time?”

“Just need another minute.”

“Everyone mount up! Zzzap!” she shouted into the microphone. “Damn it, Barry, I know you can hear me!”

Luke pulled himself up into the cab and Big Red rumbled to life. “We got another jammer?”

“No.”

“Is he supposed to be flesh?”

“No, of course not.” She thudded back to the lift gate. Mean Green’s engine gunned as the mechanics threw their tools in the back. “You done?”

“It’ll get us home.”

Down Melrose the trucks swung around the corner. There were two oversized pickups and a garbage truck with steel bars across the wide windshield. Something large and purple was stretched across the massive grille. Seventeens swarmed and howled on each vehicle.

“Raise the gate,” Cerberus said.

Billie’s hand froze on the switch as Jarvis swung himself over the side of the truck. “How will you—”

“No time. Raise it and get out of here.”

“You heard her,” bellowed Harry, Mean Green’s overweight driver. “She’ll hold ’em off. That’s what she does, right?”

The Seventeen vehicles roared closer. The thing chained to the front