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

yellow clotted in the corners of his eyes. St. George could see it on the older man’s mouth, too, even through the oxygen mask. The inside of the mask was flecked with blood.

St. George took in a breath. “How you doing, Jarvis?”

His eyes fluttered open and he lifted his thumb. “Peachy-keen, boss,” he coughed. It was a wet sound that rattled in his chest and throat. “Thought the end of the world couldn’t get any better. Then y’all went and got me this comfy bed. And a cute nurse.”

“Is there anything I can get for you? Something from your place?”

His head shifted side to side on the pillow.

St. George looked down at the man in the bed. “I’m sorry.”

“Weren’t your fault, boss. Don’t worry about it.”

“I should’ve been there.”

“You were there,” he wheezed. “Just too much going on. It happens.” He reached out and grabbed the hero’s hand.

“It shouldn’t.”

“It does,” said the older man. “Life’s a bitch and then you die.”

The hero took in another breath. “Look,” he said, “Dr. Connolly … she’s done all she can.”

Jarvis closed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said. He let out a long, rasping cough that left more spots on the inside of his oxygen mask. “I figured as much. Seen too many bites to think mine’d be special. How long I got?”

St. George gave the man’s hand a gentle squeeze. He stuck his free hand in his pocket. A streamer of smoke curled up out of his nose.

Jarvis let out a tired sigh. “Yeah,” he said. “I figured.”

A moment passed. The machines linked to Jarvis beeped and blinked in a way St. George thought was too cheerful.

“I’ve got something to ask you,” he said. “A favor.”

Jarvis smiled and coughed again. “Not much I can do right now, boss.”

“I know. It’s what you can do after.”

The salt-and-pepper man’s face lost its smile. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

St. George drummed his fingers against his thigh. “We need a body,” he said. “A fresh one.”

Jarvis waved his hand at his leg. “This one’s not too fresh,” he said. “And it’s going to be walking around soon.”

“I know. That’s part of what we need.”

Jarvis coughed and his eyes lost focus for a moment above the oxygen mask. “We said no one comes back,” he wheezed.

“I know,” said St. George. “That’s why we’re talking about it. If you say no, we’ll make sure you don’t walk.”

“Why do you need me? Need my body?”

The hero tried to think how to explain it. “If we can use your body,” he said, “we might be able to save someone.”

“Someone,” Jarvis said, “but not me.”

St. George opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Another line of smoke spiraled out of his nostrils. “Yeah,” he said. “Not you.”

The older man had another coughing fit. This one coated the inside of the oxygen mask with red and a few black lumps. He grabbed at the rails of the hospital bed to hold himself steady and the machines scolded him with a chorus of beeps. St. George pulled a few tissues from a box near the bed and wiped out the inside of the mask. He tried not to look at the stuff on the tissues as he settled the mask back in place.

Jarvis took a few slow breaths. His watery eyes found St. George. “Do you think exes remember stuff?”

“Stealth’s pretty sure they—”

“Don’t care what she thinks, boss. Want to know what you think. You believe all these nuts, that there’s still people inside the exes?”

St. George thought about the talking stereo back on Stage Four.

“No,” he said. “I think people move on. I don’t know where they go, if they go anywhere, but they’re not in there.” He squeezed Jarvis’s hand again. “They’re gone.”

For a moment neither of them spoke.

“Before all this,” the salt-and-pepper man said, “I had a cat. Really old thing. Had her forever. Pretty much my only friend. She got sick about a year before all the zombie stuff went down. Stopped eating, started starving. I couldn’t even afford to put her to sleep. Had to watch her twist up and spasm and die in my lap.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah,” said Jarvis, “it was. I cried like a girl for about three hours straight afterward. But in a way, I was kind of glad. I didn’t have to make the decision to put her to sleep. I knew I was too scared to make it. What if she was going to get better? What if I was betraying her somehow? I wasn’t brave enough for that call.”

“You’re brave when you need to be.”

“No,” said Jarvis. “I’m really not.”

“Could’ve fooled me.”

“Do it,” he said. He bit back a cough. “If it can save someone else, y’all can do what you need to with my body. I give permission or whatever.”

“You sure?”

“Boss, if you say it’s the right thing, I trust you.”

“St. George,” echoed a voice in his earbud. “Legion’s at the South Wall, maybe two blocks from the southeast corner. About three hundred exes. With ladders.”

He sighed. “Copy that,” he said into his mic. He looked at Jarvis. “I have to go. Trouble.”

Jarvis squeezed his hand. “It’s been an honor, St. George,” the older man said. “Thanks for everything.”

“I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll get back before …”

“Just walk away, boss. Y’all can let me fake being brave one more time.”

“Bye, Jarvis.”

“Bye, boss. Go save the day.”

The South Wall reminded St. George of medieval war movies. Trios and quartets of exes ran forward with aluminum ladders, slammed the bases down, and one of the dead people was halfway up before the tops of the ladders hit the Big Wall. Some of the exes even had baseball bats and clubs to go with their helmets. The guards at the top tried to shove the ladders back, or fired point-blank shots into the dead faces as they topped the wall.

Legion was getting good at controlling multiple exes.

Captain Freedom was already on the top platforms of the Big Wall. One shove from his boot sent a