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

the plane’s tail. The suit identified dozens of targets. The cannons roared again and another handful of exes vanished in dark red clouds.

Another scream came from behind us and I switched views inside the helmet. There were two or three exes crawling on the ground. The engines drowned out their chattering teeth. Their legs and spines had been crushed when the Hercules rolled over them during its landing, but that didn’t stop exes. One of them had Tran by the leg, gnawing through his camos and drawing blood. He beat its head in with his rifle stock and then fell over, clutching his calf and screaming. Netzley and Sibal stalked the other crawlers, and their skulls shattered with loud, harsh claps of gunfire.

“Dose him,” shouted Wallen with a gesture at the wounded Marine. Carter ran forward and stabbed hypos into Tran one after another. There was a common rumor massive doses of antibiotics could save you from the ex-virus. It wasn’t true. Officials have tried to stomp it out to conserve supplies.

The ramp hissed closed and I targeted another four exes. Their heads popped into red mist. O’Neill was next to me, and the empty brass smacked against his shoulder and scorched his uniform.

I glared down at Wallen. “This was the better landing zone?”

He scowled back at me. “Yeah,” he barked. “What’s that tell you?” His rifle banged and a dead Mexican man flew back, arms flailing.

“We’ve got radio,” shouted Wallen. “Survivors are in the main building.” He pointed across the tarmac, and a distant figure on a rooftop hopped and waved its arms.

As I turned my head, the targeting software haloed several dozen exes between the runway and the building. “Watch your step,” I bellowed over the speaker. “Let me take point.” I pushed past them and grabbed the closest dead thing, crushing its skull in my fist. Not efficient, but it was the kind of morale boost they needed.

I marched forward with the Marines flanking me. It took a month of fighting before officers realized the standard fire team didn’t serve much use against the exes. There were no grenade launchers or M240s here. Just your basic M-16 for everyone, bayonets mounted, all set on single shot—no bursts allowed.

The walking dead continued to flail at us as we marched across the airfield. A quarter mile to the south the armor magnified the remains of a chain-link fence. It had been bent and twisted and pressed flat to the ground for a length of twenty yards, and dozens of exes were staggering through the opening every moment. No additional barriers or watchtowers. The people hiding here had trusted a chain-link fence with some barbed wire to protect them from hundreds, maybe thousands of massed undead.

“The perimeter’s compromised,” I told Wallen.

He gave a sharp nod. “We can’t stay here.”

My cannons lined up and fired a few dozen rounds at the distant fence. I watched a line of headless exes drop. The next wave tripped over their bodies, and so did the next. It wasn’t much, but it was a space. “Suggestions?”

“The main resistance is in Hollywood,” he said as we continued toward the terminal. “It’s eleven miles east-southeast of here. We hole up with these folks for a minute, get some transport together, and then get moving.”

Wallen’s Marines cleared a path for us. By the time we’d reached the building they’d put down almost a hundred exes. We made it into the private terminal and I swore inside the armor. Not one defensive structure set up. These people hadn’t prepared for anything. I wondered how long they’d been here, or planned to be here? Once that fence went down they were exposed and defenseless.

We could hear screams up ahead. And under the screams, hundreds of teeth clicking.

There were over thirty bodies in the hall. Only a handful had been exes. A few dead things were gnawing on limbs and clawing their way into torsos. The Marines made short work of them. One of the younger ones, Mao, threw up.

We passed a handful of offices before we entered the main section of the terminal. It was like the lobby of an office building. Maybe fifty people were scattered across the room as they tried to hold off twice as many exes. They were fighting with fire axes, shovels, and two-by-fours. Barely any firepower among them.

One fat idiot had a shotgun and kept blasting exes in the stomach. He didn’t seem to notice when he took down one of his own people with his wild aim. “Fucking hell,” he hollered, “the goddamned Army finally showed up!” He grinned, threw a loose salute at the Marines, and a teenage girl with a bloody, ragged torso wrapped her arms around him and took a chunk out of his neck. The fat man turned to throw her off and an old Chinese ex grabbed his arm and sank its teeth into his biceps. His shotgun went off one last time and he went down screaming.

Another dozen people had died just since we walked into the room. I stomped forward and began crushing skulls. Wallen was right behind me, driving his bayonet through eye sockets. The Marines were damned good. In five minutes every ex in the room was dead. Seven civilians had died, and one more Marine.

“Who’s in charge here?” shouted Wallen.

A bulky man with a hunting rifle stepped forward. “That’d be me. Mark Larsen.”

“How many people do you have here, Mr. Larsen?”

He looked at the bodies. “I think we’re down to about thirty of us down here. I’ve got fourteen families upstairs.”

“Any transport?”

“A couple trucks, including a diesel fueler. We’ve been waiting for someone to tell us where to go.”

“Good man,” said Wallen, clenching his fist. “Have someone get them warmed up and get your people. We’re moving out as soon as possible.” He looked at the crowd of Marines. “Alpha team, you’re with the trucks. Beta, keep the families safe.”

“Wall,” shouted someone. “Another wave of exes coming from the south. Lots of them.”

“How