Ex-Purgatory, Peter Clines [top ten books of all time .txt] 📗

back into the crowd and knocked down two of the others.

Not as strong as he should be, he noticed. That throw should’ve taken out the whole crowd. He wondered if it was some sort of residual block in his mind.

Behind him, Stealth brought her boot down on the crawling ex. It slammed face-first into the floor and left a dark stain on the carpet. A second kick to the back of the head made the dead man slump. A puddle of dark liquid spread out from under its head.

St. George grabbed another ex and twisted its head around. A third one, the blond man, latched onto his arm and bit down on his elbow. The ex’s teeth left a sticky circle on his sleeve and then splintered apart. He brushed the teeth fragments out of the fleece and then drove his fist through the blond man’s face.

The front of the zombie’s head collapsed beneath his punch and his knuckles broke out the back. For a moment the dead man’s skull hung on his wrist like an oversized bracelet, the limp body dangling beneath it. St. George shook his arm until the rest of the head cracked apart and the corpse fell free. It hit the ground with a thump. He kicked it away and it crashed into the booth where the two exes struggled with the table.

Another step and he grabbed two more exes, a dead man in a suit and a slim woman with bristle-short hair. Their teeth beat out a constant click-click-click. He swung them and their skulls cracked together like billiard balls. Another swing and both of them slumped to the floor.

The last of the film types stumbled toward him and he grabbed its outstretched hands. A twist of his wrist spun the dead woman around and dislocated one of its arms. He put his hand on its back and pushed. The ex flew across the bar and crashed over a table.

Something slammed into his back. The oversized doorman. Its jaws swung open, and St. George realized it was missing most of its teeth. A collection of splinters stuck up from its lower gums. Shards of bone and enamel were white against its dark tongue.

It bit down hard on his shoulder and what was left of its teeth turned to dust. He reached up, put his hand on its forehead, and shoved it away. The needles left in its jaw tore furrows in his shirt as it staggered back. Its gnashing jaws made a sound St. George could only describe as pulpy.

He took a step after the dead man and brought his hand around. The edge of his palm tore through soft flesh and brittle bones. The zombie’s head rolled to one side even as the momentum of the blow carried it to the other. It spun off the ex’s shoulders and fell to the floor. The body crashed on top of it a moment later.

St. George flicked some of the gore off his fingers. He turned and Stealth looked at him. A trio of exes slumped on the floor at her feet. “Most impressive,” she said. “You seem confident in your abilities.”

He looked at the bodies scattered around the bar. “To be honest, I’m just acting on instinct,” he said. “There’s still a lot of stuff going on in my head.”

“I understand. I am having similar issues trying to distinguish my own history from this alternate one.” She dropped to her knee and drove a punch into the back of an ex’s neck as it tried to rise. There was a loud pop and it collapsed.

He glanced at the door, and then up. “Do you think these shifts affect all of us at the same time?”

“I do not have enough data to predict such a thing.” She walked over and took his hand. Her fingers felt good threaded between his. “You are worried about Barry?”

St. George nodded. “It would suck to be him if he was in midair on a plane and shifted back to our world.”

Her eyebrow twitched. “If such a thing happened, his own abilities would most likely activate on instinct to save his life.”

“We don’t know that, though,” said St. George. “I’m still feeling kind of weak, and most of my other powers haven’t kicked in.” To emphasize the point, he glanced down at his feet. He tried to make them rise, but they stayed on the floor of the bar. There was a trick to getting off the ground, but he couldn’t remember it. He flexed his toes, tried to imagine rockets thrusting out of his feet, pictured huge wings lifting him into the air.

He stayed on the ground.

“From what I understand,” said Stealth, “you have not needed your abilities past strength and invulnerability. I am sure I could throw you from the top of any structure of significant height and your ability to fly would reassert itself.”

“Thanks,” he said. “I love you, too.”

“I am still unsure what has caused this—”

“Smith,” said St. George. “He’s back.”

Her mouth snapped shut. “Are you certain?”

“Who’s the President right now?”

Her lips pressed even tighter together. She remembered Agent Smith, formerly of the Department of Homeland Security.

“Madelyn knew,” St. George said. “She’s never even met him, but she knew all along. She tried to tell me, but the way he’d rewired my brain made me reject the idea. I told her she was crazy.”

“It would seem you owe her an apology,” said Stealth.

“Yeah. I’m guessing he found something out at Groom Lake that let him send us into another reality or something. Then he rewired our brains so we’d never know.”

She looked at him and raised an eyebrow. “This is not another reality, George.”

“Sorry?”

“This is our world. I suspected as much for some time, but knowing Smith is involved confirms it. He altered our perceptions so we did not see reality. This is why the exes were erased from our minds, so we would not realize what was around us.”

He shook his head. “That’s not possible.”

She pointed