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

Her left pistol came up and shot Madelyn three times in the chest. The dead girl’s eyes went wide. So did Max’s.

“What the hell?!” shouted St. George.

Max let go of Madelyn and staggered back. Blood stained the front of his shirt. He tried to speak and coughed up a few dark red drops.

“She was already dead,” said Stealth.

Madelyn wheezed twice and reached up to touch her chest. “Okay,” she squeaked, “that felt really weird.” Air whistled out of the holes in her shirt when she spoke. She poked a finger at one of them.

Stealth stepped past the dead girl and swept Max’s wobbly legs out from under him. He hit the pavement and coughed up more blood. She reached down, pushed his arms out of the way, and pistol-whipped him across the jaw. One of his teeth skittered across the pavement and he slumped.

The cords holding St. George turned to liquid. He hit the ground as they splashed on the street. He shook his wrists and took a few awkward steps. “You okay?”

Madelyn looked up from her bloodless wounds. “Yeah,” she beamed. “Try telling me this isn’t a superpower.”

He looked at the cloaked woman. “Kind of risky.”

“Not at all,” said Stealth. “His abilities are most likely some form of psychic projection. It stood to reason their effects would cease if he lost consciousness.”

“Yeah,” said St. George. “About that …”

The clicking of teeth rose up over the sound of Zzzap’s superheated energy bolts. Hundreds of exes shuffled across the line of Max’s barriers. Their jaws snapped open and shut as they headed toward the heroes.

CAPTAIN FREEDOM SAT up and felt something flare in his side. A broken rib, maybe two. Fractured at the very least. He’d had enough of them over his career to know the feeling.

The sky flared with blue lightning and he heard the clicking of teeth beneath the rumble of thunder. Whatever had been keeping the exes off this city block had vanished, and now they were shambling toward him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw some of them stumble toward the demon. Cairax was swatting Zzzap and didn’t seem to notice.

Freedom risked a glance behind him past the glassy crater. Stealth and Madelyn had St. George free. The sorcerer was down. They were about ninety seconds from being overrun with exes themselves.

Lady Liberty had maybe five or six rounds left in her, plus one drum on his belt. He didn’t want to waste the ammunition on the undead, but he also wasn’t sure how much longer he’d need to hold off the demon.

The first of the exes closed in on him. It was a noseless man in a gore-splattered lab coat, a former doctor or scientist. Then Freedom saw the grocery store name tag and realized the dead man had been a butcher. The ex reached for him and he grabbed both its wrists in one hand. It bent its jaws to his knuckles and he cracked its forehead with one punch. He swung the withered body around and hurled it at Cairax Murrain.

The demon was still looking in his direction, even while fighting Zzzap. The knife-like talons lashed out and caught the corpse in midair, slicing it in half.

Freedom looked at the approaching wave of undead. The cracked ribs flared as he turned. His legs flexed and he hurled himself away from the crater.

As he landed a dozen exes reached the edge where he’d been. They tumbled in. The first few hit the glassy floor with the loud cracks of breaking jaws and noses. The dead made no attempt to break their fall. Some of them crawled away before the second wave fell on top of them, but not many. In a minute the pit had become a mass of undead limbs and chattering teeth.

Three other exes reached Freedom. He lashed out with his massive fists, breaking teeth and skulls and glad for his Kevlar gloves. The zombies dropped around him, but there was a small pack of six or seven headed his way. Two of them wore bloodstained police vests, even though only one was wearing a uniform.

There was another hiss of superheated air from off to his left. Cairax Murrain was saying something to Zzzap, but Freedom couldn’t understand it over the sounds of shuffling feet, clicking teeth, and sizzling pavement. He glanced right and saw St. George scoop up the sorcerer’s body.

Freedom pulled out Lady Liberty and fired off two bursts at the pack of exes, emptying the drum. He aimed low. The shells blew out knees and shattered shins. Four of the zombies collapsed, and two more fell on top of them. It gave him a few moments, but there were still more coming.

Stealth caught his eye as he reloaded. It was hard to be sure with her mask and cloak, especially in the dark, but the woman seemed to be staring at him. She made a series of quick gestures and Freedom realized she was using Army Field Manual hand signals. And at least two unique to the Unbreakables.

She repeated her instructions. He signaled his understanding.

St. George leaped into the air. He set Max down on the roof of Trader Joe’s. The sorcerer was safe from exes, but he’d die if they didn’t get him to a hospital soon.

“You can’t beat it,” wheezed Max. A few drops of blood came up with the words. He looked pale. “You don’t have the tools.”

“I guess we’ll see.”

Max shook his head. It was a loose gesture without much control behind it. “No chance,” he muttered. “Why bother?”

“Because if we didn’t try,” St. George said, “we’d be no better than you.”

He floated down to the ground. Madelyn and Stealth held their own against the swarm of exes. The dead girl tripped and shoved the exes as they got close. The cloaked woman had her batons out and battered skulls and jaws.

St. George ripped a parking meter out of the sidewalk. He