Ex-Heroes

Twenty-Six NOW

Thousands of the dead swarmed the Lemon Grove gate. Gray hands tore at the bars and beat at the walls.

Billie and the others dropped exes from the trailer roof. Her M-16 barked and another shot blew the head off a dead man in orange coveralls. She looked down at the mass of figures against the wall. “Where is he?”

“They got him,” wailed another man. “They got him.”

“He’s the fucking Dragon,” she bellowed. “They didn’t get him.”

In the middle of the road, Cairax rose above the sea of exes and roared. The demon waded toward the gate. Its long fingers stretched and flexed.

Ilya tried to line up on a target and one of the other guards, Perry, leaped onto the trailer, shaking his scope. The man sprayed most of a magazine down at the exes before he even came to rest. He stumbled and pitched off the trailer onto the curved prongs topping the fence.

They pierced up through Perry’s armpit and pinned him. He hung, howling, with a foot of steel arcing up through his shoulder and the rest of him dangling over the wall. His rifle fired off two bursts before he let go and it vanished into the crowd below.

The exes shifted focus. They reached up and grabbed feet, legs, hips, and started to tug. They sank their teeth into his flesh and tore off mouthfuls of calf and thigh. Billie emptied her rifle, but there were hundreds of them.

Perry screamed and they pulled harder and harder. There was a noise like wet magazines being shredded as he came apart. His right arm and shoulder blade stayed on the fence and he was yanked down into the horde of exes. He disappeared beneath the chattering jaws and his shrieks came to an abrupt halt. A few last exes clawed at the dangling arm and grabbed at the limp fingers.

Billie dumped a fresh magazine into the knot of dead people. Several of them fell, but she knew it didn’t matter. “St. George,” she hollered. “Get your ass up! We need you!”

Cairax grabbed the gate again and heaved. The rolling fence bent forward with a squeal and bounced back into place. The unibrow guard fired a burst into the monster’s face. One of the men on the guard shack lashed out with his pike and the demon caught the end. It heaved the shaft up, flinging the man into the sea of undead. He hit the pavement screaming and vanished under a wave of hands and teeth.

Then St. George drove his fists up and the exes went sprawling.

The hero staggered to his feet. His jacket was covered with bite marks, his skin was pale, but he was still alive. He coughed out some fire and smoke.

Yards away, the demon glared at him and tried to hiss.

St. George grabbed a blue Metro parked near the curb, sinking his fingers through the body and the door frame. He heaved the car into the air and spun with it just as Cairax lunged. The demon’s skull bounced on the hood and it staggered back. He threw the little car after it and sent the dead monster sprawling.

A cheer went up as the hero stumbled out to fight the monster. He gave them a ragged salute, drove his fingers through an ex’s spine, and took a few unsteady steps after the demon. “If you need to take a breather,” he shouted, “just put your hand up or something.”

Cairax straightened up in the crowd of zombies, hefting a fallen phone pole. St. George ducked and the pole crushed dozens of exes in a wide arc. He leaped over the next swing and a handful of zombies were smashed into the burnt remains of a Volkswagen. He flipped up though the air and got his arm around the demon’s neck, wrestling past the thick collar.

The creature’s long hands twisted back, grabbed him, and brought the hero hurtling into the pavement. They smashed him down again and again before flinging him against a light post. His body cartwheeled into the crowd and the dead stumbled after him.

Cairax marched forward, reaching up over the fence at the shooters. Billie and Unibrow sprayed bullets at its face. Ilya dropped half a dozen exes near it.

“HEY!”

The demon turned and caught the phone pole in the side of its head. The battering ram slammed it against the wall of the Mount.

“You dropped this!” shouted St. George.

The dead thing hissed and the pole crushed it against the wall again. Cinderblocks cracked behind its ridged back.

* * * *

Lady Bee fired down into the exes mobbing the gate. Even a few yards away, they were just shadows. She emptied her AK and traded out clips. “What am I looking for?” she hollered.

“An ex in a costume,” bellowed Cerberus. “A blue and black costume.”

She threw a few flares out at the endless hordes, but the darkness smothered them even before they fell into the crowd. “You’re shitting me? In all this?”

Look for more dark, then, said Zzzap. Look for where it’s pitch black.

Cerberus took another limping step and stopped. The battlesuit tried to turn its head and twitched like a junkie. Her feet shifted a few inches and froze. “I’m having tons of failures,” she yelled. “The piezoelectric sensors aren’t working. I’m locking up.”

Bee dropped another handful of exes. “It’s just dark everywhere,” she shouted.

The wraith forced his way higher into the black air. He willed himself brighter and pushed out against the darkness. And again, the shadows resisted.

They pushed back hardest from the northwest.

Zzzap flew past Bee and the gate. He shifted in the air and let off another burst of light. Below his feet the black parted to reveal thousands of exes clawing up at him. They covered Gower like an open concert venue. The darkness rolled back and he resisted it again.

To the west.

Another burst guided him into the alley across the street. The consuming night had weight here. It pressed down on him, smothering his light like an ocean of ink. He let off enough energy to melt through steel and the shadows fled for a few moments.

At the heart of the darkness was a dead man, half-hidden in the alley by a thick phone pole. Scores of other exes shifted and shambled around him, packed into the narrow space. The black and blue outfit hung on the desiccated frame and made the shoulder pads seem huge. Covering his head was a heavy mask designed to look like an armored helmet with a plume and a visor. The sleeves were tattered and Zzzap could see old bite marks across the withered gray flesh.

The thing inside Midknight glared out at the hero and gave one final push. The waves of darkness lunged in for a last attack.

The glowing wraith swept them aside with a wave of his hand. The shadows shattered as the air simmered. Zzzap brought his palms up and focused. Beneath the visor, the ex’s teeth started to chatter.

The blast was a foot across. It vaporized the ex-hero from the chest up, burned a hole through the apartment complex behind him, and went on for another two blocks before vanishing through molten pavement.

What was left of Midknight burst into flame, along with dozens of other exes in the alley. The dead hero crumbled into ash like charred logs. A roaring wind picked up around Zzzap as air thunderclapped in to fill the hole he’d burnt into the atmosphere. The dust scattered and disappeared.

The moon and the stars shone down from above, and Zzzap felt the radio chatter filling the wavelengths around him. The gate lights swelled up to brighten that corner of the Mount.

He let his legs hang low and burned a path through the exes, dropping a few hundred of them before he rose up over the Gower gate. The guards laughed and hollered.

“Holy shit, hot stuff,” shrieked Lady Bee with a grin. “D’you think you got him?”

Nuke the site from orbit , he called out. It’s the only way to be sure .

They cheered and the pikes lunged forward. The exes at the gate crumpled and fell.

He hovered in front of the battlesuit. How are you? Back up?

Cerberus shook her head. “Give me a minute or three,” she said. “Surge protectors saved the mainframe but I need to do a full reboot.”

Anything I can do to help? The armored skull shook again and then her eyes went dark. I’m going to check over at Melrose , he shouted to Bee. I’ll be back before you know it.

* * * *

Gorgon could feel the strength ebbing. It had been a rush but he was at tier three now, tops. And the Seventeens were keeping clear of his fight.

Rodney swung and missed by inches. “Slowing down,” he laughed. “Batteries are running out, huh?”

The hero ducked another punch, drove a kick into the giant’s thigh, and followed it with a trio of punches into the solar plexus. Rodney caught him in the shoulder and he spun in the air. Dozens of dead fingers grabbed and held him as the huge ex lined up another punch.

Gorgon threw off the exes and ducked as the massive fist sailed over him. He drove a punch up into the thick wrist and felt something crack.

“Kind of slow yourself, fugly,” Gorgon shouted. “Your mind somewhere else, maybe?”

The monstrous ex rumbled and stepped back. “Think you’re clever, don’t you?” The exes all fell back as well, leaving Gorgon in another circle.

“Smarter than you, for what that says.”

Rodney lunged again. The hero jumped up and drove his heels into the giant’s chin. It was a weak kick. Tier three without a doubt. It pushed him back more than Rodney.

Gorgon grabbed his walkie and keyed the send button four or five times. And then huge fingers grabbed the tails of his duster and whipped him into the air. He flew, whirled, crashed into the mob of exes, the dead bodies cushioning his landing. Teeth were on his sleeves and got his arms up to protect his face. He threw out a few punches and kicks and they all backed away again.

“Okay,” bellowed Rodney. “Fun’s over.”

Gorgon stood up and heard the crack at the same time his side burned. He thought the giant had broken one of his ribs. Then he looked down, saw the hole in the side of the duster, and felt the blood spreading.

There was another gunshot and his shoulder exploded with pain. His knees shook for a moment and he heard the Seventeens howling. He keyed the walkie again.

The giant loomed over him. “Still feeling tough? Still think you’re better than me?”

“Fuck, it’s not about what I think,” said Gorgon. Everybody here knows I’m better than you.”

Rodney, the crowd of exes, and the sky spun around him and a beat later he felt the ribs collapse where the kick had connected. He hit the pavement and heard something snap inside the goggles. One of the lens sections tumbled in against his eye.

Rodney sneered. “This your big last stand, esse ? This what you’d call being heroic?”

Gorgon spit out a blob of blood. “Nope,” he said. “I’d call this round three.”

He turned his smile to the bright sky as the last of the night fled and the sun raced around the corner. It incinerated a crowd of exes near the gate then shot back to hover above them. Lay off the mic, for Christ’s sake, said Zzzap. You sure you’re ready for this?

“Guess we’ll find out.”

Rodney scowled with his one eye. “What the fu—”

Gorgon pulled off his goggles.

For a moment, just the barest of instants, the man-shaped silhouette in the air dimmed. The false daylight flickered to gray and Zzzap sagged. Then his outline flared back up and he vanished up and across the Mount.

And Gorgon was on fire.

“OH, YEAH!” he roared. He couldn’t even guess what tier this was. Fifty? One hundred? He could feel strength burning out of his eyes, mouth, every pore of his skin. “YOU STILL WANT TO THROW DOWN, YOU FUCKING FRANKENSTEIN WANNABE?!”

The hero lunged forward and his fist struck Rodney with the force of a train engine. The enormous ex hurtled back, smashing through a steel fence like a missile through a garden trellis. He shredded the roof of a dusty sports car and slammed into the minivan parked beyond it.

Gorgon bounded after him, covering twenty feet with each leap. “Come on!” he bellowed. “You and me, big guy! It’s what you always wanted!” He hurled the sports car into the air and the giant scrambled to dodge it.

A quartet of exes seized the hero’s arms and neck. He crushed their skulls like paper cutouts and whipped the bodies away, sending everything behind him sprawling for half a dozen yards.

Rodney tore the axle from the sports car and swung it like a bat. He brought it whipping around and Gorgon caught the end. A quick shove and the steel bar cracked back into the giant’s face. The hero hammered down again and sent the huge Seventeen sprawling.

* * * *

Stealth fought from her position on the ground while she reloaded the Glocks and tried to clear her head. She kicked and swept with her legs until the slides both dropped home. At this range, bodies dropped one after another with each shot, and she didn’t pause to see if the blood spraying was black or red until she was back on her feet. She emptied the pistols to give her a moment of breathing room and swapped in another set of fresh clips. Her last set.

Rodney’s strike had knocked her forty feet down the road. There were hundreds, more likely thousands of exes between her and the gate. She would not make it back on foot.

The gate shuddered and a gap appeared.

Hundreds of exes backed by hundreds more pushed on the ornate double gate. Between the gunshots she could hear the terrible creak of the bars as they bent under the weight. The gap was already over a foot and opening wider. Derek, Katie, and a dozen others stood on the wall firing down into the horde and Stealth could see the pikes lashing out.

Something grabbed her shoulder. She spun and pistol-whipped the ex across the jaw. The backswing crushed its temple and the dead thing dropped. Another eleven shots opened the circle again and left a howling Seventeen with an arm all but severed at the elbow.

A few yards away a king-cab truck gunned its engine and moved for the gate. It pulled out into the wide intersection and its cowcatcher shoved exes out of the way. The Seventeens in the back howled and banged on the roof of the cab as it gained speed.

Her Glocks spat fire and dropped a score of exes as she charged the truck. The Seventeens saw her coming and shouted. Their aim was sloppy and nervous and she felt three individual rounds tug at her cloak for an instant each.

The last ex dropped and Stealth used its body as a springboard. She holstered the weapons in midair and her kick threw the first Seventeen off the far side of the truck and into the mob of exes. Her boots clanged on the truck bed and she drove the heel of her hand into another man’s chin.

They bumped each other, hesitated, and she took them apart. One hand blocked a roundhouse punch, twisted the man’s wrist around, and a strike slammed into his armpit to dislocate the shoulder. Her leg shot back, burying her heel in a woman’s stomach. She grabbed a Seventeen’s shoulders and the same knee flew forward as his head came down. A knife stabbed at her and she broke three of the fingers holding it and the wrist behind them. Her baton shattered the passenger window and she dragged the man out by his hair. The driver’s nose hit the steering wheel four times before the Glock pressed against his head hard enough to force his right eye shut.

“You were heading for the gate,” Stealth said. “You will continue to do so. Slowly.”

* * * *

St. George slammed the Chrysler down on the demon and flattened it to the ground. The hero leaped into the air and dropped hard onto the roof. All four tires blew out and the last two windows shattered.

Beneath the car Cairax looked dazed. Most of its head and one arm stuck out beneath the passenger door, salted with broken glass. Its diagonal eyelids clicked shut a few times. The thing looking through the eyes went away and the demon’s jaws started to gnash together.

“About damn time,” said St. George.

Up and down the street he saw the shift. Thousands of exes slumped a little more, moved a little less, like a mass loss of confidence. The monster shifted under the car and reached up for him with a clumsy arm. The Chrysler groaned as the dead thing tried to push it out of the way.

The hero balanced on the swaying car and threw a glance back to the gate. “I think we’re good,” he shouted. The claw latched onto his leg and yanked him off the car. Cairax smashed St. George against the pavement, then swung him around. His head cracked against dozens of withered ankles and he was airborne again, just for a minute, before being slammed into the street again. His ears were ringing.

The demon tossed the car aside and glared down at him. A broad, thick-toed foot stomped down on the hero’s injured arm. More meat pulled away from the bones and blood spurted across the monster’s almosthoof.

Something was thumping. St. George shook his head, shook it again, and the sound became clear. The dozen or so people behind the wall were chanting.

Chanting his name.

Even Cairax seemed to notice. It looked at the half-bent gate and then back at him.

St. George, the Mighty Dragon, pushed against gravity, shot up, and threw all his strength into a single punch. Dozens of oversized teeth sprayed out across the street as the monster’s jaw shattered. A second punch crushed its ribcage and he felt the shredded muscles of his arm howl.

He threw a third, fourth, and fifth, knocking the demon back with each one. Both fists came together and he felt its sternum crack. Another thrust against gravity let him grab the leathery brow ridge in one hand and a tusk in the other. His boots braced against the monster’s chest and he twisted its head with all his strength. The skull yanked to the left— And stopped.

He could feel the muscles knotting up under the leather collar. Resisting. The saucer eyes glared at him.

It grabbed his wounded arm, squeezed the raw flesh, and flung him off. An enormous claw smashed him to his knees hard enough to crack the pavement. Exes pawed and grabbed and held him down while they gnawed at his skin.

Cairax wrapped its spidery hand around the fallen hero’s hair, bent down, and roared with glee. The severed stump of its tongue waved before his eyes and something bumped against his chin. St. George’s eyes glanced down and saw a glimpse of silver swinging back and forth from the monster’s collar.

The Sativus medallion.

The thought crossed his mind in an instant. The hero threw off the exes holding his arm. He tore the medallion away and sparks popped against the monster’s purple hide as the silver links snapped.

Cairax Murrain twitched and pointed a talon at him. Then it trembled, opened its monstrous, sagging jaw, and collapsed in on itself in a swirl of dark flames and smoke.

In the demon’s footprints stood an ex with a mop of black hair and a library of tattoos across its yellowed flesh. Pentagrams, long lines of Latin, and scores of Egyptian hieroglyphics. The heavy collar hung like a huge ring on the dead man’s neck. The naked ex staggered and closed its mouth with a solid clack, then looked down at its tiny limbs. The thing behind its eyes looked confused.

“I’d explain what just happened,” said St. George, “but I’d hate to ruin the trick for you.”

The medallion let off a few black sparks as he crushed it between his fingers. Then he stepped forward and drove his fist through the ex’s skull. It exploded like an old flowerpot and Maxwell Hale’s headless corpse dropped to the ground.

* * * *

Gorgon grabbed Rodney’s arm as the punch flew by and yanked the dead giant off his feet. A backhand slap sent the huge ex sprawling.

“Doesn’t have to be like this,” the hero yelled. He lunged forward, grabbed the oversized skull, and slammed it against the pavement. “You can still quit. Run away. Take your people and get out of here.”

The monstrous ex snarled as another one of its matchbooksized teeth dropped out. “Like that, pinche , wouldn’t you? Making me lose face again?” He rolled away, grabbed a faded Boxster, and threw it at the hero.

Gorgon leaped over the car and hammered his fists down on the other man’s shoulders, driving him to the ground. “Keep fighting and you’ll lose it all, big guy.”

Rodney pushed himself up onto his knees and chuckled. “Fight’s over,” he rumbled. “You’re dead.”

He hurled an oversized fist with enough force to crush a man. Gorgon leaped up, flipped around in midair, and found himself face-to-face with Banzai.

Her face was clean and pale. A few loose hairs wafted from her ebony braid. The dead woman looked at him with cloudy eyes and blinked twice. Her lips turned down ever so slightly as she glanced from his face to the ragged hole in her shoulder.

He stumbled. Just for a moment. “Oh, baby,” he whispered.

And then she vanished in a gray haze. Enormous fingers wrapped around Gorgon’s head and squeezed. Rodney lifted the thrashing hero into the air and the other massive hand pinned the flailing legs together.

“Sucker!” he howled with glee. “I’ve had your bitch, man. She’s dry and tight and loved every minute of it.”

Rodney twisted the hero, wrenching the hips around with a bubble-wrap sound, and let Gorgon’s body drop to the pavement.

There were screams from the wall. Cheers from the SS. The gunfire picked up on both sides.

And then thunder hammered their ears.

A dozen windows shattered in nearby buildings. One of the trucks rushing the gate shook three times before exploding. A Seventeen lifted his machete to the sky and became a red cloud from the waist up even as the ex behind him spurted fountains of dark blood and meat.

Twin paths of fire tore up exes, pavement, and everything else they crossed. Rodney caught a line across his torso and shoulder that chewed his chest apart even as it pounded him back. “Hey, death breath!”

The ground shook as Cerberus thudded out of the gates, the cannons on her arms smoking. “Want to try with someone your own size?!”

* * * *

The thunder echoed across the lot, and the unibrow man looked up from the bandage he was tying on St. George’s shredded arm. The hero made a fist around the long, broken fang they’d pried from his biceps.

“Oh yeah,” said Ilya before picking off another ex. “Definitely sounds like Judgment Day.”

Outside the gate, a ripple of movement swept across the zombies. They stumbled in mid step. Their teeth began to clack.

St. George shrugged back into his patchwork jacket. “Ahhh, hell.”

“What’s going on?”

He looked out at the dead. They were flailing at the gate, pawing with no purpose. “I think we got what we wanted. Rodney’s distracted and he’s starting to lose control.”

Billie looked out at the chattering horde. “Is that good?”

“Sort of. A few minutes ago we were surrounded by sixty thousand or so exes all obeying him.”

“And now?”

“Now we’re just surrounded by sixty thousand exes.”

Her walkie squawked and Billie’s face fell. “They need you at the main gate,” she said. “It’s bad. Derek says Stealth is missing. And Gorgon is down.”

The hero’s face hardened. “You have things here?”

“We can deal with exes,” she said with a nod. “Go kick some ass.”

St. George shot into the sky, tracing a high arc toward the Melrose gate.

It wasn’t until a few hours later, looking back on the moment, that Billie, Ilya, and the rest realized he hadn’t jumped.

* * * *

Cerberus stomped forward, the ground trembling with every step. She threw aside the exes mobbing the driveway. Her arms came up and the armor selected seven hundred and thirteen viable targets for her. The first pass with the M-2s tore a hundred exes into hamburger. She watched the ammo counters spin down to triple digits as the second pass destroyed two more trucks and cleared her path across the intersection.

Rodney lumbered toward the gate and the zombies came with him. They marched in perfect lockstep, heels slapping on the pavement. The Seventeens moved forward in trucks and on foot.

As one, the dead raised their arms to point at her. Bullets pinged and sparked against the armor.

“Come on, big girl,” the dead giant shouted. He pounded on his ruined chest, and countless exes mimicked him. “You wanna give me my last chance to run away or you wanna fight?”

“You had your last chance,” growled Cerberus. “You didn’t take it.”

The cannons roared again. Between the walls of the Mount and the nearby office buildings the sound itself was a weapon. The gate guards winced. Another two trucks vanished in clouds of shrapnel, and Seventeens screamed. More exes vanished in splashes of dark blood and rotted meat. Rodney staggered back as a hundred rounds punched through him like a swarm of high-caliber hornets.

The counters dropped into double digits, single, and the cannons clanged open. The silence was deafening.

Rodney stood up and coils of meat unspooled from his stomach. The intestines spilled over the ground and he reached down to tear them loose. “Someone hasn’t been paying attention,” he laughed. “Body shots don’t do nothing and we don’t get tired. Twenty minutes with your boy toy and I’m still fresh and ready to go.”

He lunged at the armor and they met eye to eye. His massive fists clanged against the armored helmet. He drove his knee up into the battlesuit’s crotch and jerked it a foot off the ground.

Cerberus brought her own knee up and heard his pelvis crack. She shoved him away and slammed her gauntlet into his ragged face.

He grabbed a gun barrel in his hands and twisted. Metal shrieked as he tore the cannon away from the battlesuit’s arm.

Inside the helmet a handful of warnings flashed. Two subsystems shut down on their own to prevent shorts.

The giant lifted the cannon over his shoulder like a club and grinned. His swing caught the battlesuit in the shoulder. The blow echoed inside the armor, rattling her teeth. Her viewscreens flared and sizzled with static.

“I’m death incarnate,” he bellowed. “I killed the Gorgon. I killed the world. And it just makes me stronger!”

“Yeah, you’re big and tough,” Cerberus said. “And you know what else?”

She slammed her fist forward with a crackle of electricity. The arcs lashed at Rodney before the impact hurled him across the street. The battlesuit left cracks in the pavement as it raced forward, knocking exes aside, and sank its fingers into the giant’s ribcage. She hefted him to his feet and a piledriver slammed into his face. Teeth sprayed across the intersection.

“You’re meat,” she roared. “I’m steel and you’re nothing but a bag of meat.”

The second punch shattered his cheekbone and one side of his face sagged like putty. She brought both fists down and his shoulder blades crumbled beneath them.

The broken giant looked up at her. “He meant something to you, eh?”

“Yes,” growled the battlesuit.

“Ahhh.” What was left of Rodney’s face split in an evil, cracked grin. “Sucks to be you.”

Cerberus grabbed his skull in her steel fingers and twisted. There was the sound of a tree trunk splitting, an ice shelf cracking, and the battlesuit tore the giant’s head loose. She gouged out the one good eye, pulled back her arm, and sent the hunk of bone and flesh hurling into the sky.

The huge, headless body toppled to the ground a dozen or so feet from Gorgon.

And then …

* * * *

Things went mad. Screams echoed across the broad intersection as the dead turned on their former allies. Exes swarmed over the Seventeens and the gangbangers vanished under scores of teeth and grasping hands. Some were caught off guard. Others went down fighting. The entrance to the Mount had shifted from assault to feeding frenzy. The exes weren’t focused or guided. They were just killing. Their teeth chattered like a tap school for the insane. A truck lurched to a halt on the cobblestone driveway and Stealth smashed the butt of her pistol across the driver’s head. She dragged him from the cab and threw him at the gate. The guards grabbed the dazed Seventeen and dragged him through the opening. A dead man with a mohawk grabbed at his legs, but the cloaked woman shattered the ex’s skull with a baton slash. One of the Seventeens’ other trucks roared to life and plowed through the mob. Gangers clawed their way into the bed. More than one was pulled back by dead fingers. An old man with white hair and bloody teeth attacked a woman with dozens of braids. A gray-skinned Latina sank her teeth into a tattooed man. The guards drove back the dead and fought the gate shut.

Bodies clogged the opening. Some were struggling to get in, others were dragging them back. Cerberus looked back at Gorgon’s body, twisted and sprawled on the pavement, and saw a Seventeen swinging his rifle like a club at everything that moved. The boy was sixteen at the most, alone, and he was close to breaking. He was surrounded by hungry dead things. Another truck turned and fled. It was all but empty. People shouted and waved and were ignored. Cerberus reached out and grabbed the boy, hefting him up onto her shoulders. He shrieked and flailed until he realized he was safe. The battlesuit took four steps toward the gate, batting exes aside like flies, and pulled another Seventeen from the mob. And then …

* * * *

St. George dropped out of the sky, leaving a trail of flames in the air behind him. He arced across the road until he was before the Melrose gate. The hero pushed down, forcing gravity to its knees and demanding it obey him.

And gravity, after a brief struggle, acknowledged his superiority.

St. George, the Mighty Dragon, hovered in midair over the intersection, floating above the mob. The tattered remains of his coat fluttered behind him. Smoke curled from his mouth and nose and wreathed his skull like a dark halo. Held out at arm’s length was the prize he’d plucked in midair.

Rodney’s head. “THIS WAR IS OVER!” His voice echoed across the street, over the chattering, and flames sparked in his mouth. He held up the severed head for everyone to see, then threw it down into the hordes. Exes staggered after the ball of flesh and bone.

“Anyone not wearing a green bandanna or scarf is welcome to take shelter inside the Mount,” he shouted. “I wish the rest of you the best of luck making it back to your compound.”

Below him, the horde of living dead continued to rip and tear and claw at the Seventeens. The clacking of teeth drowned out most of their screams. Some of them fought their way into the remaining trucks. Many more were dragged back out and torn to shreds.

Close to the wall, a bald man with a mustache smacked an ex away with a baseball bat. Then he reached up, tore the green cloth from his arm, and ran for the gate. The woman next to him did the same with the bandanna holding her dark hair.

Guards on the wall set down covering fire where they could. Dozens of Seventeens battered their way to the gate, tearing off do-rags and patches. Cerberus knocked exes left and right as she marched across the cobblestone driveway.

St. George drifted above the crowd until he reached the gate. He settled to the ground and hurled the walking dead away like dolls. A baker’s dozen of Seventeens stumbled past him and through the narrow gap of the gate.

The hero slammed his fist against one last ex, a skinny man in a filthy Santa Claus suit, and sent it hurling back. He took three steps back and the gate shut with a clang.

Cerberus braced a broad foot and three-fingered hand against the struts and gave Derek a quick nod. “I’ve got it,” she said. “Go find another lock-bar.”

Stealth had over a hundred Seventeens on their knees by the guard shack, fingers laced behind their heads. Ten or twenty of them were sobbing. So were a few of the gate guards.

Katie took a few deep breaths and looked up at St. George. “Am I wrong,” she gasped, “or did we just live through that?”