Ex-Communication: A Novel Read online

  “Aside from being dead.”

  “Aside from that, yes. She just seems like a normal seventeen-year-old girl in so many ways. Did you know she sleeps?”

  “What?”

  The doctor nodded. “Twice now. She got tired and fell asleep the night you brought her in. When she woke up later I had to explain where she was and who I was. Last night she stretched out on the bed, wrapped her arms around her pillow to cry for a few minutes, and she was out cold. No pun intended. And when she woke up a few hours ago she didn’t know who I was again. Or where she was.” Connolly paused. “Or that her parents were dead.”

  St. George sighed. “Yeah, she said she had some memory problems.”

  “That’s putting it mildly,” said the doctor. “Captain Freedom sat with her and went over the whole thing again. I think it might’ve been harder on him than her, watching her go through it all again.”

  “Crap.”

  “It’s not too surprising, to be honest.” Connolly gestured at a chart on the counter. “I hooked her up to an EEG the first night before she fell asleep. Even exes give off basic readings. There’s still electrical activity in their brains, it’s just very, very low. Below comatose levels.”

  “And Madelyn?”

  “Her readings aren’t that different from your standard ex-human. I’m sure a specialist could spot some little nuances, but nothing stood out for me. Stealth might want to take a look.”

  “Okay.”

  The doctor held up a finger. “Then she fell asleep. Her EEG went to a complete flatline.”

  “Flatline meaning …?”

  “Meaning corpse. I got nothing from her. Absolutely nothing. A potato would give me more responses. It was more like she died—really died—than fell asleep.”

  “Is that what messes up her memories?”

  “Maybe.” Another shrug. “I don’t know how she even has thoughts, let alone memories. Her brain completely shuts off when she sleeps. Her blood isn’t circulating. Preliminary results from her tissue samples indicate her muscles aren’t manufacturing lactic acid. Every test I know how to do says she’s just … dead. I have no idea how she’s thinking or talking or moving around.” She shrugged. “Then again, I have no idea how you can fly. I’ve gotten used to things I can’t explain.”

  “Great.”

  “One more thing,” said Connolly. “She’s been in a mild degree of pain because of lividity. Most of her blood’s all pooled up in her feet and legs. I’d like to sever the arteries in her ankles and drain it off. It should take care of her pain issues and give me more material for further tests.”

  St. George’s eyes went wide. “You’re going to drain off her blood?”

  “It’s the easiest solution I can think of.”

  “Won’t that …” He stopped himself.

  Connolly smirked. “She’s already dead. It shouldn’t have any effect at all.”

  He frowned. “What if you’re wrong?”

  “I’m pretty sure she’s dead, George. They did cover it in medical school.”

  He drummed his fingers on the counter. “How’s Jarvis?”

  The shift threw her for a moment, and then her face dropped. “Not good,” she said. “He’s on antibiotics right now, but there’s at least three symptoms they’re not affecting at all. I’m still waiting on blood work to figure out how many infections he’s got so I can start targeting them better.”

  “How long will that take?”

  She sighed. “Longer than he’s got.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry. You know how this works. There’s just nothing else I can do.”

  “How long’s he got?”

  “A day at the most. I’m amazed he lasted this long.” She looked at her watch. “It’s been almost forty-two hours since he was bitten. That’s practically a record.”

  “Is he awake?”

  Connolly nodded.

  Jarvis looked dead. A web of wires and tubes ran like mechanical ivy from his chest and arms to the machines around him. His face was dry and pale enough that in places it blurred with the white and silver speckled in his beard and scalp. It made his hair look thin. Where he wasn’t pale his neck and arms had patches of dark pink rash spotted with red. Something 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 ladder flying away. As St. George sank down through the air, the officer unholstered Lady Liberty and turned a pair of exes into a pile of loose limbs.

  St. George landed outside the Wall. A group of exes charged him with an A-frame ladder and he stopped it with one hand, knocking them off their feet. He swung the ladder in a wide arc and sent a dozen exes sprawling. He swung again and let it spin away. Another handful of exes dropped, their skulls crushed by the whirling metal.

  The guards on the Wall started laying down suppressive fire. He’d given them the moment of breathing space they needed to turn the tide. Exes ran at the Wall and their heads burst or jerked back. One kept stumbling forward as a bullet thudded off its headgear and St. George put it down with a blow that shattered its forehead.

  The exes twitched and slowed. Three of them staggered to a halt and their ladder crashed to the ground. Another one dropped the golf club it had been waving. The five-iron tangled in its legs and the dead woman tripped face first to the pavement.

  St. George floated into the air and grabbed an ex from the top of a tilting ladder. The ex, a shriveled dead man with a monk-like circle of hair around its bare head, clawed at his arm. The hero drifted back up to the top of the Wall. “Good job,” he told Freedom. “I feel like you didn’t even need me.”

  “Every bit helps, sir,” said the captain. “You probably just saved us half an hour before Legion got frustrated and gave up.”

  “Hey,” said one of the guards. He pointed at the ex twisting in St. George’s grip. “Is that Picard?”

  A lanky woman shook her head. “I think he’s too short.”

  “Damn,” said the other guard. “That’d be some serious points, getting Captain Picard.”

  Freedom gave the man one of his practiced looks and the man turned his attention out beyond the Wall with a nervous salute. “It was clumsy,” the officer said to St. George. “In a classic siege, your ladders are never taller than they need to be. It slowed him down enough that he lost the advantage his armor’s been giving him.”

  St. George swung the dead man out over the edge of the Wall. “You’ve been involved in a lot of sieges?”

  “I studied military history at West Point, sir.”

  St. George’s earbud squawked again and he glanced either way down the Wall. “Go for St. George,” he said.

  “Sorry to bother you, boss,” said a woman’s voice. “Small problem.”

  “What’s up?”

  The voice paused. “Jarvis passed ten minutes ago,” she said. “We were going to … you know, take care of him, and Zzzap said we needed to wait until we talked to you.”

  “That can’t be right,” said St. George. “I was with Jarvis half an hour ago. He was doing fine.”

  The airwaves were quiet for an uncomfortable time. Freedom’s face had gone solemn across from him. St. George was struck by the thought of how many people were probably listening in. Other guards. Stealth. Zzzap, watching the signals pass back and forth through the air.

  “Doc Connolly says he, uhhhh … he took his oxygen mask off,” said the woman. It was Lynne Vines, he realized. She was pulling a shift at the hospital between scavenging missions. Just like Jarvis did. Like he used to.

  “She thinks he did it right after you left,” Lynne continued. “He was so weak he passed out and … well … By the time the machines went off it was too late.”

  St. George glared at the ex pawing at his wrist and then hurled it out over the houses as far as he could. It sailed across the street, bounced off a red-tile roof that was probably very expensive a few years ago, and hit the side of a tall apartment building. It left a dark stain on the wall before dropping out of sight.

  “St. George?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Copy that. Zzzap’s right. Don’t put him down. Get whatever restraints you can and strap him down to his bed. Once he’s tied down tight, just leave him alone.”

  “ARE YOU WEISS?”

  It was the third café I’d gone to looking for the man, and I was starting to feel anxious. On one level, I was in no rush and had no deadlines. On another level, this was even more urgent than getting to the right spot for the eclipse.

  The guy I thought was Weiss looked up at me. He had long gray hair and a goatee that twirled into a rope under his chin. On a guess, he was seventy pounds overweight. “Who’s asking?”

  “A friend of mine in the States recommended you. Said you’re the best tattoo artist in Paris.”

  Weiss shrugged. “I just get a lot of the expat trade,” he said. He took another bite of his sandwich, a prissy little thing made out of a croissant. I could see white meat and bright green lettuce hanging out of the edges. It looked tiny in his fat fingers. “It’s my day off, though. Sorry. There’s some guys down in the eighteenth arrondissement who do great work. They can do whatever you need.”

  I sat down in the chair across from him. “Not as I hear it.”

  He frowned at me. “What are you looking for? A sleeve? Tramp stamp for your girlfriend?”

  I shook my head. “Not exactly.”

  “Tell you what. Go see Laura in the twentieth. She’s fantastic. She did one of Angelina Jolie’s tattoos. She’s got pictures and everything. Tell her I sent you and she’ll knock ten percent off her prices. We trade back and forth all the time.”

  He turned his attention back to the prissy little sandwich. I let him take two more bites before I set my hands on the table and laced my fingers. He sighed and set his brunch down again.

  “Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” h
e said. “It’s my day off. Go fuck yourself.”

  “Perhaps I wasn’t clear,” I echoed. “I need a tattoo.”

  I stretched my arms and let one of the images on my left arm slide out from under my sleeve. His fingers stopped an inch from the sandwich. He eyed it for a moment, then leaned back in his chair. He studied my face. “Who’s your friend in the States?”

  “Ernie Redd. You might know him as the Go-Between Guy.”

  He smirked for a moment. “I know him as Ernie. He’s still alive?”

  I nodded. “He’s probably never going to leave his house again, but he’s alive. Most of him, anyway. He lost his left arm and six toes.”

  “Lucky bastard,” said Weiss. “It could’ve been his head.”

  I nodded. “Or worse.”

  Weiss nodded, too. “Or worse.” He pointed at my arm. “Who did the arma dei? It’s a little rough on the edges. The lines aren’t great.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I did it myself five years ago.”

  Weiss wrinkled his brow. “You know enough to come to me, but you tried to do one of these yourself?”

  “It was a rush job. I didn’t have time to consult an expert.”

  He studied my face again. “What’s your name, kid?”

  “Maxwell Hale.”

  He gave a slow nod. “Hale,” he repeated. “Heard of you. Word on the lines is you’re a cocky little bastard.”

  I smiled. “I’m only cocky if I can’t do what I say I can.”

  “Like build a working Sativus?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He looked at me for another moment and then his eyes went wide. “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “No.”

  “You just want me to take your word for it?”

  I sighed and tugged out my travel wallet. “Don’t try anything,” I told him. “It’s bound to me. Fifty-foot tether. We’d both be dead before you got to the end of the block.”

  He gestured at his bloated stomach. “Do I look like a big runner to you?”