Ex-Patriots (45 page)

As such, the second-worst feeling is when
that first book
wasn’t
a waste of time, was read, and was
liked. Because now you have to write another one and figure out
some way to make that lightning strike twice. Worse yet, as
Hollywood has shown us again and again, there’s no such thing as
one sequel. If the first one works, you have to aim for a trilogy.
Which means even bigger stakes and even more planning. Which means
you’ll probably all be seeing
Ex-Communication
released a
year or so after this book you just finished reading.

Of course, I couldn’t’ve handled all this
alone. So a few deeply felt thanks must be given to...

Mary, soon to be Doctor Mao, who pointed me
in all the right directions to begin my superhuman research
project. Also a big thanks to my college roommate, who now goes by
Doctor John Tansey, Director of the Interdisciplinary Program in
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Otterbein University. John
helped fine tune the project and made Doctor Sorensen’s work sound
far more plausible than I ever could. Any vagueness, errors, or
open fabrications are there to serve the needs of fiction and came
from me, not either of them.

The U.S. Army plays a huge part in this story
as well, and I know just enough about that life and career to know
that I know very little about that life and career. Definitely not
enough to do justice to the Army, which it so rarely gets in zombie
stories. Jeff talked to me at length about the decision to join the
military, as did my dad, Dennis (who spent Vietnam aboard the
Will Rogers
). Staff Sergeant Lincoln Crisler—a fine author
himself—helped with military call signs and communications. My
stepsister, Carolyn (Master Sergeant Dade, ret., to the rest of
you), spent ages teaching me about command structure, ranks, and
life in the military. My best friend, Marcus, who has forgotten
more about every branch of the military than I will ever learn,
answered questions about weapons, vehicles, tactics, and more at
all hours of the day and night. He also helped me smooth out
several issues in early drafts. Again, any mistakes or
exaggerations in these pages are entirely my own and not
theirs.

Jacob at Permuted Press let me spend some
time on a desert island with
The Eerie Adventures of the
Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe
before diving into this book.

Jessica, the Permuted editor for this book,
caught far too many things that slipped past me, in spelling,
grammar, and structure. Also a belated thanks to Matthew, who did a
fantastic job editing
Ex-Heroes
. A discussion we had about
sonic booms and the nature of Zzzap’s energy form became the talk
between Barry and Sorensen.

I am indebted to Jen, Larry, and John (Surfin
Dead over at Zombie Zone News.Com), who all read early drafts of
this book, offered many comments and critiques, and let me know
where I’d gone horribly wrong and where I’d gone somewhat
right.

And a very special thanks, as always, to my
lovely lady, Colleen, who listens patiently, criticizes fairly,
prods gently (or not-so-gently), and has far more faith in me and
my ability than I do at times.

—P.C.

Los Angeles, February 15th, 2011

And now a preview of Peter
Clines upcoming novel

~14~

Coming in 2012 from
Permuted Press.

Zero

He ran.

He ran as fast as he could. As if Hell
itself were chasing him. As if his life depended on it.

He was quite certain it did.

The truth was, he was dead already. He’d
seen enough men bleed out in medical theaters to recognize the wet
pulse jetting between his ribs. The knife had done its job with
almost surgical precision.

He mustn’t think about himself, though. Not
now. There was too much at stake. He had to keep running.

If the Family caught him, everyone would
die.

One

Nate Tucker found out about the apartment as
people often learn about the things which change their lives
forever—by sheer luck.

It was a Thursday night party he didn't want
to be at. Party was too big a word for it but calling it a few
rounds after work seemed too minor. There were half a dozen people
he knew and another dozen he was supposed to know but hadn’t really
paid attention when they’d been introduced. None of them seemed
interesting enough to go back and learn their names after the fact.
They sat around tables that had been pushed together, shared
communal appetizers some people would argue they never touched, and
sipped overpriced drinks they made a point of claiming they’d first
had at more exclusive restaurants.

Nate had realized a while back that nobody
talked with each other at these things. People just took turns
talking
at
each other. He never got the sense anyone was
listening. He wished his coworkers would stop inviting him.

Nate was being talked at by a man he
remembered as the Journalist with the Hot Redhead Girlfriend. He'd
been introduced to the man at one of these things a month or two
back. Like everyone else at the table, he considered himself part
of the film industry, even though, as far as Nate could tell, the
man’s job had nothing whatsoever to do with making movies. At the
moment, the Journalist was lamenting a cancelled interview. His
subject, a screenwriter, had to dive into last minute rewrites
demanded by some producer. Nate wondered if the Journalist got to
put that sort of thing in his articles—
idiot revisions made to
climactic scene to pacify self-centered executive
.

There was a break in the Journalist’s
monologue. Nate realized the man was waiting for an
acknowledgement. He covered the pause with a cough and took a hit
off his beer. “That sucks,” Nate said. “Do you lose out altogether
or can he reschedule?”

The Journalist shrugged. “Maybe. My week’s
packed, and he’s going to be busy pulling his hair out.” He took a
sip of his own drink. “Anyway, enough about me. What’s up with you?
I haven’t seen you at one of these things in ages.”

Nate, who remembered waving to the Journalist
at last week’s almost-party and getting a chin-wave back, shrugged
himself. “Nothing much,” he said.

“Weren’t you working on a script or
something?”

Nate shook his head. “No, not me. Not my
thing.”

“So what have you been up to?”

He took another hit off his beer. “Work.
Trying to find a new place to live.”

The Journalist’s brow rose. “What
happened?”

“The guys I’ve been living with, they decided
to do their own thing,” said Nate. “One’s moving back to San
Francisco, the other’s getting married so he and his girlfriend—his
fiancée— they want their own place.” He shrugged. “We had a house,
but I can’t afford it on my own.”

“Where are you now?”

“Silverlake.”

“You looking for anything in particular?”

Nate considered it for a moment. It was the
most anyone outside of his roommates had asked about the search.
“I’d like to stay near Hollywood,” he said. “I don’t need much
space. I’m hoping to find a studio for around eight hundred a
month.”

The Journalist nodded and took another sip of
his drink. "I know a place.”

“You do?”

The other man nodded. “A friend of mine
suggested it when I first moved here from San Diego. Older place in
that Koreatown-Los Feliz gray area around the 101.”

Nate nodded. “Yeah, I know right where that
is. It’s closer to work than the place I’m in now.”

Another nod from the Journalist. “I was only
there for a few months, but the rent was cheap and it had a great
view.”

“How cheap?”

The Journalist glanced around. “Between you
and me,” he said, “I was paying five-fifty.”

Nate choked on some beer. It was a good price
to pay if you had two or three roommates. “Five-fifty a month?”

The Journalist nodded.

“Five
hundred
-fifty?”

“Yep. And that included all the
utilities.”

“You are shitting me.”

“Nope.”

“Why’d you leave?”

The Journalist smiled and gestured with his
glass at his Hot Redhead Girlfriend. She was across the table and
down a few seats, being talked at by a woman with jet-black hair
and matching clothes. “We decided to move in together and got a
bigger place. And...”

Nate raised a brow. “And what?”

“It’s kind of got an odd vibe to it.”

“The area or the building?”

“The building. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a
great place. It just wasn’t for me.” He pulled out his phone and
began brushing his fingers across the colorful screen. “I think
I’ve still got the number for the management company if you want
it.”

Nate felt his grin become a smile. “That’d be
fantastic.”

Two

The building was a cube of red bricks lined
with gray mortar, the type of building one pictured in New York or
San Francisco. Two rectangles of concrete sat in the brick at the
third story, each bearing the eroded image of old heraldry. Just
above the wide front door, a fire escape zigzagged up the center of
the building’s face. Nate knew Los Angeles had lots of old
buildings like this. He worked in one of them.

It was built up on a tall foundation, sitting
on top of an already-high slope. There were two flights of stairs
leading up to the door. He saw them and immediately pictured the
hassle of hauling furniture up them. Two trees flanked the steps
and gave some cover to the downstairs apartments. They were newer
additions, not as thick and sturdy as the one sprawled by the
wrought-iron gate.

A small Asian woman stood just inside the
gate, an orange iPad tucked under her arm. She waved to him.
“Nate?”

He nodded. “Toni?”

“I am. Great to meet you.” She opened the
gate and shook his hand.

Toni was one of those women it was impossible
to pin an age on. She could’ve been anywhere from eighteen to
thirty-five. Her skirt showed enough leg to make him think younger.
The cadence of her voice and manner made him think older.

She smiled at him as she led him up the
stairs. It was a fantastic smile. If it was fake, she practiced it
every day. “It’s a great building,” she said. She gave one of the
pillars by the door an affectionate pat. “Over a hundred years old.
It’s one of the oldest in this part of the city.”

“It looks great.”

“They built them to last back then. Isn’t
that what people say?” She pulled open the steel security door. The
main door past it was wide open. “Come on in and I’ll show you the
place.”

Above the wide front door, KAVACH was
engraved on the concrete lintel in bold letter. Nate wasn’t sure if
it was a word or a name.

The small lobby was straight out of a dozen
noir films. Apartments
1
and
2
flanked the front door. A staircase with a well-worn
banister curled up to the second floor. Beneath the staircase were
two banks of mailboxes. Under the boxes were tall stacks of
phonebooks. It looked like they’d been there for a long time.

“Don’t mind those,” she said. “Usually Oskar,
the property manager, keeps things pretty tidy.”

“It’s not a dealbreaker,” he told her.

She gave him another smile and butterflies
fluttered in his stomach. It had to be practiced. No one could
naturally pack so much into curved lips and a flash of teeth.

“Let’s head up,” she said. She glanced at her
iPad. “We’ll zig-zag a bit.”

She guided him up the curving staircase to
the second floor and down the hall. It was all dark brown and ivory
paint. They passed a narrow glass door that made him think of an
old telephone booth. Toni glanced back over her shoulder and
followed his gaze. “Elevator,” she explained. “It’s out of service
right now, but they’ll probably have it working by the time you
move in. It’s pretty small, though. You’ll have to take your
furniture up the stairs.”

“Good thing I don’t have much,” he said. He
glanced at the other side of the hall and glimpsed a set of
padlocks on a door marked
14
, but Toni’s
tour had already moved past it. He looked back over his shoulder,
but the thick frame hid the door.

“Twenty-two units,” she said as they walked
toward the back. “Eight, six, and eight.” They stepped through a
fire door and into a large space that stretched from one side of
the building to the other. There were three couches and a pair of
matching chairs. The south wall wore a huge flat screen, at least
forty inches. “The lounge area’s open to everyone,” she said.
“There are connections for a game system or Blu-ray or whatever you
might want to use. You might want to leave a note if you want to
reserve a certain time for something.”

The back of the lounge was also the landing
for the rear stairwell. It was much more industrial than the front
one, and switched back and forth with each short flight of steps.
Toni continued up the stairs. The third floor hallway looked
identical to the two below it. On either side of the landing was a
brown door,
27
and
28
. She produced a key and opened
28
.

The studio wasn’t huge, but pretty big. Nate
pictured clones of himself laying head to toe on the hardwood floor
and guessed the room was twenty by twenty. Maybe deeper than wide.
Two long strings dangled from the ceiling fan in the center. The
brick wall across from the door was filled by two huge windows, big
enough for him to stand in. They were the old-fashioned, mullioned
kind, with ropes and counterweights hidden in the frames.

Outside the window he could see Los Angeles.
With the small hill and the tall foundation he was close to five
stories up. The windows looked right over the top of the building
next door. Nate could see the 101 Freeway a few blocks to the
north. In the distance, up on the hillside, he could see the
Griffith Park Observatory.