Read Online Ex-Communication: A Novel by Peter Clines - Free Book Online

y’know?”
    “So … weeks? Months?” The redhead set her wine down and picked up a piece of bread. “How long have you been keeping this little secret from us?”
    “It wasn’t really a secret,” said St. George. “It just wasn’t something that comes up in casual conversation.”
    “It does for most people,” said Danielle.
    “The first time we slept together was five weeks after the convoy returned from Yuma,” said Stealth. “Is that what you wished to know?”
    “Not exactly, no.”
    “Wait a minute.” Barry banged his palm on the arm of his wheelchair and turned to Stealth. “I know who you are.”
    She tensed in her chair.
    “You were on
Jeopardy!
,” he said. “About a year before theexes appeared. You were champion for, like, a week and a half, weren’t you?”
    “Six days.”
    “And you won almost half a million dollars. You beat the highest-earning day ever and then you beat your own score three days later. It was amazing. People were talking about it for months. They all had you pegged as the next Larissa Kelly or Ken Jennings. You played two games where the other players didn’t even get to buzz in. You just swept both boards.”
    Stealth gave a hesitant nod, then swept back the lock of black hair that fell across her face. “There was only one game where no other player buzzed in, but there were two games where no other player scored.”
    “Amazing,” said Barry. “What’d you do with the money? Take a trip or invest it or what?”
    “I invested some,” she said. “I spent the rest on clothing and equipment.”
    “Ahhh,” he said. “You’re a sports nut.”
    “Something along those lines, yes.”
    They all glanced at St. George. He made a point of shoving a piece of bread into his mouth.
    They made small talk through dinner, and St. George surprised them all with some peanut butter cookies from the bakery. For a few hours, they were just friends having dinner together. When he saw them to the door, Barry bumped knuckles and Danielle gave him a hug. “Thank you,” she said. She even tried to hug Stealth, but then both of them thought better of it.
    St. George closed the door and turned to the dark-haired woman. “Well,” he said, “that didn’t go too bad.”
    “Danielle knew immediately.”
    He sighed. “Yeah, I know.”

July 28th, 2009
    Dear Diary,
    My eyes opened when I heard the gunshot and the bullet hit the ground six inches in front of me. The sand poofed up and everything, just like on TV.
    I know that sounds kind of staged, but it was really just like that. Eyes open, poof . I almost peed my pants. I’ve never been shot at before. It’s scary as hell.
    Dad warned us stuff like this might happen. Some people weren’t doing well with the zombies. That’s one of the reasons calling them exes stuck. It was a psychology thing. He told me the term for it, but I don’t remember.
    Anyway, he said some people just went crazy. They were shooting at anyone they thought was a zombie or who they thought might be infected with the ex-virus that made them into zombies. Other people were shooting at people to get whatever food and stuff they had, or because they thought they were coming to take their stuff. And some people were just shooting at anything that moved. It was all pretty stupid. It was like everyone’s IQ dropped forty points just because they were scared.
    Writing it out makes it sound like I was all uber-cool and everything, like it was just a game or something. Bullets whizzing around me and I sat there thinking about psychology and stuff. The truth is, a second bullet made my hair move and I just ran. I rolled over two or three times and crawled on my hands and knees until I got to my feet and then I ran as hard as I could. Being on the track team finally paid off.
    I think I realized then that I only had one shoe on, but all I could really think about was running away from the gunshots.
    I ran maybe a hundred yards and saw a n zombie ex-person.
    Dad