Maxwell creating a barrier

Max shrugged. He put his fists side by side to make a row of tattooed knuckles, then rolled them back-to-back. A few murmurs slipped from his lips as he pushed his fists forward and opened them. He whispered a few more words, closed his eyes, and swung his hands away from each other.
Twin clouds of dust and dry leaves rose up off the street. A few of the cars squealed and lurched in either direction. The exes slid across the pavement as if they were being swept aside. Some of them fell over and kept moving. One of them, a dead woman in shorts and a gory tank top, kept trying to stagger forward even as she was swept back.
Max opened his eyes and looked at the pristine path across the street. “Looks great when you do it with water,” said Max. “Very biblical.”
“You can keep them away?”
Max let his hands drop. “It’ll stay for a while. It only goes side to side, so watch your back.”

Excerpt From Ex-Communication, pg 473
Peter Clines
https://books.apple.com/us/book/ex-communication/id635706546