Ex-Heroes (29 page)

I can’t see him,
shouted Zzzap.
He’s just another dead thing.

At the squealing, shaking gate, someone else was screaming.

But only for a moment.

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. 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 north-west.

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. 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 mini-van 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.