Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology (14 page)

“I won’t leave you.”

“You can’t save me,” the
Fantom
said.

“Yeah?” Kory raised the rifle. Guns. All of the new heroes used them. “Try me.”

Undead Love

by

Joe Martino

B
efore I tell
you this story, I have to tell you the first thing I noticed was the
smell
.

It is a hot and sticky night in New York City. I can feel the heat and humidity permeating the city even with my powers. The east coast of the United States has been gripped in a heat wave for over two weeks and there is no end in sight. In the past fourteen days we have had temperatures over a hundred degrees for twelve of them. It is Hell on Earth and this doesn’t help the smell. Even if there were still weathermen on the television, I doubt anyone would be happy with them right now. But let me tell you, people have a lot more to worry about right now than knowing the weather. Now, keep in mind, I’ve been around death a lot. I have been a cop for over ten years and three of them have been as a homicide detective. When
Maldestrak
attacked, I laid in the rubble of Las Vegas with thousands of dead and mutilated people around me. Months before that, I watched my wife die because of my ambition. This is different. I mean, the smell of death is there. But it is a foul, rank smell. It is like the smell that you get when you burn leather. Add to that the smell of death. Yeah, take that smell, and wrap it in the full bag that you use to pick up your dog’s leavings, and you will be close.

My name is Tom Wyatt.

I am the super “hero” known as
Shadowflame
.

Some time has passed since I was granted abilities that set me apart from other men. The sacred flame of shadow, the holy men called it “
Isht
,” that now resides within me has granted me super powers. I am invulnerable to most attacks, I can fly, fire force bolts from my hands, and I have limited telekinetic ability. It seems the Wyatt family line was destined to inherit this honor from a pair of holy men that are from the long-dead planet
Zakraan
. Their planet was destroyed by the despot and third holy man,
Maldestrak
who, after destroying his own
homeworld
, had been cutting a swath through the universe in a beeline for Earth. Long story short, he came, I beat him, we lost the city of Las Vegas in the process. Still, as you can tell by us having this chat, the earth was saved. But now I am asking myself if it was worth all the effort and pain that it took to defeat
Maldestrak
and save the earth from what would have been an enslaved existence.

Let me see if I can explain this as simple as possible. The dead have come back to life. This is no “B” movie or someone’s idea of a sick joke. No one is putting on Facebook that Grandma is back and Christmas has never been better. Three weeks or so ago, fresh and newly-dead people started twitching. Doctors had no idea what was happening, but none of the people who had recently passed away were devoid of movement. It was as if somehow they were connected to a low electrical charge. As time progressed, things got even more bizarre. The twitching turned into convulsing and then into real movement. The dead were rising and they seemed to only have one pronounced desire—to
devour
the living. You would think with the amount of zombie movies that have been produced in the last fifty years that people would have thought to burn the newly dead, but our curiosity seems to have gotten the best of us. We were unprepared for how fast they went from twitching to full blown aggressive movement. A few days later, the dead were actually rising from their graves and dragging themselves through the streets and alleyways. It was no longer a select few of freshly-dead corpses that were being reanimated; it was all dead people who were able to claw, dig or break out of wherever they were interred.

Flash forward a bit and here I am. I’ve been wading through these undead masses for what seems like days. We still have no idea how this happened or what needs to be done to stop it, but the situation only seems to be getting worse. Every time I think I have it under control, another pack seems to pop up. They are slow, and easy to handle considering my abilities. But even I can get tired sometimes, even if it is only an emotional exhaustion. Of all the things that seem to bother me about these creatures, the thing that really gets me is their eyes. I can’t get over how they look past you even when they are looking at you. And did I mention the smell?

Another legion of these putrid masses is coming toward me. As they come closer I fire an energy blast through the middle of the crowd. You would think that this would have made a dent but, no. The hole I created gets closed up as if I am trying to hold off a tidal wave. They come in, wave after wave. There is no end to them. I fire another blast with the same result. I have to rethink my strategy. The one thing that they do react to is my flame. Whether it is the heat or the sacred pure source of its power doesn’t matter to me. It works and I use it to funnel them into an abandoned navy yard. There are so many of them so I don’t try and get them all in there at once. I work toward getting the bulk of them in, and I can pick off the one-offs and stragglers once I am done. They are slow and cumbersome and easy targets, but when they are all together like this they are impossible to stop. It takes over an hour, but I get them into the shipyard and drop a building behind them so they can’t get away.

As much as I don’t want to do it, I leave them for a much-needed break and fly up to the roof of a nearby building. I need to get away from them for a moment. I sit and watch in utter shock and amazement at the tenacity of these creatures. They are determined, focused and amazingly powerful in a group. They have the ability to work together in a way that they never would have if they were still alive. Their combined strength is enough to nudge the building I dropped behind them. A building! I can’t help but think that if it wasn’t for the aliens that gave me this power, I’d be wandering around down there as well. I would also be just one more of the faceless masses. I mean, I was going to kill myself. I
did
kill myself. I
pulled
the trigger that was pressed against my temple. If
Granolynd
and
Treetanne
didn’t transport me to their ship that was orbiting the earth at that moment, I’d be dead and the earth would have never had me as a champion. But then again, at this point
Maldestrak
would be the ruler of Earth. A small part of me wonders if this would have happened if he was able to take over the planet.

I am
convinced
that somehow one of my sworn enemies has something to do with this. Don Tony
Baltinetti
has been meddling in things that he shouldn’t be in his obsession to kill me ever since I kicked the crap out of his bully nephew Tommy. Sorcery, genetic manipulation, clones. Any one of these things could have contributed to this insane zombie apocalypse. I also wouldn’t put it past Doctor Anarchy to somehow be involved. He can control many functions in the human brain. Who can say if he can or can’t control the dead? He was able to make me believe for a moment that Janice was still alive, and that we were still living happily as if nothing had happened. Of course, that was just to satisfy his sadistic nature and torture me before he attempted to kill me. I will get to the bottom of this if I can find the time. I am too busy trying to save the living and breathing people that still exist in the city. I was able to help the National Guard and fly a number of families and other people to a safe area outside the city. The government seems to be as clueless as anyone as to why this is happening. The military have cordoned off a few towns in New Jersey and Connecticut, and so far they have been able to keep the dead out. But who knows how long they will be able to keep them safe. Life as we once knew it is surely gone.

Before they have the opportunity to escape my makeshift prison, I go down to incinerate them all. I know that they are dead, and my force bolts don’t hurt them as it strips what semblance of life remains. But they are people. They are kids, fathers, wives, grandmothers—in other words, they are
us
. People who have been stripped of life, hope, love, joy, rent, cable bills and most of all, choice. I’ve disintegrated all makes and models tonight, and they just keep coming. Even as their dead eyes and clawing hands try to kill me and rip my uniform off, I remember what they once were. I barely feel them through my suit. But, I know they are there, and I have to deal with them.

After the Navy Yard, I clear off another block in Manhattan and then I see it. I see
her
. Of all the things I haven’t thought of in the endless hours, days and weeks that I have been trudging through this hell, it is her. My wife Janice died a little over a year ago. But, here she is walking, as if nothing even happened. Well, that isn’t exactly true. She is
dead
; she is a walking, creaking, oozing corpse. I blast through the few dead that surround her and fly to her side. I look into her lifeless eyes with hope when I know that there isn’t any. She starts to move toward me.

Lifeless.

Moaning.

Creaking.

Dead.

As she approaches, a strange compulsion—for some odd reason I begin to talk to her.

“Janice,” I say, “it is me, Tom.”

Nothing but a guttural groan.

As she comes even closer, I push the button on the side of my facemask that opens it. I try to show her my face in the useless hope that she will somehow recognize me. I look at her once beautiful visage and all I can see is the gray, flaking, oozing skin and blue lips. But, I still see Janice. I still see my wife. My beautiful, beautiful wife whom I shared my life with. I try again to speak to her. Deep down and again, I know it is hopeless.

“Baby, please show me that you are in there.”

I start to cry.

I am really close to her now. She raises herself closer to my face and I can’t help but to gag a little as I smell that awful smell, but I don’t move and I don’t push her back. I let her come. I welcome it. I speak soft words to her. Her eyes are hollowed out, oozing and empty.

“I love you. I miss you”

She gives me nothing in return but the same guttural groans and that smell. She grabs my neck and I lean in. She bites my face and I let her. Her rotted teeth break off as if she was biting into concrete.

I cry some more.

“I know that you are no longer there, no longer alive, baby. I’ve wished,
prayed
, for this day. For the time when you could be returned to me. But, not like this. Not like this.”

I pull her close. I kiss her ever so gently on the forehead as she scratches and claws at me, her tongue hanging from where her jaw and teeth had just shattered on my face. I whisper things that only she and I would know about. Her gray skin and rancid smell are starting to become welcome to me. But, I know that this isn’t right. It isn’t her. Not really.

I pull her even closer to me. Not remembering my strength, I break her spine. A strange oozing slime not unlike a green and pus-ridden custard splashes on the ground at our feet. She is so brittle. The crazy thing is she doesn’t even feel it. She continues to rake and pull at me as if some base instinct is at work in what is left of her mind. She wants to kill me, she wants to devour my flesh. I know that she is dead. We are practically dancing in the ooze that was once in her bloated carcass. With another kiss on her forehead and a farewell, I let the sacred black flame that powers me envelop us in its midnight embrace. I look into her dead eyes once more as she disintegrates in my arms, the ashes floating into the hot, dark sky.

I’ve never loved anyone like I loved Janice. She was my rock and I took her for granted. It crushes me to watch her die for a second time.

I die a little myself, once again, for a second time . . .

Fable the Immortal

by

Rhiannon
Paille

I
waited, listening
to the silence, the beat of the drum of my heart ringing in my ears. I wrung my hands out along my sides and tilted my neck back and forth, working out imaginary kinks. My entire body was the pinnacle of perfection, from my thirty-two-inch hips to my twenty-inch waist and my plastic chest. Aches and pains had melted away centuries ago with the faint trickle of water that slipped down my throat. I no longer felt much of anything, nothing except the excruciating pain in my traitorous heart.