Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology (20 page)

“We use the house security systems,” Max said. “Bombard the house with liquid nitrogen. That will take care of anything, including zombies.”

“If he stays in the library, we need only flood the library briefly,” Paul said. “Just enough to take care of that thing and allow
Leena
to get through. Exterior security is fully active?”

“Activated as soon as I got down here,” Max said. “Perimeter fencing is live. Not even the undead could get through that much current.”

“Good.
Leena
should be here soon. Flood the library now. Let’s get it over with.”

A wave of emotion washed over Paul as Max pressed a button on the terminal. They watched on the monitor as a gush of liquid nitrogen flushed through the library, engulfing Sanderson in a cloud of icy white smoke. It was as though a part of himself was being destroyed. Though that much was true, he needed to remind himself that Sanderson was not truly alive, that he was re-animated somehow, to some small semblance of life. The question that burned in his mind was how? And by whom?

“That should be enough, Max.”

The Irishman flicked the switch, and the cloud of white smoke soon dissipated. What emerged from the pall was the sight of the zombie Sanderson, frozen solid where he stood, his arms still outstretched in yearning and despair.

A beeping sound emanated through the Lair. Max checked the exterior security cameras.
Leena’s
car was seen easing up the drive.

“Thank goodness she’s home,” Paul said, jumping to his feet and dashing over to the compact elevator.

In seconds he was upstairs and out into the library. A few moments more and
Leena
met him there, coming up short at the sight of the frozen corpse standing in front of her.

“What on Earth? Who is that?” she asked.

“Would you believe my illustrious predecessor?” Paul said. “The man who started it all?”

Leena
could not suppress a slight gasp of surprise. “Paul Sanderson? I mean, the original?”

“The one and only,” he said, taking her in his arms and kissing her. “I’m glad to see you’re okay.”

“It’s a warzone out there,”
Leena
said a few moments later. “These things are everywhere, creating carnage wherever they go.”

“Are they actually attacking people? Causing harm?”

She took a deep breath. “Worse. They appear to be eating people, or trying to.”

Paul’s face went hot with fury. He vowed there and then that whoever was responsible for this outrage would pay.

He returned his attention to Sanderson’s prone figure. Paul hoped he stayed dead this time even despite who the creature was.

“I don’t want there to be even the remotest chance of this guy coming back to life once again,” he said, and let fly with a powerful spinning scissor kick, connecting with the frozen figure’s torso, causing its entire body to shatter into a thousand pieces. “There’s no coming back to life for him. We can clean that up later. Let’s head back into the Lair for the time being.”

Re-opening the secret entryway, they slipped inside and the door slid shut behind them.

4

“What the heck?!” Detective Bob Sloan craned his neck upward as he scanned the night sky. Several vultures circled the city in loose lazy eight formations. It was unlike anything he’d ever seen before. “What are those things, Perez? Vultures? Out here?”

His partner, Detective Rosa Perez, a tough and plain-looking Latina woman in her late twenties, looked up in the same direction. “Looks like it. I noticed them earlier. They just keep circling like that, never changing their course, never flying away.”

“Let’s get some spotlights trained on them,” he said to a nearby officer, who nodded his understanding and moved away to meet Sloan’s request.

They were outside by the perimeter the authorities had set up around Metro Police Plaza. They were no longer under direct attack, as they had been for the previous hour or so, but a flotilla of zombies could still be seen at the far end of the street, aimlessly milling about

“I wish we could bust outta here, help those people out there caught in the middle of those . . . things,” he said, averting his vision from the birds overhead.

“Zombies, or something like them,” Perez said. “Though we don’t know where they came from or how and why they’re here.”

“I think we can take a pretty good stab at where they’re from,” Sloan said with some sarcasm. “The
hows
and whys we still have to find out.”

“Either way,” she said, “we have orders to hold our position here and wait for reinforcements. Thankfully the attack occurred at night, so there were less people in the city than if it had happened at midday.”

“There were
—
are
—
still many people out there. I feel so helpless. We should be out there helping them.”

“I know how you feel, Bob. Really, I do. But we have our orders and that’s that. C’mon, the gunners have the line here under control. I’ll get you a drink inside.”

Sloan looked at her intently, but said nothing, eventually following her inside the police complex. However, he wasn’t going to leave it there. Not a chance.

“They’re definitely vultures.” Paul lowered his powerful binoculars and turned to face
Leena
and Max, the three of them now standing on the expansive front lawn of the house. “
Trigonoceps
occipitalis
to be exact.”

“The White-headed Vulture?” Max asked with some confusion. “But they’re endemic to Africa, completely unknown outside that continent.”

“
Curiouser
than that, they’re at least three times the size of any such vulture I’ve ever seen,” Paul said, looking through his binoculars once again.

The birds were much more visible since three powerful spotlights, shining up from somewhere in the city, had been trained in their direction. They continued their silent path circling the city. Paul estimated there was at least a dozen in the air, but there could well have been more out of sight as well.

“We can discount the zoo escapee theory,” he said. “This amount of escaped birds is plainly impossible. And their size is an issue, too. They’re unnatural somehow. Monstrous.”

“Then you think they could be responsible for the zombies?”
Leena
said. “Not Orcus?”

“Yes, I think so, though I don’t see how. Both appearing at the same time, however, is beyond coincidence. We’re dealing with something truly horrendous here, an evil beyond description.”

After some moments, it was Max who broke the silence. “What now, Chief?”

“We get dressed and do whatever we can to stop these two new threats. Come. We’ve tarried long enough.” He turned on his heel and marched back toward the house.

At the front door, as
Leena
and Max passed him into the house, Paul turned and stared out toward the soaring birds.

What devilry does Metro face now?
he thought.
And how do we combat these two deadly enemies?

No answers were immediately forthcoming, but the time for contemplation was, for the moment, at an end. Now was the time for action, whatever was required.

One last look to the sky, and he followed the others into the house toward his destiny.