Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology (26 page)

The next few days were fairly normal, but when David phoned me at the office asking for
Nightcat’s
help, I knew things weren’t too normal for him.

“I’m really sorry to bother you at work, Dana. I wouldn’t have called if I didn’t need you.” He sounded as if he thought he was inconveniencing me.

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied. “What’s up?”

“You remember that incident a few days ago?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, it turns out it’s happened a few more times since then.”

“What?” I asked.

“Things have been getting weirder and weirder. The man that you saved last week went missing from the hospital early this morning. The most we can piece together is he attacked several orderlies and ran off. We’ve searched high and low but haven’t got any leads on his whereabouts.”

“And you want me to find him?”

“Actually, I wanted your insight for something else.” He hesitated for a moment before continuing. “These incidents are happening more and more often. People are getting attacked and, more often than not, bitten. One person even succumbed to his injuries and his body went missing from the morgue. We looked at the security footage, but there wasn’t anything useful. You see how weird this is?”

David was obviously at a loss. He was an experienced cop, but his frustration was understandable given the circumstances.

“I’ll certainly do whatever I can to help.”

“I’d really appreciate it, Dana.”

I smiled. David knew there wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do for him. And I mean that.
Anything.

“Did you want me to meet you at the station after work?” I asked.

“I know you can’t keep missing work on my behalf, so whenever you’re able to get away at the end of the day would be fine.”

“So what was your plan?”

“I was hoping to go back to a previous crime scene and backtrack from there. I was wondering if you could try and pick up the trail of the attacker?”

“I can certainly try, but I didn’t exactly get a good scent.” I might have heightened senses in cat-mode, but some things you just didn’t notice. Unless the person had a unique smell or I was specifically trying to track someone, I didn’t generally pay attention to it. Having acute senses overloaded the brain so you learned to tune out the information you didn’t need.

“If that doesn’t work, then maybe we can try the other locations?” he asked.

“Sure. I’ll try to be over right after work.”

“Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“You owe me.” I’m pretty sure he felt my smile through the phone line.

“I always do.” David laughed before he hung up.

I tried my best to concentrate on work the rest of the day, but I couldn’t help my mind wandering. If David was confused over all of this, then understandably so was I. I only hoped I could help him.

As
Nightcat
, I met David in his office shortly after 5:30 and we went over all the evidence so far. The morning’s phone call summarized it, but now he gave me the gritty details.

After the short briefing we drove to the place where the assault occurred. I attempted to let my senses guide me so I sniffed the air more than usual.

“Getting anything?” David asked.

I shook my head. “Not really. It’s pretty dank around here so it’s hard for anything else to come through. That and I don’t exactly know what I’m looking for.”

He came over and patted me on the shoulder. “Regardless, I’m still glad you came.”

“You can thank me after I’ve found whatever it is we’re looking for.” I smiled, then went back to concentrating on the task at hand. I still didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary so I tried doing a visual inspection. As I walked further down the alley, I noticed a dishevelled man hunkered over by a dumpster, likely a homeless person trying to find something to eat.

“Excuse me,” I asked as I gently tapped him on the shoulder. As soon as I made physical contact, I knew something was horribly wrong. My sixth sense reiterated that fact.

The man slowly turned around, his smile filled with rotting teeth. His blank eyes stared right through me. I stepped back as he lumbered forward.

“
Nightcat
?” David whispered.

I didn’t dare say a thing. And I didn’t need to. Once David got a good look at this “thing” he knew something was wrong.

I continued to back step, staring at the monstrosity before me.

His gray saggy flesh hung loosely from the bones beneath. The eyes were a milky white, and it made me wonder how much he was able to discern. As he crept forward, the panic rose in my chest. This being was vaguely human, but not quite. Almost like a poorly sculpted wax figure melting in a tanning bed.

David and I found ourselves up against the wall when several figures in the shadows started slinking forward. Something told me they were much the same physically as the first creature.

“David?” I squeaked.

No answer.

I turned my head and saw his eyes staring forward in disbelief.

“David!” I tried to bring him out of it.

“Sorry, I . . . I don’t know what to do, honestly.”

“And I’m supposed to?”

No sooner did I finish my sentence than one of the monstrosities jumped at me. As I struggled with my attacker, the rest of the horde grew closer. David shot a few of them in non-vital areas, but they kept coming.

It baffled me how something so lanky and seemingly frail could be so strong. I held its hands away from me, but it strained its neck and got closer to my face as it started snapping like a rabid dog.

Before David uttered an expletive I heard the tell-tale sign of his gun clicking, indicating he was out of bullets. In that split second when I took my eyes off my attacker, the creature launched itself forward and took a chunk out of my neck with its teeth.

I immediately clutched my neck, trying to stop the bleeding.

“Come on, let’s go!” David held out his hand and I accepted. Before I made it to my feet, David levelled one of the monsters with the butt of his pistol. Its skin ripped right along the cheekbone, but it didn’t bleed.

David held my hand as we ran back to the vehicle. I took a quick glance behind and confirmed my worst fear: they were following us and the ones in better shape were actually gaining on us.

David opened the driver’s side door, pushed me into the car and jumped in after me. He slammed the door shut and hit the automatic locks as he started the engine. The freak show was attempting to surround the car. David slammed his foot down on the gas pedal so hard I thought his foot would go right through the firewall.

Several of the creatures got run over in the process, but when I looked in the side mirror, it didn’t seem to deter them at all. Even though some of them were legless, they crawled forward in a last ditch effort to chase us.

“You okay?” David asked, his voice full of concern.

“I’m not sure,” I said through gritted teeth.

I wasn’t a stranger to pain, but this was different than anything I’d ever felt before, and the wound wasn’t healing as fast as it should have been.

“Let me see.” David took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the gaping hole in my neck. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

“No, they won’t be able to do anything,” I said in a voice that barely sounded like my own.

“Dana, this is serious!”

“You think I don’t know that? Phone Raphael. Get me to the lab.”

“Dana, no. There’s no way . . .”

“Just do it!” I demanded with more force than intended.

“You’d better know what you’re doing.” David made the call.

I closed my eyes for the remainder of the ride and concentrated on healing.

For whatever good it would do me.

Raphael met us at the lab and gave me a quick go-over.

“It appears you have seen better days, Ms.
Harker
.” Raphael smirked that annoying smirk of his. Leave it to him to be his irritating urbane self during something like this.

“Are you going to help me, or mock me?” I said quietly.

“I never mock, Ms.
Harker
,” Raphael said deadpan. “Please, come with me.”

As I followed Raphael deeper into the lab, I couldn’t help but be reminded how little had changed since I forcibly underwent the transformation that turned me into
Nightcat
. Before the transformation I was intimidated by Raphael’s bat-like seven-and-a-half-foot, four-hundred-fifty-pound frame. I’ve since proven to be capable of at least bringing Raphael to a standstill which granted me some amount of respect from him. Raphael escorted me to one of the lab’s many observation rooms. Dr. Bertram was at his usual station in front of a giant monitor, his fingers madly typing away on the keyboard beneath.