Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology (3 page)

What if whatever had happened to the brains of these people could be reversed? She was about to make those kids orphans and she wasn’t used to having to face down a moral dilemma. Things were usually so cut and dry.

One of the men looked up from his meal and finally noticed her, his face a mask of blood and gore, his eyes milky and dead. He bared his teeth and snarled, lunging up and charging toward her.

There was no hesitation left.

The boom from the shotgun echoed loudly throughout the house and the man dropped like a stone, half his head blown apart and raining down onto the gray carpet, the bits of his brain almost the exact same shade.

After she’d killed the others, Spectrolite hurried back outside. The children were as she’d left them, seemingly asleep standing up, vacant eyes open but seeing nothing.

A crash caused her to abruptly look up.

Ametrine was up the street, destroying electrical poles, crumbling them to dust, the wires falling like lifeless snakes to the ground in wild tangles.

Her sister must have figured out the same thing she had: with no electricity, the murderous signal would be useless.

Spectrolite quickly holstered her shotgun on her back, picked up each child and placed them in the foyer of the house, closed the door behind them and ran to join her sister.

As she did, the young man she’d encountered in the previous house exploded out of his front door, shouting for his girlfriend and wielding a handgun, wildly waving it around.

Another pole fell with the power of Ametrine’s mind and Spectrolite was reminded again of the nickname she and her sister had been given back when they were children: post-modern Medusas, because their abilities combined were very much like that of the ancient gorgon.

Spectrolite reached Ametrine, gestured at a fallen pole and asked, “Do we really have time for this?”

“I want to make sure the power is dead when the cavalry arrives.”

“I thought we were the cavalry? Plus, I think one pole probably knocked out the power already.”

All at once, the dead began to emerge from the homes in which they’d been inside. It was a gruesome sight. Every single one of them was streaked with gore and much to her dismay, Spectrolite saw a few gnawing on their own arms.

Self-cannibalism.

So that was how bloodthirsty these things were. If there was no other living thing around to feast on, they would just as happily feed on themselves.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” she asked.

Ametrine cursed softly as the undead horde suddenly focused on the twin costumed heroes, probably because they, along with one lone man, were the only living humans on the street.

There were dozens of them, all snarling and drooling blood and saliva, their teeth smeared red with bits of meat trapped between them.

“This is not good,” Ametrine muttered as Spectrolite
unholstered
both her weapons.

They heard a
pop
pop
pop
and Spectrolite knew the man searching for his girlfriend was now firing his handgun at the creatures.

Standing back-to-back with her sister, Spectrolite took aim, knowing instinctively to shoot at the heads. It had been the brains that had been rebooted and just like any other computer suffering a lockup, a hard shut down was required.

Blood, bone and brains flew, the zombies dropping where they stood or flying back into the others behind them before slipping to the ground, dead for good this time.

Behind her, Spectrolite heard what sounded like concrete pillars collapsing and, in a sense, that’s exactly what they were. From the corner of her eye, she could just make out Ametrine pointing her index fingers at each target, something she did when she focused her energy completely.

The things showed no fear, oblivious to their fallen comrades. In fact, a few of them even paused in their advance to stop, crouch down and snatch fistfuls of spilled brains, which they shoved into their own mouths, barely chewing before swallowing, some of them so greedy they came close to choking themselves on the huge gobs of gray matter.

Spectrolite’s stomach turned a cartwheel at the sight, but at the same time felt a twinge of hope. If enough of the monsters became too distracted by their cannibalism, they would be easier targets.

But whatever happened, it would have to happen soon.

They were now surrounded on all sides and her gun was out of ammo. She had to tuck one weapon under her arm as she struggled to reload the other.

A blonde, undead woman reached for her, snarling as she moved in for her shoulders with fingers caked crimson.

Shouting, Spectrolite dodged the woman’s grip, but dropped her shotgun in the process. It clattered to the ground as the blonde darted for her again, this time managing to get a grip on the front of her costume.

“
Stephanie!
”

Spectrolite had no trouble recognizing the voice. It came from the man in the football jersey and she just had time to notice the blonde zombie worn an almost identical one, with the exception of a different numeral.

The young man shoved his way through the crowd, wrenching himself free whenever one of the creatures managed to get
ahold
of him. He shouted his girlfriend’s name again even as Spectrolite fought to get herself loose of the creature’s grasp.

The last thing she wanted was to have to put a bullet in Stephanie’s brain when the man who loved her was only ten feet away, but what choice did she have?

In the end, it was Ametrine who decided Stephanie’s fate. Spectrolite wasn’t even aware that Ametrine had turned around until she felt Stephanie’s hands stiffen into stone before they cracked and crumbled into ash, leaving a fine layer of dust where they’d been touching her.

The man saw this and screamed, stopping in his tracks, his eyes wide with disbelief one instant and heartbreak the next. He raised his weapon, pointing it straight at Spectrolite’s face, only to have the arm he held it in suddenly knocked back and bit into by one of the creatures, a chuck of flesh the size of a baseball ripped from his bicep.

He wailed in agony as the blood spurted, immediately soaking his football jersey. The scent of blood must have caught the attention of the other creatures because they all turned as one, as though they were of some monstrous hive-mind, and focused all their energy on eating the young man alive.

Horrified, the costumed heroes watched as several of the undead took hold of the man’s bitten arm and yanked it clean from the shoulder socket, then fought over it the way a pack of starving dogs fought over a discarded leg of lamb.

In a moment, he was lost to sight and his screaming ceased.

The two women continued their battle, taking out as many of the things as they could while they were distracted. Spectrolite was beginning to think they just might have a fighting chance after all and was feeling the first tiniest twinge of relief when from above them came an unexpected
wump
wump
wump
wump
that she was quite familiar with.

They both looked up to see the black chopper with the huge silver K emblazoned on the side.

The cavalry had arrived at last.

“What took them so long?” Spectrolite grumbled as she returned her attention to destroying as many of the zombies as possible. She barely glanced over when several of her fellow Kinetics leapt from the chopper and landed nearby.

Spectrolite would have to let Ametrine explain what had happened in this neighborhood and how to stop it because she took off running toward the house where she had stowed the children for their own safety. She could only pray they would somehow, someday, be able to cope with what had happened to their parents and their neighbors this night. She hoped their scars would not be too deep to recover from, but, as was her nature, she suspected the worst.

And there was still the mystery of who had orchestrated these events in the first place. And why.

But if there was anything Spectrolite knew for certain, it was this: what had happened here tonight was just the beginning.

Gone but Not Lost

by

Eric S. Brown

T
he last few
months had been hard, to say the least. There was little food and even less rest. Anne had no choice but stay on the move. The dead were everywhere. She’d left her home and made her way north in the hopes of finding other survivors. And she had, but none that could help her. The dead had made the world into an “every-man-for-himself” kind of deal. If you had food, water, or a safe place, you held onto it and didn’t share. If you didn’t, you either killed to get them or stayed on the move like she had. The road wasn’t so bad, but it took its toll. Food was usually around if you looked hard enough and had a bit of luck, but you learned very quickly nowhere was really safe. You slept with one eye open if you slept at all; you prayed you’d be awake if the dead came calling during the night. She’d tried sleeping in trees, tying herself to a limb far above the ground, but that was just as dangerous as lying out in the open, in its own way. She’d been treed like an animal once and narrowly escaped with her life. Anne swore it was something she’d never do again.

She didn’t know exactly where she was now other than it was somewhere in New York. She was well aware of how dangerous the city had become, but here she was nonetheless. She couldn’t really explain why she’d come here. Something inside of her had been tugging her northward as she continued her search for somewhere to call home again. So far, her luck had held, and by keeping quiet and to the alleyways, she’d managed to avoid the dead. However, now as the day was ending, finding somewhere to get off the streets for a bit was her first priority, but even so, she wondered if her lack of sleep had somehow influenced her choice of hiding place. She was exhausted so as soon as she entered the building, she found a spot out of sight and promptly crashed.