Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology (16 page)

And what we found shocked the world. It was a city, carved out of stone and marble and brass and iron. There was oil thawing in the open-faced iron pipes that stretched atop the thick stone walls. The city was big. It seemed like it never ended. It was an empire like Rome, hidden two hundred feet under permafrost, and completely inaccessible to the human race until 2020AD.

As the first teenager of Temperance I took my chances exploring the various caves and passageways, looking for buried or hidden treasure. Then I came upon it. The clay stone sidewalk curled downwards, like a spiral staircase, down and down and down, the sun becoming a memory behind me as I descended. I ended up in a courtyard, decaying brown vines hanging on the walls and orange leaves crunching under my feet. I was at a dead end; all I could see above me was a pinch of the clear blue sky.

I hadn’t been exposed to the radiation and so when I approached the simple fountain in the center of the courtyard I thought nothing of it. I ran my hands in the cool trickling waters and pressed my fingers to my mouth. That was all it took: one drop sliding down my throat and my entire body convulsed. I had an epileptic fit. There were screams from the spiral sidewalk as my insides congealed, my entire matter and energy shifting and changing. Footsteps found me, arms circled me, and I heard my father whisper something comforting in my ear.

It hurt like hell, until nothing hurt anymore.

And then the first Cray I had ever met walked into the courtyard and gasped. He called it the Fountain of Youth. He didn’t hesitate to drink from it, and the others followed, drunk with the passion and romanticism of it. I lay on the ground immobilized by the buzzing sounds of the earth, a sound like everything was alive and vibrant and fresh.

Hattie snapped in front of my face and I realized the bath was ice cold. I nodded to her as I pushed myself up, still clad in chains, and accepted the towel around my shoulders. We went back into the spacious room and I caught a first glimpse of my costume for the thirteen-hundredth-and-thirteenth annual Temperance Day.

Blood-red embroidered shiny spandex stretched haphazardly across the mannequin. It was split at the shoulder, showing off skin before continuing down to the finger loop. There were silver symbols embroidered on it, from the new language developed by our linguists. While most of the people who migrated to Temperance spoke English, after over a thousand years, the language was archaic and overused. Instead they switched to a series of symbols. The language was intricate and I didn’t speak it. My handlers spoke it, but not in my presence. I was, after all, the most ancient thing in their fair city. Hattie spoke English to me out of respect and Jonathan Cray did it to remind me of what I am.

The costume was comprised of a red bodysuit with the embroidered symbols of hope, peace, bravery, and survival fused into it. There were never any wars in Temperance, but then, there weren’t any flights to Paris either.

There wasn’t a Paris anymore.

Attached to the bodysuit, which reminded me of a gymnastics
unitard
, were matching leggings, incredibly high stilettos, and a detachable skirt, the invertible kind that could display me in the traditional Fable the Immortal colors. This was something I would have worn circa 2075AD, during the reign of Gregory Cray.

Hattie put her hands on my shoulders. “Do you like it?” she asked.

I coughed, rattling the chains, and said nothing.

She sauntered over to it and thoughtfully put her fingers on the collar. “I thought it would bring back fond memories.”

I cringed away from Ursula and Eden as they casually flanked me, fussing over the chains, removing them from my hands and feet. I could have killed them in three seconds, snap, snap, snap, leave them lying on the floor. But even naked I didn’t touch them. Hattie moved away from the mannequin as Ursula, I think—the Eastern Earthly one—took the bodysuit off it and began fitting me onto it. Eden pulled the skirt around my waist; it was shiny and frilly in a spandex kind of way. I stepped into the leggings and they scrunched along my shins.

I put my feet into the stilettos and let the girls attach the straps to my ankles, keeping my gaze hard on Hattie. She thought it would remind me of Forest. Those, seemingly, were the memories she wanted to bring up. The worst part was that it wasn’t even the Fountain of Youth that made him special; it was purely his birthright. Forest was psychic, and he knew me in ways that nobody else had ever tried to know me. I let him get close to me for a good fifty years before the radiation poisoning took him away just like it took everyone away.

I was willing to do things on Temperance Day with Forest watching that the people had never dreamed of watching me do. I locked myself in crates and broke free, buried myself in liquid rock and escaped, locked myself in an iron maiden and let my blood run into the sandy arena floor. I did it because of his curiosity, because unlike the others he could read my mind and I wanted to challenge him. He had a way of living inside my head and then bringing me things from my childhood that I missed, like ice cream. He once created something that was close, but not as creamy. I loved him and hated him for it because it only reminded me again of where I was and what happened to me, something I wanted to forget. But Forest was fascinated with me, and because of that I went straight to the macabre. During those Temperance Days he lived in pain, seeing what I saw, feeling what I didn’t feel. I put him through a lot, and he didn’t waver, not once. He still loved me until the day he died.

“Is it fireproof?” I asked, trying to stay off the topic of Forest.

Hattie nodded and took my clammy pinkish hand. “Only the best for Fable,” she whispered, leading me back toward the tunnels.

It didn’t take long to wind through the opulent corridors and step into the pit. The pit was an atrium underneath the arena. Above me were thousands of stomping feet and clapping hands. They were so loud they made the ground vibrate. I clenched my small fist, looking at the triangle of fabric that stretched across it to my middle finger where it tapered off, looping around my finger like a ring.

I peered through the grates in front of me, but the arena was nothing but a sandy spot of white in the blistering afternoon sun. The show was about to begin. Hattie squeezed my shoulders and I smelled her perfume as she leaned into my ear.

“Be a good girl and die Fable,” she whispered.

I squared my shoulders and resisted the urge to elbow her in the stomach, swivel and grab her head, snap her neck. Five seconds, it would take me five seconds to kill her.

I watched as the ancestors of the eight founding families trickled into the center of the arena from another entrance. They were the only ones dressed in regal military uniforms, all brass buttons and tassels and stripes. They each wore crew-style hats and polyester slacks. They formed a line and began the salutes to the people piled in the stands. Jonathan Cray was among them, in his finest, and against my will my mouth watered. I didn’t like any of the ancestors of the founding families, not even the man that was supposed to be my great-to-the-power-of-infinity grandson. That was Milo Ketterling. He was only twenty-two and he had taken over for my last grandson,
Rab
Ketterling, only two years ago.
Rab
was sitting in the stands along with the rest of the
Ketterlings
, the
Crays
, the
Chungs
and the others. They were all waiting for me, their everlasting symbol of hope, to step into the arena.

It wasn’t time yet.

“Welcome!”
Jonathan
Cray
boomed
once
the
salutes
were
over.

I gritted my teeth, awaiting the rest of the speech I had heard thirteen-hundred-and-thirteen times over. The speech I could recite by heart.

He broke away from the line of other founders with his hands spread wide, palms facing the crowd. “For centuries we have preserved the human race in Temperance. For centuries we have remained a peaceful civilization, never giving in to the wars that brought us here. For centuries we have tried, tested and hoped that the waters would give us everlasting life. Here, on this thirteen-hundredth-and-thirteenth annual Temperance Day, we celebrate the day we found the Fountain of Youth.” He paused as the crowd erupted into insane cheers, the clapping and stomping reaching a roaring pitch.

I wrung my hands out, shifted back and forth on my stilettos, and shook out my wavy orange-red hair. I looked up only to find Jonathan’s eyes boring into my mine. He was supposed to be looking at the crowd, but he was looking at me.

“On this day, thirteen-hundred-and-thirteen years ago, we drank from the Fountain of Youth. We drank, but it didn’t spare all our lives.” He tore his gaze away from me and began speaking to the crowd, his face tilted toward the sun, absorbing the deadly rays of ultraviolet light.

“The Fountain spared only one, one who is immortal, one who is impervious to death, and one who has existed long before even our ancestors had existed.”

I drummed my fingers on the shimmery fabric, waiting for the gates to open, trying to find some clues about what the plan was for this year, what their big spectacle would be.

“Fable Ketterling,” Jonathan said, the crowd erupting into applause. He put his hands up and it died down immediately. “And we know Fable’s story. She was in the diamond mines when the nuclear bombs hit. She was spared from the radiation that runs through the veins of each and every one of us. Radiation that we thought would wear off after generations. Unfortunately,” his voice dropped to a whisper, “the Fountain of Youth still has no affect.”

There was a roar throughout the crowds as Jonathan Cray shattered their hope for the thirteen-hundredth-and-thirteenth time. I cringed at the angry stomps and booing.

“And so without
further adieu
I give you our superhero, Fable the Immortal!” Jonathan said, his arm outstretched toward me.

The kinks in the grate began clicking as it slid out of the way. He smiled at me and I smiled at him. I boldly walked out into the arena, the sun hitting my face with a burning heat that no longer bothered me or caused an ounce of perspiration to bead on my forehead. The people in the stands were drenched in it, hawkers running between the stands with drums of water to fill their canteens. I put my spandex-clad hand in his and he raised it up, turning me around so that everyone could get a good look at me.

“May today be the day she dies!” he shouted, making the crowds erupt in pandemonium.

I smiled and waved to the crowd as they roared at me. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the other seven families turn and march out of the arena to safety. Milo Ketterling gave me a pitying look of reproach as he followed the others.

Jonathan dropped my hand, and I expected the usual sinister Cray eyes, but when he looked at me they were filled with warmth and terror. A kind of terror I hadn’t seen since Forest. He lingered some, his fingers still pressed into mine as he turned and went to walk away, my hand following his until he finally let go, snapping off like an elastic band. I frowned, wondering what he really thought of me as I geared up for what was next.

There was silence in the arena, a hush falling over the crowd as I waited, and then I heard the zip of an F-16 overhead followed by the bombs hitting the arena. They weren’t like the nuclear bombs; these ones were child’s play compared to the ones that had destroyed the Earth. I pushed my feet into the ground as the fire washed over me. I felt nothing but the wind from the rushing flame brushing my hair aside; it too was flame-resistant. Unlike other girls my age I had to deal with scorch marks instead of split ends.

There were three rounds of bombs, and the crowd cheered them on, hoping that I’d fall, hoping that somehow the Fountain’s magic had worn off.

When they were finished, men in full biohazard suits moved into the arena from invisible doors. They pelted me with flame throwers. I stood still until the four of them surrounded me and the fire engulfed me, but it had no effect.

They turned after a good five minutes of pure flames and slunk into the shadows. I waited, knowing there was more. There were contraptions for torture, iron maidens, stretchers, knives, locked boxes, water chambers, chainsaws, animal traps, jet engines, and a million other things they could have brought out.