Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology (30 page)

Flin
Flon
, Manitoba

Local residents of the well-known mining town are coming forward with reports of people disappearing on a regular basis, right now at an estimate of one person every sixteen minutes. Also reported is a strange smell on the air, one a resident described as a mix of rotten meat and half-processed compost.

RCMP are currently investigating the matter, but have ruled out the possibility of false reporting from the townsfolk.

Many are fleeing the town, worried they might be the next to disappear.

Rotten meat. Compost.
Gabriel knew the smell being described. He’d encountered it himself once before during an accidental trip to a parallel world while searching for a missing boy months ago.

“I got to go,” he said to himself and stood from his chair.

Rod was making his way back to his office between the cubicles and the moment he caught sight of Gabriel, he gave him a firm look as he passed by, and pointed with a rigid finger to the coffee stain on his pants.

He’s going to kill me,
Gabriel thought, adjusting his glasses,
but it has to be done.
Though he hated doing it, he quickly disconnected his call with Mr. Andrews, turned off the phone and logged off his machine. If Rod took note of it on his end, Gabriel would swiftly walk out of there and pretend to not notice him.

Grabbing his cardigan, he threw it over his arm and headed toward the call floor’s main door. In the hallway, he weaved through a few people getting off the elevator, rounded the corner, and hit the stairwell. The rooftop entrance he’d been using since almost the beginning of his crusade would be his ticket out of here.

Taking the steps two at a time, he ran up the stairs, only slowing once when a few others were on their way down them, then picked up speed in his race to the top. Once there, he unlocked the padlock on the door, got inside, and immediately tore off his clothes to reveal the dark and light blue uniform underneath. Slowing his breathing, he focused and
shifted,
his powers igniting and sending a shockwave of energy through his system.

Mask in place, Axiom-man took the ladder to the roof hatch, got outside, and closed the hatch behind himself.

“North,” he said.
Might take a while, but if what’s going on up there is what I think it is, many more will die today.

He ran to the roof’s edge, threw out his arms, and took to the sky.

When he first got his powers, Axiom-man had only been able to fly at around sixty kilometers an hour—but his powers had a secret function, he later learned. They operated on use. The more he used them, the stronger he got, the faster he could fly, the more damage the energy beams that blasted out of his eyes could cause.

These days, he was hitting around a hundred kilometers an hour. Not ultra speed by any stretch of the imagination, but when one is traveling that fast with nothing between you and the wind blasting into your face but a thin piece of cloth, it was fast enough for the time being.

About eight hours later, some of the trip eyeing the skyline, the rest with his head down and cutting over the roads below—part of it to ensure he took the right way there, the other to avoid the wind slamming the air to the back of his throat and taking his breath away—
Flin
Flon
came up on the horizon, all hills and valleys, with roads going up and down and buildings and houses set up along each. Enormous rocks and boulders covered the landscape.

The town was empty.

RCMP cars, five of them, dotted the streets, no sign of the officers.

Having gone through this type of ghostly discovery before, Axiom-man got himself ready and made his descent into town, doing so as discreetly as possible by landing behind the Royal Hotel on Main Street. It was night. The streetlights were lit up.

Some folks are in bed. Others—
He knew what happened.

The online newspaper had been right: death was on the air. Axiom-man knew that smell all too well and memories from his time encountering himself as an undead creature in an alternate universe crept into his mind, sending a shiver through him. He hoped that what was happening now wasn’t his fault, that he hadn’t somehow left a portal open and unknowingly let the undead through.

He walked down the street, listening carefully for anything that might give away the presence of one of the dead.

Wish I had X-Ray vision,
he thought.
Would make this a lot easier and I could just scan the buildings.
He kept close to the window displays of the stores, the mannequins within seeming all the more lifelike as they stared out into the street.

A shrill shriek pierced his ears. He immediately spun in the direction of the scream.

Squinting against the dim streetlights, he said, “Come on, where are you?”

His feet left the ground and he floated quickly down the street.

The girl screamed again, louder.

I’m getting closer,
he thought.

Axiom-man kept up on the trail until he came upon an open field with few trees and a giant hill of rock that ran at least two hundred feet high, a water tower for the town at the top.

At the base of the hill, people loomed about, all gathered together, rocking side to side on their feet. Their moans were unmistakable.

“I can’t believe this has happened here,” Axiom-man said to himself, and threw his arms out like before and gave it all he had, heading for the creatures.

The shriek sounded again.

“I’m coming!” he called and hit the brakes on his flight the moment he burst through the group of the dead.

A woman lay on the ground, blonde hair, her black blouse and red skirt a mess of blood.

Heavy hands immediately grabbed him by the shoulders the moment his feet touched down.

“Get away from me,” he said and punched the first of the dead between the eyes. The creature’s head snapped back and the crack of its vertebrae assured him of its demise.

Taking a hand of another creature off his shoulder, Axiom-man jerked the undead man’s arm free from its socket and kicked the creature in the chest, sending it flying back into two others and giving both him and the woman on the ground some room.

“Help . . . me . . .” the woman on the ground said.

Axiom-man had just enough time to merely nod before a rotting teenager with half his skull missing threw itself at him. He delivered a swift punch across the teen’s head, sending its jaw and skull into a one-eighty. The teen hit the ground.

Axiom-man readied his eyes and his vision became masked in bright blue light. He peered through the blue haze and focused on the faint outlines of the dead around him. He let the energy gush from his eyes, each blast hitting the dead head-on, wrecking burnt holes through their heads and chests.

The moaning of the zombies
crescendoed
. . . then faded altogether.

Axiom-man absorbed the energy back into his eyes and all became clear again.

The woman lay at his feet. “I need . . . I need . . .” Each word barely came out. Axiom-man knelt down, about to pick her up and take her to the hospital, then saw why the woman could barely speak. On the other side of her body was one of her lungs, torn clean out through the ribcage that was supposed to protect it.

“It’s okay, I got you,” he said as gently as possible. But his words were too late.

She was dead.

All he could do was slowly stand up and let his heart sink into his stomach. The rotting corpses of the undead lay strewn about, their carcasses smoking after receiving a healthy dose of blue energy.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could manage to say to the woman.
I hope you’re in a better place now.
But he knew that wasn’t true. If she was like the other undead he’d encountered in his life, very shortly she’d return and try and eat him. Doing his best to ignore what he was doing and just get it over with, Axiom-man sent a quick shot of blue energy between the woman’s eyes, straight into the brain. He hoped it would keep her down.

Fighting the heaviness of guilt at what he’d just done—despite the woman potentially becoming a monster, killing was killing—he floated up to the top of the giant rocky hill and stood next to the water tower looking out over the town. He wondered how many of the people out there were alive and how many were dead.

Except whoever is alive are either boarded up in a house or seeking safety out of the town.
From his vantage point he took note of many cars missing from driveways. Some of the roads were streaked with black skid marks as, no doubt, people made a squealing getaway.

There was no manual for doing what he did, and what the comics and movies preached about being a superhero was bunk. Finding clues or just “knowing what do” was not how this job played out. Sometimes, it was mere chance he was able to put things together and solve an issue as quickly as he could. Other times, the trail went cold, cases unsolved, people never brought to justice.

The loud crack of a gun tore through the silence.