Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology (9 page)

“This sort of problem is exactly why I need the Crusader,” the lord abbot expounded. “Dealing with outlaws is something ordinary men can do. But revenants? You saw how well Sir Hugh managed.”

“Sir Hugh was a brave, noble knight, but he was never especially clever.”

“Perhaps. Tell me about the crone.”

“The villagers called her Anne
atte
Gate. She is not as tall as my cart’s wheels, and has blue eyes, thin white hair, and a mole to the left of her nose.” Old Jack paused to take a bite out of the leg of chicken he held in his hand. “She left the village less than a fortnight ago, walking south on the road to
Oundle
.” He waved the drumstick at the lord abbot. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if the villagers spoke the truth, she was responsible for creating the revenants that cost me the services of Sir Hugh, several soldiers, and almost the entire population of one of my manors. If she did it once, she could do it again. That must never happen.”

“So what can you possibly do about her? Who in his right mind would stand against her? Certainly not I.”

“Sending you would be an incredibly bad idea. Can you imagine a revenant with the Crusader’s powers?” He paused for emphasis. “No, I plan to set Brother
Osbert
to the task. He will have no trouble dealing with her.”

“Which one is he?”

“He is sitting alone at the second table behind me.”

Old Jack looked him over: short, very thin, and very young. “That is your champion against the black arts?”

The lord abbot looked around, glanced at the man, and nodded. “Like you, he is more than he appears.”

“One shouldn’t judge from appearances, I suppose,” Old Jack said, and drained his cup of ale.

The Puppet Master Strikes

by

Anthony
Giangregorio
and Rebecca
Besser

T
he Cowl brooded in his lair, his eyes scanning the files on the massive computer screen before him.

There had been a rash of bank robberies lately, and though hard
to
believe, the eyewitnesses stated the robbers were zombies.

One security guard had even managed to get off a shot into one of the backs of the robbers, and the robber had taken the shot without flinching.

At first it was thought the man was wearing body armor, but later, as the police studied the crime scene, bits of flesh and bone were found splattered on the wall, exactly where the guard had shot the robber. The guard swore up and down his shot was directly over the robber’s heart, but if that was so, and the bullet had connected with the heart, then what other explanation was there as to why the robber remained standing?

Above the Cowl’s head, bats slept, the massive cave of his lair a giant tomb, hiding him and all of his secrets. Above the lair was his mansion, where he played the lay-about playboy, but his true personality, the heart of
him
, was revealed when he was the Cowl.

After a tragic carjacking when he was a boy, the Cowl found himself an orphan. Inheriting a large corporation, he soon found ways to channel the rage he had bottled up from the unfair and tragic death of his parents.

Now, he prowled the streets of the city, searching for evil wherever it might rear its ugly head.

The police scanner began to crackle static and the dispatcher called out an all-points bulletin. There was a robbery being reported at the
Gathton
City Bank and the robbers were there at that exact moment.

Without a second to waste, he slid on his leather mask to cover his face, jumped from his chair, and dashed across the lair. His car was waiting: a large black sedan, tricked out with more gadgets than anyone could imagine.

The top slid open as he approached and he jumped into the driver’s seat. With a blast of fire from the jet-powered engine, he tore out of the lair and down the long winding tunnel that took him to an exit a half mile from the closest main road.

It had cost millions to make the tunnels and the lair itself, and he’d made sure to do it in piecework to prevent each contractor from knowing what each tunnel was for. Few had asked questions; after all, the whims of the rich are many and extreme—Who would ever understand their crazy projects? But when secrecy wasn’t a guarantee, legal forms and money had done the rest, ensuring the security he needed.

The black sedan cut through the dark streets like a scythe, the headlights slicing the cold winter night. The
Gathton
City Bank was on the north side of town and it was the tail end of rush hour.

He used his extensive knowledge of the city to avoid any traffic snarls, and with a little bit of luck thrown in for unexpected obstacles, he still pulled up in front of the bank within ten minutes of the call.

Jumping out of the car, he ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time; his black cape flowed behind him, fluttering in the wind.

Pulling the far right glass door open, he entered the bank warily, but no sooner did he enter did a piercing scream rent the air and bullets began to fly, peppering the glass doors behind him.

One door shattered, spraying glass shards onto his back, only his cowl and cape protecting him from serious harm. He rolled across the marble floor and hid behind a large marbled-topped desk. He felt his left arm pulse with pain and noticed he’d been hit by a stray round. Checking the wound with his glove-encased fingers, he noted it wasn’t serious.

Poking his head around the side of the stone desk, he took in his surrounding in a glance; he had a full view of the lobby of the bank, and the tellers and customers, too.

All the customers were on the floor, and two security guards lay dead near them with pools of blood surrounding their still bodies. It looked like one guard had his throat torn out, but the Cowl wasn’t close enough to know for sure. It seemed the robbers had escalated to murder as well as armed robbery.

Three of the robbers were standing in the center of the lobby, each holding a gun
—
AKs, by the looks of them
—
guarding the customers, and three more hastily shoveled money into cloth sacks.

From the Cowl’s vantage point, he couldn’t get a good look at the robbers’ faces, but it appeared they wore rubber masks of some kind, which would explain the descriptions that had come in about zombies.

Panicked and terrorized customers, plus rubber masks of zombie faces, would make even the most rational person believe the impossible. Perhaps the security guard who said he shot a robber in the heart was wrong and the bullet hadn’t killed the man, or he’d died later after escaping.

All thoughts of “what ifs” went out the door when a teller screamed as a robber attacked her without provocation.

The Cowl wanted to help her, but because of the robbers’ heavy firepower he knew he needed to come up with some kind of plan first. But all thoughts of plans went out the window when the robber did something the Cowl couldn’t believe, even though he saw it with his own eyes. The robber pushed the bank teller
—
a woman in her thirties
—
across the counter and leaned over her so his teeth touched her neck. He bit into her, tearing her throat out with a yank of his head.

Blood shot forth as the bank erupted into chaos. The robbers’ AKs were the only things keeping people from simply jumping up and running away. With whimpering and screams for mercy filling the lobby, the robber fed on the teller like a lion would a downed gazelle.

Over the din, the crunching sound of the robber feeding filled the air, making the customers who saw it vomit on the floor. This caused others to do the same, mixing in with cries and pleas for help.

One of the robbers turned and started walking toward the slain teller, perhaps to get a piece of her flesh himself, but slipped in a pool of throw-up. As his foot landed on bits of hotdog, French fries, and a half-digested salad, his foot went out from under him as if he’d stepped on ice. He fell onto his back and his gun went off, his finger squeezing the trigger on instinct. The overhead fluorescent lights and the skylights shattered, bits of tiles and glass raining down, and for a moment, caused even more pandemonium.

The Cowl used the distraction to go into action.

He stood and spun on his heals while grabbing three
Cowlarangs
from his utility belt. He flung them through the air before anyone even spotted him, hitting the two remaining guards
—
one in the eye and the other in the neck. Moments after their sharp edges embedded in the robbers, they exploded, spraying the bank and customers with brain matter and blood. The beheaded robbers flopped to the floor like a dead fish.

The third ’rang flew beyond the robbers guarding the retching customers and ricocheted off a steel support beam standing between the teller area and the loan officers’ desks, right above the head of the robber snacking on the woman. It exploded, sending sharp shards of metal through the air in all directions, one entering the back of the eating robber’s head. He weakly groaned and dropped to the floor.

Metal shards shredded the face of the robber who’d slipped and fallen; he was pulling himself up on the counter, seemingly eager to join his comrade in the feast. The injuries didn’t slow him down at all. His head had tilted back slightly at first impact, but otherwise it didn’t even faze him; he continued where his buddy had left off.

The other two robbers close to the counter dropped their bags of cash and turned toward the Cowl, opening fire. He spun sharply, causing his cape to billow out and around him, making him a larger target. Multiple bullets zipped through the fabric, but none came close to hitting him. His trained hands extracted a small vile from another compartment of his utility belt, and as he faced the robbers again, he paused and threw it at their feet, before dropping and rolling closer to the counter. The contents of the vile exploded as it hit the floor, sending up a billowing cloud of dark purple smoke laced with tear gas. The customers screamed and groaned in agony as they tried to scoot away, blinded by the gas. It didn’t affect the robbers at all. They grinned, picked up the cash, and opened fire again without aiming as they charged for the main doors.

The Cowl stood and took a couple of steps toward them, but the sound of police sirens halted him; he couldn’t be seen by the local law enforcement since he was on their most wanted list. It didn’t matter that he’d help keep the citizens of
Gathton
safe; he was a vigilante and that was illegal, too. Thinking quickly, he withdrew a small gun from a holster on his hip. He raised his arm and pulled the trigger, sending a small grappling hook up and through one of the broken skylights, and gave it a quick tug to make sure it was anchored. He pushed a small button on the handle of the gun and was drawn upward. While in motion, he withdrew a small tracking device that looked like a barbed ball
—
about the size of a tiny gumball
—
and threw it at the departing robbers, hitting one in the back just as he stepped through the door. It stuck.

Smiling broadly, knowing he’d be able to track the ones who got away, the Cowl departed the bank through the hole in the roof and was out of sight as the first responding police officer came through the main doors. Yelling, the first officer ordered the robber attacking the woman to cease and put his hands up, but the zombie robber didn’t answer and kept on eating. Two loud shots rang out and the Cowl knew the last of the robbers within the bank had been taken down.

Staying low and out of sight on the roof, the Cowl watched the police scramble around the building, barricading and forming roadblocks below. To him they looked like ants that didn’t know what to do, but were working hard at it nonetheless.

Flipping open the top of his watch, he pushed a small red button and smiled when he heard his vehicle below roar to life. Unlatching a little joystick below the button, he guided his car out of an alley and around the corner, through one of the road blocks, trying not to laugh hysterically at the ignorant police who jumped out of the way and hollered in surprise. Other police officers, who weren’t in the way of the car, shot at the tires, trying to deflate them and prevent the vehicle from escaping. The bullets bounced off the wheels with no effect, ricocheting back at them while they ducked for cover. Even the tires were bulletproof. Using the small arrow keys beside the red button, he set the car to drive for three blocks, knowing it would come to a stop on its own after the programmed distance.