Tales of the Red Panda: The Crime Cabal

by Gregg Taylor

  Kit shuddered a little. To her left, just beyond the table, was a large, black machine arcing high-voltage power from Tesla coils. If all else failed, if she could get her hand to that device, it should destroy enough of her to make their grim plans impossible.

  “The only question,” Zombie continued, “is whether we should amplify her strength with Kid Chaos’ chemical serum immediately before initiating the Zombification process?”

  “No!” snapped Chaos. “The girl is skilled enough to do him damage without it, and with it, she might finish him too easily. I have suffered more than you can ever know at the hands of that masked menace… I want him to suffer just as greatly. I want him to have to choose to destroy what remains of her. And I want him to have to live with it… for a little while.”

  Professor Zombie smiled and shrugged. “The sequence matters little to me. I’ll let you call the tune for the moment.” She prepared a large syringe.

  “Take a good look, you bozos!” the Flying Squirrel called to the assembled gang members. “This is what you’ll get if you step outta line! She’ll turn you into one of those things!” The crowd murmured slightly, but the reaction was less than she had hoped for.

  “This would be a real good time for the cavalry…,” she thought.

  Suddenly, the house phone rang. Chaos waved his hand for someone to silence the bell. He wanted to enjoy this.

  “What’s that?” Legs McIntyre said into the mouthpiece, straining to hear over the crowd. “All right, thanks!” He hung up the phone with a clatter. “That was Gate One! Case Bermel is on his way back! He’s hurt pretty bad, call the sawbones!”

  “What?” Kid Chaos snapped, his eyes meeting Zombie’s in a flash of concern. “Impossible!”

  The elated gangsters turned as one to glare at Kid Chaos.

  “It’s true, Mister Chaos,” Legs said earnestly. “Ricky at the gate says it’s Case all right, leanin’ on one of the meat puppets.”

  “One of the…,” Chaos turned back to Professor Zombie. “Gentlemen… two of the zombies from tonight’s operation were destroyed. The rest are accounted for.”

  “But Mister Chaos, Ricky says–”

  “I have no doubt that Ricky believes what he said. But whatever is coming up that tunnel, even if it were Bermel, it can’t be a zombie!”

  “But who could the other one be?” the Professor snapped. “The girl is here!”

  “I don’t know!” Chaos wailed. “Maybe… maybe somehow Bermel survived, but that zombie can only be him! It can only be the Red Panda!”

  “Bermel wouldn’t work with the Panda,” a voice protested.

  “He might not have a choice!” Professor Zombie shrieked. “The Red Panda can control the minds of others!”

  “So I hear,” the Flying Squirrel said through a grin.

  Kid Chaos raced for the house phone and dialed two numbers. He danced impatiently while he waited for an answer.

  “Gate Two!” Chaos called into the phone. “Do not open those doors! I said stop! Are you sure it’s Bermel?” The crowd waited for a reply. “What about the other, the one with him?” Again, the hush was thick with anticipation and fear. “No! Fool!” Chaos bellowed. “It’s the Red Panda! Open fire!” There was some debate. “Do it! Do it! Do it!” Kid Chaos screamed.

  From down the long, concrete hallways, they heard a volley of machine gun fire. Kit’s blood ran cold.

  Chaos raced for the door. “Come on, you fools! Follow me!”

  No one moved a muscle. Chaos stopped.

  “I said, come on! Grab your guns and…,” he trailed off.

  The Professor glanced over her shoulder to her six remaining undead monsters.

  “Go with Kid Chaos,” she said simply. The giants lumbered forth.

  “Come on, the rest of you!” Chaos stamped his feet. He would not be denied. At last, exasperated, he turned to the catwalk above, where Malcolm still stood, stock still, Hook Henderson beside him.

  “Mister Malcolm?” he called. “What say you?”

  Malcolm hesitated. “I ordered the operation,” he said at last.

  The gangsters stood blinking a moment, confused.

  “Come on, you heard the man!” Chaos yelled. “Let’s go!”

  The assembled gangsters poured forth, none of them sure they had heard what they thought they had heard. All but a half dozen rushed out the doors after Chaos and the zombie shock troops.

  The Flying Squirrel’s head had shot back the moment Malcolm had spoken. She peered at him, upside-down though he appeared to her. She knew what she had heard. She knew what it meant. She had her better odds, and she had her distraction at last.

  She just prayed that it wasn’t all for nothing.

  Twenty-Nine

  A moment after the men at Gate Two had cut down the supposed Case Bermel with machine gun fire, the great steel door slid open with a clatter.

  “Maybe we should wait,” a voice from beyond the door said.

  “For what?” was the curt response. “You saw with your own eyes. They can’t be alive.”

  “Maybe we should wait for Kid Chaos,” came the first voice.

  “Stuff that,” the second voice sneered. “We just gunned down our own man on his say-so. If one o’ those two ain’t the Red Panda, I want to be ready for that maniac Chaos. He’ll get his, that’s for sure.”

  With that, the great door slid open with a creak. The two gangsters looked down to the floor. The body of Case Bermel lay at their feet, face down on the concrete.

  “Sheesh,” said the first.

  “No blood.”

  “What?”

  “There ain’t no blood.”

  “Maybe he got it all in the front.”

  “So what, he’s lyin’ on a drain? We opened two dozen holes in him… there oughta be a lake.”

  The first gangster leveled his gun at Bermel’s body. “I’ll make sure,” he said.

  “Wait.”

  “Wait?”

  “Where’s the meat puppet?”

  “The what?”

  “The zombie, idiot! He was right beside Case.”

  From the ceiling above, the two men heard a great, booming laugh begin to ring. They froze in an instant, their blood running cold. A misshapen mask of quick-drying rubber, torn in half, dropped from above, landing at their feet. Slowly both gangsters turned their heads to the ceiling, knowing full well what they would find.

  Crouched up against the ceiling above their heads, suspended by his remarkable Static Shoes, the Red Panda was coiled to spring. Both gangsters struggled to break the spell and aim their weapons.

  Suddenly, what they supposed to be the corpse of Case Bermel reached forward and grabbed both of them by the ankles. They each gave a cowardly scream as the body of their fellow gangster came to life and sent them sprawling to the floor. The masked man swooped in from the ceiling and with two quick thrusts to pressure points of their necks, the guards were heard from no more.

  Parker got to his feet, scratching at the “Bermel” mask.

  “A nice improvisation,” the Red Panda said. “Come on.”

  The two men moved quickly and quietly into the inner sanctum of the Crime Cabal.

  “What just happened?” Parker asked. “I hit the deck when you pushed me, but why did they keep firing at chest-level? And why did they expect us to be dead?”

  “Because they expected it,” the Red Panda said cryptically. “I reinforced their expectations with mental influence.”

  “So they saw us shot?” Parker was baffled. “How does that work?”

  From down the hall, there was a great racket of advancing troops of the Crime Cabal.

  “It works very well,” the Red Panda said, pulling off the oversized coat that had belonged to the zombie and throwing it aside. “Take that mask off.”

  “The mask?” Parker said. “But why–”

  “Because I don’t want the Flying Squirrel to break your neck.”

  “If she’s still–,” Parker cut
himself off, but a moment too late.

  “Yes,” the Red Panda snapped, throwing smoke bombs in the direction of the coming voices. They clattered as they rolled to the end of the corridor. “To say nothing of the fact that they just tried to kill Case Bermel, so there’s no great advantage to his identity.”

  “Right,” Parker said, pulling the constrictive mask from his face in great handfuls.

  The chorus of voices charging up the hall suddenly resolved itself into an angry mob. The zombies in the front shrieked as they spotted their targets, seconds before the smoke bombs burst forth, obscuring their enemies in thick black smoke.

  There was a metallic singing sound as the Red Panda drew the samurai sword again. “I’ll take the zombies. You start with the troops.”

  “Anything else?” Parker asked as the bullets began to fly towards them.

  “Yes,” the Red Panda said just before the spreading wall of smoke obscured them both. “If you shoot me, I’ll kill you myself.”

  Thirty

  Suddenly, Professor Zombie seemed to be in a terrible hurry to complete the procedure. She barked orders at the remaining gangsters, and peered more than once over her shoulder to the empty space formerly occupied by her zombie super-soldiers. Kit knew that the Professor was struggling to maintain her dominance without them. More grist for the mill.

  “This is gonna be pretty academic in a minute,” she thought.

  “So, Legs…,” she opened to McIntyre, who seemed to jump a little at being recognized. “You makin’ notes for when she does this to you?”

  “Shaddup,” McIntyre said, unconvincingly.

  “Aw, c’mon, Legs. Don’t give me the company man routine. You think Kid Chaos hasn’t thought about it?”

  “Keep her quiet!” Professor Zombie ordered as she cranked her machines to life.

  “You boys really are suckers, ain’t ya?” the Flying Squirrel continued. “Haven’t you noticed the little gizmo Chaos has wired up to his own heart? You can see the lump under his shirt.”

  The crowd buzzed slightly. They had seen it all right. “What of it?” said McIntyre.

  “So whaddya think that could be, Legs? He’s got somethin’ wired just in case his heart stops beatin’. Just in case someone unexpectedly turns him into the walking dead! And Chaos being Chaos, my guess is this whole place blows to kingdom come!”

  There was another buzz through the crowd. Professor Zombie was working feverishly.

  “Bet you wish you’d had one o’ those, dontcha, Mister Malcolm?” the Squirrel called up to the catwalk.

  “I said keep her quiet!” Professor Zombie shrieked, lunging towards Kit with a large hypodermic needle, dripping with something vile.

  McIntyre caught the Professor’s hand and gripped it hard. He looked at Kit.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he said.

  “Come on, Legs, you’re not really that dim, are you?” Kit snapped. “He moves like a wind-up toy, he learns his lines but he can’t improvise, and they won’t let any of you get close enough to see that he’s wearin’ makeup! Malcolm is a zombie!”

  The heads of the assembled members of the Crime Cabal snapped up to the catwalk in horror. Malcolm stood impassively, staring straight ahead. Henderson backed away a little, nervously.

  “My God, she’s right,” a voice said.

  Suddenly, Professor Zombie shrieked in rage and threw all of her body weight behind the arm holding the needle, just inches away from Kit. McIntyre slapped her and pushed her back against her own machines, which crashed to the floor along with several vials of chemicals.

  That was too much for Henderson, who opened fire and blew two fist-sized holes in Legs McIntyre. His five remaining comrades on floor level went for their own guns, dodging the rain of lead from above as they did so.

  “Exit, stage left,” thought the Flying Squirrel, worming her left hand free from its restraint. She pulled a smoke capsule from her belt and threw it down, providing cover as she freed herself from her remaining bonds.

  Flames licked up along the walls, ignited by the destruction of the zombie machines. Bullets ricocheted wildly as the gangsters gunned for one another.

  Kit bounded from the table and raced towards the door, keeping low as she did so. She knew that any sign from her would be enough to reunite these new enemies around the common cause of her destruction. Through the smoke and haze, she looked wildly for Professor Zombie. That monster must not be allowed to go free.

  The still-swinging outer doors of the laboratory gave a clear signal that her quarry had disappeared back into the rabbits-warren of tunnels that was the Crime Cabal’s sanctuary. As she neared the doors she could hear the roar of terrified men, the clamor of automatic gunfire, and the unmistakable music of mortal combat from those who had raced from the room headed for Gate Two, wherever that was.

  Kit felt a wave of pure joy wash over her, and it was all she could do to keep from letting out a great whoop of a war cry. If there was anything down here they thought they needed to waste that many bullets on, the Boss had to be alive! Alive and coming for her. She broke for the doors at top speed. If there was one thing the Flying Squirrel would not stand for, it was being rescued again.

  “Not today, Boss,” she grinned to herself.

  As she reached the doors, the Flying Squirrel looked back quickly. At least four of the crooks were down, for good by the looks of it. Any left alive were under cover, firing wildly at targets they couldn’t see. No danger from this angle. As she turned back to the doors, Kit’s eyes brushed past the catwalk above. She realized something with a start.

  The zombie Malcolm was gone.

  Thirty-One

  Andy Parker gasped as the automatic gunfire threw handfuls of masonry into the air just before his eyes. The battle had been raging for several minutes now, and Parker could not begin to estimate how many foes had fallen, or how many remained.

  The Red Panda had made short work of the zombie soldiers of the Crime Cabal. They had been cut down savagely in a blinding flurry of swings and slashes of the katana. Limbs were removed with surgical precision in seconds, and though the walking horrors that this criminal mob had created to do their dirty work still writhed and moaned, they lay scattered on the cement floor, helpless and harmless.

  Parker had seen only glimpses of the Red Panda through the clouds of blinding smoke. He had seen the effortless ease with which he was capable of exercising deadly force when he chose to. And, to his amazement, the instant the last of the zombie horde had fallen, he had seen the masked man sheathe the samurai sword in a smooth and silent motion. There were dozens of enemies charging through the smoke, all heavily armed and bent on his destruction, but he stood prepared to meet them with his bare hands. He was coiled like a serpent ready to strike, but it was clear to Parker in that moment that the man so feared by the underworld and the law alike was more willing to face death than to deal it.

  All at once, their enemies were upon them like a shock wave. Obscured by the thick smoke, the gangsters had not seen the fate of the zombies that had rushed in first. Far from charging to bear witness to a slaughter, they were running headlong to their own destruction. Too late, they realized that their grim foeman awaited them, ready to meet their knives and guns with his red-gauntleted fists at the ready.

  The first charge had met their fate like a wave crashing against a seawall. A great, seemingly unstoppable force was utterly dissipated by the resistance it encountered. Those that followed hard upon the first charge had tripped over those behind them in their rush to get away. The flash of gun muzzles began to show themselves as targets through the clouds of smoke. Parker had drawn his service revolver and done his best to provide support for this remarkable being.

  Since then, it had become a running game of tag through the maze of tunnels that had once offered sanctuary to the Crime Cabal. The army of crime had struggled to re-group itself, finally breaking into a mad dash for the gate that led to the last chance for freedom. And so P
arker found himself once again in the wide alcove just inside the second steel door, but this time he and the masked man were the hunters, not the prey.

  Two muzzles flashed again from up the hallway that ran to the east. Parker fired another volley in that direction, then stopped himself quickly. He blinked his eyes, hard. He could have sworn he saw the Red Panda down that hallway, but he had been sure a moment ago that the masked man was routing their enemies in the opposite direction.

  The rolls of laughter and the cowardly shrieks that came in response told him that he had been mistaken. The Red Panda must be in the direction in which he had just fired. He whipped around quickly to face the other direction, and was amazed to see the shadow of the masked man down the hallway to the west as well, accompanied by the same joyous, mocking laughter.

  Parker’s head swam. He looked wildly around him. In every direction there was smoke and chaos and the broken forms of their foes strewn about the floors. And everywhere he looked he saw the Red Panda. In forms large and small, and shapes fantastical, striking terror into all who met the gaze of his blazing eyes.

  Parker struggled to keep his composure. He knew it must be one of the Red Panda’s hypnotic powers in which he had been caught up. But still he held his fire as the remaining soldiers of the Crime Cabal charged from their cover and broke for the gate and the promise of freedom. He could not tell which of these many shapes truly was the Red Panda, and he had not forgotten the masked man’s promise of his fate should he err in his aim. He needn’t have worried.

  As the first of that final, desperate charge broke for the door, the real Red Panda revealed himself as he dropped from the ceiling above, his feet and fists swinging with precision and blinding speed. The mob howled with rage and fear, by now insensible to strategy of any kind but savage, desperate self-preservation. But there were still so many of them, and from his position, Parker was unable to do more than pick off those few that got past the fray for the door. They were still ahead on points, but so desperately outnumbered that Parker could not imagine their ultimate escape.