As he studied the crowd, he saw each one wore the same kind of mask the bank robbers had.
He sat perfectly still, his dark outfit making him just another shadow. While he was watching the crowd, a section shifted and he saw a mangled body, reminding him of the teller back at the bank. More than a dozen of the “people” were feeding on the corpse, tearing parts away like they were wild animals. As he scanned the rest of the crowd, he witnessed similar groups huddled over what he could only assume were more bodies.
He zoomed in on some of the faces of the crowd, and as he did, he gasped in shock. They weren’t wearing rubber masks as he’d once thought. Those faces were real, with gaunt expressions, slack-eyed stares, some with mortal wounds and skin the color of dried parchment.
The rumors of the dead robbing banks was true, and, worse still, there was an entire army of them hidden inside the warehouse. But who was keeping them? Who was pulling all the strings? Who was the criminal mastermind?
It was while he was running through the names of his villainous foes in his head that he picked up on gravel crunching beneath a pair of shoes.
Someone was behind him.
Pulling his eyes away from the carnage below, he spun around in time to see one of the dead coming at him. Its arms were out, making it look like a Frankenstein imitator, and the Cowl hesitated for the briefest of moments, not sure what to do. He didn’t know if he should kill it or leave to come back with reinforcements after being discovered.
But the decision was taken from him as the zombie charged straight at him, wrapping its arms around him and sending him falling backwards, right into the skylight.
With the sound of crashing glass and air rushing by him, the Cowl found himself falling again, and all the while the zombie was trying to sink its teeth into his exposed neck, ignoring the fate it too would share when they landed on the cement floor below.
Twisting and forcing his body mass to the side, he reached for his gun, drawing it from the holster at his hip and raising it the best he could while in a bear hug of death with the undead. He pulled the trigger and the grappling hook whizzed through the air to loop through one of the steel beams supporting the ceiling, the three-pronged tip catching as the wire began to slide. With a sudden jerk, he came to a stop when his weight, and that of the zombie, met the end of the wire connected to the grapple. The zombie had just leaned in for another chance at the Cowl’s artery when the wire let loose and the creature continued falling while the zombie’s meal remained suspended in the air.
Moaning and pawing at nothing, the zombie dropped into the center of the crowd of undead below, landing on three of its dead partners, causing a messy splatter of guts, blood, and intestines. The goop coated those standing close by and they grunted and turned their heads back and forth, confused as to where the falling zombie had come from.
One of them finally looked up and spotted the Cowl, only a few feet away. It groaned its find to the others and soon the entire crowd was looking up.
The Cowl knew he was spotted when all the zombies started groaning and moaning, pawing and clawing at his feet, only a few feet from their grasping hands. Swinging and kicking, he tried desperately to stay out of their grasp. He pushed the button on his gun to try and go upward, but remained where he was instead.
Silently cursing, he saw that part of his gun had been damaged by the excess weight of two bodies and the sudden stop a moment ago. It would hold him aloft, but it wouldn’t move him.
With frantic eyes, he looked around for a way to escape. There was a four-foot-thick scaffolding that went from one side of the building to the other, and as his gaze fell upon it, he saw one of his arch foes appear.
The Puppet Master stood tall in a dimly-lit doorway with his arms crossed and a twisted grin on his partially-mask-covered face. The dark green and reflective gold of his disguise added a festive air to his otherwise demure demeanor. Cold blue eyes seemed to glow with malice as he watched the Cowl swing above his undead minions. He cackled an evil laugh, shook his head, and walked deeper onto the scaffold, seemingly admiring the predicament the Cowl was in.
“They’re hungry, you know,” the Puppet Master said. “One slip and it’ll be the end of you, or maybe we can help you along a bit?”
Smiling again, he focused on one of the zombies. It froze for a moment, like its mind had gone completely blank and was being reprogrammed. With a flinch and a grunt, it came back to itself and marched straight over to one of the tables and started to climb up onto it and closer to the Cowl.
The zombie soon stood on the table and began clawing at the Cowl’s cape, pulling him closer and closer.
“You see, I can control them,” the Puppet Master said, watching with glee. “It’s amazing what the power of suggestion can do to a weaker mind, isn’t it?” He laughed again, throwing his head back in true, sadistic merriment. “The dead have very weak minds and are just lying around everywhere. I dug them up, and I gave them life again. Now they serve me and do my bidding, keeping me loaded with plenty of funds. And they never ask any questions or want anything for themselves, well, other than a fresh meal from time to time, and I’m more than happy to oblige.”
The Cowl kicked violently, trying to tear his cape free from the clawed hands of the zombie seeking his flesh.
“You won’t get . . . away with this,” the Cowl gasped, trying to concentrate on the zombie and break free of its grasp.
“Yes, I think I will,” the Puppet Master said. “I have slaves that will do anything I want and that can’t be killed. Who’s going to stop me?”
To prove his point, he raised his arms with his hands flat, palms facing down, and four more of the zombies went still and then snapped to attention, heading for the tables to climb higher as well.
“As long as they’re fed, they’re easy to control, over-willing to please, even,” the Puppet Master said. “Soon, I’ll control the entire city of Gathton and there’s nothing you’ll be able to do about it because you’ll be dead, providing meat for my army of the undead!”
“You’ll never rule Gathton,” the Cowl growled, now kicking out at two zombies on the same table as more joined the one that wrestled with his cape. “Not as long as I’m alive.”
The Puppet Master laughed. “Poor choice of words, Cowl. You’ll be dead in a few minutes.” He pointed to the rafters where the grappling hook held the superhero suspended above the undead crowd.
The Cowl’s eyes followed the Puppet Master’s gesture to see a zombie crawling along the steel beam his grappling hook was attached to, a knife clenched between its yellow teeth. It didn’t even notice the blade cut into its cheeks and dripped dark blood down on its friends. In moments, the zombie reached its target and started sawing at the thin wire with the blade’s serrated edge.
“You won’t get away with this, Puppet Master,” the Cowl said, still kicking and twisting in mid-air, barely keeping himself free of the hands eagerly grabbing for him.
Suddenly the wire snapped and the Cowl began to fall into the midst of the hungry horde of zombies. He twisted in the air and came down on the shoulders of an old woman. He flattened the old crone to the floor, the body cushioning his fall.
Some of the zombies staggered backwards with the force of contact as he bumped into them, and some of them fell over to flail uncontrollably on the floor. Jumping to his feet, he withdrew an eight-inch knife from a sheath attached to his thigh. He spun and slashed at the bodies around him, his training the only thing saving him from sudden death.
Bloated stomachs burst, and slick, rotting innards fell to the concrete floor with a sickening plop. The stench of decay filled the warehouse, causing both the Cowl and the Puppet Master to gag.
“Well, I never said they were the most aromatic of minions,” the Puppet Master said.
Stepping forward and violently stabbing the creatures, the Cowl advanced through the confused crowd of zombies toward the far wall, seeing a chance to escape the undead mob, but he needed to make it out o
f the press of dead bodies, organs, and severed body parts first. He just didn’t know if it was possible. He was still just a man, trying to right the wrongs of the world, and he began to wonder if he had what it took to save Gathton this time.
Out of the corner of his eye, the Cowl spotted a row of nitrogen tanks sitting in the far corner of the room, about thirty yards away. An idea bloomed in his overworked mind and he knew what he could do to get out of this mess, or at least stop the Puppet Master and his minions, even if it took his life as well.
With renewed vigor, he slashed and cut through the horde, severing heads with his violent swings, slicing through rotten flesh as if the zombies were made of papier-mâché.
They came at him one at a time, each blocking the rest from attacking in force, and that was his saving grace. If they had attacked en masse, he never would have been able to stop them from swarming him, but as it was, he managed to hold his own until he reached the far wall.
With a drop kick to the closest zombie, he jumped up and grabbed hold of a light fixture with his right hand, then pulled himself up, his other hand grasping on to an electrical box with three fingers, the other two still holding the knife. After pulling himself up some more, he sheathed the gore-covered knife and began to climb faster. The wall had many protuberances and it was child’s play for him to scale it like a ladder.
“Get after him, you fools!” the Puppet Master screamed at the zombies, who began to climb, their master’s control allowing them the dexterity to scale the wall almost as swiftly as the Cowl. Though controlled by their master, some were still too withered from the grave to climb and their hands slipped, their bodies tumbling back to the floor to splatter like overripe melons.
But for every one that fell, two more continued to climb.
When the Cowl ran out of things to grab, he found himself trapped yet again.
His eyes searching for an escape route, he spotted a thick, hanging electrical wire dangling from the ceiling ten feet away. At one time a light fixture had been attached there, but when it had been removed, some lazy worker had merely cut the thick wire and let it dangle. Or so it seemed. With the first zombie reaching up to grab his leg and pull him off the wall, he did the only thing open to him: he jumped and grabbed the hanging electrical wire, thus escaping the trailing zombies.
“Very clever, my caped friend, but not clever enough,” the Puppet Master said. “I guess I’ll just have to finish you off the old-fashioned way.” With a rage-filled snarl he pulled a gun from his jacket and aimed it at the Cowl.
Knowing he had seconds to act, the Cowl pulled his last Cowlarang from his utility belt and armed it, the small explosive charge in the tip filled with C-4. As the light began to blink, he swung himself around so he faced the nitrogen tanks, then threw the ’rang as hard as he could. As he let it fly, he began to climb the electrical wire, bullets already ringing out around him. One clipped his left leg, causing him to grunt in pain, but still he climbed.
The explosive Cowlarang landed in the middle of the tanks, and though it didn’t penetrate the thick canister it hit, it did bounce off to fall at the base of them. Seconds later, the charge went off, rupturing more than half the tanks, the ensuing explosions tearing apart the rest.
Nitrogen gas began to flood the warehouse and a thick cloud rushed across the floor, swallowing the zombies whole. The Cowl managed to just climb high enough to avoid the frost cloud, but even so, his feet became cold as they dangled within inches of the mist.
On the scaffolding, the Puppet Master was knocked over from the blast, shrapnel from the canisters peppering him, causing him to drop down and shield his face. The zombies on the wall were knocked off and were soon lost from sight in the white cloud.
The Cowl hung over the white mist, waiting to see what would happen next, and as each second passed, the cloud slowly began to dissipate.
As he hung there, he looked down on eighty-plus statues, all frozen solid from the gas.
A gunshot pulled him from his stupor and another round sliced across his upper shoulder, causing him to grunt in pain. Turning, the Cowl saw the Puppet Master was up and trying to shoot him again.
Swinging his legs, the Cowl began moving back and forth, much like a trapeze artist. Soon, he was swinging wide, and with one final swing, he let go of the wire, flipped in the air, and came down on the scaffolding on bent knees, his weight causing the entire structure to shake for a moment.
“Curse you, Cowl, you’ve ruined everything. I’ll see you in Hell for this,” the Puppet Master hissed as he shot his gun at point blank range. It only clicked on an empty round.
“You should have kept better count, Puppet Master,” the Cowl said then ducked as his enemy threw the useless gun at him. It bounced off the railing to his side and fell to the floor below, landing on a zombie’s head. The head shattered into a hundred pieces, leaving the frozen stature decapitated.
“I’ll kill you!” the Puppet Master screamed and charged the Cowl. The lower half of his face that wasn’t hidden behind his mask was filled with rage.
The Cowl simply sidestepped him and used the villain’s momentum to push him away, but as the Puppet Master went flying past the Cowl, he lost his footing and ended up falling over the waist-high railing. As his body flipped over, his hands desperately reached out, grabbing the railing on its lowest rung—one of three—his legs dangling down.
The Cowl spun around and leaned over the railing, trying to grab the Puppet Master’s hands.
“Here, reach up to me. Give me your hand!” the Cowl yelled.
The Puppet Master began to laugh as his fingers started to slip. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? To save me and take me to jail? Well, I won’t give you the satisfaction. Let it be on your head, Cowl—You killed me!” He let go, laughing as he plummeted the twenty feet to the floor below.
The cowl could only watch as the Puppet Master fell away, as if in slow motion, his body landing on three of the frozen zombies. The way the bodies shattered under the Puppet Master’s weight, one ended up having a large shard as sharp as a spear.
The Puppet Master’s laughter abruptly ceased as he was impaled on the frozen shard straight through his sternum. Spitting blood, he gazed up at the Cowl, even in his last moments on Earth, taunting the caped hero. As his head slumped to the side and the master joined his minions in oblivion, the Cowl looked on with stoic resolve.
“You reap what you sow, Puppet Master. I feel no guilt for your death,” he whispered, staring at his fallen foe.
Police sirens rose in the distance and the Cowl knew it was time to leave. Some security guard in another building must have called the police after hearing the explosion.
He needed to get to the roof, but he didn’t have his grappling gun. He would have to take the normal way, meaning the stairs.
Turning, he dashed down the scaffolding and into the section of the warehouse set up for offices. It only took him a minute to find the stairwell leading to the roof. He ascended it, taking the steps three at a time. It took a little over two minutes for him to reach the roof access door. It was locked, but one good kick sent it flying open to rock back and forth on its hinges.
As he charged onto the rooftop, he was caught in a blinding white light and heard the sound of a police helicopter overhead.
The cavalry had come in full force, only they didn’t come to save him. If they caught him, he would go to jail, but worse, his secret identity would be exposed when he was unmasked. His stock would plummet and all the money accumulated made to fight crime would be lost.
“Put your hands in the air!” came an electronic voice from overhead, amplified by a bullhorn.
He began to run across the roof, knowing he needed to get out into the open for his escape plan to work. As he ran, he punched in the return code for his jet plane to come back and retrieve him. It had been continuously circling in a one-mile radius. He could only hope it wasn’t a mile out at the moment.
“Cowl, hold it right there or
we’ll shoot!” came the voice again.
They knew it was him, and with his history with the police, there would be no warning shots.
Darting behind an air conditioning unit, the first bullets peppered the rooftop.
“So much for a warning,” the Cowl mumbled under his breath.
Searching the rooftop, he spotted a three-inch piece of iron leftover from a welding job on the unit he was hiding behind. After picking it up and hefting it, he ran to the right and popped out into the open. As the spotlight turned to find him, he used the piece of iron like it was one of his Cowlarangs and threw it as hard as he could at the spotlight. His aim was true and it blinked out, glass shards raining down on to the roof as cursing rose loud and clear over the chopper’s engine.
More bullets peppered the roof, but they were more than six feet from his last location.
Now buying himself some time, he ran out to the far side of the roof, his battle suit and cape allowing him to be just another shadow. He heard another helicopter approaching, and this one would have a spotlight as well.
He pulled a small balloon from his belt and it inflated when he pressed a button on the small canister attached to it. The lighter-than-air gas filled the twelve-inch balloon and it began to rise. A thin, unbreakable wire filament was attached to it, and as the balloon rose into the night sky, the Cowl attached the other end of the wire to the harness beneath his suit.
Then he had to wait. Sweat trickled under his mask as he counted the seconds. He was entirely exposed but had no choice, he had to remain still.
As the second helicopter approached, the spotlight began to sway back and forth as it searched for him. Once it found him, he would be exposed and a second later he would be peppered with armor-piercing rounds that even the chest plate on his battle suit couldn’t stop.
Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology Page 6
