Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology

by Eric S. Brown

  “That something so small, so insignificant as a peanut, could steal something so precious.”

  “Yeah,” Scott said, head hung low. “This is it.”

  He stood before the cold marble slab, gaze locked on the inscription. A single tear rolled down his cheek as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the black velvet ring box. “You can bring her back, right?”

  The baron’s left hand shot upward, palm facing out. The ground at Scott’s feet shook. Roots burst outward from the grass and rose into the air, pulling up the topsoil. The earth overturned as Julia’s fiberglass coffin was lifted out. The roots twirled the coffin around and stood it upright.

  Scott just stared at the phenomenon with unblinking eyes. The thought of pinching himself to check to see if he was awake crossed his mind, but his body wouldn’t obey. He was rooted to the spot, embraced in fear’s cold grip.

  The roots twisted around the coffin lid’s hinges and yanked. The metal broke and flung into the air. The lid swung open to reveal Julia, dressed in her navy-blue burial gown with her arms folded across her bosom.

  “Julia,” he mumbled as she just lay there, eyes closed. Her once-rosy cheeks and sun-kissed skin were now pale white. Scott turned away from her, not wanting to see her in such a state, and looked upon the strange man in the top hat. “What kind of a parlor trick is this? I thought you could bring her back.”

  “Foolish mortal, you dare question me?”

  The baron stepped toward him and gripped Scott by the back of the neck. Scott’s head sank into his shoulders as he was forced to his knees. The stranger wielded an unnatural strength. With a shaky hand, Scott raised the pistol.

  “How dare you!” The baron slapped the gun away. “First you question my power, then you aim to harm me? Look!” he said, releasing his hold.

  Scott obeyed. His gaze fell on Julia once more and almost instantly, her eyes opened to reveal silver orbs, her vibrant blue eyes no more.

  “Julia,” he uttered in disbelief.

  A wide smile stretched across her lips as her arms unfolded and dropped to her sides.

  Scott opened the ring box clutched in his hand, and held it up. “Look what I’ve got for you.”

  She stepped forward, her movements sluggish and sporadic.

  He cocked his head and looked up at Baron Samedi. “What’s wrong with her?”

  “She just needs to shake the icy chill from her body. Death is a cold state. I imagine a hug would warm her.”

  “Yes,” Scott said, and as the Baron stepped away from him, he stood and stepped toward the woman he had loved for the past seven years.

  She opened her arms to him; he grabbed hold of her waist and pulled her close.

  “Thank you, Baron. Thank you.” Scott nuzzled his head against her shoulder.

  Julia’s skin was cold to the touch, but it was not enough to deter him. He had been alone for the past week, his life upside down. If she was to be perpetually cold from this moment on, then he would spend his life keeping her warm and safe.

  A sharp pain ignited in his neck as Julia’s teeth sank into his flesh. “Ow!” He pushed her away, sending her body back into the coffin. He clutched his wound as the two locked eyes. He stepped backward when she took a shaky step forward.

  Scott peeked over his shoulder to see the baron walking deeper into the cemetary. The sound of Julia hissing as she approached him was more than enough for him to realize she was not his true love, at least, not all of her.

  “Son-of-a . . .” He charged after the man in the top hat. “What did you do to her?”

  When he caught up to Baron Samedi, he grabbed hold of his shoulder and spun him around. “I asked you—”

  With the flick of the baron’s arm, Scott was hurled into the air and sent crashing to the ground nearly ten feet away.

  “I grow bored with your blatant disrespect. Who do you think you are invoking a loa of my caliber, the Lord of the Dead?”

  Scott stood in defiance.

  The baron smiled. “Rise!”

  At his command, the ground quaked. Tremors rippled under the grass as roots snaked their way beneath the surface. Graves upturned as all the coffins were spit out of the earth.

  “I didn’t want this,” Scott cried.

  “No,” Baron Samedi said, “but it’s happening nonetheless. My dear, put him out of his misery, will you?”

  Scott’s head slowly turned to see Julia bearing down on him, her once angelic face twisted into a snarl. She grabbed him by the shoulders and he screamed as her fingernails bore deep into his skin, probing his flesh.

  “Julia,” he managed to say, the will to fight no longer burning within him.

  She leaned in, mouth open, the stench of death bombarding his senses. His eyes watered.

  This is it, he thought, for every horror movie he had ever seen taught him she was not leaning in for a kiss.

  Angela Harwell soared through the night air, her long jet-black hair blowing wildly behind her. Her bat-like wings created a swooshing sound with each powerful flap. She closed her eyes and allowed the wind to whip her face.

  How she loved the freedom of the skies. Up above the busy streets and nightlife of Orlando, no one could gawk at her, point, or shy away at the sight of her. And if a demon decided to use her body to escape the pit, they’d fall to their death—unless they had wings of their own. She stopped in mid-flight and hovered, her gaze locked on the nine, black typographic ligatures circling her abdomen around her belly button. Each infernal mark represented a circle of Hell, and combined, the living hell her life had become since turning eighteen years old.

  Why don’t you come out now? she thought, daring Hell’s prisoners. And if you do have wings . . . well . . . I’ll just cut off your head. She looked at her right hand and watched her shadow extend from the tips of her fingers. Designed for separating flesh from bone with the ability to touch on the molecular level, the shadow claws were capable of penetrating any substance on Earth—above and below it.

  A tap on her shoulder caused her to turn around. The moment her gaze locked on her living shadow, whom she affectionately called Dusk, it pointed down. She followed the direction and saw a man on a rooftop; he just stood there staring back at her with his hands resting on the top of a cane.

  Odd, she thought, but the moment she made a move to descend, Dusk grabbed hold of her shoulder.

  “What is it?” Angela asked.

  Her shadow’s right hand slowly plunged in the air, then raised upward and repeated this vertical motion. Without a voice of its own, or any facial features to relay expression, communicating with Dusk was often quite difficult and turned into long games of charades, but Angela trusted it completely. Her shadow was privy to knowledge she wasn’t, arcane knowledge long forgotten or ignored by mankind.

  “Okay,” she said, “I’ll take it slow.”

  Dusk’s grip loosened and they slowly descended toward the rooftop.

  As she approached, she sized up the strange man. Adorned in a black tuxedo with a top hat, he seemed as if he was dressed for a party.

  Perhaps a masquerade ball with that face paint, she thought.

  He smiled at her as he watched her intently. Under the paint, his skin looked as though it was sucked tight against his bones. He gripped the cane’s handle with long, almost skeletal fingers as if he was readying for a fight.

  Most likely there’s a sword sheathed inside there, she thought as her tiptoes touched down on the rough, gravelly rooftop.

  Behind the stale aroma of tobacco and rum, Angela caught a whiff of brimstone and knew he didn’t belong here, not on this Earth. But if he didn’t travel through her, using her as a portal, how did he get here? If she didn’t know better, she would have guessed the man passed through her brother—but he had died at her hand. She made sure of it, after their second battle.

  “So you are the one they call Midnight Angel,” the man said in a nasally voice.

  Are those cotton balls in his nose? Weird. She scan
ned the roofline, making sure he was alone.

  “And here I thought you’d be difficult to find.”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “You are far more lovelier than I could have ever imagined. It’s a shame I have to destroy you.”

  The stranger’s hungry eyes unnerved her. For the first time she questioned her metallic brassiere and bikini-bottom outfit. She had always shown a lot of skin to detract the male eye from her grotesque wings, but the way the stranger stared at her as if she was a piece of meat chilled her to the core. He looked at her as though she was a plaything he could have his way with. Angela could even feel Dusk tremble in his presence.

  She steeled her nerves and asked again with a more commanding tone, “Who are you?”

  “I am the cemetary man. The loa of the dead. I am Baron Samedi.”

  The name meant nothing to her. She narrowed her eyes and wondered what manner of demon he was.

  “Your vacant expression tells me you have no idea who I am.”

  “Should I?” She elongated her shadow claws on both hands.

  The baron smiled. “The only thing I love more than a stiff drink and a fine cigar is the companionship of a beautiful woman. Unfortunately, you violate the natural laws—”

  “As do you. You reek of the fires of Hell.”

  “I escort the dead to their final resting place. That is the purpose for my existence. My place. And you have no place in this world. Your body is a conduit to Hell. You allow things to walk the Earth, things only meant for the pit.”

  “It’s not all that black and white.” Angela stood firm.

  “No, I suppose it never is. Nonetheless, you’re responsible for my heavy workload. I can’t remember the last time I had a night to myself.”

  With that said, the door for the stairwell burst open and dozens of men and women spilled out onto the roof. Their clothes looking in good condition though faded with stained blotches from bodily fluids, and Angela safely assumed they had not clawed their way out of the ground. They all stared at her with silver, soulless orbs; their faces were contorted in snarls and their skin was withered and gray.

  Zombies . . . eww!

  Dusk circled around her and took on a three-dimensional shape. Her shadow stood between her and the wall of the dead encompassing the baron. She represented the only ally she had in the war against Hell.

  “You certainly are a remarkable creature,” he said, “but I cannot let you upset the balance any longer. Send her back to her father!”

  On his command, the zombies stumbled forward, arms outstretched and ready to tear into her exposed flesh.

  Her shadow instantly grabbed the first zombie to reach it: a bulbous male, who shoved his weight into its nearby brethren, knocking them off balance and out of the way. With a quick jolt, Dusk yanked his head from his shoulders, then tossed the chunk of decayed flesh aside and prepared to attack the next lumbering creature.

  A female zombie, dressed in a white gown that revealed her curvy body under the light of the full moon, stepped up to Dusk. With her arms at her side, her body swayed with each step. Her head was cocked at an odd angle and a look of confusion was etched on her emaciated face as if she didn’t know what to make of Dusk.

  As if not feeling threatened by the female zombie, Dusk quickly sliced the head off another that lumbered toward her with its arms outstretched, then plunged her claws into the forehead of a young male. She dragged her claws down, ripping the zombie’s decayed flesh from its face to its abdomen. Liquefied intestines spilled through the slits and another zombie slipped in the slick mess.

  Finally identifying Dusk as an enemy, the female zombie in the white gown leaned in, mouth wide. Her yellowed teeth clamped down on emptiness and when she straightened her back, her jaws worked up and down, not realizing she hadn’t taken a bite out of Dusk.

  Not amused, Dusk whirled around, separating the female’s head clean from its shoulders. Two more fell with a backward slash, but more dead stumbled through the stairwell and onto the roof, while the baron stood, laughing with a deep, maniacal glee.

  Two male zombies managed to avoid Dusk’s deadly claws and flank Angela. Their bodies moved with an unnatural fluidity and when Angela swiped with her shadow claws at the closest, it dodged and moved in, clamping its teeth down on her shoulder. The pinch and tear of her milky-white skin was a minor annoyance that she shrugged off, and quickly plunged her claws into her attacker’s head, right between the eyes. With the flick of her wrist, the upper portion of the zombie’s skull hurled into the air while she spun around and decapitated the other as its fingernails pawed at her shoulders.

  They’re outnumbering Dusk, she thought as her wounds healed.

  Angela took a step toward the wall of the dead, and suddenly her stomach constricted into a knot and a fire deep from within radiated throughout her entire body. Sweat beaded on her skin as her stomach roiled with pain. She knew this feeling all too well. Something was coming.

  Why did it have to be now? She leaned forward, pressing her arms tightly against her toned abs. Though it never relieved the pain or stopped whatever hell spawn daring enough to break free, it was something Angela couldn’t help but do. The pain was unlike anything she had ever felt. A baseball bat to the head—a mosquito bite; claws ripping through the thick membrane of her wings—a playful cat scratch; a tusk through the heart—an unexpected jab. Her body was built to last. The only wound her body was incapable of healing was decapitation.

  Sensing the danger, Dusk fought harder and went on the offensive, no longer content waiting for the undead army to reach her. Her movements were a macabre dance, slicing through flesh and bone with grace. Heads were lopped off, bowels eviscerated, and limbs torn asunder.

  I’ve got to get off this roof, Angela thought, feeling the fire inside rage. If this thing is allowed to team up with the baron, I’m doomed. She made a move toward the roof’s ledge, but the pain doubled, crippling her.

  She screamed as her body stiffened. Her back straight, arms extended out with her palms up, her body prepared to unleash Hell. “Dusk!” If she ever needed her shadow to swoop in and lift her up, it was now, but she was far too busy trying to keep the hungry dead away from Angela’s warm flesh.

  Angela looked down at the nine symbols on her abdomen and watched as the characters swirled together, her skin twisting with them like spiraling water down the drain. She screamed again as a gnarled horn protruded from the void followed by a bald, rock-hard head.

  As more of its body emerged from her abdomen, Angela realized the creature was built much like a golem. Large rock plates covered its shoulder blades and chest; in the seams, trails of molten lava flowed and pulsated with a vibrant orange glow. Halfway through the portal, the demon lashed out with a boulder-sized fist at a male zombie that had managed to slip by Dusk. The undead’s forehead collapsed under the blow and its body crumpled to the rooftop.

  It’s here to help? Angela wondered. She screamed one final blood-curdling wale as the hell spawn stepped out of the gateway and flexed its muscles in front of the zombies.

  The creature stood before her, lumbering nearly two feet above her. Smoke wafted off its body, snaking its way into the air. The creature’s muscles were finely chiseled and long blades of rock protruded from its elbows, their cutting edge polished and ready to cut through bone.

  The stone demon turned around and stared at her with glowing eyes, they—along with its nose—were hollow like a jack-o-lantern’s, with a mystical fire burning inside them.

  “RUN!” it bellowed, then turned back around to face the threat.

  “I should have known your father would send reinforcements,” Baron Samedi said.

  All her muscles could do after the dimensional rift was quiver and quake. The violation of her body often left her too weak to chase after the demons that escaped, allowing them time to wreak havoc on mankind. Unable to move, she watched with unblinking eyes as the beast charged into the army of the dead. It grabbed hold o
f the closest zombie with its massive right hand. Bones cracked and flesh split. Black, tar-like ooze spilled forth between the demon’s fingers as it crushed its skull and hoisted it into the air, knocking several other zombies off their feet. It tossed the mass of decayed flesh into the crowd and impaled a one-armed, male zombie with the horn atop its head. With the flick of its head, the impaled body launched into the air and crashed into the crowd.

  Baron Samedi stood his ground as the behemoth charged. With its head low, the demon blindly ran headlong at the baron. With a smile, the baron unsheathed the hidden blade inside his cane and raised it over his head, moonlight reflecting off the sharpened metal. The cemetary man stepped to the side, dodging a fatal blow, and brought his sword down. A clang echoed in the night and sparks danced into the air as the metal struck the rocky flesh.

  The demon laughed as it circled around. The zombies who were fighting Dusk instinctively turned and moved toward their master as if sensing the danger.

  “It’ll take more than a pitiful blade to sever my head,” the demon teased as it prepared to charge once more.

  “Well then, by all means, try that again,” the baron said, and motioned for his minions to step aside.

  As one, the zombies obeyed.

  The demon ran its foot across the rooftop as a bull scrapes the ground in a mock charge, then let loose a mighty roar before sprinting forward.

  “Otorize lagè sa a,” Baron Samedi spoke in his Creole dialect as his left hand traveled along the blade of his sword. As his hand passed over it, the metal ignited in a purple flame.

  As the demon’s horn came within striking distance, Baron Samedi sidestepped and brought his sword down. The demon hooked its arm and deflected the blow with the blade attached to its left elbow.

  “Fool!” The demon kicked outward with its hoofed foot. The blow struck the baron in the midsection and was powerful enough to lift him off his feet.

  The walking dead flooded around the baron to protect and help him to his feet. One-by-one they were tossed aside like rag dolls or cleaved in two by the blades on the demon’s elbows.