Superheroes Kill Zombies Page 3

  “Come on Teresa. Your dad’s waiting for you outside,” Force told her.

  Just the mention of her father enraged her. The feeling of being abandoned, of resenting how her life had been thrown upside down, of the horror of the hideous creatures outside, and of this Force standing in front of her brought up a geyser from inside her again.

  She couldn’t contain it.

  She didn’t want to.

  The walls cracked as her emotions erupted in a torrent of power, smashing Force through the wall.

  Chapter 9

  The impact knocked Jeff through the wall behind him and into the cubicles, which flattened under his weight as he slid into a concrete support.

  He shook his head for a moment, trying to recover from the attack he hadn’t seen coming.

  The girl was the Unique he sensed, but nothing at all like what he expected. She had somehow thrown him across the room. But with what? Her mind?

  Jeff hoped for some kind of zombie monster master or whatever, something he could hit.

  He certainly did not expect that Detective Costner’s daughter would have the power to attack people with her mind. And why had she blasted him? He was here to help! Had she already turned into one of the bad ones? Did Costner know? Had he been hiding that from him?

  No, Jeff decided as he pulled himself back up to his feet. There was no way Costner knew about this. He would have warned him what the girl was capable of doing, wouldn’t he?

  This was going to make things more complicated, though.

  For some reason, Teresa seemed really pissed about seeing her dad.

  The motion-sensors in Jeff’s tactical helmet warned him of movement. That attack had attracted the zombies on the floor to him.

  By the time Jeff got back in the room, it looked like the men were even more scared, and Joanne, Costner’s ex-wife, now stood in front of her daughter like a human barricade. Teresa poked her head out from behind her mother’s protective stance.

  “I don’t want to see my father!” the girl yelled at him.

  “That's fine,” Jeff told her. “But we still have to get out of here!”

  Teresa glared at him and stepped out into the open, her hair raised as though she was being electrified.

  “Not if going means I have to see him,” she said. Teresa glanced up at her mother, who stared at the both of them with her mouth open.

  “Would you rather get eaten alive?” he asked, waving back at the approaching zombies he was sure they all could see through the door and the huge hole in the wall. “We’re going to be surrounded and attacked if we don’t move. We can’t just stay here.”

  “Watch me!” she yelled back at him.

  He glanced at the two dozen zombies shambling toward them, then turned to the girl’s mother and asked, “Can’t you do anything?”

  “I don’t know,” Joanne said in a shaky voice.

  Jeff focused on the girl. “Look, Teresa, Your little fit is drawing them right to us.”

  “I don’t care!” she shouted back.

  Jeff could feel the power build in her again, then crash towards him like an ocean wave. He was ready this time, and leaned into it. The force pushed him back a few feet, but did not launch him like the last time.

  The zombies weren’t so lucky. They were thrown back across the room behind him, smashed against furniture cabinets and the far wall like rag dolls.

  As impressive as that was, Jeff had no interest in hanging around arguing with a nine-year-old Unique. She might be stronger than she seemed and could maybe bring the building down around them if she got any more amped.

  Jeff aimed his gauntlet and fired a tranquilizer dart into her chest.

  Teresa’s mouth opened like she was gasping for air, then she collapsed into a heap.

  “What did you do?” Joanne demanded as she knelt down by her daughter.

  “Just knocked her out,” Jeff told her. “Do you want to get out of here alive or not?”

  The woman still seemed to be in shock, so Jeff picked up the girl and threw her over his shoulder.

  As a Unique, Teresa was going to be tougher than she looked. She might even recover from the tranquilizer before they even got back outside, but he certainly hoped not.

  The bald tech managed to push is younger partner ahead as they made their way back through to the stairs and began their climb down to safety.

  “Do you have any idea how this happened? I mean, first vampires, then werewolves and now zombies?” he asked Joanne. “Was this some kind of science experiment, or…” He didn’t really want to say the word “magic.”

  “I don’t know,” she told him flatly. “There are R&D labs all throughout the building doing who knows what. The biotech labs, maybe?”

  They made it back down to the ground floor and outside without encountering any more zombies. The scientists and office workers were gone, replaced by EMTs, firemen, more cops, and a full SWAT unit.

  “What happened to my daughter?” Costner demanded, ignoring the pair of male lab techs who hurried past him.

  “I had to tranq her,” Jeff told him as he pulled the girl off his shoulder and handed her limp form to her father.

  “You had to what?” the detective roared. “What the hell, Force? She’s my daughter.”

  Jeff leaned close to Detective Costner. “She’s a UQ, and she was making things really difficult in there,” he said in a quiet voice. He stepped back and added loudly, “Take care of her. I have to go back inside.”

  Costner held his daughter tightly as he spoke. “SWAT is going in with you.”

  Jeff didn’t like the idea. There were already enough dead in there. He didn’t want to add to the casualties. But there was more up there than he could likely handle, even fully equipped. Worse yet, it seemed like the “undead zombies” were too far damaged to save even if there was a serum or antidote in one of the labs. This was one of those decisions that would bother him for a long time, but it was one that had to be made in the moment.

  “Send them in.”

  Chapter 10

  “Wait!” the SWAT commander called out. “What’s the situation in there?”

  “Long story short? The mid-range floors are packed with flesh-eating zombies,” Jeff told the man. “Assume one bite and you’re infected and there’s no way to save anyone who’s been bitten. Also, there may be civilians hiding in locked offices.”

  What more could he say? It was better to be safe than sorry about a freaking zombie apocalypse.

  Jeff bolted through the lobby again and ran back up the stairs as SWAT cautiously started their sweep of the building’s lower floors. He’d made it to the sixth level down when he first heard the echoes of muffled gunshots.

  Gritting his teeth, Jeff burst through the stairwell fire door with no regard for how much noise he was making. Whatever horror was up here had to be dealt with and it was better to attract the zombies to him than have to search for wherever they might be hiding.

  One zombie in a lab coat by the door tried to grab him, but it was too slow. Jeff slipped the attack and punched the thing with his EM pulse impact gauntlet at a quarter power, sending the creature careening thirty feet down the hallway into the far wall. It didn’t get up, either because of broken bones or some other disabling injury.

  He searched the floor, making as much noise as he could, slamming all the zombies he found along the way.

  Jeff started to feel sad and a little sick. The whole experience felt like a police training obstacle course or a shooting gallery, simulated danger with no real threat. It was true that these things were stronger than regular people, but they weren’t going to be a match for him unless they attacked as a group. So far, they hadn’t shown that kind of coordination. Jeff was way too strong, way too fast, and way too well armored.

  Then he figured out how to use his EM pulse impact gauntlets to put the creatures down for good by concussing their heads like on TV. First a dozen, then a score of the creatures fell at his feet.


  With the hallways cleared, Jeff walked into the main R&D lab.

  The place was a mess. Computers and medical equipment were scattered everywhere, probably because the scientists left in a hurry. Jeff picked up one of the tablets and fumbled with its security password before giving up and setting it on a nearby countertop.

  It was easily twenty degrees cooler in here than in the hallways, and Jeff understood why in a matter of seconds.

  The lab was set up like some type of morgue. Four metal tables sat side-by-side in the center of the lab.

  Jeff switched on the mobile recorder in his helmet.

  He stepped closer to the first table and examined the dissected body of one of the werewolves he fought in the attack on the precinct. Was this Stalker? It was impossible to tell. The werewolf was unrecognizable with its eyes and most of its teeth removed. Several tissue and blood samples lay on a rolling cart beside the table.

  The next two tables had werewolves on them as well. One was completely headless. The other was missing three out of its four limbs and most of its organs.

  The furthest table had what looked like two unidentifiable masses on it.

  Jeff used a pencil to poke through the mess. One heap looked like cloth. Using the pencil, he lifted the shredded black fabric and saw flecks of blood on it. The other pile seemed like nothing more than ashes.

  Then it hit him.

  “This is what was left of Lavinia,” he said, the words coming out as white puffs in the chill air.

  He began to put the pieces together. This lab had the remains of the vampire Lavinia and several of the werewolves.

  “Stupid idiots!” he cursed. “What did you think was going to happen when you play with something you know nothing about?”

  Whatever they had been doing, something went horribly wrong.

  Jeff stepped away from the tables and glanced around. Beyond the chaos and blood spatters, he spotted a security door that was slightly ajar.

  He opened it wide enough to step through, finding what looked like an operating room with a table, several beeping machines, instruments, and two bloodied, unmoving bodies.

  A woman stood in the corner of the operating room. Her back was to him. She was naked. Her muscular body was bruised and grayish, but seemed strangely familiar.

  A shiver ran up his spine as the woman turned around.

  It was Erica.

  His mentor.

  Undead.

  Chapter 11

  Jeff was too shocked to react. How could she be here? He had attended her funeral. It was an open casket!

  The thing that was once Erica growled at him. It leaped over the table, grabbed him by the arm, and threw him across the room.

  He hit the wall hard and fell down stunned. Broken cinderblock fell over him in little gray chips.

  Jeff shook his head, struggling to recover his wits in the face of what was happening.

  Erica seemed to have her same strength, but was there anything else left of her in that stitched-up body?

  “Erica, it’s me,” he said uncertainly.

  She dashed across the room and grabbed him again, pulling him close to her brutalized face. Hot breath wheezed over him through her exposed teeth.

  Jeff looked in horror at her hollow cheeks and missing eyelids. What happened to her lips? They looked like they were chewed off. Was this something that was done to her or had she done this to herself?

  Jeff tried again. “It’s me. Cadet Trainee Alpha. Jeff. Remember?”

  Like him, Erica was a Unique, a UQ, a person identified as having the Unknown Quotient in her DNA. It is possible that she survived her apparent death at the hands of the vampire Lavinia. Maybe that was what this R&D lab was trying to do here. Maybe they were trying to bring her back. That was what everyone wanted. It was certainly what he wanted, just not like this.

  With a roar, she slammed him against the ceiling, then back down to the floor.

  “Erica, try!” he pleaded as he rolled away from her next attack, a vicious kick that cracked the cinderblock wall.

  Jeff used the remaining charge in his EM pulse impact gauntlets to keep her at bay. When those were exhausted, he emptied his non-lethal ammo. Tear gas. Rubber bullets. Nothing worked. Finally, he relied on his own punches, kicks, and throws to slow her attacks. A roundhouse knocked her back for a second, barely enough time for him to catch his breath. Three straight kicks to her chest sent her into a wall, but she got up again and again.

  Meanwhile, the pounding he took was beginning to take its toll on him. One of punches cut clean through a concrete support. He ducked it, but the backswing knocked him off of his feet. A kick to his chest sent him through a row of filing cabinets.

  Together, they trashed the operating room and the labs and the offices across the floor. Each time she hit him, he got up more slowly. His reactions became sloppy. That was when he realized that she was wearing him out.

  In that awkward moment between fatigue and resolve, Jeff thought of Detective Costner’s Frankenstein reference back in the car and of the differences between the movies he had seen and the book he studied in school. He tried to think of anything that might stir some recognition or humanity in his former mentor.

  But the Frankenstein monster was stitched together from many parts into a whole new person with thoughts and questions and desires.

  Erica was a whole person who was taken apart. Her pieces were cut away. Now she was little more than a crazed husk.

  Jeff also knew that, if the fight continued like this, she was going to kill him. Even after death, she was stronger and faster than he was. But she was naked and he had a wealth of lethal tools at his disposal.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, kicking her away. He fired two explosive rounds into her chest and head. His eyes blurred with tears as the blasts ripped her apart.

  Jeff sat at her feet for a few minutes before he recovered his wits and started thinking about anything other than the fact that he had just wasted the most important person in his life.

  She was already dead, he told himself. There was nothing more he could have done for her, but there was a lot more for him to finish in this lab.

  Most of the computers were trashed, but there were dozens of thumb drives scattered around the floor and several of the tablets survived. Jeff downloaded everything into his system and took snapshots of the paperwork with his visor camera.

  According to a few of the presentations he read, the researchers here were trying to find a way to mix the werewolf and vampire DNA with Erica’s to create some kind of Unique Hybrid they could control.

  It seemed like even the government was afraid of what had been unleashed in the wake of Erica’s death. Could they really be that afraid of him not measuring up?

  Jeff shook his head.

  Fearing the unexpected was understandable, but this was too far. Way too far. They’ took the city’s most treasured hero and turned her into a monster. There was no way he was going to let this go.

  He waited for the SWAT unit to confirm that they had completed their initial sweep.

  With the remaining one percent charge in his EM gauntlets, Jeff clasped them together, letting out a pulse that fried every hard drive within one hundred feet.

  After that, Jeff downloaded the schematics for the lab’s fire suppression system and shut it down.

  He collected every piece of research he could find into a pile and set it ablaze using his suit’s low-power flamethrower. The paper lit up right away, but the bodies took longer. The sickly sweet stink from the burning remains of Erica and the werewolves cut through his helmet’s filters and caught in the back of his throat.

  Black smoke billowed around him as he headed down the stairwell, praying he had done enough.

  Chapter 12

  The fire grew quickly.

  Jeff turned the building’s fire safety measures back on remotely, then met the SWAT team a few floors lower. From what he heard over the radio, it sounded like they got most of the zombies on t
heir first pass.

  He led them out of the building just as the firefighters arrived on the scene. They did not look happy. Jeff counted more than a few sour stares and harsh whispers.

  Screw it. Even if what he did was technically arson, he would have done it again in a heartbeat. To hell with the consequences. Those people messed with the wrong hero.

  Detective Costner leaned into to him and asked, “You are aware those were government labs? They are going to be pissed at what you did. There was probably some expensive equipment burned up in there.”

  “I’m a public servant, Tom,” Jeff said. “They can dock my pay. That ‘government lab’ made those zombies out of vampire, werewolf, and Unique blood. They experimented on Erica’s body and turned her into a mindless killing machine. I kind of doubt they want that to go public.”

  Detective Costner’s face widened in shock. “Do you have any evidence of that?”

  Jeff tapped his helmet. “Visor camera. I also downloaded a ton of files that I’ll read over later.”

  The detective snorted and wiped a hand over his face.

  “We have to talk about your daughter,” Jeff added. “She’s Unique.”

  “Are you sure?” Detective Costner asked.

  “I felt her presence as soon as I got here. She threw me through a wall without lifting a finger, then knocked out all the zombies on the floor. I’m damn sure.”

  The detective shook his head. “What are the odds?” the detective wondered. “It must have manifested after the divorce. Joanne didn’t say anything.” He let out an unhappy bark of laughter.

  What were the odds? No one knew much about how UQs came into being. The detective worked closely with Erica for almost twenty years. Spending that much time around her could have done something to him and somehow affected his daughter. Maybe she was Erica’s gift to him, her real legacy.

  On a hunch, Jeff quickly accessed his onboard database and scrolled through the list of files he downloaded from the facility’s computers. There were two terabytes of data on Uniques, more information than he had ever heard of in any one place. He would have to set time aside to study it all later. Until he knew more, Jeff decided to keep his secret stash to himself.