Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology

Coscom
Entertainment

winnipeg

The fiction in this book is just that: fiction. Names, characters, places and events either are products of the author’s
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead, living dead or possessing abilities far beyond us mere mortals is purely coincidental.

ISBN 978-1-927339-01-5

Metahumans
vs
The Undead
is Copyright © 2011 by
Coscom
Entertainment. The stories contained herein are Copyright © 2011 their respective authors
.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce in whole or in part in any form or medium.

Published by
Coscom
Entertainment

www.coscomentertainment.com

Text set in Garamond;
eBook Edition

Cover Art by Justin
Shauf
and Gary
McCluskey

Contents

Introduction by A.P. Fuchs

Halo of Blood by Gina
Ranalli

Gone but Not Lost by Eric S. Brown

Knight of the Zombies by J.B. Robb

The Puppet Master Strikes by Anthony
Giangregorio
and
Rebecca
Besser

Coda to the Golden Age by Lorne Dixon

Undead Love by Joe Martino

Fable the Immortal by Rhiannon
Paille

Zombies Attack! by Frank
Dirscherl

Black and White by Keith
Gouveia

Night(cat) of the Living Dead by J.L. MacDonald

There’s Something Rotten Up North by A.P. Fuchs

Author Bios

Introduction

by

A.P. Fuchs

S
uperheroes have been
a part of my life since as far back as I can remember. I’m pretty sure it all started with Superman when I was around three years old. I grew up on the Christopher Reeve movies, the classic
Spider-Man
cartoon with those psychedelic backgrounds, and
Super Friends
as much as time would allow. As I got older, costumes and action figures dominated most of my playtime with my brother and sister. Even when we played LEGO, my brother and I would use the space guys and spaceships and those would be our heroic personas while, back home at the LEGO house, my sister would take care of us after we returned and changed into our alter egos.

It strikes me that, looking back, it was the superhero genre as a whole that shaped my childhood, teenage years and beyond. For a time, my parents encouraged it because it instilled strong moral values and showed the battle between Good
vs
Evil and how Good always prevailed. And there was a time, too, where superheroes were outlawed growing up as my folks felt I had grown too obsessed with them. However, while they might not have physically existed for a time as I got older, I always kept them in my head, thinking about their adventures, remembering watching Superman take flight to save Lois Lane after stepping out from a revolving door, Spider-Man shooting webs that didn’t seem
to
really stick
to
anything
yet
he
swung
around all the same.

Superheroes.

They’re my thing. They’re what I do. And they’ve been a huge part of my creativity over the years, especially when I switched from focusing on becoming a comic book artist to being a writer. Though my early works were horror, if you read between the lines, you could clearly see a superhero tale beneath. In 2006, finally, I decided to actually release some
superheroic
creations on the public and thus began publishing my superhero opus,
The Axiom-man Saga
, which is a life-and-times superhero story chronicling the life of a
superpowered
hero, everything from his high-octane adventures, to his mythology, to simply trying to figure out how to change into his costume as quickly as possible without the use of
superspeed
.

The book you hold in your hands is a solid example of how I not only view superheroes, but also how I view zombies. Unlike most undead enthusiasts, zombies have never really been monsters to me. Oh sure, they look scary, stink, and crave human flesh—but underneath all that, I’ve always perceived them as a horde of
supervillains
looking to conquer the human race. This posture was my approach when I wrote my first zombie novel,
Blood of the Dead
(Book One of
The Undead World Trilogy
). I had a very heroic protagonist—a brooding, lone gunslinger—and zombies that went beyond the stereotypical virus-based creatures into something even more sinister. The same kind of zombies-as-
supervillains
mentality dominated my book,
Zombie Fight Night
, in which zombies fight other heroes like samurai, robots, Bruce Lee, Axiom-man and more in a UFC-style setting. And, of course, I was able to entertain that same zombie/
supervillain
notion with
Axiom-man: The Dead Land
, in which the story takes our hero into the world of
Blood of the Dead
.

Metahumans
vs
the Undead
is about showcasing independent superhero creations—some of which have comics and novels about them—and pitch them against decaying
supervillains
that love human flesh. It’s everything from a dark, supernatural tale by Keith
Gouveia
, to
superheroines
taking on the walking dead by Gina
Ranalli
, to a homage to the Golden Age of comics by Lorne Dixon, to a Batman-
esque
parody by Anthony
Giangregorio
and Rebecca
Besser
.

The superhero genre is incredibly underused on the whole. True, the comic book medium has finally begun using superheroes in new ways, movies, books—but it’s still an incredibly small genre versus something like, say, fantasy. I believe it was famed comic painter Alex Ross who said something like, “The superhero genre is every genre in one.” And it’s true. You have fantasy, horror, sci-fi, romance, action, adventure, mystery and more all wrapped under a single banner. The superhero genre is the only place you can do that without upsetting any of the purists.

What you hold in yours hands is very special, very unique, and very important as it leads you into a world where Good
vs
Evil is on spectacular display, where heroism knows no bounds, and where the true villainy of the undead is unleashed.

Get ready to take flight!

- A.P. Fuchs

Winnipeg, MB

November 23, 2011

Halo of Blood

by

Gina
Ranalli

S
pectrolite watched in
horror as the teenage girl sitting on the floor put the muzzle of the .45 beneath her chin.

It all seemed to happen in slow motion—the weapon being raised, the tightening of the pale finger on the trigger, even Spectrolite’s own hoarse shout as she reached one fingerless green glove toward the kid as she ran. The word
NO
! was obliterated by the sound of the shot; then came the fine red mist, the halo of blood that appeared to be suspended in the air over the girl’s head for many long seconds, before blasting out in all directions and being chased by white bone fragments and bits of gray matter.

With the top of her head completely gone, the girl slumped sideways, the remaining contents of her skull spilling out onto the cracked blue linoleum of the kitchen floor with wet, splattering plops.

Skidding to a stop a couple feet away from the corpse, Spectrolite succeeded in suppressing a gag, but still coughed into her free hand. In the other she held her beloved Remington 11-87 shotgun, now pointed at the floor. Her other favorite weapon, a Colt Anaconda, rode in a low-slung holster at her left hip.

“Come on!” a voice shouted from behind her. “It’s too late!”

Spectrolite quickly lowered her two-way goggles and spun around to see her twin sister, Ametrine, in the doorway, the top half of her face obscured by a violet mask.

“She killed herself,” Spectrolite said, gesturing at the body of the dead girl. “I tried to stop her, but—”

“There’s no time,” Ametrine shouted. “She’d been bit. She was a goner anyway. Let’s go!”

Ametrine turned away, violet cape flapping behind her like a banner as she raced back out of the house.

Spectrolite gave one last grim glance at the suicide before following her sister out into the blood-soaked night.

The sound of screaming came at them from all directions. The small town had been overrun with what appeared to be—for lack of a better term—the undead. Ravaged bodies lay everywhere—on lawns, in the streets. Body parts, clearly gnawed on and tossed aside, were a common sight and neither woman bothered to study them too closely. They were here to rescue the living, not mourn the dead, but it was beginning to look like this would be one battle they might not win.