After that,
Powerfist
mysteriously left the team. Kid Bolt figured he must have really felt emasculated by the incident. It didn’t matter because they still had five members. At least, they had five until the outbreak. Dr. Sledgehammer was probably the lucky one, thought Kid Bolt. He fell in his sleep. His wife attacked him like they had seen on so many news reports. That left four members of the Vindicator Corp: Kid Bolt, Star Cluster,
Slo
-Fast and Miss
Wondermazing
.
Except he was not supposed to count
Wondermazing
anymore.
Star Cluster jumped down from the hood of the
Camaro
that had given her a vantage of the empty street. Not all of the Vindicators held Kid Bolt’s high ideals. He knew Star Cluster was in it for the action. Lacking in Wisdom and Intelligence attributes, she got off on the violence. At the moment, she looked like she wanted to investigate the noise. Kid Bolt thought they’d cleared this sector two days ago. He did not like to get any closer to the old Chrysler Building. Besides, there should not be any humans around here now, only zombies. He felt suddenly weary and did not want another altercation so soon. He tugged at his chaffing mask. The city heat made him sweat under his eyes. What an odd place to sweat, he thought.
They had been fairly successful going up against the living dead. Small raids in parking garages or supermarket lots ended with bodies on the ground and cheers from the Vindicator Corp. In their most recent melee, Miss
Wondermazing
had been bitten on her beautifully toned calf. She loved to show off her painstakingly sculpted body even though Kid Bolt advised her to wear more body armor. Privately, he took considerable pleasure in looking at her bikini. As Rick, he didn’t talk to any girls. Behind his mask, he had a crush on this beautiful woman, although she could have been old enough to be his mother.
Tap. Tap. Tap. The noise came again. Someone was baiting them, luring the heroes into a possible trap and Kid Bolt did not like that.
“Star, we should get back to headquarters,” he said. Whatever waited for them would have to wait a little longer. Night was coming. The dark seemed to stir the dead, make them more active. Still, Star Cluster stared in the direction of the noise, almost longingly, before finally following Kid Bolt.
The Tower
“Hello?”
“Miss Miller?
“Yes that’s me.”
“We’d like you to come with us please. Mr.
Bueller
would like to see you.”
Her heart beat faster. People who saw
Bueller
often were not seen again. Her Dad had gone out earlier. She wondered if he’d done something to upset the man.
“Okay. I’m coming just give me a moment.”
She made a feeble attempt to comb her hair.
Yasmine’s
reflection in the mirror stared back at her like a sallow pale-faced stranger. Poor diet and squalid conditions were not helping her health, but it was better than the zombie filled streets. She left the apartment and felt the guards leering stares up and down her body as they stepped across the hallway and into
Bueller’s
lift. The lift used a lot of generator power and was only used by people with top level authority. Anyone found to be using a lift without official permission was immediately expelled from the tower according to a sign just above the button access. The inside of the lift was
plushly
carpeted and pleasant music tinkled through speakers set in the roof. It was a whole other world to
Yasmine
, who was used to her minuscule apartment. After just a couple of minutes, the lift gave a pleasant chime and the motion stopped.
The doors opened up to reveal
Bueller’s
office.
Yasmine’s
eyes widened as she looked around the office. Rare art works and expensive rugs adorned the place. A huge window giving a fine view of the decaying city was just behind his desk. He was staring out at this view as she entered the room. He turned and a predator’s smile adorned his greasy lips.
“Ah, young
Yasmine
so pleased to meet you,” he said, extending a hand to indicate a seat before his desk. He nodded to the guards to indicate that they should go.
His eyes looked longingly up and down her slender figure and they burned deep with desire.
Yasmine
, sensing his lust, subconsciously shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“I’m afraid we have some very bad news for you my dear.”
She looked intently at him.
“
Your
Father. I’m afraid he is dead. He was working on the top of the compound fence, helping to reinforce it when he fell over the other side. Before we were able to get to him…” Randy let the words trail for dramatic effect.
Yasmine
gasped and began to sob.
“How?”
“I’m sorry dear it all happened so fast; there was quite a hoard out there.”
Huge wracking sobs drew Randy around the desk. He held her closely in his arms.
A shark’s grin graced his face as he said, “I’ve arranged to have you moved up to Level Four, and a larger apartment, it’s the least we can do. You will get more space, light, heat and an increased food ration.”
Yasmine
looked up gratefully to her benefactor briefly before burying her head in her hands. Her Dad had been the last of her relatives left and now he was gone.
* * *
Outside the compound, Ernest was running for his life. He ducked down a narrow alleyway and stopped briefly in a vain attempt to catch his breath back. He could hear them close behind as they groaned and shuffled his way.
The scent of a meal unmistakable in their corrupted nostrils.
Ernest ran on, praying they didn’t catch him. Above him a gibbous moon was just starting to show its face over the city.
No Place
Like
HQ
In the aftermath, the Vindicator Corp came into its own. Before zombies destroyed almost everyone, the members of this team were the outcasts, the freaks. Now, survivors came to them for help. The sudden shift in paradigm also benefitted Vindicator HQ. They moved from Star Cluster’s two room apartment to the public library. Kid Bolt loved having a building that looked like the Hall of Justice, plus he believed they had unlimited research resources lining the shelves. After all, knowledge is power.
There also came a certain satisfaction. Before “Z-Day”, real-life superheroes were usually considered the social outcasts and misfits. Kid Bolt only wanted to help people, but too often, it resulted in his own ridicule. Finally, he could stand proud without persecution.
Listening to her high heels tap on the marble of the foyer, Kid Bolt followed Star Cluster into their immense lair. He could not understand why female supers worried more about their appearance than about the practicality of their uniform. He warned Star Cluster that her choice of footwear could be the difference between living
or
dying when it came to running from the walkers. For a leader, his followers had a hard time taking orders though.
Slo
-Fast leaned across a heavy oak table, two fingers deep into a jar of peanut butter. His white leotard stretched across his bulging belly.
“Oh. Hey guys,” he muttered.
“You can’t be doing that. Those rations have to last us,” ordered Kid Bolt. He tried to grab the jar from
Slo
-Fast, but the exceptionally tall man stood up straight, taking the jar out of reach. For being almost as wide as he was tall, this giant moved surprisingly fast.
Kid Bolt liked
Slo
-Fast. He knew that he needed his strength, especially after
Powerfist
quit the team. It frustrated him, though, that the big man constantly ate. When they did find a rare treat, like peanut butter, it did not matter if it was expired.
Slo
-Fast always had first dibs.
“How is she?” asked Star Cluster, nodding toward the locked door at the far end of the room.
Kid Bolt followed her gaze with his own. He looked across the scuffed tiles with the occasional scattered books.
Wondermazing
went into shock from the bite. That made it easy to carry her back to base. Then they locked her in one of the study rooms. The first day, she screamed.
A lot.
“Not too much,” said
Slo
-Fast. He cleared the last of the crunchy goo from his teeth with his extra-wide tongue.
“What does that mean?” asked Kid Bolt.
Slo
-Fast looked unsure of his own words. He creased the brown skin of his forehead in thought. Finally, he said, “Not too much sound. She didn’t even ask to be let out. Do you think she....she turned?”
As if in answer, the handle of the study room door jiggled slightly, like someone testing the lock. No other noise. No other movement.
Kid Bolt braced himself. He did not want to be the one to have to put down Miss
Wondermazing
, but he somehow became the leader of the Vindicator Corp. The others would look to him for something like this. Unfortunately, he had become quite adept at smashing zombie brains. Nothing else happened in the back of the room. He heard Star let out a sigh of relief.
Then, behind him, he heard the tapping on the other side of the glass doors.
The same tap, tap, tap of someone hitting a stick or a bat against the sidewalk.
Whoever had been stalking them apparently followed them back to their headquarters.
They had not lit the candles yet and darkness spilled slowly out of the stacks like honey dripping down the books. The aisles in the back were already completely lost to blackness. Without streetlights outside, they had no chance of seeing the approaching menace. Kid Bolt felt that someone outside meant to do them harm.
Before he had the slightest chance to form a plan, the front doors smashed open. Glass flew past Kid Bolt’s head, seemingly in slow motion. All he could do was watch. He did not even close his eyes as the glittering shards floated past him.
He recognized the shape in the wounded door frame.
Powerfist
.
“
Powerfist
, you came back,” said
Slo
-Fast.
“You didn’t think I could leave you little bastards alone?”
came
the overconfident reply. He held Dr. Sledgehammer’s weapon of nomenclature by the ball peen head and let the wooden handle tick against the floor.
“You’ve been gone for almost a year,” said Kid Bolt. “I figured you were dead.”
The attractive man with the Kevlar vest stretched his gloved hands over the sledgehammer. He balanced the hammer against his palm. Kid Bolt could hear the thick leather gloves creak as he extended his fingers.
Powerfist
worried as much about his appearance as the girls did. Somehow, he managed to keep his hair pristine. He did not look nearly as tattered or dirty as the other members of the Vindicator Corp and this bothered Kid Bolt.