Powerfist
reached behind his back and brought forth a small stick. He snapped it against his belt and the stick began to glow a pale yellow. He tossed the glow stick on the table. It gave off enough light that the four surviving members of this once ridiculed team could see each other’s faces. The yellow light from below reflected in their eyes like a flame of passion. They were ready to fight for their cause.
“Here’s the thing,” started
Powerfist
. “You remember how this all started? Remember who the media blamed, your man in the tower?” He gestured towards Kid Bolt.
Kid Bolt did not understand why
Powerfist
said
your
man. He knew the CEO of the company hid inside his building during the initial onslaught. If that man put dangerous pills on the market, then by Kid Bolt’s logic, he was a bad man.
“Health-
Pharm
,” said Star Cluster, stating the obvious. At least, they all agreed that the building they had avoided these past five years was a bad place.
Powerfist
winked at her,
then
he said, “You’ve all been doing a piss-poor job of patrolling. I bet you don’t know that Health-
Pharm
is still in business.”
“What?” interrupted Kid
Bolt.
“Well, in a manner of speaking. I doubt they are still producing pills, but the lights are on and somebody’s home. It seems their CEO managed to seal up the building. Now the chosen ones are living in luxury with all the modern conveniences,” finished
Powerfist
.
“I knew they were in there, but we could never get close enough to find out what was happening,” said Kid Bolt. He did not admit his fear of the heavily armed guards. Superheroes were not supposed to be scared of bullets.
He felt his cheeks burning. He had not felt this kind of rage since the Varsity baseball team cornered him in the locker room and towel-whipped his naked ass until it bled. So many people had died. He lost comrades. In his mind and in his world, this injustice could not stand. He believed heroes had to correct the mistakes of villains. Kid Bolt knew what had to be done.
Kid Bolt considered what would come next. He knew he could count on the Vindicator Corp, living or dead.
He announced to his team, “We have to fix this. We need a battle plan.”
Confrontation at the Tower
Ernest limped along gritting his teeth with every step.
They were closing in on him.
Around every corner he had encountered more zombies.
Stupid, dribbling creatures, but oh so deadly.
On their own they were easily outwitted, but they were everywhere. Just when you thought you’d found a place to rest, still more shambled out of the shadows. Ernest had learned that you couldn’t just climb high and wait. The brainless creatures would wait you out until hunger and thirst made you desperate. As stupid as they were, one bite and that was it. Game over. You became a shambling, rotting member of the undead. He shuddered, afraid to even contemplate that. His ankle throbbed where he had fallen earlier, tripped over a stupid beer crate.
Crouching behind a car, he heard footsteps approaching. My God, would he never be able to rest? He held himself totally still. His breath held in his lungs waiting, waiting. He closed his eyes, suddenly weary and praying for death. Without the sanctuary of the tower and with his daughter growing ever weaker, he might as well just give up and accept what fate seemed to have in store for him.
The shuffling, shambling footsteps got closer. They were surely right above him now.
“Hey old timer, are you ok?” said a young voice.
Ernest’s weary eyes flicked open.
“You-you’re not a zombie!”
“Hey, that’s ten out of ten for observation, old lad. Now shall we get the fuck out of here and to HQ before we have some company of the undead kind?”
Ernest eyed up the lad. He wore a stupid mask and a royal blue bodysuit. He looked like he was going to a fancy dress party as a superhero. He looked a little ridiculous and at odds with the grim nature of the world around them. Ernest despite himself, laughed loud and deep.
“Fuck’s sake old timer. You’ll have every zombie from here to Hell’s Kitchen on top of us. Shut up.”
The kid was skinny. He had what looked like a
taser
in a pouch on a belt at his narrow waist.
“I’m sorry kid but you look really silly.”
The kid looked offended, but he smiled despite that. He said, “In better shape than you it seems.”
“Yes my ankle, is this HQ of yours far?”
“I was heading that way now and lucky for you, no, it’s not far. I’ll help you hobble. You can call me
Ric
...Kid Bolt.”
“Ernest. Ernest Miller.”
“Well, come on Ernest. Let’s get you to safety.”
* * *
The imposing front of the public library faced them. Kid Bolt and Ernest slowly climbed the steps with Ernest limping badly from his sprained ankle. Once they were inside and Kid Bolt had gotten Ernest comfortable, he waited for the other members of the team to return from their reconnaissance mission. One by one, they entered the library HQ. Star Cluster,
Slo
-Fast,
Powerfist
. Miss
Wondermazing
was still locked up. They secured the broken front doors and sat down to discuss with Ernest what he might know. Kid Bolt had taken a shine to the old geezer, as he thought of him, and handed him a bowl of hot soup.
“Here you go old timer. We’re not short on food and we have camping gas stoves to warm it up.”
Ernest was so hungry that he nearly cried. He managed not to, but a lone tear streaked down his grimy cheek at this simple act of kindness.
“Now,” said Kid Bolt, taking charge, “this here’s
Slo
-Fast. He’s a big unit but he can move
fast,
so you’ve
gotta
keep up with him. Just hide the food is all you have to do.”
Slo
-Fast smiled at Ernest. His not so bright expression conveyed trusting warmth and such an earnest expression that Ernest wondered if he was a little slow.
“This here fine lady is Nut Bus- I mean Star Cluster,” said Kid Bolt.
“Howdy,” she said with a lilting southern drawl.
“Finally, let me introduce a recently returned member of our group, which is known as Vindicator Corp by the way. This is
Powerfist
.”
A handsome man wearing a bulletproof vest did an exaggeratedly sarcastic bow.
“Hello old geezer. What shall we call you eh?
Arthritis man?”
“Don’t be a dick all your life
Powerfist
. Take a fucking day off man,” chided Kid Bolt. “It just so happens that our friend, whose name is Ernest, has some interesting information for us.”
Ernest took a final spoonful of soup and smiled gratefully at Kid Bolt. He looked at each of the Vindicator Corp in turn. His eyes held pity, fear and something akin to admiration for the group.
“Well you folks have a nice little group here and I admire what you are trying to do.” He paused for breath and coughed. “However, what I have to tell you may come as a shock. In the Chrysler Tower as was
,
there are people living in filthy opulence. Whilst the world all turns to shit these…” he gritted his teeth, “people are pretending none of this has happened. They are eating fucking steak, some of them. They have light and they have heat. Randy
Bueller
, ex CEO of Health-
Pharm
, is
lording
it over the lot like fucking Emperor Nero.”
“How?” asked
Slo
-Fast.
“They have built a compound around the tower. At each of the four corners is a manned machine gun post.”
“We know that much, but would they let us in?” asked
Powerfist
, his pupils for some reason, darting around.
“Unlikely. They are very cagey about resources. You’d have to have something they wanted before they’d consider it. They send out heavily armed patrols from the tower. They clear zombies from the vicinity, but as you know they wander and groups often come to investigate the sounds generated by those in the compound. The machine guns cut them down. However, bullets are limited and they often have archers using arrows to repel the zombies.”
“Clever,” said Kid Bolt, “They just go out pull ‘
em
out of the bodies and reuse them. Now that’s what I call recycling.”
Ernest nodded and continued, “Anyway, status is everything in the tower. I only made Level Two, right near the bottom, because I brought a stash of bullets and some gold jewelry with me. The higher up you go the more luxuries you get. They have petrol and lots of generators running. Everything is rationed and rules are strict. Everybody works on some task or other. Everyone has a job. It was my job to shift supplies from a lock up in the compound. If you break the rules you are out on your ear. I stole some fruit for my daughter who was getting malnourished. I got caught and they threw me out like so much zombie food.”
Star Cluster whistled, “Man that is fucking harsh.”
“I need to get back to my daughter. I want her to be safe in the tower but I also want her to have the choice to come with me if she wants to.”
Kid bolt stood up and paced, “So if we had something of value to give them, then you think they’d let us in?”
Ernest nodded, “Yes that’s the way it works. Do you have anything of value?”
Kid Bolt grinned, “Four large barrels of gas. Each one is about one hundred and twenty five kilos.”
Ernest whistled, “That’s the new gold guys.”
* * *
After planning all night, they finally agreed to load the four barrels on a hand truck procured from a nearby grocery store. With squeaking wheels, it made less noise and less work than dragging the barrels. Kid Bolt knew
Slo
-Fast was strong, but even he could only manage one at a time.
They rolled the cart cautiously down East 39
th
Street instead of Park Avenue. In front of Grand Central Station, it turned into a death trap as people tried to evacuate the city. After five years, the piles of rotting corpses and wrecked cars remained impassable.
Kid Bolt privately struggled with the coming challenge. Somehow, he had become leader of this group. He never expected it and never asked for it. Unfortunately, that role came with tasks that no one else wanted to do. The visit to Miss
Wondermazing’s
locked room still echoed in his head.
No one wanted to leave their friend at the library. They silently accepted the possibility that none of them would be returning. As such, they did not need the extra responsibility of dragging their
zombified
friend with them. They could not trust that she would refrain from biting them, although they hoped she miraculously retained some of her humanity. Kid Bolt had the duty of ending her suffering.
He took off his mask. He wanted to do it as Rick. He looked at her once beautiful, but now emaciated face and thought she was crying. The moment before he pulled the trigger, splattering her malfunctioning brain on the desk behind her, he realized it was only puss seeping from her putrefied eyeballs.
They took the long way toward the Chrysler
Building, that
Bueller
and everyone else now referred to as The Tower. After turning on Fifth Avenue, they found the shell of a trendy restaurant in which to hide Ernest. His ankle did not seem to be getting better and he would easily become a liability.