Peter Clines - Ex-Heroes

“Fuck you,” she said with a tight smile.

You wouldn’t survive it, beautiful.

They all chuckled, and Cerberus gave him a nod. It was a clear night. Even without Zzzap, the waxing moon and the brilliant flares in the sky still made it easy to see. The pikes stabbed in again and dropped another handful of exes. The pounding on the truck got louder. Lynne looked up at the battlesuit. “Can you feel that?”

“What?” The teenager looked around and rolled down her sleeves. “It’s getting chilly.” Lady Bee nodded. “Temperature’s dropping,” she agreed.

“What the hell’s that about?” The dead pounded on the truck, louder and louder. The living could feel the vibrations on their skin. “They’re getting stronger,” said Cerberus. “No.” One of the guards shook his head. He had an ear up, listening. “It just sounds that way because they’re syncing up. They’re starting to beat in time.” The drumbeat on the truck became louder. The sound echoed across the Mount. “They’re all beating in time,” muttered Bee. A shiver worked its way through the crowd. Outside the gate, the chattering of dead teeth grew louder. “Oh, God,” a man shouted. His pike clattered to the ground.

“Look at the sky!” Far above, all three flares snuffed out like old matches. The stars vanished one by one. An inky shadow crept across the moon, across everything. Inside the armor, lights flashed and power levels wavered.

Frost formed on the screens. Cerberus staggered. She rerouted systems and tried to stabilize the batteries as her interior lights dimmed. “What the hell is going on?” Every walkie-talkie let out a low, flat hiss of static. The guards screamed and the moon vanished behind a black shroud. Zzzap extended his energies again and trembled as the darkness resisted. The shadows fought and forced his light back to his body.

It was something he hadn’t felt in over a year, and something he thought he’d never have to feel again.

Fucking son of a bitch, he said. It’s Midknight.

* * * *

The drumbeat of the dead echoed across the Mount like a relentless overseer on an ancient slave ship. Gorgon’s confident smirk faded. Even Stealth seemed shaken.

Below them, the exes parted to let the trucks drive up. Over a dozen of them, all spray-painted with different shades of green. Seventeens rode the roof and hung out the windows. At the head of the parade, Mighty Joe Young—Rodney Casares—rode in the back of a National Guard truck decorated with skulls and a large neon-green 17 on the hood. They whooped and hollered and fired their guns into the sky.

“Thank God,” muttered Gorgon. “Something I can deal with.”

Stealth sank down against the arch. In some way Gorgon couldn’t wrap his head around, her black and gray cloak blended into the ivory material. She was ten feet away and he had trouble seeing her.

The gigantic ex waded through the dead, his eyes locked on Gorgon the whole time. They shifted and stumbled to clear a path for him. The drumming stopped. The chattering of teeth slowed and stopped.

“Just the man I was looking for,” bellowed the Seventeen’s leader. He stood in the intersection before the gates and flashed his tombstone grin.

“Rodney,” called Gorgon. He crossed his arms across his chest and squared off his shoulders. Gunslinger pose. “Long time no see. Still ugly as shit.”

“And bigger than life,” he cackled. “Fucking awesome, isn’t it? Life and death throw down in my body and I just keep getting bigger and meaner.” He flexed a swollen arm the size of a beer keg.

Dozens and dozens of Seventeens trained their weapons on the Melrose gate.

“Tell you what,” shouted the huge ex. He slapped his hands together and the exes shifted as one. A space opened around him, ten, twenty, thirty feet across when the dead stopped shambling out of the way. “Last chance. You come down, give yourself up, and I send everyone else away. You got my word.”

“Yeah, you’ve been known for your word for years,” called Gorgon. “Save the cheap effects, dipshit. You’re still nothing special and you don’t scare anyone.”

“Oh, yeah?” Rodney spat out a mouthful of dark slime. “Want to see if your people scream when my army tears down these walls? Want to see who’s scared then?”

The exes lumbered forward like a wave. Weathered hands closed on the bars. They all pulled. They all pushed. The hinges squealed.

Derek shouted and his gate guards leveled their shotguns a mere yard from the barrier. Their first volley went off at eye level and a score of exes packed against the gate dropped. Fourteen slides racked and the second volley dropped another dozen as they surged forward. Rifles went off along the top of the walls and another score of exes vanished beneath the mob.

Rodney waved his arm and the Seventeens shot back. A few people fell from the wall. Most of them dropped low and hugged the concrete.

“We can keep this up all week,” shouted Gorgon over the gunfire.

“All week? This place be rubble by sunrise,” yelled the dead giant. “We got the manpower, the firepower, the willpower! What you got? A couple freaks in costumes? You got nothing!!”

The Seventeens hollered and roared and punched the sky. The dead threw their arms up as well.

Gorgon stood up on top of the arch and looked down at them. Hundreds of Seventeens. Thousands of zombies. “We’ve got brains, Rodney,” he shouted with a grin. “And superpowers or not, you’re still the same idiot you’ve always been. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t’ve brought an army of people who’ve never met me before.”

“I’m gonna chop your fucking head off and shove it so far up your ass it’s gonna come back out your neck!” bellowed the giant. He pointed a finger as thick as a baseball bat and a dozen Seventeens trained their weapons on the hero. “You got anything else smart to say?!”

Gorgon laughed and clapped his hands over his head. “Ladies and gentlemen of the SS,” he shouted, “if you could give me your attention, please.”

A good third of the gang members were already looking at him. Half the rest glanced up as Rodney yelled “ DON’T!! ”

The goggles opened and Gorgon cast his vampiric gaze out at the frozen crowd.

They shuddered and twitched as he tore their strength out. His body shook with the raw power of it, like the greatest sex of his life. Tier ten or eleven. Maybe higher. Weapons lowered and then clattered to the pavement.

Almost three hundred Seventeens collapsed in the street among the exes as the irises snapped shut.

Gorgon rolled his shoulders once and tried to settle the strength buzzing in his muscles. “Told you he was an idiot,” he said to Stealth.

Shots echoed in the air as he leaped off the arch, dropped twenty feet, and drove a kick into Rodney’s head. He rode the malformed skull to the ground and it made a satisfying crack as it hit the pavement. The hero slammed his fist into the giant’s throat and followed it up with a strike to the solar plexus. He drove two-three-four more punches home, flashing the goggles on each one, before Rodney’s arm swept him away.

It was like getting hit by a speeding car. Gorgon flew across the street, knocking down a dozen exes as he went.

“Your eye-magic don’t work on me,” said the giant as he stood up. “Not so tough when you can’t make the other guy weak, are you?”

A handful of exes grabbed at Gorgon’s arms and shoulders and he felt a tiny bit of his strength simmer away as he shrugged them off. “Man enough to test that?”

Rodney roared and charged.

* * * *

St. George landed at the Van Ness gate and Jarvis limped to him. “Moved past,” shouted the salt-and-pepper man. He had one arm in a sling, and pointed north with the rifle clutched in his other hand. “Heading for Lemon Grove.”