Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology Read Free

didn’t reply, she added. “Don’t worry. I’m here to help.”
    “Help? Help what?”
    She exited the den without replying. Luckily, the house was a small bungalow and only took a few minutes to search. She found nothing out of the ordinary and no other people. Before she left, she peeked back in on the man, who was toying with a cell phone. When he saw her, he barked, “I’m calling the police. I want you out of here now!”
    “Just do what I said. Barricade the door.”
    The sound of him swearing at her followed her back out onto the lawn. As she ran to the house next door, the wheels of her mind spun frantically. Something about the TV signal, then. Whatever had happened to this community had been done intentionally and done at the optimum time, when most of the population would be glued to their television sets.
    It was genius, really. But who could be behind it? And why? Some kind of controlled experiment? Was it visual or auditory? Whatever the signal had been, it had fried the brains of the viewers or listeners, and then what? Rebooted them?
    It didn’t make a lot of sense but it was a theory, at least, though not one she could contemplate for long. She was just mounting the front steps of the new house when two children, a boy and a girl, came racing out the door, their expressions terrified, tears streaming down their cheeks. The girl, no more than nine, ran ahead of the boy and seemed to have not even seen Spectrolite, slamming into her lower body at full speed.
    Managing to keep her balance, Spectrolite gently grabbed the child by a shoulder and said, “Whoa! It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
    The girl seemed stunned for a moment, then began to scream, struggling to be free of Spectrolite’s grasp, while the boy, maybe a year older, attempted to rescue his sister by pounding Spectrolite’s ribs, hips and thighs. Anywhere his small fists could find to make contact, they did, and all the while he shouted through his sobs, “Let her go! Let her go!”
    “I’m not one of them!” Spectrolite insisted. “Calm down!”
    The children either were too hysterical to listen or just flat-out didn’t believe her, because they both continued to fight and shriek. She was left with no choice but to shove her goggles back up with her forearm.
    Making eye contact with the boy first spared her any further blows to her body. He froze in place, arms falling limply to his sides. He would remain in that position until she made physical contact with him again. Potentially, if she was to leave, he would stand in the same spot until he dropped dead of dehydration and, even if moved by another party, would remain in an almost comatose state. He could, in fact, be treated as a coma patient for the rest of his life, being fed intravenously but fully capable of breathing on his own.
    With him subdued, Spectrolite was able to concentrate on the girl, though she had to grip the child by the chin and force her to look up into her eyes. She regretted having to scare the child even more with her actions, but she had seen what was loose in the neighborhood and couldn’t risk the kids running headlong into one of those things. Bad enough they were probably already running away from one or more of them.
    Once both children were mesmerized, Spectrolite quickly scanned the street for any action and, deciding the kids would be safe on the porch for a couple minutes, she entered the house, weapon at the ready.
    What she walked in on was something she would not soon forget.
    In the living room, all crouched on the floor, two men and a woman were all feeding on a second woman, hands dug into her guts and greedily yanking out strings of greasy gray intestines and what Spectrolite could only guess was at least part of a liver.
    The fact the children had most likely also witnessed this scene was almost enough to break her. Whether the kid’s mom was dead and being eaten by their father or if she was the other woman doing the eating probably