Against the Baron’s rush, reacting to the Baron’s wish, the police captain twitched with his gun raised. He pulled the trigger—a click, then nothing. Panic flashed on his face, a life or death terror. “Fixed!” he bellowed, cocking the hammer.
His finger was still on the trigger as the gap closed between them. The Baron reacted on intuition alone: “Through!”
One shot, a death bark to make d’Holbach’s ears ring, an inevitable flinching. A punch of gas drummed the cloth over his heart. The sting of powder residue kissed his skin. Somewhere behind him, a ricochet sang off brick and soared into the afternoon air.
The crowd evaporated into screams.
Schuler had inspired that one. A single second of intangibility to bullets, accepted by the world as a shot gone wide with panic. More than enough.
The Baron grabbed the revolver with his bare hands and shoved up. The second, third, and fourth rounds exploded with deafening power right by his ear, blasted over his shoulder into the wild blue sky.
The Zombie blindsided them both, a wild collision of bodies to break everything apart. There was a screech cut short. The Baron stumbled back with the revolver’s hot barrel clutched in his left hand. The Zombie and the police captain were already lying at his feet. The invincible man had tackled his opponent while burying two fingers up to the knuckle in the captain’s skull. He’d nailed digits straight through the hat, straight through the bone.
“Zombie!” the Baron shouted over the ringing in his ears.
Fingers were yanked out, blood slung away. The Zombie scrambled to his feet, pausing only to toe-kick the downed officer. The hit went badly; a rib shattered into pieces with an unmistakable crunch, and the captain crumpled—still awake, still alive—but in greater, almost overwhelming agony. Trepanations and internal lacerations were slow killers, but only a wish could reliably save the captain now.
The Baron dropped the revolver. Phyllis swept around him, shouting not at the downed cop but at the weapon itself. She picked it up, saying something, but the Baron couldn’t make it out clearly. The ambulance engine roared into life.
The Zombie turned and sprinted for the vehicle.
Phyllis knelt in front of the downed captain. The Baron concentrated. He could hear her shouting, “Are you Communist? Are you Communist?”
The captain quailed, unwilling or unable to respond through the pain.
“Get Marco!” the Baron yelled at Phyllis, at the Zombie, at the world.
Phyllis put her shoe on the captain’s shoulder and shoved him over onto his back. “Keep your hands out, stay flat!” She held the revolver in his general direction, mere threat.
The Baron’s ears were recovering quickly. The ringing faded fast.
The Zombie hit the back of the ambulance with wild abandon. He didn’t merely strike it. He threw his body into it, limbs flailing without restraint or control. One fist stopped, the random results of invincibility; the other collapsed the door like foil. The ambulance peeled out, but the Zombie had his arm shoved into the vehicle up to the shoulder. He jammed in deeper, slamming the crown of his head against metal, irregularly pounding open a hole. The ambulance swerved to shake him before it had any momentum. He wriggled into the shredding steel like a puppy into newspaper, the sharp edges destroying his shirt but crumbling against his skin.
When he was halfway to his waist through a half-missing door, the driver must’ve realized they weren’t going to lose him. The ambulance screeched to a halt.
The Zombie shoved himself back out of the hole, laughing uproariously as he landed on the pavement. The slim medic kicked open the passenger side door of the cab and tried to run. The Zombie came around the edge of the vehicle, drawn by the movement.
“Driver is still there!” the Baron shouted.
The Zombie reacted immediately and dove for the right rear tire. He managed to get his arm jammed up into the wheel well when the ambulance peeled out again. Physics dragged him no more than a half foot into the rotating mess before everything tore itself apart in a spray of rubber and smashed chassis. The engine fought against the immovable object. Metal screamed while the wheel twisted off its axle. Suspension collapsed with a groan of failing springs, audible even amidst a din like a factory line tearing itself apart.
The Zombie’s laughter rose above it all as the corner of the ambulance settled slowly onto his shoulder and pinned him in place. He jerked at his limb violently, and after a few tries, all materials gave way, freeing him from the vehicle and leaving behind most of his shirt.
He got to his feet and looked at his bare chest. Healthy, young, unchanged after millenia—he thumped it with both fists and shouted a war cry at the police. Their rounded black-and-white squad cars were pulling to a halt at the head of the ambulance.
“We need Marco!” the Baron yelled to Phyllis.
He could’ve asked the Zombie to recover the teenager, but an invincible man could be put to better use. This fight was moving outside the bounds of secrecy, and they needed a spectacle to cover their escape. For one brief moment, they’d show the world what it was like to face a monster out of legend.
The Baron ran to the back of the ambulance with Phyllis close on his heels. They crouched behind the coach’s double doors; Phyllis stopped at the corner with the ruined door, while the Baron checked the handle on its mostly-whole twin.
She leaned around the corner with the revolver, then ducked back. “We’re clear for the moment.” She glanced at the Baron. The powder mark was burned into his suit. “You could’ve died,” she said. “They’re prestigious as hell.”
The Baron yanked fiercely on the door handle. The mechanism was crushed. “I came with more prestige than a person should need. Turns out it was enough.” He pounded once on the door with the side of his fist. There was a smash of glass somewhere up ahead and a shout of pain. He glanced through the back window. The Zombie was halfway through the front windshield, dragging the large medic out over the steering wheel.
“Are you spent?” Phyllis asked.
“I nearly zeroed my prestige.”
“I didn’t know you could make a bullet pass through you.” She glanced around the corner. “Cops around the Zombie.”
“I can kick this open from the inside. Wait here, I’ll go in through the passenger door.”
“No, stop.” Phyllis passed him the revolver. “I’m smaller. Take this and cover me for a second. Don’t drop it again.”
The Baron gripped it tight. “You want to go around?”
“I’m going in.” She nudged him aside and started squirming through the hole that the Zombie had punched through the right door. The burred edges caught her once on the shoulder, but she didn’t hesitate, cutting a line down the sleeve of her blouse. Once her arms were through, the rest was easy, and her wool-clad legs disappeared into the gap.
“Can they see you?” the Baron called after her.
She crouched just inside the hole. “No, it’s the Zombie. Here, get out of the way.” She stood up as far as she could in the back of the coach, braced herself with an overhead bar and kicked the door. The latch made a metal ping but didn’t give on the first hit.
The Baron looked around the left corner, up over the road. The Zombie had put on the medic’s oversized white jacket and was busy buttoning it up. The jacket’s recent owner was face down on the pavement in an undershirt, his arm twisted back until his shoulder was dislocated and purple. The injury must’ve come after the Zombie made the man strip.
Two officers in uniform were circling warily, ready to tackle. One came in. The Zombie struck out lamely, fist and arm out of position to take the hit. The officer struck gut-first and folded over the invincible man’s arm like he’d run into a lamp post.
“Ha!” The Zombie grabbed a handful of the man’s shirt, pulled him down and swung him around until he slammed head first into the side of the ambulance. The cop blacked out instantly and collapsed. It’d be five or six seconds before he was up.
His partner smashed the Zombie over the skull with his nightstick, but the truncheon rebounded away with excessive force, flying out of the assailant’s hand and flipping end over end through a high arc in the air. The Zombie grinned. The cop gawked.
A moment later, the stick shattered a second-story window.
“Home run!” the Zombie yelled.
Quivering, hands raised, the cop stepped backwards.
“Trash cars!” the Baron shouted. “Not people!”
The Zombie turned, still grinning, and gave the Baron a thumbs up. Then he swept around and started punching the driver’s side door of the ambulance, aiming to break the hinges.
There was a snap; the rear doors rattled open. The Baron came around the back. Phyllis hopped down onto pavement, pulling the stretcher behind her. The Baron unfolded the wheels once they were free. Marco was still failing to breathe.
Fuck it. The Baron slugged Marco on the shoulder. The young man shuddered and looked at the Baron, then gestured slowly at his throat. “Move!” the Baron yelled at the teen. “Do you feel the heat in your belly?”
“You’ve got more muscle,” Phyllis said. “You carry him.”
“That’s the Cat o’ Nine lives, giving you oxygen!” The Baron yanked the release on both buckles strapping Marco to the stretcher. The teen rolled over uneasily, then dropped his feet to the pavement. The Baron put a hand under his arm to keep him steady. Marco’s eyes rolled back, and he shuddered terribly as he began to take a raspy breath.
“Dying hurts,” Marco whispered, a ravaged voice.
“They injected you with something fatal.”
“I can’t move well.”
“You’ll have to carry him,” Phyllis said. “Come on!”
There was a clang. The Zombie had ripped the door off the ambulance.
The Baron handed the revolver back to Phyllis. “Don’t make yourself a target.” He knelt down in front of Marco. “Lay on my shoulders. We’re running.”
Marco collapsed gratefully onto the Baron, who pulled him over both shoulders, grabbed one arm and one leg from behind, and with the weight distributed evenly over his spine, he began walking as fast as possible. Phyllis jogged behind him, revolver pointed at the street but clearly in hand, a dare against approach. They passed the supine captain, pale and shocked.
“I hope they save your life,” the Baron said to him.
The captain followed the Baron with his eyes, but his only response was a desolate moan from a faraway place, a borderland between life and death.
“Take his radio,” the Baron ordered. “We’ll need to listen to police channels.”
Phyllis paused to unhook it from the captain’s belt, then stood without giving the downed man a second look. Once they were out of earshot, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“Underground,” the Baron said. “We can lose them in the tunnels.”
“Which tunnels?”
“I’m not sure yet.”
“You don’t know the area?”
“We’ll move between stations.”
Marco groaned as he bumped across the Baron’s shoulders.
d’Holbach huffed. “Keep trying to move your legs. I need you on your feet.”
“They’re on fire,” Marco whined.
“I can’t carry you forever. We’ll need to run soon.”
They continued down the hill. A squad car pulled up ahead, but Phyllis aimed the revolver in a firing stance, and the officers in the Cadillac raised their hands and stayed in their seats.
There was a sound of gunshots up the hill. The Baron paused and swung around slowly under Marco’s weight. The Zombie was standing on the hood of a police car, smashing the ambulance door against the windshield. Two officers were laid out on the sidewalk in front of the car, victims of some kind, while others stood behind their vehicles like soldiers in a trench, plugging away at the Zombie. Shattering bullets blasted out bits of white jacket like squibs. The invincible man hopped down off the hood and ran at the assembled officers. The volume of fire intensified immediately.
The Baron ran to the shadow of a recessed storefront, where he set Marco down and supported the teen between him and Phyllis. They could hear stray fire spattering into the roads and buildings. A large window down the street shattered into sword-sized shards. The Baron glanced out of the recess at the spectacle. The Zombie was slamming officers on their sides and backs with the ambulance door like it was a paddle.
Someone must’ve realized the Zombie wasn’t going down. After a brief moment, an officer turned and sprinted up the street, and once one broke rank, the rest routed. The Zombie lobbed the door like a discus after a slow man, then turned and vaulted a vehicle and started sprinting downhill at a break-neck pace, using gravity and invincible footfalls to reach an uncontrollable top speed.
“Back off!” Malik’s voice came from the radio in Phyllis’s hand. The parked police car roared into life, peeled out and hopped the median, making its escape.
“CPUSA?” Phyllis asked.
“They’re reactivated members, probably legitimate police.” The Baron stepped out of the recess and waved at the Zombie. “Over here!”
The Zombie kept going down the street, dodging around parked vehicles that civilians had abandoned once the fighting started. It occurred to the Baron that there must be many witnesses around—but where? He turned and glanced through a small window in the door at their back. There was a cluster of people huddled among racks of used clothes, staring up at the window and wondering when this bitter taste of war would be washed away.
To say the least, New York would be extremely unhappy. This wasn’t the kind of damage that the Baron could cover with a checkbook and a smile. This was terror on a Sunday afternoon, and the worst part was that the Baron couldn’t let them punish him. Justice would be abandoned, because the Zombie would never let him languish in jail.
Hiding the Baron’s identity, sweeping the entire affair under the rug or even pinning it on a scapegoat—these were the things that New York would do to keep the peace.
The Zombie angled his run towards the sidewalk, hit the curb with a foot, kicked up a chunk of concrete the size of a fist, tumbled over, hit the walk hard—and stopped dead without a sound.
“Hahaha, great!” The Zombie pushed himself to his feet. “Look at that result!”
“Can you run?” the Baron asked Marco.
“I think so,” the teen said. He was touching his back with his fingers, testing the wounds. He inspected his prints, finding them slathered in coagulated blood. “I think I’m bleeding?”
“The wound will take an hour or two to close up. The Cat saves you before it heals you.”
“You’ll have a huge scar,” Phyllis added. “Rasputin had one on his gut.”
The Zombie jogged over. “Where are we going?”
“Tunnels,” the Baron said.
The Zombie looked uphill; his jacket was riddled with holes. “They’re already coming. I should’ve wrecked more.” The vehicles he hadn’t damaged were ripping down the hill, engines gunning. Some of them didn’t even have windshields. No time to waste.
The Baron shoved Marco out of the recess, “Go!”
They ran. The concrete clapped beneath their shoes. The police cars wouldn’t catch up to them before they reached the station, but it’d be close. They were only about a hundred yards from the entrance, just about a block, but a football field was a hell of a sprint.
Marco slowed, grabbing at his chest. He felt his wounds.
“We can’t stop!” the Baron shouted.
Phyllis didn’t even turn around to look. She kept running down the walk, taking huge gulps of air. The Zombie turned, caught Marco running with one arm, and slung him up over his high shoulder. “Don’t move or you’ll shatter your ribs.”
Then the Zombie began to sprint. Unlike the Baron, he didn’t have to worry about injuring his spine or feet. He didn’t have to worry about a bouncing body wearing him down or injuring his shoulders. With a terrifying fleetness, he outpaced all of them at twice the speed. Marco yelped while the Zombie’s invincible shoulder mashed his chest like a stone curb.
They only slowed when they reached the station stairs. Phyllis was breathing raggedly, the Baron was in better shape but still whipped, and Marco was coughing violently. Blood and mucus spattered down the back of the Zombie’s already ruined coat. The invincible man set the teen onto his feet, then nudged him down the stairs with a tap of his fist.
“Jesus, it’s like being hit with a sock full of pennies!” Marco whined.
“You’ll live,” the Zombie judged.
The Baron pointed down into the underground station while they descended, the steps quaking beneath heavy footfalls. “When we reach the platform, jump down to the tracks.”
They spiralled deeper, passing out of view, now hidden from the sky, but they could still hear cop cars screeching to a stop. Hoarse voices crowed about following the runners into the station.
“I’m down here!” the Zombie bellowed up at them.
The voices quieted, and the Baron imagined that the police would delay, reassert the chain of command and decide who would go down first. It was a smart move, a responsible move. They’d be lauded for taking it.
Unfortunately, in the confusion, they’d lose track of the man who tanked more than a hundred rounds without dropping and punched holes in steel—the man that would show up in reports and later in urban legends, even as the unreality of what had happened set in. Even the people who’d fired at the “devil” would begin to believe that they’d missed.
It only made sense that way. To the secular world, the Zombie wasn’t real, and their minds would rebel at their own memories until they vanished, leaving only myths.
Author’s Note:
Urban legends begin in moments like these, unreasonable and fleeting.
As always, thank you to the beta readers for helping with this chapter!
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