Capes

by Drabble, Matt

  In the ARK News studio, Stanley Bush was watching horrified, feeling like he was ageing a decade for every minute that this horror show ran.

  Some of the guards outside the booth had started to drift away once their leader had been brutally slain in front of them, but one of the men inside his booth had merely kept worryingly calm, and a steady hand had pressed a revolver to his temple in order to ensure that he keep the signal flowing to the people.

  Thus the signal kept on flowing: unfiltered truth that could not be denied, millions of eyes glued to screens across the land and the world beyond, a morbid curiosity to see what would happen next and who would die, to see if the beast would kill everyone or if heroes really did exist and if heroes could not just survive, but actually win.

  ----------

  “Shouldn’t you pull that out?” Jamie-Lyn asked CJ, pointing to the knife buried in his shoulder.

  “Don’t touch it,” Crimson said quickly. “Right now, that’s plugging the wound, and we don’t have any kind of first-aid kit to fix it.”

  “Have you got anything left?” Jamie-Lyn asked CJ hopefully.

  He looked down at his hands, turning them over.

  “I don’t think so. Whatever I had I think was used up when I teleported you guys. Now I’m… well, it’s just me.”

  “That’s good enough,” she replied.

  “Well this is just great,” Link said, viewing the group as the beast started to approach them. “I’ll bet she’s just crapping herself at the sight of the four of us.”

  As if in confirmation, a grotesque grin stretched across the beast’s features, exposing its vicious-looking teeth, many of which were stained with fresh blood.

  Crimson looked around on the ground and spotted the two assault rifles dropped by the guards lying nearby. He quickly retrieved them and threw one to CJ and the other to Link while he held the knife taken earlier from the guard that had inadvertently shielded him.

  “Anyone got a plan?” Jamie-Lyn asked.

  “Yeah,” Crimson responded as he dragged himself up to full height, cracked his neck and shut down the pain currently running through multiple parts of his body. “Let’s kill the bitch.”

  The beast broke into a run now and Crimson did the same, but at the last possible second, he dropped to his knees and slid under the monster’s swinging arm. He brought the knife up under the beast’s armpit, hoping to find softer tissue, but the blade clanged against it like it was made of iron.

  Link opened fire with the rifle, peppering the beast with short bursts, more to get its attention than in any hope of causing damage.

  CJ took a step to the side, and though he struggled to operate the assault rifle, he was at least distracting the beast, albeit with wide shots.

  Crimson was jabbing at it from behind, ducking and rolling while staying out of the beast’s claws, but having no effect other than pissing it off.

  Jamie-Lyn tried to get a clear shot at the thing’s face and preferably its eyes, but it kept on moving with speed and dexterity. Occasionally, Link would shove her to one side just before a claw slashed through the air where she’d been stood only a split second earlier.

  Crimson was caught with a backhanded blow and sent spinning backwards. He’d ducked the worst of it and avoided the razor-sharp claws but the backhand was still heavy enough to knock the wind out of him.

  Link stepped forwards as the beast turned towards the downed Crimson and smashed the butt of the now empty rifle onto the back of its head as hard as he could manage, but the most damage he did was to himself as the reverberation raced up his arm to his shoulder.

  The beast turned its attention to Link now as he staggered backwards, snatching the man up in his claws hard enough to draw blood in his shoulders as it lifted him up.

  It opened its mouth exposing hungry teeth and was about to clamp down on Link’s throat.

  Jamie-Lyn rushed forwards on sheer instinct and fired her pistol directly into the beast’s ear, and for the first time, they all heard a roar of pain.

  The beast dropped Link and clutched at its own head with both hands. Link managed to crawl out of reach as blood poured from multiple claw puncture wounds.

  Crimson leapt back into the fight and up onto the beast’s back, one arm wrapped around its thick neck while the other hand stabbed downwards looking for any weakness.

  The beast roared again and fought to buck Crimson off, but the man held firm like he was riding at a rodeo.

  The beast was swinging wildly now, its powerful arms lashing out in all directions blindly as Crimson pulled its head back, affecting its vision.

  Link staggered back to his feet and rushed in as Crimson held on for dear life.

  He ran and drove his shoulder into the monster’s midsection with all of his might, and the beast let out a rewarding whoosh of air before swinging an open claw, which Link just managed to duck under.

  He was losing blood from the puncture wounds in his arms so instead used his boot to stamp down hard on what should have been a knee joint on the creature.

  Something cracked under his blow, but the beast swung an angry uppercut that caught him in the chest and sent him flipping over in a backwards somersault.

  The beast sagged as Crimson had given up on stabbing the thing’s impenetrable neck and was now applying a double-armed sleeper hold.

  CJ came rushing in next, or, more accurately, staggering in with the knife still buried in his shoulder, struggling to fire the assault rifle with only one good arm until it ran empty.

  The bullets still bounced off the beast’s chest, but they drove it backwards and on only one good leg now, it sank down to one knee.

  Jamie-Lyn was standing too close and caught a blow across the forehead which split open the skin there causing blood to run into her eyes as she fell backwards.

  “I can’t hold it!” Crimson yelled as sweat poured down his face through the sheer effort.

  As if to confirm the fact, Crimson was suddenly thrown over the beast’s shoulder and hurled to the ground as he lost his grip and landed heavily.

  Link was stirring again as he heaved himself back up to his feet and swayed there.

  Jamie-Lyn was furiously wiping the blood from her eyes with her sleeve and her head throbbed monstrously, which given their current opponent seemed appropriate.

  She reached Link and gave him a shoulder to lean on which he took gratefully as their blood dripped and mingled together on the concrete floor.

  “Son of a bitch,” Crimson spat as he too dragged himself up and prepared to go another round.

  The beast was hobbling slightly, its face also still marred from the gas canister that had exploded in its face and a green ooze was seeping out of one ear. But it was still in far better shape than any of them.

  It took a step towards them, but CJ stepped into its path.

  “That’s enough,” CJ announced. “Your fight is with me, or should I say, your master’s fight? ARE YOU LISTENING, MR GUSTAFSON?” he yelled into the empty air. “ARE YOU WATCHING?”

  The beast took another hobbled step and so did CJ.

  Summer was still filming and she watched on from the outskirts of the fight, praying that she wouldn’t be noticed.

  The mixture of adrenaline and fear coursing through her veins was still making the camera slightly tremble, but she was getting a better handle on what she was doing.

  Watching these people go up against something far more powerful than they were, when there had been a moment to run, was still baffling to her. But then again, she was still here; maybe she wasn’t a complete lost cause.

  She watched on as the thing they had all called the beast circled CJ. The two of them were about the same height, but the beast was far wider and broader, thick in the chest with muscle and its hands tipped with vicious talons. In a straight physical confrontation, there was no contest, but amazingly, CJ wasn’t backing down.

  For all of the information she had been feeding to the public, she now recognised
it for the propaganda that it truly was.

  Watching CJ stand there powerless and weak, injured and completely outmatched, she saw a hero who would not back down and was currently putting his body between a monster and his friends.

  “This ends now,” CJ said as Summer zoomed in on his noble face.

  The beast bared its teeth and stepped towards him as the others staggered forwards in their various states of injuries.

  “You can tell your master to come out, to come and see me for himself,” CJ said as he matched the beast’s encircling stride. “I will not run and I will not beg. Let him come forward and face me now.”

  “CJ, don’t,” Jamie-Lyn called out from behind.

  He turned around to face them all.

  “It is time for all of this to end. It is time for Mr Gustafson to tell us what he really wants, what he has always wanted. I know that he is watching us, that he is listening. He cannot possibly want this to end without us knowing; they can never resist showing us their true face.”

  “That bullshit is in the comics, CJ,” Crimson wheezed. “Jesus Christ, haven’t you learned that by now?”

  “There are rules, Crimson,” CJ replied primly.

  “No there aren’t,” Jamie-Lyn added. “Take a look around you, CJ; you see any rules out there? Because all I see are a bunch of dead bodies.”

  “There are always rules, Mr Link,” CJ replied with a small smile. “Our stories are told through a prism; our stories have a structure and they follow a path.”

  “You know that sounds a little like something Cynthia Arrow would say,” Link offered warily.

  The beast had stopped advancing momentarily, its naked paws holding firm on the concrete ground as it watched the scene unfolding with a strange kind of almost intelligent fascination.

  “CJ…, I…,” Jamie-Lyn started without knowing where she was going.

  “It’s okay, my friend. I know now what I must do, what has always been on the cards for me.”

  “Not this crap again!” she exclaimed back.

  “My story is at an end now.” He smiled back kindly. “But it was always supposed to be this way, it was always supposed to end this way. Our tale is as old as time and it follows the rules.”

  “Rules?” Link asked. “What rules are you talking about?”

  “Our enemy always has a plan, one that we do not see. There are losses along the way and always sacrifices. There is the beginning of a mystery before we know what we are looking at, one that brings about a reunion. There is always a fall from grace before a phoenix rises, a framing of our heroes before startling revelations and a shocking twist before the good guys triumph.”

  “CJ,” Jamie-Lyn started gently. “Those comic books that you loved, that’s not real life.”

  “Oh, but it is.” He smiled back. “Don’t you see? Don’t you get the point, Crimson?” he asked pointedly, suddenly staring at the man.

  Crimson stared back with a furrowed brow.

  “And there is always a betrayal. Isn’t that right, Mr Link?” CJ said, suddenly turning towards him.

  “What?” Link exclaimed nervously.

  “A betrayal, Mr Link. One of the good guys who never truly was, a wolf hidden among the sheep.”

  “Hey now, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I’m not the enemy here!”

  “CJ? What are you saying?” Jamie-Lyn demanded as the beast watched on still not moving.

  “I think Mr Link knows.”

  “The hell I do!”

  “Link has been with us since the start,” Jamie-Lyn responded. “He’s fought with us, risked his life.”

  “What do you say, Crimson?” CJ asked. “Are you seeing the point I’m trying to make yet? Your blade was always razor-sharp, right? Far sharper than hers, despite what hers may have offered. Can you see where I’m going with this?”

  Crimson studied the alien for several long moments before he spoke. “I think I do,” he replied very slowly, nodding along in time.

  “Crimson!” Jamie-Lyn exclaimed. “You can’t be serious?”

  “Deadly,” the man replied.

  “This is crazy!” Link cried out as he started to back up and reach for his pistol.

  “Link?” Jamie-Lyn said nervously as she saw him go for the weapon.

  “I haven’t done anything. I swear to God!”

  “My time is short,” CJ began. “Let us not waste any of it. I can feel it slipping away, and I want to make things right before I go. I think I can. I think that I have just enough of me left, but it has to be now, you understand. Crimson? Now!”

  The movement was fast, faster than any of them could see – any of them except Summer Sloan, who had the advantage of witnessing the whole scene from a safe distance through a wide-angle camera lens.

  The beast began to lunge forwards, seemingly done with its listening and deciding that the time had come to end this.

  Crimson suddenly rushed forwards and Link backed away while Jamie-Lyn flung her hands up, but Crimson rushed past Link and onto CJ.

  The empty assault rifle in CJ’s hands suddenly started to glow with his purple electricity, and then the empty gun spluttered into life, not firing bullets but a string of purple energy blasts.

  While the shots were very weak, far too weak to harm the beast, they were strong enough to knock it backwards with each blast as CJ screamed again with the sheer effort of manufacturing the power.

  Crimson ran past CJ, yanking Cynthia Arrow’s blade out of CJ’s shoulder in one smooth fluid motion, causing a spurt of green blood to shoot into the air.

  Armed with the Angel Blade, Crimson begged God for one last slither of help as he threw the knife end-over-end spinning through the air until it struck the beast tip first square in the forehead with a perfect throw.

  Jamie-Lyn turned back to see the blade now unbelievably buried up to its hilt in the beast’s forehead, the knife having pierced the seemingly impenetrable hide.

  CJ and Crimson sank to the ground spent. Miraculously, so did the beast as it fell to its knees and then pitched forwards onto the concrete and lay there still.

  Jamie-Lyn rushed over to Crimson as he struggled up to a sitting position.

  “What the actual hell?” Link gasped.

  “Calm down, kid,” Crimson replied. “It’s over.”

  “Over?” Link asked warily. “But he said…”

  “He was lying, playing for time and making that bastard stop and think for a minute; no one thinks you’re the enemy here.”

  “Shit, he almost had me believing him!” Link exclaimed.

  “CJ?” Jamie-Lyn said as she moved over to him. “Are you okay?”

  The alien had rolled over onto his back and his eyes were closed.

  “HOLY SHIT! THAT WAS INCREDIBLE!” Summer yelled from her position as she climbed back to her feet from her kneeling position and started to move over towards them.

  “Summer?” Jamie-Lyn asked incredulously. “You been here the whole time? I thought you skinned out when the cameraman did?”

  “Who needs him!” She laughed wildly as excitement and adrenaline surged through her. “I caught the whole thing, every bloody second of it!” she yelled, hoisting the camera up. “You guys are heroes!”

  “I don’t think that really matters right now,” Link said as he joined the rest of them as they encircled CJ.

  “It mattered to him,” Jamie-Lyn said softly as she touched CJ’s brow. “It mattered to him.”

  A respectful silence fell over them as they all looked down upon CJ. Link and Crimson were still seeping from various wounds while Jamie-Lyn’s face was a mask of dried blood. They all looked like they’d been to hell and back, which of course they had.

  Even Summer knew to bow her head in respect to the fallen hero. Of course, the camera’s recording light still glowed red as it recorded; she wasn’t an idiot – this was history being made before her eyes.

  “I’ll tell them all,” Summer said earnestly. “Hell, I can show them all
what you guys did here, what Cynthia really was, what her daughter really was, and what he sacrificed,” she said, looking down at CJ on the ground at her feet.

  “There are still questions,” Link offered.

  “Lots of them,” Jamie-Lyn agreed.

  “And we’ve still got a man to find and kill,” Crimson added.

  “Gustafson?” Summer asked. “That was his name, right? The evil genius behind all this? Olaf Gustafson?”

  “We’ll find him.” Link nodded firmly. “For CJ.”

  “For Bull, for Marshall, for Doc – for all of them,” Jamie-Lyn added.

  They turned and started to walk away, none of them quite knowing where they were going but knowing what they had to do, what had to be done.

  They walked away supporting each other, both physically and emotionally. Jamie-Lyn looked at her friends, bruised, battered and bloodied, four heroes who had been willing to sacrifice everything, who had chosen to stand instead of run, who had…

  “Hello?” A voice croaked and they all turned around to see CJ stirring. “This is a little embarrassing, but it would appear that I’m not quite dead.”

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  chapter 45

  AFTERMATH

  The authorities ran true to form within the confines of CJ’s beloved comic book pages and arrived just after the nick of time, although to be fair, due to the broadcast delay, they thought that they were arriving just as the fight between the team and the beast was kicking off instead of it already being over.

  A swirl of flashing blue and red lights accompanied by a chorus of deafening sirens came rushing into view a little after they might have been useful.

  The airfield base was quickly cordoned off, shut down and put under military control with a mile-wide ring of heavily armed soldiers and combat vehicles to prevent anyone getting too close before the prime minister had decided just what had ‘officially’ happened there.

  Bodies were rounded up, or in many cases scraped up off the ground, and taken away while the occasional still breathing one was treated at the scene before being moved to a secure hospital, effectively disappearing from the public eye.