Anti-Hero

by Jonathan Wood

  Its second hand grabs my neck and squeezes. Somewhere Gran yells. Through the blackening corners of my vision, I see him grab at the wheel. I feel the zombie’s fungal juices soaking through my shirt onto my chest.

  Panic, not far from the forefront of my mind, recognizes its cue and steps up to the plate. I start bucking and slamming, smashing my hands against the zombie’s iron grip. I can feel the muscles in its arms bunch as it hauls itself towards me. My fingernails break its flesh, but considering it doesn’t care that its legs are broken I’m not sure how much impact I’m going to have.

  “Come on!” I manage with my remaining breath. But no one does. I’m too oxygen deprived to figure out why. Whatever the hell the reason is, I am not breaking this bastard’s grip and no one else is.

  That realization, as my hands collapse into my lap is suddenly liberating. If I can’t pull him off, what can I…?

  An idea comes to me. In its defense, I don’t have time to think of a better one.

  My vision is going dark. Operating my arms is hard. My arm flaps once, twice, hits pleather. I try to concentrate. The zombie’s breath is hot and fetid—like my dad’s compost heap going rancid on a summer’s day.

  I clench my fist. Grip.

  This better be the bloody handbrake.

  I haul on it.

  G-forces whirl. The zombie’s grip on my throat first crushes one way, then another. I hear screaming, louder even than the shriek of the blood in my ears. The world spins. Everything is a ripping, tearing blur. Roots smash arrhythmically against the tires. We spin and skitter.

  Then: the violent crunch of metal impacting on metal. The biting constriction of my seatbelt. The crisp bang of the airbags deploying. The fingers leaving my throat. The blessed rush of oxygen. The zombie, violently ripped from my throat, flies rag-doll-broken through the air, impacts against a creeper-covered wall, and becomes nothing more than an explosive purple smear.

  42

  It takes everyone a moment to realize we are not being eaten by zombies.

  The car is a smoking wreck. It sits at a right angle across the street. We have plowed into another vehicle, our engine block impaled on what is left of its door.

  Clyde reacts first. Perhaps confusion and concussion isn’t a thing when you’re a robot. He stands, smacking his head against the roof of the car.

  “Damn,” he says.

  He reaches around the interior of the car, waist and arms folding in inhuman ways. One seatbelt pops then another, then another, then mine.

  I try to blink away the blur in my vision and my thoughts. “Felicity?” I ask, my voice shaky. “You OK?”

  It takes a few seconds for the answer to come.

  “Perhaps.”

  I can’t think of anything else to say. Clyde wrenches open my door, ignoring the bent metal. Given the state of my limbs, I decide the easiest way to dismount the car is just lean sideways until I collapse out of my seat. The road’s mossy carpet is surprisingly soft.

  Clyde drags us one-by-one to the side of the road. I lie there soaked in blood, sweat, and someone else’s fungal juices. Not a cocktail I’m going to waste time naming. I suspect it’ll be a while before I find a decent bar anyway.

  “At least,” Gran finally speaks, “we, like, totally lost those dudes.”

  “Totally,” Felicity breathes. Personally I’m finding it a little early in the recovery process for sarcasm. I admire her fortitude.

  “Again, I really don’t want to take on the role of negative Nelly,” Clyde says tinnily—he looks like he’s picked up a few new dents—“but I think we’re in a city full of these zombies. I’m not sure we can totally lose them. Unless you mean that we were trying to keep them but lost one and are now, all, oh no, where’s my zombie? Which I don’t think you are. But if you are then you’re right and I’m very sorry for this whole interruption. Seeming more and more of a mistake as I go on.” He grinds to a halt.

  Jesus. A city of zombies. This was just our first encounter and we lost our transport. Plus almost all the good breathing parts of my throat. How the hell are we meant to get to this tunnel?

  “There’s got to be some way to contact someone outside the city,” I say. “Some way to get someone to come and rescue the hell out of us.”

  This doesn’t actually seem unreasonable. The US military is one of the most advanced fighting forces in the world. Surely they’ll come get their own CIA boy out of a jam. Especially when it’s his department’s expertise that is needed to deal with this sort of disaster.

  Tabitha doesn’t share my optimism. “Email: no.” She starts the litany. “Cellphone: no. Telephone: probably compromised. Plus this much plant growth would rip apart underground wires.”

  “Radio,” Felicity says abruptly. “Radio could still be viable.”

  Tabitha nods as dubiously as it’s possible to nod. Which, it turns out, is very dubiously indeed. “Possibility,” she says. “Short range at least. If you have a generator.”

  “Dudette.” Gran grins. “This city doesn’t sleep. It can’t afford to.”

  I think that means there will be generators. “So where are the radio towers?” I ask. This sounds like a plan. But we will need a conjunction of the two places for it to work.

  “Ooh!” Clyde pipes up. “I know this. I remember reading a guide book. Well, I remember reading lots of guide books, but this is one in particular. About New York. Not that I ever really expected to come here. I just like guide books. Armchair traveler and all that. Truth be told, I get horribly air sick, and transatlantic boat travel is just not really viable on a traditional vacation schedule. Not to complain about the MI37 vacation policy, which I think is, given the nature of the job, actually very reasonable and much better than a civil servant friend I went to college with…” He sees us all staring. “Oh. Well, all I wanted to say was, the Empire State Building has one of these radio transmitters, if you want to go there. Meant to be magnificent views.”

  “The views. Of course.” Felicity shakes her head.

  “Well,” Clyde huffs slightly, “no one said the apocalypse had to be aesthetically unappealing.”

  It seems safer to just ignore that and concentrate on the fact that this genuinely is a plan. We have a destination. Something to accomplish there. All we have to do now is get there. Which, I admit, does leave one final question.

  “Where are we?”

  Gran heaves himself to his feet with a grunt. Nearby a street sign has been bent down by the weight of a bark-wreathed limb lying over it. Moss and creepers twirl up its now-horizontal length. Gran peels away leaves.

  “Corner of Fifth Avenue and One Hundred and Twelfth Street. We came way across town.”

  “Where’s the Empire State Building?”

  “Down on Thirty-fourth Street. A few blocks over.”

  I do the mental math. Just under eighty blocks. Plus a few over. Shit.

  “We have to get over there for the tunnel anyway, man.” Gran looks mildly apologetic.

  An angry rumble emerges from Tabitha. It resolves itself as “Stupid apocalypse.”

  I shrug, pick myself up, momentarily regret it, and then take a step toward the nearest street corner. “Come on,” I say. “No time like the present.”

  FIFTY BLOCKS DOWNTOWN

  We’re hiding again. The lobby of some corporate tower. Creepers have broken the faux-marble counter where a security guard once lurked. Pink flowers bloom from smashed TV monitors. Roots protrude from the elevator doors.

  Outside, a pack of about twenty Clyde zombies lurch down the street. Felicity tracks their movement down the barrel of her gun. Hopefully she won’t have to use it. We’re all down to our last few magazines of ammunition. And Felicity very forlornly told us that she has only three grenades left. I’m not sure how long she’s been carrying three grenades around in her handbag, but I am officially renaming it, “Pandora’s Box.”

  Kayla would be useful here. I suspect our progress would be quicker with her in tow. Not just for
her mad zombie-slaying skills but her ability to dice foliage like a lunch time salad.

  I miss her, I realize. Good Lord, the day has come where I miss Kayla. That would be the weirdest thing this year if Clyde hadn’t caused the apocalypse today.

  Where is she? I wonder. All anybody said was something about a hospital. We should probably search for her, but I haven’t the faintest clue where to look for her. And if anybody is prepared to survive this sort of thing it’s Kayla. At least, she would be if I hadn’t stabbed her. God, I hope she wasn’t hooked up to any critical machines when the power went out.

  The zombies pass out of sight, and after another ten seconds, Felicity holsters her gun. “I think we’re clear,” she says.

  We stick our heads out, scan the street. Nothing moves. Zombified or otherwise.

  We have seen signs of other survivors, at least, which is reassuring. A few wrecked cars, their engines still smoking. Shops with windows smashed by bricks instead of tree limbs. Plus the occasional corpse. We did, at one point, spot five people scampering across the road a few blocks south of us, but we didn’t want to risk calling out, and they either didn’t spot us or didn’t feel like hanging around to chat about the weather and the much increased chance of being eaten alive.

  Vine-covered buildings tower over us. A late afternoon sun sends shafts of pale light creeping between obelisks of steel and glass. They reflect off Clyde’s mirrored face.

  “How’s Version 2.0 doing this?” I ask as we start skulking our way further downtown. “Whatever it is he’s doing?”

  “Biothaumaturgical delivery of magicodigital personality complex,” Tabitha says without batting an eyelid.

  Despite possibly being the longest sentence Tabitha has ever uttered it is a largely unhelpful experience for me.

  “More monosyllabically?” I ask.

  I am surprised the look she gives me doesn’t cause more wildlife to wither and die.

  “Perhaps,” Clyde interjects, “I could try this one.”

  There’s a pause for objections but none are forthcoming.

  “You see,” he says, “as I understand it, despite going digital, Evil-Me has not stopped being… well, this is going to sound a little big-headed, and I apologize for the fact, but, well, there are some facts and figures to support this… well, he’s a world-class thaumaturgist. Or magician to the everyday muggle. And apparently getting a brain as big as the databases of most of everywhere important has not slowed that down. Sort of the opposite thing happening actually. So that’s the thaumaturgical bit.

  “And, now he’s using plant dispersal. Well, fungal dispersal actually. Flora, let’s say. But that’s the ‘bio’ bit. And he’s using the bio to disperse the thaumaturgical bit.” He shrugs his metal shoulders twice. “Basically the spores are what I’m talking about. Natural but not natural. Naturally unnatural. Or possibly unnaturally natural. I’m honestly not sure. I’ve got a bit lost in the logic here actually. Lexical maze of doom. Oh God. Give me a second.” He stands perfectly, mechanically still for a moment then shrugs violently. “No—naturally unnatural. I’m sure of it. Anyway. Magic spores. They get breathed in, or make contact or whatever and that’s what delivers the payload.”

  “Hold up, dudes.” Gran raises a hand. At first I think it’s a question, but he stands stock still and silent.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Hear it too,” Tabitha says.

  I listen. And there is something. Dull and possibly distant. Down at the bottom register of my hearing. Something pounding. And slowly getting louder.

  “Inside,” Felicity says.

  We move, clambering through a bodega’s shattered window. The place smells of rotten food. We hunker behind what used to be a food counter and what is now a rainbow of fungus. So far the zombies aren’t going to win many prizes for observation—assuming they give those out—but this sounds different.

  The sound grows louder, but I see nothing. After ten seconds or so I turn to Clyde. “You said the spores deliver a payload,” I whisper.

  Clyde nods. “Yes. Not a payload like a bomb, you understand. No great big explosion and blood and guts and limbs and bits of bone fragment being flung willy-nilly all over the place. Payload, as in a great big explosion of crazy weird science magic all up in someone’s brain.”

  His reflective head means I get to see my distaste up close.

  “The spores,” he continues, “release, well, I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I suspect it’s some magically altered viral DNA that hijacks the victim’s brain and overwrites the personality with a fairly bare bones version of Clyde’s. Well… mine. Well… his evil one. Or maybe it’s a pretty complete version and the spores that also colonize the infected folk could be interfering with some cranial functions of the higher variety. I’m not really sure.

  “In a nutshell, it’s all messed up, and it’s doing really awful magic to people’s insides. Plus there’s some digital personality overwriting wrapped in there.” He shrugs one final time, possibly for luck. “Does that make sense?”

  To my surprise, it actually does, and I’m about to say, yes, but abruptly the bass of whatever is approaching becomes very loud indeed. It also picks up a not entirely reassuring way of making the floor shake.

  Gran clutches his gun tight, sweeps it back and forth. “Not feeling totally chill about this, dudes,” he says. He is not alone.

  The building is definitely trembling now. I can see cans rattling on the bodega shelves. An algae-covered water bottle falls to the floor, rolls away. Another follows. Another. Cans spill. Cereal boxes tumble, spill. I go from crouching on one knee to both, then I have to put my hands down to try to stabilize myself. An entire shelf collapses. Glass in the food counter cracks. I see Felicity open and close her mouth. She’s trying to say something but I can’t hear her.

  God, Version 2.0 has got something else planned. I know it. Some phase two plan. Some slow-moving tidal wave come to eclipse us all. A clean sweep across America and then onto other continents. Or he’s a giant robot now. Or… or…

  And then a giant foot lands in the street outside.

  43

  The foot is massive, pink, splayed, and most noticeably taloned. Five pink, tree-trunk-thick toes each end in long, filth-stained claws. The leg above it is coated in thick black fur.

  A shadow falls. Like an eclipse. The second foot comes down. It smashes trees and rotting cars. The bodega shudders with the impact.

  And then the body, fully as long as the block is wide. The gleam of one massive eye. Then the creature is scrambling up the building opposite. Its claws wrench concrete free. A long bald tail whips past, sends an abandoned motorcycle flying. And then the monster disappears.

  “Rat,” Felicity says.

  “Great big giant one,” Clyde adds.

  It takes a moment for my mind to grasp the truth of this. A giant rat. That is exactly what it was. Jesus. Giant animals. Zombies hadn’t even lost their novelty yet.

  I’m about to open my mouth and express this sentiment when a second massive body lands in the street, then a third. The two rats hesitate a moment in the canyon between the streets, twitching and flexing. Then one after the other, they heave themselves up onto the building opposite, following after the first.

  The tail of the last rat whips across the street, smashes into a car. The vehicle spins down the road, shedding glass and critical engine parts.

  And something else goes spinning too.

  No… Not something…

  Someone.

  I see the body fall away from the tail in the moment before it impacts the car.

  Before the impact… Which means whoever it was, they weren’t in the car. They were on the tail.

  Who the hell would be clinging to the tail of a giant rat in this godforsaken city?

  I hear Felicity gasp. And then she’s moving towards the store’s door with a cry. “Kayla!”

  Oh right. Of course that’s who it would be.

  FIVE MINUTES
LATER

  “Oh, get off me you big bunch of feckin’ jessies.”

  For a woman we found lying in the street clutching her side, Kayla seems remarkably ungrateful for what I am going to go ahead and call a rescue. I think she’d take issue with the term, but in our defense she is not in the best shape right now.

  We’ve propped her up against one of the shelves. She sprawls back, legs splayed before her. She’s replaced her usual flannel shirt and tank top with a hospital gown. It’s open at the back and when we carried her in, I got a good eyeful of the bandaging that wreathes her midriff. They were filthy. The rest of her is worse.

  Except her sword. She still has that. She grips the scabbard fiercely in one hand and the blade gleams.

  “I’ll be fine in a feckin’ minute.” She shoos us with her spare hand. “Just took a wee bit of a tumble is all.”

  Which would be all well and good if she was anyone but Kayla. But Kayla doesn’t take any bit of a tumble. Whatever recovery she managed before the zombpocalypse began, it was partial at best.

  “We have to change those bandages,” I say.

  “They’re feckin’ fine,” she says. It’s a fairly bald-faced lie.

  I glance helplessly at Felicity. She shakes her head and starts pulling things off the shelf.

  Clyde looms over Kayla, angular and concerned. “What happened?” he asks her.

  “The feck is you?” Kayla’s brows furrow with suspicion.

  “It’s Clyde,” Gran says, helpfully.

  Injured or not, Kayla’s sword is out of its sheath and more than halfway to Clyde’s neck before I manage to shout, “No!”

  The blade hangs in the air. Clyde stares at it. Tabitha does too, a sort of sick fascination on her face.

  “It’s good Clyde,” I say. “Version 2.1. Not 2.0. Our Clyde.” The last good one. Irreplaceable now. But I don’t add that. I need to trust myself and my emotions surrounding that fact before I go around blurting it out.