Warning: Rated M for some gore, and body parts. Not described in too much excruciating detail, but still...
Three weeks ago
If he had to do it over again, he would have gone straight over to the site of her last broadcast to find her, but he'd just seen her on TV, announcing the shocking news of the quarantine.
Quarantine! What the hell. Usually the feds couldn't get their shit together enough to enforce a nationwide seat belt law. Congress, the President, and the military must have united in terror.
He'd just seen her. He thought she was safe, which is why he went to check on the prison. With chaos about to reign, prison inmates would be at the top of the list of the abandoned and forgotten. He needed to see that the warden and his uncles were all right.
All was quiet. There were no prisoners in the yard or guards on the wall, which didn't necessarily mean anything. Because of the city-wide emergency they might have been in lock-down.
But as he and Minion took the hoverbikes around the building, his uneasiness jumped several notches when he saw there was no guard at the entrance. That was not normal procedure. And the administration wing was dark. He began to go back to see if the warden's car was in the parking lot when a movement caught his eye.
A white doctor's coat had been jammed through a small window of the infirmary. It flapped in the breeze. The windows were very small and made of translucent glass, extremely tough and almost impossible to break, but someone had put a lot of effort into knocking out two of the panes. As he watched, another pane jolted slightly, as if it had been struck from within.
He brought the bike down. "Ollo," he shouted into the opening. "Anyone there?"
"Hey! Hey, yeah, we're in here!" a man shouted. "Hey, there's somebody..." There was a pounding of footsteps within, and then someone else screamed, "Get us out! For the love of God, get us out! They're everywhere!"
"All right, just...look, would you...if you would be quiet for a... Christ," Megamind growled.
If the fool would just shut up for a minute...
There was a flurry of activity, more shouting, and the screamer was dragged back. Another man came to the window. "That you, kid?"
Megamind felt a relieved smile break out on his face. "Uncle Sid! Do you know if there's a safe way in?"
"Can't tell, the place is crawling. Oh, man, we didn't think anybody was comin'! We've been taking turns knocking out the windows. Took almost all day to get the first one out."
"Get everyone back. I'm going to make an opening."
He listened as Sid shouted and cursed at everybody to get back. "Okay, kid, we're back a ways."
Megamind dehydrated a big chunk of the window and wall. The infirmary was dark, except for the emergency lights which lit up the ceiling and cast eerie shadows. The men hurried forward, an orderly, two guards, and several prisoners.
"Minion and I will bring you down, one at a time." He looked around. The road was deserted and zombie-free. It should be safe enough to...
One of the guards, howling, leaped at him. The man's arm went around his neck, crushing him. Megamind braced his feet against the running board to keep from hurtling off into space. He could only spare one arm to try to loosen the grip. The hoverbike canted to the side and its engine whined as it adjusted for the unbalanced weight.
Minion was trying to pry off the man's death grip, the men were shouting, the panicked guard was whimpering. At last, Minion steadied the hoverbike while the other guard pried his co-worker's fingers off, then he and Uncle Lenny dragged him back inside and forced him to the floor.
Megamind straightened his collar. "Let's try that again," he said, glaring at the guard, who was now sobbing. "Can you give him a sedative?"
While the orderly hunted for a syringe, Megamind looked at the infirmary's doors. It had been barricaded with nearly every piece of furniture in the place, but there was silence on the other side. Perhaps the zombies had been drawn away by easier prey.
They brought everyone outside, the hysterical guard slumped and drooling from the downer the orderly had shot into him. Fifteen men. There was another guard in the infirmary, who had died. "We don't know why," said Sid. "Happened a few hours ago. Enzo thinks it was a heart attack. Gave 'im CPR, but..." He shrugged.
Megamind went to see for himself, not wanting to accidentally leave anyone behind. He took the trouble to peel off one of his gloves to check for a pulse. The man's skin was cold.
"Minion, we have to see if there are any other survivors."
Minion nodded. "I'm with you, Sir." He got his plasma blaster out of the hatch. Megamind set his de-gun to 'de-stroy', and ordered six of the brainbots to come along.
He blasted open the barricaded doors. The hallway beyond was empty.
Nerves twanging, Megamind crept along the silent, empty halls. As they approached the first cell block, there was a little hum in the air, which turned out to be someone weeping. It echoed through the vents.
That was definitely not a zombie. Zombies didn't cry or talk or shout. The only sounds they made were wheezing, moaning noises as air moved in and out of their malfunctioning lungs.
He looked out into the open space of the cell block. The main lights were off, but a few emergency lights shone fitfully, casting huge shadows. His excellent night vision quickly let him see what had happened. He wished it didn't.
Every cell door was open, with dark shapes lying in them, zombies shuffling about, some of them hunched over, feeding. The soft squelching noises made him want to gag. More, smaller shapes lay scattered across the walkways, some of them unrecognizable lumps, others all too recognizable as a hand, a shin bone sticking out of a pant leg, a rib cage with strips of flesh dangling. Flies buzzed lazily.
He glanced down. Someone's dismembered jaw was at his feet.
He jerked back, bile rising in his throat.
Minion squeaked, "Maybe this was a bad idea."
He shook his head, took slow breaths through his mouth, and tried to still his shaking hands. "I'm not leaving anyone in here."
Minion darted around inside his containment unit. "But can't we go get help?"
"From who? Cops? Firefighters? The entire city's in chaos. Nobody's going to drop everything to come rescue a bunch of criminals. We are the help."
The sobbing echoed, and he couldn't pinpoint it. He peered around the corner and whispered, "I don't see any zombies on this walkway. It looks like a lot of them are on the ground floor. They don't move very fast. All we have to do is keep our heads, make sure we shoot them in their heads, and once they're out of the way, we can rescue the survivors."
He took one more shallow breath of the fetid air, wishing he had put on a surgical mask from the infirmary, but he didn't want to go all the way back up there. He renewed his grip on the de-gun and steeled himself for what lay ahead.
Minion whispered, "How about someone like Hitler?"
"What?"
"We'd leave someone like Hitler in here, right?"
Megamind stared at him. "Do you anticipate running into a space-time anomaly?"
"Well, I'm just saying. Oh, and Stalin." Minion made a face. "That guy was awful."
"Minion, this isn't a philosophical debate! We don't have time to question people about whether they're worthy of the privilege of getting rescued. I gave Stinson a ride down, didn't I? And he's an asshole. We are getting everyone out." He paused. "Except for Hitler. If by some chance there is some kind of break in the space-time continuum, shoot Hitler on the spot. But everyone else, yes. We get them out."
Iron-clad determined calm, that was his mask for today. True, it was a mask of calm over a sea of gibbering terror, but it held.
He went onto the walkway and stepped over the... the lumps to the stairwell. It was no use keeping quiet, so he didn't bother tiptoeing. Once the zombies were aware of their presence, they'd come to them anyway. Zombies felt no fear, so they didn't run away and hide. It was best to take them down as soon as possible and not wait for them to attack from behind.
On the ground floor, several zombies looked up from their feeding. One of them had just pulled something out of a dead prisoner's chest cavity.
He stepped onto the stairs.
A zombie dropped on him.
He fell, crashing down the whole damn flight, the zombie trying to gnaw the back of his head, but the high collar got in its way. It managed to get a hand on his bare neck, scratching him.
Clunk, bang, and roll, and the thing stunk to high heaven. When they finally crashed to a halt, he managed to jam the de-gun under the zombie's chin and fired. Its head exploded.
He rolled away from its slack grip, stabbing pains in his side and his knee, he couldn't stand. He had just enough time to realize he was surrounded and then THEY WERE ALL OVER HIM and he got a shot off, but he was shaking so badly the shot went wild, hitting one of the fluorescent lights, which blew up, sending sparks everywhere.
He punched, but they felt no pain and they grabbed him, biting his arms. His bullet-proof uniform and spikes prevented them from tearing into his flesh but their crushing teeth hurt. He screamed and kicked wildly, and then Minion was there, roaring.
Minion clubbed them away with the blaster, and made a little space. Megamind got onto his other knee and opened fire.
At last, nothing moved but him, Minion, and the brainbots, who were flitting around uncertainly. The brainbots were programmed to drive attackers away, not to kill, and they had been terribly confused by the zombies, who did not react the way people usually reacted when shot by their painful little lasers.
He grabbed hold of the stairs and got to his feet. He tested his throbbing knee. Okay, he could stand now, nothing broken. He and Minion looked at the...Megamind swallowed hard ...splatter zone.
"You all right, Sir?" Minion said.
Megamind nodded. "I think I'd better turn the power down," he muttered, adjusting the de-gun's power level. "To a concentrated beam. So things don't explode so... so badly...oh God, something's trickling down my neck."
He scrubbed at his neck in a frenzy, then lost it. He doubled over and vomited. Minion smoothed his back and held his cape out of the way.
He straightened up and wiped his mouth. "Where the hell did that first one come from?"
Minion shrugged. "It must've been on the upper level. Maybe it figured dropping on you was the fastest way down."
More wheezing noises came from around the corner, and another zombie came shuffling into view, then another. Megamind straightened his shoulders and shot them, one by one. Minion's blaster didn't have a power reduction feature and would have caused more exploding, so he refrained from shooting, though he would have if any zombies got past Megamind.
It was unbelievably depressing, and nerve-wracking. They marched right into the line of fire, and he had to make head shots each and every time. The closer the zombies got, the harder it got, because he knew some of them.
The worst, the absolute worst, was Uncle Harry.
Megamind called him by name, hoping that somehow it was all a mistake, that he was really alive, or that he would recognize him, that the man he knew was still in there somewhere.
Uncle Harry did not stop, or respond to his voice. He kept lurching forward, his eyes burning with hunger, his face gray.
Minion's voice was thick. "Sir, he's dead. You just... just have to stop him moving."
So he did it, and then he had to hide his face against Minion's arm for a while. Minion held his shoulder with his free hand and the two stood motionless with grief for the man who had helped raise them and saved their lives more than once. After a while Megamind wiped his eyes and changed the setting to de-hydrate. "I'm not leaving him here," he said, and dehydrated the body. Minion stowed the cube in his side panel.
They moved on. They found the weeping prisoner who had barricaded himself in a crawl space, and found eight men trapped in a walk-in refrigerator. They searched the rest of the prison, ferreting out five more prisoners, one more guard, and a seemingly endless parade of zombies, all of whom Megamind 'stopped from moving.' The survivors kept crowding so closely they kept stepping on his heels until he threatened to dehydrate the lot of them.
Personal effects were scattered and trampled in the noisome floor. Torn uniforms of prisoners and guards. Newspapers, a scattered deck of cards. Photos. Wallets. A few books. Watches and jewelry and shoes, generally with limbs and fingers still attached. That stupid kewpie doll from Petro's cell.
He could not understand how the carnage could have been so widespread, so quickly. How could hundreds of people suddenly drop dead?
He wondered if he'd see the warden lurching toward him next... but none of the zombies wore street clothes or suits. They were all prisoners and guards.
Hundreds of zombies cropping up en masse? Not just here, but in other parts of the city. That wasn't how the outbreaks originally started. Usually it was episodes of sickness, a few zombies here and there, spreading slowly but horrifically. Why so many, all at once?
And why were all the cells open? That made no sense either. If prisoners had started dying, what guard in their right mind would have opened them all at once? It would have made far more sense to keep them closed, and inspect prisoners one by one to make sure they hadn't been zombified, freeing those who were free of contagion. And if a guard had gotten sick wouldn't he have gone home, or to the hospital? Or not come to work at all, for that matter?
A zombie couldn't have gotten the cells open. Zombies were incapable of turning a simple doorknob. Even stairs gave them trouble, generally. That zombie that fell on his head was unusual, though later he discovered there were always a few who were capable of climbing even the sheer sides of buildings. But fortunately that was about the extent of their motor skills. There was no way a zombie could have worked the complicated locks on the control panel for the cells, even swatting randomly at the buttons.
The administration wing was empty of people, corpses, and zombies. No signs of panic or disturbance. Papers and files were stacked on desks, neatly or haphazardly depending on individual filing methods, but with every evidence that they expected to return to work. So, no office workers had been there, as far as he could tell. No warden.
"When did this happen?" he asked them as they made their way to the front gate through the bloody halls. It felt like a singular event, rather than a gradual spread of contagion.
It had happened in the night. They woke up with splitting headaches and upset stomachs. There were dead men in the cells, dead guards in the corridors, and zombies who had once been prisoners and guards, getting down to feeding.
"But when did people first start getting sick?" he asked.
No one had gotten sick, he was told. Yesterday things were fine.
"The air was bad," said one of the prisoners.
Megamind frowned. "Bad?"
He shook his head. "This morning, it seemed like the air was bad. I dunno. Any of you guys notice?"
The other survivors shrugged. "I thought something smelled funny. Like Vicks VapoRub," someone said.
Megamind's frown deepened. "VapoRub?'
"But there was a lot of bad smells. Piss, and shit."
The remaining guard scratched his head. "It was hard to think straight. I found J.D. in the control room. I think he opened the cells, before he collapsed. Maybe he thought he was giving the inmates a fighting chance."
They were all talking and didn't hear the footsteps, until the dead guard they'd left in the infirmary came shuffling around the corner.
Minion gave a little yelp, and that was all it took to set the others off. The survivors, their nerves shot from having endured several hours of chewing, ripping sounds and wondering when they were next, screamed their heads off. Megamind narrowly avoided it himself, but rescuers were not supposed to freak out.
He felt a little resentful about this. It would have been nice to join the hysteria and let somebody else take care of it while he screamed his damn head off too.
He raised the de-gun, and aimed carefully between the staring eyes. But there wasn't a mark on him. The man couldn't have been infected. Could he? Megamind hadn't examined the body. Maybe there was a bite or scratch hidden somewhere. Or had the virus mutated? If it had become airborne, they were screwed. Uncle Sid hadn't mentioned any fever. A heart attack, they'd thought.
Had Megamind made a mistake? Had the guard really been alive, but with a pulse so slow he hadn't felt it? No, the body had been cold. And the lips had been pale, as the blood drained away, and the eyes sunken. The man shuffling toward him bore the unmistakable gray zombie sheen on his dark face. That gray sheen was always evident, no matter the person's original skin color.
He pulled the trigger. The zombie silently crumpled to the floor with a hole burned neatly into its forehead and, perhaps most importantly, without exploding.
When they came out, the shadows were stretched across the grass. He could hardly believe the sun was setting. They'd been inside for hours. Looking around, he only saw Sid, Lenny, and the once-hysterical guard, who was now awake and curled up against the wall. The six brainbots he'd left to guard them flew over to greet him.
"Where is everybody?" he asked, petting them.
Lenny said, "Stinson was getting restless, said he needed to get home, and one of the guys said, how 'bout a lift? And he said sure, and they got on the bus and left."
Megamind was flabbergasted. "They all left?"
"Yep."
"On the prison bus?"
"Only thing big enough, man."
"Stinson the guard gave a bunch of prisoners a lift?"
Sid clucked his tongue. "Somethin' wrong with your ears, kid? That's what happened."
"But..." Megamind didn't know what he'd expected. For them to hang around? For what? Everyone had families they needed to get back to. Strange times were upon them. The old rules governing prisoners and guards no longer applied.
One of the prisoners lifted his hand to get his attention. "Hey, man, I need to get going, too. My ma's all alone. Can you give me a ride?"
"We can take the vans," someone else piped up. "They keep the keys in the shed."
The whole group hurried toward the parking lot. Megamind blasted the doors off the shed, and the keys were quickly located. The coherent guard said he was going to the northside, and gave a couple of prisoners a ride in his car.
Megamind watched the vans and the car disappear into the city, and he was left with Minion, Sid, Lenny, the now-quiet guard who had curled up on the grass with his arms wrapped around his knees, and two other prisoners, standing around like lost children.
Megamind looked at his boots, which were rust-colored up to the ankles. More spatters covered his outfit. His skin itched and he felt like he needed about a thousand showers.
He scanned the skyline. Army helicopters buzzed in the distance. It was only then that he realized he was searching for Metro Man. The Defender of Metrocity must be here somewhere. Surely he had come, to take care of the city in its hour of greatest need, even if he hadn't come to save the prisoners. The hero must be busy elsewhere. But nowhere did he see a figure in white flying across the darkening sky.
A great dread twisted his stomach. We are the help, he'd said. But that couldn't be right. Were he and Minion really it? They were supervillains. They didn't save the day. That was insane.
He looked at his uncles. Lenny and Sid, he knew, had nowhere to go. They only had each other. The last guard and the remaining two prisoners were carefully avoiding eye contact. From the city came sounds of tires screeching, car alarms blaring, occasional gunshots, and faint screams.
"What were you in for?" he asked the two prisoners.
"Possession of marijuana."
"Arson."
He raised an eyebrow at marijuana man. "Just possession?" That was enough for a mandatory sentence, but he caught the scent of lying by omission.
The man shifted his weight. "Maybe a little dealing. And larceny," he mumbled.
Megamind sighed. "I'm bringing you all to my Lair. If you set the place on fire or steal from me," he said, glaring at them, including the guard because who knew what trouble he'd cause, "I'll kill you. Don't make me kill you.
"I assume you drove here," he said to the guard. "You might as well follow us. We can't pile everybody on the hoverbikes." The guard had a shriveled look. His face reddened and he didn't look up.
Megamind crossed his arms. "I can't leave you here," he said impatiently. "Look, you had a bad turn. But you're better now, right? You don't have to stay at the Lair. This is... temporary."
Or so he hoped.
Eventually, since the guard seemed unable to function, the arsonist took the keys and drove. Lenny and Sid rode in the back.
Before they left he had the brainbots take some soil samples from the prison grounds.
He should have dehydrated his guests for safe keeping, to keep the Lair's location secret, but part of him knew it was no use. His privacy was gone, as soon as he made the decision to let them in.
After bringing them to the Lair and leaving some brainbots to keep them from wandering around the place, he knew he had to find Roxanne, and the warden.
The warden's house was closer, so they went there first. The house was dark, and the car was gone from the garage. Where the hell was he? Had he tried to flee? Gone to find his wife? Megamind didn't want to believe the old man would abandon the prisoners, but who wouldn't want to get out of Metrocity at a time like this? Everybody else was trying to escape.
He stormed through the house. Minion had taken a photo off the wall. It was a picture of the warden and his wife Joyce. "Leave it," Megamind snapped. Everything was starting to piss him off. Minion hid the photo behind his back in a sullen kind of way but didn't put it down.
Megamind threw up his hands. "Fine. Keep it in your room. Out of my sight." He strode out onto the lawn. Night had fallen. The half moon shone, and with most of the city in blackout, the stars were bright, cold and distant.
Most of the other houses in the neighborhood were abandoned, but a few lights shone behind drawn curtains. He went from house to house, pounding on the doors and scaring the hell out of people, but no one knew anything. After a terrified man almost shot him with a .45, he gave up and went to search for Roxanne.
They were in the heart of the city now, and it was bedlam. Traffic jams, people screaming at each other, zombies on the march.
He searched her work place and found it deserted, except for a chubby red-headed fellow who had been trapped on top of a news van by zombies. He had been completely hysterical, even after the zombies were blasted. So Megamind dehydrated him and brought him along.
Roxanne's apartment was empty. He searched the place anyway, but what did he expect, to find her in the closet? But maybe she'd been hurt, or frightened. Oh, right, he scolded himself in disgust. As if the bravest person he knew was hiding in her apartment like a frightened child.
Was she lost out there in the dark? He wished that, just this once, she had been a little less brave.
He stood on the balcony and listened to the chaos. On a rooftop, someone had rigged up a search light. They must have hooked it up to a generator. They clicked it on and off, flashing it into the sky. Morse code.
P-L-E-A-S-E-H-E-L-P...P-L-E-A...
He got onto the hoverbike, heart thudding painfully in his chest. It's supposed to be SOS, you idiots. Metro Mahn's not here. You think your measly little personal message will bring him flying in?
He circled higher into the sky. He didn't know what he was looking for. He didn't know what to do.
A string of red and white lights stretched out across the lake. Coast Guard boats. The lights and dark, hulking shapes of the army barricade marched across the landscape. The city was surrounded.
In the no-man's land the barricade had created, there was a sudden flare of a fireball. At this distance it was the size of a candle flame.
Minion gasped. "Did they just blow up a car?"
He felt as if a bucket of ice water had poured over his head. The army had just blown up a civilian vehicle. Someone had tried to ram through the barricade. Frightened, foolish people trying to break out.
He gunned the engine and flew toward the burning vehicle, the wind tearing moisture from his eyes, his cape whipping behind him. Little flashes of machine gun fire appeared. The soldiers were shining spotlights on the road, to help their aim. With the wind in his ears the massacre took place in silence.
He dodged around the skyscrapers, and then he was in the open, getting closer, going as fast as he could. The deadly flashes stopped, but he could just see figures lying in the road.
Minion's hoverbike cut across his path. Megamind jerked the handles violently to avoid collision, and for a moment the two hoverbikes screamed through the night in formation, until their drivers brought them to a barely controlled halt.
"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted.
"The shooting stopped! You're not thinking!" Minion shouted, equally furious. "It's too late!"
Fuming, Megamind glared at the scene. The soldiers had stopped shooting because there was no one left to shoot. Nothing moved within that harsh circle of light.
"It's too late to help them," Minion said. "You'd get yourself killed."
Megamind glared at him, shaking with rage. "They killed some people trying to get out. Ordinary people. They just killed them."
"I know, Sir."
"They can't do that."
Minion gazed at him solemnly. Wind whistled by them, there high above the city. The helicopters crawled across the skyline. The car fire burned in the spotlights. Much farther down the road in the dark, a number of headlights shone from parked cars. No one showed any inclination to drive closer to the kill zone.
He was acting recklessly. He wasn't invulnerable. Despite the bullet-proofing qualities of his outfit, he wouldn't survive a head-on confrontation with a line of machine guns. He'd get shot in the head, or the force of the bullets would knock him off the hoverbike, or it would be blown up under him.
"We have two choices, Minion," he said. "Go back to the Lair, transform every 'bot into a killing machine and unleash it on these murderers."
"I guess I wouldn't say no to that, Sir. What's the other option?"
"Expand our rescue efforts, and save this city."
A fierce smile spread over Minion's face. "That sounds like a great idea."
The third option, which was to escape from the city themselves, remained unspoken. Megamind wouldn't give it any serious consideration whatsoever.
The searchlight from a helicopter raked through the air near them, but the helicopter didn't cross the barricade, and the beam was faint and weak with distance. Megamind's hands tightened on the handlebars.
"Did you see that, Metro Mahn?" he shouted at the sky. "Did you? I did! Innocent people killed! How can you abandon them? How could you abandon Roxanne? What is wrong with you? The city's darkest hour, and you've left it in the hands of... of ME?! SERIOUSLY? So this is how it's going to be, is it? The powers-that-be say this is the law, and God knows you've got to obey the law don't you? It may be a law, pushed through by those idiotic, panicking government dickwads but it isn't RIGHT!"
His throat hurt from screaming. "This is not the way to fight this plague! This is NOT THE WAY! I'm not going to turn my back! I'm not going to close my eyes! I'm going to save this city, and you can take your heroic virtue and shove it where the sun doesn't shine!"
