Part 5: The Dead Hate The Living
Though the flesh was practically falling off the digits, the hand that clawed at Robin's face possessed a fierce power behind it, the points of the bones poking out of the rotten skin and muscle and starting to dig in, trying to rip out his eyes.
Robin recoiled backwards, but not without losing his mask (which was normally impossible to remove, due to the special bond agent Batman had developed, but Robin needed to apply a fresh coat every 24 hours and he'd been putting it off till tomorrow) and a few scraps of skin, even as Cyborg and Starfire kept screaming and Robin tried to process what was going on.
They were being attacked by…zombies. Zombies. And while this was not a first for Robin, what made it so crazy was that the zombies had come out of nowhere. I mean, they were virtually mindless flesh eating creatures. Even if one of their foes had pulled out the zombie card to fight them, there was no way they could have silently snuck into the T-Tower…even after losing the powers and the systems being down and their communicators not working…
For Tim Drake, who wanted to be a great detective, and hence tended to be more inclined to logic and reasoning, imagination didn't come easy, but in the back of his head the same horrific, impossible possibility that Scalpel and Beast Boy had realized began to bloom.
No…impossible…But, impossible or not, Robin couldn't think of why, he had to think of NOW, as the zombie that had torn off his mask was lunging for him again, and it had friends.
Robin lashed out with a vicious roundhouse, hoping to knock the zombie into the wall…and forgetting certain things about such creatures. They might be strong, but they're not very durable.
Which made Robin kick the zombie's head right off in a spray of rotten flesh, putrid brain matter, and congealed blood. That was all fine and good…except Robin had been trained so that those kinds of kicks had a certain result, and that was not the removal of a person's head. As a result, Robin lost his balance and fell.
He didn't lose his wits though, as his hand immediately went for his belt. Another zombie had its head cracked in half with a Birdarang, and another was thrown backwards as the sharp projectile was smashed through its chest. But more were behind him, and then fell on Robin, as he yelled and tried to get at another weapon, but two zombies were pinning him down. He tried to shove them off, but his hand, instead of shoving his attacker away, broke right through the decomposed rib cage and sent a shower of stinking, vile liquid onto him and he choked and gagged and then the creature was clawing at his face again as one of them sank its teeth into Robin's armored chest…
And then its upper body exploded as a boom echoed behind Robin, spraying him with decomposed tissue. His stomach roiled, but he kept it under control enough to shove his second attacker up, as a chi-clak! of a shotgun being cocked sounded behind him. Half a second later the zombie's head exploded like its brother's and its body fell, dead again and permanently.
Robin looked behind him as Starfire cocked the shotgun, a spent shell flying from it. The fear in her eyes was gone, replaced by cold determination.
"Beast Boy's many zombie films have taught me well." She said.
"HELPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!" came a scream, and Robin's eyes widened as he remembered Cyborg. He was still in the elevator, in the mass, even as more stragglers broke off and lurched at the other two Titans.
Well, at least whatever zombie movie these things came from was one where the zombies can't run like Ben Johnson, thank you very much Dawn of the Dead remake…Robin thought as he flipped up. Now that he could actually accept, kind of, the fact that he was fighting zombies that may or may not have come from a horror movie, he could formulate a plan. And the first step was freeing Cyborg before he was torn to pieces. With his mostly metal body, he was better off then if say Robin had been yanked into the mass, but Robin wasn't going to test just HOW long Cyborg could stay in that small part of hell before he could be hurt/killed/infected (oh geez, did THEY have to worry about becoming zombies too?).
"CYBORG! GET DOWN!" Robin yelled, as he reached for an explosive in his belt. Starfire stepped up next to him, placed her shotgun she had taken from the box and loaded after she had gotten over her initial fear that yes, there were bad things in the Tower and they were after her and the ones she loved, against her shoulder and blew the head off another zombie, black blood spouting from its stump like a fountain and spraying the walls as it fell.. There were more to replace it though, but Starfire was clearly channeling the spirit of Arnold Schwarzenegger as she cocked the shotgun again and blew a large hole in the next one's rotting chest. True, she didn't do the one-hand twirling reload, but let's be fair here.
Robin located his explosive disc and tried to see if Cyborg had followed his instructions. Verbal cues wouldn't work as Cyborg kept screaming, but Robin had seen a figure rear back, briefly throwing back the crowd of undead, and then throw himself forward. Robin hoped that that forward throw also included downward momentum, and he hurled the disc.
The explosion detonated right in the midst of the moaning corpses and splattered a dozen of them all over the elevator, their fellows, and out into the hallway, smoking body parts bouncing off the crate, the walls, and the Titans, even as rotten organs splattered like balloons on whatever they hit.. A second later Cyborg pulled himself up, his metal back smoking slightly, and charged out, screaming and scratching at himself.
"Cyborg!" Robin said as the man-machine ran around the other side of the crate, as Robin ran past Starfire to join him.
"Bastards! Motherfucking cannibal bastards!" Cyborg screamed. There was a cut on his forehead and jaw and his metal parts were scratched and pitted. Robin could actually make out teeth marks in the metal where the zombies had attempted to devour warm flesh and found nothing but cold steel.
And they were going to regret it as Cyborg's shock finally began to transform into fury, and he turned.
"I don't know how these undead fucks got in but I'll gladly give them a ticket back into whatever hell spawned them!" Cyborg yelled, as he reached for one of the packs.
Starfire blew the head off her last target and saw four new ones shuffling towards her. The main mass had been knocked down by Robin's explosive, but they were getting up, and since all their food was now in one place they'd all be coming after the three. And there were a lot of them: the Titan's elevator was very large and it had been packed to the brim with the undead when it had stopped.
And she was out of buckshot. She snapped the shotgun open and tilted it as the expended shells fell out, and she reached behind her to where she had stuffed more ammo in the hem of her skirt, grabbing two more shells. But her fingers fumbled and she dropped them. Starfire ducked down quickly and grabbed them up, quickly shoving them into the chambers and snapping them shut. She looked up…
Too late. A zombie had made its way to her and it was too close to shoot, as its hands reached for her and it moaned in unholy hunger…
Starfire slammed the gun forward, ramming the end of the weapon into the zombie's rotten stomach and shoving it straight out the other end, as bits of muscle and spinal column fell to the floor behind the zombie. The zombie jerked and one arm went dead, but the other continued to grasp and claw at her, barely kept at bay by her shotgun brace, and others were right behind him…
Starfire twisted her body, the gun, and the zombie to the side, and pulled the trigger. She had thrust her gun up and it was at just the right angle as she fired through the monster and blew most of her target's head off. But another was coming at her. Fighting down her gorge, she shoved her hand into the zombie's rotten midsection, trying to ignore the horrible coldness and sludge as she grabbed the barrel and cocked it, turning, firing and blowing the second zombie in half. The zombie she had the gun stuck through moaned loudly and clawed at her head as she cocked the gun again, grabbing her hair, and she screamed and pulled the trigger again as she blew away the final zombie and reared backwards, letting go of the gun. The zombie spasmed and then tried to go forward again…and then a Birdarang sliced half its head off, and it collapsed towards Starfire. Starfire reached her hands up and caught the butt of the gun as it fell, stopping the flight, and then she put her foot up and shoved the corpse off the weapon, sliding backwards and getting up.
"Now the party's pumping. Say hello to my little friends!" Cyborg yelled, as he finally dragged two grenades out of the bag. He pulled out the pins and threw the explosives into the back of the crowd. The heat and the shockwave splattered half of the zombies into quivering chunks and threw all the remaining zombies forward, onto their faces or just giving them a brief boost towards their goal: the Titans. Robin spread out his fingers as four small metal discs appeared between them, and he slashed his arm out, the discs smashing through the faces and skulls of the zombies in the lead.
But more still came.
But not before Cyborg had reached into the crate and pulled out two assault rifles, leaping back with one of the bags of ammo. Starfire finished reloading her shotgun, cocked it, and opened fire again, blowing holes in torsos and heads apart.
"Fearless!" Cyborg said as he tossed one of the guns to Robin.
"Not any more." Robin replied, as he took aim, and the two males opened up, the deep throaty chatter of their weapons joining Starfire's explosive blasts as they mowed down and blew apart the remaining zombies. Starfire's gun ran dry before the other two, and she dropped the shotgun and reached behind her, withdrawing the automatic and snapping in the clip, using it to finish off the last few stragglers.
After all the zombies were down, there was silence for a few seconds, as the group lowered their guns and took deep breaths.
"What is that expression?" Starfire said. "I hate to say I told you so, but I told you…"
"All right Kory, you were right." Robin said, lowering his gun.
"Where the hell did these things come from?" Cyborg said.
"I could give you an answer, but you'd think I'm crazy." Robin said.
"No Tim, zombies coming out of nowhere to attack us, THAT'S crazy."
"Point. Well…"
"Look!" Starfire said, pointing.
The zombies were beginning to fade away, and as the three watched in astonishment, the mounds of dead bodies, parts, and other gross things slowly disappeared, fading out like they never were. Even the blood and guck on the three Titans disappeared, though their injuries did not.
"OK." Cyborg said. "Robin, you said something about an explanation."
"The movies." Starfire suddenly said, as she put her gun down. "In the pile on the VCR. The pile that was destroyed at the same time when we were zapped by that energy and rendered powerless. One of them was one of Beast Boy's zombie movies."
"So, you're saying…what? No way!" Cyborg said, asking the question and realizing the answer at the same time.
"I'd say the writing is on the wall. I don't know how, but something brought those zombies to life…"
"The others!" Starfire suddenly said, remembering that while the three of them might have survived, knew what was happening, and were armed for it, her comrades were not.
"My idea exactly. Grab what you can carry and let's move it. If some weirdo dark magic feedback something or other has somehow brought movies to life…there were a lot of movies in that pile. Who knows what else might have been set…"
The door to the stairs slammed open.
"HAHHHHHH!" The three Titans yelled as they swung their guns around.
"AHHHHHHH!" Screamed Gauntlet, waving his arms. "Don't shoot! I come in peace! I taste terrible! Etc, etc!"
"Robert! You are ok!" Starfire said.
"Well, yeah…I checked the fuses. I couldn't find any damage to them…"
"I don't think it's the fuses Gauntlet. I think something else is happening."
"Yeah, I gathered that from the gunfire. What small country did you just declare war on?"
"Monsters." Starfire whispered.
"What? Did Aberration break out again?"
"No." Robin said, and then he gave as abbreviated a version as possible of what had happened and why they thought it had.
When it was done, Gauntlet stared.
And then he burst out laughing.
"Do not laugh Gauntlet. You would not be doing so if you had arrived a minute sooner." Starfire said.
"Well…right. But guys…seriously. You actually think something has brought a bunch of horror movies to life."
"Not just the villains. EVERYTHING. The lighting for instance. It's never good in a film. And our splitting up. When I think of it, I never would have done so in the first place…but I did now…because that's what's supposed to…where's Terra?"
"I don't know. She didn't want to go out into the rain. When I came back, she was gone." Gauntlet said.
"Shit. I hope she didn't run into something else. Without our powers…" Cyborg said, as he finished taking what he could from the crate, which was still half full but now inconvenient.
"Come on guys. I mean, I can see zombies happening…"
"This wasn't Grave. It didn't feel the same." Robin interrupted.
"Ok, maybe not. But seriously…are we going to run into Freddy Krueger? Is Leatherface going to pop out of a door and chase after us? Oh, oh! Can we run into the Candyman? I want to ask him what kind of Beetlejuice ripoff he is, I mean come on, at least you only have to say Beetlejuice's name three times…"
"Don't joke Rob. We could very well run into any or ALL of those villains. Maybe more." Robin said.
"Archetypes." Starfire whispered again. "Absolutes brought to life. They are not like our human foes, even the supernatural foes we have faced. They had subtleties, nuances, reasons why they did what they did. These creatures are not like that. They are born out of a world where death is the reason they exist. They kill, therefore they are."
"So we better be ready to kill them first." Cyborg said, as he tossed Gauntlet an Uzi. He managed to catch it. "Don't say anything. You might need it."
"Where do we go first?" Starfire asked.
"Scalpel. He's helpless. We should move him, put him behind a locked…"
"Hello? Is anyone there? Come in Titans." Crackled a voice, and after the Titans wee finished jumping Robin realized it had come from his dropped communicator.
It was Savior's voice.
"Savior? Are you ok?" Robin yelled as he picked the device up and flipped it open. Savior's confused face stared back at Robin.
"Uh, yeah. Man, what's going on? I've been fooling with this thing for five minutes and all I got was…"
"Savior, listen up. Don't talk, we might lose contact at any minute. There are things in the Tower." Robin said.
"Things? Define things, that's rather vague…"
"I don't have time to explain! I just think that…well…"
"The horror films Beast Boy placed on the VCR have been brought to life!" Starfire yelled.
Savior's look of confusion didn't last long as his picture suddenly broke into static.
"Savior! Come in…"
"…repeat that I could have…horror films are coming alive." Crackled Savior's voice, and then his picture solidified again.
"Savior, I know all the things you're thinking, but you have to listen. There may be monsters in the Tower. You have to be CAREFUL."
"…Ok, I'll take your word for it for now…but seriously…"
"They already heard this part!" Gauntlet said. Now that none of the Titans had said "Surprise!" and revealed the joke, the reality (or lack of it) was beginning to sink in to Robert Candide: there were monsters in the tower, and the Gauntlet wasn't working. And, though he was keeping it at bay at the moment, was scaring him more then anything. Being a superhero was all Robert really knew: being normal was starting to wear at him as he realized he was once again susceptible to things like injury and mortality. But he couldn't freak out now. If only for Starfire's sake.
"Right."
"Where's Raven?" Cyborg asked.
"She left to get me a crowbar. But…"
"You're ALONE? Savior, find Raven quick! You're vulnerable!"
"Vulnerable? That's what…"
The picture distorted into static again, and Savior's voice faded. Robin frantically fiddled with the buttons and after fourteen seconds somehow managed to restore the picture.
"Repeat Savior."
"Well…I managed to finally get the door open. I wanted to make a report…"
"What? You got in? Quickly Savior, grab the Eye of Archetypal, that's a key part in…!"
"No! Listen! The orb is gone!"
"Gone? It's been stolen?"
"No." Savior said, as he looked down from where he was talking…and at the dark hole at his feet. "Whatever caused all this…it apparently gave the orb lessons on how to generate heat like a small star. Damn thing fell off the pedestal and melted right through the floor."
"The floor?"
"At least one. That's what I wanted to say. If you see Raven before I do, don't tell her to come back here. She needs to go BELOW the evidence room. That's where she'll find the orb. Hopefully."
"What do you mean hopefully?"
"Well it could very well have br…"
The picture spazzed out again.
"Savior? Can you hear me…"
"Losing you…eye out…but evidence room…filled with weapons…" Savior's voice said through distortions of static.
"Savior! We're going to check the lounge! Make your way there if you can! And watch out!" Robin yelled.
"Rog…oh yes o…Freak's remote…lted…hey wait…"
And then the line went dead.
The four Titans stared at each other.
"Ok Titans, move out, stay close, and watch the shadows. If anything decide it wants to come out of a closet and say hello, let's make it wish it stayed in Fantasyland." Robin said, as he lifted his gun, slammed a new clip in, and moved out. The three followed, and thankfully they didn't notice that Gauntlet was starting to get…jittery, like a caffeine addicted deprived of coffee.
It was probably best. They didn't need to know that a nervous teenager with a Uzi was bringing up their rear.
Then again, when the night was over, getting shot in the back by a twitchy trigger finger may yet be the best way to go.
"Robin? You there? Hello?" Savior said, but much like his comrades, all he got was static. Snorting, he closed his communicator.
"Horror movies? Are they serious?" Savior said, looking around. True, he'd had the feeling that he wasn't alone…but he had been expecting something a tad more believable.
Then again, Gauntlet had seemed to believe it, and as much as Savior disliked the goofy and droll teenager, he knew he wasn't a liar. Unless it was part of a prank, and Gauntlet wouldn't be pulling anything with Robin there.
He looked over to the pedestal that had once held Control Freak's remote. Now all it held was an absurdist piece of art, as whatever had gotten into the room and somehow activated Mumbo's orb had also apparently given the matter altering device a jolt as well, one it hadn't survived, as its was now a melted hunk of plastic and metal spread out over its pedestal. Savior wondered if that had something to do with what was happening in the Tower.
A noise caught his ear.
"Raven?" he said, looking at the door.
No one there. But Savior was no fool: he put himself on alert immediately. He might not have completely bought Robin's theory, but he knew SOMETHING was wrong with the Tower and he wasn't going to be caught off guard.
Besides, in the horror films, the non-believers die first…Savior looked around for a weapon, and settled for Killer Moth's cocoon gun. It wouldn't harm any target, but it would seriously slow them down.
"Raven? If that is you, I am armed." Savior said, aiming at the door.
The noise again.
In the room.
Savior whirled, looking around and again finding nothing. But he KNEW he was hearing something. He thought it over, trying to puzzle out the exact sound. It wasn't one big noise, more like a bunch of little ones…all in a row…like Morse code…or maybe…
Footsteps?
Then the knife plunged into his ankle.
Even as his leg gave out and he screamed, Savior heard the mad cackling laugh, and he knew.
"I KNOW there's a crowbar in here somewhere." Raven said. She wished she had a flashlight: this storage room was even darker then the others. She wondered if she should just give up and…
And then she pulled back a tarp, and there it was.
"Well, about damn time." Raven said, reaching for it.
Clinkclinkclinkclink!Raven whirled at the sudden noise, clutching the just grabbed crowbar.
"Who's there? Savior? Robin?"
No answer, and with the light seeping in from the door, the large storage room was filled with a million shadows. Raven could feel her heartbeat begin to speed up…and then she realized how stupid she was. So she heard a slight noise. That didn't mean…
ClickclickclangclangCLANG!Raven's blood ran cold. That was not a noise she could so easily rationalize away. It wasn't a crate shifting, or the contents of a crate moving around, or even something falling over. It sounded like…something being run over metal.
But what?
Raven's eyes darted back and forth…and then she realized her square of light was shrinking. The door was closing.
The door swung shut…
And then Raven's crowbar jammed into the almost gone gap and shoved the door open as Raven emerged into the hallway, breathing heavily. The hallway was only dimly lit, but there was a lot more light then in the storage room. She spun, propping the door open with her shoulder, as she gazed into the room, the crowbar ready to use. Though Raven dearly wished she had her powers now, or even a gun. She thought of all the times Noel had forced her to take firearms training. She had rather resented it. But now she was wishing she could take that all back if it meant that she had some protection.
Her communicator buzzed. Raven nearly screamed out loud. Then she realized what it was, and she reached down and removed it.
"…ven…there?" Came the voice. The picture was very fuzzy, but Raven thought Robin was speaking to her.
"I'm here."
"…time…Ra…orb…floor…below…"
"What? Robin, I can barely hear you."
"…things…Gar's mo…antor…"
"Say again? Gar's motors?"
"…sters…Raven…"
"Robin, I can't…"
"Raven!" came the voice, clearer now.
"Robin, I can hear you!"
"Raven, the orb is not in the Evidence Room! It's melted through the floor! It's now BELOW the room, I don't know how much! Head there immediately!"
"But Robin, Savior's…"
"Raven there's…things…look out…" Robin's voice frizzed and began wavering in and out again.
"Robin, what's going on?"
"Rave…monsters…"
"MONSTERS?"
"…Believe what you see! It's there! Don't ask why!" Came blaring out of the small speaker.
And then the communicator cut out completely.
Raven's eyes slid from the staticky screen to the darkness within the storage room, and suddenly she didn't feel so curious any more.
"…Savior must be heading for the orb if it melted through the floor. I'll see if I can meet him." Raven said to herself. "But I don't feel like putting this away…I'll just keep it with me…who knows…I might need to…pry something…heh heh heh…"
And Raven closed the door to the storage room, a little too fast, and turned and started heading down the hallway. She was fine. There was nothing wrong. She was just a little on edge. That terrible fear she had felt a moment ago was just her mind overreacting…
It was a good thing Raven couldn't see what was happening inside the room she had just left. The shadows concealed virtually everything, but if one had strained one could have possibly made out the motion of a hand lifting to a chin and stroking it very lightly. For good reason.
"How tasty." A male voice said. "She'll be quite a feast."
Savior reared back, clutching his ankle and staring with unbelieving eyes at what was before him.
"You may be armed, but that don't matter if you don't have a leg to stand on!" It said. It was a two-foot doll with red hair, blue overalls, and cute little doll shoes. It should have also had a cute freckled doll face…except that doll face was now wearing a vicious smirk, showing tiny little plastic teeth. The large knife the doll was holding sure wasn't made of plastic though. Savior knew that all too well.
Savior took a few rapid breaths, as if steeling himself for what he had to say, because once he did, that meant he admitted it was real, and if it was real…
"Charles Lee Ray." Savior said.
"At your service! But please, the name is Chucky now!" The killer doll Chucky said, and bowed.
It was him. His guilty pleasure had come to life and attacked him, stabbing a knife into his leg like so many victims, straight from the movie he would have watched had this not all happened. Child's Play 2.
Sorry dear, Chucky's here. Savior thought, messing up the movie's tagline as he looked at the killer doll, who was standing back up and still looking fiendishly satisfied.
"Nice place you have here buddy. I like a man who can stuff a room full of weird junk and still include a nice blade." Chucky said, holding up the weapon. Savior finally recognized it: it was from the Killjoy display.
"You're not real. You're fake." Savior said.
"Fake? FAKE? You wound me, asshole! That's MY job, and I don't much cotton to it myself!" Chucky snapped. "Don't know how I got here. I guess your orphanage must have gotten one giant fucking check."
"Oh yeah…" Savior said, as he finally remembered that he had had a gun, at least before he had dropped it in surprise. "You'd be amazed…"
"Looking for this?" Chucky said, holding up the gun.
Savior's eyes widened. Oh shit.
"You know, I don't much like fucktards who bring guns to knife fights!" Chucky yelled, and charged at Savior.
Savior instantly thrust out his hands, much like Terra had. Like her, his power failed to answer his call, but unlike her, he was able to use the failed move better as Chucky, instead of going for his hands, ran right into them. The knife slashed at Savior's face before Savior twisted and grabbed Chucky's arm.
"AHHHHH! YOU CHEATING FUCK!" Chucky cursed, and Savior had to admit, the strength in that tiny frame was great. But Savior's was greater, as he twisted the knife out of Chucky's hand…and screamed as Chucky sank his teeth into the flesh between Savior's thumb and primary finger. Twisting, Savior reared back his arms and swung them out, hurling Chucky through the air as he screamed in rage and crashed against the wall, falling down behind a box.
Savior staggered to his feet, wincing mightily as a jolt of pain shot through his ankle. But he had the knife now. And he knew Chucky was there. The doll's main weapon was surprise: most of his victims had no idea he was more then a normal doll (A Good Guy, Savior thought crazily) until it was too late. But Savior knew, and even powerless he knew he could handle…
And then Chucky leapt up on the crate.
And he had with him a piece of evidence from a foe the Titans had fought five weeks ago, a black teen calling himself Lightshow. His main weapon had been a pair of laser guns.
One of which Chucky had now appropriated for himself.
"Smile you son of a bitch!" Chucky laughed, and fired.
The blast took Savior in the shoulder, the heat burning a hole through his limb even as the concussive force threw him backwards against a wall. As he collapsed, Chucky howled his laughter, a true bully from hell.
"You got some nice toys kid! But you really should have one as nasty as me!" Chucky laughed, and aimed for Savior's head.