"The lights are on, Herman, but it doesn't look like anyone's home."
"That's why I'm worried, Aleksei. A place like this, you'd think someone had the same idea we had. Break in, grab what you need, and get the hell out."
"Maybe they already did all that, and are already the hell out."
"Then let's hope there's something left inside for us." I glanced both ways down the street. Aside from a few shambling forms about three blocks away, it was just the two of us. "Alright, let's go and get this over with." Moving quickly, Rhino and I crossed the street, keeping our heads on a swivel and our eyes peeled for anything, or anyone, that might complicate matters as we made our way towards Walgreen's.
The trip from TriBeCa has been uneventful, thankfully. We had emerged from the storm drain onto the access road and crossed the warehouse district without any major problems, just two ghouls that Rhino had quickly and quietly dispatched with his massive hands before they drew a bead on us and alerted their friends. The West Side Highway had been a momentary concern, though. The refugees coming from off Manhattan were using it as a main artery heading towards Midtown, and since the watchwords of the evening for myself and the seven-foot tank at my side were "low profile," we stayed under cover and waited for a break in traffic before darting across. After that, the trip to the drug store had been without hassle. Note that I didn't say it wasn't nerve wracking. Every block had a zombie, or several, lumbering about on the street as Rhino and I trotted past. Most blocks also came with a dead body or two. They were laid out in pools of blood, some with bullet wounds, and others showing the signs of blunt force trauma to the head. There wasn't any sign of the living, however, on our trip to the drug store once we crossed the highway. I hoped that meant that they were smart enough to be locked behind closed doors because of the ongoing crisis. Then again, this was New York City. Most people would hide when superheroes and supervillains come crashing down the street, tearing into each other. In this city?
The last time Spider-Man and I went at it, the web-crawler managed to punch me into a hot dog stand. As I was pulling myself free from the wreckage, the hot dog vendor had out a cell phone, and snapped a picture of me covered in ketchup and mustard, talking loudly about putting the pic up on his Facebook page. Gotta love New Yorkers.
We stopped just outside the storefront. Through the high windows, the bright fluorescent lights shone down, illuminating the stacks of Coca-Cola boxes that were resting against the glass. Rhino stepped in front of me, taking the lead, and I watched our backs as he went towards the entrance to the Walgreen's. While the streets were quasi-clear, the mixed sounds of gunfire, both automatic and energy based, and the roar of engines could be heard, mostly coming from the north side of the island. You could catch the occasional siren in the air, but they were nowhere near as frequent as they had been that first night...
Lost in thought, I stop just short of walking directly into the broad back of Rhino. He had stopped short at the entrance to the drug store. Leaning forward slightly, a quizzical look on his face, Aleksei was studying the inside of the store as we stood on the sidewalk.
"What's up, man," I asked.
He turned to look at me. "The front door's wide open," Aleksei said in a vey quiet voice, suddenly taking great care not to be loud. "Just like at the apartment building from last night. And there's a lot of blood too, Herman."
Oh, crap.
I slowly craned my neck around the big guy. Just like he said, one of the automatic doors to the drug store was standing wide open. Unlike the security door at the Prosario's apartment building, the safety glass was still intact, with flyers hanging on the back proclaiming the latest weekly special.
They provided a nice framing for the bloody handprint that streaked down the glass.
My eyes followed the handprint all the way to the bottom of the doorframe, where I saw a large puddle of blood that had gathered. It gleamed red from the overhead lights. A trail led away from the pool, weaving across the white tile floor like a river, winding out of sight to the right of the doorway, past where the cash registers were. Bright, red, wet blood. Fresh blood.
"Damn it. Aleksei, that's recent. This happened...no less then an hour ago. Probably sooner." I looked up at my friend. "You were right. Someone probably did beat us to the punch..."
Aleksei ground his teeth together, peering back into the Walgreen's now, maybe trying to catch sight of what had almost certainly caused this much blood to be spilled. "You want to try somewhere else, Herman? Find a new place in a couple of blocks?"
I thought about his suggestion for a minute before shaking my head. "I really don't want to waste time trying to hunt down a drug store where something like this hasn't happened, because odds are, we ain't gonna find one. Whatever it is, Aleksei, as long as we're smart...come on, let's get off the streets."
Aleksei's grunt was...I'd rank it at about 70% agreement, 30% disagreement with my choice of action. While I concurred that sticking my head into the zombie's mouth wasn't the smartest idea I've had...well, it didn't work out too badly last time, did it? Besides, the less time we spent wandering the streets looking for an incident-free drug store, the less time the two of us were exposed in the open. We had handled a bunch of zombies earlier in the evening, even with Hawkeye sticking her nose in at the end. Anything inside here, while I wasn't looking forward to dealing with, the two of us could hopefully handle without too much effort.
Rhino led the way, stooping slightly to enter the drugstore. I followed right behind him. The two of us were very careful not to step into the puddle of blood as we made our way. The store, aside from the bloodstains stretching past the front counter, could have been open for business on any normal night of the week. The lights were on, not only at the front of the store, but the pharmacy in the back was still well-lit. The coolers of soda and milk hummed as their compressors did their job, and the cash registered proudly displayed $0.00 in bright green cathode light.
I looked at the top of the door as I passed underneath. "Looks like the motor burned out somehow, that'd explain how it stayed open."
"Herman, we should close the door behind us," Aleksei whispered, "just in case one of those things wanders by." That was a great idea. It didn't take long for me to find the emergency catch and let the door swing gently back to the closed position. Once shut, I went one step further, and grabbed a nearby make-up display case. A gorgeous tiger of a redhead was pursing her lips to show off the latest brand of lipstick as I carefully moved the display in front of the door with a nod of approval from Aleksei. The door could be pushed open, but anyone doing so would knock over the makeup case, making a racket and alerting Aleksei and me of incoming trouble.
With our back secure, I nodded towards the trail of blood, and the big guy nodded in return. This time, I took the lead, carefully following the winding red streaks across the floor. It stretched across the entire front of the store, past the cash registers and the photo counter, before turning to the left and disappearing up the final aisle. Measuring each footfall and making sure not to step in the flood, I stepped lightly across the Walgreen's. I had one fist at the ready, thumb on the trigger of the vibro-smasher, prepared to go at a millisecond's notice. Rhino was being as quiet as he could too...which meant not moving very much at all. He was sliding his feet almost, barely lifting them, as he followed me.
As we got closer to the corner, where the trail turned, the sound of chewing reached my ear, punctuated with the occasional ripping noise. "Damn it," I muttered under my breath. I had known full well that the blood trail had probably been caused by a zombie, but still, I was holding out hope that, maybe, it was just a good old fashioned psychopath or gang banger. But no such luck, as the sound of growling was added to the mix. Sighing, I stepped around the corner of the aisleway, taking aim even as I was moving.
With his back to me, hunched over, chewing on a human leg, the zombie wasn't paying any attention to his surroundings, focusing solely on his acquired bounty. I didn't even give him a chance to react, firing off a level one blast from point blank range directly into the rear of his skull. Immediately, the leg dropped to the floor, and the zombie tilted to the side, motionless as his skull hit the tile. With him out of the way, I looked down at the body that the thing had been feeding on. In a blue hoodie sweatshirt, the guy was missing a large chunk of his throat. He was lying flat on the floor, eyes staring up at the ceiling. A chrome .38 was clutched in his right hand, and as I studied him, I could see the bullet wound just under his chin. For whatever reason, the guy had shot himself, and I was willing to bet it was mainly to avoid being eaten and torn apart by zombies, or just to ensure he didn't come back as one. In any case, a much more dignified way to exit the world and make sure you stayed gone.
My eyes involuntarily wandered down to his legs, or where his legs would have been, if one hadn't been ripped off and eaten by the zombie I just put down...
...or where his legs would have been if he had ANY lower body left to speak of. Where I had expected to see an attached leg, instead, there was a trail of intestines snaking out from his stomach. Blood and bile mixed at the base of the man's upper body, and a wide trail, much wider than the one at the front of the store, ran up the aisleway towards the back. On reflex, my eyes followed the trail, winding past the soda coolers, shelves of chips and cookies, and back towards the dietary supplements.
At the very end of the aisleway, a group of zombies, their hands full of flesh and muscles, were staring back at me. They crouched around the remains of the man's lower body. Drops of blood fell to the floor around his remaining leg and hips as they gazed at me, motionless.
"Not good," I said out loud.
That got them going. With a snarl, the closest one, a female, let the bounty in her hand plop to the floor, as the promise of something fresher drove her forward. The others came immediately, pushing up from the floor and starting to shuffle towards me and Aleksei. I counted six. Six, we could handle, no sweat, no problem...
The moans started from the next aisle over. And the one after that. Soon, the entire drug store was filled with the cries of the undead, not just the ones advancing up the dietary aid aisle towards us, but the ones we couldn't see, the ones who had been hiding, or that we had just flat out glossed over while following the blood trail. Damn it, Fred had been right...it wasn't the ones you saw, it was the ones you didn't see.
The confidence to take on six zombies at once faded in light of their reinforcements. I took a few steps back, ending up behind Aleksei. "Come on, man, let's blow this joint..."
His response was to crack his knuckles. "We got this," he growled in a bold manner. "There's six of them in this aisle. I could knock them out in my sleep."
"What?"
He bent forward at the waist, his hands reaching towards the floor. "You said it, Herman, we don't have time to find another drug store, and I'd bet that one would have a bunch of ghouls inside it to. If we're smart, Herman, we can take them..."
Ok, to be fair to my friend, and to defend myself, yeah, I saw his logic. Same story, different drug store, good odds of that happening. At the same time...those moans. They clawed and bit at your inner ear, each zombie adding their own little inflection to make the cacophony truly unique. I would imagine even someone like Iron Man would have second thoughts about diving into this melee...but there was Aleksei, who had told me to keep my head in the game the night before, getting ready to do...something.
"Come on, we can't risk this, there's too..."
"Just cover my back, Herman." He was down now, in a three point stance, and in an instant, I knew exactly what he was going to do.
"No, Aleksei, wait, this is...this is a VERY BAD IDEA!"
Either he didn't hear me, or he was ignoring me. With a loud, shelf-shaking roar, Rhino pushed off, and charged down the aisleway towards the crowd.
"!"
Rhino knocks things over.
He does this VERY well.
Aleksei's one of the strongest people I've ever seen, and in my chosen field, that's saying a lot. When he first put that suit on all those years ago, it was bonded directly to his skin. Couldn't take it off. Had to pee through a hatch in the front. You don't know what he had to do for the other thing. It took Justin Hammer making him a removable suit to let Aleksei live somewhat of a normal life again. Before that, though, when the Leader got a hold of him, he bombarded Aleksei with gamma radiation, which was the same stuff that turned the Hulk into...the Hulk. It ended up making Aleksei stronger and tougher...and it didn't quite stop. Ever since the Leader worked his magic, Aleksei's been able to hit harder and run further with each passing day. It's been a gradual process, one that's built up over several years, but with a few positive ends results. For one, Aleksei can bench press a U-Haul truck without breaking a sweat. Full-on, over the head, two pumps for luck before throwing it at Spider-Man. For two, at full-out sprint, Aleksei can apparently hit 100 miles-per-hour. Never seen it personally, but it's been documented. For three, those horns on top of his outfit. They look stupid, but they ain't for show. He can drive them through 2 inches of steel plating. And, for four...sorry...that suit he wears is bulletproof. And explosion-proof. And laser-proof.
So let's add all that together, boys and girls. Strong. Fast. Can slice through steel. And impervious to damn near every bit of external harm a person could inflict.
The perfect human cannonball.
I said earlier in the story, I'd bet even money there wasn't anyone or anything on this planet Rhino couldn't knock around, and I stand by it. Given a running start, Rhino would slam damn near anyone airborne. I've seen, and this was in person, the Hulk get knocked off his feet by Aleksei on a charge. Thor, the God of freakin' Thunder, got staggered when Aleksei rammed with his shoulder. When supervillains get drunk, and start throwing around stupid questions, one of the most popular ones is "what would happen if the Rhino charged the Juggernaut?"
Answer: the Juggernaut wouldn't budge. Tell me, though, you wouldn't pay to see that showdown on pay-per-view.
(Best question ever asked in those situations was asked by Boomerang. "Which one would you pick? Diamondback or the Black Cat?" Best answer every given to that question was given by, of all people, the Ringer. "I'm hardcore, I can take 'em both on.")
It's a sight to see, actually, and at times I feel privileged to witness it. Snarling, putting himself in a three point stance. Head lowered, but his eyes locked on the poor sap (or poor wall. Or poor car. Or poor Olympian God). And just pushing himself across the gap towards his target. It's a thing of beauty, save for whoever or whatever is on the receiving end. Normally, I'd be cheering on Aleksei as he imitated a speeding bullet...
...not this time, though.
His massive feet pounded down the aisleway, crunching and popping open bags of potato chips that had fallen off the shelves as he lumbered down the aisleway. It was a sight to see, I had to admit...watching someone run TOWARDS a group of the living dead. Aleksei was still roaring, a primal, rage-filled scream that drowned out the moans that filled the Walgreen's. The closest zombie to him, the snarling girl, lifted her arm to grab him as he approached, giving her limb full extension as clawing fingers sought Rhino out.
I heard the snap of her arm as Rhino's head slammed into her palm. A split second later, the zombie was bowled over as Rhino plowed right through her and the rest of the group. The girl zombie spun to the side, caught now by Rhino's shoulder as he charged down the narrow path. The next zombie staggered backwards from the impact of Rhino's head, and my friend's momentum carried it into the rest of the pack. In a few steps, each zombie had been knocked clear off its feet by the massive gray-skinned villain. And he wasn't down. Aleksei didn't just charge at them. He charged cleared through them. His feet stomped down, snapping limbs and crushing skulls with his powerful legs. By the time Rhino skidded to a stop at the end of the aisle, what had started out as a group of six ravenous undead had been turned into a barely twitching mass of limbs and blood, arms and legs askew.
"Jesus, Aleksei..." I said, in awe of the destruction.
He had to put a hand out to bring himself to a full stop before slamming into the rear wall of the pharmacy, cracking the plaster as his palm impacted the wall. Aleksei turned, and took a quick glance at the damage he had wrought, before lifting his head and yelling at me. "Come on, Herman, get up here and finish these things off! I'll clear the next aisle, you follow behind me and make sure they're down! MOVE!" His voice boomed across the Walgreen's and succeeded in getting my ass in gear. Rhino disappeared around a corner as I trotted quickly up the aisle, Pringles turning to dust under my boots. By the time I reached the remains of the first pack, Rhino's roar was passing by me over in the next aisle, as he charged his way back up to the front of the store. At my feet, there wasn't too much left of the undead that Aleksei has decimated. The heads of five creatures had been smashed like ripe melons. Their arms and legs were bent at impossible angles, and one of them...there was a wide hole in his chest, about the size of Aleksei's foot, the unbeating heart clearly visable through the shattered ribs. The final zombie, a girl in a BRATZ baseball cap, was trying to reach out to me, her forearm flopping uselessly from her broken elbow as her upper arm bone poked through town skin. For safety's sake, I put a quick level-one into each of their heads, starting with the still active one's skull as a coup de grace. By the time I had finished, my friend was calling me from the other end of the next aisle over. "Herman, mop up this aisle, I'm moving on!"
I couldn't help myself. "Clean up, aisle two, got it!"
X
"Man, this place is gonna smell rotten in a couple of hours, Herman."
"I ain't gonna clean it up," I replied as I finished the bottle of cold Aquafina. "Way I see it, whoever comes in here after us, the two of us did them a damn favor by clearing it out." On reflex, I threw the empty bottle into the trash can next to the cash register. "Aleksei, that was some damn nice work. I was ready to cut and run, man. What you did took a real pair of brass ones."
Rhino gave a shrug. "They're fragile. Seriously, we can just...they're slow. I could have probably danced around them. It's like you said earlier, as long as you're smart, Herman..."
"Yeah, yeah. Rub it in, why don't you? I'm the one who wanted to run away, and you were right. It was smarter to stand and put those guys down. Good call."
"Why did you want to run, Herman?" Aleksei finished his own bottle of water, a liter of Dasani. "You didn't' want to run earlier tonight outside the 7-11.
I looked up at the trail of carnage laid out in the aisle before us, stretching from the front of the store all the way to the pharmacy that sat at the back of the store. "Well...we were outside. A lot of room to run. Here...well, it's a bit cramped. If we had to run away, there was a chance we could have been trapped. I guess I was playing the room and not the people." One quilted hand slapped Rhino on his shoulder. "Those moans, Aleksei...they make me want to just get the hell out of Dodge when I hear them. They made me completely zone out and forget who I was in here with. You're a one man wrecking crew when you want to be."
He nodded, smiling a bit in jest as he responded. "I was afraid you decided being some sort of good guy was a bad thing."
After a few seconds, I shrugged. "Maybe. I mean...the first couple of times we've run into those ghouls, someone else's ass was on the line. That school bus full of kids, or Ashley, Robert, and Bobby in the 7-11. This time, it was our butts in harm's way. If we cut and run, no one else was gonna croak, you know? More personal responsibility, less worrying about what happens to other people. I mean, I don't want to get eaten, Aleksei. I mean to live."
"So do I, Herman. We got a job to do, though, and I don't mind smashing these corpses up to get it done. I think we're overgunned enough to do it." Aleksei was grinning at the prospect, though he sobered up a few seconds later. "I mean...they are corpses, right? They ain't still alive somewhere inside, Herman, are they?"
I shook my head. "I hope not, Aleksei. I mean...they're dead, they're all messed up. Even if they are...well, we'd be doing them a favor. But I'm pretty sure they're dead. They're just not dead and gone." The thought that I may have killed dozens of barely living human beings, instead of rotting mobile corpses, began to play across my mind. But I managed to grab it before it got too ingrained in my thought process. Sooner or later, I'd deal with it...but for now, it went into the toolbox and got locked away. Rhino was right. We had a job to do.
"Alright. The job." I opened up the pocket on my suit, and pulled out the list. "Let's grab the stuff we need and bring it up here to the front. Just set it on the counter...and try to keep it out of the blood. I really don't want to track this stuff back to my kitchen, Aleksei."
"Got it. Tell you what, Herman, you read, I'll grab the stuff if you read the stuff off."
"Good call. Grab the shopping cart..."
"They won't work. All those dead bodies, I'll get stuck."
"Oh. Yeah, that's a problem...alright, just haul it all up here best you can. Rhino lumbered up the nearest aisle. Behind him, I called out what we needed from the list. "Alright, from that aisle...any first-aid kits that are there, bandages, antiseptic, medical tape." As I was reading from the paper, Aleksei called out from halfway up the corridor.
"Herman, how many of each should I get?"
"I don't...half. Get about half of what they have on the shelves." I nodded to myself. "That way, we leave some behind in case anyone else shows up..."
Huh. I just channeled Rhino's supermarket idea from the night before. Grab some for us, leave the rest for any civilians. Guess great minds think alike...stop snickering out there.
In seemingly no time, the pile on the counter was large enough that I had to start separating the items just to make more room for the continuing flows of supplies that Rhino was bringing to the front of the store. It wasn't just first-aid and medical supplies, but food, snacks, water, and toiletries, including the items that Ashley had asked me to procure for her. Now, I've been around the block a few times, and I've traded barbs with every from Spider-Man to the Avengers...but when Rhino was there staring at me as I stammered out the...personal product...that Ashley needed...I mean, I can't even write what it was, so yeah, the mighty Shocker, can't even say or type 'tampon.'
Rhino just nodded once I managed to get the word out. "Regular or super abso..."
"Just grab both!" Under my mask, I could feel my face turning red from embarrassment. I walk around with a quilt as a suit with pride, and this is all it takes for me to blush. "Oh, man," I muttered as Aleksei put the pink box on the pile. "This is just...this is too weird for me, man."
"Why? It's just a box of tampons, Herman. What, you never had a woman leave a box of them at your place before?"
"No..." I studied my friend, understanding dawning in my mind after a few seconds. "Wait...you have?" Rhino gave a half-hearted shrug, and then turned away from me. "Whoa, Aleksei...who?"
"No one important," Rhino said. "Come on, Herman, let's get the drugs from the back. We're wasting time." He strode up the aisle towards the pharmacy in the back, and I was right behind him, looking at my friend with a new light in my eyes as we picked out way through the stomped and smashed remains of the no-longer-living-dead.
"Well, I can't believe it," I joked. "I didn't...I had no idea, Aleksei, that you even seeing someone!"
"I wasn't." Rhino's voice was low, growling a bit. "Herman, I really don't..."
"Oh, no, man. Come on, we need a little levity tonight, the way things have been going. You can't keep a secret like this from me!" The two of us were in the back of the store now, right before the pharmacy. I was looking down at the list even as I continued to gently pry at my armored friend. "Just...I never saw you at the get involved with anyone type, especially involved enough to leave...feminine products...at your place!"
Rhino sighed, sounding like a steam whistle when he exhaled. "It's not...Herman, it's..." Shaking his head, he gave me a wary look. "If I told you, ain't no way you'd believe me."
One hand on the counter, I put the other over my heart, resting against my uniform. "Honest, Aleksei. I'll believe you." Lowering my glove, I know we were wasting time...but...we were friends, Aleksei and I. Friends were supposed to tell each other these things, right? Hell, I told him about the time I got really hammered after a botched bank job and ended up going home with Anaconda, and Aleksei kept nailing me that I had slept with a woman who had gills. In my defense, I hadn't noticed...anyway, turnabout, fair play, is.
With another sigh, he looked down at his feet, and mumbled his response. When I didn't respond, he said it again, and the words were out of my mouth before I could stop myself. "I don't believe you."
"I knew it!" Aleksei shook his head, and nearly ripped the door to the pharmacy off its hinges. He stomped up the three small steps, muttering for me to follow. "This is why I kept my trap shut, Herman."
"Ok, ok, I'm sorry, Aleksei," I said, following him up the stairs. He was right, though. Unless Aleksei was pulling a joke or he was just remembering a very vivid dream, there was no way in hell it could have happened with the woman in question. There wasn't enough alcohol in the world. "I just...ok, I believe you, I just don't believe...I don't believe it. She-Hulk. Jesus Christ."
"Hand to God, Herman. And I didn't believe it either." He quickly tried to change the topic of conversation. "What's on the list?"
"Insulin for Bobby." Rhino studied the wall of drugs in front of him for a second before I reminded him, "it'll be in a refrigerator, actually. We'll get that last. Right now...anti-biotics and painkillers, those should be out here somewhere." I was staring at his wide back, watching my friend's massive finger run over the bottles as he squinted to read the labels. "Penacillin and amoxacillan, Vicodin, codeine...can you find that stuff, Aleksei," I asked him after a few seconds. "Or you want me to look?"
"I got it," he said, with a hint of annoyance. I waited patiently as he picked up a bottle of pills, the medicine rattling inside as he held it up to examine the label. "Epe...epen...epena...epenara..." He leaned in close, trying to make out the words. After chewing on his lower lip for a second, he shook his head and handed the bottle over to me. "You should do this, Herman. I'll start getting the stuff ready to move. I think we can get it all in one shopping cart and roll it back."
"You sure?" Rhino nodded, and I stepped aside to let him out of the pharmacy. He lumbered to the front of Walgreen's as I studied the bottles. It took me a few minutes, but soon, I had a bag filled with various medicines, anti-biotics, painkillers, and a couple of sleeping pill bottles as well. By the time I walked back up to the front, Rhino was looking at the pile of goods we had gathered. His hands were on his hips, an intent look on his face. I set the medicine on the counter next to the pile, and stood silently for a few seconds. He didn't move, didn't make a motion to load up the medicine, but towered over our bounty.
"Herman," he finally said in a low, quiet, thoughtful voice. "We're not doing this for the exercise. We need to bring more stuff."
I looked at the pile of drug store products sitting on the wide counter. "I don't think we can carry anymore, Aleksei. Right now, we're planning to wheel everything right past them," referring to the ghouls. "Weighing ourselves down would be a bad idea. I'd rather had stuff we could move then stuff we'd have to end up dropping in case we draw a crowd out on the streets."
"I know, but...Herman, how long are we planning on staying in your warehouse? Days, right? Well, what if that turns into weeks? At the very least, we're gonna need beer, or else Fred might kill someone over a warm Budweiser."
"Aleksei," I said, "I...this should all blow over in a few weeks, right? I mean..." I stopped once I heard what I was saying. "Ah, hell. I mean, the Avengers and SHIELD should get this under control. They always do."
"Yeah, but what if this is the thing they can't, Herman? This isn't like an alien invasion, this is..." He struggled for the analogy, but I interrupted him.
"You're right...damn it...alright. Weeks...well, we're covered with the medicine, that doesn't take up space. Food...we can grab the stuff from the freezers, I guess. Water, we can grab all those cases..." I snapped my fingers. "...and a bunch of plastic containers, the big tubs, we can fill those up in case the water gets shut off. What else..."
"Tarps and buckets, in case we need to catch rain. I saw it in...I saw it in a zombie movie, the one in London with the fast runners?"
"I don't think it'll come to that, but it can't hurt...batteries," I replied. "We're gonna probably need batteries just in case. And more toiletries, because it's gonna smell pretty ripe after a few days without a shower..." My hand ran over the top of my head as I pondered the task in front of us. "No way this will work. We don't have enough carrying power, Aleksei, unless we hotwire a truck."
Aleksei gave me a quizzical shrug with his shoulders and hands. "Herman, we can just hotwire a truck. There's plenty sitting out on the streets...but...damn, what if we steal someone's truck who ends up needing it?"
"We'll find a flat panel, like a U-Haul or a Ryder." I looked out at the drug store. Aleksei was right...there was an awful lot of stuff out there we really could use back at our 'rescue station.' Even if we just took half of it, it...it would make the living situation a lot more bearable. Plus, in case it did turn into a siege mentality, it didn't hurt to have supplies on hand. "Alright, Aleksei. We'll find a truck or something. Go back and grab some of those portable gas grills and some propane if they got it." Rhino moved away as I lifted my hand to turn on my communications system. "Fred, you there? It's Herman. No, man, we're fine. Listen...you got about 15 minutes to take a quick and dirty inventory. Yeah, I don't care that you just sat down to dinner, shut up and listen..."
X
"So much for wheeling it right past them."
The ghoul on the other side of the glass snarled, the side of his face pressing against the door as its hands clawed down the surface. Next to him, what was probably once a Fifth Avenue socialite, a purse hanging from her half-eaten arm, was gently tapping the glass. The big diamond ring she wore tapped against the door, a knocking noise accompanying each motion.
"We can handle the ones by the door, Aleksei. Just take these two out, and then hang a left. I there's a car dealership a few blocks up. Hotwire one of those babies and brings it back here, we load up, and we're gone." I took a hold of the makeup display, standing to the side, ready to yank it away from the door. Just beyond the door, Rhino nodded at me, his hands at the ready. "Alright...3...2...1...now!" I pulled the case away quickly. Lipstick and nail polish dropped to the floor as I flung it behind me. Almost immediately, the heavy automatic door began to swing open as the two ghouls pushed on it. Slowly, the pair shoved their way into the Walgreen's. Their hands grasped the edge of the door as they squeezed inside. I wondered as I watched the pair force themselves through the doorway...did they have a conscious plan, like "I'm going to push this door open with the help of my colleague here and help myself to a delicious pound of flesh?" Or was it more along the lines of "oh my god food must have it," and the shoving of the door was just the reflexive removal of a barrier to that end?
Ok. I have to focus, because even though there's only two of these things here, that's no time to engage in reflection. They'll be plenty of time when our asses are back behind welded steel. Lose your focus out here, and it'll just take one to end your life.
The male ghoul was almost inside when Aleksei grabbed him. He pulled the ghoul back quickly, yanking him through the narrow opening and flinging him onto the floor by his shoulder. The ghoul landed stomach first, and hissed at Aleksei as it pushed upwards. Aleksei's response was to stomp on the back of the ghoul's head, driving it into the tile floor. And I mean that literally. The pool of blood that formed around the ghoul's head had about three inches to fill, that's how hard Aleksei had driven his foot down.
The female ghoul was my responsibility. She didn't hiss or growl, but, through the glass, she gave me a very forlorn look, almost as if she knew what had happened to her corpse, but was determined to endure with grace and dignity. If her mouth wasn't surrounded by a ring of dried blood, I would have felt pity for her. A level two directly to her forehead ended her suffering. I caught her falling body, and dragged it inside, out of sight behind the counter. "Alright, let's go, Aleksei."
Rhino stepped out first, and I followed directly behind, closing the door behind me. Aside from the practically-headless corpse and the trail of blood, the Walgreen's could have passed for any other at a glance, and that's what I was hoping for, that if a zombie wandered by, it wouldn't look at the wide open door and collection of carnage, and wonder "hey, living humans did this, I wonder if they're still here?"
Later on, when discussing this with Fred, he waved a hand and told me that I was giving the living dead too much credit, that they were just mindless, emotion-free eating machines, incapable of any sort of rational thought. I didn't think that, though. I was slowly starting to think of them more along the lines of wolves, instinctive pack hunters who would demonstrate a rudimentary ability to sniff out and pounce upon their victims.
In the end, it would turn out both of us were wrong.
The two ghouls hadn't managed to draw attention to Rhino and I when they were trying to break into the Walgreen's, but now that we were on the street, we kept as low a profile as we could. We stayed to the sidewalk, trying our best to veer away from alleyways, ducking behind the parked cars lining the street, and minimizing our times in any direct lines-of-sight. Granted, I could have played that game with a minimum of trouble, but Aleksei wasn't built for it. He did his best, though, and we managed to make it the three blocks without attractive any attention from the living dead.
That trip, though...you could tell, easily, New York was under siege. I've lived in the Big Apple my entire life, and I've been here for the big events. I've even had a low-key hand in a few of them. But this was different. I remember looking up at the sky as a kid living over in Queens and seeing an alien in blue-and-purple towering over Manhattan. I remember, a few months ago, watching the Hulk smash his way through New York City, looking to get his hands on someone to make them pay for something. And that's among a LOT of other issues and incidents. Not once, though...really, not once did I think "it's hopeless." Sure, I thought "we're screwed" or "how the hell is the planet going to get out of this one?" But...for all I knock them, guys like the Avengers and the Fantastic Four, they save the planet. A lot. And still find time to come kick the crap out of me and leave me to get arrested. You can't knock their dedication to humanity, even if it gets in the way of my attempts to live a life of easy leisure.
This time, though...from the south, heading towards the Battery, Rhino and I could make out not only the noise of automatic weapons, but also the orange glow of a large fire. A few blocks past where we were heading, a military convoy sped south through the intersection, accompanied by a NYPD cop car with flashing lights. And, every where you turned, you could catch sight of a staggering form or five, some of them moving towards the lights and sounds, others just minding their own business. When the world seemed like it was coming to an end, it always was the Avengers who stepped up and saved the day. But...this was happening all over the city, the country, the world, and not even Captain America could be everywhere at once.
Ok, Herman, you're not an Avenger, you sure ain't Captain America, so let's focus on what we NEED. Forget globally, think locally. We covered the three blocks without major incident, hunkering down behind a Ford Fusion illegally parked on the corner opposite the dealership. It was a used car place, sitting on the bottom floor of a parking garage in a brilliant use of mixed space. The floodlights were on, illuminating the lot with a harsh blue light that made it very easy to see the forms shambling among the vehicles. "Damn," I cursed. "The place is swarming with them. They probably saw the lights and were attracted like moths."
"What do we do now, Herman? Think we can take 'em?"
I stood up to get a better look at the car lot. The lenses in my suit clicked once, as the vision enhancers zoomed in. "No," I said as I saw just how densely populated and cramped the dealership was. "There's too many of them and not enough room to move around. I'd be a sitting duck trying to hotwire one of those things, even with you holding them off."
"What if I grabbed one of the cars and just dragged it out? We could get it started out in the street?"
"Not a bad idea..." My head swiveled as I looked for a truck we could use, preferably a big pick-up like Peter and Anne's, or a U-Haul type truck. "Alright, there's...no. No, it's too far in. You'd have to move a whole bunch of other cars out of the way first, and you might end up damaging the truck in the process. Damn it..."
"Come on, Herman, we can't spend too much time looking. We're letting our butts hang in the wind here." Aleksei looked around, checking our six, before leaning back over my shoulder. "I can move those cars, it wouldn't be a problem."
"You'd make too much noise, and the last thing we need is a bunch of those things seeing us and maybe following us back to the Walgreen's." My vision went back to normal as I stood up. "We'll have to find another place. Got any ideas?"
Aleksei thought for a few seconds. "Think there's a place a block or two uptown, a rental car place. They should have cars parked nearby."
"Hopefully they don't use that parking garage. Come on." We turned and started to head uptown, away from the dealership. About half a block into our journey, I slowed to a stop. "Aleksei," I said, pointing with one of my vibro-smashers, "is that the place?"
He studied where I was gesturing. "Yeah. Yeah, that is. Looks like we lucked out, Herman."
I didn't feel my friend's sense of enthusiasm. "Aleksei, who's going to leave a vehicle like that, in the middle of Manhattan, just parked in the middle of the street."
"Especially with its lights on."
"Yeah, especially with..." Pause. "Ah, damn it. I think it's abandoned." I weighed our options for a second, before motioned with my head. "Come on, let's check it out. If we're lucky..." No, this called for a different word choice. "...maybe...maybe the owner doesn't need it anymore."
"Cheerful thought, Herman."
The vehicle in question was a beautiful, all black, 2009 Hummer H2. The engine was idling as it sat outside an Avis Rental place. Its powerful headlights illuminated the storefront, which, as we approached, was revealed to possess intact glass windows and doors. What gave us reason for our cautious approach was the fact that all four doors were wide open. I couldn't see any blood as we approached or anything really out of the ordinary from where we were standing. As we carefully stepped towards the large SUV, both hands were raised, thumbs on the trigger of my vibro-smashers. From our angle, no one was visible inside the vehicle. Whoever had been driving and riding along, it looked like that had simply abandoned the vehicle. The real prize, though, was attached to the back of the vehicle – a medium sized U-Haul trailer, maybe 20 feet long, on the rear hitch. It was exactly what we had been looking for to help us get the goods from the Walgreen's. It was too perfect, too convenient. Something just wasn't right to me.
"Aleksei, what do you see?"
"An empty Hummer, Herman."
That's Rhino. Always astute.
Now, there was a chance that whoever was driving this thing was maybe holed up in a nearby building, or raiding a store or office for some supplies of their own. I wasn't about to steal someone's ride and leave them stranded, especially in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Any other time, that thing would have been in a chop shop and I'd be buying the first round at the Bar with No Name with my cut. But, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. There was practically no chance in hell of us finding an SUV with a hauling trailer like this again. "This could be a gold mine, Aleksei. We gotta at least check this out."
"I'm right with you, Herman." Whether Rhino meant he shared my thought process, or he had my back, or both, I was grateful either way. We stepped closer to the car, still not seeing anyone inside, living or dead. It wasn't until we were within twenty feet that Rhino tapped me on the shoulder, calling me to stop. "Herman, I think I stepped in something," he told me.
I had an idea what it was, the same idea I had had upon seeing the trail of blood just inside the Walgreen's. Looking down, I saw the puddle of blood that Aleksei, trailing behind me to the right, had stepped into. But...it looked a little off. I bent over, crouching a little, to look at the asphalt. It wasn't a smooth pool of blood like I had first suspected, but it wasn't from sinking into the sidewalk.
Instead, the red liquid sat on top of a pile of brass bullet casings.
"Watch my back," I said, ducking down to the ground. It turned out, I wasn't looking at a pool, but a large group of expended shots. Most of them were on the small side, probably from a pistol, but I could make out a few shells that probably came from a weapon like a submachine gun of some sort.
"There was a firefight here, Aleksei," I said, standing up and brushing my hands off on my uniform. "Someone fired off a whole lot of rounds, and they hit something."
"Yeah..." Aleksei moved out of the puddle, and scraped his foot along the around to remove the blood. "So where are the shooters? Or the dead bodies?"
"Good question. Let's check out the SUV, maybe we can find out something." We closed on the SUV, my vibro-smashers held at the ready while Aleksei flexed his fingers inside his suit. The trail of spent casings went to the rear passenger and front passenger doors of the SUV. Whoever had fired off those rounds have come out of the SUV shooting. So where the hell did they end up?
The keys were still in the ignition. They swung gently, the engine purring quietly as I stood outside the shotgun seat. Watching them sway, the driver's seat empty, no one to be seen...I had to do it. Not only was this perfect for hauling goods over a short distance through a war zone...but it was big enough that Rhino could fit into the shotgun seat without being too cramped. It'd be nice for the big guy to have a ride for once.
I slid into the passenger seat, moving across to the driver's side. "Alright, Aleksei. I'm making an executive decision." I adjusted the steering wheel for my height. "We're commandeering this vehicle for emergenAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
My sentence was cut off as two zombies lunged at me through the wide open driver's side door.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID.
I got greedy. I didn't check my peripherals...aka, my dumb ass didn't account for my surroundings. And, I admit, I screamed like a little girl when those two ghouls appeared out of nowhere and grabbed my arm. Even as their fingers clutched at my uniform, trying to pull me towards them, their mouths were wide open, already salivating at the chance to rip the flesh off the bones of some stupid human who wasn't freakin' thinking about survival, instead pondering his brand new ride.
Luckily, my uniform saved me. The contact plates under my outer layer of quilting went off, blowing their hands away before they could get a firm grip. Wide eyed, I swung my hands around, a level two already in the works as I turned in the driver's seat. One shot from each glove dropped the zombies before they could recover. Immediately my eyes were scanning the area behind them, looking for any other advancing zombies.
The good news was there weren't any more zombies moving towards me.
The bad news was it was because they were all feasting on the poor suckers from the SUV.
My eyes, wide with fear, widened further as I saw the field of carnage laid out before me. A large number of zombies were scattered across the city street. They had been blocked from our field of vision by the SUV, crouched down on the asphalt as they tore into the dead bodies. I watched as a zombie staggered away from a group, crouched lowly, his teeth digging into the Armani-clad arm. The .45 pistol fell from the arm's fingers as the zombie spat out the expensive fabric before chewing on the savory flesh, his eyes focused on nothing but his prize clutched in his hands.
Spread out before me, the undead were feasting on at least three corpses. They hissed and growled, several fighting over the choicest parts of the bodies. Two zombies pulled at a set of intestines, snarling as the tube refused to be pulled in half. About ten feet from where I was sitting, stunned by disgust, the undead had their hands in the chest cavity of a well-dressed Italian man. Poking out from the edge of the group, his unmarred face was locked in an eternal look of absolute terror. The zombies moaned slightly as they pulled out fresh organs, still warm and dripping with blood. Without any hesitation, they bit and tore into the lungs, the heart, rib bones, sucking and chewing at the flesh. They didn't make noises of joy or appreciation, but simply groaned as the smacking and chewing reached my ears. More brass casings lay scattered on the ground, covering a wide area as they glinted in the glow of the streetlights.
The most interesting thing...and I focused on this mainly to pull my attention away from the buffet...however, were the other, non-snacked-upon bodies. Near the furthest collection of feasting ghouls, several zombies lay in broken heaps. As opposed to the mass of bone and sinew that Rhino had created during his rampage at the Walgreen's, this was more...personal. Ankles had been twisted until they broke. Arms had been snapped and lay at odds angles on the ground. And in one case that I could see, a head rested backwards on its body, its neck broken in one smooth twist. Whoever had been in this SUV had apparently gone down fighting.
And still lost.
"Jesus." Aleksei was peering over my shoulder. The SUV had sunk a few inches from his added bulk, but the suspension easily held. "What happened?"
"A massacre," I said quietly, in terrified awe of the scene laid out before us.
Aleksei gently poked me in the shoulder. "Herman, we got what we came for, I say we load up and get the hell out of here." A good plan. A great plan, actually. The guys who had been driving this SUV were being eaten in front of us. They didn't need it anymore. It was ours for the taking.
I slid out the front driver's side door.
My feet hit the ground as my mind tried to process just what the hell I was doing. Rhino was doing the same thing behind me, using more vulgar terminology. The metal boots I wore clicked on the asphalt, crushing several of the spent casings, as I moved towards the nearest group of zombies. They didn't even notice me, engrossed in their meals. Gore dripped through clenched fists as they devoured the poor sap in their midst, and little droplets of blood flew through the air as they tore into the flesh, whipping their heads around to pull the skin away from the bone and gristle.
I probably could have just put a level one blast into each one of their skulls without any trouble. But when I brought up both my vibro-smashers, my thumbs were firmly holding down the trigger, charging up my weapons. A level three blast would have caught most of them in the area-of-effect, and sent them sprawling. It was powerful enough to push a car across the road, like I did the night before when engaging Hawkeye, hopefully scattering the ghouls and allow me plenty of time to deliver the necessary coup-de-graces to finish them off.
I kept holding down the trigger. When I finally fired, it was a level four blast that went off in the middle of the group.
Under pressure, I could probably recall nearly every time I ever fired off a level four blast. They crack sternums. They buckle concrete. They blow holes in bank vaults. And I feel them in my body, shaking me like a subway train rocketing past just inches from my face. My suit absorbs most of the backblast and reverberations, but I still experience the vibrations shooting up my arms, rattling my joints. I don't break them out on a whim. They're either calculated efforts, or something I throw in desperation during a bad job or tough scrap.
Or, in this case, when I've lost my damn mind.
The corpse buckled and flew into the air at the epicenter of the blast. The asphalt underneath it cracked, spiderwebs shooting out from the impact crater. The ghouls who had been feasting were blown backwards, forcibly scattered away from their prize. One, a long-haired blonde, landed directly at my feet, its eyes glazed over as it looked up at me. Before it could focus and realized that I was another meal, I fired a level two into its forehead, putting it down for good, before studied the rest of my targets. Three zombies still twitched, trying to get to their feet in order to devour this new threat, but the rest of the group were motionless, their bodies unmoving on the ground. At close range, my blasts can sometimes cause enough overpressure to give someone a solid concussion. And in the case of the undead, that was enough head trauma to put them down for good.
I finished off the still-moving ghouls with level twos to their forehead. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rhino coming from the front of the SUV. It sounded like he was speaking through cotton when I heard him ask me "what the hell are you doing, Herman?"
My response was to step away from him, towards the next group. Some of them were rising to their feet, forgoing their current meal for something a little fresher. Even as I walked, I was charging up another level four blast, both vibro-smashers whining as I held down the trigger. The blast rippled through the air and slammed into the middle of the pack, knocking the ones who had stood up off balance. Some of them fell to the ground, never to move again, and a level two to those who were moving finished the job.
Rhino had his hands out, looking at me in angry confusion. I knew he was yelling at me, but I didn't care. The third group was the biggest, with zombies pushing in, hands reaching and grabbing. Probably chowing down on multiple corpses. This time around, I fired off two level four blasts in a row. Several zombies were caught in mid-air by the second blast, looking like objects in some twister juggler's show as they twisted above the street. As my attacks parted the crowd, I could make out two corpses, intertwined with each other, their clothes shredded and torn from tooth and claw.
They were the last zombies who had taken part in the massacre that was spread around this part of the block. My gloves were aiming almost of their own accord, my hands moving and firing at any zombie that was still showing signs of unlife. The sounds of the blasts were dulled in my ears, the vibrations going up my arms ignored as my quilted suit of armor absorbed the energy from my attacks. They never stood a chance. Not one ghoul endangered me as I finished them off from short-range. Maybe the explosions stunned them or scrambled their brains from the overpressure, but in any case, for this moment, they were all paying the price for the murder they had committed here this evening.
Soon, it was down to one. It didn't even get to its feet, but the balding ghoul in a dark blue flannel shirt crawled on the ground towards me on bloody legs. I stepped forward to meet it, passing by its fallen comrades. At seven feet away, I halted, and raised both vibro-smashers, aiming for its skull. It didn't moan or make any noise, simply reached for my ankle with one hand as it pulled itself along with the other. I held down the trigger...
...nothing.
It kept crawling for me as I pushed the trigger again. The button had locked, refusing to let me fire my weapons. It took me a split second to realize what happened, and a glance at the gauge on the side of one of my gloves confirmed that fact. I was out of juice. My gloves had run dry during my little rampage, and the gloves refused to fire without any energy. Still, a third time, I jammed my thumbs down on the buttons, even as I knew they'd refuse to budge.
I felt a hand try to grab my ankle. Looking down, I saw the zombie trying to pull himself closer to my legs, mouth open wide. I stepped back, away from his swiping fingers. Again, my gloves clicked on "empty" as I tried to fire, the noise sounding like a gunshot to my ears. Aside from the click, now I could hear my breathing, starting to quicken in my chest. A little drop of sweat formed on my forehead, running between my skin and my mask as the bald zombie pushed with his ruined legs, still mov...
His head disappeared as a large grey foot smashed down on top of his bald spot. With a twist for good measure, the foot lifted back up, revealing what looked like a Cherry Oreo snowcone, with the crater as the cup.
I looked up...up...up...into the angry eyes of the Rhino. "Ok, Herman. You better screw your head on straight..."
"Yeah, yeah," I said, waving a hand at the dead zombie at our feet. "Come on, let's..."
Massive fingers grabbed my chin, ignoring the firing of the contact plates. Rhino held my head in place, his eyes narrow as he spoke again, just inches away from my face. "I mean it, Herman," Aleksei's voice rumbled, like rocks rolling down a hillside. "You're not just playing with your life, you're playing with mine." This close, he didn't have to yell. He didn't have to raise his voice. He just had to be the Rhino, seven feet of unstoppable force. His eyes locked directly on mine, his face compressed in anger, jaw firm. I've seen Rhino mad before...but never this close, and never this personal. "Now," he growled, "are we straight?"
I had never felt so small in my life as I nodded. "Yeah...yeah, Aleksei. We're straight." I broke his gaze, and he let go of my chin, taking a step backwards to give me room. Having a walking tank in your face tends to force you to deal with reality, and I slowly took stock of what happened, running a hand over the top of my uniform. All around us were motionless bodies of the twice-dead. There were three distinct clumps, all around the half-eaten bodies, with the zombies lying around the corpses in circles. The only sound I could make out was the purring engine of the Hummer and the occasional sounds of violence reaching us through the concrete canyons of the Big Apple.
"Whoa," I said, half to myself. "Did I do this?"
"Yeah, Herman," Rhino said. "Mind telling me what the hell you were thinking?"
"I...er..." After a few seconds, all I could do was shrug at my friend. "I don't know. I really don't. I...I saw red, man. I..." Sighing, I nodded to the Hummer behind Rhino. "Look, let's not stand around and talk about this. Let's get this truck back to the drug store and just get the hell home, ok?"
Rhino agreed. "Alright, Herman. But we are gonna talk about this, because you've been really stupid in the past..." The words trailed off. Rhino's jaw, as I watched, slackened slightly. He looked over my shoulder, and the anger from his voice was gone, replaced by a sense of resignation mixed with disbelief.
"Aw, crap."
That got me to turn around. On the far side of the biggest pile of zombies that I had dispatched, one form was getting to its feet. It was a large human-shaped being, bigger then a normal person. One arm was missing, just below the shoulder, and its neck and torso were a mess of bites and claw marks. It stood straight, its good arm sticking out from the cuff of a three-piece suit that probably cost more than I could steal in a week.
It was the face that had my attention. A close-cropped, flattop haircut and sharp, pointed teeth. And pale white skin. Now, maybe half the ghouls on Manhattan had pale white skin as the blood was drawn away from the outer layer of skin. But the figure in front of us...its pale white skin had always been its calling card, even when he had been alive. Any criminal worth his salt would recognize the figure in front of us. I had even done a few jobs for him in my lifetime. And as a zombie, missing an arm, he still cut a striking, imposing figure.
"Tombstone," I breathed, just as he started walking towards us.
The gangster, who had once held a large amount of the New York underworld in his pocket, stalked towards us on massive legs. His teeth were bared at us, and he had very little of the slow, shuffling gait we had seen the past few days. It made sense to me now. Tombstone and some of his thugs had been out on an excursion, maybe trying to leave the city, or picking up a stash somewhere, when they got jumped by a large group of ghouls. His bodyguards had gone down fighting, and so had Tombstone, going hand-to-hand at the very end before being brought down.
But...much like the Wrecker, Tombstone had strength and stamina above any of his thugs. Even I was wary to ever throw down one-on-one with the gangster. So how the hell did a bunch of zombies bring him down?
I didn't have time to dwell on it, though, as Rhino stepped forward. "Stay behind me, Herman, I got this one." He clenched his fists, setting his feet as Tombstone, a low snarl forming in his throat, stalked towards him, the biggest and closest target for the gangster. I looked down at my gauntlets, which were just now starting to recharge. Hopefully, Rhino could handle a zombiefied Tombstone, but I stepped to the side, giving myself a field of fire, just in ca...
Tombstone suddenly stopped, about ten feet from Rhino. His body went ramrod straight, and his white eyes opened wide. His body shook slightly, twitching as we looked on in confusion. "What the..." escaped Rhino's mouth as three small red dots appeared on the gangster's forehead, blooming slowly into wounds. The still-fresh blood in his body was a sharp contrast to his marble skin. The right dot began to drip down the side of his face, running in a straight rivet on his cheek.
After what sounded like a tearing sound, Tombstone's body dropped to the ground, collapsing in a heap amidst the other dead ghouls. Behind him, barely coming up to the gangster's shoulderblades, the scruffy figure in question smirked at the two of us around the stub of a lit cigar. With a screeching metallic sound, the blades he used to damage Tombstone's brain slid back into their holders.
"Well, look at this. The Shocker and Rhino playin' exterminator." The figure glared at me, apparently not too amused or pleased at our presence. "Care to explain what the two of you are doing out on the flamin' streets without a babysitter, bub?"