Just
a Man in a Superhero Land.
By Jim King
It was overcast, both clouds and the smoke from fires blocking the late afternoon light and turning it into twilight. The air stank of fire and burning. Every so often ash would fall from the skies, the sound of gunfire and battle drifted across the city from several directions. What few firemen we had left didn’t have enough engines and the water was out in a lot of places, I think they were trying to keep the two hospitals safe and that was it now, not that they could deal with this lot, not till London got us a lot more help.
Rubbish, wreckage and abandoned cars littered the streets and made driving difficult so most traffic was by bike or cycle or on foot. People walked or more often ran from one place of imagined safety to another. Alert for snipers or random death.
Fire or lightning or shrapnel or the remains of a shattered building or a falling car. The ways you could die were many and varied but death, that was certain.
A vast tide of refugees had tried to flee, on the first day it was just a few, by the middle of Wednesday we had a torrent of people trying to leave. That had caused complete gridlock and combined with the rapid destruction of the transport network caused by the fighting had resulting in hundreds of thousands being trapped in the streets with no shelter and no protection.
Many had then decided to go home where they at least had some shelter and familiar surroundings, others had broken into strangers’ houses or found shelter where they could. Food and water had become vital and by Thursday just about every shop or supermarket had been emptied.
Attempts to bring in food and water from outside the city were ongoing but since the roads were mostly blocked and any convoy with supplies came under attack it was slow going.
The army had apparently gotten moving at last. According to the morning briefing at the nick they had pushed across the motorway and set up supply and refugee camps outside the ring road. Of course getting to them was hardly easy and them getting supplies into the city would be far more difficult. In fact given what news and orders we heard coming out of London the state of emergency was more about containing the infected rather than helping them.
Infected, that was what the official reports called them, well us really as I’m trapped in here along with the madness and the mutants or whatever the hell they are. Infected, that’s not what we call them, we call them a lot of things but mostly we call them supers. Like something out of a kid’s comic but no comic I ever heard of was this apocalyptic.
It was, what, Tuesday morning when it happened, today’s Friday so three days ago plus a few hours. Three whole days since the event, three days to destroy the city and kill thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. No way to know how many fled, how many are hiding and how many are under the rubble. Few enough on the streets, just the desperate, the suicidal, the violent, oh and a few like me trying to keep control and protect people.
#
Tuesday morning. It was the shouting that woke me, and the screaming, then the building fire alarm going off. Most of the people in the building had gone mad, shouting and screaming and making noise.
I was out of bed and had my boots on with my home security in hand before I was even awake, home security being the length of iron pipe that I keep planning on putting away, honest officer. I was half way to the door responding to the screams when I started to think and realised I was starkers. Well apart from my Doc Martins, but otherwise a bit chilly.
By the time I had pulled on some clothes things had gotten bit quieter but I took my pipe along with me when I went to check the neighbours. It was crazy, everyone was, different. Some physically, others even stranger changes.
The old woman from upstairs was green, her skin, her hair, bright green. Her cat was having a fit hissing and spitting at her, she didn’t know what was happening, the couple across the corridor were making a lot of noise or at least the boyfriend was. The girl had changed, her fingers and toes were about three times as long and her neck was weird, it had split into a bunch of frilly openings and she was gasping to breath.
Trust me I was as freaked out as everyone else but sixteen years in the forces teaches you to think and act no matter how freaked out you may be. Her neck, the webbing between her long fingers and toes. Like she had turned into some sort of fish person. We filled the bath to the top and put her in, talk about unbelievable, she was underwater, breathing and all, her gill things moving in and out.
Everyone else was changed as well, apart from me, well I had no physical changes and I didn’t feel like I could do anything new. At least I wasn’t hearing peoples thoughts like the old fella from the ground floor back apartment. He just kept screaming at everyone to stop shouting at him. We locked him in his room and walked away which seemed to calm him down a bit.
I tried to call in, get an ambulance or car round to help but all I got were busy lines or the answer phone message, your call is important, yeah right. Then my mobile went off, it was the station calling everyone in, the whole city had gone crazy and it was all hands on. I left everyone alive and more or less happy and went to find the bus down to the town centre and the station.
No buses running of course, a few cars racing around at above the speed limit. Some people in the streets, some wandering as if confused. Others were running. Then I saw a pair of people flying overhead, yep flying. One doing a superman and the other with black feathered wings winds coming out of her shoulders. Both doing one fifty, maybe more. But a fair clip either way.
For that first day it was chaos, people were struggling to understand what was going on and we were trying to keep order. A lot of people needed help. Some people had changed so much they could no longer live in our atmosphere. We had several colonies of mermaids and mermen in swimming pools. Even one child who was in a total isolation unit breathing methane.
As the day passed it became clearer what was going on, why, now that was another story altogether. But we had a bunch of scientists and more flying in all day, by plane or helicopter not with wings. We were the only place it had happened, whatever it was.
About 90% of the population had, changed, somehow. One in ten seemed to be immune or not affected. Me being that one in ten with no powers. One in ten seemed to have really powerful individual powers or multiple more moderate abilities. The rest were a spread, most with a single power or a couple of weaker ones. Some could use a weak power all day, others for a few minutes before they needed to rest.
Some powers seemed to suit the person, we had a doctor who could accelerate the regenerative ability of a human body, he had spent his whole life trying to heal everyone and now he could. One young lad was bullied at school and beaten at home, now he was made of some sort of living steel that a tank shell would bounce off. Some who wanted freedom could fly, others swim. At the lowest end I met one bloke who could boil a pint of water then needed an hour of rest. At the top end we had fast, strong, flying, x-ray vision, walks through walls and a hundred more besides.
The science types said they were going to catalogue and quantify everyone’s abilities and power levels, they would have some answers in a month or so. In the mean time we were all trying to cope.
It was the chaos that hid what was happening at first, half the force didn’t turn up for work, they were off trying to understand some new super power or other. The rest of us along with the ambulance teams that were left and a steady stream of help coming in from outside the city were constantly going to one emergency or another.
I was trying to deal with some teenage tearaway who was running wild, by running I mean about eighty miles an hour running and all over the town centre. While trying to keep up I went past the branch of the RBS and noticed in passing that it had been trashed, windows smashed in and such. I didn’t remember any reports or an alarm call but half the alarms in the city were going off so I wasn’t surprised it had been missed.
It was into the evening and I was frankly knackered so I took a break for some food and spoke to some of the other guys, most of them were from out of town, bought in as reinforcements and they didn’t know the place but they had been noticing things as well. Places that looked like the aftermath of a riot but no sign of any people, the fire brigade were racing around putting out a lot of fires, many of which had no clear cause. Dead bodies as well. Looting, disorder and chaos and we simply weren’t seeing it happen, just finding the remains.
After about twenty hours I crashed, I couldn’t get home so I slept on one of the couches in reception. We were hot bunking them so everyone got a few hours nap.
About dawn I was grabbing a mug of seriously strong police coffee when I caught a message about a battle over by the stadium. It was confused but it was clearly several people fighting and according to eye witnesses one of them was throwing lightning from his hands.
I went out on that shout but my car was diverted mid way by reports of a burning figure that was attacking the fire men who were trying to put out a building on fire. By the time I got there the fire engine was a burning wreck, several of the firemen were hurt despite their fire jackets and the burning figure was long gone.
That was when I took a good look around and noticed just how many of these supers were wearing costumes of some sort. It looked like every costume shop in the city had been raided, the rest were in makeshift stuff. One woman even flying around with what looked like a brightly patterned curtain as a cloak.
Plus the more powerful supers seemed to be grouping up and acting oddly, some were acting as if they were setting up their territory, others seem to be patrolling. Things were getting even stranger and we were getting more and more reports of fighting.
By mid day it was a lot clearer, the more powerful supers had split into what seem like three groups. The two largest groups were acting like heroes and villains, defending, robbing and fighting each other. The third and smallest group were doing all sorts of weird stuff like the burning figure who was just setting buildings on fire.
The city had become a war zone like something out of a comic or a Sci-Fi movie.
#
Communicating was getting worse, some parts of the city still had working cell towers so mobiles worked, other parts had a radio repeater that still survived so the police radios could be used. Some areas were completely cut off, those were often the most dangerous since the more damaged areas were where most of the supers were to be found.
Still it’s not like there were enough us to provide backup but we had enough organisation to keep going. A lot of volunteers to help out plus all the out of city help. They started coming in Wednesday, they were pouring in yesterday. Odd but I don’t remember seeing any new faces this morning at the briefing, maybe they were briefed somewhere else, let’s face it anyone arriving new to all of this would need one hell of a briefing.
So anyway we had some four by fours, trucks and heavy equipment like JCBs along with people that could drive them. Fuel wasn’t a problem, no one was looting it with no vehicles and it’s strange but ask a dozen coppers how to jack a petrol station and two of them will know. On account of having investigated said crimes, obviously.
Our food and water was more of a concern, what with all the extra mouths to feed but we had been one of the contact points so what supplies made it in came to us to be distributed.
As I patrolled I checked any houses that looked occupied, just to make sure people were OK. A lot of houses round here had people living in them not the owners, but the owners were probably living in some other empty house for shelter. Hell maybe they were squatting each other’s houses, things were that strange.
“FREEZE. HANDS IN THE AIR!”
I froze, the shout had come from off to one side. I glanced that way and saw a pair of figures rise from behind a wrecked car. Squadies. Hey the army has arrived, we’re saved. I turned towards them then stopped when both raised their rifles and took aim.
“Whoa guys, easy with the rifles. I’m police. Foot patrol.”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Prove it.”
Ruddy hell, these two were armed, dangerous and wet behind the ears. If they didn’t shoot me I was going to find their Sergeant and have words.
“You young gentlemen see the uniform, do you see the hat, the badges. Police”
The older of the two, by maybe a whole two years, lowered his rifle and the other followed. “Sorry, don’t know what is going on here, you could have been one of them infected.”
I laughed. “Do I look like a super, you see me flying or any such?”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Look, we’re sorry but we don’t know what an infec.... A super looks like, we were told to keep our eyes open.
Even worse, what bloody idiot sent these puppies in here armed and didn’t bother telling them what was going on. “You two got an officer around here somewhere?”
It turned out they did and they led me to meet him. Two army trucks, an army land rover and some sort of eight wheeled troop carrier with a light turret. Plus a dozen squadies and one fresh lieutenant standing next to a field radio shouting into the headset.
“Afternoon, nice to see the army at last.”
Everyone looked my way. The officer spoke first to do that whole take control of the situation thing they still teach. “Who would you be and what are you doing here, this area is under military jurisdiction.”
I stomped to attention and saluted just to prove I was more of a soldier than he was, proper parade ground stomp and all. “Special Constable Cullen Sir. Duty patrol constable for this area. Wasn’t told the military were taking over sir.”
He looked me up and down, dusty and dirty, a uniform that had been slept in three times now. The sneer was obvious. “Aren’t you a little old to be a Constable, you look like one of those refugees in the camps.”
“Part time job to eek out the pension sir, you know how things are, hard to make ends meet on a sixteen year NCO’s pension.” From the Para’s as it happens so I wasn’t going to take any crap from a squeaky new light infantry flower.
Before we could exchange any more in the way of comments the radio burst into life, he had other pairs of squadies posted and one lot had just seen five people in bizarre costumes break into the building society at the other end of this road. Were they infected, the flow... erm officer wanted to know. Seems likely given that one of them tore the security bars out of the wall and then smashed a hole in the wall with his bare hands.
The officer called to his men and set off at a run, everyone apart from the vehicle drivers followed and I decided to jog after them. No idea why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
On foot we made good time, just a few minutes to reach the pair on guard opposite the building society. This was not a good spot for a fire fight, the hotel next to us was full, the staff had stayed put and we had sent a lot of refugees here and put them in the empty rooms. Maybe thirty families and another twenty or so singles plus the staff.
“Lieutenant we need to move, this hotel is full of people.”
He didn’t get a chance to reply, a brightly dressed figure stepped out of the wreckage that was the front of the building society and came face to face with the soldiers. The man, Caucasian, mid forties, balding, bad dress sense, was startled then raised both his arms and suddenly some sort of blue glow flared to life around his hands.
Several of the soldiers didn’t bother with that whole halt and surrender stuff, they just opened fire and multiple hits threw the corpse backwards with bright red added to the blues, greens and yellows that he was wearing.
There was a sudden pause then something like a flamethrower fired from inside the building. Three of the squadies went up like torches, ammo cooking off in the few seconds that they danced before they collapsed into ash and shattered bones.
Jesus. No one deserves to go that way. The other soldiers dropped into cover and opened fire into the building. The fire man came into sight, a human shaped ball of fire, anything fired at him had no effect and he breathed flame that killed two more squadies.
No way I could do anything here, breathing fire, not unless there was one hell of a fire extinguisher round here somewhere.
Then another figure came out of the building and I saw bullets bounce off this one, he was crudely humanoid and looked like he was made of stone. Hiding behind him came another man and a woman, well girl really. Both hiding behind his stone like bulk. The girl peered round her stone guard and another soldier died, not a mark on him, stone dead.
I ran for it, ducking behind the closest cars to keep out of sight.
The firing stopped and I paused behind the nearest car and took a careful look back at the scene of the fight. The four supers were walking across the wreckage strewn street, no sign of any of the soldiers.
Then lighting flashed down from the sky striking the stone one and the man behind him. The stone was undamaged but the man was cooked alive, his dead body thrown a good ten feet to lie twitching in the rubble.
The other three all turned to face off against four new arrivals, two flying and two on the ground. They immediately attacked the new group and the street was torn apart by strange energies and a stone man throwing wrecked cars at the flying pair.
The girl did her thing and one of the flying supers just dropped dead and fell to earth, the other flyer ducked behind the closest roof. One of the men on the ground shouted something, it was a wordless sound and every window still with glass in it shattered, The stone man stopped then shuddered as deep cracks appeared all over his body, then he seemed to come apart.
The flaming man and death girl turned and ran into the closest building for cover. The bloody hotel. They ran into the hotel!
Both ground supers went after them and the flying one reappeared and flew into one of the third floor windows. A great gout of flame erupted out of half the ground floor windows and screams began. There was a flare of electric blue white light from somewhere inside then more screaming, half the ground floor was now in flames and the fire was licking at the next floors windows in seconds.
More shouting and crashing then something smashed most of the top floor and the roof sagged and collapsed. More lighting on the first floor, children screaming and a burst of fire that engulf the second and third floors in fire. An explosion, the whole building was collapsing. Every window was full of flames, the screams were fainter and deep inside, trapped, helpless, hopeless. Part of the hotel collapsed into burning rubble, even the bricks seemed to be burning.
The flying super burst out of an upper floor window just as the rest of the building collapsed. I ducked, the heat crinkled my hair even at this distance and I couldn’t look at the flames.
A few seconds, a few minutes, I don’t know which. I peered over the car again. The screaming had stopped, the hotel was a vast pile of burning rubble spread across half the street and the buildings either side were in flames.
Nothing was moving.
I stood up and slowly walked toward the flames. I don’t know why, I just walked. I’ve been in firefights, seen men die and never been like this, I was cold, stone cold, moving like a machine.
Movement, in the dust and rubble. A figure, trying to sit up. The flying super, still alive. As I walked closer I could see that his left leg was broken, the knee bent at an angle it wasn’t supposed to reach. He was crying in pain and didn’t see me.
Just before I reached him I stopped by the squadie that had been killed by death girl. He had died so fast he hadn’t gotten off a shot; I picked up his assault rifle and checked the magazine was full. I slowly and methodically took three more full mags from his webbing and slid them into the pockets of my high viz police jacket. The bodies of the other soldiers were all burned or smashed, only this one had intact equipment.
Then I walked the last few steps to the downed super.
The sound of me pulling back the locking handle was loud, that loud and unmistakable clack easily heard over the sound of the flames.
The man at my feet looked up, startled, his eyes wide, shockingly white against the black mask that covered his upper face. He tried to drag himself away from me but he was too badly hurt, one broken leg from that last fall and by the look of it his right arm was dislocated or badly sprained and not working.
I lifted the barrel of the assault rifle, settling my point of aim in the middle of his face, that silly looking black mask smeared with dust and ash. He lifted his one good arm, his hand palm out towards me as if his hand could stop bullets.
“No” he said, “You can’t shoot me.”
I looked down at him, my voice as cold as it had been those long years ago in the jungle when I looked into the face of the boy that had just thrown a grenade at my best friend and blown both his legs off. “That building was full of people you sack of shit.”
“No, they were just in the way. We had to stop the villains; they would have got away if we hadn’t gone in after them.”
My knuckles must have been white, so hard was my grip on my rifle. “How many people did you kill?”
“Please, PLEASE. I’m a Superhero, you can’t kill me.”
“I’m a copper, yes I bloody can.”
Full auto is just like a buzz, a loud buzz, bucking and fighting against my grip. A loud buzz and then a clack as I shot the magazine dry. The black mask was gone and so was most of the head behind it.
I looked down at the corpse. Supers, that’s what everyone called them apart from the official reports, but maybe the reports were right. Infected, they were infected alright. They were all mad, like dogs, mad dogs. What did you do to a rabid dog?
I swapped out the empty magazine for full one, two full magazines in my pockets and one loaded. I would need to be more careful, there were hundreds of these supers around, I had to make my ammo go a long way if I was going to get them all.
The sound of fighting came from several streets away, the crash of a building being destroyed, shouts and some sort of weapons fire. With the rifle at the ready I started jogging towards the sound, eyes alert for movement or any sign of an ambush.
Another day bringing law and order to the streets of this city.
By Jim King
It was overcast, both clouds and the smoke from fires blocking the late afternoon light and turning it into twilight. The air stank of fire and burning. Every so often ash would fall from the skies, the sound of gunfire and battle drifted across the city from several directions. What few firemen we had left didn’t have enough engines and the water was out in a lot of places, I think they were trying to keep the two hospitals safe and that was it now, not that they could deal with this lot, not till London got us a lot more help.
Rubbish, wreckage and abandoned cars littered the streets and made driving difficult so most traffic was by bike or cycle or on foot. People walked or more often ran from one place of imagined safety to another. Alert for snipers or random death.
Fire or lightning or shrapnel or the remains of a shattered building or a falling car. The ways you could die were many and varied but death, that was certain.
A vast tide of refugees had tried to flee, on the first day it was just a few, by the middle of Wednesday we had a torrent of people trying to leave. That had caused complete gridlock and combined with the rapid destruction of the transport network caused by the fighting had resulting in hundreds of thousands being trapped in the streets with no shelter and no protection.
Many had then decided to go home where they at least had some shelter and familiar surroundings, others had broken into strangers’ houses or found shelter where they could. Food and water had become vital and by Thursday just about every shop or supermarket had been emptied.
Attempts to bring in food and water from outside the city were ongoing but since the roads were mostly blocked and any convoy with supplies came under attack it was slow going.
The army had apparently gotten moving at last. According to the morning briefing at the nick they had pushed across the motorway and set up supply and refugee camps outside the ring road. Of course getting to them was hardly easy and them getting supplies into the city would be far more difficult. In fact given what news and orders we heard coming out of London the state of emergency was more about containing the infected rather than helping them.
Infected, that was what the official reports called them, well us really as I’m trapped in here along with the madness and the mutants or whatever the hell they are. Infected, that’s not what we call them, we call them a lot of things but mostly we call them supers. Like something out of a kid’s comic but no comic I ever heard of was this apocalyptic.
It was, what, Tuesday morning when it happened, today’s Friday so three days ago plus a few hours. Three whole days since the event, three days to destroy the city and kill thousands, tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands. No way to know how many fled, how many are hiding and how many are under the rubble. Few enough on the streets, just the desperate, the suicidal, the violent, oh and a few like me trying to keep control and protect people.
#
Tuesday morning. It was the shouting that woke me, and the screaming, then the building fire alarm going off. Most of the people in the building had gone mad, shouting and screaming and making noise.
I was out of bed and had my boots on with my home security in hand before I was even awake, home security being the length of iron pipe that I keep planning on putting away, honest officer. I was half way to the door responding to the screams when I started to think and realised I was starkers. Well apart from my Doc Martins, but otherwise a bit chilly.
By the time I had pulled on some clothes things had gotten bit quieter but I took my pipe along with me when I went to check the neighbours. It was crazy, everyone was, different. Some physically, others even stranger changes.
The old woman from upstairs was green, her skin, her hair, bright green. Her cat was having a fit hissing and spitting at her, she didn’t know what was happening, the couple across the corridor were making a lot of noise or at least the boyfriend was. The girl had changed, her fingers and toes were about three times as long and her neck was weird, it had split into a bunch of frilly openings and she was gasping to breath.
Trust me I was as freaked out as everyone else but sixteen years in the forces teaches you to think and act no matter how freaked out you may be. Her neck, the webbing between her long fingers and toes. Like she had turned into some sort of fish person. We filled the bath to the top and put her in, talk about unbelievable, she was underwater, breathing and all, her gill things moving in and out.
Everyone else was changed as well, apart from me, well I had no physical changes and I didn’t feel like I could do anything new. At least I wasn’t hearing peoples thoughts like the old fella from the ground floor back apartment. He just kept screaming at everyone to stop shouting at him. We locked him in his room and walked away which seemed to calm him down a bit.
I tried to call in, get an ambulance or car round to help but all I got were busy lines or the answer phone message, your call is important, yeah right. Then my mobile went off, it was the station calling everyone in, the whole city had gone crazy and it was all hands on. I left everyone alive and more or less happy and went to find the bus down to the town centre and the station.
No buses running of course, a few cars racing around at above the speed limit. Some people in the streets, some wandering as if confused. Others were running. Then I saw a pair of people flying overhead, yep flying. One doing a superman and the other with black feathered wings winds coming out of her shoulders. Both doing one fifty, maybe more. But a fair clip either way.
For that first day it was chaos, people were struggling to understand what was going on and we were trying to keep order. A lot of people needed help. Some people had changed so much they could no longer live in our atmosphere. We had several colonies of mermaids and mermen in swimming pools. Even one child who was in a total isolation unit breathing methane.
As the day passed it became clearer what was going on, why, now that was another story altogether. But we had a bunch of scientists and more flying in all day, by plane or helicopter not with wings. We were the only place it had happened, whatever it was.
About 90% of the population had, changed, somehow. One in ten seemed to be immune or not affected. Me being that one in ten with no powers. One in ten seemed to have really powerful individual powers or multiple more moderate abilities. The rest were a spread, most with a single power or a couple of weaker ones. Some could use a weak power all day, others for a few minutes before they needed to rest.
Some powers seemed to suit the person, we had a doctor who could accelerate the regenerative ability of a human body, he had spent his whole life trying to heal everyone and now he could. One young lad was bullied at school and beaten at home, now he was made of some sort of living steel that a tank shell would bounce off. Some who wanted freedom could fly, others swim. At the lowest end I met one bloke who could boil a pint of water then needed an hour of rest. At the top end we had fast, strong, flying, x-ray vision, walks through walls and a hundred more besides.
The science types said they were going to catalogue and quantify everyone’s abilities and power levels, they would have some answers in a month or so. In the mean time we were all trying to cope.
It was the chaos that hid what was happening at first, half the force didn’t turn up for work, they were off trying to understand some new super power or other. The rest of us along with the ambulance teams that were left and a steady stream of help coming in from outside the city were constantly going to one emergency or another.
I was trying to deal with some teenage tearaway who was running wild, by running I mean about eighty miles an hour running and all over the town centre. While trying to keep up I went past the branch of the RBS and noticed in passing that it had been trashed, windows smashed in and such. I didn’t remember any reports or an alarm call but half the alarms in the city were going off so I wasn’t surprised it had been missed.
It was into the evening and I was frankly knackered so I took a break for some food and spoke to some of the other guys, most of them were from out of town, bought in as reinforcements and they didn’t know the place but they had been noticing things as well. Places that looked like the aftermath of a riot but no sign of any people, the fire brigade were racing around putting out a lot of fires, many of which had no clear cause. Dead bodies as well. Looting, disorder and chaos and we simply weren’t seeing it happen, just finding the remains.
After about twenty hours I crashed, I couldn’t get home so I slept on one of the couches in reception. We were hot bunking them so everyone got a few hours nap.
About dawn I was grabbing a mug of seriously strong police coffee when I caught a message about a battle over by the stadium. It was confused but it was clearly several people fighting and according to eye witnesses one of them was throwing lightning from his hands.
I went out on that shout but my car was diverted mid way by reports of a burning figure that was attacking the fire men who were trying to put out a building on fire. By the time I got there the fire engine was a burning wreck, several of the firemen were hurt despite their fire jackets and the burning figure was long gone.
That was when I took a good look around and noticed just how many of these supers were wearing costumes of some sort. It looked like every costume shop in the city had been raided, the rest were in makeshift stuff. One woman even flying around with what looked like a brightly patterned curtain as a cloak.
Plus the more powerful supers seemed to be grouping up and acting oddly, some were acting as if they were setting up their territory, others seem to be patrolling. Things were getting even stranger and we were getting more and more reports of fighting.
By mid day it was a lot clearer, the more powerful supers had split into what seem like three groups. The two largest groups were acting like heroes and villains, defending, robbing and fighting each other. The third and smallest group were doing all sorts of weird stuff like the burning figure who was just setting buildings on fire.
The city had become a war zone like something out of a comic or a Sci-Fi movie.
#
Communicating was getting worse, some parts of the city still had working cell towers so mobiles worked, other parts had a radio repeater that still survived so the police radios could be used. Some areas were completely cut off, those were often the most dangerous since the more damaged areas were where most of the supers were to be found.
Still it’s not like there were enough us to provide backup but we had enough organisation to keep going. A lot of volunteers to help out plus all the out of city help. They started coming in Wednesday, they were pouring in yesterday. Odd but I don’t remember seeing any new faces this morning at the briefing, maybe they were briefed somewhere else, let’s face it anyone arriving new to all of this would need one hell of a briefing.
So anyway we had some four by fours, trucks and heavy equipment like JCBs along with people that could drive them. Fuel wasn’t a problem, no one was looting it with no vehicles and it’s strange but ask a dozen coppers how to jack a petrol station and two of them will know. On account of having investigated said crimes, obviously.
Our food and water was more of a concern, what with all the extra mouths to feed but we had been one of the contact points so what supplies made it in came to us to be distributed.
As I patrolled I checked any houses that looked occupied, just to make sure people were OK. A lot of houses round here had people living in them not the owners, but the owners were probably living in some other empty house for shelter. Hell maybe they were squatting each other’s houses, things were that strange.
“FREEZE. HANDS IN THE AIR!”
I froze, the shout had come from off to one side. I glanced that way and saw a pair of figures rise from behind a wrecked car. Squadies. Hey the army has arrived, we’re saved. I turned towards them then stopped when both raised their rifles and took aim.
“Whoa guys, easy with the rifles. I’m police. Foot patrol.”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Prove it.”
Ruddy hell, these two were armed, dangerous and wet behind the ears. If they didn’t shoot me I was going to find their Sergeant and have words.
“You young gentlemen see the uniform, do you see the hat, the badges. Police”
The older of the two, by maybe a whole two years, lowered his rifle and the other followed. “Sorry, don’t know what is going on here, you could have been one of them infected.”
I laughed. “Do I look like a super, you see me flying or any such?”
They glanced at each other then back to me. “Look, we’re sorry but we don’t know what an infec.... A super looks like, we were told to keep our eyes open.
Even worse, what bloody idiot sent these puppies in here armed and didn’t bother telling them what was going on. “You two got an officer around here somewhere?”
It turned out they did and they led me to meet him. Two army trucks, an army land rover and some sort of eight wheeled troop carrier with a light turret. Plus a dozen squadies and one fresh lieutenant standing next to a field radio shouting into the headset.
“Afternoon, nice to see the army at last.”
Everyone looked my way. The officer spoke first to do that whole take control of the situation thing they still teach. “Who would you be and what are you doing here, this area is under military jurisdiction.”
I stomped to attention and saluted just to prove I was more of a soldier than he was, proper parade ground stomp and all. “Special Constable Cullen Sir. Duty patrol constable for this area. Wasn’t told the military were taking over sir.”
He looked me up and down, dusty and dirty, a uniform that had been slept in three times now. The sneer was obvious. “Aren’t you a little old to be a Constable, you look like one of those refugees in the camps.”
“Part time job to eek out the pension sir, you know how things are, hard to make ends meet on a sixteen year NCO’s pension.” From the Para’s as it happens so I wasn’t going to take any crap from a squeaky new light infantry flower.
Before we could exchange any more in the way of comments the radio burst into life, he had other pairs of squadies posted and one lot had just seen five people in bizarre costumes break into the building society at the other end of this road. Were they infected, the flow... erm officer wanted to know. Seems likely given that one of them tore the security bars out of the wall and then smashed a hole in the wall with his bare hands.
The officer called to his men and set off at a run, everyone apart from the vehicle drivers followed and I decided to jog after them. No idea why, it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
On foot we made good time, just a few minutes to reach the pair on guard opposite the building society. This was not a good spot for a fire fight, the hotel next to us was full, the staff had stayed put and we had sent a lot of refugees here and put them in the empty rooms. Maybe thirty families and another twenty or so singles plus the staff.
“Lieutenant we need to move, this hotel is full of people.”
He didn’t get a chance to reply, a brightly dressed figure stepped out of the wreckage that was the front of the building society and came face to face with the soldiers. The man, Caucasian, mid forties, balding, bad dress sense, was startled then raised both his arms and suddenly some sort of blue glow flared to life around his hands.
Several of the soldiers didn’t bother with that whole halt and surrender stuff, they just opened fire and multiple hits threw the corpse backwards with bright red added to the blues, greens and yellows that he was wearing.
There was a sudden pause then something like a flamethrower fired from inside the building. Three of the squadies went up like torches, ammo cooking off in the few seconds that they danced before they collapsed into ash and shattered bones.
Jesus. No one deserves to go that way. The other soldiers dropped into cover and opened fire into the building. The fire man came into sight, a human shaped ball of fire, anything fired at him had no effect and he breathed flame that killed two more squadies.
No way I could do anything here, breathing fire, not unless there was one hell of a fire extinguisher round here somewhere.
Then another figure came out of the building and I saw bullets bounce off this one, he was crudely humanoid and looked like he was made of stone. Hiding behind him came another man and a woman, well girl really. Both hiding behind his stone like bulk. The girl peered round her stone guard and another soldier died, not a mark on him, stone dead.
I ran for it, ducking behind the closest cars to keep out of sight.
The firing stopped and I paused behind the nearest car and took a careful look back at the scene of the fight. The four supers were walking across the wreckage strewn street, no sign of any of the soldiers.
Then lighting flashed down from the sky striking the stone one and the man behind him. The stone was undamaged but the man was cooked alive, his dead body thrown a good ten feet to lie twitching in the rubble.
The other three all turned to face off against four new arrivals, two flying and two on the ground. They immediately attacked the new group and the street was torn apart by strange energies and a stone man throwing wrecked cars at the flying pair.
The girl did her thing and one of the flying supers just dropped dead and fell to earth, the other flyer ducked behind the closest roof. One of the men on the ground shouted something, it was a wordless sound and every window still with glass in it shattered, The stone man stopped then shuddered as deep cracks appeared all over his body, then he seemed to come apart.
The flaming man and death girl turned and ran into the closest building for cover. The bloody hotel. They ran into the hotel!
Both ground supers went after them and the flying one reappeared and flew into one of the third floor windows. A great gout of flame erupted out of half the ground floor windows and screams began. There was a flare of electric blue white light from somewhere inside then more screaming, half the ground floor was now in flames and the fire was licking at the next floors windows in seconds.
More shouting and crashing then something smashed most of the top floor and the roof sagged and collapsed. More lighting on the first floor, children screaming and a burst of fire that engulf the second and third floors in fire. An explosion, the whole building was collapsing. Every window was full of flames, the screams were fainter and deep inside, trapped, helpless, hopeless. Part of the hotel collapsed into burning rubble, even the bricks seemed to be burning.
The flying super burst out of an upper floor window just as the rest of the building collapsed. I ducked, the heat crinkled my hair even at this distance and I couldn’t look at the flames.
A few seconds, a few minutes, I don’t know which. I peered over the car again. The screaming had stopped, the hotel was a vast pile of burning rubble spread across half the street and the buildings either side were in flames.
Nothing was moving.
I stood up and slowly walked toward the flames. I don’t know why, I just walked. I’ve been in firefights, seen men die and never been like this, I was cold, stone cold, moving like a machine.
Movement, in the dust and rubble. A figure, trying to sit up. The flying super, still alive. As I walked closer I could see that his left leg was broken, the knee bent at an angle it wasn’t supposed to reach. He was crying in pain and didn’t see me.
Just before I reached him I stopped by the squadie that had been killed by death girl. He had died so fast he hadn’t gotten off a shot; I picked up his assault rifle and checked the magazine was full. I slowly and methodically took three more full mags from his webbing and slid them into the pockets of my high viz police jacket. The bodies of the other soldiers were all burned or smashed, only this one had intact equipment.
Then I walked the last few steps to the downed super.
The sound of me pulling back the locking handle was loud, that loud and unmistakable clack easily heard over the sound of the flames.
The man at my feet looked up, startled, his eyes wide, shockingly white against the black mask that covered his upper face. He tried to drag himself away from me but he was too badly hurt, one broken leg from that last fall and by the look of it his right arm was dislocated or badly sprained and not working.
I lifted the barrel of the assault rifle, settling my point of aim in the middle of his face, that silly looking black mask smeared with dust and ash. He lifted his one good arm, his hand palm out towards me as if his hand could stop bullets.
“No” he said, “You can’t shoot me.”
I looked down at him, my voice as cold as it had been those long years ago in the jungle when I looked into the face of the boy that had just thrown a grenade at my best friend and blown both his legs off. “That building was full of people you sack of shit.”
“No, they were just in the way. We had to stop the villains; they would have got away if we hadn’t gone in after them.”
My knuckles must have been white, so hard was my grip on my rifle. “How many people did you kill?”
“Please, PLEASE. I’m a Superhero, you can’t kill me.”
“I’m a copper, yes I bloody can.”
Full auto is just like a buzz, a loud buzz, bucking and fighting against my grip. A loud buzz and then a clack as I shot the magazine dry. The black mask was gone and so was most of the head behind it.
I looked down at the corpse. Supers, that’s what everyone called them apart from the official reports, but maybe the reports were right. Infected, they were infected alright. They were all mad, like dogs, mad dogs. What did you do to a rabid dog?
I swapped out the empty magazine for full one, two full magazines in my pockets and one loaded. I would need to be more careful, there were hundreds of these supers around, I had to make my ammo go a long way if I was going to get them all.
The sound of fighting came from several streets away, the crash of a building being destroyed, shouts and some sort of weapons fire. With the rifle at the ready I started jogging towards the sound, eyes alert for movement or any sign of an ambush.
Another day bringing law and order to the streets of this city.