Metahumans vs the Undead: A Superhero vs Zombie Anthology Read Online Free Page A

close, giving away her own position in the process, or simply wait to see how things played out? The living were often far more dangerous than the dead and the horrors they were capable of much greater to a young girl like herself.
    Her grip on the bat grew tighter.
    At last, she broke and opened her mouth to scream at the strange man, but it was too late. The dead made their move.
    A large man, who must have been a weightlifter in life, whose bare ribs were visible through a ripped, white wife-beater tank top, sprang from the open side of a van behind the stranger, a vicious snarl carved out on his face. As if on cue, six more dead men and women emerged from the shadows and charged toward the stranger, working together as a pack. The stranger continued to ignore them until the weightlifter’s hand closed around his left arm. With unnatural speed and strength, the stranger grabbed the weightlifter’s throat and tore his head from his body with apparent ease. As the hulking dead man’s corpse dropped to the pavement at his feet, the stranger threw back his cloak and spun on the others. Bright blue flames erupted from his open palms, engulfing the dead and reducing them to ashes that scattered on the wind.
    Anne’s eyes bugged and the bat slipped from her trembling hands. It clattered to the floor in front of her. Despite the distance between them, the stranger must have heard it fall. He shoved back his hood, revealing a head of midnight hair streaked with gray, and a pair of eyes so inhuman they sent a shiver through Anne’s very soul. They were like pools of black darker than the night itself. She let out a whimper as he began to walk toward her. Anne wanted to run, but she stood frozen, unable to move.
    The man stepped through the coffee shop’s shattered window and stood in front of her. In a sad but tender voice, he asked, “Do you have a name?”
    “Anne,” she whispered, “Anne White.”
    He nodded. “You can call me Death.”
    “Are . . . are you the Reaper?”
    Death laughed long and loud. “No,” he assured her, “I’m not the Reaper. I’m just a man.”
    He took a seat at the counter. “I don’t suppose you have a cigarette on you?”
    Anne shook her head, still in shock from what she had seen him do.
    Death frowned and looked her over. “I supposed you wouldn’t,” he said with a heavy sigh then patted the stool at the counter beside him. “Have a seat. There aren’t any more of the dead close enough to worry about and you look like you could use a drink as bad as I need a smoke.”
    She slipped onto the stool next to Death, staring at him. Her brain was beginning to work again. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”
    “One of what?”
    “The Angels,” Anne said, “the heroes who were trying to save the world before . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.
    “The Angels.” After a bit he said, “What does it matter? They lost, didn’t they? Each and every one of them died that night, even Carson, and what did it accomplish? Nothing.”
    Suddenly Anne realized who the stranger was with a start. He wasn’t one of the Angels, he was their leader. “You weren’t joking. You’re really him, Agent Robert Death.”
    The darkness in Death’s eyes grew deeper as the very room around them seemed to grow colder. His fist struck the counter with such force the surface cracked along its entire length. “Don’t call me that!” He must have noticed how terrified she was, so bit back his rage and said, “I am just Death now. Death is all that’s left for us all.”
    Anne knew the noise of his outburst would draw more of the dead to them, but she kept her seat. “The Angels didn’t die in vain,” she said quietly. “They bought the world time. Without them, we’d all already be dead.”
    Death shrugged. “Look out that window, girl. You might as well be. The world is gone. Civilization has crumbled. There’s maybe a few hundred thousand people still alive on