Back to Gatefold
Issue #1 by A. Crute
June 2008 |
“You are now entering LA...hope you survive the experience”
L.A., Under the La Brea Tar Pits…
The La Brea Tar Pits and Hancock Park are situated within urban Los Angeles, California, near the Miracle Mile district. In Hancock Park, tar seeps up from underground. The tar is derived from petroleum deposits which originate from underground locations throughout the Los Angeles Basin.
The name means ‘The Tar’ tar pits as Spanish speakers constantly joked to their non-speaking friends, receiving much of the same response that people got when they made the astute observation that the M in ATM stood for machine so people just sounded silly when calling them ATM machines.
Hundreds of fossils including everything from pollen and insects to mammoth, bears and lions, to prehistoric times had been dredged from beneath the tar over the years. The bones of a woman were even uncovered there but no foul play was assumed as she was thousands of years old…that’s not to say there wasn't foul play but the police ruled it out of their jurisdiction.
Despite these excellently preserved fossils of prehistoric mammals there are some who think the tar pits boring, generally those who were forced to go there every couple of months throughout their lives. They may have been more interested in what lay deep below the tar. This level of boredom on being repeatedly forced to visit in his youth was the reason Geoffrey Wilder had suggested building their ultra secret HQ under the pits so that there may be something of interest down there.
Geoffrey Wilder along with his wife and four other couples were the members of the organisation known as The Pride. They were summoned together by the old gods known as the Gibborim. Their role was to conduct several rites every year to give praise to The Gibborim and empower them to one day return from the dimension they resided in and lay waste to the planet…half of The Pride would be spared. Their time on earth up till that point would be filled with glory and riches.
Their base was built using a fortune in stolen money, using future and alien technology and the vast technology breakthroughs of the Stein’s. The Hayes couple didn't really do too much for this project.
The plan went swimmingly for years until they one by one starting popping out children. Six children and six places in paradise…it all made so much sense. That was until the children found out their parents were evil and set out to stop their evil plans, and against all odds, did. Then to rub salt in the wound after ruining their parents work, took over their base. The Hayes, if they were still alive, would have had a field day describing what Freud would have thought of the whole situation.
The secret under-tar base was currently silent as it had been for the past several months. The super-powered teens known only as The Runaways had been missing from the crime fighting scene for several months and there had been no sign of them in any other scene either….Though no one actually checked. This was all about to change.
The air was stale in the room where The Runaways tended to congregate. The entire base had that disquiet quality that so few things had shared in the past, abandoned houses during the war and the Mary Celeste were two good examples. The feeling that a place should have something more.
The air suddenly split. This wasn't like in Terminator or Sliders where there is an expensive special effect to show an Einstein-Rosen bridge as imagined in the 60’s. There just went from being a normal reality to a split reality. A long slit appeared in the air as if someone had drawn a knife through the air.
An arm suddenly thrust through the hole in the air followed by a shoulder and then a body. Anyone watching, which no one was would have seen nothing unusual other than a teenager appearing from nowhere the slit in space and time was from one under-tar hideout to another across dimensions which lined up perfectly.
The teen fell three feet to the floor and landed with a thump.
The next through the hole in space was his genetically modified dinosaur from the future named Old Lace by his deceased girlfriend. She gave a shrill shriek as her legs waved in the air trying to find something to rest her weight upon. She found it as she crashed down onto her master causing him to shriek in pain again. This caused Old Lace, who was linked to him psychically, to do the same.
One by one the other Runaways careered through the hole and ended up colliding with their team-mates who still hadn't managed to pick themselves up.
The last form to come hurtling through the hole was the youngest of the group Molly Hayes. “Bye, Victor!” She yelled as she waved at the invisible split in the air not realising that it had already sealed tightly shut behind her.
The group had spent the last 6 months on an alternate reality earth where they did not oppose their parents. The group then systematically exterminated all of the superheroes on the planet and set themselves up as rulers. The Runaways on arrival on the parallel earth did not like the way that played out and set about bringing them down.
Victor, the ‘son’ of Ultron, had been programmed by his father to be the worlds greatest superhero…until he could kill all of the others he had stayed behind to protect the world from the numerous villains who without a centralised government were now free to run wild and The Runaways returned home.
The group slowly stood to their feet and stretched out. Chase was the last to do so as he waited for the rest of his team-mates to stand up and move away from him. Old Lace leapt from him and was instantly sniffing the air around her. The others didn't share the telepathic link between the two but they could clearly see from her behaviour something was wrong.
“Why does it smell like corpses in here?” Xavin asked. He was currently wearing his female form. He was a Skrull and was currently married to Karolina who was also an alien. The two had been promised to one another at a young age to stop a war. The only problem was no one told Karolina and she was a lesbian hence Xavin’s form as a she.
“I’m guessing that’s what happens when someone….” Karolina shot Chase a glare from the kitchen area she was standing in as she motioned to the bench in front of her. “…Leaves all of our food out before we vanish for sixth months. Look at it, Chase, it’s practically organised its own government.”
“Well I didn't know we would be gone for that long. I was harmlessly making a midnight snack when evil Gert appeared and grabbed me.” Chase shrugged in his defence. His hands were covered with the large mechanical gloves known as Fistigons which he had stolen from Evil Chase, his own versions having been destroyed months ago. He grabbed a potato chip from one of the bags on the counter and popped it into his mouth as if to show it was all still good, his face however did not convey that message.
“It’s all stinky like Chase’s gym socks!” Molly held her nose and buried her face into the side of Old Lace.
“In my defence I do only have the one pair.” Chase looked down at his own feet.
“Whatever!” Nico was holding her own nose too. “I say we get out of here for a few hours and get some food. We can come back in a little while and Chase can clean up his mess.”
“That’s not fair…aw what the Hell it’ll be good to see LA not half demolished and in flames.”
Minutes later…
The Runaways stood atop the roof of the visitors centre at La Brea looking out over the city. There were points of light scattered across the city from fires which were still burning which pumped smoke into the air but the majority were now just black husks where they had been charred by previous fires.
The bright lights which could usually be seen stretching into the night from street lights and theatres were all gone. There was just darkness.
“Oh my god!” Nico pressed her hands up to her mouth as she looked out across the city.
Molly shot Chase a scowl. “You jinxed it,” she grumbled. Chase put his hand on her head and then pulled her hat down across her eyes. He then grabbed her waist quickly and tossed her into the air where he caught heart chest height. Molly squealed giddily.
“Knock it off Chase,” Karolina warned him. She knew he was just trying to keep Molly’s mind off what was going on but now wasn't the time to be playing around.
“What happened? What happened to the city?”
“Earthquake? A big one by the looks of it.” Karolina offered as a solution to Nico’s question.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Chase had Molly pressed to his front as he laid his hands on her shoulders. He let go and made for the edge of the roof where he waited for Xavin to lower him down with his force field powers. The others followed.
In the city…
The group of teens and their dinosaur walked down the street. The stores that lined the side which usually sold the best in knock-off fashion were empty, their doors still open. The windows on many of them were smashed both into the store and onto the street.
The streets however were missing the large cracks and ruptures which most usually accompanied Earthquakes. The fact that all the stores were still open was also odd; it seemed all the people had just vanished. Vanished in some violent way.
Xavin and Chase had both spotted pools of blood and red hand marks wiped down some of the remaining windows but they kept it to themselves for the moment as not to worry the others.
Their way was lit in the night by flames from Xavin and Chase and the soft warm light of Karolina’s glow which shifted and shimmered though now dimmer than usual because of the hour.
Old Lace was sniffing the air before lowering her head and growling every few seconds. “Easy, Chewie” calmed Chase as Molly petted the dinosaur.
“This is creepy; it’s like a horror movie or something. Like everyone has just vanished or…”
“Was abducted?” Chase shot a look across the gap between them to Karolina and Xavin. He loved busting their chops on the whole ET situation.
“We have to find out what is going on.” Nico breathed deeply for a second and tightened the grip on the Staff Of One, her magic heritage from her parents that allowed her to cast any magic spell once. “INFORMATION POINT!” She held out the staff as a glow exploded from the top of it out across the streets.
There was silence and stillness for a few seconds. “Looks like another dud, Nic…oh,” Chase’s face dropped as the night filled with the sound like nothing he’d ever heard. In reality it sounded like the beating wings of a thousand bats but Chase had never heard that.
A billowing mass of newspapers hurtled around the corner before them as if caught in a giant wind but the air was still. The mass hurtled towards them and with one final billow lost all forward momentum and floated down gently to the floor.
The teens all began to grab handfuls of the paper and shifted through them. The majority were all months old. Like always the majority seemed to be about celebrity news and gossip but as the dates got later there were less and less and more seemed to be taken up with some strange news.
“Virus?” questioned Chase as he read the headline of one paper and then, “Riot?” as he read another. He shifted through the various newspapers in his grasp just reading the headlines. He looked at the pictures showing panicking people and the city beginning to look like it currently does.
“It says here that The Avengers faced down ‘the threat’ in New York…but then had to fall back to secure a new front line,” Nico summarised as she continued to read.
“Does anyone have the funny pages?” asked Molly as she shifted through the newspapers which were still on the floor.
“Karolina, my sweet, I do not recognise this word.” Xavin learned English as a fifth language so his mastery over some less common words still needed work. He turned the sheet he held to his wife’s face.
“ZOMBIES!” claimed the front page of the newspaper in large letters with the big image underneath of someone who looked like an extra from a Romero film.
“No frickin’ way.” Chase grabbed the paper from Karolina and stared at the picture. He’d seen every zombie movie there was and he was looking for some sign that this was a fake or that he recognised the particular shot.
“Chase…way!” Karolina took a step backwards as she pointed forwards. Chase looked up in the direction she was pointing and shifted his arm to spew flame towards it. In the flickering light he could make out the shape of a man, his left leg dragging behind him. His head was tilted sideways as he shambled.
“Aim for their heads!” Chase commanded as he took control of the situation which was odd to say the least.
“Chase, calm down, we don’t know that he’s really a zombie,” Nico said. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the man only flickering to watch as several more were shambling on behind him.
They varied in age, sex and race but all of them were shambling and lolling forwards. Their skin looked pale and drained, several had visible wounds on their heads or arms. Blood was also stained across their clothes in some areas hinting towards more bodily damage.
“That’s always what someone says before they get bitten when they’re trying to reason with the zombie trying to bite them.”
“Xaricha,” spat Xavin. The intensity of his flame picked up. “The walking deceased.” He explained as the others queried him with a look.
Old Lace was growling madly at this point, hissing and biting ready to attack as soon as Chase gave her the OK. She suddenly stopped and turned a full circle to face behind The Runaways and let out a shriek and a growl.
“They’re behind us!” called Molly.
“Crap,” growled Chase. He turned his head. Ten more or so zombies shambled towards them from a little further away than the others. “Don’t get surrounded, it’s the first damn rule!”
“Fight or run?” Karolina asked. The question was directed at their defacto leader Nico. There was time to do either, the zombies weren’t moving too fast so they could probably slip past them but even if they had to fight there wasn't too many and they didn't’ seem exactly steady on their feet as it was.
Nico thought for a second ever aware that there were more zombies heading around both corners all the time. That made her think of running. ”Runaway!”
The team then moved with clinical precession; it was something they had practised before. Chase seized Molly and tossed her onto the back of Old Lace before breaking into a sprint. Xavin burst into the air with a blast of flames as Karolina grabbed hold of Nico and took off into the air.
They turned from the original line of zombies and headed towards the ones behind them since they were less in number. Xavin and Chase let off a blast of flame in front of them as they got closer to the zombies before turning and running at a right angle adjacent to them.
Chase and Old Lace screamed to a halt instantly. They began to think they had made the wrong choice. There were even more zombies shambling towards them now than there had been in the street next to them.
They had been picking up stragglers all the time that they walked through the city. Nico’s blast of energy with her spell seemed to have the effect of mobilising a few more to seek out the source searching in hopes of food.
The Runaways were now in a worse situation then they had been. They were pressed into a tight situation against a row of stores rather than having room to manoeuvre. The fliers in the group landed next to Chase, Old Lace and Molly.
“So much for that plan,” sighed Nico as she raised her staff, “MAGGOTS!” she pointed the staff at a pair of zombies who were closest to them. They shuddered for a second before their skin ruptured firing a stream of rotting pus across the pavement as a horde of maggots erupted from their skin. They collapsed into a pile.
Karolina launched a blast of light from her hands which glittered like a sparkling rainbow in the air before colliding with one of the zombies and forcing him back and to the floor. It roared like a drunken man before slowly trying to climb up.
Xavin and Chase’s hands both exploded as literal balls of flame burned in their palms. They tossed them together and struck four zombies. The undead rocked back, one even fell fully over. Their rotting flesh and clothing exploded into flames causing them to grunt out in alarmed pain…they kept coming now even more dangerous because of the flames.
“Destroy the brains!” commanded Chase.
Karolina flicked out her hand, fingers pointed like a gun to narrow her power beam. It shot forward like a multi coloured laser and drilled a hole through the neck of a zombie. The second she let loose it hit home in the zombie’s forehead causing some slimy goop to explode through the back of it’s head and it promptly fell down. The zombie directly behind it stumbled over it’s body and hit the deck too.
“LABOTOMISE!” commanded Nico as she whipped the staff around her head dispersing the wave of energy as widely as she could. A ring of zombies closest to the teens all collapsed in on one another as their brains were reduced to goo. Nico paused for a second, she had to think of a different key word now “BRAIN DAMAGE!” she tried and fired another blast of energy.
“Nice going, Nico!” congratulated Karolina as she fired blast from both her hands through the skulls of two more zombies. Karolina shot a smile to her friend, a smile which quickly changed to a look of horror as she felt a hand clasp on her shoulder.
She turned her head to look behind her. The rotting half tooth filled mouth of a zombie latched onto her shoulder where it’s hand was. The zombie was leaning through a smashed store window.
“My beloved!” Xavin turned with a growl. His female form shifted to his natural Skrull as he lost control of his concentration. He thrust out his hand as he switched to the powers of Mister Fantastic and thrust his arm though the zombie’s head causing it to cave in around it.
Chase caught the falling body of Karolina. Multicoloured blood poured from her neck wound. Chase could see three teeth still pressed into the flesh of the wound. Her glow failed rapidly. “Karolina,” he shook her madly.
“I’ll kill you all…again!” screamed Molly as she leapt from Old Lace’s back and rushed towards the army of zombies. Molly was only 12 years old but she had enough strength to go toe to toe with any number of super powered villains.
She flung out her arms this way and that as she reached the zombies causing their bodies to explode as she touched them. The force of her punches were just too much for their rotting bodies to handle.
Her arms were covered in the filthy grime of the zombie bodies but still she kept on punching as she launched from one zombie to another.
“Molly!” Chase jumped forward accompanied by Old Lace as they rushed after their youngest member. Chase and Molly had always had a special bond together, they thought of each other as siblings more than any of the others did. He always took on the older brother role of entertaining her as well as giving her grief. He wouldn't let anything happen to her.
He’d wanted to keep Old Lace out of the fight if possible unsure what would happen if she took a chunk out of one of the zombies with her jaws but now there was little choice.
The purple dinosaur leapt over the heads of some of the zombies and landed right behind Molly. It twirled it’s tail over her head and destroyed the craniums of several of the zombies while wiping a few more out as it came on the down swing.
Chase’s hand thrust out and grasped the head of a zombie he was sure was Tom Cruise. The Fistigons did the rest as they crushed the head of a zombie. He turned to look at his other hand. The Fistigon on his right seemed to have moved onto autopilot. The fingers on the glove shot backwards and forwards rapidly shredding the face of the zombie it was closest too.
Xavin cradled his love. His arms encircled her body as he felt her pulse slow to nothing. His face changed as his Skrull features grew even more prominent than usual and he let out a guttural snarl.
He had entered a type of rage known to his people where he lapsed into his instincts. His arms shrunk to his normal length as he strode away from Karolina’s body ready to get his revenge for her death.
He growled and several zombie heads exploded near him. He had created tiny force field bubbles inside their brains and expanded them rapidly. There was a shower of the filthy rotting matter they were made of as whatever rotting qualities they had turned to liquid.
“PAYBACK!” screamed Nico, tears stained her face at the loss of another friend…this one her best friend. The stream of red energy poured from her staff and blasted into more of the zombies.
They seemed to be swarming from nowhere around them. No matter how many they took out more seemed to take their place as they slowly but surely struggled towards the teens drawn by the sound of battle. They were beginning to think they may have had to fight the full population of LA before they got a free moment.
“Molly, that was the dumbest thing you ever did!” Chase pressed his back to Molly, her head only came up to the middle of his back as they stood ready to take enemies from both sides. “You can’t fight them in close quarters…what were you thinking.”
He turned angrily to look at Molly’s face over his shoulder. It was stained with tears, her eyes were red and bloodshot. She hadn't been thinking, she’d seen someone she loved taken away from her again and she’d acted. It wasn't unlike something Chase would do.
“Lets make these S.O.B’s pay, Bruiser.” He nodded as he turned back away from Molly. He thrust out his hand and concentrated on sculpting his flame. A long stick of flame appeared before firing forward like an arrow. It seemed to have much the same effect as a laser as it burned through the skull of the monster. He fired another with his other glove.
Molly brought her hands above her head and brought them down hard on the floor causing the entire street to shake. The shambling zombies in front of her crashed down.
Old Lace hurtled past her with a shriek slamming her powerful legs through the chests and heads of the zombies which Molly had just felled.
Molly grabbed one of the zombies that was climbing to it’s feet by the throat and then let out a long and loud yawn. The zombie snapped at her wrist but was unable to reach her.
Molly’s super strength came with a drawback because she was still developing. She fought hard but tired very quickly and would pass out unconscious until her body had recovered.
“Molly! Molly!...LACE!” Chase shot a mental command to his dinosaur while he smashed his fist through the head of a zombie.
Old Lace’s tail smashed through the zombie’s head before gripping Molly’s T-shirt tightly and tossing the small girl onto her back where she could sleep in relative safety compared to everywhere else.
Xavin span in a circle. His arms distended and extended while growing thinner. His arms were practically cheese wire with heavy weights of mass on the end as he swung them around slicing through the zombies which were surrounding them.
Nico had ducked to her knees while his attack continued. “FREEZE!” She yelled as he stopped and she popped to her feet. Even before the word left her lips she knew she’d made a mistake. She’d already cast that spell once meaning....A Blast shot forward and ricocheted off one of the zombies and into Xavin hard. His body seemed to loose all control as he collapsed into a fleshy puddle. When the staff tries to use more than one spell it gets erratic.
Xavin screamed as he pulled himself together. His arm appeared first and then the rest of his body as he emerged from the protoplasmic goo. He put his hand on his head and wobbled backwards as he tried to get his senses back. He stumbled right into the arms of a zombie as it bit down hard on him. A second grabbed him and did the same.
Hands seemed to grasp onto him from nowhere and he was dragged backward into what appeared to be an ever growing group which was now looking not unlike an army of zombies.
Chase was only thirty feet away from his team mates but neither could see one another. The blasts of energy and the shrieks and yells of them were all that told the others they were still there.
He let loose marble sized balls of flame from his Fistigons which scattered like buckshot. He had been able to practice with his technology in the alternate world but to make anything other than basic plumes of flame still required a lot of concentration on his part. Simple lines or specs of energy were much easier than anything more complicated.
A pair of hands tightly gripped his leg. He looked down, a zombie was dragging itself slowly towards him. The blast he’d fired through it minutes earlier seemed to have destroyed part of it’s head but obviously not an important enough part. He let out a shriek of panic.
This panic shot through Old Lace via their link causing the dinosaur to spring towards them. It’s legs moved swiftly as it reached Chase and ripped the zombie’s face with it’s sharp claws before driving her foot through the monsters head. She gripped Chase in her teeth and tossed him to her back.
“Molly!” screamed Chase. In the panic and the hurry the danger had brought out in Old Lace it had acted on instinct to get to Chase as quickly as possible causing her to unknowingly lose Molly.
Chase saw her just in time to see one of the zombies who looked no older than Molly herself from sinking her teeth into the sleeping Molly’s arm.
Zombies suddenly scattered left and right thrown by some unseen force. Chase and Old Lace turned to face Nico. She was on the floor lying on her front. She let off a scream and juddered a few times.
Zombies were piled onto her back and were latching their teeth across the length of her body. Her eyes were filled with tears.
Her hand stretched out toward him, almost begging for help. She brought her hand down and tickled the edge of the staff which she had lost seconds earlier as she blasted the path of zombies between the two.
The staff wobbled gently. Her fingers traced the end of it again but again lost contact.
Old Lace burst into a run on Chases’ mental command. Nico brushed the edge of the staff again and opened her mouth, her fingers slid across the surface of it and away again. “RUNAWAY!” she commanded as her fingers traced across it, she wasn't sure it worked or if she was even touching it. That was her last thought as she blacked out.
Old Lace sensed her going, her scent changed and she couldn't sense that psychic signature that it had learned over time. She skidded to a halt and exploded in the opposite direction.
Her powerful legs bounced up the hood of a car and then over a row of zombies. The second she hit the deck she was sprinting, dodging in and out of the zombies with ease.
An hour later…
Chase and Old Lace stood on an outcrop looking over the city. Lace had only stopped sprinting a few seconds earlier and Chase leapt from her back to look down at the city.
The dinosaur nuzzled her master gently whimpering in sadness. He pushed her nose away. She pushed back.
Chase turned and slammed into her side. “Your fault! You stupid dinosaur! You should have looked after Molly!...We Could have saved Nico!” he thrust his side into Old Lace again but this time the dinosaur didn't move; it took the brunt and remained solid.
Chase collapsed into her side putting his full weight on her. He began to cry. The worst part was he couldn't blame her, he didn't know what happened but as Nico yelled to him he wanted to run…nothing was more important than running. He couldn't decide whether it was a spell by Nico or if…or if he’d run.
He pushed away from Old Lace and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Let’s go,” he commanded. “It’s time to run away.”
Next Time: Where does Chase run too? Plus we discover the fates of some more of the Marvel Superheroes in this world gone bad.
The La Brea Tar Pits and Hancock Park are situated within urban Los Angeles, California, near the Miracle Mile district. In Hancock Park, tar seeps up from underground. The tar is derived from petroleum deposits which originate from underground locations throughout the Los Angeles Basin.
The name means ‘The Tar’ tar pits as Spanish speakers constantly joked to their non-speaking friends, receiving much of the same response that people got when they made the astute observation that the M in ATM stood for machine so people just sounded silly when calling them ATM machines.
Hundreds of fossils including everything from pollen and insects to mammoth, bears and lions, to prehistoric times had been dredged from beneath the tar over the years. The bones of a woman were even uncovered there but no foul play was assumed as she was thousands of years old…that’s not to say there wasn't foul play but the police ruled it out of their jurisdiction.
Despite these excellently preserved fossils of prehistoric mammals there are some who think the tar pits boring, generally those who were forced to go there every couple of months throughout their lives. They may have been more interested in what lay deep below the tar. This level of boredom on being repeatedly forced to visit in his youth was the reason Geoffrey Wilder had suggested building their ultra secret HQ under the pits so that there may be something of interest down there.
Geoffrey Wilder along with his wife and four other couples were the members of the organisation known as The Pride. They were summoned together by the old gods known as the Gibborim. Their role was to conduct several rites every year to give praise to The Gibborim and empower them to one day return from the dimension they resided in and lay waste to the planet…half of The Pride would be spared. Their time on earth up till that point would be filled with glory and riches.
Their base was built using a fortune in stolen money, using future and alien technology and the vast technology breakthroughs of the Stein’s. The Hayes couple didn't really do too much for this project.
The plan went swimmingly for years until they one by one starting popping out children. Six children and six places in paradise…it all made so much sense. That was until the children found out their parents were evil and set out to stop their evil plans, and against all odds, did. Then to rub salt in the wound after ruining their parents work, took over their base. The Hayes, if they were still alive, would have had a field day describing what Freud would have thought of the whole situation.
The secret under-tar base was currently silent as it had been for the past several months. The super-powered teens known only as The Runaways had been missing from the crime fighting scene for several months and there had been no sign of them in any other scene either….Though no one actually checked. This was all about to change.
The air was stale in the room where The Runaways tended to congregate. The entire base had that disquiet quality that so few things had shared in the past, abandoned houses during the war and the Mary Celeste were two good examples. The feeling that a place should have something more.
The air suddenly split. This wasn't like in Terminator or Sliders where there is an expensive special effect to show an Einstein-Rosen bridge as imagined in the 60’s. There just went from being a normal reality to a split reality. A long slit appeared in the air as if someone had drawn a knife through the air.
An arm suddenly thrust through the hole in the air followed by a shoulder and then a body. Anyone watching, which no one was would have seen nothing unusual other than a teenager appearing from nowhere the slit in space and time was from one under-tar hideout to another across dimensions which lined up perfectly.
The teen fell three feet to the floor and landed with a thump.
The next through the hole in space was his genetically modified dinosaur from the future named Old Lace by his deceased girlfriend. She gave a shrill shriek as her legs waved in the air trying to find something to rest her weight upon. She found it as she crashed down onto her master causing him to shriek in pain again. This caused Old Lace, who was linked to him psychically, to do the same.
One by one the other Runaways careered through the hole and ended up colliding with their team-mates who still hadn't managed to pick themselves up.
The last form to come hurtling through the hole was the youngest of the group Molly Hayes. “Bye, Victor!” She yelled as she waved at the invisible split in the air not realising that it had already sealed tightly shut behind her.
The group had spent the last 6 months on an alternate reality earth where they did not oppose their parents. The group then systematically exterminated all of the superheroes on the planet and set themselves up as rulers. The Runaways on arrival on the parallel earth did not like the way that played out and set about bringing them down.
Victor, the ‘son’ of Ultron, had been programmed by his father to be the worlds greatest superhero…until he could kill all of the others he had stayed behind to protect the world from the numerous villains who without a centralised government were now free to run wild and The Runaways returned home.
The group slowly stood to their feet and stretched out. Chase was the last to do so as he waited for the rest of his team-mates to stand up and move away from him. Old Lace leapt from him and was instantly sniffing the air around her. The others didn't share the telepathic link between the two but they could clearly see from her behaviour something was wrong.
“Why does it smell like corpses in here?” Xavin asked. He was currently wearing his female form. He was a Skrull and was currently married to Karolina who was also an alien. The two had been promised to one another at a young age to stop a war. The only problem was no one told Karolina and she was a lesbian hence Xavin’s form as a she.
“I’m guessing that’s what happens when someone….” Karolina shot Chase a glare from the kitchen area she was standing in as she motioned to the bench in front of her. “…Leaves all of our food out before we vanish for sixth months. Look at it, Chase, it’s practically organised its own government.”
“Well I didn't know we would be gone for that long. I was harmlessly making a midnight snack when evil Gert appeared and grabbed me.” Chase shrugged in his defence. His hands were covered with the large mechanical gloves known as Fistigons which he had stolen from Evil Chase, his own versions having been destroyed months ago. He grabbed a potato chip from one of the bags on the counter and popped it into his mouth as if to show it was all still good, his face however did not convey that message.
“It’s all stinky like Chase’s gym socks!” Molly held her nose and buried her face into the side of Old Lace.
“In my defence I do only have the one pair.” Chase looked down at his own feet.
“Whatever!” Nico was holding her own nose too. “I say we get out of here for a few hours and get some food. We can come back in a little while and Chase can clean up his mess.”
“That’s not fair…aw what the Hell it’ll be good to see LA not half demolished and in flames.”
Minutes later…
The Runaways stood atop the roof of the visitors centre at La Brea looking out over the city. There were points of light scattered across the city from fires which were still burning which pumped smoke into the air but the majority were now just black husks where they had been charred by previous fires.
The bright lights which could usually be seen stretching into the night from street lights and theatres were all gone. There was just darkness.
“Oh my god!” Nico pressed her hands up to her mouth as she looked out across the city.
Molly shot Chase a scowl. “You jinxed it,” she grumbled. Chase put his hand on her head and then pulled her hat down across her eyes. He then grabbed her waist quickly and tossed her into the air where he caught heart chest height. Molly squealed giddily.
“Knock it off Chase,” Karolina warned him. She knew he was just trying to keep Molly’s mind off what was going on but now wasn't the time to be playing around.
“What happened? What happened to the city?”
“Earthquake? A big one by the looks of it.” Karolina offered as a solution to Nico’s question.
“There’s only one way to find out,” Chase had Molly pressed to his front as he laid his hands on her shoulders. He let go and made for the edge of the roof where he waited for Xavin to lower him down with his force field powers. The others followed.
In the city…
The group of teens and their dinosaur walked down the street. The stores that lined the side which usually sold the best in knock-off fashion were empty, their doors still open. The windows on many of them were smashed both into the store and onto the street.
The streets however were missing the large cracks and ruptures which most usually accompanied Earthquakes. The fact that all the stores were still open was also odd; it seemed all the people had just vanished. Vanished in some violent way.
Xavin and Chase had both spotted pools of blood and red hand marks wiped down some of the remaining windows but they kept it to themselves for the moment as not to worry the others.
Their way was lit in the night by flames from Xavin and Chase and the soft warm light of Karolina’s glow which shifted and shimmered though now dimmer than usual because of the hour.
Old Lace was sniffing the air before lowering her head and growling every few seconds. “Easy, Chewie” calmed Chase as Molly petted the dinosaur.
“This is creepy; it’s like a horror movie or something. Like everyone has just vanished or…”
“Was abducted?” Chase shot a look across the gap between them to Karolina and Xavin. He loved busting their chops on the whole ET situation.
“We have to find out what is going on.” Nico breathed deeply for a second and tightened the grip on the Staff Of One, her magic heritage from her parents that allowed her to cast any magic spell once. “INFORMATION POINT!” She held out the staff as a glow exploded from the top of it out across the streets.
There was silence and stillness for a few seconds. “Looks like another dud, Nic…oh,” Chase’s face dropped as the night filled with the sound like nothing he’d ever heard. In reality it sounded like the beating wings of a thousand bats but Chase had never heard that.
A billowing mass of newspapers hurtled around the corner before them as if caught in a giant wind but the air was still. The mass hurtled towards them and with one final billow lost all forward momentum and floated down gently to the floor.
The teens all began to grab handfuls of the paper and shifted through them. The majority were all months old. Like always the majority seemed to be about celebrity news and gossip but as the dates got later there were less and less and more seemed to be taken up with some strange news.
“Virus?” questioned Chase as he read the headline of one paper and then, “Riot?” as he read another. He shifted through the various newspapers in his grasp just reading the headlines. He looked at the pictures showing panicking people and the city beginning to look like it currently does.
“It says here that The Avengers faced down ‘the threat’ in New York…but then had to fall back to secure a new front line,” Nico summarised as she continued to read.
“Does anyone have the funny pages?” asked Molly as she shifted through the newspapers which were still on the floor.
“Karolina, my sweet, I do not recognise this word.” Xavin learned English as a fifth language so his mastery over some less common words still needed work. He turned the sheet he held to his wife’s face.
“ZOMBIES!” claimed the front page of the newspaper in large letters with the big image underneath of someone who looked like an extra from a Romero film.
“No frickin’ way.” Chase grabbed the paper from Karolina and stared at the picture. He’d seen every zombie movie there was and he was looking for some sign that this was a fake or that he recognised the particular shot.
“Chase…way!” Karolina took a step backwards as she pointed forwards. Chase looked up in the direction she was pointing and shifted his arm to spew flame towards it. In the flickering light he could make out the shape of a man, his left leg dragging behind him. His head was tilted sideways as he shambled.
“Aim for their heads!” Chase commanded as he took control of the situation which was odd to say the least.
“Chase, calm down, we don’t know that he’s really a zombie,” Nico said. She kept her eyes fixed firmly on the man only flickering to watch as several more were shambling on behind him.
They varied in age, sex and race but all of them were shambling and lolling forwards. Their skin looked pale and drained, several had visible wounds on their heads or arms. Blood was also stained across their clothes in some areas hinting towards more bodily damage.
“That’s always what someone says before they get bitten when they’re trying to reason with the zombie trying to bite them.”
“Xaricha,” spat Xavin. The intensity of his flame picked up. “The walking deceased.” He explained as the others queried him with a look.
Old Lace was growling madly at this point, hissing and biting ready to attack as soon as Chase gave her the OK. She suddenly stopped and turned a full circle to face behind The Runaways and let out a shriek and a growl.
“They’re behind us!” called Molly.
“Crap,” growled Chase. He turned his head. Ten more or so zombies shambled towards them from a little further away than the others. “Don’t get surrounded, it’s the first damn rule!”
“Fight or run?” Karolina asked. The question was directed at their defacto leader Nico. There was time to do either, the zombies weren’t moving too fast so they could probably slip past them but even if they had to fight there wasn't too many and they didn't’ seem exactly steady on their feet as it was.
Nico thought for a second ever aware that there were more zombies heading around both corners all the time. That made her think of running. ”Runaway!”
The team then moved with clinical precession; it was something they had practised before. Chase seized Molly and tossed her onto the back of Old Lace before breaking into a sprint. Xavin burst into the air with a blast of flames as Karolina grabbed hold of Nico and took off into the air.
They turned from the original line of zombies and headed towards the ones behind them since they were less in number. Xavin and Chase let off a blast of flame in front of them as they got closer to the zombies before turning and running at a right angle adjacent to them.
Chase and Old Lace screamed to a halt instantly. They began to think they had made the wrong choice. There were even more zombies shambling towards them now than there had been in the street next to them.
They had been picking up stragglers all the time that they walked through the city. Nico’s blast of energy with her spell seemed to have the effect of mobilising a few more to seek out the source searching in hopes of food.
The Runaways were now in a worse situation then they had been. They were pressed into a tight situation against a row of stores rather than having room to manoeuvre. The fliers in the group landed next to Chase, Old Lace and Molly.
“So much for that plan,” sighed Nico as she raised her staff, “MAGGOTS!” she pointed the staff at a pair of zombies who were closest to them. They shuddered for a second before their skin ruptured firing a stream of rotting pus across the pavement as a horde of maggots erupted from their skin. They collapsed into a pile.
Karolina launched a blast of light from her hands which glittered like a sparkling rainbow in the air before colliding with one of the zombies and forcing him back and to the floor. It roared like a drunken man before slowly trying to climb up.
Xavin and Chase’s hands both exploded as literal balls of flame burned in their palms. They tossed them together and struck four zombies. The undead rocked back, one even fell fully over. Their rotting flesh and clothing exploded into flames causing them to grunt out in alarmed pain…they kept coming now even more dangerous because of the flames.
“Destroy the brains!” commanded Chase.
Karolina flicked out her hand, fingers pointed like a gun to narrow her power beam. It shot forward like a multi coloured laser and drilled a hole through the neck of a zombie. The second she let loose it hit home in the zombie’s forehead causing some slimy goop to explode through the back of it’s head and it promptly fell down. The zombie directly behind it stumbled over it’s body and hit the deck too.
“LABOTOMISE!” commanded Nico as she whipped the staff around her head dispersing the wave of energy as widely as she could. A ring of zombies closest to the teens all collapsed in on one another as their brains were reduced to goo. Nico paused for a second, she had to think of a different key word now “BRAIN DAMAGE!” she tried and fired another blast of energy.
“Nice going, Nico!” congratulated Karolina as she fired blast from both her hands through the skulls of two more zombies. Karolina shot a smile to her friend, a smile which quickly changed to a look of horror as she felt a hand clasp on her shoulder.
She turned her head to look behind her. The rotting half tooth filled mouth of a zombie latched onto her shoulder where it’s hand was. The zombie was leaning through a smashed store window.
“My beloved!” Xavin turned with a growl. His female form shifted to his natural Skrull as he lost control of his concentration. He thrust out his hand as he switched to the powers of Mister Fantastic and thrust his arm though the zombie’s head causing it to cave in around it.
Chase caught the falling body of Karolina. Multicoloured blood poured from her neck wound. Chase could see three teeth still pressed into the flesh of the wound. Her glow failed rapidly. “Karolina,” he shook her madly.
“I’ll kill you all…again!” screamed Molly as she leapt from Old Lace’s back and rushed towards the army of zombies. Molly was only 12 years old but she had enough strength to go toe to toe with any number of super powered villains.
She flung out her arms this way and that as she reached the zombies causing their bodies to explode as she touched them. The force of her punches were just too much for their rotting bodies to handle.
Her arms were covered in the filthy grime of the zombie bodies but still she kept on punching as she launched from one zombie to another.
“Molly!” Chase jumped forward accompanied by Old Lace as they rushed after their youngest member. Chase and Molly had always had a special bond together, they thought of each other as siblings more than any of the others did. He always took on the older brother role of entertaining her as well as giving her grief. He wouldn't let anything happen to her.
He’d wanted to keep Old Lace out of the fight if possible unsure what would happen if she took a chunk out of one of the zombies with her jaws but now there was little choice.
The purple dinosaur leapt over the heads of some of the zombies and landed right behind Molly. It twirled it’s tail over her head and destroyed the craniums of several of the zombies while wiping a few more out as it came on the down swing.
Chase’s hand thrust out and grasped the head of a zombie he was sure was Tom Cruise. The Fistigons did the rest as they crushed the head of a zombie. He turned to look at his other hand. The Fistigon on his right seemed to have moved onto autopilot. The fingers on the glove shot backwards and forwards rapidly shredding the face of the zombie it was closest too.
Xavin cradled his love. His arms encircled her body as he felt her pulse slow to nothing. His face changed as his Skrull features grew even more prominent than usual and he let out a guttural snarl.
He had entered a type of rage known to his people where he lapsed into his instincts. His arms shrunk to his normal length as he strode away from Karolina’s body ready to get his revenge for her death.
He growled and several zombie heads exploded near him. He had created tiny force field bubbles inside their brains and expanded them rapidly. There was a shower of the filthy rotting matter they were made of as whatever rotting qualities they had turned to liquid.
“PAYBACK!” screamed Nico, tears stained her face at the loss of another friend…this one her best friend. The stream of red energy poured from her staff and blasted into more of the zombies.
They seemed to be swarming from nowhere around them. No matter how many they took out more seemed to take their place as they slowly but surely struggled towards the teens drawn by the sound of battle. They were beginning to think they may have had to fight the full population of LA before they got a free moment.
“Molly, that was the dumbest thing you ever did!” Chase pressed his back to Molly, her head only came up to the middle of his back as they stood ready to take enemies from both sides. “You can’t fight them in close quarters…what were you thinking.”
He turned angrily to look at Molly’s face over his shoulder. It was stained with tears, her eyes were red and bloodshot. She hadn't been thinking, she’d seen someone she loved taken away from her again and she’d acted. It wasn't unlike something Chase would do.
“Lets make these S.O.B’s pay, Bruiser.” He nodded as he turned back away from Molly. He thrust out his hand and concentrated on sculpting his flame. A long stick of flame appeared before firing forward like an arrow. It seemed to have much the same effect as a laser as it burned through the skull of the monster. He fired another with his other glove.
Molly brought her hands above her head and brought them down hard on the floor causing the entire street to shake. The shambling zombies in front of her crashed down.
Old Lace hurtled past her with a shriek slamming her powerful legs through the chests and heads of the zombies which Molly had just felled.
Molly grabbed one of the zombies that was climbing to it’s feet by the throat and then let out a long and loud yawn. The zombie snapped at her wrist but was unable to reach her.
Molly’s super strength came with a drawback because she was still developing. She fought hard but tired very quickly and would pass out unconscious until her body had recovered.
“Molly! Molly!...LACE!” Chase shot a mental command to his dinosaur while he smashed his fist through the head of a zombie.
Old Lace’s tail smashed through the zombie’s head before gripping Molly’s T-shirt tightly and tossing the small girl onto her back where she could sleep in relative safety compared to everywhere else.
Xavin span in a circle. His arms distended and extended while growing thinner. His arms were practically cheese wire with heavy weights of mass on the end as he swung them around slicing through the zombies which were surrounding them.
Nico had ducked to her knees while his attack continued. “FREEZE!” She yelled as he stopped and she popped to her feet. Even before the word left her lips she knew she’d made a mistake. She’d already cast that spell once meaning....A Blast shot forward and ricocheted off one of the zombies and into Xavin hard. His body seemed to loose all control as he collapsed into a fleshy puddle. When the staff tries to use more than one spell it gets erratic.
Xavin screamed as he pulled himself together. His arm appeared first and then the rest of his body as he emerged from the protoplasmic goo. He put his hand on his head and wobbled backwards as he tried to get his senses back. He stumbled right into the arms of a zombie as it bit down hard on him. A second grabbed him and did the same.
Hands seemed to grasp onto him from nowhere and he was dragged backward into what appeared to be an ever growing group which was now looking not unlike an army of zombies.
Chase was only thirty feet away from his team mates but neither could see one another. The blasts of energy and the shrieks and yells of them were all that told the others they were still there.
He let loose marble sized balls of flame from his Fistigons which scattered like buckshot. He had been able to practice with his technology in the alternate world but to make anything other than basic plumes of flame still required a lot of concentration on his part. Simple lines or specs of energy were much easier than anything more complicated.
A pair of hands tightly gripped his leg. He looked down, a zombie was dragging itself slowly towards him. The blast he’d fired through it minutes earlier seemed to have destroyed part of it’s head but obviously not an important enough part. He let out a shriek of panic.
This panic shot through Old Lace via their link causing the dinosaur to spring towards them. It’s legs moved swiftly as it reached Chase and ripped the zombie’s face with it’s sharp claws before driving her foot through the monsters head. She gripped Chase in her teeth and tossed him to her back.
“Molly!” screamed Chase. In the panic and the hurry the danger had brought out in Old Lace it had acted on instinct to get to Chase as quickly as possible causing her to unknowingly lose Molly.
Chase saw her just in time to see one of the zombies who looked no older than Molly herself from sinking her teeth into the sleeping Molly’s arm.
Zombies suddenly scattered left and right thrown by some unseen force. Chase and Old Lace turned to face Nico. She was on the floor lying on her front. She let off a scream and juddered a few times.
Zombies were piled onto her back and were latching their teeth across the length of her body. Her eyes were filled with tears.
Her hand stretched out toward him, almost begging for help. She brought her hand down and tickled the edge of the staff which she had lost seconds earlier as she blasted the path of zombies between the two.
The staff wobbled gently. Her fingers traced the end of it again but again lost contact.
Old Lace burst into a run on Chases’ mental command. Nico brushed the edge of the staff again and opened her mouth, her fingers slid across the surface of it and away again. “RUNAWAY!” she commanded as her fingers traced across it, she wasn't sure it worked or if she was even touching it. That was her last thought as she blacked out.
Old Lace sensed her going, her scent changed and she couldn't sense that psychic signature that it had learned over time. She skidded to a halt and exploded in the opposite direction.
Her powerful legs bounced up the hood of a car and then over a row of zombies. The second she hit the deck she was sprinting, dodging in and out of the zombies with ease.
An hour later…
Chase and Old Lace stood on an outcrop looking over the city. Lace had only stopped sprinting a few seconds earlier and Chase leapt from her back to look down at the city.
The dinosaur nuzzled her master gently whimpering in sadness. He pushed her nose away. She pushed back.
Chase turned and slammed into her side. “Your fault! You stupid dinosaur! You should have looked after Molly!...We Could have saved Nico!” he thrust his side into Old Lace again but this time the dinosaur didn't move; it took the brunt and remained solid.
Chase collapsed into her side putting his full weight on her. He began to cry. The worst part was he couldn't blame her, he didn't know what happened but as Nico yelled to him he wanted to run…nothing was more important than running. He couldn't decide whether it was a spell by Nico or if…or if he’d run.
He pushed away from Old Lace and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his T-shirt. “Let’s go,” he commanded. “It’s time to run away.”
Next Time: Where does Chase run too? Plus we discover the fates of some more of the Marvel Superheroes in this world gone bad.