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#1
MAY 11 |
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The sky above Paris Island was not normally any shade of green. There was always a thick haze of gray from the pollution of the surrounding factories that employed a majority of its citizens, but green was never a color that made its way into the clouds. Had anyone thought to live through the day, they would have fled as far away as possible, ignoring the curious nature of the sky. Human nature seemed to trump common sense as the people of Paris Island viewed from their windows and gazed at the sight from their front steps. No one thought to evacuate. That was why everyone died.
Once riddled with crime and overrun with gang violence, Paris Island had come to relative peace in recent years under the protection of one of its most notorious gangs. The Blood Syndicate formed as a result of what was called “The Big Bang,” a devastating explosion that gave survivors of the incident inexplicable powers. Violence, murder and hatred spread through the island until the Syndicate cleaned it of all the undesirables with the exception of themselves. They were seen as heroes to the people, but beneath their mild celebrity they were still violent gangbangers, drug addicts and murderers, loyal only to each other and the perpetuation of their ‘ownership’ of Paris Island.
Wise Son, the leader of the Syndicate, was always on alert, always waiting for something bad to happen. As he watched the sky, he could feel it in his invulnerable bones. This was it. “This ain’t good,” he mumbled to Fade, his long time friend and immaterial ghost of a man. “Can’t you feel it?”
Fade was always reserved and calm, despite the fact that his physical form was slowly losing its coherence. He stood silently with his hands tucked into the pockets of his white trench coat and gave little indication of his thoughts.
“Where’s everybody else?” Wise Son asked, quickly growing to anger with Fade’s silence. “They gotta be ready for what’s gonna come out of that green.”
“DMZ’s on the roof. Brickhouse and Third Rail are at the restaurant in town,” Fade said without breaking eye contact with the sky. “Flashback’s inside, probably sucking on a pipe again.”
“Get her out here,” Wise Son ordered, usually more comfortable with telling people what to do rather than do things himself.
“I don’t think so,” Fade replied. “I don’t think she’s any safer with us.”
Wise Son was about to protest but knew that Fade only treated him in such ways because they knew neither of them could hurt each other. Wise Son looked to the roof of their dilapidated warehouse that the Syndicate had been remodeling. DMZ, the mute powerhouse of the team, gazed down at them, ignoring the strange meteorological events. Wise Son knew that DMZ would be as much help as Fade, always on his own mission, doing whatever he pleased. No one saw Wise Son as the top man anymore.
As he stared at DMZ from below, what appeared to be a man fell from the sky and crashed into the roof. DMZ disappeared from view as Wise Son rushed to investigate. He bolted into a sprint, through the immaterial body of Fade and into the building. Fade rose slowly into the air to get to the roof by taking a much easier route.
Wise Son almost bent the door from the hinges as he entered the building, interrupting Flashback as she exhaled a cloud of smoke. She was hunched on the couch, barely maintaining her hold on her smoldering crack pipe.
“Get up to the roof, Flashback,” Wise Son demanded as he ran to the stairwell. “We got crazy $#@! going down.”
Flashback was obviously confused, her eyes glossed. “Wha…?” she asked before losing interest and going back to concentrating on her drugs.
DMZ recognized the man that had fallen from the sky immediately, although he would never tell anyone what he knew. He had not spoken since he had arrived on this planet many years ago. No one even knew he was not from here and no one ever would.
He kept his distance as the man rose to his feet, relatively unharmed. The man had unhealthy yellow skin and a face as ugly as anything DMZ had ever seen throughout his lifetime travelling the stars.
“Back, Earth-thing,” the man ordered as he pulled a small rectangular device from his dirtied green frock. “Stand away from me or feel the disintegrating wrath of the warmonger of Apokolips.”
The man activated a button on the device and the air around him exploded into a tunnel of light. Through the rumble of the Boom Tube, Steppenwolf laughed.
“This world falls, Earth-thing,” he boasted. “Let the handsome face of Steppenwolf be the last that you see before you and all you love is burned into embers. Know that I will live as you and your world die pitifully.”
Without another word, Steppenwolf stepped into the Boom Tube and dissipated into nothingness, shrinking from view at an impossible perspective. The Boom Tube lingered once Steppenwolf had gone and DMZ did not hesitate. This world was not his own, perhaps Steppenwolf might aid him. DMZ did not think to consider the fate of the Blood Syndicate. He had always hated them, but he would never tell them that. They, as are so many, were unworthy of his unspoken words.
Flashback had struggled for years with her drug addiction. She had even stopped cold turkey when she gained her abilities to travel back in time three seconds thinking that drugs and super powers do not mix. As time went on and the Blood Syndicate became the law on Paris Island, boredom and a weak will led her right back into the clutches of the crack pipe.
She had given up hiding it from the others as she sat in the main room of the run down warehouse. Three puffs were all she had time for before Wise Son crashed into the room demanding something. “Get up to the roof, Flashback,” Wise Son mumbled, Flashback could not understand. “We got crazy $#@! going down.”
“Wha…?” she responded slowly. Before her eyes could focus, he was gone into the stairwell. She could have sworn he had said something. As she pondered another hit, she remembered her powers.
“Flashback,” she slurred and watched as Wise Son entered the room hurriedly.
“Get up to the roof, Flashback,” Wise Son said again. “We got crazy $#@! going down.”
“Wha…?” she replied, this time understanding that something was happening. Still, she was not sure. “Flashback,” she said again and watched Wise Son erupt through the door.
“Get up to the roof, Flashback,” Wise Son demanded as he ran to the stairwell. “We got crazy $#@! going down.”
“Wha…?” she said again. It still was not getting through her addled brain.
Wise Son bashed the roof access door open only to find that the roof was unoccupied. DMZ and the man that had fallen from the sky were gone without a trace. Wise Son began to look around, hoping to detect something that would shed some light on the situation until he was interrupted by Fade, who was hovering even with the edge of the roof over the street below. He was motionless, his attention focused to the state of affairs in the city around him. “You better take a look at this, Wise,” he said, his voice stumbled with growing fear.
Wise Son hurried to the roof’s edge and surveyed the streets with instant terror. A spreading swarm of creatures were filling into the streets, pouring from windows and rising from the sewers. Thousands of inhuman beasts whispered and grumbled as they devoured everything in their path. They came from all directions, seemingly intent on meeting in a full assembly directly below them.
Wise Son was quick to act without thinking. “I got this,” he said, obviously not considering the facts. He leapt over the roof barrier and feel thirty feet to the ground. His invulnerability prevented all injuries to his body but damaged the integrity of the concrete sidewalk. Fade was protesting Wise Son’s course of action from above and phased into the building to retrieve Flashback for an immediate retreat.
Wise Son was surrounded by the encroaching masses. None of the things looked human and the noises they made were of no language that he had ever heard. As he stood ready, fists and all other voluntary muscles clenched, he failed to let the possibility of fear into his mind. He was unhurtable so in his mind he had nothing to fear.
“One that does not run away,” a horrid voice from behind him belched, a sound like mud bubbling to a boil.
Wise Son spun to see the thing that spoke and still would not feel fear. “What the $#@% is going on here?” he demanded answers from the thing. Its brown skin was covered in grubs and centipedes, feeding on its flesh. It smelled of mulch and sewage. And death.
“A reckoning, it is being called,” the thing said. “Old vengeance.”
“Call off your ugly bastards,” Wise Son growled as he raised a fist to the thing. “There won’t be any reckoning while the Blood Syndicate is in town.”
“An apt name for such as you, Wise Son,” the thing smiled, dripping bloody pus from the corners of its mouth. “A so-called man made of blood. Full of blood.”
“How do you know who I am?” Wise Son asked, still not afraid.
“It is our way, our gift, to know what we have missed,” the thing said. “I am called Gaap, third born of Lilith. I have never been awake until now and you are in the way of my return to slumber.”
“I’ll stop you and all of your #$@%ed up monsters,” Wise Son defied. “You can’t hurt me. Nothing can hurt me!”
Gaap bellowed with laughter, the action of which poured insects from holes in his belly. “You chose an improper pseudonym, Wise Son,” he grinned. “Perhaps once you meet your infernal damnation, you will know your true name. I am sure that it will not include the word ‘wise’.”
Wise Son barreled into Gaap with all of the momentum he could muster, his anger making it difficult to breathe, his adrenaline making it impossible to fear. Gaap stood, unmoved, as the human attacked him, trying to bring him to the ground. The surrounding hordes of Gaap’s brothers and sisters merged around them to watch the struggle, cooing and lauding the pitiful display of human determination.
“You should let the fear in, Wise Son,” Gaap said, “for that will be the only way to die peacefully.”
Gaap effortlessly broke Wise Son’s grip and held the man by his arms. The monster opened his bug-infested mouth and revealed to Wise Son the true meaning of fear. Mud erupted from Gaap’s open maw and poured down his chin, onto the ground. It pooled at Wise Son’s feet and slowly penetrated into his shoes. Wise Son struggled but Gaap was much too strong.
Wise Son screamed as he felt the mud pierce the soles of his feet and enter into his system. He felt it squirm its way up through his legs into his torso, filling his lungs and heart. His eyes widened as he stared into Gaap’s inhuman eyes and knew that he should have been scared. He should have run. He should have lived.
Gaap held Wise Son at arm’s length as the mud in the man’s system erupted outward, rending the supposedly invulnerable gangbanger into a rain of bloodied flesh. The creatures around Gaap pounced on the fresh meat as Gaap basked in the gore of the fallen Wise Son.
“No one is truly wise,” Gaap said to himself. “Nor is anyone truly unable to die.”
Fade dropped like a ghost from the ceiling, startling Flashback as she stood to look out the window. He was not surprised to see his sister in such a state but he’d given up feeling sorry for her long ago.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he stated as Flashback realized what was going on outside.
“F#$@ing monsters,” she gasped in terror, her bloodshot eyes wide. “What’s Wise doin’ out there?”
“Causing a diversion,” Fade said, hoping that was what he was doing. Fade had neither the intention nor the means of fighting hordes of monsters. It would only get Flashback killed while he lived on, a ghost. “Let’s go out the back.”
“Oh my God!” Flashback screamed as she witnessed Wise Son’s terrible fate. She jolted to the door instinctually as Fade was physically unable to prevent her from going outside.
She jumped down the front steps but quickly froze in place as Gaap turned to greet her. She buckled in panic. Fade came through the exterior wall reluctantly, hoping that Flashback would not share Wise Son’s fate. He knew this was bad news; whatever can do such a thing to Wise Son was something to be as far away from as possible.
Gaap greeted them all with a disgusting grin as he wiped the brown saliva from his rancid chin. “Can you feel that?” he growled, almost overcome with joy. “It is now!”
He raised his arms to the sky and the monstrous legion joined him, raising their heads to the sky, crying in ecstasy as the world disappeared in a flash of green. A silent wave of utter devastation tore through Paris Island, disintegrating buildings and people as if they were made of toilet tissue. Fade screamed as he saw Flashback begin to evaporate before his eyes.
“Flashback!” she yelled as the wave tore into her flesh and soul, bringing her back three precious seconds. She turned to look at her helpless brother only to be hit by the wave again.
“Flashback!” she yelled again, moving closer to Fade as her panic grew, sobering her confusion but doing nothing to prevent her death.
“Flashback!” she tried again. She was inches from Fade as he held out his arms to her. It meant nothing to either of them that his arms could not hold her or his strength could not protect her.
“Flashback!” she yelled again as she tripped through the place where Fade stood, falling through his incorporeal body. She cried as she landed, smashing her mouth on the concrete step, the trauma of which prevented her from triggering her flashback powers for another attempt at survival. Fade watched her dissolve into nothing and sobbed ghostly tears. The building fell around him in a cloud of dust, the creatures that worshipped the devastation drifted into nonexistence. Once it was over, Fade floated in a fog of nothingness, unable to move or speak, traumatized by what he had seen.
Through the fog that was once his home and his friends, Fade saw that Gaap had survived. The monstrous thing shambled through the barren place with a true smile upon his face.
“A beautiful way to make my mother’s presence known, is it not?” he asked Fade, not expecting an answer. After a moment of silence, he turned away. “Goodbye, ghostly survivor,” Gaap said as he walked away, disappearing into the mist. “I imagine you’ll be seeing me in your nightmares.”
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To Be Continued in Crisis ad Infinitum: Steppenwolf. Coming Soon!
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