Night of the Living Dead (Open)

[cerebrum]

Brian had always thought of Halloween as a children’s holiday. It was how his father had raised him, as the elder Xavier was fairly removed from holidays for any reason beyond the benefit of the students. And his Godfather, a tortured soul, had considered the holiday to be a load of hogwash. As a child he’d gone trick-or-treating and when he’d gotten older and worked at the school, he’d helped the younger kids with their little Halloween party, but he’d largely stopped caring about the day for any reason beyond that. He might watch a movie, if something good was out, but Christmas and Thanksgiving were more his holidays.

This Halloween was a nightmare.

Why were there corpses – revenants he corrected himself – walking around the streets of the city? What sort of evil magic wielding maniac had allowed this to happen? More importantly, what were any of them going to do about it?

The comm. call came over the JLA channel, and so he’d donned his costume, grabbed a hatchet and a gun, although he was loathe to do so, and hit the streets. Brian wasn’t sure how useful his powers would be against mindless zombies, but he was willing to try.

[Erin Brown]

5: 37 pm

“Errrr.” The unliving moans came from the creature as at took slow lumbering steps through the doorway, swaying back and forth. The tense reach of an arm search desperately as glazed over eyes pierced into the heart of its victim. There was no escape, the victims were caught, unable to flee!

“Weeeerrrrr!” The screams; coffee beans went round and round grinding up as Erin stood there still half asleep, scratching her backside. Ok, so she was out for almost three days. It was a normal thing for her. Stay up about a week straight, with only a few hour naps here and there and then a clean clonk out for a couple days. Of course if anything arose that her assistance was needed she would be alerted. Right?

“Uhhh, she yawned. “Let’s see what’s going on in the world today.” She said sitting down with her cup of coffee and turned on the TV.
“That’s strange; TBS usually doesn’t do news, or dose it?” She pondered sipping her coffee.
“It’s been almost 24 hours as the world became inflamed with the horror of what seems to be a zombie like break out.” The reporter said.
“Wow Halloween, I’m glad I woke up for this, must be a movie.” She said.
“Here is live picture of down town New York, the sight is unreal. Here with us is mayor West, Mayor what is your reaction to this horrible event."
"Well Susan, it seems what we have here is defiantly not a joke, what many have feared, what we all seemed to have created as fantasy for so many years in movie has come real. Right now hundreds of thousands of these undead creatures are wandering the streets, killing and consuming the living. Please I erge you all to..”

“Wow yea, I wonder what else is on.” She said flipping the channel. Yet oddly the same thing was on. She switched it again and again; every channel was covering this Zombie Doomsday event.
“What the hell?” She said. “Is this some sort of international joke?” She yelled. But little did Erin know, this was real. Dead real.

6:19 Pm

The syringe lay on the table; it was a while since she had to induce her deeper mutant form. Pretty much all the league was out there. Why they didn’t wake her up, she had no idea, she could have been totally forgotten, probably because she wasn’t always there and never really told people her plans. She had gotten word one hero out there was alone, it was unwise, she needed to get to him.

Erin didn’t think this type of thing was impossible, she had seen her share of the impossible repeated times; enough times it just got old. She wondered if any of her archenemies had anything to do with this complete bull shit. It was likely. Was the Harvestman up to complete madness this time?

She packed everything she needed, there wouldn’t be need to play nice this night. It was kill or be killed. She packed her blades and gadgets and filled her bike with gas. The hoover board was fully charged along with a spare battery. Her com was fully working and the locator on her partner for the night was set. She double-checked herself; feeling each object and glazing through her backpack. She flexed her spider limbs.

“Alright, time to kill some fucking corpses!” She said jumping on her bike and took off.

6: 47 Pm

Erin was center city and the sight was not good. She had already killed some. There was no pulse to them or consciousness other than to draw towards a living person to dismember and devour them. Why zombies? Why couldn't it be something normal like alien invasions, or mutant wars or a swarm of Command agents hunting her ass. But zombies really, well they were so persistent in killing everyone, it was like Scorn, she'd rather.. ok maybe it wasn't worse then fighting Scorn, at least they were slow and stupid. Well he was stupid too.

Erin parked her bike several feet up on a patio and jumped down to the area where Cerebrum was located, but where? There was a gun shot and she ran the corner. Of course a giant spider would probably just get the same treatment or worse as a zombie, so she leaped above him on a wall, leaping back and forth.

“You shouldn’t be alone; I’m here to help you. My name is Arac, I’m with the JLA, as you.” She said. “Do you have any idea what caused this? Or who?” She said leaping down to him.