TSJ 21

 None of this means anything to anyone anymore, but who ever said it had to?

     She needed to rest, but there was still a fight to win. It was the bullet pressing up against her spine that hurt the most. King Creation had shot her five times in the back, and with the first four hitting nothing but meat; she found she could ignore them easily enough. But the last bullet was scraping against bone, causing intense pain with the slightest movement.

     Johanna Grendul raised her head slowly and looked around the room. The Fenris had bravely taken out the Queen of Fools, but had succumbed to its own wounds. It lay on the floor next to her, barely breathing.

Johanna turned and looked at Mr. History, still fighting with the King. From the look on his face it was obvious he couldn’t keep going for long. King Creation was getting more powerful by the second, and Johanna knew her teammate couldn’t last much longer.

     And then she saw it, lying at the feet of the Queen. Everybody else had forgotten about the Infinity Gauntlet, and Johanna knew it was their only hope. She took a deep breath and blocked out the pain using the mantra Jake The Skin had showed her when they’d both studied in Hatmandu’s dojo. She pushed the agony away and started crawling, leaving a trail of green blood behind her.

    She’d only crawled a couple of meters when the bullet against her spine broke through her concentration and she passed out. She was only under for a few seconds, and quickly fought her way back into consciousness. She gritted her teeth and kept crawling. She was, after all, seventh generation Pantheon. She didn’t know how to give up.

     She was only centimetres away from the gauntlet when Mr. History lost his fight, flying across the room and hitting the wall of the throne wall with a dull thud. He slid down the wall and lay motionless on the floor as King Creation turned to face her, a look of triumph etched on his dull face.

     The expression quickly vanished when he saw what Johanna was doing. He bellowed and started towards her, desperate to stop her.

     "Too late, asshole," whispered Johanna as she slipped her hand inside the gauntlet.

)+(

 Kitchen

Sink

Plus

{TSJ#21}

)+(

     Planet of the Dead. Just after sunset and the long silence of the cemetery is rudely interrupted by the sound of furious digging and inane babbling.

     “I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead,” says Doctor Skin as he digs up the grave, tossing the dirt merrily over his shoulder, “but the rotten bastard never did me any favours.”

     Johanna Grendul leans in to get a closer look at the simple grave marker. “‘Arch Stanton’. Huh. Never heard of him.”

     “Why would you?” replies Skin, pausing to lean forward on his spade. There’s a sharp, sudden pain in the small of his back and he briefly panics as the pain reminds him of his own limitations, his own mortality. Calming down with several deep breaths, he reaches over, grabs the other spade and tosses it at Johanna. “You could help.”

     Johanna snatches the spade out of the air and examines it with detached curiosity. “What the fug is this supposed to be?”

     “It’s a spade. You don’t have spades in the 26th century?”

     “Of course not. We get robots to do all that crap.”

     Skin starts digging again. “I think you can find a good use for it.”

     “I’m a Grendel,” says Johanna icily. “We do not dig.”

     “Of course not,” says Doctor Skin, gesturing back over behind Johanna. “That guy is more your style.”

     Johanna spins around to see the figure slowly winding its way through the cemetery towards them. She knows there’s something wrong with the way it’s moving, but she can’t put her finger on it. “Who is it?”

     “Go for the head,” replies Skin as he starts to dig furiously, thick, dark brown soil flying in all directions.

     The figure is close enough now for Johanna to see its face. One look in the pale, blue and very dead eyes and she knows exactly what she’s dealing with. “Great. Fuggin’ zombies.”

     “Go for the head,” repeats Skin, deep in his hole now.

    “Gee, really?” says Johanna, gripping the spade tightly in her hand and walking out to meet the creature. “I mean, it's not like I’ve ever had to kill a zombie before.”

     “There’s no need for sarcasm,” says Skin, a little hurt. “I was just trying to help.”

     Johanna tunes him out. As she approaches the zombie she picks up speed, leaping up over a gravestone and kicking it in the chest. With a disturbingly moist sound it staggers back against a tomb, bouncing back off the wall with a thick moan and lunging for her throat with a hand that’s missing several fingers. Johanna lets it get just close enough, steps back and decapitates it with her spade. The zombie’s head flies away over the tomb and the body staggers forward a few steps, the hands waving up in the air, before collapsing at Johanna’s feet.

     Smelling the residue left on the spade, she tosses it aside, walking back to the desecrated grave where Skin has already dug the required six feet and is busy trying to haul a large coffin out of the hole. “You never told me there would be zombies.”
    
     Dragging the coffin to the edge of the hole, Doctor Skin takes her offered hand and jumps up out of the grave. “I didn’t tell you anything.”

     “That’s kinda my point,” says Johanna.

     Brushing the dirt off his dark suit, Jake Smiled. Pointing toward a small hill in the middle of the cemetery, he began walking toward it, dragging the coffin behind him with surprising ease. “Come on. We’re gonna need to get to higher ground. There’ll be more soon.”

     “More what? Zombies?”

     Skin nods. “At the last count there was four hundred thousand of the undead bastards out there for every human left alive. I imagine we’ll be highly desirable meal tickets.”

     Johanna couldn’t help smiling. “Bring ‘em on.”

     Following Skin over to the small hill, she makes a point of letting him drag the coffin on his own. By the time they reach the peak, Skin is out of breath, and has to sit down on the coffin. Simple oxygen deprivation still doesn’t prevent him from lighting up a odious cigarette. The sun has just disappeared over distant hills and the only signs that anything is amiss are an unnerving silence and the subtlest scent of decay in the air.

     “I just don’t see how this is supposed to help,” says Johanna. Picking up a handful of dead flowers from the nearest grave, she began to slowly pluck the petals. I mean, I put that fuggin’ Infinity Gauntlet on, and I can’t control it. Now I’m spread out through all of time and space. How the fug is a visit to the planet of the dead supposed to help?”

     Doctor Skin doesn’t look her in the eyes as he leans forward on the coffin and laces his fingers together. “Every three minutes you forget everything, yeah? As part of the loop you’re stuck in, right?”

     “That’s right.”

     Doctor Skin looks at his watch, a family heirloom that has kept perfect time for twenty-seven generations. “Huh.”

     A grin slowly grows on Johanna’s face. “Holy shit. You did it, Jake. You fixed me.”

     Skin waves away her joy. “No, no. I’m not that clever.”

     “Oh,” says Johanna, her grin fading a lot faster than it grew. “So what did you do?”

     “Easy trick,” answers Skin, shrugging and smiling smugly. “Shunted us both sideways into one of my favourite fictions. We’re outside existence as we know it, so you feel relatively normal, but we can only stay here for a couple of hours.”

    “Why?”

     “Because if we stay much longer than that, we’ll be driven completely mental.”

     “Skin. You can’t just chuck us into fiction like that. It’s totally impossible.”

     “Why? It worked on ‘Doctor Who’. Look, I needed you to get your shit together, and this seemed the easiest place to do it.”

     “Fine, fine,” says Johanna, pinching the bridge of her nose and silently counting to nine. “So why here? Why the fugging zombies?”

     “I just really fucking dig zombie movies, all right?”

     And right on cue, they arrive, thousands of them drawn by the scent of fresh meat in the stagnant air. Picking their way through the gravestones with slow, painful clumsiness, they are coming. Dead men, women, children, clowns, brides, soldiers, nurses and nuns. Thousands of people cruelly struck down, only to get right back up again, driven on by the unending desire for raw, fresh meat. Despite hideous injuries and gross decomposition, they will keep on coming. Until the head is destroyed, they will never stop.

     “Zombies,” sighs Johanna, stifling a yawn. “So, how are we doing this, Jake? Kung-Fu? Do you kick arse for the Lord?”

     Skin leans back on the coffin, perfectly relaxed. “We could just do it the old fashioned way. Tooth and claw.”

     “That’s not funny,” says Johanna coldly.

     She glances back at the approaching zombies. They’re coming from all directions and starting to run in a horrible shuffling gait as they get nearer to their prey. They begin to moan, a primitive, unintelligible howl as they suck air though rotting lungs.

     “It wasn’t meant to be humorous,” says Skin, standing up, stamping on the coffin and stepping back as the lid springs open. “It was meant to be ironic.”

     Somehow, Johanna isn’t really surprised to see the coffin is full of dozens of weapons. Guns, blades, blunt instruments and a corkscrew.

     Skin picks up the biggest handgun he can see and cocks the hammer. “Can’t go wrong with a decent phallic symbol,” he winks.

     Johanna has no time for ballistics, picks up an old, dented baseball bat and takes a firm grip. “I should’ve listened to Wheat Lad,” she sighs, the words drowned out by the dead creatures groaning, right behind her and getting closer.

     She turns and swings, hitting the first zombie in the side of the head, the bat sinking in and sticking fast. Its last pieces of brain totally destroyed, the dead man goes down with a comical groan.

     As she tries to wrench the bat free, a zombie bloated with putrefaction goes for her eyes. Leaving the bat, she steps back and punches it hard in the chest, her fist ripping through the skin. Pulling back her hand, she gags at the thick black slime on her fingers and the yellow gas that pours from the hole in the chest of the obese zombie as it staggers back, staring dumbly down at the puncture.

     “This is some repugnant shit!” screams Johanna, tearing the bat free, raising it high and bringing it down on any fucker that comes close. Heads are crushed, broken, pulverised and ripped from the neck and sent flying away.

     The muscles at the back of her neck begin to ache, and Johanna begins to realize how much fun this actually is.

     Next to her, Doctor Skin has started with a classic, and calmly blows various heads apart with his Magnum .45. Bracing his gun hand with the other and standing with feet firmly planted, the recoil of each shot damn near breaks his wrist, but the splatter effect is worth it.

     He quickly runs out of bullets, goes back to the coffin and picks up the AK-47 without hesitation. With short, controlled bursts, he picks off the closest zombies, taking a little more care with his ammunition.

     Soon, the hill is covered with the remains of the truly dead, bodies upon bodies, piling up high. New arrivals have to crawl over their predecessors in search of flesh and with Skin putting his game face on tonight, they’re soon part of the pile.

     As the waves of dead begin to slow down a little, Johanna has more time to line up her shots, with the bat caving in skulls with precision. The ache high ion her back flares into full pain again and Johanna suddenly understands how bored she’s getting.

     “Don’t think I don’t appreciate the effort,” she says as Skin tosses aside another gun and reaches for Daisy, his trusty flamethrower, “but I really don’t see how this is supposed to help me.”

     Skin holds back on the fire for a moment. “Yeah. Well, I haven’t started yet.”

     “Started what?”

     Doctor Skin just smiles and kicks Daisy into life, spreading fire all over the nearest zombies. The dried-out corpses flare up, creating a wall of flame around the hilltop. Skin’s eyes widen faster than his grin as he runs Daisy dry.

     “Oi!” cries Johanna, tossing her bat at Skin. “I was talking to you!”

     Nicely aimed, the handle of the bat hits Skin right on the thickest part of his skull. Not hard enough to do any damage, just hard enough to cause severe pain.

     “Owwww!” screams Skin, dropping Daisy and clutching his head. “FFFffffuuuuuuuuuuck!”

     “Started what?” asks Johanna nicely.

     “The trip,” moans Skin, wincing as he rubs the tender spot carefully. “Y’know, the journey inside self. The fugue game.”

     One zombie, too stupid to be scared of fire, shambles through the flames and, with body and cheap suit burning, reaches for Johanna’s throat. Smelling it long before it comes near, Johanna reaches into the coffin, pulls out a vicious looking hammer, turns and calmly hits the burning zombie right between the eyes. Finally getting the message, the zombie goes down for good as Johanna turns back to Skin, pointing the hammer at him.

     “Talk some fuggin’ sense, would you? We might be old friends, but I will hurt you if you don’t give me some straight answers.”

     “All right, all right. I’m gonna put you in a deep hypnotic state during which you will see yourself for what you truly are. Then you should be able to see the Gauntlet and be able to take it off. That should snap you back to normal.”

     “And then what? Normal is lying on the ground with six bullets in the back. What am I supposed to do about that?”

     “You’re a Grendel. You’ll think of something.”

     Johanna is unmoved. “Ridiculous.”

     “That’s why it’s going to work.”

     “Look, I can buy your plan. I don’t doubt you can do this. I seen a lot stranger shit in my time. But why here? Why the hell are you doing it here? Meditation has its time and place, Jake, and a hilltop surrounded by mother fuggin’ zombies is not it.”

     “Don’t worry. I can take care of your body while you’re gone.”

     “You couldn’t have done this on a beach somewhere?”

     Skin shrugs, infuriating Johanna with his smugness. “Where’s the fun in that?”

     The wall of flame is still burning high, thick black smoke pouring up into the darkening sky. Johanna still glances around to check for zombies before turning back to Skin.

     “Look,” she says, still brandishing the hammer,” I don’t doubt you can do this. I seen a lot stranger shit in my time. But getting me into a hypnotic state requires time and relaxation and…”

     “Not if I’ve already planted a hypnotic trigger in your mind,” interrupts Skin, tapping the side of his head.

     “What? When?”

     “Back in the dojo.”

     “What? That was years ago! How could you know you’d need it now?”

     Doctor Skin turns his back on her and begins to search through the coffin for his next weapon. “I plan ahead.”

     “How come I don’t remember you doing it then?” asks Johanna, talking to Skin’s back.

     “You were asleep.”

     “I was never asleep around you,” whispers Johanna, suddenly unsure.

     Skin pokes his head out of the coffin, his left eyebrow cocked at a typically outrageous angle. “That time behind the bonsai garden?”

     “I didn’t…” says Johanna, putting her hand over her mouth. “I thought you’d be too drunk to remember.”

     “Ha!” laughs Skin, turning back to the coffin.

     Johanna’s embarrassment quickly turns to cold fury. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me I’ve had a code in my head that can shut me down in an instant?”

     “Uh-huh.”

     “And I’ve had this in my brain for over half my life?”

     “Uh-huh.”

     “You idiot,” hisses Johanna, grabbing onto Skin’s shoulder and spinning him around. “You know what I do with my life, Skin. For years I’ve been walking straight into hell again and again. Do you know how fugging dangerous your little hypnotic trapdoor is? Do you realise what could have happened?”

     “It's not that big a deal,” says Skin, trying to break her firm grip on his shoulder and failing miserably. “The code is three words that nobody would use around you. Not in the right order.”

     “There was always a chance,” says Johanna, spitting out the words. “I’ve spent my entire life eliminating self-weakness and you left a hole right into my fugging soul!”

     “It was a totally obscure phrase. Nobody would use it. Nobody remembers it. Nobody cares.”

     “Not good enough!” yells Johanna. A s she raises the hammer she has no idea if she is about to use it or not.

     Doctor Skin doesn’t give her the chance. Finally breaking her grip on his shoulder, he steps back and whispers three short words.

     “Good. Guy. Gang.”

     Johanna drops the hammer as her eyes roll up into her skull. She drops to her knees and remains kneeling on the grass, her head lumped forward.

     “Christ,” says Skin, moving back to the coffin. “I thought she’d never leave.”

     Daisy’s flames have died away now and a fresh group of zombies are coming closer. Still annoyed that he couldn’t fit a lawnmower inside the coffin when he’d loaded it up, Skin settles for a large pair of sickles and turns to face them.

     “C’mon, you stinking, rotten, putrefying motherfuckers!” he screams at the top of his voice. “Come and get it!”

)+(

     On the outside, she is the definition of relaxed. Breathing deeply & evenly, her eyes are closed as she rests on the hilltop.

     On the inside, Johanna Grendul is off and running at a million miles an second.

     She’s been inside her head before, so it doesn’t take her long to adjust to the new state and she’s soon on top of things, going along for the ride.

     It might be nothing new, but she’s still surprised at the amount of shit she’s got rattling around inside her skull. Everything she’s ever done stretches out in front of her. Everything is accessible. Everything is open for revaluation.

     And one of those moments envelops her, covering her with the experience. Back along her timeline, back along her life, back in the day. She’s really there.

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     They are all there. Finally gathered together as J Street came Full Circle, every member of every Pantheon team from every time, from the first generation through to the Lost Pantheon Tribe from the 64th century. They’re all here, waiting for the portal to open.

     The latest apocalypse is slow to arrive as the vast flaming portal grows slowly in the middle of the J Street night. The Pantheon wait patiently, the group stretching away down the street.

     Right down the back of the crowd, Johanna Grendul squints in the dim light as she tries to make out what’s going on. Failing to see anything, she turns to the man in the fedora & cap standing next to her.

     “I don’t know about you, Hatmandu,” she says as she tries seeing past the Fenris’ massive shoulders, “but I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here.”

     “Welcome to the Pantheon,” says the other man cheerfully. “But I think you’ve got me confused with somebody else. I’m Hatman.”

     “Hatman?” asks Johanna. “Just Hatman?”

     “Well, sometimes I’m The Hatman, but only when I’m in a bad mood.”

     “Jeez, you’re one of the originals,” says Johanna, trying to keep the awe out of her voice and doing a terrible job of it. “Shouldn’t you be up front there, with all the other major players?”

     “Not my style,” says Hatman, looking out over the crowd with keen eyes. “I prefer not to showboat. I just want to get the job done.”

     “You’re doing a great job back here,” says Johanna, her natural cynicism rapidly overtaking her admiration. “Fug, what are any of us doing here?”

     “Philosophically or practically?”

     “Practically,” says Johanna dryly.

     “Ah,” says Hatman quietly, taking a moment to gather his thoughts before answering. “We are here because, like it or not, we’re the best people for the jobs. We’ve got the power, the skills, the intelligence and the enthusiasm. Who better to save the world?”

     Johanna isn’t impressed. “Are you reading from a brochure?”

     “I shouldn’t have to explain any of this. You’re a Grendel. Its part of what you are.”

     “How did you know I’m a Grendel?”

     “The Hawaiian shirt. It’s a total giveaway.”

     Hatman’s head suddenly snapped around to face the portal, his ears twitching slightly. Without hesitation he’s grabbed Johanna and started to push their way through the crowd. “Come on.”

     “Hey!” cries Johanna as Hatman elbows aside Mr. History. “What now?”

     “Now,” says Hatman, not looking back, “we get the job done.”

)+(

    The sun has set totally now and the zombies lunge at Skin from out of the dark. He tosses a couple of incendiary grenades around the base of the hill, starting several large bonfires as more of the dead burn.

     Skin reaches back into the coffin, pulls something out, drops to his knees, braces the heavy machine gun against his chest and lets rip. Bullets of the highest calibre tear into dead flesh, the rotting bodies dissolving into a pungent mist. The recoil of the gun is hitting him hard, but Skin keeps firing, his laughter drowned beneath the gunfire.

     The gun begins to overheat and Skin holds fire for a moment, letting it cool down. He glances over at Johanna, vaguely wondering where she got the Hawaiian shirt. “Heh.”

     "I don’t know who I am,” whispers the comatose Johanna in a tiny voice.

     Skin laughs again. “Who does, baby? Who does?”

)+(

     And somewhere else in her life, Johanna shakes Nope’s hand. “Thanks for your help, guys. This latest version of M.O.I.R.A. would have been a bitch to take down without you.”

     Nope smiles and takes off his sunglasses, exposing his scarlet eyes. He hands the glasses to her. “Just take it easy, Johanna. Remember, nihilism might have a nice haircut, but it doesn’t pay the bills.”

     “What the fug is that supposed to mean?”

     Nope just winks and steps back onto Doctor Doom’s time platform. Johanna turns to Mr. History to see what he makes of it, but he’s too busy talking to wheat Lad. “Grud,” he says, shaking his head, “I was just reading about that fight where you took out your two future selves, that was legendary, man.”

     “I never fought my future self,” says Wheat Lad with a straight face. “You’re thinking of Vindicator.”

     “Oh. Who are you again?”

     “Wheat Lad.”

     “Oh.”

     “Time to go,” says Nope, tapping his wristwatch. “Some of us have families to get back to.”

     “Alright, alright,” says Wheat Lad, stepping up onto the platform. Mr. History turns and activates the controls, the time platform glowing beneath Nope and Wheat Lad’s feet.

     “21st century please,” says Nope politely.

     “20th,” says Wheat Lad.

     “21st.”

     “Are you sure?”

     “Pretty sure.”

     “Huh,” says Wheat Lad, nodding at Mr. History. “21st it is.”

     Mr. History kicks the platform into life, and it begins to slowly rise. Wheat Lad watches as his feet disappear. “Aw, I hate this bit. Couldn’t we just have used the street to get home?”

     Nope shakes his head as the platform reaches his knees. “Nah. It’s a 27-hour drive. Screw that.”

     “Bye, boys,” says Johanna, saluting loosely. “See you next year.”

     “Later,” replies nope, trying to look as cool as possible without his sunglasses and the bottom half of his body.

     “See you, Johanna,” says Wheat Lad, waving his index finger. “And remember. No matter how tempting it might be, never, ever put the Infinity Gauntlet on.”

     The platform reaches its peak and Nope & Wheat Lad were gone, back into time, back to their own lives. Confused, Johanna turns to Mr. History.

     “And just what the fug was that supposed to mean?”

)+(

     Doctor Skin has destroyed everything moving within a fifty-metre radius. The next batch of zombies will be along any minute now, but he’s got time to sit don and light a cigarette. He blows the smoke out, watching it curl through the air in the light from the bonfires.

     “I really fucking dig zombie movies,” he says to nobody in particular. He just likes to give life a monologue. “Romero and all his imitators, especially those bloody Italians with all their lovely, lovely gore. Apocalypses of the dead, breakdown of normalcy, people pushed to the edge in the effort to survive. All those crappy sequels and rip-offs, still the only fucking movies to really scare the shit out of me.”

     A lone zombie approaches and Skin stands, raises his gun and puts a bullet in its head. “Like ‘Zombie Creeping Flesh’! The bit with the rat in the radiation suit!”

     Another zombie comes close, dragging the rotting leg of a small child behind it. Skin puts two bullets through its eyes. “Or ‘The Beyond’! That girl zombie with the pigtails and the big motherfuckin’ hole in her head! That’s some creepy shit!”

     The next crowd of dead men are getting near. Skin checks to make sure his guns are fully loaded and wits for them. “Or that zombie sticking its head into the helicopter blades in ‘Dawn of the Dead’! Man, that was the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.”

     Doctor Skin begins firing, screaming out detailed descriptions of his favourite scenes. Totally into it, he doesn’t notice the sunglasses appear on Johanna’s face. He doesn’t hear her whisper.

     “Meditation on inevitable death must be performed daily…”

)+(

     Back in her head, Johanna snaps back into another memory, hoping like hell it’s a good one. It is.

     “All light is shadow,” says Joe Grendel, sitting on the platform above her, his legs crossed beneath him, his face hidden in the darkness. “Everything in the right place.”

     Johanna sits below him and she doesn’t have a damn clue what he’s talking about, so she goes for politeness. “Thank you.”

     “You know who you are now,” nods Joe, handing her the Gun. She waves it away, wondering what Grandpa would think, dismissing the Prime Grendel like this.

     “Guns are redundant,” says Johanna Grendul.

     Joe holds out the sword and she takes it without hesitation. Resisting the urge to play with it straight away, she puts it aside and nods her head. “Blades are forever.”

     Joe Grendel smiles. “Good girl.”

)+(

     “I used to over think things,” says Doctor Skin, still talking to his audience of the comatose and the dead. “And if you keep that sort of thing up for too long you end up paralysed with inaction.”

     Skin puts several zombie mariachis out of their misery, bloody guitars and sombreros flying everywhere. He winks to an invisible camera.

     A sword appears in Johanna’s left hand, but Skin is still too busy to notice.

)+(

     And it all finally breaks down for Johanna Grendul. Deconstructed to the nth degree, it all falls away, everything that she thought was so important.

     All the memories: Joining the Pantheon on her 13th birthday; teaming up with Typo Lord and saving Earth from the Reverse Jester on her 9th; journeying to the end of J Street only to find Johnny fuggin’ DC there on her 17th. Ignoring Grandma Callahan’s advice; going on holiday with Jenny Everywhere; getting drunk with Bernice Summerfield; saving the multiverse with Wonder Woman. Reuniting with the clan; making new friends without faces and playing poker with second stringers. All gone.

     All the emotions: Rage and fear and hate and compassion and love and the others.

     All the options: Honour and willpower and courage and all the rest.

     All gone.

)+(

     Somewhere else entirely, Cowman smells his own fart and wonders why it stinks of garlic.

)+(

     With all due respect, Doctor Skin has resorted to his samurai sword. He’s never trained with it, but he’s watched a lot of kung-fu movies lately, and he’s got a shitload of enthusiasm.

     He’s given up on the monologue, and now just screams out inanities. “I am you father!” he yells. “Your father! Mugstealer! Steal my mug, baby! Are you having sex now? I am your father!!! Explain the motherfucking abstract!”

     Zombie extremities fly in every direction. Unfortunately, there is very little blood.

)+(

     ?

)+(

     Within an instant, Johanna Grendul returns. Mind, soul, body, just like before. Nothing has changed, everything is just cleaner.

     Her eyes snap open and she stands up on the hill in the middle of the graveyard. Dr. Skin turns, reloading his last handguns with the last of his bullets as the tide of zombies dies down again. “You all right, Johanna?”

     She gets to her feet, smiling strangely. “All right now.”

     “Do you know what you have to do?” asks Skin.

     “Something becomes nothing,” says Johanna, looking at her bare hands. “Nothing is real.”

     A lone zombie, legs missing along with most of its torso, crawls up to Skin’s leg and tries to bite his ankles off, losing its face to Skin’s Tarterus .666 for its trouble. “If nothing is real,” ponder Skin, “then everything is possible.”

     “As above, so below?”

     “Same old shit, different day.”

     “It's easy when you know how,” says Johanna, staring at her right hand again. There is something there.

     “Does everybody from the future talk complete shit like this?” asks Skin, popping open the chamber of his Testosterone .723, hoping in vain for a couple more bullets.

     Johanna ignores him, focusing on her hand. There is something there. “If nothing is real, there is no Gauntlet. If everything is possible, there is.”

     Doctor Skin’s shoulders slump. With a relieved sigh, he nods his head slowly. “There you go.”

     Johanna smiles. The Infinity Gauntlet is on her hand. Spread out like rotten butter across the universes, Johanna holds her hand high and sees her face reflected in its five jewels. Time, Space, Reality, Mind, Power, and the Soul come into alignment and everything is clear and simple.

     In a thousand different times, in a million different lives, Johanna is looking at the glove on her hand. In every single one, she takes off the glove.

)+(

     Nothing happens.

)+(

     Skin watches Johanna vanish the instant she takes off the glove. Turning to face the million or so zombies closing in, he checks both guns and realizes he’s totally out of bullets.

     Doctor Skin sneers. “Typical.”

)+(

     Johanna Grendul raises her head slowly and looked around the room. The Fenris has bravely taken out the Queen of Fools, but has succumbed to its own wounds. It lies on the floor next to her, barely breathing.

     Johanna turns and looked at Mr. History, still fighting with the King. From the look on his face it was obvious he can’t keep going for long. King Creation is getting more powerful by the second, and Johanna knows her teammate couldn’t last much longer.

     And then she sees it, lying at the feet of the Queen. The Infinity Gauntlet. If she gets that on, she can save them all. She can save everybody.

     But then something inside her, some instinct, boils to the surface and she instantly decides she doesn’t need it. She stands, gritting her teeth against the pain, and staggers across the room toward the King.

     Mr. History loses his fight and goes down, sliding down the wall. King Creation begins to turn around and Johanna knows this is her last chance.

     Driven on by sheer will, She uses the last of her energy to kick King Creation squarely in the balls and punch him in the throat. He falls down with a stupid expression on his face, and Johanna can’t stand anymore. She falls back, her ears hurting in the sudden silence.

     She lies there on her back, staring up at the ceiling and breathing shallowly. Suddenly the Fenris is at her side, its own wounds forgotten in its concern, its healing touch going into overdrive, sacrificing a little of its life for her without a second thought.

     Johanna lets it go to work and closes her eyes with a smile. She needs to rest. She’s going to lie down.

     For a while.

)+(

     “Waves look strange today,” says Karolyne as she leans back on the bonnet of their car, soaking up some sun as she stares at the ocean. “They move like they’re in slow motion.”

     “Residual effect of the fiction,” answers Doctor Skin, sauntering down the road toward her, holding his blood-covered machete lightly at his side. “Symbolic representation of freedom and safety and all that.”

     “Rubbish,”

     “Yeah, that’s kinda the point,” says Skin, sitting down beside his girl and rapping his knuckles on the bonnet. “You got the car back, then?”

     Karolyne nods, still looking out to see. “The Pirates dropped it off. They’re a lot more polite in their latest incarnation, especially Mr. Action.”

     “They didn’t stick around?”

     “Nah. Doug Strange had another couple of lives he was desperate to get back to.”

     “Good,” says Skin, nodding. “You have any trouble with the zombies, baby?”

     Karolyne smiles. She raises the rifle with the telescopic sight next to her and gestures toward some motionless figures further down the beach. “Nah. I didn’t let any of these stinking arseholes get near.”

     “Good.”

     Sighing long and loud, Skin rests his head on his lover’s lap, closing his eyes. “I’m so tired, baby. I’m so tired. I feel like I’ve just gone eighty minutes with the fuckin’ All Blacks.”

     “I know,” says Karolyne soothingly, stroking Skin’s short black hair. “Did you get your friend sorted out?”

     “Johanna? Yeah, she should be home by now.”

     “She was lucky she wasn’t caught up in the Cascade, putting on the Gauntlet like that.”

     “Luck has got nothing to do with it,” says Skin in a distant voice.

     Sensing he’s falling asleep before he does, Karolyne stands up, leaving Skin’s head to bounce off the bonnet. “Come on, Jake. Lets blow this joint. Smells funny round here.”

     “You’re driving,” says Skin, standing up and getting into the passenger seat.

     Karolyne slips in behind the wheel and starts the Car With No Name up. “Anywhere in particular you want to go?”

     “I don’t care,” murmurs Doctor Skin, right on the threshold of unconsciousness. As he slips under he catches a glimpse of Karolyne smiling at him.

     Karolyne reverses the car and pulls away, activating the dimensional jump in the back seat as she does so. The car drives away, slowly fading as it disappears into thin air, leaving nothing behind.

     On the Planet of the Dead, everything is silent again.

     The End.

This Has Been a Mad Wish debacle: Shoot ‘Em In The Head!