WHERE I MEET ZOMBIE KEITH
“Yo!” Zombie Keith said, pulling out a white chocolate candy bar marked Braiiiinnnnns and taking a bite out of it. “Wassuuuuup!”
I screamed again. I sounded like a yodeling schoolgirl being thrown off a cliff.
Jane walked up behind me and gave me a dope slap. “Calm down.”
“Stop that,” Mandy snapped, staring down at Jane. “He’s my husband. Only I get to slap him.”
“Spousal abuse is never funny,” Cindy said, a lot more serious than normal.
“It’s consensual,” Mandy said. “Like the chains, handcuffs, lingerie, and leather.”
Cindy blinked. “Does Gary wear the leather or lingerie?”
“Seriously,” Zombie Keith said. “Dude has got some serious Austin Powers mojo going on here. I don’t get it.”
“Regular awesome sex. It’s how I get my boyfriends back home to cooperate,” Jane said. “You just need to express the value of sharing.”
“I don’t like sharing,” G muttered under his breath.
Zombie Keith raised his hand. “So, Gary, high five!”
“What the hell are you doing?” I said, finally regaining control over my senses. “Also, my brother did not act like this.”
“Well, I’m just your brother’s dark side,” Zombie Keith said, talking with his mouth full before swallowing. “I’m back to the time he was a surfer dude catching the New Angeles waves. The waves around this island are pretty radical but I’m dead so I can’t really enjoy them. Bum—”
“Don’t say bummer or I will have to kill you,” I said, staring at him.
“Wouldn’t be so bad,” Zombie Keith said, looking over at the arena. “I just, like, killed two superheroes. That’s a drag. Hey, are you actually a wizard?”
“Yes,” I said, trying to fake being cheerful as I stared at an empty shell imitating my dead brother. I still wanted to hug him.
“Could you like conjure me up some Doritos?” Zombie Keith said.
I waved my hand and a bag of Mercitos appeared in his hand.
“Awww, it’s the crappy generic kind,” Zombie Keith said before tearing open the bag and shoveling them down his throat.
“Okay, that’s nasty,” Jane said, wrinkling her nose. “It’s like he’s combined corpse and frat boy.”
“No, no surfer dude and corpse,” I said, looking over at her. “They’re both still pigs when eating but surf zombies loves the environment.”
Zombie Keith wiped away some of the toasted chips from his face before speaking. “I wanted to tell you some information about Entropicus.”
“Really, the guy who brought you back from the dead,” I said, trying not to scream and set him on fire.
“This isn’t life, dude,” Keith said, frowning. There was a genuine look of bewilderment on his face. “I don’t feel anything. I don’t feel love, hope, joy, or friendship. All I feel is hate. I hate Entropicus most of all. As soon as he finds out I regenerated from Caliburn then he’s going to send me after you. Maybe he’ll send me after my, Keith’s daughter, Fireworks or his ex-wife. Actually, probably not since Keith hated her too. She was screwing the milkman.”
“They still have milkmen in New Angeles?” Jane asked.
“Time in my world is weird,” I replied.
“Hey, how is the Human Tank?” Keith said.
“She’s fine,” I replied, nodding my head. “Misses you, Keith, the person you once were.”
Keith seemed to ponder that. “I’d like to tell you what I know about Entropicus’ plans as well as weaknesses in exchange for a favor.”
“You want to give us information, even though you’re a being of pure evil enslaved to another being of pure evil,” I said, processing that. “Who in all likelihood is lying because using my dead brother against me is exactly what a diabolical mastermind like Entropicus would do.”
“Yes,” Zombie Keith said, staring at me. “If I tell you what I know then I want you to kill me. Permanently.”
I stared at him. “How would I do that?”
“You’re the Chosen of Death,” Zombie Keith said. “You can kill anything. That’s literally one of your powers. Just like it’s—”
“One of Entropicus’,” I said, frowning.
Entropicus hadn’t managed to destroy the Age of Heroes until today but he’d certainly devastated it. There were hundreds of worlds other than Earth where their local heroes had been crushed, broken, and corrupted. There were places in the Multiverse where he was the god that humans prayed to. I wasn’t sure if there would be much will to resist him if he invaded again, not without the four greatest heroes of Earth to inspire humanity. No, Entropicus had to die during this tournament or he’d just return and defeat humanity. If that meant making a deal with my brother’s haunted corpse, so be it.
“Yes,” Zombie Keith replied. “Do we have a deal?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d like to know what you know. Tell me why Entropicus keeps dialing back on killing me.”
“He can’t,” Zombie Keith said. “If he kills you then he loses everything.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“What?” Mandy added.
“The Primals have a bunch of rules that apply to their Chosen Ones,” Zombie Keith said, shrugging. “They can kill each other but they can’t hurt the Chosen of the same Primal. Their powers won’t work against one another and if they kill one another then they lose all of their powers.”
“Bullshit!” I said, staring at him. “That is completely made up and unmentioned until now!”
“So, we’re not just riffing on Mortal Kombat now but outright plagiarizing it?” Jane asked.
Everyone looked at her.
“It was a rule in the second movie!” Jane said, throwing her hands up.
“The second movie does not count!” I snapped, appalled she would even mention that. “That’s like counting The Last Jedi!”
“Even worse than the Prequels, huh?” Jane asked.
“Obviously,” I said, still angry about that movie. “Because blankety blank happens and that ruined Star Wars forever!”
“Blankety blank?” Jane asked.
“Well, spoilers are still sacrosanct,” I said, looking over at Zombie Keith. “So, is that it?”
“I think that’s pretty important,” Jane said. “I mean, you’re basically immune to Entropicus’ powers and that’s pretty awesome as the only believable reason he hasn’t killed you.”
“Well it’s still unbelievable because he could send an army to kill me at any time,” I said. “I mean, basic Doctor Evil logic is he could shoot me on the commode, but I suppose it’s slightly less ridiculous I haven’t been squashed like an insect the first time I stood up to the guy. Especially if he loses his powers if he kills me indirectly.”
“Wait,” Jane said, looking at me. “So, if you do win against Entropicus you’re going to lose your powers?”
“Yeah, probably,” I said, having not really given it much thought. “Eh, it happens.”
“Really?” Jane asked.
I shrugged. “It’s a small sacrifice to see the end of the biggest bad guy in the multiverse taken down. I’m entirely capable of getting myself some new powers when this is done.”
“What if it kills you?” Jane asked.
I blinked. “That would suck.”
“I could make you a vampire,” Mandy said, reaching over to hold my hand.
I didn’t take it. “You recall how that ended, right? There was a year of you murdering about a hundred people, all of them bad, and soul-crushing despair from your loved ones as we tried to get your soul back?”
“It was three weeks now,” Cindy said.
“What?” I stared at her. “That doesn’t even make any sense! I am totally fixing that in the reboot.”
“There will be no reboot!” Mandy said, raising her voice and pulling her hand away. “Also, Gary, are you actually saying you think I wouldn’t do the same for you? That I wouldn’t scour the Earth and heavens to get you your soul back?”
“I’m saying you already spent years trying to save me when we were caught in Merciful’s time loop,” I said, referring to one of the incidents during President Omega’s reign. “I wouldn’t want you to do that again. Don’t turn me into a vampire. Even to save my life. Please.”
I wasn’t happy about the prospect of dying but I’d gone into this business with my eyes wide open. I didn’t want to live forever, though I was happy living for a long time, and was comfortable with the idea of eventually clocking it for a greater cause. In that respect, I did have something in common with Anakin Skywalker. As the Kurgan said, it was better to burn out than to fade away.
Mandy, however, didn’t see it that way. “So, what you’re saying is, you’d rather be dead than be like me.”
“Mandy—”
“You’d rather leave me alone to face eternity?” Mandy stared.
Jane grimaced. “Yikes, they haven’t had the T-Talk.”
“T-Talk?” G asked.
“Turning talk. It’s a common storytelling trope on my world’s fiction because, well, vampires are real and public,” Jane said. “Every human and vampire couple has to eventually discuss whether or not one is going to be turned or not. It’s the ruination of a lot of relationships because vampires are inherently selfish parasites.”
Mandy glared.
“On my world!” Jane corrected herself before turning into an adorable doe, which made it impossible to hate her.
“Yeah, well I understand that,” G said, looking at Gary. “Cyborgs don’t live very long on my world. I’m already past my sell date.”
Jane turned her head, still in animal form, and looked like he was an oncoming truck. Apparently, the two had managed to form a stronger bond over the past day than I would have thought possible.
“I didn’t know that I’m sorry,” Jane said.
“The only thing I don’t want to face more than the possibility of dying soon is dying on a world where there’s no hope,” G said.
Cindy put her hand over her heart. “Well, I for one am entirely happy living forever but only if I remain young and beautiful as well as live in absolute pampered luxury. That means we need to go find some gods, kill them, and take their stuff.”
There was a crack of thunder in the distance.
Mandy looked down at the ground. “Maybe you should be with Gabrielle, Gary, if you’re so fond of growing old and dying.”
“Actually, she’s going to live forever unless killed like her father but that’s not—” I started to say.
“Do I still need to be here?” Zombie Keith said. “Do your conversations normally drift off like this during events of multiversal importance?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Cool,” Zombie Keith said, nodding. “Epic. So, if you’re going to do that, could you maybe conjure a board and let me do one last surf?”
I looked at him and remembered the earliest part of my life, before Keith became Stingray and when he was just a teenager enjoying surfing. Before his future wife had gotten knocked up and he’d turned to crime to find a way to make ends meet. He hadn’t been this bad but there was enough of my brother to remind the toddler portion of my brains of my brother. I wanted to resurrect him but that was for me rather than Keith. When I’d spoken to my brother’s ghost, he’d been happy in heaven. Zombie Keith just drew his soul from where it belonged.
“Do you know anything else?” I asked him. “Useful, I mean.”
Zombie Keith paused as if thinking hard. “Is our dad dead?”
I blinked. “What?”
“That occurred to me and I’m wondering if it’s true. I know things I shouldn’t despite being a corpse of a guy who died decades ago,” Zombie Keith said.
I closed my eyes. “Yes, Keith, he’s dead. Heart attack.”
“Who is taking care of Lisa then?” Keith asked.
I stared at him. “She’s a grown woman now, Keith. That means she mostly spends her time asking me for money to finance her pop career. Well, country-music pop career. I bought her a studio so she should be fine.”
Keith was like no Jiang Shi I’d ever encountered. “I want to feel something about that but I can’t. I don’t know anything else. Just, do me one more favor other than kill me.”
“Which is?” I asked.
“Tell Kerri I love her,” Keith said. “I miss her too.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t ever get to meet Leia,” I said, looking at him. “I tell her stories about you all the time.”
“I hope you lie,” Keith said, grabbing his head before his eyes turned black. “Because you’re a gutless loser who could have resurrected me but didn’t. Instead, you just wanted me as an excuse to do whatever the hell you wanted. You never cared about me or anyone but yourself and I’m going to rip off your face.”
“Ah,” I said, nodding. “There’s the Jiang Shi I know.”
I snapped my fingers and concentrated all of my power into burning the undead creature into a thing that could no longer be resurrected. In the fires, I saw Keith’s consciousness, his soul, disappear into the alternate dimensions that existed between physical as well as mental space. He was free, hopefully, forever. But only if Entropicus was destroyed.
“I’m sorry, Gary,” Mandy said, standing behind me. “I know this had to be hard for you.”
I looked back. “It wasn’t hard for me. I carry my brother with me wherever I go just like you carry me.”
I walked over to the stone statue of Guinevere before looking at Caliburn, resting in her arms alongside the Shield Perilous. I managed to pry them both out of her hands before walking over to hand them to Mandy. “She’d want you to have these.”
“Guinevere considered me a blood sucking abomination and tried to kill me twice,” Mandy said.
Guinevere, to my knowledge, had never tried to kill Mandy and while it was possible she’d done that during one of my wife’s many covert missions—something about this didn’t feel right. Still, we had bigger problems right now. “Then take them because you’re the only person here who knows how to use melee weapons.”
Mandy nodded and did so.
“So, everyone here ready to be my ring crew for my upcoming Badass Battle of Badassitude?”
Everyone was.