Don't Be a Hero: A Superhero Novel by Chris Strange

carried a swaddle of white cloth in his arms. Niobe could just make out the pink flesh of a baby.
    Senior Sergeant Wallace snatched his helmet from the top of his car and approached McClellan, making soothing gestures with his hands. The other coppers fingered their rifles nervously.
    “Spook,” Solomon said, “we gotta get lost. This is going to get crazy.”
    She ignored him. She couldn’t move away if she wanted to.
    Everything happened in slow motion. McClellan made a grab for the baby as the officer passed. A single gunshot rang out. She couldn’t tell who fired. A spray of red flew from McClellan’s flank. He dropped the rifle and screamed.
    McClellan spun, his arms stretching like a rubber band. A moment later, they were ten times their normal length. They flew out and knocked a group of coppers from their feet. McClellan continued to scream as his body stretched, flattening out like putty. He tried to envelop the officer carrying his baby with both rubber arms, but the officer broke into a sprint. The rest of the coppers opened fire. The morning rang with the thunder of gunfire.
    The crowd of metas screamed and scattered, running for shelter. A stray bullet pinged off the wall a few feet from Niobe, but she just stared out at the carnage, throat constricting. What the hell was the idiot doing?
    McClellan kept going despite the bullet wounds. She didn’t know what the anatomy of a rubber man was, but they couldn’t have hit anything vital. Yet. Screaming, he wrapped a pair of coppers in his arms and flung them across the street.
    Niobe scanned the street for the officers with McClellan’s wife and baby, but there was too much chaos. All she could make out was Senior Sergeant Wallace sprinting back to his car, shouting orders as he moved. He ripped open the passenger door and pulled something from the glove box. It looked like a hand-held radio. Gunfire ripped around him as he twiddled the knobs and jabbed two buttons at once.
    It took her a few moments to pick up the smell of sulphur in the air. It must’ve been strong for her to smell it from here. McClellan’s screams grew louder.
    “They flipped his kill-switch,” she said. The Carpenter just nodded.
    McClellan’s movement slowed. As the smell of sulphur became stronger, his stretched limbs grew stiff. The flesh cracked like a superheated car tyre.
    Senior Sergeant Wallace had a megaphone to his mouth. “Cease fire,” he boomed. “Damn it, cease fire.” The officer’s gunfire dropped off.
    McClellan grew still, frozen, a silent scream still fixed on his face. For a moment, there was no movement in the street. Then he toppled backwards, limbs still stretched out in every direction. Everyone went quiet.
    A bang cut through the silence. The back of McClellan’s head blew out, flinging fragments of solidified blood to the concrete. The small explosive charge would’ve been planted near his brainstem, along with a small package. Niobe knew the mechanism. At a particular radio frequency from Senior Sergeant Wallace’s box, the package had released sulphur and exothermic chemicals into his bloodstream. It was clever, in a way. They’d vulcanised the rubber man.
    She swallowed back vomit and forced herself to breathe.
    “He didn’t have to do that,” she said. “The bloody idiot could’ve gone quiet.”
    The Carpenter didn’t seem to have anything to say. He took his hat off and pressed it to his chest. His lips moved. A silent prayer. She didn’t follow suit. She didn’t have anything to say to God.
    “All metahumans will clear the area,” Wallace’s voice boomed from the megaphone. “Return to your homes.” His voice held no malice, but no regret either. Son of a bitch. Murderer.
    Wallace handed the megaphone to one of the other coppers and gave more orders. At the officers’ insistence, the metas that hadn’t fled shuffled back into their buildings. Most didn’t look at McClellan’s stretched body, still lying stiff and cracked in