Usual Disclaimers: Wally, Linda and all other well-known characters in this episode are copyright to DC comics, blah blah blah.
FDC Presents:
Issue #3
Running With the Dead Part 1.
Wally, after having just thrown himself headlong through a glowing portal left by a strange man in black* stumbled to a halt, looking around.
* {Phantom Stranger, as revealed last issue.}
It was a dark, grayish atmosphere, with dead trees dotting the landscape here and there. There seemed to be clouds as far as the eye could see, and a wraith-like fog seemed to hang in the lower areas of where Wally could see. He felt a sudden chill, looked down, and noticed that his clothing had disappeared. He suddenly remembered what that man said, "...one restriction, you can bring only one thing... both into..."
After sighing, Wally said, "And I chose my speed. Guess I shoulda thought things through a bit more." Concentrating briefly, a shimmering form appeared around him, finally coalescing into his familiar red and yellow suit, with white eye holes.'I hate doing that,' he thought, 'I like the simplicity of just putting the suit on, rather than actually having to think about forming one like that.'
Then, getting back to the reason he flung himself into this dimension in the first place, he began to look for traces of Linda. Almost immediately, he noticed a set of footprints in the long grass at his feet. "Thank you Batman*!" he muttered, and began to follow the tracks, slowly at first, then warming up to the task, faster and faster.
* {Presumably, the Batman taught Wally a thing or two about tracking
while they were in the JLA together.}
After seeing something flit past the edge of his vision, Wally stopped dead and looked about carefully. He kept seeing shadows out of the corner of his eyes, but when he turned to look at them directly, no matter how fast he tried (and he put quite a bit of effort into it), he couldn't quite seem to get a decent look at the things. Finally he shrugged his shoulders, and set off again in the probable direction that Linda took, eventually coming upon a copse of dead trees growing out of a rocky hillside. He slowed down and began to look carefully, knowing how hard it is to track anything over rocky terrain, he was again assaulted by the black flitting things at the edge of his vision. While gritting his in extreme annoyance, he sent tendrils of the speed force probing out to steal the things' momentum, only to find they actually had none.
Startled, Wally straightened up and noticed that Linda might have left him a signal as to which way to go, a rough arrow made out of small stones and scratches in the hard ground. He saw that the rocks point to the left, but then decided that it wouldn't be like Linda to leave such an obvious clue for just anyone to follow, but was in a uandary as to what to do. After getting distracted by the black things once again, Wally screams at the top of his lungs;"STOP IT!"
In response, a soft voice floated back to him:
"All you had to do was ask."
And in a flash of black light that left Wally blinking for a few seconds, the black shapes are frozen in place. After shaking his head in an attempt to clear out a mild headache, he walked slowly up to one of the shapes, looking at it closely. It was a formless shape, dark gray in color, not black as he had originally thought. There seemed to be floating arms and soft eyes to the shape, but Wally was not exactly sure. He reached out to touch one, and as his hand passed through the form, it seemed to wiggle, as if in laughter. Wally noticed his hand got deathly cold and tried to wipe the feeling off on his chest, but hit the Speed Force costume and muttered to himself.
"Damn."He called out, "Who are you, and why are you helping me?" to the formless voice.
Hearing just silence in return, he frowned and went back to tracking Linda, noting a smudge in the ground here, a broken leaf there, and decided that this was the way she went, opposite of the
arrow she had left.After running about a half of a mile, Wally noticed the terrain turning more sandy than rocky and thought 'Good, that'll make it easier to follow her.' Then, he came upon a copse of dead trees growing out of a rocky hillside that looked familiar. He slowed down as he approached it, and saw the dark grey shapes frozen in the air.
He scratched his head and examined the ground for a bit, and sure enough, there was the scratched arrow in the ground. He growled , turned right, the direction opposite the way the arrow pointed, and sped off.
In a few minutes, he came upon the same copse of trees and stopped, dropping into a crouch, one elbow on his knee, the hand on the other arm propping himself up between his legs."What's going on here?" he said, mostly to himself.
"Follow the arrow," said the same soft floating voice.
"What? Why?" asked the Flash, and glanced around to try to find the voice.
"Do not be difficult, follow the arrow," it said again.The scarlet--now yellow-gold--speedster straightened up and looked at the tracks to the right, then down the path of the arrow. He looked back at the tracks on the right and noticed that there were only one set of tracks, even though he had gone over it twice, so shouldn't there now be 3 sets? Wally walked slowly to the right, a thoughtful look on his face, scratching his chin.
"I wonder," he murmured.He and bent down to pick up a rock, noting the exact position he took it from, then straightened up and flung the stone down the path to the right, using his contact with the speed force to throw the rock at a velocity only he could achieve. He then watched the spot where the rock was taken from. Within a matter of moments, it had eappeared.
"Huh," he grunted.
He bent and picked up the rock and threw it in another direction. Again it magically appeared within a few moments. Again, he bent and picked up the stone. He then threw it in the direction that the arrow pointed and waited for the stone to reappear. It never did. He nodded, started off down the path to the left, and thought to himself:
'I knew all those years of watching Star Trek would get me something, what with all their space-time continuum problems and whatnot.'
Charon stared deeply into the scrying pool he was using to keep tabs on the Flash."Curses. He found his way out of my time trap too quickly. Perhaps this Flash character is not as stupid as he actually lets on."
He leaned back and steepled his fingers in front of his face, the loose robes falling around his elbows, showing the mottled and rotted flesh of his forearms.
"How could he have determined that only by going the way he did would keep time in that area from re-setting for the person who departed the area? This one bears close watching,"
He leaned forward to look into the pool again.
As he jogged along the path at a speed only he could achieve, Wally began to despair. Would he ever see Linda again? Was this a wild goose chase? Was she already dead? And his thoughts spiraled downward steadily, not able to comprehend his life without Ms. Park in it anymore. Sniffing mightily, he brushed a stray tear away from his cheek, and bent his will to the task of finding Linda, scanning the ground for signs of her passing.
He noticed a yellowish blur pass him on his left, and was startled into slowing down. He started to wonder about it, but continued to track Linda, wanting to find her as soon as he could and get out of this strange place. That blur passed him again, and he thought about it more...'world of the dead...fast yellow...world of the dead...' and it hit him in more ways than one.
He started to yell out "Eob-," but then was smacked in his back and blown off his feet tumbling and skidding for close to half a mile. Fiendish laughter, and a somewhat loony sounding voice came from behind him."Flash! Flashiepoo! I want your speed. I hate it here and I want to get to that place I felt when I was running so fast. Give me your speed."
With each word, the voice became more menacing and less crazy sounding. Wally rolled over and slowly got to his feet. He was not surprised to see Eobard Thawne, Professor Zoom, the Reverse Flash, and Barry's greatest enemy standing before him. Then before he could blink, Zoom leaped at him.
End of Running With the Dead Part 1.
Send Comments to Bryan Albright- bryana@uswest.net
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