The Last Superman

The Last Superman(Scott Small) THE LAST
SUPER
MAN
Written By Scott Smolarsky, Edited by Dylan Ofrias



They’re all dead. Everyone on the planet is dead. I couldn’t save anybody-nobody. As hard as I tried I couldn’t save a single soul. My name is David Trent. You may know me as the super hero Captain Freedom. I am the last survivor of the planet Earth, and this is my story.

I was supposed to be the greatest hero ever. Period! There was none better than me. People would feel safe when they saw the crimson cape, white spandex and, the black C.F. logo on my chest. Oh, those were the days.

I’m not really completely sure what happened that day but it wasn’t good. The world was in total and utter chaos. It was burning to the ground and all I could do was watch it happen.

I suspected that the lunacy had something to do with the giant mutated chicken, Doctor Chicken. He was a super genius and could teleport by using a teleportation device that he invented. Also he’s a ninja. But all of those things are nothing in comparison with how super f***ing crazy he was. He’d been number one on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted list for the last ten years. He’d killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people, and stolen billions of dollars from governments all around the world. For me though this sicko’s worst crime was rape. He raped so many women I’d lost count. He didn’t do it for the sex. He did it cause he could. He just loved to show how powerful he could be. He would grab them off the streets or when they were home. It didn’t matter if they were alone or in a big group, once he set his eyes on you, you were his. He was the hunter and you were his prey. My heart went out to the women he violated. It really did. Once you’ve been kidnapped and raped by a seven foot tall chicken, you’re never really the same again.

When the world was ending I found his secret lair. It was too late, he was dead. There was blood and feathers strewn about all over the floor. There was dead chicken meat everywhere. The scene was awful but it didn’t really bother me until I got some on my boots, gross. I saw Mayhem, one of my partners in “The Guardians” lay dying on the floor. He was a living bomb and a neat freak. All he had to do was think it and everything in the area would explode. How could somebody with a cleaning disorder create so much havoc?

I ran to his side and notice a long yellow object protruding out of him. He told me that he blew up The Doctor and that his beak flew off and punctured one of his lungs. That was the last thing he said. He died moments later, unable to talk anymore or give me any valuable information, I was unable to find out what Doctor Chicken had to do with this. Mayhem was a nice guy and all but I wasn’t really that upset by his passing.

I tried to contact the other members of The Guardians but I was unable to. There were a lot of us but I only cared about one, Rescue Girl. She was a tall slender woman with long flowing black hair and the most beautiful yellow eyes. She was a healer. All she had to do was touch you and you were all better but, being able to heal people took a toll on her body so she would need lots of rest. She wore a red uniform and would wear these small ear piercing sirens on her wrists to keep people away when situations got too hectic. She reminded me of a fire truck.

We came together exactly why any comic book super hero team would, to stop any threat that was too big for any one person to do alone, not that there wasn’t much I couldn’t do by myself. We were great. The best! I’m not bragging but I was the best of the best. Super speed, unbelievable strength, stamina, invincibility, genius intellect, flight, and I can shoot lightning out of the tips of my fingers. Is that cool or what? I’m the total package. I had it all and not just super powers. I was rich beyond belief.

After all was said and done I found the others. It wasn’t good. They had been killed, all of them, violently. Rescue Girls throat was slit from ear to ear. Her death was the toughest one to handle.

She wasn’t just another pretty face, she was my gal and I should have been there for her. I was hoping to retire with her one day. We would move into a cozy cabin upstate and enjoy the tranquility. But that’s all over now. I lean over and give her one last kiss. Goodbye my angel, I will never forget you. When I catch the person who did this, god help that son of a bitch. I’m gonna do unspeakable things to ‘em. I will never be the same.

I can’t believe I let my team down, I let everybody down. How did all this happen?

One thing I remember clearly is all the nukes in the air. There were hundreds of ‘em. They were everywhere. I was only able to stop a handful. But the worst thing I remember from that day was the tsunamis. I only pray that one day I will forget it, but I know I won’t. All those people getting washed away like sand at the beach. Man, woman, child, animal all washed away. Tsunamis, they’re a mother***er and they don’t discriminate. There was so much madness and I froze. I didn’t know who to save first. Everyone needed saving. I flew off to see if there was a catastrophe that I could stop. Some super hero I turned out to be.

In Manhattan, where I live, every single building was toppled over. It was eerily quiet. I heard a loud noise from above, it’s a plane falling out of the sky. I fly up into the air and catch it. I land it safely on some rubble, something wasn’t right. I ripped the door off and entered. Everyone on board was dead, asphyxiation.

I heard gun shots about a mile down the road. Two gangs were having a shootout. Unbelievable, the world’s ending and these idiots are settling a feud. I tried to step in but they all just ignored me until there was nobody left standing.

I picked up one of the dead gang bangers guns. I wanted to blow my brains out. But I couldn’t. The bullets would just bounce off. Great, I can’t even kill myself.

I really need answers, so I went to the president of the United States. Dick and I are good friends. Ha Ha Ha, his name is Dick. Maybe he knows what’s going on. When I arrived at the White House the Secret Service and the Marines opened fire on me. Morons, bullets don’t hurt me. I pulled their guns out of their hands and demanded to talk to the president. They just ran away. I went inside, too late, its empty. After years of service and providing protection, after all the time and energy I spent making sure the U.S. was on top, the president turns his back on me. How’s that for gratitude? There’s another earthquake and the White House falls.

I’m so lost. Can you believe that? The greatest person on the planet, ever, is stumped. I’m a legend, or at least I used to be. People wrote songs about me and I can’t stop any of this or help out at all. I decided to see what’s happening in other countries. It’s all the same thing, everywhere. (Riots, earthquakes, tsunamis, nuclear fallouts, etc., etc.) I’m so confused. Was this the hand of God, had Mother Nature gone crazy, or was this some diabolical plan gone horribly wrong?

Screw this, screw the world, screw the strangers. I have my own agenda now. I’m gonna save my friends and loved ones. I’ll build a utopia for us to live in. It will be great. Maybe this terrible disaster ain’t so bad after all.

Okay, who to save the first. The Guardians are dead. I got it. My nephew, well he’s not my nephew, it’s my late friend Jimmy’s kid. Jimmy was like a brother to me. He was a great guy and a great fishing boat captain. You would’ve liked him. Anyway, before he died he asked me to keep an eye on his son Bobby, I did. I even helped him fix up the old fishing boat. Now Bobby isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed. He goes by the name Pirate Bobby. He’s not really a pirate, he’s got a prosthetic left hand due to a lawnmower accident, and he always wears a Tampa Bay Buccaneers hat, not the cool one with the skull and crossbones on it, but the old one with the strange looking pirate. Why does he have a sword in his mouth? And here’s the best part, he has transition lenses in his glasses and something went wrong with them right after the warranty ran out. The left lens stayed tinted and the right lens stayed clear. It kinda looks like he’s wearing an eye patch and that’s your modern day American pirate. He’s a little nutty but he’s a good kid.

I arrive at his fishing boat. It’s intact, that’s a good sign. But then I go in and just like everything else that day, I’m too late. Pirate Bobby’s laying on the floor, bleeding, pants around his ankles. It seems he was taking a dump when an earthquake hit. The tremors knocked him off the toilet, and he banged his head on the sink. He lost a lot of blood, too much blood. He was dying. I held his hand. He told me to go, that I should be saving others and that people would be mad at me if I don’t. There’s a lot of people already mad at me, I thought to myself. Pirate Bobby died and I flew away.

Low and behold, who do I see, it’s Plague, Siren and Napalm. They were Rescue Girls arch nemesis, nemesises, nemeses. Is that how you pronounce it? Oh f*** it, enemies, arch enemies. They were fliers much like myself. Plague is this ZZ Top looking douche bag, and Siren and Napalm are his hot ass girlfriends, I don’t get it.

Siren and Napalm are twins with extraordinary powers and they are both beautiful, very beautiful. Siren can wail like a banshee and Napalm shoots laser beams out of her eyes. They can also read each other’s thoughts. It’s a good thing they can’t read mine.

Plague is a dangerous one, he’s a living disease and just like Rescue Girl all he has to do is touch you. From there you can have a slow painful death or a quick excruciating one. The choice is his.

What are they doing here? They’re supposed to be in jail. I intercept them in midflight, they tell me that the warden opened the doors of the supermax prison and told them all to get out. I’m about to leave to go to the prison to see what this warden knows when Siren tells me that the prisons been destroyed by an asteroid or a nuke or something. Dammit! Then Plague goes and does the dumbest thing. He talked some shit about Rescue Girl. I went into berserker mode. Did you know if you have super strength and punch somebody in the face at the speed of light it will go right through their face and come out the back of their head? Well now you do. What a mess.

Oh and Plagues hot ass girlfriends, not so much anymore.

It felt good to release my frustration, but there’s been enough death, it's time to save my friends. So which friend should I save next and bring to my utopia? That’s when I realize it, I have no friends. No, The Guardians weren’t my friends, they were just teammates. It doesn’t matter anyway they’re dead. Jimmy was my friend but he’s been dead for ten years. Bobby and I weren’t that close. That’s it! I’ve spent so much time saving the planet that I never had time to forge any lasting relationships. All these years of service to the human race for nothing. The superest of the supers and I have no friends.

F*** you and f*** them, I’m out of here. So long!

Ten hours later the chaos stops. The fires burn out and the earth is finally calm. I don’t find anyone alive so I do the only thing I can. I bury them. Even at super speed and working day and night it takes six months.

I don’t recognize most but the ones I do make me sad. Especially Lady Merlin, she was so beautiful and had an awesome body. Even though she was dead she still looked great and, yes, I touched her boobs. She was tricked into a magical dress by a demon, never to escape it. She would be his slave for many, many years. Eventually she killed her demon master and stole his powers, but she was still stuck.

The dress was white with buttons running down the middle. It covered her from neck to toe, and also had a matching bowtie. She always looked so uncomfortable. No matter how hard she tried she was stuck in the garment and there was no way of penetrating it either if you know what I mean. It must have been hard to go through life without the pleasure of getting touched.

I recognize another one. This one I’m not so sad about. It’s my sometimes ally, sometimes enemy, Thurel The Destroyer, a soldier from the Zanex dimension. He was charged with finding the Betrayer, the killer of all life. He was imbued with the finest technology and magic that Zanex had to offer then sent him on his way. He had a huge magical club and he wore an invisible, shape shifting suit of unbreakable armor called plexi. While on his journey he accidentally destroyed his dimension.

Eventually he wound up on Earth. Over time he grew to trust me but on more than one occasion he actually accused me of being this Betrayer character, me, can you believe that? Could he have been right? Could I have done this somehow?

What could have killed such powerful beings? Why am I alive for that matter?

I do some soul searching.

I’m so bored. A man can only masturbate so much. My record is nine times in a single day. I built some robots, but they’re just stupid robots and in a fit of rage I destroyed them all.

I do some more soul searching.

I keep dreaming about the first time I had sex. I was sixteen and so was my girlfriend, Cera Toenin, she made me feel so good. My powers were quite new, I hadn’t worked out all the kinks yet. The first time I had sex I was faster that a single bullet and the first time I came I was more powerful than a locomotive. The upper half of her body was blown to smithereens. It was a long time before I had sex again. I miss people, I’m starting to get lonely.

I rebuild the city. This would have been a hell of lot easier if I had the robots. I’m starting to think that I shouldn’t have destroyed them. Maybe I was wrong and there are survivors and I just missed ‘em. I’ve been wrong before, once, maybe. And maybe, just maybe, if I build it they will come.

They don’t come.

In my angst I knocked down the city.

I do even more soul searching.

I keep thinking about the time I killed this guy right in the middle of Time Square. He was a real jerk. He was able to create sonic vibrations. I can’t remember his real name but get this, he went by the name Vibrator.

See, we were at Rescue Girls birthday party and I kept calling him dildo. He didn’t take it to kindly and he sucker punched me with one of his vibrations. The fight spilled out onto the street. It’s kinda funny, we’re in a room with some of the greatest heroes on the planet and not one of them stepped in to break it up. It was like they were entertained by it. I gotta give it to him, Vibrator was one brave son-of-a-bitch to challenge me, but in the end I snapped him like a Slim Jim.

Then this woman comes over to me and starts yelling something about how it’s unfair how I think I get to make up the rules because I’m stronger than everybody else. She was right of course, wasn’t she? Nah.

Then!
Urika! I’ve got it.

You know what, that crazy broad was right. I am the greatest there is. That’s why I survived. I’m the ultimate survivor. I decided to make clones of myself, man and woman alike. Life, like myself, is perfect now. This is the single greatest thing to ever happen to me.

Actually I’m lying. I just wanted to hear what it sounded like. It could’ve been nice, but it was a disaster. Most died, some went crazy and had to be put down before they became a problem. The others were the biggest bunch of pains in the asses. There’s only enough room on this planet for one of me and it wasn’t going to be any of them. So I killed them all. I already told you I’m the ultimate survivor.

I think I have anger issues. But I don’t F***ING’ CARE!

That’s enough soul searching.



Then finally the other day I see something in the sky. It’s a huge out of control space craft. I fly up and bring it safely to the ground. I start to wonder who or what’s inside. I don’t have to wait long. Aliens, hundreds of them came running outside. They’re grateful, in fact they start bowing and praying to me. I let them finish. It would be rude not to. Oddly enough they speak English. That’s very helpful.

They tell me how their planet exploded and that they were the only survivors, just like me. They are odd looking to say the least. They are extremely tall and lean, like a giraffe. They have purple skin with giant red freckles. The females have patches of hair all over their body. There’s not a looker amongst the bunch, but it’s something, and believe me my friend, it’s a lot better than nothing.

They are looking for a new place to call home. I invited them to stay and they accept. Earth is foreign to them but I’ll show them the way. All they need is help, the help of a hero, the help of a superman, Me.