Friday 13:50 - Barry

Captain Marrenforth, the world's newest superhero and a man of immeasurable strength and unstoppable courage, drew the knife out from the eye socket of the now still creature that lay on the pavement in front of him. A putrid stench of rot and decay emanated from its now truly lifeless form.

He turned to the young woman whose life he had just saved. She was standing as if frozen to the spot, eyes wide and mouth open. "Fear not, citizen," the Captain said, flashing his most reassuringly heroic smile. "The danger is past, another foul zombie has been despatched by Captain Marrenforth. Now hurry home to your loved ones and stay safe."

The woman didn't respond and the Captain wondered for a moment if she too was a zombie. Had he failed to save her in time? Then he realised that her gaze was fixed on the bloody, gore covered knife he was wielding. He lowered his arm to his side, wiped the knife clean on his riding shorts then put it back into the loop on his home-made utility belt.

That action seemed to release the woman from her rigid state. Without saying a word, she turned and ran. "A true hero needs no thanks," he said quietly to himself as he looked down at the lifeless corpse and gave it a kick in disgust. "The work is its own reward."

A small group of bystanders had gathered to root for him in his daring fight against the zombie. They were clearly in awe of his prowess and had been cheering for him – well, mostly for him. Several of them had been filming his battle on their phones; it seemed that the Captain was going to be on the Tubey thing. He looked straight at one of the cameras and gave the special Marrenforth salute he'd just invented - three fingers of his right hand tapped against his right temple to indicate the M of Marrenforth, then repeated with his left hand on his left temple to indicate inclusiveness. He wished he'd been able to find a better costume, but lycra riding shorts and a T-shirt were the best he'd been able to manage. Both were too tight, but at least the T-shirt was red and wouldn't show the blood. He also wore riding goggles, not because he wanted to protect his identity but just because it was what superheroes did. His utility belt was an ordinary leather belt adorned with loops of cable ties.

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Still, what did appearances matter to a superhero? This was another job done, another life saved. Pride burned inside of him like a fire in his heart. He had only recently become a superhero, but he was already making a difference. Most ordinary people – or 'norms' as he now preferred to call them – didn't yet realise how serious the problem was. They might have heard talk of isolated attacks and the police report of a 'violent incident' in the town centre, but few had worked out that they were in the middle of a full-on zombie outbreak. Most just dismissed what they heard as sensationalism and fake news. The good citizens would soon catch on; in the meantime, most norms were blissfully unaware of the growing threat. Which meant that most norms were in danger.

That in turn meant plenty of superhero work for Captain Marrenforth. He couldn't hope to wipe out the entire zombie horde single handed, but he'd help where he could – a life saved here, a zombie killed there. He'd destroy as many of the loathsome undead as possible before the inevitable happened and one of them finally got a taste of superhero flesh.

Eager for the next encounter, the Captain hopped on to his three-gear MarrenCycle and pedalled away to continue his heroic patrol.

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