by White, Ben
Imogen focused; there was a zombie near, lurching towards her, and she gripped the baseball bat tight, and she drew it back, and the zombie shambled forward, and without a trace of hesitation Imogen brought the bat around with a force and finality as vicious as it was unstoppable. The rounded end slammed against the zombie's jaw with a deep, resonant impact, the force of the blow spinning it around and off its feet.
Imogen took a single breath.
She held it for a quarter of a second.
And then she blew it out in a hard puff.
She could see the exit clearly, through the throngs of zombies, the corridor where she'd left Zack about a hundred years ago. Her shuffle forward was slower than ever, she could barely feel her arms and wished she couldn't feel her legs, but when a zombie threatened her progress she brought the bat up in a sharp arc that caught its hand and knocked it away. She followed this with a hard shove against the zombie's chest that sent it stumbling back—not quite falling, but she didn't need it to fall, she was already past it, a pair of zombies dressed as green bears came at her from the left but she moved to the right, a zombie wearing an enormously tall purple top hat came at her from the right but she moved to the left, and always forwards, always forwards to that exit, to that place she'd left her little brother alone so that she could go and have a cigarette.
There was a zombie in front of her. It was wearing a priest's habit and a silver wig. Imogen stopped, drew back the bat, and hit it in the side of its head so hard she heard its skull crack. It went down and she limped around it, aware of the other zombies closing in on her. I can't attack, she told herself. I can't stop, not even for an instant, I've used up all the distance I have and now if I stop they'll get closer and if they get closer they'll be able to grab me and if they grab me, if even one grabs me I'm dead, just dead, and so I cannot stop. My path must be perfect. I cannot make a single mistake, however small.
This is my life; perfection or death.
For the slightest of instants Imogen became intolerably aware of just how many zombies surrounded her, of just how close she was to being caught with every moment that passed, but she pushed this awareness down, covered it with a hard focus on the ache of her arm as she swung her bat up, catching a zombie underneath its chin and delaying its progress almost exactly long enough for her to shuffle past, she was putting more weight on her bad foot now and the pain was hot and cold both at once and all around her there were grasping claws and the thudding of zombies against the floor as they lurched for her and missed by inches but none of that mattered, only getting through to that corridor mattered, that wonderful corridor, that utopian corridor—
As if willed by a greater power two zombies shambled to the right and Imogen's final steps were made clear; she limped into the corridor without further hardship.
Perfection.
There was the bench. It was still there. Zack wasn't. Of course he wasn't. And the corridor ahead, there were no zombies in it, not even one. Of course there weren't. They were all, ALL behind her. How many? Did it even matter?
Pushing her weary, aching body into further action Imogen shambled onwards, hobbling towards the next corridor, the narrow corridor, the corridor that had once held intense silence and studied paraphilia.
The word came to her mind like an unwelcome visitor; doujin.
As Imogen started down the corridor, as she saw the crumpled booths and the layers upon layers upon layers of painstakingly drawn perversion all the weariness and pain she'd been trying to ignore came back all at once, and she found herself stopping, found the hard wood of her bat loose in her grip, felt the light impact as its end thudded against the floor.
So what if I have a weapon. So what if I've come this far. So what if I'm smarter than they are. This isn't a sprint. This is a marathon, and I'm up against the untiring undead.
I can't win this.
The purring behind Imogen was light and high. Children, Imogen thought, as she turned to look back at them. The smallest of the zombies and so the fastest of the zombies. Of course they'd be at the front of the horde. The youngest girls and the youngest boys, some of them not even in their teens.
Imogen's eyes closed as she retightened her grip on the baseball bat, saving it from falling from her grasp. She took a single, weary, shuffling step forward ... and then another, and another, over the cheap paper that littered the doujin hall, not as slippery as the glossy comics but making up for it with sheer quantity. After a few metres Imogen heard the child zombies stepping on to the pages, heard the first of them slip and fall, and she might have smiled if she'd thought of doing so.
Help me, weird Japanese pornography, you're my only hope.
But not all fell and those that did were not stopped, continued dragging themselves forward or started to push themselves up as Imogen continued her long, weary shamble towards whatever lay ahead. Not 'to', she thought, as she limped between high piles of white cloth. 'From'.
She raised her weapon as she shambled onwards, and when a suspiciously-shaped pile of cloth began to move she brought the bat down hard against a grasping hand, and again as she moved past, and once more before she was out of its reach, a final discouraging whack before she was past, and safe.
Safe?
The doujin hall ended at another corridor, just as narrow, stretching to the left and to the right. There were a pair of zombies to the right.
And so, left.
It seemed Imogen had barely blinked before she was faced with another choice; straight ahead or turn right. No zombies in either direction.
Straight ahead.
Again, it felt as though taking a single step had brought her to the end of the corridor, and this time she turned right, and then left, and then left again, and then right, and then straight ahead, every impossible step a decision, and then she dared to look back and was shocked to see that she'd lost the zombies; there weren't any behind her at all.
No, she corrected herself harshly. They ARE still behind me, I just can't SEE them. They're still following. I can almost hear their purring.
Imogen let out an angry, surprised grunt as one appeared ahead of her, just a few metres away, moving quickly towards her, and she raised her bat—
"Oh shit, no! I ain't one of them—shit, this DAMN costume!"
The zombie had its hands raised, its grey palms held towards Imogen in a pleading gesture, but that's a trick, she thought, they're smarter than you think they are, of course they'd learn to speak, of course they'd say they AREN'T zombies, that's the first thing a zombie that was trying to trick you would say—
Imogen blinked.
"Shit," said the zombie. "Shit, I hate this costume. You're like the third person to almost attack me, DAMN the outstanding quality of this makeup."
There were differences; subtle, but present. The colour of his skin, for one. The other zombies were a blotchy red-brown. He was grey. The other zombies' eyes bulged from their sockets and wept a yellow pus. His eyes were blank white and wept nothing. And the way he moved wasn't 'zombie' at all.
Imogen lowered her bat. The zombie was staring down at her leg.
"Shit," he said, his tone different. "You've been bitten—get back, okay? I don't wanna—"
"I'm not bitten." Imogen's voice was flat with exhaustion. "I just hurt my leg."
"You sure?"
"I'm not bitten."
The zombie pursed its lips as it looked Imogen over. "You ain't shiny or coughing or nothing, guess I can believe you." He hesitated, then spoke again: "I'm Keenan. What's in the bag?"
"Energy health bars." Imogen looked slowly behind herself; she could hear purring. "Some water."
Keenan licked his lips. "Look, I'm supposed to be getting food—I'll get you to a safe place if you share that shit with us, deal?"
Imogen swallowed. The purring from behind was louder now.
"Before we make this 'deal'," she said, exhaustion forcing honesty, "I should tell you that I have approximately seven dozen zombies hunting me.
"
Keenan grinned, the effect unsettling with his zombie makeup.
"Hell," he said. "Who doesn't?"
Imogen could no longer feel her legs, not either of them. Walking on my bad foot like this must be doing damage, she thought, trying to make herself care.
"Never had any trouble finding my way," Keenan said, as he led Imogen along a wide corridor like so many others in the complex. "Even in places like this. Okay, here's the stairs."
With reluctance overruled by exhausted necessity, Imogen accepted Keenan's help in getting up the stairs.
"Hell," he grunted, halfway up. "Be a damn sight easier hauling this bag up without you attached to it. Joke," he quickly added. "Don't worry, I wouldn't do that."
Once up the stairs it was easier going. Keenan didn't chatter, for which Imogen was quietly relieved, but even through her state of near-collapse she found curiosity would not allow her to remain silent:
"Why don't you wipe off your makeup?"
"Are you crazy?" Keenan asked, glancing back at Imogen. He winced. "Don't answer that. This is Zapstik, it ain't coming off without that little gun thing."
"Zapstik?"
"Heh, obviously you're new to the scene."
"The zombie scene?"
"No, cons!"
Imogen couldn't deal with this. "Like scams?"
"Conventions, comic conventions, cosplaying—hardly no one uses temp makeup, it comes off too easy. You wanna get yourself perfect, right? And once you get yourself perfect, you don't wanna get unperfect just because you wiped your forehead or something. I mean, if you—shit, you hear that?"
They were in a back way, off the main hallways and side corridors, through an empty doorway that had once held a door clearly marked KEEP OUT. The floors were bare concrete, the walls painted cheap yellow. Keenan edged forwards, wincing as he glanced into a room.
"Damn, look at that—don't worry, when they're feeding they ain't interested in nothing else."
Imogen looked into the room without interest. Four zombies were inside, feasting on the body of an obese man dressed in bright orange and blue overalls.
"That's messed up," Keenan commented, before gesturing for Imogen to keep following. "They sure as hell weren't in there when I came through ... at least I'm pretty sure they weren't. Poor fat bastard. Not that I ain't unchunky myself, but hell, I can sure as damn move when I need to—like when some hungry undead freak's coming after me like I'm bacon-wrapped steak."
Imogen made no comment.
Less than five minutes later they turned the corner into a long, slightly wider corridor, and Keenan glanced back at Imogen.
"It ain't far now," he said, as he dug in his pocket and produced a blue keycard. "Got this off someone didn't need it no more, lucky thing too. Heh, scariest damn moment of my damned life, thought for sure she was gonna just jump up and bite my face off like in the movies. Kept expecting that, you know, dah-DANT, what's it called—scare chord, that's it. Kept expecting one of them to play." Keenan stopped as they reached a door. "One thing's for sure, though." He passed the keycard through a slot beside the door, turning back to grin at Imogen as the door beeped and slid open. "This ain't no damned movie."
"Who's that?" The speaker was inside the room, a young man with an oddly familiar v-cut dreadhawk, black leather jacket and torn blue jeans. "K, what are you doing—"
"She's cool," Keenan said. "She ain't bitten or nothing. She's got food, she's gonna share it."
"I'm surprised you're still alive."
This speaker was the girl Imogen had seen earlier, the one with the odd gun-sword.
"Although," she continued, her voice deeply unimpressed, "you look as if—"
"IMOGEN!"
Imogen almost stepped back with the force of the hug, small arms tight around her waist. She stared down as her little brother looked up at her, his eyes puffy and red from crying, his face pale, relief and exhaustion clearly fighting for dominance inside him. He'd lost his red mask, but still wore his black pajamas.
"I knew you'd be still alive, I KNEW it, I KNEW you'd be okay—see, I told you guys, I told you she wasn't dead! You're okay, right? Right?"
"Barely," Imogen managed.
"Yes, you're okay. You're okay, I knew you would be—wow, I knew it. I knew it! I told you guys, I told you she'd find me! Imogen ... Imogen, you're okay!"
One of the others in the room spoke up, a tall young man wearing an elegant black dinner suit, his face covered with a gold-and-white mask, his voice impeccably dry: "So I don't suppose there are any amongst us who can vouch for this strange girl?"
Zack released Imogen to stare back at the young man, his face a picture of shocked indignation. "ME! I'm her brother, she's my sister, this is Imogen, I've been TELLING you—"
"Now, now," said yet another of those inside the room, an older man, his face stern behind thick square glasses, his plaid shirt and beige trousers almost absurdly conservative. "I'm sure Chris was just fooling with you, just his funny way. Come in, Keenan, and you too, young lady. Let's get this door closed before any uninvited guests show up."
The room was small and functional; some kind of security station, Imogen thought. It had bare concrete floors like the corridors outside, and the same cheap yellow walls. There were two fold-down beds against the far wall, a large steel cabinet between them. To the left of the room was a desk with three large screens above it, showing feeds from security cameras. To the right was a small couch, and beside that a closed door—the sound of running water could be heard from inside.
"That leg—" the boy with the dreadhawk began, but Keenan cut him off.
"She just busted it, she ain't bitten."
"Did you check?" the dreadhawk boy challenged. "Get her to show you? Come on, yank that thing off and let's make sure she ain't gonna turn—"
"V-Cut," said one of the others—a girl, tall and blonde and pretty, wearing a bulky yet smooth suit of orange plastic armour. "If she was going to turn she'd be sweating and coughing. We've all seen the stages."
"Besides," put in another, a young man with a short red-brown wig and huge fake eyebrows, wearing a red silk shirt secured with a long gold sash around his middle, "they have to die before they come back. It's not like she's just gonna magically transform into a zombie and start tearing our throats out. Hi," he said to Imogen, with an endearing smile. "I'm HK."
Imogen wasn't really in a state to accept any of this.
"Let the poor girl alone a minute," said the older man—he took Imogen gently by the arm and led her to one of the cots. "Sit down here, lie down if you like, you're okay now, you can rest. My name's Trevor, Trevor Muncaster."
"And I'm Jen," said the girl in the plastic armour, smiling at Imogen as she sat. "I can take a look at your foot, if you like. I'm not a doctor or nurse or anything, but I know a little about ... well, about that kind of thing."
Imogen managed a nod—she noticed Zack was beside her too, hovering worriedly. She let him take her bag off, then allowed him to help her lie back.
"Is your leg really bad?" he asked. "Is it broken?"
"Probably not, but we'll see," said Jen, as she began removing the plastic brace. Imogen couldn't help but let out a relieved sigh, the release of pressure blissfully welcome. With a careful tug Jen pulled at Imogen's boot, which slid off easily, then she gently placed her hands against her foot.
"Is it bad?" Zack's voice; Imogen had let her eyes close as she relaxed back. She heard Jen respond:
"I'm not sure ... Imogen, is this okay?"
Imogen nodded, wincing every few moments as Jen touched a sore spot—she opened her eyes again to examine the girl who was examining her, her smooth, pale face, her calm blue eyes, her straight blonde hair, almost white, falling inside her armour. She looked strong, impossibly strong, the armour should have looked ridiculous, perhaps on anyone else it would have, but on her—
"It's not broken," Jen said, as she accepted a towel from Zack and began folding it up. "But I don't know what's wr
ong. Maybe a sprain, or maybe you've torn a muscle. Here."
Imogen allowed Jen to lift her foot enough to put the towel underneath it.
"That should help." Jen glanced back at the others, who were clustered around the couch, Imogen's bag the focus of their fierce conversation. "We're sharing out the food you brought, I hope that's okay."
"Whatever," Imogen murmured.
"You're exhausted, I'm sorry. Lie back and sleep. Nothing bad's going to happen to you here." Jen smiled somewhat sadly down at Imogen; the last thing she saw before sleep claimed her. "You're safe now."
*
Imogen's dreams were murky and indistinct, scattering in the instant she opened her eyes. The light above was too bright, the entire room harshly oversaturated, these weren't people around her, they were just ... just ...
"Welcome back."
The voice was dry and deep, for a girl. Imogen turned her head to see—
"I don't know your name," she croaked. The girl smiled thinly and brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
"I don't see the point in telling you," she said. "It's likely you'll be dead soon."
"We're calling her 'Null'," said HK, from where he was sitting on the floor, against the wall. He held a long, thin sword, and was working at it with a heavy file. "My idea."
Null was already walking to the couch. With her out of the way, Imogen could see that Zack was lying on the other cot, asleep.
"She's awake now," Null said, as she sat. She was addressing V-Cut, who was seated at the monitoring desk, Trevor beside him. "We can stop this ridiculous 'watch' of yours."
"It's not ridiculous," V-Cut replied, not looking back. "If she starts showing any signs—"
"There is not a scratch on her, she is not going to turn," interrupted a girl Imogen hadn't seen before—if she had, she certainly would have remembered. She was dressed as some kind of clown—no, Imogen thought, the word coming from somewhere, a harlequin. Her leather suit was patterned in black and yellow, her face pure white with black and yellow diamonds over her bright blue eyes. Her hair was covered by a kind of leather hood, tight against her scalp, twin spikes out the back—continuing the theme of her costume's colouring, one was black and one was yellow. Thin wisps of dark hair escaped the hood, over her smooth forehead and beside her ears. She was sitting on the couch, gloved hands crossed in her lap, an elaborately carved wooden staff beside her.