The Undying Apathy Of Imogen Shroud

by White, Ben

Imogen said nothing. She just kept limping forward, her pale eyes dry, feeling as bad as she'd ever felt.

  It took them almost half an hour to reach the stairs. Twice they passed small groups of zombies, most of them fallen, mostly to the sides of the corridor. Chris and HK had no trouble in forcing back those few still standing.

  "Girl's been busy," Zed murmured—there were more than a dozen zombies near the stairs themselves, none of them standing. He was trying to make his voice light, but it was clear his heart wasn't in it. "Been ... damned busy."

  One of the zombies was lying in a puddle of slowly spreading yellow liquid, retching against the floor.

  "Oh, gross," said HK. "What the hell is that?"

  "I have no idea," said Chris. "I don't think I want to find out, either. Nor do I—"

  Chris was interrupted by a distant howling from above.

  "Do you think ... you think that's her?" asked HK, his eyes wide. "You think she went up there?"

  "This here's the Grove Station exit," Zed said. "Reckon she would've. Sounds like she's got 'em riled up, too." He stared up at the stairs, his jaw tight, then looked back at Imogen. "Sue, how's that leg? If we gotta run—"

  "Then just run." Imogen's gaze went down to Zack's sleeping face, then back up to Zed's sad eyes. "Just ... run."

  For a moment it seemed as if Zed was going to argue, then he just nodded.

  "Well," said Chris. He took a breath before continuing: "Shall we ... shall we go up? Before these things manage to regain their footing or drag themselves towards us. Imogen, it occurs to me that, as a gentleman, I should have offered you the use of my walking cane—"

  "I'd prefer to keep my bat," said Imogen. Her mouth was tight. "But ... but I'll need help getting up the stairs."

  "Of course. Zed, if you'd go ahead, HK and I can help Imogen."

  The stairs were long, turning sharply to the right halfway up. In the stairs themselves the lights were chemical, but up above they were electric—and barely working.

  "Two seconds out of ten," Zed said—he'd gone up ahead and had apparently been timing the lights. "Real regular. Off for eight, on for two. Worse than nothing if you ask me."

  The stairs opened onto a wide area, paved with dark slabs of cold stone. There was a fountain off to the right, and to the left wide stairs led up to the station proper. There were only two working lights, a large globe in the middle of the fountain and a long, thin light strip running up beside the stairs. Both of them blinked off and on in unison.

  "I'll take whatever we can get," HK said. He shivered as he let go of Imogen's arm. "I don't want to be in the dark with those things."

  "You still got my penlight, right?"

  HK nodded, taking it from his pocket. "But this—"

  "Take whatever you can get," Chris said, smiling weakly. He looked at Imogen. "Those stairs aren't as high, but—"

  Imogen just nodded, and Chris kept hold of her arm. Zed was looking around now.

  "Well hell!" he said—to Imogen it was clear that he was forcing himself into his 'joking cowboy' persona. "I know this place! There's a hell of a little doughnut shop down over thataways, they do the damnedest milk pudding ..."

  Zed trailed off, apparently unable to keep up the act. He sighed.

  "Truck's through there," he said, nodding towards the stairs. "Just past the station."

  With the lack of light everything was blue and blurred to Imogen—even worse once they got up the stairs. The station building was ahead, much more attractive than the main station—or at least it had been once. It used to be a gorgeous angular construction with wide reflective glass panels, now it was just a skeleton of a building, every one of its panels blown apart by the uncaring wind.

  "I tell you what," Zed said, his voice low, "I'm getting the hell tired of broken damned glass."

  There were a few crawlers around, but none of them near. Imogen winced at the sight of them dragging themselves over the broken glass.

  "Damn," said HK, this followed by a much stronger word as a piercing scream suddenly sounded out. He looked around at the others. "You think—"

  "That wasn't her," Imogen said, flatly.

  "But—"

  "That wasn't her."

  "How do you know?" Chris asked. Imogen looked at him, her pale eyes cold.

  "She wouldn't scream."

  "I repeat—"

  "She just wouldn't! SHE WOULDN'T SCREAM! THAT WAS NOT HER!"

  Chris had taken a step back under the onslaught of Imogen's sudden outburst.

  "Okay," he said, his voice shaking. "It wasn't her. I understand."

  Imogen turned away, her breathing heavy.

  "Uh, so," said Zed, "reckon we got a choice—"

  "Around or through, right?" HK's tone was weary. "We haven't had much luck with 'outside'."

  "Yes," Chris said, weakly. "I've always been an 'inside' sort of person anyway."

  "Yeah, looks like there's a bunch of damn deadheads out that way," Zed said, looking out around the building. "No lights, neither, you notice? Streetlights are all dead. At least the station's got a couple still going."

  "They can mob in the open," HK said. "I don't ... inside. Let's just go through."

  Imogen felt Zed's eyes on her.

  "Sue?"

  "I honestly don't care," she muttered.

  "Well then, guess we're going through. Better in than out, huh?"

  It was silent inside the building, still and dim. Mirrored glass crunched underfoot as they made their way through the entrance area and to the wide, tall main concourse. Although the lights flickered on and off, two seconds of light for every eight of darkness, most of them seemed to be intact—they were flat against the walls and ceilings and floors, their profile low enough that the wind hadn't been able to get a grip on them.

  "Reckon this here goes straight through," Zed said. "Long as we don't get no surprises—"

  "Hm, is that hypocrisy?" said Chris. "You talked about me not being able to 'keep my mouth shut', but now here you are, tempting fate."

  "Hell, you call it tempting fate, I call it ... well, I don't know what I call it. Keeping myself going, maybe. Guess we all got our ways. HK, shine that light, yeah? Just keep it going, pointed ahead. At least we'll have something to follow if these lights shut off permanent-like."

  It was less than a minute later that the two seconds of light were followed by eight seconds of darkness, and then eight after that, and then another eight—

  "As I was saying?" said Chris.

  It was too dark to see Zed's reaction, and he said nothing.

  Grove Station had been filled with greenery, before the winds had come. Long flowerbeds had lined the walls and trees had grown along the centre of the concourse. Now the flowerbeds were torn apart, soft soil underfoot, and none of the trees remained standing.

  "Still smells damned good," Zed whispered as they crept along the left wall, keeping a good distance between themselves and a heap of fallen trees. He inhaled deep. "That living smell, y'know? Love that. Love the feeling in here. Hate this still weather—hey, hear that?"

  There was a faint splashing noise that grew louder as they made their way forward. To the right of the corridor the wall became a waterfall, water flowing down from top to bottom in an endless, sparkling stream, lit blue and purple by hidden globes of glowing chemicals. With no other light around the waterfall seemed more than real, almost magical; the only thing to truly exist in this quiet, dark world.

  "Pretty," Chris murmured. "Perhaps we're the only ones to ever see it like this."

  "First time I've felt cool since that damn wind blew in," Zed said, as they walked close to the waterfall. "Kind of lets you forget for a while, don't it? Kind of lets you feel normal for a spell."

  Past the waterfall they encountered the first zombies they'd seen inside the station—a pair of crawlers, picked out by the penlight HK held, neither of them with obvious injuries, both trying to drag themselves along the floor, and a single walker, thin and wretched, alm
ost bald but for a few wisps of ragged hair. Its head was against a wall and its arms hung limply, and it didn't react at all as Imogen and the others passed.

  "Maybe I'm 'tempting fate' again," Zed murmured, as they made their way past on the other side of the corridor. "But these things here don't seem as tough as them we've met before."

  "Perhaps they aren't the ever-unliving eternal monsters of our assumptions," Chris said. "Perhaps they can weaken. Perhaps they can die."

  "They're already dead," HK pointed out.

  "Un-die, then."

  HK let out a sad laugh through his nose. "Uh, do you think Cheena came through here?" he asked. "Maybe—"

  "No." Imogen's voice was small but sure. "If she'd come through here, that one wouldn't still be standing. She went around." She paused, then spoke again: "She drew them away. Away from the entrance. There would have been a horde there, I'm sure of it. Allison cleared our way."

  The wide, tall corridor became even wider and even taller as it opened out into a clear mall area. Around the walls were small shops, mostly food and clothing stores, and in the centre of the open area was a large sculpture, water running down over huge glowing orbs of green and gold and pure white. Around this, visible only as silhouettes, were several zombies, all of them thin, all of them retching and vomiting.

  "God damn," Zed muttered, as they made their way around the outside of the mall. "What the hell is going on there?"

  "Pukers," HK muttered. "Are they some kind of ... like, evolved zombies? They don't look like they've got any hair ..."

  "It could be some kind of radiation," Chris suggested. "That might explain the hair loss."

  "Radioactive winds," Zed said. He tried to chuckle, but the effect wasn't quite there. "Hell if that ain't a thing."

  "I don't ..." Imogen trailed off, then spoke again: "That doesn't seem likely. Radioactivity doesn't create 'mutants', not like in stories."

  "Just an errant thought," Chris said. "Pay it no mind. I was—"

  "Holy shit," HK breathed. "Look at that, up ahead." He shone the penlight forward—the thin beam was strong enough to reach to the station exit, almost a hundred metres away. In front of the exit was a small 'block' of food shops and cafés, gaps of a few dozen metres on each side, left and right. Both gaps were crowded with zombies.

  "Now I'd call that weird," said Zed, conversationally. "Would you call that weird? Like they're just standing there waiting for us. Just when I think I got these stinking things figured out ..."

  "Do we ... what do we do?" HK asked. "Go back? There's no other way out—"

  "Nah, I ain't goin' back. Fancy-Pants, take care of this here brave sleeping boy for me. HK, I'll be taking my weapon back now." Zed carefully transferred Zack to Chris's arms, then took his bat from HK. He took a breath, then nodded. "All right now. Time to get some payback on these undead freaks. Sue, what do you say? You up for a little execution?"

  Imogen couldn't quite bring herself to reply, but she hefted HopeKiller wearily.

  "All right," Zed repeated, his voice firm and true for the first time since Cheena's departure. "Here's what I reckon we do. HK, you're our distraction man. Your job's to get 'em to follow you out from ... hell, one's as bad as the other, right side's closer, we'll go with that—get 'em out from the right side. Just lead them out into this nice big open area, use that metal stick of yours to keep 'em away from you. Okay? Now Sue here and I are gonna be the heavy-hitters, move forward slow and steady, Sue on the left, me on the right, Fancy-Pants there behind us—"

  "I'd just like to say that I'm not entirely comfortable with my role in this," Chris said. "Shouldn't we wake—"

  "Now just what the hell are you complaining about, boy? All you gotta do is 'carry', we're the ones doing all the hard killing!" Zed glanced at Imogen. "And I reckon it's best to just let the boy sleep. Hell, look at him. Couldn't wake him if you tried."

  "I'm ready," HK said. "I'll run ahead and start drawing them out."

  "Good kid. Damn, you finally grew a pair, huh? Maybe get up around to the left, then circle around that there glowing thing in the middle and catch up to us, what do you say?"

  "Yes sir."

  "You run on back if things start to get tight, hear me? Give 'em hell, son."

  HK headed towards the exit, the beam of the penlight he still carried bouncing wildly as he ran. By the time Imogen and the others had made their way halfway to the exit HK was already around the sculpture. Before they'd walked close enough to hear the zombies' purring he was back, a little puffed but pumped up.

  "I got a lot of them following me," he said, nervous excitement in his voice. "Pushed a few over, even." He looked forward, shining the penlight. "Still a lot there—"

  "You did good," Zed said. "Just you take a breather now, keep behind Chris and stop any behind us from getting too close, that's all you gotta do. Sue and I'll take care of the front, ain't that right!"

  "Yes." Imogen raised HopeKiller; the nearest zombie was just metres away. "I'm ready."

  There were dozens still in the gap between shops and wall. Dozens between them and the exit, so tantalisingly close. And now there were others behind them, too, those that HK had drawn out, none of them close but all of them closing. Forward was the only direction; fighting the only option.

  "Let's get to work," Zed growled, and he swung at his first mark. Imogen followed his lead, planting her good foot before slicing through a zombie's leg; with a lucky follow-up strike she managed to near-sever its right hand as it fell.

  "Whoa, good one!" she heard HK say. "Go, Imogen!"

  But then she wasn't listening, wasn't focusing on anything but the dimly lit figures before her, the obstacles in her path. She moved only when she had to; no rush, no hurry, no need to force anything. Only my enemy. Only my weapon. Only my breath and my stance.

  Nothing else.

  Imogen did not lose count of how many zombies she felled; she wasn't counting. It was only one. One and then one and then one again, over and over, a repetition of actions that became a natural rhythm, step and then wait and then strike and then wait and then strike and then wait and then wait and then strike and then miss—

  With a hiss of failure Imogen tried to correct her stance, stop the swing in time to reverse it, she'd misjudged the distance to her mark, the dim light making it seem closer than it was, and it lunged forward, claws outstretched, scrabbling for her. It was only through luck that Imogen fended it off, bringing HopeKiller up in a desperate swing that knocked it off-balance, its weight was against her for a horrible moment before it fell to her right, and she would have joined it if it wasn't for HK grabbing her from behind and pushing her roughly forward, she grunted in pain as she put down her injured foot but then she was steady again, then she was upright, and Zed was bringing his bat down hard against the felled zombie's grasping right hand, and a swift slice from HopeKiller crippled its left—

  But all of this had cost them precious distance from the hordes around them, before it had been a measured advance but now it was a desperate defence, Imogen and Zed and HK all fighting for their lives as Chris pressed up against the wall, Zack held tight in his arms.

  "Gotta—UGH!—keep moving!" Zed yelled, before pushing a zombie back with the blunt end of his bat. "Can't just stay put, too many of 'em to fight!"

  "If I put down Zack—"

  "NO!" Imogen and Zed both yelled. Zed continued—"Just you keep hold of him, we're gonna ... gonna get through this, just you ... just ... GOD-DAMN IT, DAMN YOU ALL! Just you get ready to ..."

  "IMOGEN!"

  Imogen's breath caught, but she couldn't look around, couldn't do anything but keep fighting—HopeKiller's shard opened a wrist and then a leg, and then she was shoving a zombie back, and then another, and then bringing her bat around to slam into an exposed head—and then Imogen realised suddenly that she could see, that the dimness had gone, cut through by powerful light, and there was a zombie on Zed and his bat wasn't in his hands, he was jamming his forearm up into the z
ombie's neck as it clawed at his shoulders, and then there was something in his hand, something small, and he pushed it against the zombie's face and there was a flicker of blue and the zombie's eye exploded, just burst, and then it was howling and jerking away and Zed was on his feet and his bat was in his hands again, held out in front of him, and he was roaring as he ran forward, shoving zombies back in a reckless, unbelievably dangerous charge—

  "No! NO! HELP ME!"

  "AHHH!"

  Zack's scream made Imogen look around, a claw scrabbled for her arm but she wrenched away and stumbled back, wincing as she put her injured foot down, then she was at Zack's side where he lay on the floor, her free hand around his wrist, dragging him, his eyes were wide and staring, and behind him were Chris and HK, Chris's arm caught by a zombie, HK was trying to push it back, and more were surging forward around them—

  —and like a dream Imogen watched Chris pull himself free, his mask had been ripped from his face and she could see him clearly, lit by that powerful light, his young face utterly terrified as he grabbed HK by the arms, at first it seemed as if he was trying to pull himself away from the zombies but then it became clear exactly what he was doing, and HK's yell of anguished terror was a sound that Imogen would never forget; nor was the look of shocked betrayal in his eyes.

  "MY NAME'S JA—"

  HK's desperate final words were cut off, replaced by rough purring and the wet tearing sounds of his corpse being torn apart.

  "IMOGEN!"

  The shout came again as Imogen realised she was crying, her chest heaving with uncontrolled sobs as she dragged Zack along the wall, the weight she was putting on her injured right foot twisting her stomach with pain but it didn't matter, nothing mattered now, nothing at all, and Imogen barely saw the zombie's claw slicing towards her face—

  There was a solid thud as a crowbar slammed into the zombie's arm, then Imogen felt a hand grabbing at her, felt the smooth solidity of plastic armour against her, and someone was shouting, she could see zombies everywhere, everywhere she looked, and the bright light was there and gone and then there again and then gone again and then—