The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (10 page)

Crispin heaves a sigh,
and looks at the floor. He knows he's losing the argument.

What an idiot.

If he'd only kept the
drinks coming, and said a few choice things like "
You're very
pretty"
and "
You smell nice"
– this
could all be going so differently right now…

I catch myself before I
start to feel any sorrow for the poor dead guy, and sidle a little
more towards the door.

I remind myself that Ace
Bumgang is probably still at the Summer Ball, getting himself drunk.

He and Carvery Slaughter
probably have an entertaining wager on, regarding the outcome of
their night. Which I could be making interesting use of, instead of
hanging around this place.

"You are right,
Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin agrees, at last. "I see I
will have to prove myself in many ways, before becoming worthy of
your… charms. I will lend you a coat."

I nod, dignity regained.
Before I can turn away, he takes my hand again, gently.

"Before you leave…"
he says, and I glance back at him. Something seems to flare in his
hypnotically black eyes. "Just one kiss."

"Sure," I
concede, warily, and offer him my cheek.

He strokes it with a
fingertip.

"Not here," he
whispers. "But… here…"

And his fingertip
continues to trail, downwards…

CHAPTER
TEN
:

BADMAN

"Er…" I
interrupt, before he gets any further. "I don't think my organs
are ready for that sort of intimate contact yet. I don't carry a
donor card, for one thing… and I'm sure I read somewhere that
a tongue is not a recommended substitute for an organ temperature
probe."

Crispin straightens again
in front of me, while I do up the one pyjama button that his
wandering hands had managed to dislodge.

"I see you will need
a little more convincing," he says. "Allow me to show you
something of interest – about my house."

"A tour?" I
ask, puzzled. What has a tour of his mansion got to do with him
poking around at me like an unqualified masseur?

"
Yesss
,"
he hisses, and his zombie fingers curl around my own. "This way,
Sarah
Bellummm
."

I allow him to lead me
out of the opulent suite, leaving the disgruntled cockerel behind,
and we go back down the grand marble staircase to the ground floor.
Behind the stairs, next to the library, two doors are set into the
oak panelling.

He takes out a set of
keys, selecting one for the nearest door.

"This better be
either the
Bat-Cave
, or a REALLY impressive wine cellar,"
I warn him. "And not some kinky dungeon full of whips and chains
– where you keep all your other delivery-boys and girls,
because you're too tight to pay for the pizza…"

He hesitates, the door
half-open.

"Wrong door,"
he says smoothly, closing it again, with barely a cough of
embarrassment. "That was the broom closet."

"Closet, being the
operative word," I mutter.

He checks his keys again,
and unlocks the second door. A light illuminates the stone steps,
heading down.

"After you?" he
offers.

"Wine cellar?"
I repeat, meaningfully.

"Better," he
tells me.

"You first, I
think," I suggest, wary. "Then if I trip on the way down,
at least I'll have a soft landing."

"Semi-soft, I think
you'll find," he smirks, and takes the lead.

We go down the winding
subterranean route, around and around, until I've almost completely
lost my sense of direction. Eventually, we emerge onto an underground
landing. He stops at the railings, and I join him, peering into the
gloom.

Lights start to flicker
on automatically, the nearest first.

"Oh," I say,
surprised. "It's your garage…"

So he wasn't lying about
the Lamborghini Diablo… or the others… there's a
top-of-the-range Hummer, but the rest are all performance cars. Why
did I assume all high-earning billionaire CEOs only drove touring car
models, like Quattro and Ford, as if they're imitating plain-clothes
police speed traps? I must have read it in some badly-researched
Cinderella-based novel… Now I think about it, even my
housemate Thingummyjig's boyfriend, the psychopath Carvery Slaughter,
has the latest Ferrari as his regular commuter run-around – and
he just does paving and concreting for a living…

But the lights continue
to flicker on, far into the distance…

"How big is this
place?" I gasp.

"How big can you
handle, Sarah
Bellummm
?" he chuckles, with that
incredible sandpaper-rasping-a-headstone sound. "As big as it
needs to be. More that just a garage, I think you'll find. Follow
me."

We go down the remaining
stairs, and walk between the many vehicles, glinting under the
spotlights. It's like the garage in
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider –
only a hundred times larger.

This cellar is definitely
bigger than the footprint of his mansion. It must cover half of the
grounds as well…

"It's like an
ancient military bunker," I remark. "Have you got your own
subway down here?"

"If I did, I
wouldn't have to order in pizza," he stops and says, a little
coldly.

"No, I meant subway
– as in, underground railway," I explain.

"Oh." He looks
a little flustered, then shrugs, and continues trudging ahead.
"Perhaps."

The cars on show
eventually end, but the underground bunker doesn't. Suits of strange
armour and battle-dress follow, along with displays of old weapons.

"You have a Gatling
gun!" I exclaim, pointing at the wheeled military apparatus.
"Goodness. All I've ever handled is a potato-pistol."

"You like to shoot,
Sarah?" he asks me.

"Well, the most I
shot was a spider," I admit. "I tried hunting rabbits, but
with a spud-gun, they just thought I was feeding them. Especially
when I ran out of potato, and resorted to using carrots as
ammunition. They still come out and follow me around, whenever I'm in
my parents' field."

After the armoury, the
cavern suddenly takes on more of a science laboratory feel. Computers
and technical equipment are set up everywhere.

Crispin takes down a
transparent PVC lab coat from a hook, and hands it to me to put on
over the Paisley pyjamas, before taking one himself. As he shrugs it
on over his fine black wool suit, I imagine Carvery Slaughter wears
one too, when he's disposing of his ex-girlfriends' bodies that he's
failed to resuscitate, for the last time.
Hmmm
. Still got to
come up with a suitable plan to deal with him…

"As you can see, my
interests go beyond the world of vending machines," Crispin Dry
tells me. "And the advice of West African witch-doctors, as you
so insightfully noted… I too had a problem with the old wives'
tales of 'sex with virgins' being the cure for zombification. But
unlike you, not from the point of view that such stories are
medically implausible. My issue with those notions, was the shortage
in supply."

"That's quite
offensive and chauvinistic," I observe, wondering where this
exposition is heading. "But go on."

"I decided to find
out for myself if there could be better medical cures for zombies,"
he explains. "Perhaps with transfusions – or transplants.
You wondered why I was collecting organs at the hospital… well
– this is why…"

We go through a
double-seal air-locked quarantine door, and into a vast –
store-room.

Refrigerated cabinets
line the walls. Most containing sealed medical crates. But some –
containing entire people…

"You were
experimenting on zombies?" I whisper, shocked.

"
Yesss
,"
he hisses, resignedly. "And that was when I myself became
infected. Only two weeks ago… I had almost revived a subject –
but his first instinct was to bite. I woke up dead, here on this very
floor – and my patient had long gone."

"They're not your
patients!" I say, horrified. "You're not a doctor –
or a surgeon – you're a vending machine designer! Okay, a
multi-billionaire vending machine magnate… but what on Earth
were you doing interfering with zombies in the first place?!"

He looks at me sadly, but
before he can respond, a red light flashes over our heads, and a low
siren sounds, intermittently.

"What is that?"
I cry out.

"My security
system," he says, and beckons urgently. "But we are
relatively safe – down here. We must check the CCTV
immediately. Come with me – if you want to live…"

CHAPTER
ELEVEN
:

BLADE RUSTER

We leave the quarantine
area, and Crispin heads directly for one of the computer
workstations, where a number of virtual monitors display live feed
from various locations on his property. A 3-D walk-through image of
the house and underground bunker on a projection interface shows
where each image is taken from. It looks as though there are no blind
spots at all.

"How many cameras do
you have in this place?" I ask, in awe.

It's like being in the
control room of an
Oceana
nightclub. Only tidier, without the
detritus of Starbuck's cups and McDonald's wrappers, or stripper's
thongs pinned to the notice-board.

I notice that the one
solitary thing in the zombie businessman's waste basket, is a single
screwed-up ball of paper.

"Over three
thousand, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin tells me, tapping
quickly on his interactive screen. "As well as six thousand
hidden microphones, motion and pressure sensors, temperature gauges,
light-sensitive triggers, laser-interrupter switches, automatic
deadbolts, emergency power back-up, automated instant police and fire
control call-out, intercom, sound-system, and mood-lighting
throughout. There is also a chicken-feeding station and egg-laying
coop in every room, should one of my pets accidentally be shut in."

"You have thought of
everything," I nod. I glance at the screen, where I notice the
cockerel chasing one of his harem along an unknown corridor. "Do
you keep any other pets, besides chickens?" I gesture back at
the quarantine bay. "…And dormant zombies…?"

"I used to have
homing pigeons on the estate," he reminisces distantly. "But
one day, they failed to come back. I was informed that they had
landed at the nuclear power-plant, and were all shot by the Hazardous
Waste Regulation snipers. I was too sad to replace them."

"Ah," I say,
realisation dawning. "So that's why you keep the birds indoors
now…"

"Oh, no." He
shakes his head, in that attractively arrhythmic, wonky fashion. "The
chickens have special… scientific significance. They are
allowed anywhere they please."

"Scientific
significance?" I repeat. "What significance does a chicken
have to a Zom… oh. Of course. West African witch-doctors. I
suppose you're trying to distil the essence of
Voodoo
, to help
with your research for a cure?"

He shuffles awkwardly, in
his seat at the console.

"Here," he
says, avoiding the subject, pointing to a segment of the 3-D image in
the main house. One of the rooms in the interactive graphic is
glowing red. "We have the location of our breach."

He taps on the virtual
model, and the camera views pop up, on a giant ether screen in front
of us. The room of interest is in complete darkness.

"Initiate emergency
lighting," he orders.

The model room glows
green, but nothing happens on the monitor.

"He has covered the
cameras," Crispin murmurs. "Go to heat sensor view…"

A white line of light
scans back and forth over the 3-D model, but again – nothing on
the screen.