The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (13 page)

"Easy enough,"
Ace remarks.

"Yeah," Carvery
agrees, cocking his head, as if sizing up the distance. "Even
easier to throw one of the girls across."

"I'm too pissed to
throw anything straight," Ace tells him, and exaggerates a
crossed squint. "Check out my eyes, buddy."

"You look fine to
me," says Carvery. "Let's throw Sarah."

I only resent being
volunteered, because I was thinking of giving Carvery Slaughter a
meaty shove over the edge first, in the name of domestic justice.

"Hasn't this
property always been in your family, then?" I ask Crispin, to
change the subject, and avoid showing myself up. "I assumed it
was."

"Sadly no, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin sighs. "It was bought by my
grandfather, a designer of weapons of modern warfare of the time, and
then passed on to my father, also in munitions. But before he too
died, my father said that neither of his sons had earned the honour
to take their place at his right hand – my brother being the
flamboyant wastrel you see before you now – and I had not only
forgone the family business tradition, but I had also failed to marry
and produce the next in line. On his death, it was stipulated that we
still had to earn that right hand status, within the decade –
or the property will be turned over to the National Trust."

"But you're rich –
you're the owner of Dry Goods Inc," I say. "Surely you've
earned it by now?"

"Financially, it is
possible," Crispin nods, gloomily. "But finding my father's
right hand has proved less simple. It was a clockwork hand, made by
the finest Swiss watchmakers, passed down in the family for many
generations. It holds the key to our family's true knowledge and
wealth. The selfish bastard hid it, somewhere on the estate. And so
far, neither my satellite land surveys, nor Homer's rummaging in
Mother's closets, has been able to unearth it."

"He didn't leave a
map or anything?" I demand, and he shakes his head, unevenly.

"No clues?"
Luke chips in, enthralled. "That's what I came here for, from
Nigeria. To seek a fortune."

"I hate to butt into
the history lesson, but there still seems to be a trio of gun-toting
household staff on our tail," Carvery points out. He's right.
The grumbling and coughing of the Frittata family seems to be getting
closer. I can hear them scolding one another, over the earlier pit of
spikes. "Is this conversation getting us anywhere, or am I going
to have to take drastic action?"

"Action with extreme
prejudice, I suppose?" I suggest, and let out a squeak of fear,
as he grabs the back of my collar.

"Remind me –
what do you weigh?" he asks, and dangles me again
experimentally, by the scruff of the pyjamas. "Thought so –
you two fellas. Grab her legs."

"What?!" I
yell, as Luke and Ace each get hold of an ankle, and suspend me,
between them and Carvery Slaughter, like a human skipping-rope.

"If you survive,
it'll be something exciting to write in your diary, won't it?"
says Carvery. "On three… no, two… fuck it. Now!"

The three of them swing
me back, and then violently into the air over the pit. I feel myself
spin on release, seeing a brief flash of blackness below, and the
terrifying face of Homer N. Dry swinging towards me on the pendulum
above – and I continue to rotate in midair.

Is this what it's like to
fly?

Until after what seems
like an age, I crash onto a gritty stone surface, on the far side,
still rolling over and over, my forearms instinctively shielding my
face.

"Home…!"
cries Homer weakly, hurtling by, in my wake. It sounds as though he
is deteriorating…

"The lever, Sarah
Bellummm
!" Crispin calls out to me, authoritatively.
"Push it back into the wall in front of you!"

The noise of the
Frittatas in the distance takes a new turn. Now, they seem to be
chanting
. I can't understand what they're saying, but the
atmosphere is suddenly ominous. It's almost monastic in tone, putting
images of
Voodoo
priests and strange blood-letting rituals
into my head.

"What's that noise?"
Ace Bumgang wants to know. "Sounds like those Tibetan
throat-singers, on
Youtube
."

"Mrs Frittata and
her sons are a little superstitious," says Crispin, vaguely.
"But in a jolly way – translated, it's all just a bit of
Hi-ho, hi-ho, off to work we go
, kind of thing…
Concentrate, Miss
Bellummm
!"

I get to my hands and
knees in agony, and crawl forwards. True enough, a large lever sticks
up out of the floor, at about thirty degrees to the wall, where a
recess in the stonework shows its intended position.

I push on it hard, but
nothing happens.

"It's stuck!" I
shout back.

"The compression
switch at the top!" he tells me. "You have to squeeze it,
as it goes in!"

"No comment…"
Ace coughs.

Luke's hands go to cover
his groin automatically, as if out of nervous habit.

I glance angrily at
Carvery for
his
reaction, but there is no expression in his
face or body language at all – just the usual endemic evil, as
he watches, arms folded.

Not even another rude
remark??
It's as if he knows
what I believe about his personality, and deliberately acts the
opposite, to thwart me, making me doubt my own sanity…

I get to my feet to
provide more leverage of my own, and find the smaller lever at the
top of the big one. It clicks shut as I close all of my fingers
around the handgrip, and with my weight behind it, the larger lever
starts to shift upright, back into the wall.

A horrible metallic
grinding and screeching sound almost deafens us, and I'm sure half of
the screech is poor Homer, attached as he is to the source of the
cacophony. Four centuries' worth of dust pours down onto him as well,
as cogs previously hidden high in the ceiling trundle down, locking
the pendulum into a final, static position.

As the lever I'm pushing
also locks into the wall, the blade of the pendulum revolves ninety
degrees, its upper edge now spanning the width of the pit –
giving the others a means to step across.

"Now we must split
up," Crispin orders. "There are four tunnels ahead, seven
of us, and only three of them…"

"Ooh – is that
Pimm's o'clock?" says my nameless housemate, making me feel
thirsty again already.
Twat
– is
she
still here?
It's like being trapped in a confined space with a case of bad
intestinal gas…

"…They cannot
cover all tunnels. I suggest two groups, a three and a four. That
way, at least one of them, possibly two, will be on a wild goose
chase down an empty tunnel, while we will still outnumber and outwit
the remainder."

"Good plan,"
Luke approves. "Does your… brother know his way around?"

"After his antics
earlier tonight, definitely," Crispin nods. "I suggest you
and he, partner up with the gentleman and his young lady…"
Here he indicates Carvery Slaughter and my housemate Whatserface…
"While I will lead Sarah and – Ace, is that right?"

Ace nods, and my heart
does the
bossanova
.

"Homer, I suggest we
aim for the usual Friday-night meeting-point," says Crispin.
"Sarah
Bellummm
– Ace – follow me."

I gulp. Finally –
alone with Ace Bumgang! And he's drunk! And there's also a zombie
with us, but at least it's not Carvery playing gooseberry…

I try to forget that the
zombie in question happens to be the eminently eligible Crispin Dry,
who has been so nice to me thus far – and focus all of my
thoughts on the possible outcomes I've stored up in my fantasies for
this eventuality…

Unfortunately, it's on
these occasions that my social skills fail me. Which I don't
understand. I can talk endlessly to Mr Wheelie-Bin, at the Body Farm.
Obviously it's a bit one-sided, but I would have assumed that the
actual practise of talking to a dead guy would be the same as talking
to a live one. Only it turns out, I'm apparently wrong…

"So, er – good
time at the Summer Ball?" I venture, bobbing along to keep up,
with Ace's longer stride.

"Not bad," he
says.

And that's it. End of
conversation.

My brain works overtime
trying to think of the next thing to say, until I'm hearing so much
gobbledygook between my own ears, that I wish
I
was a million
miles away from my own company as well. Even the creepy chanting of
the Frittatas, somewhere behind us, seems to make more sense.

"I have often
wondered," Crispin's deep monotone muses, a little way ahead.
"Whether my father hid his special clockwork hand in one of
these tunnels."

"Are there any more
traps down here?" Ace asks.

Why does he sound more
articulate when he's talking to someone else? It's not fair…

"There are a few,"
I hear Crispin say, just as there is an odd sensation of no floor,
where I put my foot down in front of me. "But not as big as the
last two…"

His voice seems to recede
rapidly into the air above, while I begin to realise that I'm falling
right into one of those aforementioned
traps
… which
contrary to discussion, seems to be exactly my size…

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
:

GOBBLINGS OF THE
LARYNX

I continue to slide
unstoppably downwards, like a fat kid on a greasy Helter-Skelter. I
even have time to wonder what I might encounter at the bottom. Given
the choice of a pit of spikes, a lair of giant monitor lizards, a
nest of zombies, or Carvery Slaughter taking a serial-killing detour
– I seriously doubt that a
Trevor Baylis
wind-up torch
and a set of borrowed silk Paisley pyjamas are going to offer me much
in the way of multi-purpose protection.

I dig in my toes, and the
heels of my hands into the walls on my descent, attempting to slow
down, and ignoring the friction burning that this rewards me with.
But there's no purchase, no handholds – all I succeed in doing
is loosening bits of rubble, which rattle down around me, making my
journey bumpier, and even more ungainly and uncomfortable.

Abruptly, the chute
suddenly ends, and I drop into thin air. But before I can fully draw
a breath to scream, it's knocked right out of me as I land flat on my
back, on a bed of straw. A sickening crack in the posterior of my
skull, and warm sticky sensation, sends terror through my veins –
as all of my blood supply attempts to escape the point of impact.

Wait a minute…
straw???

After a second, I put my
hand tentatively up to the back of my head. There is no pain. I touch
something oozing, slimy… it comes away in my fingers… I
almost choke in revulsion.
What have I done to myself…?!

And then I do scream,
when a live chicken lands flapping on my chest, with an irate
clucking and gobbling.

Fuck me – it's only
the hen-house…

"Aargh…"
I gasp, when she has scolded me thoroughly, and moved on in disgust.
I push slowly up into a sitting position, tweezing bits of yolk and
eggshell out of my hair. "Sorry, chickies…"

I risk a look around the
underground cavern, recognising what I think is called 'deep-litter'
provision, for keeping hens happy indoors. There is more than enough
straw than was required to break my fall, and here and there a hen
sitting, giving me a disapproving eye. The occasional clutch of
unguarded eggs features in the shadows.

It's as I skim my gaze
over these, that I spot a slightly different movement on the straw –
a long, narrow, quadruped shape glides silently across, from patch of
darkness to patch of darkness. An elongated jaw opens lazily…
and an entire mother hen and six eggs vanishes.

Monitor lizard!!

My brain screams until it
is blue, but my own larynx has completely closed, in dry-mouthed
horror. My arms and legs fight to organise themselves as I scrabble
backwards, on all fours.

Progress in this manner
is abruptly halted by the rock wall. Petrified, I scan what I can see
of this side of the cave, desperately hunting for an escape route…