The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (28 page)

There is a deathly pause.

"What is 'bogey'?"
Higham Dry's brow furrows, turning to Crispin.

"Booger,
Grandpappy."

"Oh, thank
goodness." The old man's face brightens. "We have enough
people camping out here without finding bogeymen under the beds as
well. Issue this soldier with clean handkerchiefs. And some
colouring-books, for his non-existent children. Homer! That dress is
not in your size. Put the poor man down. We move on – leave our
hard-working boys in peace, no?"

* * * * *

"This is laundry,"
says Higham Dry. "You must all be very careful in here. Never
know what come out of it."

The reinforced black iron
door slides open, and a giant ball of pink steam unrolls from within.
He sniffs, suspiciously.

"Smell all rosy,
like lady flowers," he muses, wrinkling his nose. "Usually,
smell of napalm and sweaty jock strap in this room. Occasionally,
smell of goat, chewing on socks. Many sock darning needed. What you
call this, naughty boys?! Why it smell all lovely for a change?"

A handful of
white-aproned, shirtless muscular attendants rush out of the steam,
line up and bow in front of us.

"Laundry day, Lord!"
the middle one cries.

"You not trying to
make Guinness today?" Higham Dry demands.

"Only if it turns
out that the secret ingredient is Lotus Blossom fabric softener,
Lord!"

"I am very confused,
my man-shorts never smell like Lotus Blossom." Higham Dry shakes
his head. "What are my soldiers going to do, prancing around
smelling of lady flowers?"

"There was a mix-up,
Lord," the attendant grovels. "Our usual Sea Breeze
softener was delivered to Madam Dingdong's
Bring Your Own Towel
Sauna and Spa
, and the Lotus Blossom was given to us in turn."

"I cannot have my
soldiers smelling girly, you go to Madam Dingdong and you rectify
immediately," says the old man. "And bring back my
favourite towel while you there."

"Yes, Lord."
The attendant bows again, and scurries out of the laundry.

"What a shame, no
luck on Guinness brewing yet," Higham Dry sighs, as he leads the
way back out. "But never mind. We go up on roof. Get away from
girly smell."

* * * * *

The walls of the fort are
sheer – as is the mountainside. We are so high up, that clouds
below us obscure the ground.

However many miles down
THAT is…

"Now, Mr. Time,"
the ancient zombie Higham Dry announces. "We discuss your flying
carpet kleptomania."

Two of the bounty hunters
seize Justin Time's arms, and hoist him onto the battlements.

"I hope you study
art of flying very closely," Higham Dry chortles.

"Lord, have mercy!"
the rickshaw pilot sobs. "I only meant to help… I am very
fond of my own little aerobatic rug…"

"Well, we see if he
come and save you now," Higham Dry says cheerily. "Maybe he
more loyal than his owner, hmmm? You hope."

"Is this necessary?"
I plea of Crispin. "Look at him – those are real tears
coming out of his nose and everything…"

"Oh, is the young
lady volunteering to join Mr. Time?" the old man interrupts, and
I suddenly find my elbows grasped by the third bounty hunter, and my
feet deposited on the edge. "It a long way down. You be at Seven
a.m. Lounge before you reach the bottom."

I try to look over my
shoulder to see if anyone is coming to my rescue.

"It's true, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin says, unexpectedly. "Just look
for the exit to the Seven a.m. Lounge on the way down, and we will
meet up with you there. I have a feeling the boys are keen to
continue the tour as far as Madam Dingdong's first."

"What?" I cry,
as Ace and Carvery both nod their agreement. "You're ditching me
to go to some –
Bring Your Own Towel Sauna
?"

"Plenty of towels
here for everyone to take along," Higham Dry nods. "But I
need witness to report if Justin Time able to fly unaided now. So you
go with him. Crispin and Homer and the boys catch up with you later.
Bye-bye!"

And with a shove –
both Justin Time and I pitch over the edge.

As I tumble, I just catch
a glimpse of their faces over the brickwork, before the view is
swallowed up by the zombie-gray mist.

"You're not
screaming," I say, to Justin Time's rictus of horror nearby.

He seems to wake up, and
scowls.

"I was waiting for
you," he says, annoyed. "Ladies first."

Oh. Of course…

AaaaaaaaaAAA
AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
…

CHAPTER
THIRTY-SEVEN
:

THE MALPIGHIAN'S
NEPHRITIS

Instead of joining in the
screaming as we plummet – presumably – to our inevitable
deaths, down the endless mountainside, Justin Time takes out a hip
flask and unscrews the lid, for a large swig.

I don't know whether I
run out of breath, or the frustration with his lack of physical panic
gets to me first.

"We're going to
die!" I shout, hoping for a reaction.

"A purely
existential assumption," he shrugs, the air passing by at speed
causing his driving-cape to billow, from the slight movement of his
shoulders. He takes another slug from the silver flask.

"But – I don't
want to die!"

"Then don't,"
he grumbles, and mutters, although I still hear him. "Stupid
girl…"

So frustrating!
The
things you have to put up with, when you no longer have a Carvery
Slaughter handy, with a gun
…

Mr. Time puts away his
flask, smacks his lips a few times, and then lets out a strange,
piercing, eerie whistling sound. It echoes off the rocks and along
the miles and miles of valleys, obscured by mist.

"What was that for?"
I ask.

"Thought that was
the noise we supposed to make," he says, surprised. "Before
'splat!' You never watch
Roadrunner?
Higham Dry Senior, he
love that cartoon. He throw people off roof all the time, having
Who-Make-The-Best-Wheeeeee-Splattt-Noise
competitions. Very
funny."

And he sighs,
reminiscently.

Damn. I thought he was
summoning his magic flying rickshaw, or something helpful like that…

"I suppose we should
try for the Seven a.m. Lounge, then?" I hint. "How do we
find it?"

"Oh, you can't miss
it. It got big neon sign and an arrow, saying '
Seven a.m. Lounge
'.
And you just dive right in."

"Really?" I
strain my eyes hopefully, through the all-encompassing gray mists.

"Yes." Justin
Time nods. His long whiskers trail vertically upwards, in the rushing
air. "Right next to sign pointing straight down that say
'
Certain Death
'. Make sure you not aim for that one, if you
struggle with concept of existentialist existence."

I spend the next few
minutes desperately scanning the obstinately unoccupied air all
around me, for any hint of neon illumination.

"Are we nearly there
yet?" I demand at last, my patience having been tested to
snapping point.

"I was thinking it
should have been two, maybe three minutes ago," Mr. Time
remarks. "Oh well. Perhaps there is a power cut. Or someone pull
wrong switch when going to toilet. It happen two, three, sometimes
five hundred times a day…"

"What?!"

"Big fort,"
Justin Time mutters, as if I'm an overly-critical, nagging
Great-Auntie. He reaches for his flask again resignedly. "Lots
of soldiers use same toilet."

"But… but…
b…" I realise I'm now doing that thing called
'blustering'. Or is it 'bumbling'? No… I'm sure one of them
means 'lost for words' while the other means 'couldn't find their own
arse even if their head was up it'…

At times, I feel as
though I need a word for myself that means both at once…

"Oh, no,"
Justin Time chirps. "There it is…"

And his boot certainly
does find my arse – a head of any description up it at the
time, or not. I somersault through the air, and only have a split
second to glimpse the glowing green and blue flickering glass tubes
spelling out 'Seven a.m. Lounge' before I tumble into the circle of
pitch blackness beneath.

I get an even briefer
glimpse of the other red sign, pointing down the way we were
previously heading – but all I see of it is the word 'Death'
before I am sucked into an apparent vacuum of darkness.

"Justin!" I
shout. My words are whipped away, and do not seem to travel with any
great volume at all. I can neither see, hear… nor smell the
rickshaw-less pilot.

Did he make it through?
Is he behind me, somewhere in this black Hell-hole?

Or is he drinking his
last minutes into oblivion… no doubt before making a
record-breaking '
splattt
'
?

And then I have the most
terrifying thought… the Seven a.m. Lounge –
what if
this is it?!

Just more tunnels!
Sucking one along twists and turns indefinitely, like being inside
the innards of a gluttonous vacuum cleaner!
Supposing this leads
nowhere?!
Following this invisible giant intestine for ever,
around any corner of which could be the final giant acid-bath of a
stomach…

How long before I pray
aloud for the end, and the sweet mercy of total digestion?

The tears are milked from
my very tear-ducts by the controlled and continuous drop in
directional air pressure, and my ears pop their own wax like corks
from Cristal.

It will be my fingernails
next, I find myself thinking. Then eyeballs… then the hair
from my follicles… like a slow-motion, deep-space piece of
human jetsam…

"Crispin!" I
cry out my last words, I believe – sucked right from my mouth,
making no sound at all. "Help me, Crispin Dry! You're my only
hope…"

Relentlessly, the walls
of the tunnel whoosh by, unseen…

* * * * *

My feet strike something
solid, and gravity suddenly reasserts itself, jolting me awake from
the semi-coma where consciousness had been drawn out of my body in
turn. I am upright, in darkness still – and the surface I am
standing on feels wobbly and unstable.

My arms flail
instinctively, scrabbling at the air around me for purchase. Nothing
– until the very tips of my fingers, and typically blunt,
chewed nails just graze the unmistakable feel of brickwork. But as I
snatch my chafed fingertips back from the bite of baked clay and
mortar, the surface I am standing on lurches – as does my
stomach.

"Where am I?" I
cry out, feeling the bubbling hysteria already gathering lubrication
at the back of my throat and nasal cavity. But at least my voice has
returned! "Ace! Carvery! Crispin Dry! Justin Time! Over here!"

"Oooh," I hear
a strange, clipped English voice nearby. "Sounds like there's a
fish-and-chip cart hiding down this alleyway…"

Not the first thing I was
expecting to hear, by a long straw…

"Fish and chips!?"
I repeat, stunned.

"See – told
you!" says the voice, now drawing nearer. I think I can make out
the faint glow of a bobbing torch or lamp approaching, and through
what I can only describe as a pea-souper of smog, the yellowish light
flickers faintly off the tall narrow brick walls flanking me on
either side. "Bloody interlopers!"

"Let's get a closer
look at the competition," a nastier voice remarks. It sounds
like it comes with sharp edges and blunt instruments attached. And
possibly, industrial-sized deep-fat fryers…

I look down, in a panic,
as my eyes adjust slowly to the gloom. I'm about six feet off the
ground, standing on…

…
Standing
on…

The back of the rickshaw!