The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (40 page)

I let out a morose sigh,
and a shadow falls across my table.

"Sarah Bellum,"
a stranger's voice jolts me from my musings. "I was just here
hoping to see your boss."

"My boss?" I
repeat. "It's too late to see my boss.
Pizza Heaven
doesn't re-open until noon."

The voice chuckles, and
its owner seats himself opposite, uninvited. I can't tell if he is a
zombie or otherwise. What I can see of his face through his turban
and headdress is badly scarred, and the skin of his hands has a green
tinge, mottled with purple papillomas.

"You don't fool me,
Miss Bellum," he warns. "I know you are here with Crispin
Dry. If you give me what he owes, perhaps I will forget the fact."

What? I'm horrified.
Crispin has unpaid debts?!

"I'm afraid I don't
know what you're talking about," I say, as coolly as I can
muster. I wish Sandy or Cottoneye Joe would turn and see my little
predicament. Even more, I wish Ace and Carvery were here, instead of
camel-herding. They love any excuse for a bar-brawl. "I'm a
delivery-girl for
Pizza Heaven
, and I have no idea what or who
you're referring to."

"Don't play games
with me, Miss Bellum," the stranger continues. "You are a
secretary for Crispin Dry at Dry Goods Inc, and a traitor. More
fast-food delivery boys and girls have disappeared before you than
you can possibly imagine…"

A traitor??
What
the Hell?

"The more you try to
convince me, Mister Scary Weird Green Guy," I tell him, trying
to raise my voice a little to attract attention, "the more your
words will slip straight over my head."

Finally – Sandy
turns and sees the stranger sitting across from me, and reacts. And
what a reaction!

With a roar of rage,
Sandy draws his scimitar – and with a dull thud, the stranger's
head bounces off the table – and rolls onto the floor…

A terrible silence
unfurls across the bar.

"Nothing to see
here," Cottoneye Joe announces, and waves to the band to
continue playing. He claps his hands to signal the staff. "Clean-up
at table seven!"

CHAPTER
FIFTY-TWO
:

DIURETIC 13

I drain my Sloe Gin Sling
quickly, as Sandy hurries to my side.

"Are you all right,
Miss Bellum?" he asks.

"I think I just need
some fresh air," I say, rising unsteadily from my seat. "Who
was that?"

"No-one of
interest," he assures me. "There are other parasites here
besides the Squidmorphs! We will take a turn around the fountain in
the courtyard. The scent of the lilies and wisteria will revive you."

He gallantly offers me
his arm. We head through the bustling bar and out through the far
side, into the glorious dappled sunshine of a shady walled garden
within the buildings. A bubbling fountain in the centre cools the
air, and the rainbow array of flowers are a soothing contrast to the
harsh hubbub indoors.

I try to take deep
breaths as we walk around this little oasis, before my brain is
overwhelmed with further adjectives.

"This
is quite normal for the Caruncula
Casabladder
,
Miss Bellum," Sandy reassures me, as I rest on the tiled edge of
the fountain. The decoratively cool mosaic design is a relief through
the seat of my all-too-thermal Naval uniform. "You must not take
anything personally. But it is safe to talk here. It is one of the
few places where it is safe to talk."

For some reason I don't
feel like talking right now. I've just seen a man decapitated for
sitting down at a table with me, and calling me a traitor. I'm more
wary of further offending any other law-abiding citizens of the Eight
a.m. Lounge, after that little display.

"You did mention
treason," I say at last, cautiously. "What constitutes
treason here, exactly?"

"Attempting
to broker or sell sacred hereditary objects, either whole or in
constituent parts," Sandy replies. "Sleeping with one's
mistress within the Palace walls, or courting a new one in his
Lordship's apartments. Procuring a beast for carnal knowledge.
Watering-down of lamp-oil or medicinal spirits. Entering the
Temple
of the Moon
on
a Tuesday morning after 09:20 hours wearing a blue feather –
Homer has had some narrow escapes there, I can tell you. Public
preaching of sacrilegious texts, or unconfirmed UFO sightings. Many
things, Miss Bellum. There is a six-hundred page moral addendum in
the
Library
of Scrolls
here
if you would care to look – but it can only be accessed on a
Thursday between 10:04 and 16:17 hours without committing…"

"Treason?" I
guess, and he nods.

"Wise indeed. I can
tell you are a woman who respects cultural differences!" he
approves. "And what is your own personal heathen faith, if you
will permit me to ask?"

"I would not dream
of offending you by mentioning it aloud," I reply, politely.

He grins broadly,
revealing several gold molars.

"Clever
girl." He gestures around the courtyard. "We like to
consider this a free society, in our decadent little Eight a.m.
Lounge
pied
à terre
,
away from the rest of the civilized world – but you would be
amazed how careful folk are. More than anywhere else. To do business
in such a confined and limiting space, you will find good manners are
learned quickly."

He sighs. "Life here
functions very well. But there are others who are envious, who would
wish to tax and regulate such a successful independent enclave.
Introduce their hypermarket monopoly culture, and fast-food chains.
Their modern places of mass consumer worship. Destroying the solitary
businessman. Destroying the soul's own unique journey through life –
and the afterlife."

"I can see why
defending the Lounge is so important," I venture.

"You will have
noticed similar tendencies elsewhere also!" he agrees, in his
usual enthusiastic way. "Arming themselves to the teeth, ready
for any invasion from either side, yes? Practising their skills and
manoeuvres, maybe?"

A
small part of my hindbrain kicks me in the upper lobes. Perhaps what
he means, is:
HAVE
you noticed similar tendencies elsewhere?

Is he fishing for
tactical information on the sly…?

"I wouldn't be
qualified to answer," I reply at last, honestly. "I saw a
lot of laundry being done, and some failed attempts to brew Guinness.
But that's about it."

"Hmmm," he
muses. "Yes… where Guinness is involved, a plentiful
supply of clean laundry is certainly necessary. I do not think you
have anything to concern yourself about there, Miss Bellum."

I'm already concerned…
in a tactic of my own, I try changing the subject.

"Will Cottoneye Joe
– I mean, your brother B'Dah B'Dim – will he have the
right medicines for Homer?" I query.

"The
best tonics known to mankind are right here in the Caruncula
Casabladder
,"
Sandy confirms, proudly. "We will soon have that curious brain
and those wayward kidneys of my cousin's functioning properly again."

A
sudden supersonic roar overhead makes me jump, and three triangular
flat shadows streak above the courtyard. Across the walled city, a
Doppler
of
automatic rifle-fire follows them, joined by a chorus of indignant
shouting.

"What was that?"
I ask, half-deafened by the noise.

"Those are aerial
spies from the Nine a.m. Lounge," Sandy tells me. "Every
day, they fly past, hoping to find us swallowed up by the desert, so
that they may move in and expand their territory. Fools. They look
forward to the day they believe that the taxmen and regulators will
flatten our haven of peaceful business, and turn it into some ghastly
modern theme park of glass and cement. They are too narrow-minded to
see that without the Eight a.m. Lounge, there is no Nine a.m."

He reaches inside a fold
of his robes. I gulp.

Am
I about to be sacrificed also?

But instead of the dagger
I am expecting, he produces a tiny handmade notebook – almost
an exact miniature replica of Mr. Dry Senior's diary!

He turns it reverently in
his fingers. It is only about an inch tall.

"You will take this
micro-text to the Nine a.m. Lounge," he states. It does not
sound like a request. "There, you will give it to our contact in
the Dry family empire. He will know what to do."

Oh, my God – I'm
being press-ganged into becoming a spy!

"But…" I
begin, as he embeds the small leather-bound book into my hand and
closes my fingers around it. "Who? How will I tell?"

Before Sandy can speak
again, there is a crash in the wisteria behind him, as something
falls heavily from the roof. We both turn to view the damage.

A dusty shape groans, and
tries to stand upright.

I'd
recognise that brown
Christian
Audigier
hooded
jacket with the gold skull motif on anywhere…

"Luke!" I
shout, as Sandy's scimitar finds his sword-hand again, prepared to
strike.

Our
Nigerian taxi-driver – and
thief
,
Mr. Lukan – leaps free of the shrubbery, eyes widening wildly.
From a standing jump, he avoids the sweep of Sandy al Dj'eBraah's
blade, flying onto the uppermost rim of the stone fountain.

"Sarah!" he
cries out to me, running around the narrow circumference to evade the
slashing thrusts, kicking up diamond-like droplets of water from the
shallow marble bowl. "It's not what you think!"

"You stole the
clockwork hand!" I shout back at him. "That was given to me
to look after!"

"You don't
understand!" he yells, on his second or third lap of the
fountain. "It doesn't belong…"

He
is interrupted by a second flying shadow. From the terracotta tiled
roof of
Casabladder
,
a glistening flash of bare-torsoed wiry muscle and dark Naval uniform
trousers leaps, coiled like a spring, and lands with a menacing
splash – right in the marble alongside.

My
heart implodes. Oh boy – Ace Bumgang
sober
…

"Cough it up, dude,"
Ace says, without any attempt at preliminary Machiavellian wordplay.

Luke curses, and jumps in
the opposite direction, desperately. Fear propels him to the far side
of the roof, where he barely grabs the guttering before scrambling
upward the rest of the way, and disappearing across the protesting
clay tiles.

"Ace!" I cry.
He glances down at me briefly, muscles twitching and ready, like an
Adonis on Aspartame. My heart is using my uvula as a trapeze! I try
to swallow it back down. "Ace – who's looking after the
camels?"

Nice,
Sarah Bellum
,
says my self-esteem – putting my ego into a headlock and
drop-kicking it into my large intestine.
Show
him where your priorities lie, why don't you?