The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (7 page)

To the Isolation Ward.

"So now we're going
to have biohazard zombies carrying infectious diseases too?" I
ask. "Well, that's just lovely, knowing that everyone's going to
have to insist on prophylactics as well, before having their brains
sucked out."

He nods, sheepishly.

"You are going to
tell me what you planned to do, with all those parts you've stolen,"
I remind him. "But first, we're going to check up on Miss
Sperm-Bank Deposit Box down there, and see if there's anything left
of her to pay the rent that she owes me!"

But – as we turn
towards the Isolation Ward, the sudden squeal of gurney wheels
reaches our ears. Crispin Dry reacts, leaping and pinning me to the
wall – just as an occupied trolley hurtles past, narrowly
missing us. Several draped white shapes seem to be pushing it at
once.

"Sarah – help
me…!" a faint, weak voice cries,
Doppler
-ing away
out of the transport entrance, at the other end.

"That's her!" I
shout, my adrenaline rendering me immune to his current proximity.
"They're kidnapping her!"

"To the Cadillac!"
Crispin says, releasing me – and we lurch in pursuit.

Oh, no
…

The car park is a zombie
convention. We watch helplessly as my housemate's gurney is loaded
into an abandoned ambulance. The engine starts.

"We'll never make it
to the car," I tell him.

A zombie corpse flies
past us at head-height, landing upside-down in a box topiary
sculpture, and a local taxi brakes abruptly at the kerb. Its
windscreen-wipers activate, trying to move the entrail smear out of
the driver's direct eye-line.

We exchange a look, and
amble over.

"Follow that
ambulance!" I order, as we squeeze into the back, the
Human
Tissues
box between us on the seat. "Don't let him out of
your sight!"

"Yes, Ma'am,"
the driver replies, and switches on his
In Service
tracker. He
sounds oddly calm. "Is it a relative?"

"My housemate,"
I say, choking up a little, at the thought of having to invent a name
to go on her headstone, at the end of the day. Or maybe I'll just
find an excuse to rifle through her wallet at some point, and check
her I.D.

"These patient
transfers are always stressful," he says, soothingly. "I'll
try and get us all there in one piece."

"Quickly, would be
preferable," I gulp.

"Yes, Ma'am,"
the driver chuckles, enjoying my little melodrama. My zombie
companion squeezes my hand reassuringly.

"Stay on his tail,
Luke," Crispin orders.

"Luke? How do you
know his name?" I ask.

Crispin points to the
Nigerian Work Permit in the corner of the courtesy window, between
the driver and ourselves.

Oh.

GAYLORD LUKAN. WORKING
LEGALLY SINCE 1971.

Our taxi rockets
sickeningly after the hijacked ambulance, weaving in and out of the
garbage-collection-night rubbish, piled up at intervals along the
road.

"Go around the next
crescent – see if you can cut them off," Crispin adds, his
monotone never changing. "Luke – trust me…"

CHAPTER
SEVEN
:

PHANTOM OF THE
OPERATING THEATRE

Our driver takes
Crispin's advice, scattering street-garbage as we cut to the right.
Faced with a deserted residential crescent ahead, and flooring it.
With any luck we'll beat the ambulance-jackers to the next junction,
and head them off.

I wonder how my housemate
is holding up in there, with her reattached thumb, and
record-breaking collection of boyfriend-imparted abuse injuries and
STDs. Being kidnapped by spare-parts-hungry zombies and rattling
around in a stolen ambulance is probably an improvement, for her.

Knowing her as well as I
do, she'll have
Stockholm Syndrome
by the time we catch up
with them. Hmmm. Maybe they'll give her a new Zombie name. That would
help things along, at any rate. I'll have something to put on her
tombstone. Something to identify her, before the engraved words
'Feel
free to wipe your feet on this Doormat'
.

I must have known her
name at some point…

We hurtle out of the
junction, just missing the rear of the passing ambulance – by a
gnat's twat.

"Dammit!" I
shout, frustrated.

"Which hospital are
they transferring your friend to?" Mr. Lukan – the
taxi-driver – asks us.

"They will require
somewhere with surgical or dissection facilities," Crispin Dry
muses, and I feel his cold zombie fingers squeeze my own more
tightly.

I'm glad I'm sitting
down, because my hamstrings are suddenly akin to soggy spaghetti.
I've never heard the word 'dissection' sound so attractive.
Considering that to me, it's already right up there with 'Forensics'
and 'Pathology'.

"The University
campus?" the driver suggests. "It's the Masquerade Summer
Ball tonight – all the buildings will be open for showcase
presentations…"

"
Yesss,"
Crispin hisses, in his hypnotic
monotone, causing my buttocks to clench sympathetically to my jellied
hamstrings. The ambulance, rocking along the road in front of us,
abruptly takes a turning indicated by a Cramps University road-sign.
"Go with your feelings, Luke…"

Sure enough, the
ambulance heads straight for the Science buildings. It is allowed
directly through the barriers, by the night security team.

"They must have been
alerted to the power cut at the main hospital already," I say.
"What about us?"

"You just stay
quiet," says Luke. "Let me worry about the guards."

Before I can worry about
what that might entail, we pull up at the barrier, and Luke rolls his
window down.

"Where are you
driving this – thing?" the night security guard demands,
eyeing the zombie-entrail-smeared windshield, and shreds of garbage
clinging to the bodywork.

"Patient transfer
from Cramps University Hospital," says Luke, briskly. "We're
with them."

"I wasn't notified,"
the guard responds, deadpan, and his one glance at the two of us
huddled in the back seems to seal our fate. "And no partygoers
under the influence allowed in the Science buildings. You'll have to
go back across the street to the public car park for the Masked
Summer Ball, folks."

"My mistake,"
says Luke smoothly, putting the taxi into reverse. "Thanks for
your help."

"No!" I cry, as
we turn in the road. "My housemate – she's here!"

"We won't help her
by charging in on our own, tearing the place up," Crispin
reasons – although it sounds like perfect zombie retribution to
me. "We'll be better off mingling with the crowd, and waiting
for reinforcements."

"What? I've never
heard of an escape plan like that before!" I shout. I rack my
brains. Or have I? Was it Steven Seagal? Oh no, wait – I think
that was the takeover scene in
Under Siege
… they all
hung out pretending to be part of the crew, and then some more flew
in by helicopter, and then…

"It's cool, man,"
Luke interrupts my procrastinating thoughts. "You two hang out
here at the party, and I'll find a way to distract the guards. Give
me ten minutes, then you can stroll right through."

"Ten minutes? She'll
be hamburger by then!" I rant.

"But you forget,
Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin says, soothingly. "I have
all the necessary spare parts."

And he pats the lid of
the
Human Tissues
container, still on the seat between us.

I just manage to stop
myself from yelling at him, that if he hadn't stolen them in the
first place, we wouldn't even be in this predicament…

Luke drops us in the
car-park of the main campus, circles around, gives us a brief salute,
and heads off on his mysterious mission, pulling up the brown hood of
his
Christian Audigier
skull-logo jacket.

Students and faculty
staff are converging on the Conference Hall, in a dazzling array of
costumes and masks. Fireworks in the night sky scatter rainbow light,
reflecting off all the glitz and glitter.

"We're not in
costume!" I whisper, in panic. "They'll think we're
gatecrashers!"

Crispin turns and looks
at me, appraisingly.

"I see a perfectly
attractive young woman, dressed for the occasion as a pizza-delivery
girl," he says, quite calmly. I look down at my
Pizza Heaven
work fleece, wondering if he still recalls what I said earlier about
having nothing on underneath. It's certainly starting to feel a bit
itchy, in a couple of specific places. "And I have come as a
zombie Crispin Dry, the famous vending machine entrepreneur. I do not
see anything about either of us to arouse suspicion. Just try to
avoid stealing too many magnums of Champagne."

I flush scarlet. My
thinly-disguised alcoholism is obviously doing me no favours. But
he's right. I've thought of pretty much little else but that next
Sloe Gin Sling awaiting me, when we get back to his place at some
point.

"As if!" I
scoff instead though, trying to feign hurt feelings. Idly, I wonder
how big the wine cellar might be, under that huge mansion of his.

Crispin takes my hand
with his free one, the other carrying the
Human Tissues
transport box (now relegated to the role of fancy-dress prop) and
leads me up the grand steps, into the Conference Hall.

The décor is
breathtaking. No expense has been spared on lighting and effects. I
take in the gold drapery and red carpet in the giant lobby, set off
with full-size potted palms, and ten-metre plasma screen displays. I
gaze around, open-mouthed, momentarily forgetting my dear housemate,
Fuckwit, currently being demolished by zombie surgeons in the Science
block across the road…

"Sarah?"

The familiar voice brings
me back to planet Earth with a clang. I lower my eyes from the gaudy
fabric-swirly in the ceiling, to meet the startled gaze of my own
reflection, in a fancy-dress welding mask. The wearer pushes it up,
sharply – but I've already identified the owner of those
to-die-for pectorals, in the deliberately charred workman's
coveralls…

"Ace!" I
squeal, terrified.

Ace Bumgang!

Here???!!
NO!

My dream encounter
shatters into a million pieces. For not only am I here in my work
clothes, on a mission to save my housemate-slash-best friend,
Name-That-Smell – I'm here with Someone Else. Whose hand I'm
still holding…

Wrong, wrong, wrong!!!

This isn't the way it was
meant to happen…!!

Ace's fabulously dark
brown eyes look me up and down.

"Tight budget on the
costume front, huh?" he remarks.

"Could say the same
for you, petrol-head," I shoot back, trying to disguise the
tremor in my voice.

My knees are knocking,
and trying to switch places in time with the music.

"Or did you spend
the budget on your date for the night?" he teases, nodding
towards my zombie companion, Crispin. "That's a pretty good
look-alike. Does he do Strip-a-Grams, as well as escorting?"

"I don't know,"
I say, tersely, ignoring the zombie's low growl. "I'll have to
ask him later, when I'm negotiating my after-party extras."

"No need to boast,"
Ace grins. Oh Em Gee. Looks as good as his should come with CPR
instructions, for faint-hearted females. "I brought a date too,
you know…"

My failing heart sinks as
he turns slightly to look behind him, and another familiar face atop
an Adonis body swivels to gaze at me.

NO…

"Hello, Sarah,"
says the human butcher and bulldozer, his eyes half-hidden,
American
Psycho
-style, behind an
Avon
anti-stress refrigerator
mask.