Vivisepulture (45 page)

Why, Grub you
even
want to know the quantumbiomechanical reason?  Well, it’s all to do with…

Hey, what’s up?

Why, the steam railway’s delivering us a Chinese take-away!  Our Zombie forces in the Far East have taken live-prisoners and they’ve sent some all this way as grub for us to convert!  Grubs, pay full attention: this doesn’t happen often! 

You, Bright Grub, how do you think us Zombies get to the Far East nowadays?  Since shambling on foot would take a long time.  I’ll give you a clue, Bright Grub.  I’ve mentioned his
name
already.

No no, it’s nothing to do with Jeshua.  In His time the Romans didn’t build railways, just lots of roads.

Ooops, I’ve given you another clue there.

No, Zombiehawkins didn’t invent railways so that his wheelchair could travel faster.  Can you imagine a wheelchair on rails with steam puffing out of it?  It was
Zombiedavinci
who invented the steam railway, which led after hundreds of years of stumbling work to... the Trans-Siberian Railway through seemingly endless forests!  Which takes us close to the China Empire.

Which we’ve never been able to penetrate, on account of the Great Wall of China which is just too high for Zombies to climb over, even if the live-Chinese didn’t pour Celestial Fire down on Zombies who try to climb over each other to reach the top and liveflesh.

However, the Great Wall is like a piece of string: it has two ends.  True, it’s a very long piece of string.  But it has to start somewhere, and stop somewhere.  Those places are where a million Zombies meet the Chinese Army of the North, and a million more meet the Army of the South.  

Following the principles of
harness
and
control
, our Zombie hordes don’t snack on and zombify every live-Chinese who falls into our putrid hands, off a horse for example.  Live-prisoners are sent back to our central territories by way of the Trans-Siberian Railway, so we can have ceremonies of Do-This-In-Remembrance-of-Me, the very words during Jeshua’s first supper of flesh after He arose following zombification.  

Here comes the train now, choo-choo choo-choo.  Do you see the live-prisoners in their cages?

Most of you Grubs are still too juvenile to join in, but I deem that you, Bright Grub, shall come with me to the feeding-frenzy place.  

Yet be not excessively frenzied!  Some of the prisoners should be torn and bitten and eaten only so much that their dead bodies shall ressurect, undead, thanks to the sacred infectious saliva of Jeshua which we all share.  

The one thing we share in common with our Chinese foes is… can you tell me what that might be, Bright Grub?

Toes?  No, not toes.

Eyeballs?  No no.  I suppose I asked too difficult a question.  The answer is
ancestor-worship
!  Only the live-Chinese and Nipponese foolishly worship imaginary spirits of their ancestors who died without regenerating, whereas us Zombies realistically adore our common ancestor in zombieism, Jeshua who caused us all.

Choo-choo.  Already a crowd is gathering.  It’s
grub
time, Grub!  Remember how to comport yourself.  Stagger and sway with arms outstretched.  And get even more brains into you.

In the Manifold Many-Worlds Multiverse, all is not merely possible, but
mandator
y. Whatever you can imagine, must
be
.  Somewhere and somewhen.  Thus, in another universe just next door – !

For Cristina

THE DEVIL IN THE DETAILS

by

IAN WHATES

Life was full of hazards, particularly for Declan Worthington and particularly of a morning.  He stared into the shaving mirror, largely indifferent about what stared back: his face was too long, the nose too broad to be considered ‘handsome’, but he wasn’t exactly ugly either.  He traced twenty-four hours’ worth of stubble with his fingertips, continuing the movement once he’d run out of chin and turning it into a reach for the razor.  He always took great care in getting ready for work.  Not because he was especially vain, though he liked to look as well turned out as the next man; no, in Declan’s case a degree of precision was essential.  He worked as a broker for a traditional firm.  Suit and tie were mandatory, and that made dressing a potential minefield.    

The first real danger lurked in effecting the tie’s knot.  Once that had been achieved he could breathe a little more easily – slipping on the jacket in one fluid movement was an act he now had down to a fine art.  In fairness, he’d pretty much mastered the up and over, push through and tug intricacies of the knot as well, which opened the door to that most implacable of foes, complacency.  The consequences should he relax too much or let his mind wander at the wrong moment didn’t bear thinking about.

Which was exactly what had happened on two consecutive mornings in recent weeks, but not today.  He was on the ball this time around, dancing through his ablutions, breakfast, and the minutiae of getting dressed, with the grace of a prima ballerina.  He breezed out of the front door, confident that today was going to be a good one.

For some years now Declan had habitually walked to work, come rain or shine.  It wasn’t far and parking anywhere near the office was a nightmare, so he spurned the car, and buses had never really been his thing – all that jostling, cheek by jowl with sweaty strangers, sudden stops and starts, so many potential hazards.  Walking meant that he and not the bus driver was in control, and he could always claim altruism at the same time: saving the planet by increments; no carbon emissions from his journey thank you very much.  As a matter of fact, he’d started quite a trend, and a growing number of his colleagues now resorted to shanks’ pony – those who lived near enough – even if most were only fair weather walkers.

“Morning, Dec.”

“Hi, Jenny.”  She’d taken to waiting for him, which he found mildly irritating much of the time, though not enough to actually say or do anything about it.  Yet.  

The thing was, Jenny had made it pretty obvious that she fancied him.  Flattering though this was, he didn’t feel the same about her.  Not that there was anything wrong with Jenny, far from it.  She was a few years younger than him, slender, with a pleasant, open face – nice eyes – and great legs.  He’d only noticed her legs since they’d been walking to work together.  And he did like her.  She was intelligent, confident, generous to a fault… In fact, when he analysed it, there were plenty of reasons why he
ought
to fancy Jenny, but the plain truth was that he didn’t.  Mind you, his ‘Problem’ might have had something to do with that.  He hadn’t allowed himself to get close to anyone in a long while. 

“Hang on a sec, you two!”

A large figure came puffing up to join them.  Bromby, from accounts, who fancied Jenny almost as much as Declan didn’t.

“I love how you walk,” Bromby had once told him.  “The way you seem to flow across the ground as if it’s no effort at all.”  Declan had smiled in what he hoped was enigmatic fashion, studiously avoiding mention of the fact that he walked that way because he
had
to.

The three of them set off, Bromby talking incessantly, switching topic in scatter-shot manner as if desperate to hit upon one that Jenny might take an interest in.

“Did you see that film on Saturday night, BBC 1?  Hilarious.  Wasn’t meant to be of course, but it was so bad,” segued into, “my sister called right in the middle of it.  I was glad of the interruption, to be honest.  She wants to come and stay next weekend.  Can you imagine?  Are you going to Eddie’s leaving do on Friday evening?  I thought I might, sister permitting, of course.”  

One subject shunted into the next, leaving little room for anyone to comment even if they’d wanted to.  Jenny glanced at Declan and rolled her eyes.  By unspoken consent the pair of them stepped up the pace a fraction, which had the desired effect.  The stream-of-consciousness prattling eventually ran down as Bromby was forced to pant for breath and conserve his energy for walking.

Five minutes from Declan’s front door, disaster struck.  The vector of misfortune was a child, a girl walking with her mother, presumably on the way to school.  They caught the pair up rapidly and dropped into single file to go past.  Declan, always wary of the unpredictable nature of children, slowed to let Jenny go first, Bromby at his back.  The girl suddenly darted away from her mum, laughing, and veered directly across Jenny’s path.  Jenny was forced to come to an abrupt stop, torso bending forward to avoid slamming into the errant child, bottom poking backwards towards Declan.  He instinctively did the same.  A stutter, a jerk… 

…And he was somewhere else; some
when
else. 

The air was hot, humid.  He was scantily clad, his skin several shades darker than usual, and he was holding a crude spear.  This had happened so many times before that he wasn’t fazed by the transformation, taking it all in his stride.   Jungle surrounded him, and immediately in front was… Jenny.  Shorter, darker, but unmistakably her.  Crap! It was never good when someone got pulled through with him.  

“Jenny,” he began – the words emerging in whatever language was in vogue at this place and time.

“Get away from me!” she yelled, drawing back in horror.

Oh great.
  He knew from experience that she’d have no memory of having ever been anyone else, but it seemed that in this reality the two of them didn’t get on.  He stepped towards her, careful to keep his movements smooth and even, determined not to abandon her here.  Too many friends had been lost that way. 

She wasn’t having any of it, though, and turned to run.  He couldn’t risk losing her and made a lunge, hand closing on her arm, which was when the other man appeared out of nowhere.  A mean-looking bastard, much bigger than Declan, and hefting a much bigger spear, which currently raced towards Declan’s midriff propelled by bulging muscles and a snarl.  Declan flinched in panic, waiting for the searing bite of pain as the spear tip punctured his side…

…And he was somewhere else.

Only as he made the jump did Declan register that the attacker’s face had been Bromby’s.

Hot and humid had become hot and dry.  His skin was now truly black and the overriding sensation was one of hunger.  Not the pangs he might suffer on skipping lunch – easily sated by a few biscuits or a handy snack – but a deep-rooted emptiness that gnawed at the core of his being and had been there for as long as he could remember.  The spear in his hand had been replaced by a staff, equally crude.  The thinness of the arm supporting it – his arm – shocked him.  To his relief, Jenny had come through with him, but there was no sign of Bromby and no way of going back for him; which meant that in their own reality Bromby would cease to exist, to have
ever
existed.  He’d simply be written out of history, and Declan would be the only one to know that he’d ever been there.

Jenny had changed far more this time around.  She was tall and gaunt to the point of emaciation, her skin as dark as his, and her face, while still recognisably Jenny, had taken on characteristics that made him think Masai, though he’d never claim to be an expert on such things.  

 The bleating of a goat brought him out of his reveries.  A score or more of the scraggy animals were feeding on the tough grassy tussocks around them.  Did the Masai herd goats?  They did here, evidently.

The problem was that he’d made this last jump blind, without any idea if he was taking them closer to or further away from home.  The next would be more calculated, though getting back was going be more complex than it might sound.  They were in Africa, he was pretty certain of that, but which Africa? 

He decided on a small jump forward, nothing too drastic, until he got his bearings.  This time, when he reached to grasp Jenny’s arm, she didn’t flinch or try to pull away but merely looked surprised.

…And they were someplace where rain lashed their faces.  The drop in temperature sent a shiver tingling down his body despite the layers of clothing that protected him from the elements.  It was night, and they were staring up at an impossibly large airship sailing majestically above them.  The ship seemed recklessly low, barely clearing the high rooftops, and was illuminated by artfully arranged lights that made it clearly visible despite the weather.  The airship was apparently following the course of the broad city avenue on which they stood.  

New York, he realised, they were in New York.  He felt Jenny squeeze his hand and glanced across at her.  She was grinning with obvious delight.  Her hair was pulled back severely from her face and hidden beneath a black beret which looked to be fashioned from the sort of shiny plastic they made raincoats out of in the 60s.  Then a stray beam of light reflected from something on her lapels, straight into his eyes, and he noticed the matching silver swastikas that sat there.  He knew immediately that he wore them too.  

A jerk of his and Jenny’s hands and…

…They were a couple on the way to church in a battered old Ford that felt every bump and stone in the road and made him yearn for the wonders of modern suspension.  Jenny sat rod-straight beside him, wearing a floral dress and matching hat, hands clasped on her lap.  She looked so prim and proper he wanted to laugh, but instead jerked his head towards her…

…And they were children sitting next to each other at individual desks with inkwells in the top left corner.  The silence surrounding them was of the sort that makes you not want to breathe too hard.  All around him heads were down and pens were scribbling, even Jenny.  Declan realised with horror that they were sitting an exam… a Latin exam!  At the front of the room sat a sour-faced bespectacled teacher in full black gown.  He was staring directly at Declan and scowling, clearly wondering why only this child in the entire classroom was looking around instead of studiously working.  

Declan very slowly lowered his head and started writing in measured, flowing script all the Latin he could remember:
Amo, Amas, Amat… habeas corpus… quid pro quo… carpe diem... ad hoc…
  The latter seemed particularly appropriate.