The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (14 page)

Then I just about nearly
die on the spot, as another many-legged shadow appears over a nest of
eggs to my right. But what I think at first is a giant tarantula,
stops and hovers over the clutch, before reaching and selecting one
discerningly – and in the dim light, I see it is a thin,
gray-skinned hand.

Another zombie…!

The hand holding the egg
disappears. But a second later, it returns empty – points
directly at me, and beckons.

I glance back towards the
giant monitor lizard. It is raising its head to taste the air, forked
tongue flicking in and out. A hen's feather is stuck to the end of
its snout.

Well – that wasn't
a difficult decision.

* * * * *

"Are you related to
Mr Dry?" I ask of the strange zombie, as I crawl along the new
tunnel behind. But it says nothing, merely beckons again.

Too aware of the speed at
which the monitor lizard could navigate this low space, I hurry
after.

We emerge in another
cavern, but this one is definitely not the home of hens. Tree-roots
and cobwebs are more the order of the day, and the occasional damp
fluttering noise of batwings.

"I don't think I'm
meant to be this far down," I ponder, picking my way through the
underground flora and fauna, in step with the zombie. "Where
does this lead to?"

"My
preciousss
…"
the zombie hisses, almost voiceless, it is so old.

I look it up and down,
curiously. Hardly anything remains of its clothing. And around one
ankle, there hangs a plastic tag, attached with a cable-tie.

"Are you familiar
with the Body Farm?" I ask, thoughtfully.

The zombie shoots me a
glance, with its one reptilian-green eye, and keeps hobbling onward.

"It's just that I
noticed you have a neon pink ankle-tag, which means a
Shallow
Grave Study
subject," I continue. "I guess it would be
easy for you to get time off to do your own thing, in between those
other times, when you're being dug up again for analysis."

The tree-roots get closer
together, and we squeeze through the claustrophobic spaces, until we
reach what appears to be a natural clearing.

I can hear water
rippling, and a pool of moonlight from some chink in the rock high
above us, illuminates an underground spring.

The zombie finds a paper
boat at the water's edge, and puts the egg inside, before setting it
adrift, pushing it so that it wobbles away into the darkness. How
very strange…

"Are you here to
kiss the frog?" a booming voice greets us, and startled, I
immediately wish for dry pyjamas.

"Er, preferably no,"
I reply to the unseen speaker. "Just looking for the way out."

"Are you sure?"
the voice continues. "I have a golden ball…"

"Don't think I want
to kiss that either," I remark, resolutely.

A movement on the far
side of the water catches my eye, but for some reason I avoid looking
too closely to define it, as it approaches the spring to retrieve the
floating egg. I have a feeling that several years alone down a well
has probably negated the need for clothing.

"There must be
something you desire," the deep Shakespearean-actor voice of the
third Frittata brother replies. "Otherwise, you would not be
here in the wishing-well."

"Really, I just want
to find a way back out into the mansion," I say, with conviction
– ignoring the thought
'dry pyjamas',
which tries to
make itself heard. "Just been playing a bit of
Hide-and-Seek
with the other Frittatas… oh. I am so sorry…"

The voice roars in rage,
and the body-farmed zombie and I both cover our ears.

"That is quite all
right," the third Frittata brother says at last, after a moment
to compose himself again. I hear the munching of eggshell. "Are
you sure there is nothing else you wish for? Seeing as you have come
all this way – and survived… so far…"

Something occurs to me,
other than damp Paisley-patterned silk nightwear.

"I don't suppose
you've seen a clockwork right hand anywhere down here?" I query.

"Ahhhh," the
third Frittata brother rumbles.

"My
preciousss
…"
the zombie hisses again, nodding vigorously, until I worry that his
poor head may drop off.

"You will find it
guarded by the third heir to the Dry estate," the bass voice
replies, carrying eerily over the water. "But yes – find
it, you certainly may – Sarah Bellum."

A cloud moves across the
moon, and I can no longer make out the water, or the direction of the
speaker. Cold-skinned zombie fingers grasp my own, tugging me to
follow again.

"How did he know my
name?" I want to know, but the zombie says nothing, leading me
away from the tree-roots. "And what third heir? I thought it was
just Crispin and Homer?"

At last, the terrain
starts to head upwards, becomes less like rough ground, and more
even, like broad steps. They narrow progressively, until we are on
what is essentially a spiral staircase, like the inside of a
church-tower.

After a few minutes of
climbing, a studded iron door marks the end of our route. It is
unlocked by a nautical-style wheel, and we push it inwards.

It is some sort of
storage facility – or laboratory – or study – but
far older than Crispin's, in the bunker under the stairs. Instead of
a smart garage, armoury, hi-tech computers and sterile refrigerated
quarantine sections, this is all yellowing papers and pickled things
in jars, under what could be a century of dust.

An ancient, empty leather
chair is in front of a desk, where a misty magnifying glass and an
old pair of wire spectacles lie abandoned, on an open diary.

I shine my torch onto the
handwritten page.

TO CATCH A COMET'S
TAIL
…
it says – and
then just a sequence of odd,
Leonardo da Vinci
-style
diagrams.

"My
preciousss
,"
the zombie calls me, and I turn, to see him opening a small white
door in the corner, half-hidden behind a pile of old books.

I go to look, and it's
the last room I was expecting to see hidden away underground.

It's a baby's nursery.

A wooden painted mobile
hangs above a white wooden crib, and a jolly-looking chicken fresco
is painted around the walls. There are no photographs.

I know, as I step through
the doorway, behind the strange zombie, that I'm entering a shrine.

"
Precioussss
…"
moans the zombie, pointing.

I gaze into the crib.

"Yes," I agree,
as the beam of torchlight reflects off the surface of the six-litre
pickle jar. So peaceful-looking. "Isn't he just?"

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
:

NECROMANCING THE
BONES

"
H
ow
did you know this room was even here?" I ask the strange zombie,
as it tears its one remaining eye off the sight of the pickled baby
in the crib, and starts to fluff pillows and blankets around it, in a
proprietary fashion. "I mean, surely Crispin would be down here
all the time, looking for clues – if HE knew about it…"

At the name 'Crispin' the
zombie moans, sympathetically. I look at him more carefully, in the
torchlight.

There does appear to be a
family resemblance…

"Do I have the
pleasure of guessing correctly that you are Mr. Dry, Senior?" I
say at last.

The zombie nods, patting
and polishing the jar a little.

"No wonder," I
breathe. "But why the Body Farm tag? Is it the equivalent of a
summer festival pass, to a zombie? An excuse to lie around in the
open air at weekends, meet laid-back girls, catch a few flies –
nobody bothering you…?"

The zombie shrugs and
nods again, waggling his hands in the universal gesture meaning
'Pretty much, yeah.'

No wonder they know so
much about me already, I realise, blushing fiercely. Eavesdropping on
my private one-sided conversations, no doubt, with Mr. Wheelie-Bin
under the silver birch tree…

"So who was…
is this?" I ask, more gently. The baby's thumb is in its mouth,
a forelock of blonde hair waving slowly in the suspension fluid.

The zombie points to the
head of the crib, where an engraved brass name plaque becomes
obvious.

"Higham Dry," I
ponder, and the zombie nods again. "The youngest?"

The Zombie shakes his
head, and holds his hand up above his head, as if measuring.

"The eldest?" I
whisper, shocked, and am rewarded with another nod. "I'm not
surprised that Crispin and Homer felt they failed expectations, then…
having a stillborn elder brother who might have fulfilled
everything…"

Mr. Dry Senior just
shrugs again, and reaches under the blanket. Feeling around for a
moment, he produces a pink and white felt rabbit toy, and offers it
to me.

"I, er, don't
understand…" I falter.

The zombie thrusts the
stuffed toy under my nose. It is wearing a red waistcoat, on which is
appliquéd a pocket-watch and chain, in golden thread.

"It's the rabbit
from
Alice in Wonderland
, yes," I agree. "She fell
down a hole – I fell down a hole. I get it…"

"
Noooo
,"
the zombie replies, and prods the felt rabbit in the middle. The
sound of an air-squeaker inside it makes me jump.

"And it squeaks,"
I add. I'm at a loss. "I don't know what you mean…"

I find myself staring at
the toy rabbit's chest, as it is held even closer. The word
SWISS
is embroidered on the white watch-face.

"Is it a clue?"
I ask. The zombie's shoulders slump, and he slaps his free hand over
his eye in resignation. "Do you want me to take this?"

"
Yessss
,"
Mr. Dry Senior groans, and shoves it into my own hands. It's
surprisingly heavy. "Go
nowww
…"

"Back the same way?"
I say in dread, thinking of the naked Frittata brother, with his frog
fixation and dubious golden ball in the wishing-well, and the giant
monitor lizard in the underground hen-house.

I follow him back out
into the study, where he glances sadly back at the nursery before
closing the door behind us.

"Up," Mr. Dry
Senior says simply, and points to the corner of the wall, above the
desk.

A couple of ribbons
flutter from a large aluminium air-vent.
Aha
…

I step up onto the desk
and start to open it, but he stops me with one hand on the leg of my
pyjama-bottoms. I look down to see him closing the leather-bound
diary, buckling it shut, and offering it to me as well.

"More clues?" I
query, taking it, and tucking it into my waistband.

"
Duhhh
…"
The zombie slumps in the chair, and looks defeated, dropping his head
into his hands and shaking it slowly.

I think he's
deteriorating rapidly. Probably too much time spent outdoors on the
Body Farm at the weekends, experiencing alternative forms of decay.

* * * * *

The ventilation shaft is
wide and smooth, and the only sound is the echo of my own hands and
knees as I crawl along. But I don't trust it. The aluminium throws
dark reflections and moving shadows at every turn, and I'm sure that
behind me – although I could be imagining it – I hear the
scuttling of claws.

What could Mr. Dry want
by giving me his stillborn son's toy rabbit, and an old diary full of
sketches and drawings? I can only imagine he wants me to pass them on
to Crispin – with all his modern technology in the bunker below
the stairs, surely he'll be able to decipher it? And maybe find that
special hereditary clockwork hand, which will save his home from the
clutches of the National Trust…

As I'm thinking this, I
suddenly become aware of a smell creeping up on me slowly, along the
air-way. The smell of burnt feathers, and rotten eggs. And the mental
image of something that stalks chickens on their nests, and devours
them whole…