The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (16 page)

"Well, why don't you
try asking your housemate, Miss Yo-Yo Panties, why she always seems
to sustain the
same
injuries, no matter who she's dating?"
Carvery suggests. "And then figure out for yourself if she's
really that unlucky – or whether she keeps bolt-cutters under
her own bed, to snip bits off herself when she's feeling ignored."

The dumb waiter judders,
and my stomach lurches in empathy.

"You're lying,"
I say, after swallowing my stomach contents back down.

"And you're jealous,
Sarah," he sighs. "I've read your diary, remember?"

Oh, yes.
He
would have to remind me about that, while he's got his legs wrapped
around me, and a gun next to my head, in a very confined space…
I opt to hold my tongue, realising that the moral high ground is a
concept that should have been taken into account before I started
writing anything down in the first place…

With a final jolt, the
dumb waiter stops.

Carvery angles the gun to
point outwards, before wiggling the toe of his boot into the gap, to
slide the door. Every muscle in my body suddenly feels like a
bowstring.

"Don't worry,"
he says in my ear, and this time I'm sure he's grinning. "There
were eight other people in the house to start with. Maybe whatever's
on the far side has already eaten by now."

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
:

THE COCKERELS OF
HERNIA

The door of the dumb
waiter slides back, and the first thing I see is a pair of yellow
eyes and fangs in a furry gray face, bared and ready for action. But
it's only for a split second, because it vanishes into fluffy
fragments as Carvery pulls the trigger.

I have to stifle my
scream, partly in awareness of the proximity of Carvery's gun which
has just half-deafened me – only half, because he has abruptly
pulled my head into his chest and covered my ears with his free hand
at the same time.

The smoke clears, and it
turns out that what I first thought to be a snarling werewolf, is
merely a blue fox-fur. It hangs benignly in front of the opening,
between a mink coat, and a snow-white fur, of possible
endangered-species origin. Both now rather singed beyond elegantly
controversial wearability.

"Who puts a dumb
waiter in the back of a cloakroom?" Carvery wonders, as he
releases his arm-lock from around my head, his self-control in the
face of potential danger astounding. "Or a lady's closet? Is it
for the dry-cleaning?"

"Maybe an escape
route for illicit lovers?" I suggest. "Who would otherwise
be caught in the act?"

He gives me a pat on the
shoulder. I flinch, automatically, until I realise he's indicating
for me to get off his lap.

"That's not a bad
idea," he agrees. "Guess you're not as retarded as you
look."

I elbow my way off him
abruptly, and out of the tiny box.

Noooo
,
my traitorous hormones protest, denied. I try to ignore them,
focusing my thoughts of male companionship on the reassuring memory
of Mr. Wheelie-Bin again, and his understanding silence at the Body
Farm. My brain can't handle all these animated men at the moment,
walking around and talking of their own free will, with their
ulterior motives and psychopathic tendencies.

Carvery slides out of the
dumb waiter in turn, and nudges the ruined fur coat aside. Beyond the
rows of hanging furs, there is indeed the back of a slatted closet
door, not unlike the one the zombie Homer N. Dry occupied earlier,
dressing up in his mother's clothing.

"Looks like a
bedroom," he says, peering through the shotgun-damaged slats.
"Come on."

He pushes the door ajar,
and we sidle out, warily. Yes – by all appearances, and the
smell of lavender beyond the shot powder stink – it's Crispin's
mother's suite once more. The familiar pink and white silk is a stark
contrast to those dark secret tunnels.

"I know this room,"
I tell Carvery. "We're up on the second floor."

"Hmmm," he
says, noncommittally, and opens a small drawer at random, finding a
book inside. "Do zombies usually read
Barbara Cartland?
"

"I couldn't say,"
I reply. "But I think it was their mother's apartments."

"Is she still around
too?" he asks. I shrug, unable to answer that one – dead,
undead, or any other way. Carvery replaces the book and seems to case
up the rest of the room, at a brief glance. "Well, wherever she
is, it looks like she's really into cock."

"Huh?" I'm
alarmed. Can men tell so much from a woman's choice of décor?
What else can they surmise on purely innocent appearances?

"Cock."

He points.

Ohhh
…
the
pet cockerel is snoozing, one eye half-open watching us, in the
middle of the bed. His feathers are all preened, and he looks
completely at home.

"That's Crispin's
pet!" I say, enormously relieved. "Maybe he can help us
find the others… Here, chicky – where's Crispin?
Crispin?"

"What are you now,
the Cock-Whisperer?" Carvery demands.

"No, look," I
say, as the cockerel yawns and stretches, rising up onto his
feathered legs. "He understands. There's a good ickle chicky –
take us to Prince Crispin…"

"Sarah, you need
help," Carvery mutters, as the bird struts regally off the bed,
heading for the doors. "Seriously."

"Come on," I
urge. "Let's follow him."

"You mean, I follow
you," Carvery corrects, shouldering the shotgun again. "While
you chase cock."

"If it leads me to
Crispin, then I'm better off than just hanging around in his mother's
bedroom," I point out.

Carvery looks upwards,
thoughtfully.

"You're probably
right," he concedes. "Ceiling's too low in here. Nowhere
decent to hang you from."

Well – at least
that was pretty much what I expected from him.

"I'm following him,"
I say. "What you decide to do is your problem."

I head after the cockerel
as it slips out of the doors to the suite, back out into the
second-floor corridor. Behind me, I hear Carvery sigh irritably, and
move to follow.

The cockerel jogs along,
past the abandoned ironing-board and bits of RC Spitfire, and vaults
the tripwire. It glances back as if to check our progress, before
continuing across the landing into the opposite wing, ignoring the
stairs.

"Don't reckon much
on Mrs. Frittata's housekeeping," Carvery remarks, stepping over
the ironing board. "Looks like I did the guy a favour."

"Oh, no – that
was us, earlier…" I start to say, and he gives me that
You're-so-fucking-weird-I-don't-know-what-to-think
look. "It's
a long story. Mind the wire. And watch out for any marbles rolling
around on the floor."

"Someone's
definitely lost their marbles," he grunts, navigating the
tripwire without having to double-check.

We continue in the path
of the cockerel, as it hops determinedly along the corridor into the
hitherto unexplored wing of this floor. At the far end, it turns
right – and bobs its head expectantly at a large, green
baize-inlaid door.

"I think he wants us
to go in here!" I announce.

"Maybe it's only
where they keep the chicken-feed," Carvery chuckles, but still
levels the gun barrels, before I try the door. My logic being that a
cockerel wouldn't knowingly stroll directly into danger…

The door swings silently
inwards, not even an ominous creak. And the cockerel runs in happily,
onto deep wool carpet.

"Great,"
Carvery says. "A completely empty room. Maybe he just wants
somewhere new to crap."

"It's not empty,"
I tell him. "It's a portrait gallery…"

I'm drawn in by the
sombre decorum of the dark, silent room. The mahogany walls are hung
with dozens of individual portraits, going back how many centuries?
But they can't all be of the Dry family, because they've only been
here for three generations…

The most recent seem to
be nearest the door, and the first is so clearly of Crispin,
ante-mortem
, that I gasp.

So-oooohh
Mr.
Darcy!

He was as stunning before
as he is now, I find myself thinking. Or is that the wrong way
around? Just –
stunning
… I could have stared
happily into those forget-me-not blue eyes forever, but with a
deliberate turn of my heel and a private gulp of embarrassment at my
own thoughts, I move on.

Ah. Homer, obviously. In
men's attire, but sitting cross-stitching a sampler, beside a large
floral arrangement. And as my gaze scans downward – yes –
very fetching
Jimmy Choo
stilettos, Homer…

Curious, I go to look at
Mr. Dry Senior. He looks academic and serious, both of his eyes
intact behind those spectacles – that leather diary tucked
under one arm… My hand goes to check it at my waist,
unconsciously.

And then Grandfather Dry,
evidently as big a fan of poultry as his grandson…

"Ah, I see this
one's showing off his cock," Carvery Slaughter interrupts my
private artistic musings. "Bigger than the one currently trying
to shag the feather cushions on that armchair in the corner."

I avoid looking where he
points, all too clearly able to hear the amorous clucking of the
cockerel.

"These must be the
previous owners further along," I say, curiosity getting the
better of me, and hurry onwards. "Oh – no – no, no…"

"What?" Carvery
asks, and catches up at his own pace. "Yeah, what about it?"

"Can't you see?"
I cry, waving an arm up at the drab gray face in the painting. "The
previous owners – they were zombies!"

"The current owners
are zombies," Carvery replies, deadpan. "Or had that issue
escaped your attention?"

"But they weren't
always zombies!" I moan. "You can see – they were
normal before. But these older ones – just look at them. The
gray skin – and the lifeless eyes!"

"Look like regular
old portraits to me," he remarks, licking a finger, and running
it down the dull, dingy painted canvas. "Could use a clean-up,
perhaps."

"It must be
something to do with the house!" I insist. "Maybe there's a
curse…"

Carvery's hand covers my
mouth, stopping me in my verbal tracks.

"Sshhh," he
hisses in emphasis, and jerks his head towards the last painting, on
the far wall.

A giant painting. Of a
ship. Maybe an early migrant transport, or a slave trader. The
figurehead is a snarling totem of a demon, and the sails are
blood-red.

Am I imagining it, or is
that the creak of timbers in its rigging?

And as the cockerel's
ecstasy with its favoured tapestry cushion reaches a crescendo, the
surface of the painting
billows
…

CHAPTER
NINETEEN
:

STARGRAVE

"
I
s
it draughty in here?" I ask, the hope in my voice as steady as a
margarine stepladder.

A rumble, like thunder
answers me, and the room shakes. The picture-frames reverberate off
the walls, in a staccato round of ghostly applause.

The cockerel pauses in
his courtship of the soft furnishings, and looks out from behind his
current
coussin de jour
.

The giant painting of the
ship ripples outward, and then suddenly bulges alarmingly. And then a
bright flash of light almost blinds us. Along with the sound of a
thunderclap, which at first I mistake for Carvery Slaughter
discharging the shotgun again.

"Don't kill me!"
I shriek, as the room goes dark and silent once more.

There is a pause.

"You wish,"
Carvery replies.