The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (3 page)

Miss Brain-Dead Mark II
takes my jacket with a soft grunt, but goes nowhere, turning back to
face the wall instead, contemplating the smear where her head had
been rebounding off it just a moment before.

Crispin Dry takes my arm
to steer me past, the unexpected contact eliciting another gasp from
me.
Those long cold prehensile fingers, closing around the soft
warm flesh of my tricep!
I trip along the next corridor, trying
to keep pace with his rolling, loping gait, like that of a wounded
panther.

"My office…"
he hisses, swiping his security pass a second time, and ushering me
through.

It is black. Everything
is black, from the desk, to the leather seating, to the vertical
blinds. The only colour in the room is a giant white canvas, on the
wall facing the long window, upon which a modern meditation in red is
represented.

"You like my art,
Miss
Bellummm?
" he murmurs, seeing my open gape at the
piece.

"It's yours?"
Wow – now I'm really intimidated. I swallow. "It's, er –
beautiful…"

"I call this one…
'High-Velocity Spatter'
," he confides in a husky voice.
"Sit."

I plant my quivering
haunches onto the soft leather, and start to take out my notes. The
only sound otherwise in his office is the eerie call of gulls, from
the windswept pebble beach outside.

Crispin Dry watches me,
calculatingly. He circles around the sofa opposite, not yet seated.

"Would you like
something to drink,
Sarah Bellumm
?" He moves languidly
towards the huge, black, state-of-the-art vending machine in the
corner.

The sound of my full name
on his lips is like the opening of a beautiful white lily…

"I am a little
parched," I admit. "Yes, please, Mr. Dry. Thank you."

"What would you
like?" His hand hovers over the illuminated keypad. "Tea,
coffee, hot chocolate? Iced water? Chicken soup? Gin and tonic?
Bubblegum? Breath mints?"

Mmmm – a vending
machine with everything!

"A chicken soup
would be lovely," I hear myself say, and my stomach grumbles in
agreement, recalling the last slice of cold
Pizza Heaven
pizza
I ate for breakfast, many hours ago.

"Chicken noodle,
chicken and sweetcorn, Thai chicken and lemongrass…?"

"Yes please –
the last one…"

I watch as his clever
fingers dance over the keys. There is the faintest hum from the
machine. In a trice, a large fine china mug appears, steaming, on its
own saucer, garnished with fresh chives and coriander. There is even
the traditional porcelain soup-spoon on the side, intricately
decorated.

I wonder what sort of
businesses he supplies this particular machine to? All that the
University ones dispense, is various colours and temperatures of
pond-water
à
la
Styrofoam. We must be at the
very bottom of their budget range.

He brings it to the low
onyx table in front of me, and presents it with the gallant flourish
of a red napkin. Something of the gesture, and the way he arranges
himself laconically on the sofa opposite, makes my heart sink
slightly.

Oh no. He's so gay…the
way he's fidgeting his earlobe in that
I'm-ready-to-listen
way
and stroking his knee with his other hand – that's throwing at
least fifty shapes of gay…

I struggle to focus on
the list of questions that Knobhead has written out for me. I'm
starting to worry that maybe I won't enjoy finding out the answers to
some of them.

"It's very hot,"
he says, in a warning tone. It startles me.

"Hmmm?" Am I
always this jumpy? Well – to be honest… yes.

"The soup, Miss
Bellummm
." His mouth twitches in the corner, and his
black eyes crinkle slightly. It's as if he can see into the dark
shadows at the back of my own mind.

"I can get started
with the questions while it cools down," I say, brightly,
batting away the shadows in my head at his curt nod.
Definitely
gay
. I look down at the sheet of paper. "Now… the
first question. Is it true that you employ foreign child labour in
the construction of your vending machines?"

"No." The
answer is as cold as ice, and as solid. "There are other ways of
manufacturing our machines to a budget that is mutually beneficial,
to the product consumers, and the workforce."

"Right…"
I scribble this down, in my best pizza-order shorthand. "And is
it also true that you sub-contract your perishable goods supplies,
for human consumption, out to companies who deal in black market
foodstuffs and out-of-date stock?"

"Our sub-contractors
are fully vetted," he assures me. "If any sub-standard
products are finding their way into my machines, it is usually the
fault of the site owners, outsourcing to cut-price vandals who access
the machines without our endorsement. Quality control is of paramount
importance in this business."

The aroma drifting up
from the soup is certainly backing up his argument.
But still…

"Are you saying that
the recorded cases of food poisoning at Cramps University, and at
other sites, is the faculty's fault?" I ask.

"I am not saying
anything, Miss
Bellumm
," he muses, his eyes still faintly
entertained, his neck still quirked. "But you are, it seems."

I stare down at the page.
That wasn't one of Miss Fucktard's questions! My stomach growls,
guiltily. Damn food-poisoning…

"I am disappointed
in you, Miss
Bellummm
," he continues. "I hoped
perhaps that your agenda for this little 'interview' was more
personally –
ambitiousss
… in a secretarial
direction?"

Stupid Twat's next
question, coincidentally, had originally been:
'How likely are you
to give me a job in exchange for keeping all this stuff quiet?'

But it had been crossed
out, and replaced with something else.

"Moving on," I
say swiftly, aware that his eyes are mentally dismembering me. I look
at the revised Question Number Three. "How do you explain your
current one thousand percent increase in profits in the current
financial climate, Mr. Dry?"

"With excellent
book-keeping."

I look up at him,
uncertain as to whether this is merely a stab at humour.

He is still lounging on
the sofa, the jet black of his eyes resting on me steadily. My own
eyes follow the line of his jaw, and the rumpled Bohemian mane of
hair, still intact. His square shoulders in that black suit make me
feel weak.

What's wrong with you,
girl? He's still walking around and talking! You'd be bored sick of
him within minutes, same as all the others…

I press on with the
questions, covering the various charges of tax evasion, pollution,
carbon footprint, and illegal immigration, and he has a cool answer
for every single one. I'm relieved to turn the page, and find the
closing questions are brief.

"…Finally,
Mr. Dry. Can you tell me your favourite colour?"

He indicates the décor
of the office.

"Black," he
confirms. "With a fetish for red, occasionally. And sometimes…"

His face darkens. He
looks away.

"White?" I
suggest, thinking of the painting.

"When black meets
white, there is a certain shade – a very delicate and
vulnerable shade – that illustrates humanity in its most
primitive state."

"You mean gr…"

He puts his finger to his
lips.

"Best left
unspoken." Those black eyes burrow into my head. "A colour
for the mind. Not for the lips. Only… under very special
circumstances… should the matter pass the lips."

He's bonkers
.
Just what we need right now. Another gay eccentric. I return to the
final questions.

"And what music do
you listen to?"

"Soul."

"And last question.
What car do you drive?"

"I have a number of
cars, all black, and a chauffeur, who drives very sedately. You must
allow me to take you on a tour of the rest of my complex some time. I
still have an opening for a new cemetery… I mean… a new
secretary
."

My lips part like the Red
Sea. How
blatant
was that? That was no slip – that was a
whole Freudian tripwire!

Is he psychic? No…
psychotic
, more likely…

Outside the window behind
him, something turquoise blue and neon yellow crashes wetly onto the
pebble beach from above. Without looking around, he produces a remote
control, and closes the vertical blinds. Automatic halogen lights
phase on overhead, so there is no change in illumination inside the
office.

"Thank you, Mr.
Dry." I'm on my feet in that instant, suddenly wary of being in
an enclosed office alone with him. Those dark shadows have all sprung
to attention in the back of my mind, at the closing of those blinds.
"You have been very accommodating, but really I mustn't keep you
any longer."

"Indeed?" he
asks in turn, rising out of his seat. For the first time I notice how
tall and manly he is…
was
, I correct myself angrily.
"Keep me for what purpose, I wonder?"

So arrogant!

I just nod, blushing
fiercely, and head for the door.

"I will have to show
you out," he reminds me, taking out the security pass again, and
lurching forward to accompany me. "It has been a pleasure, Miss
Belllummm
."

His voice is driving me
crazy. And his hand on my arm again, guiding me out of the door and
into the corridor. I practically scamper ahead, snatching my coat
back from Brain-Dead Blonde Mark II.

"Thank you for your
time, Mr. Dry," I say, back in the near-safety of the lobby.
There is no sign of Brain-Dead Blonde the receptionist, and I can't
wait to get away. "It has been very educational."

"I'm sure it will
be," he agrees, with a courteous nod. "
Au revoir
,
Miss
Belllummm
."

I run to the Hummer in my
pointy Pigalle pumps, and lock myself in. I can see gulls flocking to
the spot on the beach outside his office, on the far side of the
building.

Those shadows in my head
– I fight to control them.

How dare he hijack my
fantasies, my pure and innocent thoughts of the dead? How dare he
make a mockery of it all by
walking around
in
broad
daylight
and
touching me??!

There ought to be a law
against that sort of thing…

As I drive home again,
all I can see through the rain bouncing off the road in front of me,
is his gray and amused, sardonic and demonically attractive face.

CHAPTER
TWO
:

NINE AND A HALF
REAPS

My
Pizza Heaven
scooter is protesting as I ride up the mile-long driveway to the
enormous stately home. I've never been called out here before. The
little two-stroke engine is making those annoying little noises, only
slightly more annoying than the noises that the gorgeous Ace Bumgang
at
Bumgang & Sons' Breaker's Yard
makes when I ask him to
take a look at it for me – on the occasions that I've ridden it
through gravel, or a puddle more than three inches deep.

Good Lord, the house is
huge. Like one of those 'brownsigns' in England, that have most of
the rooms sectioned off with gilt corded rope, and that the public
are allowed to wander around in at the weekends. So long as they
don't stray from the carpet and into the electric fencing, preventing
them from leaving with more shiny heirloom helmets hidden down their
trousers than they came in with.

A black stretch Cadillac
limo is parked at the foot of the steps, the engine and exhaust still
ticking quietly as it cools, as if the owner has only recently
arrived home. I pull in at a respectable distance behind.

Swallowing my nerves, I
take the pizza bag out of the top-box after parking up, and scale the
enormous marble steps. I was rather hoping there would be a delivery
slot, or at least a cat-door big enough to push the box through and
run, which is my preferred tactic when also delivering to the rough
end of town. I'd rather lose one pizza's worth of payment, than my
whole bike while my back is turned. Still smarting from the occasion
when I returned to the kerb just in time to see it being towed away
around the far corner of the block, by four small children on a
Fisher-Price musical push-along cart. Playing
Old MacDonald Had a
Farm
… I cannot listen to that nursery rhyme since. It
gives me terrible PTSD flashbacks.