The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (46 page)

"Not to its nest, I
hope?" Ace adds.

"Most likely it
will
only try to dislodge us
," Crispin replies. "Possibly
by finding a nice flat rock to pound us against."

"Well, of course,"
says Carvery. "If it's going to eat our brains, it'll want to
get us out of the wrapper first."

"
Braaaiiiiiiinsss
,"
Homer agrees, mournfully.

Luke suddenly yelps.

"Hey, who's got
their tongue in my ear?" he hollers.

"Sarah…"
Ace warns.

"It's not me!"
I say indignantly.

"Hard to tell in
this tangle," Carvery grumbles. "There's at least two dicks
poking into
my
lug-hole."

"They're not mine
either," I snap.

"I think Homer's
appetite may be returning," Crispin ponders. "He has been a
zombie a while longer than me – and his deterioration will be
more advanced. I will need to get him back to the house for further
treatment."

"You're talking
about more organ transplants?" I ask.

"Yes," he says.
"And there are certain psychotropic drugs which will subdue his
natural appetites."

"Un-natural, you
mean," Luke replies, and there is a shove somewhere in our
collected mess of limbs. "Homer! I am not a popsicle!"

"Who's trying to
feel up my leg?" Carvery adds. "Someone's groping around my
electronic tag."

I recall the golden
clockwork hand currently clamped around my own ankle, and try to tuck
my legs underneath me, making them inaccessible.

There might still be a
potential thief among us…

But that thought
subsequently reminds me – Mr Dry Senior's micro-diary!

The little tiny
leather-bound copy that Sandy al Dj'eBraah gave me, to take to the
Nine a.m. Lounge! Carvery has it in his pocket!

Hmmm. In all the dimness,
elbowing and confusion, this might be my only chance of recovery.

Surreptitiously, I test
each of the limbs around me. Old frayed denim – that must be
Luke's knee, up by my left ear. Down between my legs…
aargh!
My probing fingertip goes straight through old desiccated skin, like
ancient baking parchment. Some portion of Homer, although I dare not
guess what, and I withdraw hurriedly. Against my right shoulder, the
familiar heavy wool cloth, which at least three of us are wearing, in
the form of our borrowed Naval uniform trousers –
only
the trousers, in Ace's case.

Idly, I poke a little
higher, knowing that if I find shirtless abdominal muscle, these
aren't the trousers I'm looking for. Every part of me tingles at the
thought of actually sneaking a touch of his bare skin… but I
control my trembling excitement and try to focus on the mission at
hand.

A little higher…

It's only a jolt of the
blanket, but I'm almost disappointed, as I feel the scratch of a
jacket hem against my knuckle. But my heart leaps with renewed
vigour, as I realise that I have identified the wearer. Carvery.

Target acquired
, I
tell myself. A deadly target, but the right target. Now – just
to pick that pocket.

Strike like a cobra,
my subconscious guides me. I picture my hand as the head of a
serpent, penetrating without sound or detection… yes. It's
almost as if I've done this sort of thing before…

"Sarah
Bellummm
,"
Crispin's low, manly voice interrupts my concentration. "Thank
you for checking again, but I can assure you it has still not dropped
off."

"Oh." I
withdraw my hand abruptly, as if burned. I just find the nerve to add
in a small voice: "Good."

No wonder it felt so
familiar! I had forgotten all about our encounter in the Cramps
University Hospital elevator. And his black wool suit – not
much difference in texture to the Naval uniforms.

"But, if you have
concerns, you may undertake a more thorough examination in private
later," he adds, closer to my ear.

Ohhh,
my
…

Before I can respond,
there is a tearing noise from the corners of the blanket overhead.

"Quickly, Mr.
Lukan!" Crispin commands. "What does our exit look like?"

There is a scuffling, as
Luke checks the hole in the bottom of the blanket.

"Nothing!" he
reports. "No – wait… it can't be…"

"What is it?"
Ace demands.

"There's a… a
rickshaw flying beneath us!" Luke gasps. "Being towed by a
dirty old rug!"

YES!
It worked!

I summoned the rickshaw!

"That's what we must
aim for!" says Crispin. "Everyone hold on!"

"To what?"
Carvery states the obvious.

Crispin cuts the rope
from the Pterodactyl's neck. After a split second of inertia, the
whole bundle of us plummets.

Our fall is broken by
rolled-up rugs on the back of the rickshaw, some of which yelp
piteously. We arrange ourselves as quickly as possible, with only a
small complaint from Luke, who has not encountered the flying machine
before.

"Little help back
here, folks?" he suggests.

We find him hanging
grimly by one arm from the back, and Carvery and Ace haul him aboard.
Above us, the Pterodactyl squawks as it soars away, disappearing into
a distant cave high in a rock wall.

For the first time we get
a clear look at our surroundings. There is light still, from the
strange fluorescent fungi, by which purple-tinged plants flourish,
and the glint of water flows down endless precipices.

I draw my breath sharply,
as I spot a herd of beasts on a distant hillside. They jog along on
their two turkey-like legs, balanced by elongated reptilian tails and
small bony-crested heads.

"It's a whole new
world!" I gasp, leaning out over the side of the flying
rickshaw, to get a better look.

"An old world, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin corrects, almost sadly.

"Evicted from the
surface by the arrival of humans," Luke agrees. "They would
not have survived at all, were it not for the zombie curse…"

"Not a curse,"
Crispin counters, his stiff-upper-lip tone returning abruptly. "A
disease. An illness. The reason they were interred. One which I am
working to cure."

"You'd bring all
these monsters back to life?" Luke says, incredulous. "Back
to the surface?"

"If a cure is found,
it most certainly should not be selective," says Crispin,
philanthropically. "Leaving anything undead and untreated would
only preserve the opportunity for another catastrophic outbreak in
the future."

"Like smallpox,"
I nod.

"Exactly." His
confirmation brings a little warmth to my heart. "No-one and
nothing will be discriminated against having treatment – for
any reason."

Gosh. He's better than
Bob Geldof. He really does just want to save the world…

"Well," Ace
remarks. "At least the
Creationists
will be happy."

"Let's hope they've
also got the secret as to how we co-exist with all these ugly
dino-fuckers," Carvery remarks.

"Who do you think
gave the dinosaurs the zombie curse in the first place?" Luke
mutters darkly.

We watch as the creatures
scatter, foreshadowing the arrival of a much larger hunting
carnivore, causing them to stampede.

"Is this the Nine
a.m. Lounge?" I query, still worrying about the diary in
Carvery's pocket, and who and where my unknown contact might be.

"No, Miss
Bellummm
,"
Crispin reassures me. "This is merely a byway. A subterranean
route." He clicks his tongue a number of times at the rug, which
deftly changes direction. "There are many junctions here in the
cliffs between the Lounges, rather like Bank Underground Station in
London. But I must warn you about our most direct route from here…"

"What?" I ask,
immediately feeling an imminent need to cross my legs, to prevent the
inevitable.

"It is through the
Five Thousand Mile Cave," he says, as we hurtle towards a large,
dark aperture in the cliffs. "Home of the Five Billion Vampire
Bats."

CHAPTER
SIXTY-ONE
:

DEATH FACE

The cliff-face approaches
with terrifying speed, and our flying rug seems to gird itself for
further acceleration, as the gap closes.

"Well, that's only a
million vampire bats per mile," says Carvery. "In
Chiroptera
terms, for that size of cave, it's practically
deserted."

I'm stunned. Carvery can
do division – without a calculator? And did he just use the
species terminology of the bat family?

"Don't you mean
Desmoda Rotunda?
" Ace queries. "I read online that
they roost with up to nine other species of bat. That's potentially
ten million
Chiropterae
per mile over all, with only one in
ten being a blood-sucker."

My mouth is open at this
point, which in less than a minute, might be inadvisable.

"Ace – you can
read?" I repeat, disbelieving. "In
Latin?!
"

"Remind me of this
conversation, if I ever agree to join these two for a dudes' night
out on the town," Luke says aside to me. "That kind of
careless talk can close a woman's legs, before she's even had so much
as a sniff of the Rohypnol."

"There is room for
speculation about the exact number of vampires in the cave,"
Crispin concedes. "Considering particularly that it is pitch
black in there."

And with that, the pitch
black engulfs us, like a giant, stinking shroud of tar. My mouth,
still agog, snaps shut just in time.

The air vibrates with the
flutter of membranous wings, in every direction. As one, we all dive
under the tattered blanket, which had previously held us captive.

"Can't this thing go
any faster?" Luke demands.

"You are joking, I
hope?" I say, the sour wind stripping tears from my eyes, like a
cheese-grater against my face. "How long until we reach the Nine
a.m. Lounge, Crispin?"

There is a distinctly
surprised silence.

"Nine a.m., Sarah
Bellummm
," he replies. "Of course."

Of course. Stupid stupid
girl…

The rolled-up rugs
beneath us press deeper into my spine with the gravitational forces,
as the lead rug pulling our flying rickshaw cranks up another gear.

But that implies that
we're going over five thousand miles an hour… assuming he
means, Nine a.m. today…

Something bounces off my
knee, and I hear Homer squawk indignantly.

"Did you feel that?"
I hiss, desperately. "They're dive-bombing us!"

"
Yesss
,"
Crispin agrees. "Stay under cover…"

The squawk is echoed,
deeper and hollowly, somewhere behind us – and repeated twice
more.

"They aren't the
only ones," Ace points out. "Sarah – pass me the
torch."

I hand over the
Trevor
Baylis
, and Ace points it briefly into our slipstream.

"Here they come,"
he reports.

"What?" Luke
asks. "The bats?"

"Nope." Ace
passes the torch to Carvery, who takes a look in turn. "Three
zombie Pterodactyls on our six. Big ones."

"
Braaaiiiiinnnssss
,"
Homer moans, clamping both hands over his frayed ears.

"They're not going
to get your brains, Homer," Carvery says calmly, putting the
torch between his teeth and re-loading the shotgun again. "If
they're fast enough to catch up, they're fast enough for target
practice."

I risk a look over the
seat-rail, and see the formation of three giant winged pursuers,
against the dim light of the distant cave entrance behind us.