The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (48 page)

Ace shrugs, looks at the
remaining white residue on his hands, and tests it out on his tongue.

"What's it like?"
Carvery asks.

"Bit like a fart in
an old people's home." Ace rubs a finger around his teeth, into
his gums. "Menthol and
Werther's
, with a hint of coffee
and dead thing."

"Sounds like the
secret ingredient for brewing Guinness, that they might be missing in
the Six a.m. Lounge," Carvery remarks.

"What, old people?"
I repeat.

"We'll just tell
them to substitute menthol,
Werther's
, coffee and dead thing,"
Carvery reassures me. "Although knowing Crispin's Grandpappy,
most likely they're already using dead thing, of one species or
another."

"And old people,"
Ace agrees, dusting the last of the powder from his hands. "Speaking
of old people and dead things, Homer's not doing too well down there,
Crispin. He keeps trying to pull bits of himself off. And not for
fun."

Crispin immediately
crouches down by his brother's side, to check his current state.

"He still needs
medical attention," he announces, grimly. "We must hope
that the Nine a.m. Lounge residents are amenable today…"

"Nine a.m. Lounge?"
a strange, muffled voice cries out in alarm.

"Who said that?"
Luke demands.

"I can't go to the
Nine a.m. Lounge!" The almost-familiar voice sounds as though it
is shouting through… layers and layers of wet carpet…

"Ah, Justin Time,"
Crispin greets the stowaway. "What treason have you committed
now?"

The disgraced roll of
carpet thrashes around in the footwell of the rickshaw, and bursts
open, to reveal the whiskered, runaway, bounty hunters' most-wanted
rickshaw pilot, Mr. Justin Time.

"You left me in the
Seven a.m. Lounge!" he practically broils. I'm not sure he's
even close to sober either. "Do you know what they did to me, in
their cold stinky little gaol cell?"

"I'm sure you will
elucidate us anyway," Crispin encourages, concentrating on his
brother's position, and seeing that he is comfortable.

My heart seems to heave a
sigh of empathy. Oh, if only Crispin hadn't been so keen on the idea
of me taking up his job offer… he really is the nicest corpse
any woman could wish for…

…
If
she wasn't also being constantly distracted by the thought of
arrogantly good-looking live male genetics, I remind myself, as Ace
wipes his hands clean on my sleeve.

"Don't,"
Carvery mutters. "You'll only get your hands dirtier. You don't
know where she's been."

"They gave me
A
Nice Cup of Tea
," Justin Time fumes. "And asked if they
could contact my wife for me! If my wife ever finds out where I am, I
am a dead man! No offence, Mr. Dry… But we are not talking
about an unreasonable woman here! We are talking about a homicidal
maniac! Have you ever been married to a homicidal maniac?"

The men all shake their
heads. Both Carvery and Ace pointedly step away from me, as if
denying any such detailed association.

"No," says
Carvery. "But we've met Crispin's mother."

"Yup," Ace
grimaces.

"I've been married,
but not to a homicidal maniac," Luke says, gloomily. "To a
sex maniac." He sighs. "Just not when I was around, sadly."

"You see?"
Justin splutters. "That's the sort of woman I would be a happy
man to be married to! But what do I get? I get the Medusa, the Furie,
the Siren, the witch-beast from Hell… and the pasty desk clerk
with the badly-made suit at the gaol, is sitting there offering to
send a singing telegram to tell her where I am, and that I am quite
well enough for her to collect! Hah! To collect my bones and suck out
my soul and flay my skin into a sail for her Ship of Doom!"

"Are you sure that
you and Crispin aren't related in some way?" Ace says,
quizzically. "Does she ever turn herself into stone at all? Or
keep pet zombies – in red leather pants with no ass to them?"

"I wish!"
Justin Time rages.

"I bet they offered
you Marriage Guidance as well, bro," Luke sympathises. "The
elders at my village told me I'd have to sacrifice a white cock to
satisfy my old lady. I told them she was getting plenty of that
already, from what I'd heard… And not the sort I could afford
to sacrifice and get away with."

"Unfortunately, Mr.
Time, we are most definitely heading for the Nine a.m. Lounge,"
Crispin tells him. "But perhaps you could remain under cover
until we have disembarked."

"This is costing
you, Mr. Dry!" Justin snaps. "I want Christmas and New Year
off!"

"But you don't
celebrate Christmas and New Year, Mr. Time," Crispin points out.

"No, but my
girlfriend in New York, it a very big thing for her," the
rickshaw pilot wheedles. "She puts on this little frilly
negligence
with all tinsel and flashing lights in, and a
strawberry liquorice rope instead of a…"

"I'm actually
starting to like him," Carvery grins.

"Yeah, me too,"
says Ace.

Suddenly, the darkness
fades to misty gray. I switch the flashlight off. Instead of bare
rock and desiccated skeletal matter, evidence of creepers and other
greenery indicates that we are nearing more hospitable depths.

We all shade our eyes, at
the first flash of daylight…

The flying carpet
decelerates as we burst through the foliage, disturbing unseen birds
and animals, revealed by the noise of their cries and squalling.

"Stupid rug!"
Justin Time dives to grapple with the harness, reining in its
enthusiasm for the outside world. "Not above the jungle canopy!
This is a war zone!"

"A war zone,
Crispin?" I repeat, aghast.

I recall those two
strange planes that had flown low over the Eight a.m. Lounge, and
what Sandy had told me.

Damn! I need that diary,
out of Carvery's pocket…

"You'd barely
notice," Crispin shrugs, but I recognise his look of discomfort.
"Most of the folk here just go about their usual business…"

A whistling in the air is
punctuated by a rapid succession of thuds, and our rug and blanket
bristle with acquired arrows, in a passable porcupine impersonation.

"Dude, your trousers
are on fire," Ace tells Carvery.

"Quick!" I say,
leaping at any opportunity to rummage in those pockets. "Take
them off…"

Carvery looks down at the
burning arrow sticking out of the steel-lined toecap of his boot, at
an apologetic angle.

"Why do I get the
flaming arrow?" Carvery wants to know, twisting it free and
tossing it over the side of the rickshaw, in flagrant disregard for
the local ecology.

"…Their usual
business being, shall we say, a gung-ho approach to home security,"
Crispin finishes. "Mr. Time! We need somewhere safe to land! My
brother will not last much longer in the air!"

All of us hunker down as
more arrows arc overhead, and I crawl downward, to be with Crispin at
Homer's side.

"What is it?" I
ask in a low voice. "Should he be that colour?"

Homer's deteriorated skin
seems to be uniformly weeping a strange, purplish sweat or mucus,
accompanied by a smell not unlike a blocked drain. His consumptive
belly is distended, as if inflated by a surgical pump.

"No bump to the head
has caused this," Crispin tells me, to my private relief. "We
need to be near salt water. Mr. Time! Take us to the shoreline!"

"Ohhhh, no!"
Justin Time shakes his head and purses his lips. "I'm not going
near any open sea! Straight into the jaws of Death for me, that is!"

"What would you
rather risk?" Crispin asks him. "A possible chance
encounter with your wife? Or a very definite encounter with an
adolescent Squidmorph, in need of immediate liquid sustenance?"

I try not to recoil in
horror, knowing what Homer means to his brother.

All that time, it wasn't
my own hysteria for once, bringing up thoughts of the dread larval
sea-parasite – here it is, festering in the most obvious
incubator it could find…

We break cover from the
jungle, and the sunlight is too painful at first to reveal our new
surroundings.

But as the rickshaw
churns up bleached white sand and driftwood, and the salt spray from
the surf smacks me in the face like a dissatisfied pizza-delivery
customer, I can make a rough guess.

I'm not prepared for the
view, as my eyes adjust to the glare.

"Whoa," Luke
gasps.

It is a picture-postcard
tropical beach – deserted, almost pristine. Sprouting coconuts
are washed up on the damp sand. Emerald-green islands of all shapes
and sizes stand like sentinels in the sapphire-blue sea.

Only a forest-fire
burning cheerfully perhaps a mile to our right, pumping the perfectly
still blue skies full of black smoke, spoils the scenery.

"Hmmm," Ace
remarks. "Smells like Guinness napalm to me."

"Do not wander far,"
Crispin warns, as Luke, Ace and Carvery disembark to explore, and
Justin fusses over the rug, plucking out arrows. "These are
indeed times of hostility between the Lounges. Nine a.m. is of
particular umbrage to many."

I ignore the others, and
help Crispin to lift Homer into a more level position.

"What do we do?"
I ask. "What does he need?"

"Nothing, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin says, taking his brother's hand and
patting it. "We just have to ensure that the first thing the
young squidling sees is the ocean – and that we do not get in
its way…"

Homer's belly starts to
squirm and rumble in an unearthly fashion. As I look down, a trickle
of black ink appears down his bony thigh, followed by a whiff of
battery acid.

"How long does it…"
I begin.

There is the sound of a
champagne cork popping, and a glistening white streak across the
sand.

Far out to sea, a
thunderclap records the breaking of the sound barrier – only
then followed by the waterspout of an entry-point, on the horizon.

Homer's belly subsides,
like a deflating
Whoopee
cushion.

"…Wow,"
I say, because there doesn't seem to be anything else suitable.

And then, because Crispin
is there, I move to officially check the state of Homer, the patient.

"Careful, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin warns. "Sometimes there is…"

An insurmountable force
throws me backwards off the rickshaw, and I land flat on my own back,
in the very edge of the surf.

Warm slime seems to
envelop me, and I blink it away to stare directly into the flat
iridescent eyes, and anemone-like pink tentacles, of a newborn
Squidmorph parasite.

"A twin,"
Crispin calls out, unnecessarily.

I gulp, as the parasite
arches its spine, revealing a scorpion-like tail.

"Hello," I say,
wondering where this ranks in Famous Last Words.

It freezes mid-poise and
stares back, then blinks obliquely.

"Hello," it
says, quite clearly. "Mother."

And shoots from my hands,
like a bar of soap in a gym shower.

"I'm not your
mother!" I yell.

Only the distant
thunderclap answers me.

Great, I think. That's
going to take some explaining, when it comes looking for me in
sixteen years' time…

CHAPTER
SIXTY-THREE
:

M*A*S*H*E*D

"
Justin
Time!" a voice hails, and then, rather predictably I feel:
"Traitor!"

"Who have you upset
now, Justin?" I ask, struggling to my feet, brushing sand and
alien squid-goo from my clothing.

"Bah, it is only my
cousin," Justin grumbles. "Everyone, meet Seymour Time.
Seymour, meet everyone. There, introductions made."