The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (29 page)

…
Yes!!!

And the rug is still
harnessed, undulating idly at the front – as if taking a light
snooze.

Fear propels me into
action. I reach down and snatch up the long leather reins. My left
hand finds the driving-whip, stashed in a holster down the side.

Without waiting to seat
myself traditionally down below, I whirl the whip wildly around my
head, and flick it down violently, hoping to alert the flying carpet.

It does more than that.

The whip cracks like a
gunshot in the narrow dank alleyway, and the carpet rears up. The
rickshaw tilts in turn – and if it wasn't for my hand on the
reins, my now prone position would be on the pavement. Not still on
the top, with my toes frantically gripping the canopy.

"Look out!"
shouts the first voice. "It's an invasion – from the Six
a.m. Lounge!"

"Let's leggit!"
yells the other. "We'll need reinforcements!"

"Forward, er –
Oh Great Flying Carpet!" I order, in my most imperious voice.
Trying to sound a little bit like I imagine the zombie Lord Higham
Dry Senior would chivvy one of these along, or scary zombie queen the
Lady Glandula de Bartholine.

The rickshaw rights
itself, and I do indeed find myself moving forward. And at what a
pace!

We leave the alleyway up
on one wheel, and through the smog find I am hurtling through a
street-market. It is dark, like night, but the darkness seems to be a
factor of the heaviness of the sooty fog, and not of the time of day.

Stallholders scream and
scatter upon espying the flying carpet charging their way, including
butchers, flower-sellers, ironmongers – where
IS
this
place?!

After decimating a
hundred yards of market-stalls, it occurs to me that the rug can do
more…

"Up, Great Flying
Carpet!" I command, sticking with the theory that flattery will
get me everywhere…

And it does…

We – or rather, I,
and the carpet-propelled flying rickshaw – clip the tops of the
last few stalls, and soar over the rooftops.

In the paler gray fog
above the streets, I make out narrow byways, a strange domed
cathedral, a clock tower – and a great river…

It can't be…

LONDON???

"Down, Oh Great
Flying…" I whisper, and the carpet dips towards those
iconic banks, and the promenade.

"Hrrrrmmmph?" a
strange voice pipes up. "Oh,
nooooo
. We here already?"

A smaller rug below me on
the rickshaw moves aside, and a decidedly-smelling-of-moonshine
Justin Time pops his head out, empty hip-flask in hand.

"How did YOU get
here?" I ask, amazed.

"Well, obliviously…"
He waves an arm in a drunken,
all-encompassing-in-every-context-of-the-word gesture. "I
whistled for the flying run, and he come rugging, innit?"

And he burps, worthy of
any foghorn.

I'm so flabbergasted,
staring down at him from my perch standing atop the rickshaw's
canopy, that I completely forget that we are still barrelling along
apace.

Or to look out for the
crossbar of the street-lamp, as it cracks into my sternum like a
poleaxe…

CHAPTER
THIRTY-EIGHT
:

SHALLOW GRAVY

The reins are jerked
clean out of my hand, as the collision with the street lamp catapults
me from the roof of the rickshaw, sending me flying backwards with no
control whatsoever. The only thing I keep hold of is the driving
whip, and as I arc heels over head, pulled inescapably down by the
force of gravity, my arms fly up to protect myself against the
eventual impact.

It is softer than I
expected – warm, crunchy, squishy – and briefly, also
screaming.

Makes a change from
hearing my own scream, I have to say…

But as I recover, and
attempt to get up, I'm aware that some terrible incident has
occurred…

"Justin!" I
hiss, desperately. The rickshaw has stopped, evidently due to loss of
whipping and steering. "Justin! Come here, quickly!"

The inebriated former
rickshaw pilot rolls out of the passenger-seat of the cab, and tries
to rearrange his legs. I don't think the word 'quickly' is currently
in his vocabulary.

Looking back down at the
issue on the ground, I notice that the grotesque twitching has
already stopped, and a sizeable puddle has also formed. But my
conscience kicks in anyway, although even I'm aware that it's arrived
too late to the party.

"Um, Miss?" I
croak, stepping aside as the dark puddle heads towards my own feet.
"Are you all right, Miss?"

I wonder if maybe I
should try to work the driving-whip free, or whether I should leave
it
in situ
. Or does that only count if the victim is still
breathing? Damn, I can't remember…

…
And
worse, I think I can hear footsteps approaching… are those
shapes, forming in the smog ahead of me?

"Justin!" I
squeak, looking over my shoulder again, at the rickshaw pilot rolling
around in the dirt. "Hurry up!"

And then yell in terror,
as a hand clamps around my elbow.

"Oh, dear, Sarah
Bellummm
…"

"Crispin!" I
cry out, in relief. My underpants don't even want to know about it.

"Nice one, Sarah,"
the much more unwelcome Carvery Slaughter joins in, leaning over to
have a look. "You've made a Streetwalker Kebab."

"Shutup, shutup!"
I panic. "It was an accident, I fell off the roof of the
rickshaw."

"So this should have
been you, splatted on the ground?" Carvery asks, disappointed.
"What a shame. And I would have missed it, too. Oh, well –
better luck next time."

"Where are Ace and
Homer?" I ask, ignoring him.

"Ace is having the
stress of meeting Lady Glandula earlier massaged out of him at Madam
Dingdong's," Crispin replies, and my heart sinks that little bit
further. "Where Homer is also currently indulging in a make-over
session. They will catch up with us soon. Ah. I see that Justin Time
has also fallen off the wagon."

"You mean rickshaw?"
I venture.

"No, I mean he is
drinking again, Sarah
Bellummm
." Crispin lets out a
zombie sigh – a cross between a hiss, and a death-rattle.
"Well, hopefully he will have sobered up enough by the time his
services are next required. Or when Grandpappy catches up with him,
to find out the results of his flying experiment. Do you have
anything interesting to report in that department?"

"Crispin," I
say, patiently. "There is a dead woman on the ground, with our
driver's whip stuck in her…"

Carvery yanks it free. A
stream of blood droplets arcs anaemically into the air between us,
like an apologetic low-rent fountain.

"…A dead
woman on the ground," I amend, meaningfully.

"
Yesss
,"
Crispin acknowledges, at last. "We should move her somewhere
more respectable…"

"How about into the
river?" Carvery suggests.

"An excellent idea,
Mr. Slaughter," Crispin agrees. "But currently the police
in the Seven a.m. Lounge are very keen on dredging the river
regularly to fill their tea kitty, rather like looking for spare
change down the back of a sofa. We will take her somewhere indoors,
where passers-by will be less likely to stumble across her, tripping
and hurting themselves."

Crispin and Carvery hoist
the poor woman between them, and carry her to the rickshaw, where
they make a wrapping around her from the smaller rug, which Justin
Time had been using as a blanket. Hopefully that means it does not
have any special powers – although the power of divine
resuscitation would certainly have come in handy.

Justin is currently
snoring into the cobbles. Carvery wipes the driving-whip on his own
jeans, and tucks it underneath the snoozing rickshaw pilot.

"There are many
small boarding-houses and derelict buildings near here," says
Crispin, as they hoist the body between them again. "This way."

We hurry along the narrow
alleyways, away from the riverbanks. Passing bawdy calls from
windows, and ragged, solitary market-stalls and sellers of less
definable wares. It seems like the least maintained part of the Seven
a.m. Lounge.

"Here," says
Crispin, and we go through a low doorway with only half a door and
one hinge attached to its remnants, finding ourselves in a filthy
abandoned hovel.

Only a small square table
and a bunk with one dirty linen left on it occupy the space. A rat's
nest is in one corner, and mice run out from under the sheet, as
Crispin and Carvery deposit the body upon the bunk. Crispin tugs the
rug free like a magician with a tablecloth, so that the body rolls
face-up.

I try not to heave.

"Thank you for
helping," I say, timidly – my conscience vaguely aware
that the poor lady's state is still my fault.

"Not at all."
Crispin passes the rug to Carvery, and seems to size up the body with
his eyes, while his stomach rumbles loudly. "It seems a pity to
let the spare parts go to rot and waste. Do you have any sharp
instruments on you, Mr. Slaughter?"

"Only always,"
Carvery shrugs, and shoves the rug into my arms, while he starts
going through his pockets.

"What?!" I
explode, for possibly the hundredth time already, since last night.
"You're not going to… to… harvest her organs??!
For your stupid zombie cure experiments??"

"Not exactly,"
says Crispin. "They may also be necessary to revive your
housemate. Miss… er… Whatever Her Name Is."

Ohhhhh
…
I'd
forgotten all about Whatserface. Currently entombed on Lady
Glandula's barge, suffering from a fatal snake-bite/zombie
mauling/possible Taser burn…

"Well, I'm not going
to stay and watch," I say, repulsed. "I'll be back at the
rickshaw checking up on Justin."

"You'd rather be
back with a questionably drunk witness, and where the murder weapon
is, than hanging around with your two most reliable alibis?"
Carvery asks, handing Crispin what looks like a
Swiss Army
knife. "Sure – enjoy your stay in the Seven a.m. Lounge,
Sarah."

I so hate it when Carvery
is right… Instead I hover uncomfortably in the doorway,
keeping a look-out. Trying to ignore the squelchy sounds, and the men
bemoaning the fact that Ace is not here – who has many cargo
pockets on his overalls, which could be made use of for
transportation.

"Are you nearly
done?" I call, nervously. "I think I hear company coming…"

"Stall them, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin orders. I hear a rip. "We need to
fashion a carrier-bag out of this poor woman's apron…"

I stiffen as the
footfalls draw nearer, and hope that I block the part of the doorway
that the remains of the door doesn't.

"Hello, young lady,"
says a voice. "Business slow today, is it?"

I look at the two swarthy
gentlemen in horror. Both in black, wearing dusty bowler-hats, I
can't tell if they are tramps, businessmen, undertakers, or police
officers…

"I'm guarding this
room," I hear myself say, defensively, and a feeling of greater
horror overtakes me, as I realise what my mouth is trying to persuade
my brain is a good idea. "There's been a terrible murder. We're
waiting for the police to bring reinforcements."

"The police, you
say?" One of the men takes out a notepad and pencil. "What
sort of murder? Nice and gwizzly? Fwont page nooze?"

"Fwont… er,
front page? I should think so," I nod, getting my head around
his fascinating impediment smoothly. I tap the side of my nose. "They
say it was, erm… the work of –
The Whipper
."

Oh, my God. I can't
believe I just said that out loud.

"
The Whipper
,
eh?" He scribbles frantically on his pad. "And what has the
dweadful
Whipper
done here today?"