The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (54 page)

"
Why
would you spend a lifetime looking for something when you don't even
know what it is?" I grumble.

"
It
is not what it is," he says, patting my head somewhat
inappropriately. "It is the hope of what it is, when you find
it."

"
Bogeys
at twelve o'clock!" shouts General Lissima from the prow.

"
Don't
think we want to go there," Carvery complains. Out of the corner
of my eye, I can see him installed in the gun turret, putting on some
goggles.

Uh-oh
…

"
Can
we skip the Twelve o'clock Lounge? Or is it compulsory?" Luke
queries, one sandal already off and replaced by a waterski
optimistically.

"
Full
speed, Mr. Bumgang!" she snaps. "We will lose them in the
Shambles!"

"
Yes,
Ma'am!"

The boat lurches forward
as Ace opens the throttle. With a rip, I topple backwards this time,
my freed strands now a frizzy hairball hanging over my right eye.

"
What
does she mean, the Shambles?" I demand, struggling upright once
more.

"
A
place no-one should see or hear of," Crispin replies, adjusting
his fly modestly. "The place where unanswered prayers go to rot,
and priests conceal their sins."

"
Miss
Bellum…" Corporal Punishment beckons me to the starboard.

"
What
is it?" I join him at the handrail. "Have you found
something?"

There is an engine roar
approaching low in the skies, and again I see the two flat triangular
jets passing overhead.

"
The
planes are what take up all of our fuel in the Nine a.m. Lounge, Miss
Bellum," he tells me. "But they are not unnecessary against
the saboteurs…"

Several flying rickshaws
burst from the treetops, and I can just see their Six a.m. pilots
lighting Molotov cocktails in the driving seats.

"
They
come to destroy evidence, Miss Bellum," says Corporal
Punishment. "Evidence that prayers alone are not the answer."

He points to the
riverbank.

Oh, God
…

So many corpses…

So many hooves…

So many feathers…

"
So
many sacrifices, Sarah
Bellummm
,"
says Crispin, joining us at the side of the boat.

"
Oh,
Crispin," I say, my heart going out to him. "So many
chickens…"

With a clomping of one
waterski, Luke shuffles over to see what we are looking at.

His face slowly sets, as
the grim scene sinks in.

"
I
knew it," he mutters. "They all lie! The gods don't want
sacrifices! The priests just take your money! And then – they
sleep with your wife!"

With that, he promptly
throws up noisily over the side.

"
Yeah,
I love the smell of Guinness in the morning," Ace remarks, from
his place at the the controls.

The rickshaw pilots
launch their napalm cocktails onto the riverbanks, and the air is
filled with the stench of burning feathers and fur.

Corporal Punishment
downcasts his milk-white eyes and clasps his hands closed around the
little leather-bound book.

"
My
place of slaughter belongs to Him who is over the place of
sacrifice
," he
begins, solemnly. "
I
am happy and pleased with the altar of my father Osiris. I rule in
Busiris, I travel about on its riverbanks, I breathe the east wind
…"

What is he doing? Is he
losing his mind as well??

"
Clear
a path, Mr. Slaughter!" orders General Lissima.

"
Yes,
Ma'am!"

…
And
I just remember to cover my ears in time…

CHAPTER
SIXTY-EIGHT
:

IT AIN'T HALF
ARSED, MUM

The surface of the river
ahead of us erupts with the gunfire of all three barrels in the
speedboat's turret. A rickshaw and its flying carpet making a low
pass explodes into splinters, followed by a spitting fireball from
its stock of napalm cocktails.

"Get down!"
shouts General Lissima.

We hurtle through the
fireball as it rapidly burns itself out. Ace twitches at the
controls, to dodge a flaming coolie hat as it spins past his head.

The General hefts her own
chain-gun, and takes care of another flying rickshaw as it pulls
along the port side.

"Behind you…!"
I yell, as a third draws parallel on the starboard.

Cutthroat Liss keeps her
eyes on her current line of fire, but her apparently independent
alien tentacle shoots out backwards, straight through the side of the
latest rickshaw, fatally piercing the pilot. Then it cracks like a
whip, causing the pilot and his vehicle to disintegrate.

The flying carpet,
unleashed, flaps quickly into the sky.

"Stop that rug, Mr.
Slaughter!" she yells, as her tentacle retracts. "The
flying carpet whisperers will learn of our position!"

"Yes, Ma'am!"

Carvery aims the turret
guns upward, and another volley of deafening fire rips the
unfortunate magic carpet to shreds. There is a smell of singed wool
on the breeze.

"Crispin, those are
your grandfather's men!" I say, grabbing his arm. "Why are
they attacking?"

"It is a clash of
different cultures," he says. "Nothing is personal. When
one has alchemy but no technology, and the other has technology but
no alchemy – without formal and incorruptible trade management,
the world will always lapse into a betterment
Tug o'War
. These
are merely the casualties of poor commerce."

"I get it," Ace
chips in, steering us around a burning tree-trunk floating
downstream. "It's like they're both saying '
Who Moved My
Cheese?
'"

"And assuming the
other one did it," Carvery agrees, between shots. "Blaming
with extreme prejudice."

"Quite correct,
gentlemen," Crispin nods sagely, although I have no idea what
they are on about.

"And whose side is
she on?" asks Luke, jerking his head towards General Lissima,
while still strapping on his other waterski.

"Half on my mother's
side – a distant cousin, or some such." Crispin waves a
hand around vaguely. "The other half – who knows?"

"He means, whose
side in the war?" I hiss.

"Oh." Crispin
contemplates a moment. "I think the answer is still the same."

"Wheeeeehh!"
Luke leaps from the bows of the boat, and is soon surfing
energetically in our wake, dodging bullets and flaming cocktails.

"That's the spirit,
Mr. Lukan!" Cutthroat Liss approves. "Everyone should be
having fun!"

And she blows two more
rickshaws out of the sky.

"I am having fun,"
shouts Carvery.

"Me too," Ace
agrees, steering for a moment with his knee while rolling a
cigarette. "Especially watching her playing with that
watering-can."

General Lissima just
chuckles, as she aims the massive chain-gun again. The barrels roll
and the muzzles spit bullets relentlessly. The air hanging above the
river is filled with smoke, rickshaw sawdust and cut pile.

Corporal Punishment has
stopped praying, and joins Crispin and Homer and me as we sit in a
row on top of the still-unconscious Justin Time.

"Are you all right?"
I ask him. "What was that you were quoting just now?"

"Incantation
Seventy, Miss Bellum," he says. "An unnamed spell, but the
purpose is clear to all who study them."

I glance in frustration
at the dormant clockwork hand, clamped around my wrist. It's like it
has a mind of its own. Rather than me being able to control it, I'm
starting to worry that its reticent powers could mean the reverse is
the case.

"Are you sure
there's nothing in that book about this?" I persist. "I'm
certain Mr. Dry Senior was implying that they are connected in some
way."

"Oh, everything is
connected, Miss Bellum," says Corporal Punishment. "You
have to recognise that not everyone can be bothered to wait for
prayers to be answered, although they still go through the motions
for appearance's sake. They go to confession, they make the
obligatory sacrifices. But the heavens can wait, they say. Here on
Earth, time is money."

"Whffft?" says
a muffled voice, and our seat shifts a little. "I knew it! You
are selling me for spare parts!"

"Your parts are
safe, Mr. Time," Crispin replies. None of us makes a move to get
up, and Homer tries to wriggle into a more comfortable spot between
the rickshaw pilot's hamstrings. "Except perhaps from Mrs.
Time."

"Hah, never marry a
virgin!" Justin Time grumbles into the deck beneath his
whiskers. "They are always hiding something. A homicidal
tendency, a drunken father, a taste for human flesh, a tattoo of
Jedward
, a financially-crippling designer handbag habit…"

"A big alien sucker
tentacle?" I suggest, hoping no-one has noticed my burning flush
at the mention of tattoos.

"Oh, that not be so
bad…" Justin mumbles. "Except she always getting it
out in public, like the trollop that she is…!"

"What is she,
Crispin?" I whisper, while Justin continues to rant under our
collective buttocks. "And your mother, begging your pardon? I
mean, I know I'm not a fully-qualified Forensic Anthropologist yet,
but I've never seen…"

"I thought you knew,
Sarah
Bellummm
." Crispin sounds genuinely surprised. "The
Sirens are well-documented."

"Ohhh…"
I dredge my memories of early schooling in history and Greek
mythology. "I think I recall – but tentacles were never
mentioned…"

"Of course,"
says Crispin. "No-one who came that close survived to describe
the tentacles. They traditionally kill their mates after
fertilisation. Or sometimes just for fun, nowadays. Civilisation has
a little to be grateful for."

"Ah." I gulp.

I glance at Ace Bumgang,
wondering if he knows how lucky he is to be alive.

Should I tell him?

No – maybe I'll
spare him the horror. For now…

After all, there might be
a more opportune moment for him to be thankful to be alive, and in my
company…

"It looks like we
are out of the Friendly Fire zone," Crispin observes, intruding
a little on my own thoughts of future human fertilisation. "We
are nearly there."

The sound of gunfire and
screaming of rickshaw pilots has ceased. I risk a peek over the side.

"Wheeeeehh!"
Luke hollers happily, skipping over the last of the wreckage on the
waterskis behind us.

The jungle has thinned
out, and thank goodness – the littering of sacrificial corpses
on the riverbanks is no more.

Instead, a scattering of
rude wooden huts denotes villages, with women in saris beating
clothes against flat stones, men in make-do diapers beating bony
cattle and elephants with sticks, and children in nothing at all
beating monkeys at
Who Can Make The Best Silly Face
.

"They look so
peaceful," I remark.

"Yes. The Ten a.m.
Lounge is among the most benign," Crispin agrees. "Not
exactly neutral, but as close as can be estimated to neutral. The
only conflict here is the Cult of Atum, and the renegade General
Foramen Winslow."

"Is he dangerous?"
I ask.

"He is psychotic,"
Crispin admits. "But of the type it is best to humour his
delusions, for that is the only way to stay alive in his company."