The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (66 page)

And he pats my arm,
reassuringly. For a second I imagine the clockwork hand has responded
to his touch – but as I look down at it – still glowing,
and still nothing.

"I will prove
or
disprove those theories, Grandpappy," says Crispin, obstinately.
"But not by harbouring fear of the unknown. Only the brave
succeed!"

"
Harrumph
,"
says Higham Dry Senior, unconvinced. "Only succeed in catching
all diseases known to mankind – and discovering new ways to
die, not even tested out on Justin Time yet…"

"Mercy!" Justin
Time chews on the planks beneath him, sobbing.

Crispin gestures to the
attendant zombies, who pull levers on either side of the tall
pedestal. The upper part splits vertically, and opens.

As the wooden panels
retreat into the pedestal, there above us, in all her frozen black
onyx stony glory, is the dreaded Lady Glandula de Bartholine –
Crispin and Homer's mother.

Still beautiful –
but now, still more evil.

"Do you know what?"
Ace remarks. "I don't think I fancy it a second time."

"I agree, she
looking quite dusty now!" Higham Dry cackles, and points to my
housemate on the altar below. "No wonder she looking for a new
body to park her fat old tentacle in."

"What?" Carvery
demands. "She's planning on moving in there? No fucking way!"

"Oh, you didn't
know? She been hanging on to this one for a long time. It
waaaay
past its
Use By
date," Higham Dry nods. "Hermit
Squidmorphs don't usually live so long in one body, but she pick up
this old Dry family carcass from the tombs of Ancient Egypt. They
famous for hanging onto afterlife indefinitely. I think her
Incantations run out though. There were some missing already, when
this body discovered. Without all of the spells, eventually the
Shades of the Dead run you to ground and you neither live forever nor
pass into the Field of Reeds. That means heaven, for all you heathen
breathers."

"Ace," says
Carvery. "I told you, you did a zombie Queen with one up the
spout already."

"Get used to the
idea," Ace tells him, indicating Miss Fuckwit's currently-vacant
body on the altar. "You're up next."

"Crispin said she
was a Siren!" I gasp. "Not a Squidmorph!"

Higham Dry shrugs.

"Same difference."
He waggles his hand back and forth, ponderously. "They start out
small and pink with little hooks – then grow big and ugly with
suckers… beautiful singing voices. Make your nose bleed."
He sighs and looks misty-eyed for a moment – or it could just
be the cataracts. "Of course, no-one ever survive encounter with
Sirens in the old days to describe the tentacles. Crispin probably
tell you that already. He probably not tell you about the Squidmorph
part, in case you the only spare body handy when you get back here.
His mother very fussy, but any port in a storm… Pretty soon
she get too big for human host anyway. Have to start looking for next
size up."

I can't believe it. First
Crispin thinks my virginity is a likely cure for zombification –
and now it sounds like his
Plan B
was to turn me over to his
own mother, as a potential evil Squidmorph host! Maybe even both!

My stomach lurches
horribly. I don't even know where to begin, with all that's wrong
with this picture…

Prompted by Crispin, one
of the attendant zombies in the backless red leather chaps approaches
me, and with one deft twist, unclips the bejewelled clockwork hand
from my arm.

"No!" I shout,
as he marches away with it, towards the altar. "That was given
to me to look after!"

"No!" shouts
Beneficience Vassally Dry. "Sacrifice first!"

"Ooh…"
Higham Dry Senior leans over, suddenly distracted, to peer intently
at my cleavage. "You find finest Swiss watchmaker! He make all
of old man's innards, you know!"

"Excuse me?" I
reply, startled.

I look down, to see the
Swiss watchmaker's armour, shrunk to the size of a gold charm, still
suspended on the enchanted necklace around my neck.

Why
did
I waste
that magic earlier?

"See?" he says
excitedly, prodding the articulated charm on the golden chain. "No
stopcock! That where
Mister Whizz
goes!"

The zombie attendant has
already opened the gemstones on the clockwork hand, and a green
illuminated fog is bathing the body of my housemate, rolling heavily
down the sides of the wooden altar, and out across the floor of the
pyramid.

"Pity it not the
real thing," says Higham Dry Senior, sighing like an old cellar
door. "It be like upgrading the old man from wooden spoon to
Moulinex
…"

"But it is the real
thing," I reply.

High above us, on top of
the pedestal, the surface of the statue of Lady Glandula is starting
to swirl again, with those fractal oil-slick patterns – as she
gradually emerges from her stony slumber…

"Wow, my eyesight
really
bad today," says Higham Dry, squinting closer at
my bosom. "Either that, or it much further away than it looks."

"It's cursed,"
I sob, and reach into the nearby wheelbarrow for a splinter of Sister
Jaundice's cello-bow, waving it around to illustrate, trailing a
shred of catgut. "It's been shrunk by an enchantment. So I could
carry it more easily."

"
Ohhh
,"
he nods. "What did you wish for?"

"Something suitable
to wear," I admit, wretchedly.

"Maybe you just need
repeat same wish," he suggests. "Magic still in clothes.
Only circumstances to which suited now different."

I look down at the stupid
muddy
Audrey Slapbum at Tiffany's
style silk dress, which used
to be a neon Lycra
Wonder Woman
outfit and some impractical
underwear, before I put it on earlier.

Either way, I'm already
on a losing fashion streak today.

"I wish I wasn't
pretending to be something I'm not," I grumble, without
thinking.

The shard of cello-bow
flashes green in my hand, and I drop it in shock. It burned me!

It continues to burn,
until nothing but a tiny strip of black charcoal remains.

A split second later, the
Swiss watchmaker's armour clatters heavily to the floor, and a small
innocuous rug flops apologetically on top of it, where previously
there had been a tapestry clutch-purse.

I immediately check my
lower regions, expecting a draft and an itchy pink thong – but
instead, all I find myself wearing are my old jeans, and my
Pizza
Heaven
delivery-girl work fleece.

What the Hell?

"Clever girl,"
Higham Dry Senior approves, as the bounty hunters recover the armour
from the floor. "Look very suitable. Now, boys, put him together
the right way up this time…"

By my feet, Justin Time
grabs the small rug, and buries his head underneath it. Something
bounces off my toecap from within, and I pick it up.

The little leather-bound
diary – the missing Incantations!

"Really, Crispin,"
that imperious female voice echoes down on our ears, from atop the
pedestal. "Is this still the best you could do? It all looks
very sordid…"

"With new
replacement parts, Mother," Crispin replies, reproachfully.
"Guaranteed virginal – or at least, surgically virginal.
Some might even be magically-inclined."

Lady Glandula quirks an
eyebrow, but otherwise gives nothing away. The steps are still
emerging from the pedestal, and the attendant zombies hurry to flank
her path.

"What is the
alternative?" she enquires, and her icy gaze visits me briefly
as she descends. "The scrawny fast-food delivery girl?"

"I was still seeking
your approval for myself, there, Mother," Crispin reminds her.

"You know these
things aren't that simple, Crispin," she says. "I can't
just hop into any old body and hope it lasts. It's like a traditional
wedding. Or a Broadway musical. There has to be an understudy on
standby – in the event of the worst case scenario…"

"What if there was
an alternative?" I butt in, breathlessly.

Everyone turns to look at
me. I feel like the rotisserie chicken that has decided to stand up
for itself, one plucking and basting later than usual. The only sound
is the clanking of the bounty hunters, as they try to assemble the
legs on the suit of armour, chivvied along by Higham Dry.

"An alternative to
the alternative?" Lady Glandula muses. "I cannot imagine
what
you
might have to trade."

"How about keeping
the body that you've already got?" I hold up the little
leather-bound diary. "With all of the Incantations you'll ever
need. For ever."

She stares at the little
book, but again, her sly poker-face takes over.

"My dear, if there's
one thing I learned from marrying Crispin's father, it's that you can
never trust a man to write absolutely everything down," she
smirks, a little smugly. "I imagine there is no more in that
diary than I haven't already found out for myself."

"I'll exchange it
for the clockwork hand," I suggest, taking a chance on her
bluff. "And my housemate – er… Frankenminky.
Someone has to pay their half of the rent. Otherwise – I'll
burn it, and you'll never know."

Snatching a torch from
its bracket, I hold the little diary over the flame, singeing the
knitted cuff of my fleece.

"Do you really
believe," she begins, as the sinister tentacle emerges out of
the darkness and uncoils almost lazily towards me. "That you
have any powers over what I choose…?"

"Mother!" I
hear Crispin's shocked voice protesting. "No! Not the
understudy!"

As the suckers in front
of my face threaten to blot out the view permanently, a metallic
clanggg
stops the tentacle's advance abruptly.

"You were saying?"
a strangely mechanical version of Higham Dry Senior's voice
interrupts.

My terrified vision
swivels along the gleaming golden arm that has intercepted the
Queen's extraneous limb, to meet an armoured faceplate, with glowing
red slits for eyes.

"You are too late,
old man," Lady Glandula laughs, while trying ineffectually to
extricate her tentacle from his iron grip. "In a fresh body, I
will be ten times stronger than your cheap old clockwork
sarcophagus-suit!"

"Over
my
dead
body," Carvery remarks, and giving me one last regretful glance,
levels the shotgun with its final cartridge…

…
At
my housemate!

Lady Glandula cries out
an indignant warning, and the attendant zombie with the clockwork
hand whirls around, raising it defensively.

The hardening – the
blackness – the freezing of stone…

Where Carvery had been
standing, is now a Carvery Slaughter statue in black onyx –
black onyx shotgun poised to fire.

CHAPTER
SEVENTY-EIGHT
:

TRANSMOGRIFIERS

"
Quite
a nice patio ornament," says Crispin, mildly.

"That's if you make
it as far as the new body," says Higham Dry Senior's voice, from
within the impressive exoskeleton of finest Swiss watchmaker's
armour. "Without becoming
tapas
!"

Only one of his arms
armoured in the incomplete suit, he gives a yank on the captive
tentacle, overbalancing the zombie Queen and upsetting Beneficience's
careful dried floral display around my still-inert housemate.

Crispin's cousin loses
her tether, tosses aside the olive branch, and seizes a large knife
from the altar, advancing on her restrained husband, Luke.

"Is it too late to
agree to mediation and couples therapy?" Luke suggests, as she
raises the knife.

"No!" I shout,
and am dumbfounded, as Crispin echoes my cry.

Both of us dive to Luke's
salvation, with differing agendas.