The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (69 page)

Yes! Even though it'd
barely core an apple…

Reaching behind my head,
I make one desperate slice.

My ponytail of hair
bunched in Crispin's grip shears off. Suddenly released, and sporting
a new asymmetric bob, I run.

The giant Squidmorph
moves to block my path, and I jump over Justin Time and the bounty
hunters – far less nimbly than General Lissima did, getting a
groin full of billy goat forehead for my efforts – aiming for
my one and only hope.

"Higham Dry!" I
call out, finding the elderly zombie in his clockwork armour still
suspended from the crocodile-feeding platform. I grab the railings in
one hand and reach out to him with the other. "Let me help you!"

"That very sweet of
you, young man!" says Higham Dry, his bionic transformation
evidently stopping short of improved optometrics. "Crispin still
making crazy philanthropist talk up there? Trying to
Save the
Squid
, and not for dinner?"

"I'm afraid so,"
I reply, straining my arm to reach him.

I risk a glance over my
shoulder. The Squidmorph, lumbering and ungainly without its human
carrier, slithers towards the altar, where Crispin is waiting to
greet it with outstretched arms.

"She won't last long
without a body," Higham says, coughing. "But they get very
angry the longer they wait. Pump out lots of adrenaline, move like
bolt of diarrhoea! Better to run away first. Not have to outrun squid
– just have to outrun all of your other enemies. Any port in a
storm for squid!"

"You can help!"
I plead. "Crispin is your grandson! You can talk some sense into
him!"

"You flatter an old
man, my boy…" Higham Dry Senior's robot grip slides a
little – the wrong way. "But sense is all just a matter of
perspective."

He looks down into the
swirling darkness.

"No!" I shout.

Too late.

The golden armoured
figure vanishes silently into the abyss.

I look up angrily at
Atum, blotting out half of the sky.

"Why don't you do
something?" I yell. "You're a god! I thought gods were
omnipotent!"

Under his alien gaze, I
feel very small indeed.

It occurs to me that the
meaning of
'omnipotent'
is not necessarily the same as
I'm
important
…

"Screw you!" I
snap, and turn to size up my chances.

One giant hermit squid –
check; one Oedipally-fixated zombie entrepreneur and his pole-dancing
transvestite zombie brother – check; one formerly-estranged and
now reconciled couple serenading one another (
aahhh
) –
check; one housemate, name as yet unremembered – check; one
renegade rickshaw pilot coveting a doormat – check; three
bounty hunters that it would be unwise to touch without rubber boots
on – check; one drunk billy goat – check; one albino
donkey – check; one girlfriend-battering psychopath turned to
stone (
damn it
) – check…

I look down to see what
I'm armed with. A knife that wouldn't give blade envy to a teaspoon.
A
Trevor Baylis
wind-up torch in my pocket. No clockwork hand,
and no little diary full of special symbols. They both went
overboard, with Ace and General Lissima.

"Do not worry,
Mother," I hear Crispin telling the Squidmorph soothingly. "She
will not get away."

Both look at me, and my
grip tightens on the knife.

They must have a weak
point – an Achilles' heel…

I wish Ace Bumgang was
here. He'd know. He seems to have time to spare, looking up strange
wildlife on
Wiki
.

I look sadly back down
into the bottomless whirlpool, and across at the Nine a.m. Lounge
aircraft carrier, tilting in towards us on the far side. Another
fighter jet slips off its chocks on the upper deck, pitching into the
blackness below. A brief fireball denotes its demise before it is
swallowed up.

My foot slips on the
Squidmorph's trail of slime, and I glance back again to confirm,
seeing Crispin chanting and splashing her with water from a
terracotta jug, evidently to ensure she doesn't dry out before
finding a new host.

They need access to
the Deep Ocean Trench… We just have to ensure the first thing
the young squidling sees is the ocean… Maybe these tentacle
chicks have something against dry land…

Nothing. I'm getting
nothing from this. No ideas at all…

"You had better come
here, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin calls. "You will
require lubricating as well."

"Yes," I agree,
absently. "A large Guinness
WD-40
would be about right…"

I look at the aircraft
carrier. No longer running on Guinness.

Running on
napalm
.

I take out the
Trevor
Baylis
torch and wind it up. Is it dot-dot-dot, dash-dash-dash?
Or the other way around? I flash the light a few times at the other
ship, half-heartedly.

Still nothing. The net of
captive flying rugs on its deck flaps, trying to escape.

"Hey –
Justin!" I call out.

"I never touched
it!" Justin Time cries, slightly muffled under his captors and
my housemate.

"How do you declare
war on another Lounge?"

"Oh, that easy!"
His nose appears from under the crush, his coolie hat somewhat
crumpled around it. "You just make first pre-emptive strike!"

Fuck
…
not
the easiest thing done from a wooden barge with apparently no
firepower. I need something to make the occupants of that dirty great
military ship angry…

"As you wish, Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin's zombie monotone alerts me again.
"But it will be much more painful this way."

A tentacle lashes out
towards my foot, and I jump. Higham Dry was right about something
else.

They DO move damn fast
when they're desperate…

"Do not exhaust
yourself, Sarah
Bellummm!
" Crispin cries, while I do laps
of the deck of the Great Barge, dodging the slapping and groping
tentacles. "You must conserve energy to survive the transition!"

"Not number one on
my list of priorities!" I shout back.

"You will see
immortality through her eyes!" he adds.

"She's going to see
tempura batter and hot chilli dipping sauce through mine!"

The giant Squidmorph
lassos itself around the mast and tries a belly-flop from a great
height, scattering the remaining zombie attendants – and eating
one or two which get too close.

I only avoid her by
grabbing part of the sail rigging Ace had swung from earlier, and
slashing it with my little knife, so that the rapidly-ravelling rope
hoists me up into the air, as the sail unfurls again in turn.

Swinging from my new
perspective on things, I spot something down on the deck of the Great
Barge that I had completely forgotten about…

I look out over the
crocodile-feeding platform. Ace's own rope still dangles there.

As the Squidmorph lunges
up the rigging and hauls herself higher up the mast once more, I let
go, and try to land in a professional stuntman's tuck-and-roll, only
succeeding in getting one of my feet caught around my ear. Meaning I
scrabble, strained and crabwise, across the deck towards Justin Time
and the others.

"Help!" cries
my housemate. "This donkey keeps eating my hair!"

"Jolly good, carry
on, Dobbin," I pant, and snatch General Lissima's peaked Naval
officer cap from the floor.

"Um, Sarah…"
she asks, managing to angle her head under the tussling heap so that
she can see what I'm doing. "Why are you stabbing that hat?"

I thrust the tiny knife
into the crown as many times as it takes to make a deep, ragged rip.

"I am declaring
war!" I announce.

And just as the
Squidmorph hits the deck again behind me, I run for the railings, and
jump onto the crocodile-feeding platform.

My momentum means I skid
the rest of the way, and have to make a desperate, split-second leap
– grabbing the rope…

…
I
pirouette outward, over the yawning, watery abyss, and I judge the
apex of the swing – the point of zero acceleration in either
direction – then spin the General's ravaged officer hat across
the gap.

It flies – and as I
swing backwards, it dips. My heart sinks in unison.

Atum moves, turning to
watch its progress.

Just as the backs of my
heels crack painfully back on the crocodile-feeding platform, a
sudden updraft of air from the whirlpool lifts the declaration of war
just high enough – to skim over the railings of the Nine a.m.
Lounge aircraft carrier, and vanish aboard its upper deck.

Either they'll respond –
or I guess they might celebrate. Hopefully with fireworks.

Depending on how popular
she was.

"I don't understand
your reluctance at all, Sarah
Bellummm
." Crispin is
rolling up his shirt-sleeves – although I don't see the point,
they're already stained beyond
Cillit Bang
guarantees. "You
looked so at home in Mother's clothes earlier today…"

Oh, boy. Does
he
have issues…

"
Hoooome
,"
says Homer indignantly.

"Yes, yes,"
Crispin replies, exasperated. "They suit you too, Homer…
but no matter. There is still the first option."

The first option? What
does he mean?

"Help!" shrieks
my housemate again, as a tentacle latches around her ankle and tugs.

Oh –
crap
.

I vault back over the
railings from the platform, and dive across the deck, catching hold
of her wrists.

"Let her go!"
Justin Time snaps. "Shameless hussy!"

"I thought you
wanted a new girlfriend, Justin?" I huff, trying to brace myself
against the donkey.

"Maybe…"
he sulks. "But… she need a boob job first…"

"They're in the
wheelbarrow over there," I promise, truthfully. "Help us!"

Justin sighs, and kicks
out at one of his bounty hunter captors, who promptly delivers a
small warning lightning bolt which each of us feels, and makes a real
mess of my underwear this time. The donkey brays, the goat bleats,
and the Squidmorph squeals, and retracts her tentacle.

"See?" says
Justin. "Never mix water and electricity."

"First rule of home
D.I.Y…" I echo vaguely.

"Carvery used to say
that," says my housemate, looking past me at Justin with
admiration.

Blimey, she moves on
fast. What happened to
'Where's Carvery?'

He'd have finished off
this fat old squid in a jiffy… so depressing…

The fat old squid in
question doesn't seem to be affected by electric shocks for long, and
has its tentacle around my housemate's leg again before our own
pins-and-needles have worn off.

"Get your suckers
off my girlfriend!" shouts Justin Time, as we both make a grab
for her arms.

I hear Crispin's voice,
now sounding agitated.

"I am sure she will
still let you
borrow
them, Homer…!"

The tentacle performs the
whip-cracking manoeuvre, and my housemate is wrenched out of our
hands.

"No!" Justin
and I both shout. The bounty hunters pin us both to the floor.

The Squidmorph dangles
the screaming Miss Numb-Nuts triumphantly in the air, high above the
sacrificial altar.

"Now, Mother!"
cries Crispin, his black eyes strangely aflame.

My housemate is slammed
down onto the wooden plinth.

"Ow!" she
yells, annoyed. "I bit my tongue!"

Crispin responds by
drenching her with another bucket of the lavender-scented water, and
while she splutters and coughs indignantly, the Squidmorph appears to
coil itself, like a tensing spring…