The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (61 page)

"Be careful with
that power, Sarah," Luke whispers to me, as I try to cover the
glow around my wrist with my sleeve. "You don't know what the
witch was practising. Turning a man into a zombie is one thing. All
that takes is low wages and a bad marriage. Just ask my wife! Turning
other living creatures into zombie folk? That's amassing a cheap
Army."

I glance at the zombie
entrepreneur Crispin Dry, as he drops the frog into a passing bucket
and wipes his gray fingers on another monogrammed handkerchief,
embroidered with a cockerel.

"Yes," I agree.
"We wouldn't want that sort of thing to catch on…"

"Approaching the
Seine
, Mr. Dry!" Captain Dartos reports.

Ooh – I hurry to
look over the side. White clouds part, and a river sparkles as it
divides the Most Romantic City on Earth…

"Well done,
Captain," Crispin announces. "Prepare to offload cargo of
nuns… sorry, frogs…"

"Can we stop here?"
I ask. "I know it's not the Elevensies Lounge, but – I've
never been to Paris…"

"That's because if
you set foot here, the city's reputation for love and romance would
drop too far below average for the tourist industry to survive,"
Carvery tells me, resting his elbows on the railing to my left.

"Oh, I don't know,"
Ace muses, appearing at my right. "It'd be like allowing the
World's Biggest Loser into a casino. Suddenly everyone else feels
marginally luckier, regardless of how they're actually getting on…"

All I know is I'm
currently flying over Paris, with two fit guys dressed as cowboys
standing either side of me. Meaning regardless of what they're
actually saying, all I'm hearing is
Non, je ne regrette rien…

"No – I quite
agree," Crispin's voice joins us. "It may not be the
Elevensies Lounge, but there are parts of the city I will be happy to
show you, Sarah
Bellummm
. A small diversion. We will be taking
one of the lifeboats, Captain Dartos! And after you have dropped us
off – perhaps check the nunnery, in the mountains…?"

"Right you are, Mr.
Dry, sir!"

I try to gird my
excitement as we climb into the smaller boat suspended from the side
of the air-ship, only slightly dampened by the buckets full of
anxious frogs surrounding us.

On the Captain's orders,
the ropes start to lower us steadily towards the surface of the
river.

Oh my God –
I'm
in Paris!

And not to deliver a
pizza!

"Is it true that you
shouldn't drink the water here?" Ace asks.

"How much water do
you usually take in your alcohol?" says Carvery.

…
I'm
in Paris! With Ace Bumgang! My innards are knotting like voluntary
sausage-skins. Not to mention the undead heart-throb Crispin Dry…
and even more darkly and reluctantly, Carvery Slaughter…
stupid
traitorous hormones
…
if
I had to pick one man, for my currently-overloaded fantasy, it should
really be the one I'd survive longest in the company of…

"
Goood
,"
Homer approves, opening a lace parasol against the balmy sunshine.

Luke and Crispin free us
from the ropes, and Ace starts the small outboard motor.

"Where are we
dumping the Sisterhood of Tolerance and Frogs' Legs, Crispin?"
asks Carvery, nudging one of the croaking buckets. "Right here?"

"Not yet, Mr.
Slaughter," Crispin replies. "You will see a large overflow
ahead at the second bridge, Mr. Bumgang. Take us to it, if you
please. We will release them there."

I soak up the view across
the rippling water. Other boats chug along, some carrying tourists –
real
people! Not Lounge-dwellers… we pass under the
first bridge, where on one bank, a great iconic structure looms.

"The Eiffel Tower…"
I breathe.

"Yup," Carvery
affords it a glance, and sighs. "Reminds me of Las Vegas…"

"Er, Crispin,"
Luke interrupts any mood of romantic reverie. "Some
weird-looking guys over there seem to be taking an interest in us…"

We turn to look at the
other small boat in our wake. Four occupants pretend not to notice,
swathed in scarves under their trilby hats and dark suits with
gloves, no doubt to protect their sensitive green and purple-marred
skin from the daylight…

"I've seen someone
like that before…" I recall aloud. My adrenaline surges,
much to the annoyance of my kidneys. That head, as it rolled across
the floor of
Casabladder
… "Yes! In the Eight a.m.
Lounge, Crispin! Looking for
you
…!"

"Try not to make it
look as if we are spooked, Mr. Bumgang," Crispin suggests. "But
perhaps a little faster…"

Our boat burrows into the
water and glides ahead smoothly. The shadowy pursuers accelerate in
turn, to follow.

"Who are they?"
Luke asks.

"Caterers, Mr.
Lukan," says Crispin. "I am afraid they take issue with the
existence of vending machines in the workplace."

I knew it! I knew he
couldn't be in debt – it was just a jealous food-industry
rival!

"Oh, they reckon
you're stealing their business," Carvery remarks, thinking
alike. "I get that from turfers, lawnmowers and landscape
gardeners all the time."

"And divorce lawyers
and undertakers?" I query.

"The overflow,"
Crispin repeats, as we approach the second bridge. "Take the
exit straight into the tunnel."

"Into the sewer?"
Luke exclaims.

"What?" Ace
scoffs at him. "You never rode the poo flume before?"

We turn sharply, and the
daylight is replaced by darkness and dankness. Homer closes his
parasol and produces a fan instead, fluttering it delicately under
his nose.

"Are they
following?" I ask.

Ace looks over his
shoulder.

"They've slowed down
a bit," he reports. "But yes."

"Keep going,"
Crispin orders. "There is a corner ahead – once past it,
we can release the frogs. It may hinder them a little further."

Ace pulls on the rudder,
and as we complete the turn, the rest of us each grab a bucket of
Paris-ready
Jambes de Grenouille
.

My sleeve hikes up, and
the green gemstone glow from the clockwork hand illuminates the dark
tunnel eerily.

"Good luck,
Sisters," says Carvery, tipping his bucket-load over the side.
"You'll need it."

"
Bon appetit,
"
Luke adds.

The fetid water burbles
and plops, as I add my contribution to the endangered French
batrachian
population.

"
Hoooome
,"
says Homer sadly, releasing his own.

"Straight ahead, Mr.
Bumgang," says Crispin, once the last frog is liberated onto the
subterranean streets. "Let us hope that the harvesting of
delicacies is enough to distract vengeful caterers…"

I look down at the
clockwork hand.

I suppose, if not –
those delicacies could soon be turned back into rabid zombie nuns…

…
But
remembering Luke's words, I pull my sleeve back down again firmly.

Besides – it's
Paris.

I still might get a
proper
date here, one day. And I know what I'd rather see on
the menu, next time I visit…

CHAPTER
SEVENTY-THREE
:

CHYLE & THE
CHOCOLATE FASCIA

Behind us, the caterers'
boat slows even further as it happens upon the unexpected tide of
frogs. We wait, the tension unbearable, to see the fate of the
re-introduced creatures.

And then there is a loud,
resentful
Ribbet.

The rest of the
batrachian Sisterhood take up the call, and the uncertainty of the
advancing caterers becomes clear. A first brave frog hops onto their
bows, and a gloved hand reaches out to knock her aside.

"Should we do
something?" Ace asks.

A long adhesive tongue
lashes out and attaches to the caterer's wrist.

Which detaches with a pop
of carpal bone, followed by an unearthly scream…

"Yes," Crispin
replies. "Full speed ahead, Mr. Bumgang! Try to avoid the
stalagmites of frozen poop!"

Ace opens up the throttle
of the outboard motor and we beat a hasty retreat along the tunnels,
to the backing music of empowered frog song, and dismembered catering
competition.

"I hope that is the
last we see of them," I breathe at last.

"The frogs, or the
caterers?" Luke asks.

"Both," I
answer.

The words of the caterer
I had encountered in the Eight a.m. Lounge are branded into my brain…

'You
are a
secretary for Crispin Dry at Dry Goods, Inc, and a traitor…
More fast-food delivery boys and girls have disappeared before you
than you can possibly imagine…'

"Why are they so
hostile towards you, Crispin?" I ask. "I thought business
competition was healthy for the economy?"

"That is what is
generally taught, indeed," he replies.

"By your father?"

"
Ahhh
,"
he muses. "My father – had some very strange notions of
everyday business. The munitions business was his forte, which meant
fuelling and arming the most inflammable of business competition.
Sadly he did not share the concept of 'healthy competition' –
like our unfortunate rickshaw pilot Mr. Time, he felt there was no
profit in co-operative peace treaties… so I was forced to find
my own way in such troubled waters. Only to find myself accused of
monopoly."

"Surely not?" I
remark, shocked.

"Vending machines of
high quality are in demand by the consumers, but they annihilate
employment in the food industry," Crispin sighs. "That is
why I always have to be on the look-out for saboteurs, and vandalism
– those cut-price pirates who supply sub-standard stock to the
users, accessing my machines without permission…"

"The food poisoning
at Cramps University?" I conclude, horrified. "Sabotage by
catering staff?"

He nods, in his endearing
lopsided fashion.

"
Yesss
, Sarah
Bellummm
." He spares me a sad, wonky smile. "I knew
you were an intelligent woman."

But what has this got to
do with a pizza delivery girl?
What was the caterer trying to tell
me?
My paranoid subconscious rants, but I cannot put it into
words.

Probably just further
propaganda by an embittered competitor
,
I tell myself…

Crispin claps his hands
twice, and pink lighting illuminates the sour-smelling tunnels, as we
speed ahead.

"I think we may have
taken a wrong turning," he ponders. Adjoining exits whisk past,
as myriad as a honeycomb in either wall. "We have gone back on
ourselves."

"How far back?"
Carvery asks. "We're still heading downriver from what I can
tell."

"Several hours, Mr.
Slaughter," says Crispin. "It is a junction, as we
encountered earlier beneath the Eight a.m. Lounge…"

"So we could end up
in any of the Lounges?" Ace asks. "Wouldn't be too bad –
I think I left my keys in
Madam Dingdong's Sauna and Spa
at
the Six a.m. Lounge."

"I'm not sure I
fancy the Seven a.m. Lounge again," says Carvery. "Bunch of
flower-selling crazies."

"I was looking
forward to the Elevensies Lounge," says Luke. "A nice cup
of tea would be just the thing right now."

Having already seen what
the Elevensies Lounge considers to be a cultural weapon, I'm not
convinced of that myself…

"There is no
knowing. Hang on," Crispin warns. "We are about to hit the
Flume…"