The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (9 page)

"We should go too,
Sarah
Bellummm
," Crispin says, interrupting my thoughts
of sperm-jacking and justice.

Dumbly, I nod. Maybe
there'll be another Gin Sling in it for me tonight, after all.

* * * * *

Luke, the taxi-driver,
meets us outside.

"Back to the
hospital," Crispin orders. "My Cadillac is there."

"Sure thing,"
Luke nods.

"What happened with
the security guards?" I ask. We go over a speed-bump leaving the
Science block, and I hear a thud and a knocking sound coming from the
trunk. "Is your car all right? It's making a bit of a funny
noise back here…"

"I just pretended to
need a little roadside assistance," Luke chuckles. "They
were very co-operative. I didn't even need to use the force."

* * * * *

The zombies had moved on
from the hospital car-park, so we were able to retrieve the Caddy
easily, and drive back to Crispin Dry's mansion, in silence. My
Pizza
Heaven
scooter is still where I left it, on the palatial
driveway.

He turns to me, and
sighs. It has been a long night.

"Can I offer you a
nightcap, Sarah
Bellummm
?" Crispin says quietly.

"Thought you'd never
ask!" I leap promptly out of the passenger door. I'm parched.

"You can use the
bathroom and shower, if you wish," he says, as we enter the huge
abode. I look down at my housemate's blood all over my work uniform.
Good point. Some of this might be infectious. "I will make the
drinks."

There is a large
gold-and-marble
en-suite
bathroom in an apartment on the first
floor. I scrub my skin all over with a loofah until I am bright red,
then turn the water to cold and wait until I am pale blue.

Hopefully nothing serious
could survive that. I wonder if I should get myself checked for
radiation at the Physics department as well tomorrow, just in case.
You never know what else Twat-Face might be carrying, a little voice
says in my head.

I emerge from the shower
in a white towel. Strange. My uniform isn't where I left it. I head
out of the bathroom, into the bedroom of the luxurious suite of
rooms.

"I put your uniform
in the incinerator," Crispin greets me apologetically. Thank
goodness, he is standing there with a tray of drinks. I grab the
nearest glass and knock the contents back in one, before reaching for
the second. "Only your underwear was free of bloodstains. I can
lend you some clean ones belonging to my household staff, along with
some other clothes…"

"No thanks," I
say, plonking the second empty hi-ball glass back on the tray. "I
don't think I want to wear any of your other tarts' trophy knickers."

I turn away, summoning
all of my pride, and hear him gasp as I drop the towel on the floor
dismissively, in a blatant impersonation of Angelina Jolie in
Lara
Croft: Tomb Raider
. Even though she didn't win an Oscar for that
one, it's still one of her most-Googled scenes. Hah! He's not immune
to my charms either, then…

I give him a triumphant
glance over my shoulder, before striding over to the bed, and
reaching for my own underwear.

The effect is completely
ruined, when his pet cockerel runs flapping across the duvet. Meaning
I have to spend the next hour and forty-five minutes chasing it
around the suite, while it panics, the gusset of my knickers wrapped
around its leg.

CHAPTER
NINE
:

DANGEROUS
LACERATIONS

Finally dressed once more
– having retrieved my underwear from the escaped pet cockerel,
and been loaned a set of Paisley pyjamas by the ever-gentlemanly
zombie Crispin Dry – I assert my decision to head home.

His mansion feels so
large, so empty – so imposing… I feel the need for my
home comforts – like cold pizza, and even colder, slippery,
undergraduate sleeping bag.

"But you have had
too much to drink to ride your scooter, Sarah
Bellummm
,"
Crispin moans.

"I'll push it if I
have to," I reply, rolling up the over-long pyjama sleeves. "No
offence, but I've seen quite enough undead action for one night."

…
Not
to mention Ace Bumgang action, the thought creeps up on me.

I shiver involuntarily
under the thin silk.

I wonder if he's still at
the University Masquerade Summer Ball?

If I push the scooter
halfway, until I'm near-sober, and ride the other half, could I make
it back there in time to catch the end, and see if he leaves with
anyone…?

Although of course, that
would also risk the possibility of running into my stupid housemate,
Miss Ladygargle, and her GBH-qualified boyfriend, the lethally
charismatic Carvery Slaughter. And maybe the likelihood of more
zombies, along the way…

I realise that Crispin is
looking yearningly at his nightwear, on my comparatively alive frame.

"There does not have
to be undead action, as you say," he says, a little sensitively.

"Really?" I
remark. "Then why offer me just pyjamas to wear? And I don't
have a headache as an excuse either, if that's what you're hiding
those painkillers in your hand for."

I just about spot the
pharmacy box, as Crispin swiftly moves it behind his back.

"I would feel much
better if you stayed, Sarah
Bellummm
…" he says,
hopefully.

"I think we've done
plenty enough for one night," I tell him. "We've played
blind-tasting food games, and
Draw My Thing With Something
on
my own skin, been to hospital, nearly made out in an elevator –
and on a grand piano – had a close encounter of the reckless
kind with an immigrant taxi-driver, found my housemate kidnapped by
zombie surgeons, performed a reverse autopsy, and bumped into
probably the last two fit guys alive on Earth – one of whom is
most definitely carrying a jaw-dropping collection of STDs and a
chainsaw in the trunk of his car. If I have any more excitement
tonight, I'll probably explode with life-affirming overindulgence."

"It was
life-affirming indulgence that I was thinking of, certainly,"
Crispin muses, taking a step closer.

I take one back in turn,
pointing at what he's attempting to conceal in his other hand.

"And you can put
that camera down for a start," I warn him. "I don't know
what cruel intentions you had on your mind by trying to sneak up on
me with that… but there's enough porn on
Facebuddy
already, without adding zombie-necrophilia to the mix."

"I was worried you
might not come back again, if I let you leave so early." Crispin
sighs, and puts the camera and the pharmacy box down on the bed,
showing me his empty hands, in supplication. "I just wanted a
little souvenir of your visit."

"I hope by that, you
mean a photo of me wearing your jammies," I say warily, thinking
of the empty
Human Tissues
transport box, left abandoned back
at the University. "And not any actual physical parts of me. You
still haven't explained what you were doing, stealing those organs
from the hospital…"

He reaches out and takes
hold of my hands, in his cold gray ones.

"No, no, Miss
Bellummm
," he says. "I was thinking of your needs…
and of mine…"

"You're thinking of
Gin Sling cocktails… and human brain vending machines?" I
hazard, confused by his change of tack.

He shakes his head, in
that endearing, wonky fashion.

"No, Sarah," he
groans. "Not that…"

I hear the hiss and
rattle of his lungs, as he inches that little bit closer. The tension
in the bedroom cranks up another notch.

"You can depend on
me to keep your confidentiality," he continues. "If you are
honest with me."

"About what?" I
ask, wondering what I might want kept secret. And if I've been
inappropriately disclosing information about myself, all my life so
far.

"Would I be right in
believing that you are… a virgin, Sarah
Bellummm
?"

Shocked, I laugh.

This reaction has got me
into trouble many a time. In fact, without the nervous laughter
reflex, I might not even still be a… whatever he's implying.

And there'd be a few less
grouchy pizza-delivery boys around, carrying inferiority complexes.

"A what?" I
chuckle, trying to use the laugh to brush the accurate assumption
off. "Don't be silly! Those guys we bumped into earlier? I've
had them both. At once, in fact. Lots of times. Before the violent
one caught all sorts of lurgy off his girlfriend…"

Crispin leans in a little
closer still, causing me to stop, and gulp my giggles back down. I
hear him sniff slowly, at my throat.

"Hmmm," he
muses. "I think you may be wrong, Sarah
Bellummm
. And I
am correct, in this instance."

"What about it?"
I shrug. "Nothing wrong with waiting for Mister Right."

"Supposing…"
he begins thoughtfully. "Supposing your Mister Right, as you
call him… had a certain condition, that could be cured, by
your own – condition?"

Oh, no. This sounds
familiar. It's been addressed in our Anthropology lectures, for a
start.

"Have you been
taking sexual health advice from West African witch-doctors?" I
ask, disapprovingly.

He looks surprised, then
down at himself resignedly, with a broad sweeping gesture of both
arms.

"You think?" he
says, and it's the first time I've detected sarcasm in his tone.
"You're talking to a damned zombie, may I remind you?"

"You can't cure
diseases by sleeping with virgins!" I shout at him. "That's
the kind of stupid dumb-ass Medieval thinking that starts pandemics!
Do you see people in the third world bouncing around on TV, the
picture of health? Do you see academics heading over there to find
out why they live so long, instead of going to do their research in
Okinawa? No! It's because it's not the cure! For anything!"

"I don't have a
disease, Sarah," he says, quietly. "I'm dead."

"In which case, how
about I call up my retard housemate's boyfriend Mister Slaughter, and
ask if he'll give YOU the Taser treatment as well?" I snap. A
mental image of Carvery Slaughter with his shirt off arrives
uninvited into my mind, which makes me wonder immediately where I
could get a hole dug, six feet deep, at short notice. "Because I
can assure you, a massive electric shock is more likely to affect
your current situation, than my considerably debatable cherry is!"

"You don't
understand," he moans. "Where do you think all those
rumours started? Because it IS the cure for a zombie…"

God, I've heard some bad
pick-up lines in my time, but this one takes the biscuit. It takes
the whole barrel…

"No, it's not a cure
for zombies. It's a cure for princes, who have been turned into frogs
and hideous beasts, by the
Brothers Grimm
and
Hans
Christian Anderson
," I correct him. "And those were all
fantasy too. Probably to persuade pretty girls to date ugly dudes in
the first place."

"So think of me, as
such a cursed prince," Crispin murmurs. His hand brushes my
cheek lightly, rather like the tickle of a falling autumnal leaf.

"I was thinking more
along the lines of 'depraved' than cursed," I scoff.

"As a zombie, I
assure you that depravity is something I can only aspire to, in my
current situation." He echoes my own words again, in typical NLP
brainwashing-style.

"You're going about
this entirely the wrong way, I hope you realise," I tell him. I
move to one side, aiming to get a clear run to the doorway. "What
self-respecting woman wants an emasculated hero with a sob-story?
Most women would just see the sob-story, and worry that if he was
stupid enough to get himself into such a mess in the first place, he
isn't likely to be able to help out if she's ever in a crisis
herself. It's like guys on dating sites, who don't drive. They might
as well put on their profiles
'Kicked out by Mother aged
forty-seven, needs regular clean laundry and taxi service'
."