Alice in Zombieland (9 page)

     
‘They were learning to draw,’ the Dormouse went on, yawning and rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; ‘and they drew all manner of things—everything that begins with an M—’

     
‘Why with an M?’ said Alice.

     
‘Why not?’ said the Dead Hare.

     
Alice was silent, but her curiosity was getting the best of her again. She wanted to hear the story about the Red Queen and how she controlled the dead. She turned to the Hatter, who seemed of the three the least sleepy, and said, ‘If you please, could you finish the story about how the Queen came to control the zombies?’

     
For a moment the Hatter only stared at her with his strangely distant gaze and then he shrugged, sipping in vain at his empty tea cup. ‘I suppose it would not hurt.’

     
‘What?’ asked Alice, confused again.

     
‘The story,’ the Hatter replied. ‘Nothing that isn’t already common knowledge except to newcomers and visitors.’

     
Alice settled in her seat and waited eagerly.

     
The Hatter found a small bone with some meat still on it and nibbled at it for a moment, then he began: ‘Some say she came from a world outside of Zombieland, but no one can say for sure, and she certainly isn’t going to say. She was a poor serving girl at a local pub who happened to be serving the night the King himself came to stay while he was traveling to a far away land to meet a witch and a wizard about acquiring a labor force from their diminutive populace of workers.

     
Alice frowned in confusion; she’d never heard of such a place before.

     
The Hatter continued between nibbles at the raw meat on the bone. ‘She made herself irresistible to the King and soon they were married. Then one day, our fair land was struck down by some dread disease that caused the dead to rise again and seek out fresh flesh. Before long, the whole land was in turmoil and there were more zombies than living. But the Red Queen had fought long and hard to become the Queen and she wasn’t about to let a bit of bad luck get in her way. She kept her scientists working day and night to come up with some way to control the undead. I’m not sure how it all worked, but I do know that soon the Queen had an army of the undead under her control and she was using them to destroy those she could not control. At first, just the undead. But as her powers grew and she became more angry with her world, she began to take it out on both the living and the undead. Now she walks the kingdom with her zombie army and her control box, keeping us all in line with fear. And no one dares to defy her because she can turn her undead army against anyone silly enough to do so. Do you see?’

     
Alice nodded silently, unsure how much of what the Hatter said was true and how much was just make believe.

     
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: ‘—that begins with an M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say things are “much of a muchness” —did you ever see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?’

     
‘Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, ‘I don’t think—’

     
‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.

     
This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear: she got up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that they would call after her: the last time she saw them, they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot, and his arm was dangling at an alarming angle.

     
‘At any rate I’ll never go
there
again!’ said Alice as she picked her way through the wood. ‘It’s the stupidest and most disgusting tea-party I ever was at in all my life!’

     
Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the wind-whipped trees had a door leading right into it. ‘That’s very curious!’ she thought. ‘But everything’s curious today. I think I may as well go in at once.’

     
And in she went.

     
Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the little glass table. ‘Now, I’ll manage better this time,’ she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the graveyard. Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and
then
—she found herself at last in the wonderfully spooky graveyard, among the tilting tombstones and weeds and decayed crosses.

Chapter VIII

The Queen
’
s Graveyard Croquet-Ground

     
A
large gray tomb
stood near the entrance of the graveyard. The roses growing on it were twisted, black and thorny, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. Each of the gardeners was pale-faced and smelled terrible. And each wore one of those strange jeweled collars she’d seen on other dead men. Alice thought this a very curious thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up to them she heard one of them say, ‘Look out now, Five! Don’t go splashing paint over me like that!’

     
‘I couldn’t help it,’ said Five, in a sulky tone; ‘Seven jogged my elbow.’

     
On which Seven looked up and said, ‘That’s right, Five! Always lay the blame on others!’

     
‘
You’d
better not talk!’ said Five. ‘I heard the Queen say only yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!’

     
‘What for?’ said the one who had spoken first.

     
‘That’s none of
your
business, Two!’ said Seven.

     
‘Yes, it
is
his business!’ said Five, ‘and I’ll tell him—it was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.’

     
Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun ‘Well, of all the unjust things—’ when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly: the others looked round also, and all of them bowed low, their loose collars clinking in unison like small out-of-tune bells.

     
‘Would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, ‘why you are painting those roses?’

     
Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two. Two began in a low voice, ‘Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here tomb ought to have been covered with
red
roses, and we put black ones on it by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know. So you see, Miss, we’re doing our best, afore she comes, to—’ At this moment Five, who had been anxiously looking across the windswept cemetery, called out ‘The Queen! The Queen!’ and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon their faces. There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice looked round, eager to see the Queen.

     
First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and feet at the corners: next the ten courtiers; these were ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the soldiers did. And they, too, wore the jeweled collars round their stiff necks. After these came the royal children; there were ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand in hand, in couples: they were all ornamented with hearts. Next came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice recognized the Black Rat: it was talking in a hurried nervous manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without noticing her. Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the King’s crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this grand procession, came
the King and Queen of Hearts
.

     
The King was a small man, hardly much taller than Alice herself. He tried to carry himself with greater height and dignity than he actually possessed, which made him rather funny to watch as he hurried to keep up with the Red Queen, who was striding along as if on massive elephant legs.

     
And it was the Red Queen who Alice found most strangely frightening. Even if she had heard no stories about her cruelty and bloody mindedness, Alice still would have found plenty to be scared of. The Red Queen was an older woman, her dark hair shining with great strands of gray, and her face was broad and unfriendly. Two thin lips seemed to be compressed forcefully at her long mouth. Two beady dark eyes looked out upon the world from narrow peepholes of displeasure. And her broad, horse-like nose, flared open with each angry inhalation. She looked down upon those smaller than herself with a sure sense of arrogant power. And in the crook of her left arm, she carried a small metal box, clutched closely to her wide bosom. In her other hand she carried a long wooden stick. It was notched and stained dark along the thick head, as if it had been used in the past for some bloody violence.

     
Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on her face like the three undead gardeners, but she could not remember ever having heard of such a rule at processions; ‘and besides, what would be the use of a procession,’ thought she, ‘if people had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn’t see it?’

     
So she stood still where she was, and waited.

     
When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped and looked at her, and the Queen said severely ‘Who is this?’ She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

     
‘Idiot!’ said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and, turning to Alice, she went on, ‘What’s your name, child?’

     
‘My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,’ said Alice very politely; but she added, to herself, ‘Why, they’re only a bunch of dead cards, after all. I needn’t be afraid of them!’

     
‘And who are
these
?’ said the Queen, pointing to the three shivering gardeners who were lying round the tomb; for, you see, as they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her own children.

     
‘How should I know?’ said Alice, surprised at her own courage. ‘It’s no business of
mine
.’

     
The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, screamed ‘Off with her head! Off—’

     
‘Nonsense!’ said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen was silent.

     
The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said ‘Consider, my dear: she is only a child!’

     
The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave ‘Turn them over!’

     
The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.

     
‘Get up!’ said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.

     
‘Leave off that!’ screamed the Queen. ‘You make me giddy.’ And then, turning to the black roses she went on, ‘What
have
you been doing here?’

     
‘May it please your Majesty,’ said Two, in a very humble tone, going down on one knee as he spoke, ‘we were trying—’

     
‘I see!’ said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the roses. ‘Off with their heads!’ and the procession moved on, three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate dead gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

     
‘You shan’t be beheaded!’ said Alice, and she put them behind a large weed covered gravestone that stood near. The three dead soldiers wandered about for a minute or two, moaning and rolling their eyes, looking for them, and then quietly marched off after the others.

     
‘Are their heads off?’ shouted the Queen.

     
‘Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!’ the soldiers groaned in reply.

     
‘That’s right!’ shouted the Queen. ‘Can you play croquet?’

     
The dead soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question was evidently meant for her.

     
‘Yes!’ shouted Alice.

     
‘Come on, then!’ roared the Queen, and Alice joined the procession, wondering very much what would happen next.

     
‘It’s—it’s a very fine day!’ said a timid voice at her side.

     
She was walking by the Black Rat, who was peeping anxiously into her face, gnashing his teeth and twitching his long black tail nervously.