Flesh of the Zombie (8 page)

As Jazpants
came closer, Luke could see that she was swatting at some kind of creatures flying around her. “What are they?” he asked. “Wasps?”

“No such luck,” replied Resus, pulling his cloak up over his head. “They’re pixies!”

“Pixies?” mocked Luke. “I thought they were
supposed to be cute little— Ow!” One of the creatures had zoomed straight for Luke’s head, biting his ear and drawing blood.

“They’re like flying piranha fish,” shouted Resus from under his cape. “They’ll attack anything even remotely living!”

Luke yelped as another pixie took a bite at his nose. Jazpants collapsed at his feet, panting and rubbing at the dozens of bites with which she was already covered.

“What do we do?” shouted Luke as the creatures continued to nip them.

Resus produced a cloth sack. “If we can get them in here, we should be OK.”

“You expect me to chase these things around with a bag?”

“No,” said Resus, pulling his cape to one side to reveal the tennis racquet he had been using earlier. “I expect you to catch them as I serve!” Swinging the racquet, he slammed it into the nearest pixie, catapulting the screaming imp directly towards his friend.

Luke opened the bag and the pixie flew inside. “Fifteen–love!” he grinned, clamping the sack firmly closed.

For the next twenty minutes, Resus and Luke batted and volleyed the pixies until they’d caught them all. “Game, set and match,” beamed the vampire.

Cleo forced herself up onto her elbows. “Can you two keep it down?” she asked. “I’m trying to get some rest here.”

“Sorry,” grinned Resus. “I guess we were making a bit of a racket!”

“… and the funny thing was, we should have been dancing a tangle,” said Twonk.

“Tango!”
shouted Luke, Resus, Cleo, Tee and Jazpants together.

“Oh, yeah!”

“Is he always like this?” asked Resus. Jazpants clutched her ears and ripped them off her head. “I had these made detachable because I have to sit next to him in the van so often.”

Luke tossed more wood onto the fire: Twonk and Tee had done well, and the group now had a large pile of dead wood to keep them going. Meanwhile, the sky above had darkened to a deep burgundy, making the Underlands look gloomier than ever.

“How long have you known Vein?” asked Luke as Jazpants stuck her ears back in place.

“Not that long,” replied the zombie. “We had a female singer when the band first got together, but she fell apart.”

“She couldn’t cope with the fame?” asked Cleo.

“No,” replied Jazpants. “She literally fell apart — during one of our shows. There were bits of her everywhere. It’s her backbone that I use for my guitar now.”

“And then Vein joined the band?” said Resus.

Jazpants nodded. “He took over, started ordering everyone around, and soon we were relegated to little more than backing musicians.”

Twonk stared sadly into the fire. “That wasn’t funny.”

“Still,” said Jazpants, “that’s all in the past now. I doubt Brain Drain will ever play together again.”

“We’ll find a way to get you out of here,” said Luke — adding, more to himself than anyone else, “we have to.”

The group fell silent, watching the flames
crackle gently in the fire. After a while, Jazpants began to sing softly,
“I’ll bite your spleen and sup your bile …”

Resus pointed at her hands. “Look!”

“What?” asked Luke.

“Sing that again,” said Resus. “That line from ‘Zombie Feasting Time’.”

“The song Sir Otto wrote?” said Cleo. Resus nodded.

Jazpants took a deep breath and sang once more.

“I’ll bite your spleen and sup your bile
,

Chew your kidneys for a while …”

“There!” said Resus excitedly. Wisps of green smoke were bubbling around Jazpants’s sixteen fingers. “I think we’ve just found a way to get you home …”

In the orange glow of the fire, Twonk sat behind an assortment of pots and pans from Resus’s cape, with two pieces of firewood in his hands to serve as drumsticks.

Beside him, Jazpants readied herself to strum on the trusty tennis racquet. “Are you sure this is going to work?” she asked.

“When you sang those lines from ‘Zombie Feasting Time’, the green smoke appeared again,” insisted Resus. “If we can trick the spell into thinking you’re performing the song down here, it might just work in reverse and send you back to Scream Street.”

“Or,” suggested Luke, “they could wind up several miles underground.”

Resus frowned at him. “Let’s hope for the best, eh?”

“It’s not funny making me play drums on cooking untenables,” complained Twonk.

“They’re
utensils,”
said Resus through gritted teeth, “and if you want to get out of here, you’ll just have to put up with it.”

The vampire stood before the two musicians and raised his hands like a conductor. “OK … One, two, three, four!”

Twonk played out a beat on the pots and pans while Jazpants’s extra fingers plucked at the taut strings of the tennis racquet.

“It’s not working,” said Luke after a few moments.

“It might be because no one’s singing the lyrics,” said Resus.

“Don’t look at me,” said Jazpants. “I can only remember that one line.”

“And I’ve never been any good at limits,” added Twonk.

“Lyrics,”
hissed Resus. “No one can remember the
lyrics!”

“I can,” said Tee quietly.

“You can what?”

“I can remember the lyrics to ‘Zombie Feasting Time’.”

“Even though you only heard it once, back in Scream Street?” asked Cleo.

Tee nodded. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got it all.”

“OK,” said Resus disbelievingly. “Let’s try again.”

This time when the musicians started playing, everyone was amazed to hear Tee’s powerful voice ringing out:

“If I rip the heart right from your chest
,

They’ll take me away; cardiac arrest …”

Green smoke began to swirl around Jazpants and Twonk.

“I’ll let your blood flow like a river
,

Mop it all up with your juicy liver,”
sang Tee as the emerald mist rose higher and higher.

After a few more bars of music there was a flash and the tennis racquet and sticks fell to the ground. Jazpants and Twonk had gone.

“It worked!” shouted Luke, clapping Tee on the back.

“Where did you learn to sing like that?” asked Cleo.

Tee shrugged. “It suddenly came back to me that I liked music,” he said. “Maybe music was one of the things I was into when I was alive?”

“Then why didn’t you just disappear like the other two?”

“I don’t know,” admitted Tee. “Maybe it works on those already affected by the spell first?”

Resus remained unconvinced. “It all seems a bit convenient to me,” he grumbled, grabbing a log from the woodpile and throwing it on the fire.

Cleo glared at him. “Resus, no!”

The vampire squared up to her. “I’m entitled to my opinion, Cleo.”

“I didn’t mean that,” shouted the mummy, plunging her hand into the fire and snatching the log back out. “This isn’t a bit of wood. It’s a leg!”

Crimson dawn was breaking by the time Luke found the head. “It’s definitely Porridge,” he confirmed, gingerly picking up the zombie’s skull by the hair. He jumped as the creature’s eyes flickered open and gazed up at him.

“This is awfully good of you, old chap,” said Porridge. “I just haven’t been feeling myself lately.”

“Probably because you’ve been scattered all over the Underlands,” said Luke as he placed the
head next to the rest of the collected body parts.

“Right, have we got everything now?” asked Resus, producing a needle and thread from his cloak. “Where do we start?”

“By paying attention in Dr Skully’s classes,” groaned Cleo as she tried to fit the zombie’s ribs into his spinal column. The bones fell to the ground with a clatter.

“Let’s take it one step at a time,” said Luke. “Tee, you stand there and act as a reference guide. Now, the head definitely goes on the shoulders …”

“Don’t forget the neck,” said Resus, handing over a cylinder of rotting flesh.

“Thanks!” gulped Luke, gingerly taking it off him. He sat down on a blackened rock and slipped the neck over the top of the spine, placing the head on top of that and pushing the needle deep into the zombie’s skin.

“Aaargh!” Porridge screamed in agony, causing Luke to topple backwards off the rock. When he reappeared, Brain Drain’s bass player was giggling.

“Sorry, old bean,” grinned Porridge. “Couldn’t resist!”

Luke’s stomach churned
as he stitched the zombie back together. Every time he slid the needle into the scab-covered skin, rivers of pus oozed from the holes.

Resus and Cleo followed the lines of Tee’s body to set out the parts of Porridge on the ground like a jigsaw puzzle. They handed each
bone, organ or flap of flesh to Luke as required.

Eventually the job was finished and Porridge stood before them, whole once more. “Well,” he smiled. “How do I look?”

“There’s something not quite right …” said Resus thoughtfully. “Don’t go to pieces, but you seem all out of proportion.”

“You’ve mixed his arms and legs up,” groaned Cleo as she realized.

“I’ve
mixed them up?” said Luke. “You were the one telling me which order to sew things in!”

Porridge gazed down at his new body. His arms were stitched to the bottom of his torso, with his feet attached to his wrists. The zombie’s long legs hung down from his shoulders, fingers where his toes should be.

“We’ll have to take them off and redo them,” sighed Resus.

“No!” protested Porridge. “I like it this way.”

“But you look like an orangutan,” said Luke. “Your knuckles are scraping along the ground!”

“Yes,” smiled the zombie. “But imagine how cool I’ll look with my bass guitar strapped so low around my neck! I thank you for your assistance.”

“Now we just have to get you back to Scream Street,” said Resus.

“We’ll need something to stand in as a bass guitar,” said Luke. “But what?”

Cleo unwound a length of bandage from her leg. “If you stand on one end of this and hold it taut, that might sound like a bass?”

Porridge shook his head. “I’m afraid that won’t work,” he said. “I always play an electric bass guitar. What you’re suggesting would be more like an upright double bass.”

“Suit yourself, then,” shrugged Cleo, beginning to wrap the bandage back round her leg.

Porridge smiled. “With a few small alterations, however …”

“I feel utterly stupid,” said Cleo, grimacing.

Resus bit his lip and tried hard not to laugh. “You look great, though — doesn’t she, Luke!”

Luke turned away to hide his smile. “Don’t involve me in this,” he said. Cleo was hanging sideways around Porridge’s neck by a length of bandage, another strip strung from her shoulder to her foot. She was a living bass guitar.

“It’ll only be for a few minutes,” said Tee
kindly, “and you’ll be helping a lot.”

“Stay rigid, now,” grinned Resus. Cleo glared at him.

“OK,” said Porridge, flexing his fingers. “I’m ready.”