The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum (8 page)

It's him. Miss Fucktard's
assault and rechargeable battery-powered boyfriend.

CHAPTER
EIGHT
:

TOMB BATHER

"How nice to see
you," the psychopath continues, dripping sarcasm like
hydrochloric acid. Which I bet he already keeps stockpiled, in his
own bathroom. "Are you still stalking guys, pretending to
deliver pizzas for a living?"

"Carvery," I
greet him coldly. "And are you still pretending to be the love
of my housemate's life?"

"You look a little
bit worse for wear, Sarah," Ace Bumgang says, tilting his
nearly-full pint glass towards me. "How many have you had so
far?"

"Not enough to have
my beer goggles on yet," I answer haughtily.

Even though, confronted
by Ace Bumgang and the equally delicious-looking Carvery Slaughter –
my forgettably doomed housemate's current psycho-with-benefits –
I feel as though both of my ovaries are racing to hatch the first
available egg.

Damn my traitorous
hormones!
Faced with the two
most pheromone-loaded specimens of live masculinity at the
University's Masquerade Summer Ball, my eligible dream zombie Crispin
Dry, lurking silently at my side, seems no more than a cardboard
cut-out in comparison.

"You could have
fooled me," Carvery cuts in slyly, indicating my companion, on
cue.

I wish Crispin would do
something to defend my honour, fly into zombie rage action…
but he's too genteel, too eccentric.
Edward Scissorhands
meets
Michael Keaton's
Batman
incarnation, without the art of a
director like Tim Burton to hold it together. Those 'fifty shades of
gay' that I suspected earlier are looming again – in contrast
to the overwhelming testosterone now evident in the room.

"Seriously,"
Ace continues, to my own surprise, with a hint of concern in his
voice. "You're actually drooling, Sarah. It's kind of creepy.
And your right eye is all wandering and squinty. I'm sure you were
limping as you walked in. To be fair, I thought it looked like you'd
had a stroke. I remember what it was like when my old dear had one.
You should go to the hospital, get checked out – if it's
honestly not the alcohol this time."

"No, I'm fine,
really." I shudder, ignoring my ongoing light-headedness, and
the numbness now obvious in my right hip. The hospital is the last
place I want to be right now…

"Or maybe your
pay-as-you-go date is just more lively in the sack than he looks?"
Carvery suggests. "I've seen more than a few girls hobbling
around and dribbling, after a good session in my company."

"And the rest are
under your floorboards, I imagine?" I reply, trying to match
him, snark for snark.

He shakes his head.

"That's the benefit
of having my own paving business," he smiles nastily. "They're
all under everyone else's property."

My mouth drops open, like
an unsecured loft hatch. The nerve! He could get sued for use of
sub-standard foundation materials… everyone knows that human
remains don't retain their structural integrity, even when buried in
concrete…

My voice refuses to
co-operate, as some announcement comes over the Conference Hall
tannoy, about an imminent World Poverty lecture by Bono from
U2
,
in the main amphitheatre. Partygoers in fancy-dress costume and masks
start to gravitate towards the theatre doors.

"Ten minutes have
passed, Sarah
Bellummm
." Finally! Crispin interrupts,
coming to my rescue – like a Speaking Clock in shining armour.

"I'm afraid I will
have to leave you, gentlemen," I say, striking out for the use
of courtesy as a weapon. But the way I'm currently slurring, I note
it sounds more as though I was declaring my undying love to them
both, in drunken Bavaria-dialect German.

At least I have the
satisfaction of seeing some disappointment mingled with their
repulsion. Although disappointment at what, I'm not sure –
depending on what they just heard me say.

"Not staying for a
drink, then?" Ace observes, as I link my arm with Crispin once
more.

I hesitate.

"Perhaps you're
right," I say, rebelliously.

I take Ace Bumgang's pint
of Snakebite & Black out of his hand, and down it almost as fast
as stand-up comic Billy Stephens. Christ.
How does he do that?
It feels as though it's going to whoosh straight out of my ears…

I act as if to hand the
empty glass back, letting it slip through my fingers before Ace can
grasp it, intending it to smash dramatically on the floor. But I'd
forgotten the red carpet laid out especially for the Masked Summer
Ball. The pint glass merely bounces, and delivers me a crack on the
shin.

Ow
…

"Are you sure you're
okay?" Ace queries, sounding even more doubtful.

"Of course," I
retort. "And you shouldn't be drinking anyway. I'm sure they can
find a new
Stig
to replace you, on
Top Gear
."

"Well, would you
drive that fast sober?" Ace calls after me, as I turn away, head
in the air – now finding out what it's like to limp with both
feet.

I wish I had a clever
parting shot to deliver over my shoulder… Jeremy Clarkson
would have thought of one… instead I allow Crispin Dry to
guide me back down the many steps of the Conference Hall, to the
magnificently-decorated, open-air quad outside, still ringing with
the sound of the fireworks display. Where I promptly join several
Freshers in their celebrations, by throwing up the Snakebite &
Black all over my own feet.

* * * * *

I don't know how Luke did
it, but there is no sign of the night security guard at the gates of
the Science block. We hurry through, and I point out the abandoned
ambulance by the Anatomy & Physiology Department.

"They must have
taken her up to Pathology," I say. The thought of my housemate
being subjected to zombie torture isn't as terrifying as it had been,
just fifteen minutes earlier. Perhaps seeing her current real live
psychopath, who attempts to put her through the meat-grinder on a
regular basis, has put the idea into subjective context.

She'd probably compare a
zombie rampage to having a Swedish Massage, measured up against one
of her booty-calls from him.

At least here the
electricity is still functioning, unlike at the hospital. We rush
past signs directing us to the laboratory, although they're kind of
negated by the trail of blood, and infrequent bits of abandoned
zombie.

At last, we find the
dissection bay, and burst in.

"Oh, no!" I
cry. Both my eyes and mouth are competing with each other, over who
wants to be covered up first. "We're too late…!"

Crispin lurches over to
the gurney and puts the
Human Tissues
box onto the steel
counter, suddenly all businesslike and professional. My housemate,
Zero-for-Brains (pretty accurate description, right now) is lying
there with all her incisions exposed, and bloodied instruments
scattered around, some of them still half-inside her like a game of
Operation
.

The zombies themselves
have apparently long gone…

"It is just a matter
of replacing the components in the right order," says Crispin,
the epitome of calm confidence. "And not crossing the streams."

"Not crossing the
what?" I ask, bewildered. So much gore – it can't be
possible…

"The bloodstreams,
Sarah
Bellummm
," says Crispin. "You have to ensure
that you don't confuse the veins and the arteries."

"I knew that,"
I snap, irritated, wondering why I'm suddenly craving giant
marshmallows. "You insert, and I'll stitch up."

We work feverishly. Or
maybe I just work feverishly. Crispin works methodically, as if
servicing and replenishing any old vending machine. In due course, we
have a complete and watertight cadaver on the gurney between us. A
cadaver that used to be my housemate. My best friend. Aaargh! I'll
have to think of a pet-name for her. This is ridiculous.

"Well?" I say.
"How do we wake her up?"

Crispin stares at me,
with his inky black eyes.

"Oh," he says,
crestfallen. "You wanted her alive?"

"Of course ALIVE!"
I yell. "What do we have to do? Invoke a special god? Say some
magic words? Take her to a forbidden temple? Sacrifice an illegal
immigrant? Tell me how we bring her back to life, dammit!"

"I can do that,"
interrupts a sardonic voice, and the evil outline of Carvery
Slaughter appears in the doorway. "Wondered where you had to be
in such a hurry."

He saunters in, the
laboratory spotlights glistening off his hard, unyielding
musculature. Oh boy. Would I sperm-jack him… Posthumously, of
course. After I'd bumped him off, and figured out how to dispose of
the body.

"So," he
continues, looking impassively down at the shape of his hitherto
punch-bag. At least most of the swelling has gone down, since being
shanghaied and pillaged by zombies. She's barely recognisable from
how I usually see her, except for being black-and-blue still. "What
trouble did Wank-Tits get herself into this time?"

Phew. At least it's not
just me, who never remembers her real name.

"She became a live
organ-donor," I say, scowling at Crispin, who has the sense to
look suitably pensive. "We've fixed her up, but I don't know how
to re-animate her. I only perform on dead people."

"Yeah, I had heard
that about you," Carvery sighs, and peels up one of Miss Numb
Nut's eyelids. "Yeah, it's not too late. I have to carry one of
these. Girls conk out on me all the time. It's a tough life, being
such a stud."

He walks around to the
foot of the gurney, and takes out a Taser. I'm just quick enough to
leap away from the metal flat-bed, as he stabs the contacts into the
sole of her foot.

Her whole body arches off
the trolley. After a few seconds, the psychopath disconnects the
current, and she slams back down again, scattering the remaining
instruments.

After what seems like a
millennium, she suddenly takes a long, shuddering breath.

"She's alive!"
I cry, relief flooding through me, like the effect of mild bladder
weakness on the underpants.

"Yay," says
Carvery Slaughter, deadpan. He twirls the Taser in his hand, and puts
it away again.

Crispin takes the
professional attitude. He prods her shoulder.

"Can you open your
eyes, Miss…?" He looks at me for a prompt. Carvery and I
exchange a look, and both shrug.

"My eyes are open,"
she mumbles. Phew. At least she can still talk. That tongue was very
fiddly to insert.

"I think you have
your eyes wide shut at the moment, Miss," Crispin confirms. "Can
you tell me your name?"

We all lean in,
hopefully.

"Er…"
Fuck.
Maybe that was too much to hope for. "My boyfriend…
I think he knows. Something beginning with N… Nim…
Nymph… I think it might be Nymphette…"

"Nympho,"
Carvery corrects her. "But only if you're good, then I call you
Nympho."

She bolts upright on the
trolley, tears streaming down her face, her bloodstained arms
outstretched.

"Carver!" she
cries. "I knew you'd come to my res… res…
resuscitation…"

"Yeah, yeah,"
he grumbles, and helps her off the trolley. "Come on, Punk. I'll
take you home. Unless you want to come back to the party with me
first. You make a good Autopsy costume impression, in your current
state…"

"Punk…?"
I query, wondering if it's something I'd recognise as printed on our
tenancy agreement. "Is that an abbreviation?"

"Short for Pumpkin,
I guess," Carvery tells me. "Because usually she looks like
one, if you get my drift."

With an unpleasantly
meaningful wink, which puts thoughts into my head of both sex and
shovels, he leads her out. I hear her apologising to him for being so
useless as usual, as their footsteps fade away down the passage.