Undead (9780545473460) (16 page)

The staircase is shorter than I thought it would be. I mean, for those first few steps it really felt like we were descending into the bowels of hell, or journeying to the center of the earth. I was kind of expecting skeletons and ancient wall paintings, burning torches or scarab beetles or something. But there is none of that: just a flight of stone steps and then we emerge into a basement that smells of mold with garden fertilizer mixed in.

A single room, about the size of the living room we'd slept in last night. Pete finds another light switch and, after a couple of false tries, a fluorescent strip clicks on overhead. We look around. The room is lined with shelves that contain everything and nothing. Plant pots and garden tools. Crates of books and piles of
Country Life
magazine. In the middle of the room are a couple of stools and a tarp-covered lawn mower. In one corner is a small wooden door with coal piled at the bottom. I stick my head around the door; inside there's a diagonal chute leading up to an inch of bright sunlight above. I force the door closed again. On the far wall hang sacks and dust cloths, aprons and netting.

“So this is it?” says Alice. “A whole load of rubbish? Nothing useful at all?” She sticks out a hip and puts a hand on it. “I suppose I should be used to this by now. I mean, I could have trusted you lot to find the one building in this whole area — no, country — that doesn't have a phone.”

“Mmm, you know what, Malice?” Smitty is walking up to her, his ax swinging by his side. “We only came here because of you.” He points his ax up at her head. “If you hadn't brained yourself back at the Cheery Chomper, we could have walked for miles and had our pick of tripped-out castles.”

“That's not strictly true,” Pete interrupts.

“How is that head, by the way?” Smitty smiles at Alice. “If it's still bothering you, we can take it clean off, if you like?” He raises his ax again.

“Get away from me, you bully!” Alice cries out, bringing her golf club up to knock away the ax.

“Bully?” Smitty laughs. “You wrote the manual, Malice.”

“I've told you, don't call me that!” Alice roars, flinging herself at Smitty, golf club aloft.

He dodges out of the way before she can land a blow. But she's moving with too much force to stop in midair. Instead of slamming into Smitty, she's going to slam into the wall. I brace myself for the tears.

They never come. Alice doesn't hit the wall, she disappears. Completely. Into the wall where the sacks are hanging. There's a kind of muffled scream, then nothing.

Smitty, Pete, and I stand there looking at each other, and the wall, without words. I can't help but wish that we'd tried to throw Alice into a wall way before now if this is the result. We watch the place where she vanished, and wait.

But it's too good to be true. A few seconds later she's back, her head appearing between two of the big sacks, then a shoulder, an arm, and a leg. The most surprising thing is, she's smiling.

“Once again, I strike gold,” she says. “Without me, you losers would be lost.” She steps out from the wall and holds up her arm. In the place where her junior golf club had been is a large bottle of champagne. She waggles it at us. “But, finders keepers,” she sings, disappearing back into the wall.

And we follow. It's not a wall, of course. Behind the hanging sacks there's a floor-length, stone-colored curtain, with a slit down the middle. Through the curtain is a whole new room. There's a lamp on the wall under which Alice is standing, champagne in hand. Behind her are racks upon racks of wine, dark and cobwebbed. The racks run around all four walls of the room, from floor to ceiling.

“The mother lode,” whispers Smitty in awe. He pulls out a few bottles and examines the labels.

Pete sighs. “And here I was thinking you'd actually found something interesting.”

“She did,” I call from the far corner of the room. There's a gap between two of the racks, and in the gap is a door. I turn the handle and look through. A long corridor disappears into darkness. I aim the flashlight straight ahead and force myself to take a couple of steps forward into the black. The corridor is barely wider than the door, the stone walls dank and slippery on either side.

There's a noise of a shot and something whizzes past my ear, stopping me in my tracks.

I spin around, breath held. But it's only Alice; she's popped the cork on the bubbly. She shakes the bottle and shrieks as all of the champagne gushes into the air, soaking her and Smitty. Pete pushes past them, sighing.

“Another passage?” he asks. “Could be an escape tunnel. A lot of castles and manor houses have them. From the days when being attacked was a fact of life and people needed to make a quick getaway.”

“The good old days in comparison.” Smitty grabs for my flashlight, but I whip it away. “Touchy!” He grins at me. “Betcha there's a light around here anyway.”

He feels the wall and finds something. There's a
click
, but no illumination. I point the flashlight forward resolutely and start walking, Smitty, Pete, and Alice following me Scooby-stylee again.

The corridor widens out a little after a few feet, then a little more. In the beam from my flashlight I can see something on the ground. It's Alice's cork, lying where one side of the wall seems to end, with nothing but darkness beyond.

I notice another switch on the wall. It works. Orange light reflects weakly off the slimy walls. I stare at the space ahead.

Jail cells — three of them — along one side of the corridor, with thick iron bars on the front.

“A castle has to have a dungeon, doesn't it?” says Smitty. He walks up to the first one and pulls the door toward him. He steps inside. “This must be where they keep the really good stuff.”

I step up to the bars and look through. More racks, more bottles.

“Same here.” Pete has already checked out the second cell. He moves on to the third, and stops.

“What is it?” I call to him.

“Nothing,” he calls back.

I stride down to the cell.

“As in there's nothing in this one.”

Nothing apart from a chair, a bucket, and a bundle of rags in the corner.

“Weird,” I say.

“You called?” Smitty bounces up. “Hey, this must be the hangover room. Where you sit and throw up after you've drunk your body weight in Chateau Nerve du Plop, or whatever.”

“You'd do well to bear that in mind,” Pete says.

Alice has sloped up the corridor and is laughing with Smitty at the sight of the bucket through the bars. Suddenly those two are best buds.

“The corridor ends here.” Pete is frowning.

“Are you sure?” I walk past the cell to where Pete is feeling the wall.

“Solid stone.” He pats the wall. “No obvious switches or levers.” He scrubs at the stone floor with his foot. “It's possible that if it was a tunnel, they bricked it up sometime in the last century. No need to escape anymore.”

“That's probably a good thing,” I say. “We don't want anyone creeping up on us while we're upstairs sleeping.”

“Boo!” Smitty cries, creeping up behind me, because clearly that's the joke.

“Brilliant, Smitty,” I say. I notice something sticking out of the lock of the last cell. A small, modern, metal key. Odd that it should look new. In fact, now that I look closer, this lock looks different from the others, like it's been replaced. I turn the key, open the door, and beckon Smitty in. “Would you like me to make a reservation for you while we're down here?”

“Only if you can be the Dungeon Mistress.” He leans in, and I will myself not to blink. “Got your whip?”

“Ew! Perv alert!” shouts Alice, and pretends to retch.

As I flush scarlet in the orange light, Smitty dashes in toward the back of the cell, beyond the single chair to the bundle of rags. He turns to face us, pulling up his T-shirt to reveal his bare torso; his legs are akimbo and his arms shoot out to the sides. “Beat me for my sins, Mistress! Beat me!”

“Oh, gross!” Alice cries, propping herself up on the bars.

Smitty waggles his tongue at her, turns away from us, drops his pants, bends over, and moons. Before I know what I'm doing, I shine the flashlight on his behind. As if I needed a better look. Now I think I may have blinded the three of us for life.

“Sick!” screams Alice. “I seriously am going to puke my guts up!”

And then Smitty does just that. Pukes his guts up, with full ferocity and surround-sound echoing off the walls. Bacon and eggs in a waterfall of
ewwww
. I grab my mouth, feeling my own stomach clench in complaint. Alice squeals, and Pete just stands there, transfixed. Smitty pulls up his jeans and staggers toward us, a look of sheer horror on his face.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I shout at him.

He's throwing out swearwords like a celebrity chef.

“That . . . !” He points to the back of the cell, at the bundle of rags.

“What is it?” I enter the cell gingerly.

“Look and see!” He splutters at me. I move toward the rags. “No! Don't look! You don't want to look!”

But it's too late. I've seen something poking out of the rags. It's a foot. A socked foot, with the bump of an ankle bone, and the tiniest amount of pink skin with black leg hairs, too. Now that I'm looking, I can see the shape of a leg and a hip of a person who is lying on their side . . . and the rise of the place where arms and shoulders are. And then it stops.

Where the head should be, there is nothing, just a bloodied stump.

This is not my first bloodied stump, nor is it Smitty's, but I understand why he felt the need to unload.

Maggots squirm in the well of flesh that used to be a throat.

I feel the blood rushing from my head, and the next thing I know I am running, back down the corridor into the wine cellar, through the slit in the curtain and into the basement. The others are close behind, Alice and Pete not requiring any immediate explanation beyond my fleeing feet.

As I near the top of the steps to the hall, the door opens. Lily stands in the light, with Cam in her arms.

She turns and shuts the door behind her, barring our escape.

“We have to get out!” I put my hand on her arm and try to force it off the door. “There's a dead body down there!”

“There is?” Alice cries from a few steps below. “Oh my god!” She scrambles up and tries to push Lily aside.

Lily bars the way. “Dead? Like one of those things?”

“Not anymore.” Smitty pushes past me and Alice. “Headless and rotting, but if you're happy keeping him company, then be our guest.” He goes for the door handle but Lily knocks his hand away.

She shakes her head. “We can't go out there.”

“Why not?” Pete is panting and exasperated.

Lily fixes him with a steely glare. “Because whoever lives here just came home.”

“There are three of them,” Lily whispers.

We are sitting in the purgatory of the steps in between Maggotty Man Basement and The Strangers Who Came in from the Cold.

“Two men and a woman, I think. They must have come in the back way. Cam and I were in the downstairs bathroom, and I could hear their voices in the kitchen.”

“Did you get a look at them?” I ask.

Lily shrugs. “I peeped through the gap in the door, but I couldn't exactly stay there.” She nods to Cam, who is sitting next to her playing with the box of nails that had kept the door open. Normally not such a great thing for a three-year-old to be playing with, but normal kind of flew out the window recently. “They looked like students.” Lily wrinkles her nose. “One of them has a beard.”

“Sounds terrifying.” Smitty stands up. “So give me a good reason why we shouldn't go up there and say hi? It's not like there's not enough room here to go around.”

I nod. “Strength in numbers. And maybe they know what's going on, or how to get help.”

Lily shakes her head vigorously. “They know someone's here, and they're really pissed off.” She leans forward. “I could hear them checking the kitchen and the pantry to see what we'd eaten. And they were furious, really shouting about something. Then they started looking in the other rooms. I think they saw all our bedding, too. They sounded so angry.”

Smitty sighs and sits back down on the step.

Pete stands up this time, like it's some kind of bizarro version of Musical Chairs.

“If what she says is true” — Pete's pale face is luminous in the dim light — “they'll be checking down here soon enough.”

We all think about it. It's true. If they think we're hiding, it's probably the first place they'll look.

“Do you think they killed that guy in the cell?” I say.

There is silence. It's actually quite a terrifying thought. I don't know how I come up with these gems.

“Maybe he deserved it,” Alice says eventually. “Maybe he'd turned and they locked him up and chopped his head off.”

It's easier to hope that this version is true. The alternative could be that the dead guy was minding his own business living in his castle when a zombie apocalypse broke out and a bunch of ruthless students broke in and killed him so that they could make the place their own sanctuary. I mean, you'd think that, when faced with an Undead army, random human survivors would find a really good reason to get along, but that certainly hasn't happened in our own little test group. No, it's much easier to believe that the maggot-ridden corpse was a fiendish monster, locked up and dispatched by the reluctant but plucky students. Because otherwise, we could be headless and maggoty ourselves pretty soon, if they find us.

I remember holding the cold cell key in my hand. I look at Smitty. “Any chance you locked that cell before we ran up here?” I know as soon as I've asked him that it's a ridiculous question. He simply rolls his eyes.

“What?” Alice says. “The dead thing is not locked up?” She leaps to her feet. “How stupid could you be? It might be coming up here now!”

We all look down the steps.

“It had no head! That kills them!” But I don't sound so sure.

“This is the dumbest yet!” Alice is being way too loud. “We could be rescued, and we're sitting in a basement with a headless body?” She stomps up the steps. “I'll take my chances with the beardy-weirdy students, thank you very much!”

Pete is behind her, and I suppose we all assume he's going to grab her and bring her back, but he does no such thing.

“Pete!” I say, but his hand is on the doorknob already.

He turns to me. “Knowledge is power, Bobby.”

With that, he and Alice are gone.

Smitty and Lily and I look at each other.

“What is that supposed to mean exactly?” Smitty says.

“Maybe they're right,” Lily says. “Maybe we should give ourselves up. They might be able to help us.”

I frown at her. “I thought you said they were really angry that someone had eaten their porridge and slept in their beds?”

She sighs. “Aye. The more I think about it, the more I think they were angry because they were looking for something. Something they'd lost.”

“Like what?” Smitty says.

Lily makes a guilty face and reaches into her back pocket. “Like this?” She holds out a shiny silver thing. “It's the key to the tower. I found it when I was clearing the breakfast things away.”

Smitty reaches for the key, but Lily reads his moves.

“No.” She puts her hand behind her back. “I'm holding this for now.”

“Fine.” He smiles at her. “But do me a favor and don't tell anyone you have it, OK? Not even Alice and Pete. Until we know who these people are. And why they want that key so badly.”

Lily nods coolly. “My thoughts exactly.”

“So does that mean we're coming out of cover?” I look up at the door.

Smitty nods. “Might as well. Can't trust that Alice won't give us away if it suits her. You and me go up there, Bob. Lily and Cam should stay down here for now, until we know it's sound.”

Lily's fine with that. Almost. She smiles thinly.

“Could you just go downstairs and lock up the headless body first, please?”

It's a reasonable request.

We go. I still have my poker, Smitty has his ax . . . but something makes me suspect that if decapitation didn't work, then we might be fighting a losing battle.

Around every corner I expect the body to leap out at us, maggots flying. But all is quiet. The wine is still in the racks — well, most of it is, anyway — the corridor is enduringly dank and dark but relatively harmless, and by the time we reach the final jail cell it's almost anticlimatic to see the bundled body still in exactly the same spot as we left it. And of course nobody locked the door. It's open, the key sticking out of the lock. I shut it firmly but quietly, and turn the key. Smitty reaches over, takes it from the lock, and pockets it. I look at him questioningly.

He shrugs. “You never know.”

When we reach the steps, Cam has managed to empty the whole box of nails on the stairs and is lining them up nicely, head to point, like a long and skinny snake traversing an invisible maze. Lily is by the door, an ear to the wood.

“We're all locked up,” I whisper to her. “Have you heard anything?”

She shakes her head. “It's really quiet.”

“If everything's OK, we'll come get you,” I say. “If you hear any trouble, hide in the coal chute.”

Smitty adjusts his grip on the ax and puts a hand on the door.

“Ready?”

I try to think of something witty or inspirational or both, but come up short. I kind of snort and nod at the same time. Smitty gives me a raised eyebrow, and opens the door.

We're out into the hall.

I can't hear any voices. We pause for a moment, then tiptoe around to the front of the cascading staircase, where the light is filtering out of the stained-glass window, all heavenly and lovely and churchified.

Smitty has taken it upon himself to be on point, dashing ahead of me and stopping suddenly in shadows. He looks more than a little ridiculous. I mean, we're not Marines. He puts up a hand. I listen. There's a noise, a scratchy
click-clack
on the wooden floor.

The dog appears in front of us. After a moment's standoff he licks Smitty's hand and trots over to me. He sits, his long tail swishing and polishing the floor, head cocked as if expecting a treat.

“At least someone's happy to see us,” I whisper.

“Woof!” says the dog.

“Sssh!” I say.

“Woof! Woof!” replies the dog.

“Great. Why don't we yell ‘coo-ee' and get this over with?” Smitty says. We wait for a second, glued to the spot, expecting running feet and strangers to appear at any moment. But nobody does. Smitty pads toward the door to the living room, and the dog, deciding Smitty is way more fun than me, trots after him. I run after both of them.

Someone — presumably our new co-occupants — has moved the large sideboard well away from the door of the living room, and we enter without a struggle.

“Let's head for the kitchen,” Smitty says, and I'm following him out of the living room and through the library when I hear the muffled voices. We pause and listen.

It sounds like Alice is holding court. That's promising; it's not as if they're hacking her and Pete to pieces or anything. Then again, they've only known them for a few seconds . . . give it time. I move my ear closer to the kitchen door and catch the words “stupid lame bus” and “brains hanging out”; she's giving them the full story and then some. Seems Alice has finally found an audience that is happy to listen to her for more than a few minutes without wanting to jump off the nearest cliff.

Smitty leans into the door beside me.

“Do we knock?” I whisper.

He considers it. “Probably. Surprises don't go down too well these days.” He holds up a hand and I hold my breath as he raps lightly on the door. The talking inside stops. Smitty looks at me and in spite of the scary factor I feel a giggle well up inside me. We both raise our fists and knock lightly again.

There's a scraping of chairs and a scrambling noise. As one we take a step back from the door. Then the door opens and a head pokes out. Dark curly hair, sallow complexion, dark, dark eyes, and a beard. Early twenties, with kind of a soulful poet look. Under different circs, I might almost develop a crush.

The eyes register shock, but quickly harden. The door is left to swing open, and the kitchen opens up to us.

“I thought you said you were on your own,” Beardy says snarkily.

Alice is sitting at the kitchen table with her back to us — at the head of the table, no less — with Pete to her right, his arms clamped to his sides. Alice turns to face us.

“Did I? I don't think so.” She smiles at us, her face giving nothing away.

Wow, Malice didn't tell on us? Who saw that one coming?

“More school trip kiddies?” Beardy asks. I nod. “Get yourselves in here.” He points his finger with his thumb cocked, like his hand is a gun. I walk into the kitchen — not too quickly, like I'm in control and am nonchalance personified. My 'tude has nothing on Smitty's, however. His lopsided swagger reeks FU, and he takes such a long time walking the few paces into the kitchen that I begin to think he might have had some kind of stroke.

At the other end of the kitchen is a frowning blond woman. She looks a little older than Beardy, maybe late twenties, and she's ice-cold and gorgeous, with arched eyebrows and a full pout. Like Beardy, she's dressed in cold weather gear but on top she has stripped down to a skin-tight black thermal T-shirt that shows some killer curves. Out of the corner of my eye I see Smitty taking her in and trying not to react.

Standing behind Pete is the other man. I say man, but only just. His skin is brown and his hair black, but really he could be a different flavor Pete, the way he hunches his shoulders nervously and cracks his knuckles. The resemblance is almost funny.

“So, who are you and what are you doing in our castle?” Smitty speaks.

“
Your
castle?” Beardy smiles. “And I suppose, big man that you are, you think you're king of the castle?”

Smitty slings himself onto the sideboard, where he sits, legs swinging, like he hasn't a care in the world. “Don't they say possession is nine-tenths of the law?”

Beardy laughs in that way that baddies do in movies, like they're not really that amused but they can't think of anything smart to say right at that second. “Clever boy. But unfortunately for you, we have
re
possessed.”

“So you claim.” Smitty stares at him. “Doesn't make it true.” He taps his fingers on the counter. “Beheaded anyone recently? I did, just yesterday. At least we have something in common.”

Beardy raises a black eyebrow. “You have been exploring the place, haven't you? Going through our dirty laundry, too?”

Smitty snorts. “I think I'm looking at the biggest skid mark right now.”

“Look,” I interject — because frankly this isn't going anywhere, “you were here first? Great. Tell us where the phone is.”

“There isn't one,” says Pete's older-brother-from-another-mother in the corner. “Don't you think we might have used it if there was?”

“That all depends if you'd figured out how to,” says Smitty.

Beardy laughs again and shakes his head, like Smitty is really pissing him off and he doesn't want to show it.

“Do you know what's going on?” I turn to the blonde. “Where did you go last night? Is there anyone out there? Still alive, I mean? Have you got any kind of transportation? Is anyone coming to help us?”

“Full of questions, aren't you?” Beardy's smile is suddenly gone. “I think you'd better answer a few of ours first.”