Zombie Bums from Uranus (27 page)

‘I'll come down and pull you out,' said his bum.

‘But I thought you were out of gas,' said Zack.

‘I was,' said his bum, ‘but Uranus is full of methane. I'm completely recharged.'

Zack coughed, not sure if his bum being completely recharged with methane was entirely a good thing, but he was pleased to see it looking so well.

His bum gently descended and extended its arm to him. Zack grabbed it and his bum lifted him to the surface.

Zack stood and looked around. He saw a featureless brown landscape. ‘So this is Uranus,' he said.

‘I'm sorry,' said his bum. ‘I didn't realise it was so obvious.'

‘I meant the planet,' said Zack.

‘Oh,' said his bum, ‘I thought you meant . . .'

‘Quiet!' said Zack, ‘what's that?'

‘What's what?' said his bum.

‘Sounds like singing,' said Zack. ‘Listen!'

‘Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall . . .' sang a familiar voice.

It was coming from another hole close by.

‘It's Eleanor,' said Zack.

They waded across to the edge of the nearby hole. Eleanor was lying at the bottom, her space madness apparently compounded by full-blown methane madness.

‘Humpty Dumpty had a BIG FALL . . .' she sang.

Zack looked around them grimly. His relief at
surviving the impact with Uranus and happiness at having found his bum and Eleanor was rapidly being replaced by a new worry.

‘All the king's horses and all the king's men . . . COULDN'T PUT HUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN!' sang Eleanor as Zack's bum airlifted her to the surface.

The words of the nursery rhyme sent shivers down Zack's spine.

There was no escaping the reality of their situation. Sure, Uranus had stopped their potentially infinite headlong tumble through space, but all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't get them back to Earth again.

They were going to die on Uranus.

Just like his parents.

Zack felt tears come into his eyes. He hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. He had to find them. Wiping his eyes, Zack scanned the horizon.

‘What are you looking for, Zack?' said his bum.

‘My parents,' said Zack. ‘They must be around here somewhere!'

‘But they're dead, Zack,' said his bum.

‘I know that,' said Zack, sniffing, ‘but the least we can do is to bury them before we die as well. Can I stand on top of you?'

‘No,' said his bum, as Zack jumped on top of it.

Zack peered as far into the distance as he could.

Uranus was a big planet. While nowhere near as huge as Jupiter or Saturn, and even though it had lost a large part of its mass in the collision with the Great White Bum, it was still at least ten times as big as the Earth. The chance that Zack had landed
anywhere near his parents was infinitesimally small.

But it was still a chance.

He heard Eleanor again.

‘Three blind mice, three blind mice,' she sang. ‘See how they run, see how they run . . .'

A flash of yellow caught Zack's eye. ‘What's that?' he said.

‘What's what?' said his bum.

‘That!' said Zack.

‘What?' said his bum.

‘That yellow thing!' said Zack.

‘I can't see anything!' said his bum. ‘You're standing on top of me, remember?'

Zack saw that Eleanor had a pair of bumoculars attached to her belt. He jumped down off his bum, grabbed them and jumped back up.

Raising the bumoculars to his eyes he could see the clear outline of a bum-mobile.

Two figures in spacesuits were draped over the front of it.

‘Let's go,' said Zack.

Zack waded through the stinking sludge of Uranus towards his parents.

Eleanor trailed along behind, still singing. ‘Ring a ring of roses . . . a pocket full of posies . . .'

Zack wished she would stop. She was giving him the creeps.

‘Shut up, Eleanor!' he said.

But Eleanor just looked at him through glazed eyes and continued her song. ‘A-tishoo, A-tishoo, WE ALL FALL DOWN!'

At this she kicked her legs out from underneath her and fell down into the sludge. Zack and his bum fished her out. She was covered in sludge, but still singing.

And so they proceeded.

They finally reached the half-buried bum-mobile. Zack could smell his mother's perfume, the fumes obviously left over from the perfume bomb. The two bodies on top of the bum-mobile betrayed no signs of life.

‘Mum?' he called. ‘Dad?'

There was no response.

He climbed up the ladder.

He gasped at the sight in front of him.

His mother and father were both lying on their backs with their hands clutching their throats. They reeked of perfume and the sinister stench of the Great White Bum.

Zack rushed to his mother's side.

Despite the coldness of the atmosphere, she was still warm.

So was his father.

Zack's heart skipped a beat.

He knelt beside his mother and tried to remember how to perform emergency heart massage.

‘What are you doing, Zack?' said his bum. ‘They're dead.'

‘They're still warm,' said Zack, crossing his hands over his mother's chest and pushing down hard. ‘Maybe I can resuscitate them.'

Zack's bum nodded. ‘Do you want me to give them bum-to-mouth resuscitation?'

‘No,' said Zack, pushing down with all his might. ‘I think that will make things worse. Let's just try to start their hearts. I'll work on Mum, you start on Dad.'

Zack's bum climbed onto James Freeman's chest and started bouncing up and down as if it was on a trampoline.

They continued for a full five minutes.

But there was no response from either James or Judi.

‘It's okay,' said Zack to his bum. ‘You can stop. It's no use.'

‘Oops,' said his bum, which was a little too full of methane for its own good. ‘Beg your pardon.'

Zack coughed.

Eleanor coughed.

And then, most amazing of all, James and Judi Freeman coughed.

‘Mum? Dad?' said Zack. ‘You're alive!'

‘Zack?' said his mother, sitting up.

‘Zack?' said his father, blinking and confused.

Zack threw his arms around them both, all of them crying with relief and happiness. ‘I can't believe you're okay!' said Zack.

‘Neither can I, to tell you the truth,' said James. ‘The Great White Bum blasted us but your mother managed to set off a perfume bomb at the same time. The bomb neutralised most of his stench, but the force of the blast must have knocked us out.'

They hugged again. Zack's bum joined in the hug as well.

‘Strange,' it said, ‘but I feel like you're my parents too!'

Zack's father immediately broke out of the hug and reached for his nail-gun. ‘You're dead meat, bum!'

‘No!' said Zack. ‘It's my bum! It's on our side!'

‘But I don't understand,' said his father. ‘How can a bum be on our side? And what are you doing here anyway?'

‘I don't know where to begin,' said Zack. ‘There's kind of a lot to explain.'

Eleanor cleared her throat. ‘You can say that again!' she said. ‘What happened? Where are we? I remember flying through space, and then it gets a bit blurry, but there was something about a teapot . . .'

‘Well, aren't you going to introduce us to your friend?' said Zack's mother.

‘You mean his
girl
friend,' said Zack's bum.

‘I am NOT his girlfriend,' said Eleanor, landing a solid kick in the middle of Zack's bum.

‘Ouch!' said Zack's bum.

‘Ouch!' said Zack.

‘It asked for it,' said Eleanor.

‘Mum and Dad,' said Zack, ‘I'd like you to meet Eleanor Sterne. Eleanor, these are my parents.'

‘Eleanor Sterne?' said James Freeman, shaking her hand. ‘Silas Sterne's daughter? It's a great honour! He never stops talking about you. How is he?'

Eleanor bit her lip. ‘I don't know,' she said. ‘When we left him he was zombie-bummified. We had to lock him in a bum-fighting simulator. We haven't seen him since the start of the zombie bumvasion.'

‘Zombie bumvasion!' said James, slowly recovering his memory. ‘How bad is it?'

‘Relax,' said Zack. ‘The situation is under control. It was touch and go for a while, but we got rid of them.'

‘And the Great White Bum?' said Judi. ‘It said it was going back to kill you!'

‘He won't be giving anybody any more trouble,' said Zack. ‘Thanks to Gran.'

‘Gran!?' said James. ‘What did she have to do with it?'

‘Everything,' said Zack, his voice wavering, and unable to hold back his tears any longer. ‘Everything.'

By the time Zack had finished telling his parents the whole story, not one of the bum-fighters—or even Zack's bum—had a dry eye.

Zack's mother held him by the shoulders. ‘I'm proud of you, Zack, and so would your gran be. You've achieved so much,' she said, ‘but how? You failed the Junior Bum-fighters' League entrance exam three times.'

‘I don't know,' said Zack. ‘I guess I'm just not good at exams.'

Zack's dad put his hand on Zack's shoulder. ‘Let's go home, son.'

‘Great idea, Dad,' said Zack.

Zack's dad winced. ‘One problem . . .' he said. ‘Our bum-mobile's stuck. The methane tanks are full, but it's buried a little too deep.'

Zack's bum jumped up. ‘No problems!' it said. ‘You just need a little extra thrust. And I'm just the bum to provide it! Tie me down, Zack.'

Zack climbed up and lashed his bum to the back of the bum-mobile with reinforced toilet paper.

‘Ready when you are!' it said.

‘That's one hell of a bum you've got there, boy,' said James.

‘Yeah,' said Zack, patting his bum. ‘It's a good one, all right. If it was self-wiping it'd be perfect!'

‘I don't need to be self-wiping,' said Zack's bum. ‘That's what I've got you for!'

P
owered by both the pure Uranusian methane and Zack's bum, James and Judi Freeman's bum-mobile broke all known space-travel speed records on its way back to Earth.

As they flew they saw the brown hole in the distance.

‘There it is,' announced James. ‘Just look at that monster!'

Zack shuddered as he stared at it.

Even from this great distance Zack was aware of its dizzying power. He felt himself being drawn into it. His brain seemed to be swirling in his skull—churning and spinning like the brown hole itself. And, as his brain and the brown hole seemed to merge, Zack became aware of a sort of wordless understanding between them. An understanding that there was unfinished business between them. ‘You'll be back,' it seemed to be whispering to him. ‘You'll be back . . .'

As Zack stared out of the bum-mobile porthole he felt his mother's hand on his shoulder.