The Zombie Adventures of Sarah Bellum Read Free

accompany me. "It has been a pleasure, Miss Belllummm ."
    His voice is driving me
crazy. And his hand on my arm again, guiding me out of the door and
into the corridor. I practically scamper ahead, snatching my coat
back from Brain-Dead Blonde Mark II.
    "Thank you for your
time, Mr. Dry," I say, back in the near-safety of the lobby.
There is no sign of Brain-Dead Blonde the receptionist, and I can't
wait to get away. "It has been very educational."
    "I'm sure it will
be," he agrees, with a courteous nod. " Au revoir ,
Miss Belllummm ."
    I run to the Hummer in my
pointy Pigalle pumps, and lock myself in. I can see gulls flocking to
the spot on the beach outside his office, on the far side of the
building.
    Those shadows in my head
– I fight to control them.
    How dare he hijack my
fantasies, my pure and innocent thoughts of the dead? How dare he
make a mockery of it all by walking around in broad
daylight and touching me??!
    There ought to be a law
against that sort of thing…
    As I drive home again,
all I can see through the rain bouncing off the road in front of me,
is his gray and amused, sardonic and demonically attractive face.

CHAPTER
TWO :
    NINE AND A HALF
REAPS

    My Pizza Heaven scooter is protesting as I ride up the mile-long driveway to the
enormous stately home. I've never been called out here before. The
little two-stroke engine is making those annoying little noises, only
slightly more annoying than the noises that the gorgeous Ace Bumgang
at Bumgang & Sons' Breaker's Yard makes when I ask him to
take a look at it for me – on the occasions that I've ridden it
through gravel, or a puddle more than three inches deep.
    Good Lord, the house is
huge. Like one of those 'brownsigns' in England, that have most of
the rooms sectioned off with gilt corded rope, and that the public
are allowed to wander around in at the weekends. So long as they
don't stray from the carpet and into the electric fencing, preventing
them from leaving with more shiny heirloom helmets hidden down their
trousers than they came in with.
    A black stretch Cadillac
limo is parked at the foot of the steps, the engine and exhaust still
ticking quietly as it cools, as if the owner has only recently
arrived home. I pull in at a respectable distance behind.
    Swallowing my nerves, I
take the pizza bag out of the top-box after parking up, and scale the
enormous marble steps. I was rather hoping there would be a delivery
slot, or at least a cat-door big enough to push the box through and
run, which is my preferred tactic when also delivering to the rough
end of town. I'd rather lose one pizza's worth of payment, than my
whole bike while my back is turned. Still smarting from the occasion
when I returned to the kerb just in time to see it being towed away
around the far corner of the block, by four small children on a
Fisher-Price musical push-along cart. Playing Old MacDonald Had a
Farm … I cannot listen to that nursery rhyme since. It
gives me terrible PTSD flashbacks.
    But no. Just an
entryphone beside the studded oak door. I press the buzzer, wondering
if there is a camera as well, and if they'll insist I remove my George and Mildred peaked crash helmet before responding. The
one I still wear because I love Ace Bumgang's face as he tells me the
horrors of fixed-peak open-face headwear in an RTA. Sort of a mixture
of caring, considerate, concerned, and 'get out of my site office,
you deluded stalker…' While he pulls a sweater over his tight
t-shirt, hiding those delicious-looking biceps and pectorals from my
hungry gaze…
    Expecting an intercom
reply to my buzz, I get a shock when the door is opened silently in
front of me – and for the first time I fully understand the
meaning of the famous phrase 'the world dropped out of my bottom.'
    For standing in front of
me, his matt-black tie undone and just-dead hair hypnotically
dishevelled, is Crispin Dry – vending machine magnate,
entrepreneur, and the sexiest corpse I've recently seen – since