Chapter
Fourteen: In Which Alice Joins the Buffet
A zombie soared through
the glittering glass and flopped in a heap on top of the harpsichord.
“Braiiiiiins!” it shrieked, and chomped into the harpsichordist’s forehead.
Blood sprayed across the violist’s sheet music and the whole room screamed as
one.
Alice clutched Clara as
everyone started to run in all directions, screaming and falling and trampling
one another. Viols and violas flew through the air as the musicians scrambled
and the zombie polished off the harpsichordist’s nerve center.
The lady in the turban
knocked Clara over as she went pounding by in the direction of the door. The
two zombies lurched into the crowd from either side. The party population
surged towards the door. Several fine ladies and gentlemen managed to trample
Clara before Alice could peel her off the floor. She tried to fight the flow of
gentry, but they were swept along on the screaming, fruitless attempt at the
door.
For a moment, Alice
hoped it would not be fruitless as the doors bowed under the pressure of
frantic lords and ladies, but it held. Probably for the best, she thought; that
many people trying to exit down the hall at once would have been deadly. Now
the crowd scattered, pushing and shoving and wailing.
The zombies seemed to be
peering through the masses, grabbing the odd guest and comparing them to a
locket they each wore. They shoved most of the screaming people away, but
randomly, they would snack on a brain here and there.
Asa Crimpton had come
through the window at some point and now stood on the sagging harpsichord,
wearing a black mask and surveying the melee with a pair of opera glasses.
“I’ll never read novels
again!” Clara swore, crossing herself.
Alice dragged her
through the confusion, trying to slip around the zombies towards the windows.
The pocket watch zombie threw on elderly punch drinker to the side and made for
them.
“Run!” Alice said,
tugging on Clara. But there were so many other people running the opposite way
and crosswise. Charles appeared out of the confusion and pulled them off
towards the dining room, punching and shoving people out of his way.
“Women into the dining
room!” he yelled.
He grabbed Lyra on the
way.
“What are you doing?”
she protested.
“That necromancer can’t
keep track of everything in this mess!” he shouted back. “If Test goes for you
or Alice, he might not see. Besides, if we get the women out of the way it’ll
be easier to find Wickwood.”
“What?” asked Clara.
Charles pushed them into
the dining room. It seemed that quite a few of the ladies had already had this
notion. And several men who were hiding under the table. Lyra checked that none
of them were Lord Wickwood then threw the tablecloth back down and tried to
fight her way out of the room, but the ladies kept pouring in and she made no
headway. Alice pulled Clara along the table to the center and opened the
smelling bottle. The two girls bent their heads over it and struggled to remain
conscious. Mrs. Crawft cowered in the corner of the room, clutching a
candelabra.
Out in the ballroom,
Alice could hear Charles rallying the men. “Let’s re-kill these bastards, eh?”
Then the door closed and
the lady in the turban locked it and lodged a dining chair under the handle.
Outside, screams
reverberated and the chomping accelerated. There were a few pistol shots and
then another scream.
“My babies!” Lyra
wailed. The other ladies looked at her in confusion.
They all huddled in the
semi-darkness as the candles sputtered and the men under the table whimpered.
Alice was sandwiched between Lyra and Clara. Lyra’s reticule was tied to her
cord belt, dangling and clinking…
Shattering noises,
wails, and trampling footsteps came from the ballroom.
Then the door splintered
and the chair snapped. The ladies screeched and squealed, pressing away from
the doors. Alice grabbed Lyra’s reticule and ripped it loose.
The wilted-looking
zombie came groaning into the room, flopping its arms and grinning. It grabbed
the turban lady and bit into her head. It came away with a mouthful of silk and
spluttered. Spitting and grimacing, it threw the lady to the side and lurched
further into the room. The ladies struggled amongst each other to get away.
Many of them, including Alice and Clara, leapt onto the table, hitching up
their skirts and dancing about as if there was a mouse.
The zombie grinned up at
their undergarments and clapped. It started to pull them off one by one and
split their heads open. The ladies got the idea and jumped off the table,
fleeing back into the ballroom.
The corpse made his way
down the buffet to Alice and Clara. Alice was paralyzed. Clara had lost her
wits in the horror and danced a mad cancan. The zombie grinned and reached for
her hungrily. Another lady of more fortitude picked up the epergne from the
center of the table, dumped the flowers and fruit off and hurled it at the
zombie’s head. The creature stumbled back and advanced again. Alice unlocked
her frozen limbs and pushed the hysterical Clara behind her.
The zombie reached up
and grabbed Alice’s wrist—the wrist of the hand that held the smelling bottle.
As the zombie pulled her off the table, the bottle fell out of her limp grasp
and shattered on the creature’s head.
The ammonia and salt
trickled down his face into his mouth and he wailed, letting go of Alice. Alice
promptly slid under the table and cowered next to Lyra’s looker. The zombie
screamed, its terrible voice rising in pitch until the chandelier shattered and
the mirror cracked. It fell to the marble floor next to Alice, its sightless
eyes staring at her. She screamed and scooted back, bumping into a punch
drinker, but the zombie did not move.
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