Chapter Eight
Into the Rigor Mortis Forest, so called because the dry twigs snapped like bones and the huge Skelegtrees smiled like corpses. Alice walked under the twisted canopy and the bare dead trees welcomed the pair through gnarled and opened arms. The Skelegtrees themselves reminded Alice of the poor that her father had helped. She had been with him amongst the most squalid areas of London where there was more disease than air.
“Now, Alice,” her father had said, taking Alice by the hand, “you will see things here that will cause you to be horrified, but it is important you remember these people do not deserve your revulsion. They deserve your pity and your ability to help.”
Alice had nodded.
She had seen those who had starved to death. She had seen those taken by wasting ailments that drained the life from their bodies. There had been babies too weak to cry and mothers too weak to help them. She had seen how a human could become rags of flesh on a frame too brittle to walk. Yet when Alice’s father had come to help, they had still managed to smile.
They were all around here in the forest. Each tree twisted like a skeletal thing. Branches resembled painfully thin arms, bark shaped like ribs, knots in the wood that were the image of tortured faces.
“What I don’t understand,” thought Alice out loud, “is why is everything so dark and gloomy here? Where are the colours? Where is the—?”
“Life?” added Mousehead.
There was the answer. The lack of life, of being, of existence, leaving a warped echo of a world.
“Was your old world full of colour and life?”
“Yes,” lamented Alice, “but that made it all the crueller.”
With each of Alice’s steps, a rustling creak took the path she had walked only moments before. The trees slowly turned and followed Alice as she walked by. She paced herself carefully amongst roots that threated to trip her. They twisted and undulated like a mass of worms amongst the undergrowth. Her dress would snag and when she looked into freeing herself, she found branch claws pulling at her, with a skull-etched tree grinning with mischief.
“There is no need for that,” Alice said, as friendly as she could, pulling herself away.
Her dress tore as she stepped back from the grip of the branches. In the orphanage the girls were given one dress and that was it. Miss Scrim said it discouraged growing. Alice had been lucky, her blue dress had been four sizes too big, but now that Alice was dead finding a new dress would be impossible. Alice tried to fight back but another branch gripped at her long hair. Again Alice pulled away and was met with a sickening rip. Sizeable pieces of lank hair dangled from the tree. Alice put her hand to the raw patch, blood oozing from her scalp.
“Alice, be wary,” cried Mousehead too late.
Alice snatched for her hair but found her legs tied into roots. Into the rancid undergrowth Alice sank as easily as she had into the Thames. Weeds and matter stung her eyes and filled her ears. There was a crawling under her skin; this was not a metaphor. Alice twisted and writhed in the dirt, snapping and biting at the things that held her. With an effort she managed to stand, spitting dirt and removing roots that had burrowed into her dead flesh. All around her the branches shook in creaking laughter.
“What is happening?” Alice demanded to know.
“It’s the forest,” Mousehead volunteered. “The forest haunted by the unwanted dead. They attach themselves to the trees, looking for life. Alas in Undeadland there is only death, and what is left is only malice.”
Stumbling, hindered, Alice explored deeper in the wicked woodland. With each step a branch would pull at her or lash out as she went past. Amongst the trips and stumbles Alice couldn’t help but be worried that by the time she found the white rabbit there would be nothing left of her but flayed bone. Alice held up her arms to protect her face from further attacks. She opened her eyes and spun in a confused circle. She found herself in a clearing of uprooted and pulped trees. The forest floor was a carpet of rotten woodchip. A white mist held in the air.
“Look,” Mousehead warned.
Alice saw the creature. A cherub, yet grey and dead, flew towards her, bobbing up and down as if its wings were too small to keep it afloat.
There was an unmistakable sense of pleading from the creature as it sought refuge in Alice’s direction. Without thinking she held her arms for the creature and it flew towards her. What happened next was as unexpected as it was horrifying. A beast rose from the debris, huge in size and bloated, pulsating. It looked like a pale greyish maggot, yet as it rose Alice could see row upon row of stumped feet.
“Caterpillar?” mouthed Alice.
“Hide, quickly,” Mousehead added.
The caterpillar reared before the undead cherub, which attempted escape. Before it could the caterpillar opened its maw and let out a cloud of purple smoke. Instantly a look of pure bliss crossed the cherub’s face as it fell happily to the ground. Alice found herself eerily fascinated by what was happening. Now the caterpillar began gagging, its fat throat regurgitating as a white glob fell to the cherub with a screeching sound. The glob rolled and flopped and burrowed under the cherub’s flesh. The cherub only smiled as suddenly its skin bubbled and grew into a horrible pulsating fungus from its back. The caterpillar’s face was hidden amongst rows of pale chins. Alice spotted the light in its dark eyes as the caterpillar happily patted the grotesque ball, before in a purple mist it crawled into the shredded woodland.
“I think,” thought Alice aloud, “I think, we should carefully leave.” If Alice’s stomach could have churned, it would have.
There were animals and creatures strewn around the clearing. They all lay in the carpet of woodchips, each one with a blissful look upon its face. There was a lizard, mock turtle, March hare, albatross, fairies, goblins and other things that Alice had no name for. Each one had its own huge egg sac growing from it. In the middle of the nest grew a giant mushroom, or maybe a toadstool. Lying on top in noisy slumber and leaking the purple miasma in the air was the caterpillar. Alice would have concerned herself more with this if not for the fact she then spotted the white rabbit.
“The rabbit, it’s the rabbit!” she exclaimed.
The caterpillar shifted and she quickly whispered, “It’s the rabbit.”
Alice made her way over the creatures; there were things moving in those sacs.
She sat cross-legged next to the poor thing. It looked even worse than it had in London. Its skin was so stretched by the burrowing creature that it was almost transparent. Alice could see the things growing inside were hundreds of caterpillars.
“Rabbit, do you remember me?” Alice gently asked.
“Oh, yes, I took your heart, so full of love for those in true death,” replied the rabbit in a state of bliss. Its one eye rolled and its tongue lolled from its horrible mouth.
“Why did you do that?” she prompted.
“That’s my job, silly,” the rabbit replied. “I have to collect body parts for her, or she won’t let me back into the kingdom.”
“Rabbit, who is she?”
The rabbit smirked a twisted smirk. “The Queen of Hearts, the heartless queen…except…”
“Except, what, Rabbit?”
“Except, one heart is not enough, so she sent me away…poor rabbit.”
Mousehead spoke up. “I know where the heart kingdom is. I will show you, my Alice.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
Alice took a last look at the rabbit and sighed.
“Goodbye, Rabbit,” Alice said.
“You’re not going now.” The rabbit was chuckling now.
“Yes, I am,” she said, standing.
“No, you are not.” The rabbit added, “The caterpillar will not let you.”
Alice saw the deepening of the shadow too late. She turned slowly to be confronted by the huge caterpillar. Its face was vaguely human with hints of swine and was tiny in comparison to its bloated pale, albino belly segments. It opened its gaping mouth ready to releas
e the gas that could poison even the undead. However, having been witness to this previously, Alice was ready. She raised her foot and brought it down on the rabbit, whose egg sac split with a messy plop, spewing screaming infant caterpillars into the ground. They wriggled and writhed, calling for their mother.
“Thank you,” the rabbit said while the giant caterpillar roared in horror trying to save its children.
“Run, run as fast as you can,” Mousehead screeched.
Being dead meant Alice ran with all the grace of a freshly beheaded chicken. She tripped and went splayed into the Skelegtrees. She turned to see the caterpillar bearing down upon them. Alice tried to close her eyes, not wishing to witness what would happen to her, but could not help but stare. She watched as the caterpillar came crashing down and impaled itself on the razor-sharp trees, raining down wet meat upon Alice and Mousehead. Stuck, thrashing and becoming further trapped, the caterpillar wailed like a harpooned whale.
Chapter Nine
Alice and Mousehead left the Rigor Mortis Forest in a daze.
“Has Undeadland always been this way?” Alice wondered mainly to herself.
“No, not always,” Mousehead replied. There was reluctance in his voice.
“What happened?”
Mousehead sighed.
“Please don’t ask me that.”
Alice stopped and held Mousehead in one hand and stroked his dry head with her other.
“Please,” she said. “The more I know, the more I understand.”
“Fine, I will tell you. But never ask me again. It is a tale to be cursed by.”
And Alice trudged on, listening.
Undeadland hadn’t always been. It was once a magical and unusual place. It could only be reached by innocence and imagination, but, once there, a world of wonder waited. A world of white rabbits in waistcoats, Cheshire cats and mad hatters, never-ending tea parties, butterflies of real butter and flowers singing with laughter. That was until the witch came. A foul semi-human with wrinkled black skin like a dead toad left in the sun. Her eyes were blood red and full of hatred for everything and were firmly fixed at this world. She had arrived, wheezing and hunched, looking to prolong her own life, for something so dark could not sustain life itself. She took from others, turning them into undead things. It kept her corruption at bay, but when the life force began to wane she took it from the land itself. Turning the wondrous land into a cold and evil place. Even then as the last drop of colour drained from the sky it was not enough and once again she looked for new dark ways to keep her from rotting. She crowned herself Queen and demanded tribute from her subjects. The tribute was body parts from their very own walking corpses. So she was known as the Queen of Hearts for her collection of those that could no longer beat. The Heartless Queen in the Kingdom of Rot. A queen that could even make the dead scream.
“So are we to ask for an audience with the Queen?” asked Alice, curious how they would face what lay ahead.
“Oh, no,” Mousehead replied. “I have no idea what to do or even how we will ever find your heart. Perhaps we should not go to see the Queen after all?” There was hope in the tiny voice.
Alice examined her damaged chest. The wound had turned black and was weeping. Her arms had become the colour of bruises. She felt her face; her skin was too soft and missing in places.
“I think,” Alice said with some thought, “I think we have had enough taken from us. I think I would like to have something back.”
Chapter Ten
So they travelled far away from the Garden of Graveyards, beyond the Rigor Mortis Forest. Further and further. At the River of Poltergeists Alice stood at the bank. She could see apparitions churning in the misty swell, the wails of dead spirits swirling along a current of ghosts that held out wispy claws begging for Alice to join their misery.
“How am I to cross?” Alice wondered.
“Carefully,” Mousehead replied. “We could go around.”
“And how long would that take?” Alice asked. “I know time has no meaning for the dead. However, the longer I tally, the chances of finding my heart are less and less. I cannot and will not lose my parents again.”
Alice stepped forward and noticed a path of stones, each one spaced apart leading across the haunted river. Slowly Alice took the first small leap and managed to catch her balance as she landed on the first stone. The spirits floated around the rock, splashing at Alice’s ankles, moaning with a strange echo sound.
Float with us, Alice, float with us.
Alice jumped again
And missed
And fell into the river.
Death was cold. The purest death of body and spirit was colder still. Alice’s very being was frozen as what was left of her flesh and bone disappeared. She wailed and wailed and wailed until she became as the ghosts, as formless as torn butterfly wings. Around her a torrent of spirits forced her along. Millions of screaming faces spun around Alice in utter turmoil, taking her with them.
Float with us, Alice, float with us, a million voices whispered.
I am losing myself, she screamed in return.
Alice sank deeper into the manifestation, pulled into the whirlpool of dead spirits. Disappearing and becoming one with the haunt. Until at the last possible moment before all hope was gone a familiar face appeared, floating and unaffected by the rest of the poltergeist river. It was her mother, as Alice remembered her before cholera took her life. She smiled at Alice and beckoned her to follow. Alice tried but the pull of the dead spirits was too strong. She was gone…
Until her mother reached in and brought her into her arms and for the briefest of moments, Alice felt happiness again.
You are safe now, child, her mother said.
Suddenly Mousehead was calling.
“Alice, Alice, speak to me.”
Alice found herself standing across from the poltergeist river, apparently after crossing successfully. She checked herself. Her rotten flesh was as it was before she fell into the river; she could see her familiar bone breaking through where her journey had taken its toll.
“Are you here with me?” asked Mousehead.
“Yes,” she replied, “I think so.” Knowing very well, she was not.
Chapter Eleven
On a lonely hillside a windmill broken like a dead spider turned slowly as Alice and Mousehead looked down upon the Kingdom of Rot. Nearby a herd of undead cattle chewed cud that fell through gaps in their stomachs. They simply began to chew it again and so forth and so on. Alice walked along a dark path until she found a wall of thorns, an infinite number of wet black needles so tall as to threaten the miserable sky and as wide as to threaten to block the wretched horizon. For every stem of thorns, there was a withered rose, brown, sad and dead.
“We seem to be at an impasse,” Alice said to Mousehead.
“Over there, an entrance,” pointed out Mousehead, dangling from her neck.
Indeed there was a deliberate path through the thorns, almost invisible yet visible to a wandering eye, a temptation for further exploration. A wooden signpost marked the spot, but when they arrived Alice and Mousehead found it to be a warning instead.
Nailed upon the rotting wood, which was held firm by a post, a dead cat grinning from ear to ear smiled at the approaching Alice. It observed them through large green eyes that sat in a larger round head of purple fur. It smiled the widest, sharpest smile. Even in the gloom of Undeadland the two rows of teeth gleamed. As for the rest of the cat, it was a broken mess of matted fur, wrapped around a sickly thin body. It reminded Alice of drowned kittens she had once seen washed up on the banks of the Thames. If not for the fact that several nails held the cat against the wooden board, it would have been impossible for that body to carry that head.
“Hello. Visitors, is it?” hissed the cat. “An undead and a Mousehead?”
“I am Alice and I am a girl, thank you.”
“Forgive me,” with a grin. “You look undead — you look very undead.”
“Sh
e was once a girl, stupid cat, from a living place,” Mousehead joined in in Alice’s defence.
“Once? Are you to have me believe this undead was alive?”
“I was alive, a long time ago. I thought I didn’t like it. However, I realise there is no escape from pain and it followed me.”
“Alas,” lamented the cat, “the greatest of revelations often come too late.”
“Bah, come, Alice, let us leave this creature to its thoughts.” There was anger in Mousehead’s voice.
“Now now, little mouse, you may be on my food chain but do not be so eager to enter the Kingdom of Rot,” meowed the cat.
“What do you know about anything, stupid dead cat?” the mouse shouted, as much as it could for something so small.
“I know what the Queen does to those who wander her kingdom. I would wander this way and that, floating and making mischief. The Queen did not like that one bit. She liked to take her time, think of wondrous punishments for me.” The cat explained, “She had me stretched, but that just made me tickle. So she had me broken with hammers, but that just made me yawn. I was put in a sack and drowned, buried, burnt, stabbed, slashed, crushed with all manner of things. Nothing could take my grin. So in the end I was left here, dead and forgotten.”
Mousehead muttered under its non-breath.
“Yes, ʼtis a sad tale indeed,” the cat replied.
“Do you have a suggestion, Cat?” Alice approached the creature closer.
“Indeed I do.” And it grinned. “Let us reach a bargain. You pull me from this wooden prison. In return I will guide you through the Kingdom of Rot.”
“We don’t need you,” spat Mousehead. “I have brought Alice good, so far.”
“And a fine job you have done,” Alice interjected. “However, I do think more friends cannot hurt.”
“So it is settled,” the dead cat said, and it looked to Alice in anticipation.
Alice stepped forward. The cat was held in place by thick spikes, each as big as both of Alice’s hands.
She gripped one and pulled as hard as she could. Her skin began to rip and the spike held fast.
The Gruesome Adventures of Alice in Undeadland Page 3