Trying again, this time she used her legs against the post for leverage. There was a creak and the first spike fell free.
“That’s it, well done. That one was in my spine,” encouraged the cat.
Alice pulled at the others until her hands were practically bloodied stumps. As the last spike hit the ground the cat fell with the grace of a corpse, landing on its head with a thump.
“Alas, my body is not what it was. I’m afraid if we are to follow our mutual endeavour, I am to be carried.”
“How dare you?” protested Mousehead.
“Don’t fret, Mousehead,” Alice said.
Alice looked upon the cat; its body really was a broken mess. Alice picked it up. Somehow there was no weight to the cat at all and it felt like a mummified cockroach, brittle and dry. She tied the cat’s broken body over her shoulder, its head resting next to hers.
Chapter Twelve
The thorn bushes passed and opened to the Kingdom of Rot. It reached out to them, a ghost town, a maze of broken houses and lonely dead trees. There were many houses, a style Alice recognised from fairy-tale books, a kind of gothic ramshackle of dark crumbling houses with slate roofs and twisted chimneys. Of rusting iron gates and overgrown gardens of black weed. Of doors struggling like drunks failing to stand upright by the hinges that held them. Broken windows, where musty curtains billowed through. All upon cobbled streets where dead rats scurried by, much to the pleasure of the cat, who licked his lips. Whereas nesting on the roofs above ravens sat in various states of decay, watching through empty sockets. Above further still and eclipsing the town and the wall of thorns, the palace jutted in foreboding shadow like a giant hag claw.
Alice noticed the almost visible sadness that hung in the air.
“What happened here?” Alice whispered to the cat.
“Her Majesty happened here,” the cat meowed and the town shuddered at her name.
Alice hurried to a cobbled crossroad, where a fountain that was little more than a bowl for stagnant water and moss crumbled. A stone angel, missing a head, stood as the centrepiece. It was here the three found they were not alone. Coming from each dark corner of the street, pouring from the shadows, groaning, shambling, were things that resembled flickering images from moving pictures. They moved as if controlled by an invisible puppet master, in broken movements. There were men, women and children, the old, the young, all the town’s residents. Except they were more dead than Alice thought possible. Some climbed from graves hidden in the ground as dirt and cobbles overturned, freeing them. There were babies crawling from the roofs and walls of the houses like insects. Their eyes and mouths were gaping black voids, and where each heart should be was nothing but a violent cavity.
“Good evening, subjects of the heartless Queen,” purred the cat through his unwavering grin. “Please ignore undead such as ourselves and go about your business.”
One of the wretched stepped forward. It had no jaw and its tongue flopped.
“You came to us; your parts belong to us,” it moaned.
The foulness lurched and Alice found herself overrun by the mass. There was no escape as hands ripped at her flesh, pulling away chunks from her very bones. Unable to kick, unable to fight back, the cat was wrenched from her and Alice could see it being torn to pieces.
Purple fur flew into the air as the cat’s head, still grinning, bounced from one grabbing hand to another.
“Don’t worry, Alice, it mainly tickles,” the cat screeched from the chaos.
Alice was carried along into one of the decaying buildings, creeping fingers still digging into her. Inside the building was a haven for dust, webs and many crawling things. Alice was placed into a chair that had once been red velvet. A dust cloud rose into the air. She was a mess; her skin was hanging from her arms and her legs were like oversized clothes. Alice couldn’t panic; instead she wondered what it would be like to be pulled apart and shared, to be pawed over like scraps by starving animals, unable to die. A crowd came into the room but stayed shuddering in the shadows. One child lurched forward, a girl, pale and missing her heart. She held a finger to her dead lips to hush Alice.
“What are they doing?” Alice whispered while keeping as still as possible.
“I think they are hiding from something,” Mousehead replied.
Mousehead would have elaborated when the house was suddenly turned to splinters. Alice could see through the smoke shapes striding in almost slow motion. As the air cleared so did the figures. They were thin and at least six feet tall, completely robed in crimson, each with two large rounded onyx eyes, set in a blank face save for the long beak that protruded from a red mask. Each one was exactly like that of a plague doctor she had only seen in pictures from her father’s medical journals. Alice looked up as one of the crimson men stood over her, its red robe billowing. The lesser people’s faces morphed into a terrible visage. They howled with a sound from beyond the grave as the crimson men stepped forward. Each one held a two-handled scythe and they harvested the town people. Some tried to escape through the damaged walls, but were cleaved in two by the blade that looked sharp enough to slice air. The crimson men were taking from the undead and placing the spoils in blood-red sacks.
One raised its blade to Alice.
“Wait,” shouted Mousehead in a voice Alice hadn’t heard before. It was more confident.
“The Queen will want this one; she is from the living place.”
“Mousehead?” asked Alice in want of explanation. The crimson man tilted its head in interest.
“Take me off her,” Mousehead continued. “I have brought her here as commanded; I want my body back, as promised.”
Alice was taken outside in the grip of the red giant. There were more crimson men stalking the streets, cutting down undead as they went. The choice cuts were thrown onto a cart drawn by a rotting mare that snorted blood. A child ran past Alice only to be sliced. As her legs were placed on the cart the undead child fought to keep her giblets in place.
“Why, Mousehead, are you saying such things?” Alice pleaded.
Mousehead dangled in a crimson glove.
“You will see, dearest Alice; we all belong to the heartless Queen. You will see.”
Chapter Thirteen
To the palace Alice went.
Led along the procession of faceless crimson men and their spoils. Over a drawbridge that stopped them from falling into a never-ending vacuum. Alice stared; it was a swirl of chaos stretching to either side and presumably around the palace. In the dull grey of Undeadland the chasm was a magical purple and gold, spinning and spinning. The palace itself was a monument to a dead royalty. The walls and towers stabbed into the sky as if trying to make the very clouds bleed. She was moved on through the giant iron gates, spiked with rose motifs. The gates screeched open and into the palace grounds the procession went. The garden was of the same black thorn and dead roses that surrounded the kingdom. Except here maids with white dresses, although missing all of their skin, tended to the dark crop. They pricked their fingers and dripped their own blood to nourish the plant, painting the roses blood red. Alice observed for a moment before being ushered to the palace. Her eyes followed the walls and the towers skyward. Again exactly as she had read in fairy tales. Except instead of a palace of ivory and gold, the heartless Queen’s home was constructed from a countless number of skulls, packed tightly together like brickwork. Alice strongly suspected each one was looking back at her.
With a yawning, the gates of the palace opened. They were approached by a figure dressed in a garish white suit of frills and pomp and red roses sewn upon random areas of the material. The figure was a sickly thin man whose grey curled wig was sliding from his head, before he moved it back into position. He stopped in front of Alice and looked her up and down with distaste. Alice in return nearly grimaced at the man’s face; his skin was too tight for his skull. It gave the impression that his face was being pulled to the other side of his head and tied at the back.
“I
am the Knave of Broken Hearts; I am to take you to the Queen. She was very pleased to see you in the kingdom and personally sent her crimson men to greet you. You should be honoured,” he said and turned towards another, smaller door in the palace wall.
The guard nudged Alice and she followed into the palace. The interior was not what she expected and yet entirely as she would expect. They walked down a corridor of pure white marble mausoleum walls and floors underneath high polished stone arched ceilings, all lit by large wax candles from alcoves in the walls. They passed countless polished wooden doors and other times hallways lined with beautiful red velvet curtains. They walked through a corridor of full-size portraits of royalty in golden ornate frames.
“Behold the previous Kings and Queens of Undeadland,” the Knave announced as they passed.
Alice regarded them; there was a textured look to the paintings, as if they were protruding from the canvas. Alice noted closer that they were not paintings at all. The portrait subjects had been drained and stretched and sewn into the frame. When she peered closer, she could hear a slight pleading coming from their eyes. In Undeadland no one died; she shuddered.
The Knave halted them at a pair of grand wooden doors polished with a near mirror shine. He turned to Alice.
“You are about to meet the greatest ruler this land has ever known. As such there is a certain etiquette to be maintained, rules if you will, three to be exact. Do you understand?”
Alice nodded.
“Rule one, you will address the Queen as Highness or you will lose your head. Rule two, you will not stare at the Queen or you will lose your eyes. Rule three, you bow to the whims of the Queen or you will lose everything. Do you understand?”
Alice nodded. The Knave swept the doors open.
“Your Royal Highness,” the Knave bellowed, “may I present to you, Alice of the living place.”
The Knave bowed with a swish of hand. He glanced at Alice through his stretched face, who in turn bowed the best she could. The room was impossibly huge with a marble floor disappearing far into the distance. There were Roman columns of white stone rising high above. Around the room, suspended and hooked by black chain, were red candles that dripped wax like an abattoir.
Alice realised she was in a crypt. Something peered from behind a column.
“Your H-H-Highness, this is Alice.”
Again something peered from behind the column and then almost reluctantly stepped into view. The Queen appeared to be no older than five years old. She skipped towards Alice and the Knave. Her royal dress was of pure black velvet and the Queen almost tripped several times. Her crown was at least three sizes too big and needed constant readjustment. In her tiny hand the Queen held a balloon that bobbed after her. Alice recognised it as the head of the purple cat. It winked at Alice.
The Knave rose and Alice followed suit.
“Hello,” said the Queen with a voice so sweet, like ice cream and razor blades.
Although the Queen was indeed a child, her face was a patchwork of other faces, held together by thick stiches. Her eyes were of the purest raven black that matched her bobbed hair.
“Hello, Your Majesty.” Alice knew nothing else to say.
The Queen held Alice in her gaze.
“Why so sad, Alice? You are here to play. My Mousehead tells me you have come from a faraway place.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“Do you like to play, Alice?”
Darkness crept from her eyes like tears.
“I used to,” replied Alice solemnly. “Then my parents died, then I died. There seems little point, Your Majesty.”
The cat bobbed in the air, grinning. It looked from the Queen to Alice and the Knave.
“Tell me a story, Alice. If it’s a good one, we can place nicely. Perhaps croquet?” the Queen said.
Alice recalled a story from her childhood that seemed to suit the Queen.
“Mrs Pork,
The butcher’s wife,
Screamed when her children were born,
Not from birthing midnight to dawn.
Terrified of the triplets that lay on the bed,
Each one had a pig face instead of a head.
The pig children grew in the cellar and played in the dark.
They spoke to each other through a series of snorts and barks.
Mrs Pork begged her husband, wailed and cried,
‘Put them outside and leave them to die.’
‘Are you mad, woman?’ the butcher man said.
‘How can you want our precious piglets dead?
Pig children must be cared for, loved, fed and made fat.’
Then a feast of child bacon until our bellies we slap.’
The pig children listened from the cracks in the floor.
They waited till midnight then slowly crept through the door.
Mr and Mrs Pork were asleep in their bed,
Not woken with kisses, but cleavers instead.
Very next morning the butcher shop was the talk of the town,
Open for business with free meat by the pound.
It was the sweetest that anyone had tasted,
Wrapped in brown paper by the children with pig faces.
However the town’s folk didn’t run away scared or even run away fleet,
They simply enjoyed Mr and Mrs Pork,
As free samples of meat.”
“Leave us,” the Queen said to the Knave, laughing in delight at Alice’s story.
The Knave looked so hurt that his face skin nearly fell loose.
“Are you sure that is wise?” The words left his mouth before his mind could stop them.
“You dare?” laughed the Queen. “Would you prefer I have you cubed and fed to be undead as excrement until time ends?”
“No, Majesty, I meant no offence,” babbled the Knave as he backed away and was soon gone.
Only the guard remained that slowly followed behind.
“Alice, tell me,” the Queen asked, skipping along, “why did you come here?”
“When I died, the scraggy white rabbit stole my heart, so I followed it here. I need it, you see. It’s where I keep my parents,” Alice explained.
“And my Mousehead helped you. That was naughty of me, wasn’t it? Letting Mousehead pretend to be your friend?”
Alice didn’t reply. She watched the cat bobbing along pulling faces at the Queen.
“If I give you your heart back, will you give me something?” The Queen smiled the sweetest, most insidious of smiles.
“What would you need, Your Majesty?” Alice asked tentatively. She was unsure what she had to give.
The Queen’s smile blackened for a moment before turning innocent again.
“Come, Alice; let me show you my collection.”
Chapter Fourteen
The Queen, excited as a child in a magical cave full of sweets, held her balloon string in one hand and Alice’s hand in the other.
The room held many wooden shelves that held jars of many things. The Queen danced from one to another, while skinless handmaidens working in the palace looked on.
“Here are my heads. Aren’t they wonderful?” The Queen giggled at the jars and the undead trapped inside.
“Here are my arms; I like the lady ones best.” They hung like slaughtered meat on hooks.
“This is where I keep the legs, here are the eyes, and over here are hands. I have lots because I’m the Queen and I can have anything I want.”
She skipped to a tall stack of shelves.
“These I like the best.”
Each jar held a grey and blackened heart. Floating in liquid and refusing to beat.
“Then why would you need me?” Alice asked.
The Queen stroked Alice’s chest; she tut-tutted at the damage.
“Allow me,” the Queen said before beckoning to a maiden.
With needle and thread the handmaiden moved with an ethereal grace. Almost floating, she took Alice and sat her in a leather doctor’s chair. The han
dmaiden swished this way and that, her skinless hands a red blur, until she finished and bowed.
Alice cradled herself. The hole in her chest was gone and inside Alice could feel her heart. But there was more. As Alice stood, the handmaiden brought a dress mirror before her. Alice marvelled at the reflection. Her undead damage was gone, sewn together with the precision of a surgeon. Although Alice was clearly still dead, she looked more like a doll rather than a zombie thing. What was more, she could feel her parents’ love filling her once again, seeping from her heart.
“Now.” The Queen crept forward, her eyes blacker than any darkness before. “The London Mousehead tells me of — is it true there is life?”
“Yes, Majesty.” Alice felt herself sinking back into the chair.
“With breathing? And hearts that beat?”
“Mostly, Your Majesty.”
The Queen considered. She didn’t notice that the cat was floating downward towards her.
“I would love to have beating hearts. I would love to send my army to London and bring me life. Tell me, Alice, how do I do that?”
Alice thought for a moment. The crimson man stood next to her and stroked his scythe.
“I do not know how I arrived. I fell, that is all I can say.”
The Queen’s smile didn’t waver as she produced Mousehead from her pocket; she held it to Alice’s face.
“Why do you lie, poor, gullible Miss Alice?” Mousehead spat. “You told me of a pipe that connected our worlds.”
The Queen added, “Alice, my best new friend, you can take me home with you or you can stay here, with me, in more jars than any undead has ever before.”
But Alice had no idea how to return home, never mind how to lead an army there.
“I…I…” she could only say.
But then there was no need to finish any sentence. At that moment the cat floated down and with a huge grin crushed Mousehead in those sharp yellow teeth, chewing it to a pulp.
The Queen screamed, letting her balloon loose, and the cat floated to the impossibly high ceiling.
“Goodbye, Alice. Remember, the Queen is only a child on the outside. You know what to do,” were the cat’s parting words.
The Gruesome Adventures of Alice in Undeadland Page 4