Читать книгу The Gruesome Adventures Of Alice In Undeadland - Sebastian Gregory - Страница 8

Chapter Two

Alice found death to be quite troublesome. So she decided not to do it any more. When she opened her eyes again, she found the stars staring back at her. Was this the afterlife? If so it had dampness to it. Alice realised she had been carried by the water and abandoned upon the muddy riverbank. Soaking wet and covered in thick mud, Alice lay in the silt and pondered. She should have been panicked at her ordeal but Alice was no longer breathing. Her chest simply refused to gasp for air. Water dripped from her mouth as if she were an overflowing cup of tea. A way along the river she could see the distant silhouette of Tower Bridge. There were police whistles demanding attention. The lights of London’s eyes continued to watch her from all around the Thames.

It was then she noticed the rabbit sitting on her chest. The rabbit was dirty, white and tatty. A wretched thing with broken ears and a missing left eye. Curiously its mouth was covered by a surgeon’s mask. Confused by this, Alice noticed the rabbit’s paws. In one it held a blooded scalpel, in its other a human heart, still dripping. She held her hand to where her terrified heart should have been pumping; except it was now an empty wound.

The rabbit placed her heart into a tiny knapsack tied around its waist. It leapt from Alice and over to a sewer pipe jutting from the bank, spilling London’s filth into the river. Underneath, the rabbit was covered in muck, crawling and struggling upwards. As it made its way to the pipe the spilling sewage washed it back down into the mud.

“That’s my heart,” shouted Alice as she waddled over, heavy and sloshing with water.

She managed to pick the rabbit up in both hands; it looked like a stuffed toy, yet had the feel of bone wrapped in wet rags. The rabbit immediately screeched a horrible sound when Alice lifted it from the mud. It tore away its mask and sank sharp teeth deep into Alice’s left hand. There was no pain but Alice shook the creature this way and that. The rabbit refused to let go, so she had no choice but to smash its head against the pipe. The rabbit spun from Alice’s hand and disappeared into the darkness of the sewer.

“Well, I never,” gasped Alice. She held her bitten hand to her eyes.

Two fingers were now missing. Strange, thought Alice, as to why there was no blood. The skin and stumps were a pale greenish. She tore a piece of material from her dress and wrapped the makeshift bandage over her wound.

Alice’s mother had always taught her to keep her most precious emotions in her heart. Alice remembered her mother holding and stroking her hair. She ran her finger over her chest bone, making the shape of a love heart. Having the organ stolen was akin to having the love she held for her departed parents taken away. Alice searched herself for any feelings, only to find she had none. Death had hollowed her. This would not do at all; Alice had no choice but to follow the rabbit.

The rusted pipe, although tiny in comparison to Alice, would still be able to accommodate her if she crawled on her stomach. She waited until her eyes had adjusted to the dark and her nose to the stench before using the bank to climb into the pipe. There was a lining of soft debris and a kind of slime not unlike that of slugs, so Alice slid along at a pace.

This isn’t so dreadful, thought Alice.

The running water washed away most of the mud and the rats that ran along seemed friendly enough, only occasionally stopping to nibble at her legs. However the rabbit was nowhere to be seen, but Alice could hear screeching further along. She believed herself to be getting closer to her quarry when all of a sudden the pipe took an impossibly sharp dip, sending Alice sliding down, sprawling.