Alice in Zombieland

Chapter 6 The Tiny Corpse and Pepper

For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, shivering violently, fighting against the enormous and mindless hunger that kept growing inside her, and wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came running out of the wood—(she considered him to be a footman because he was in livery: otherwise, judging by his face only, she would have called him a corpse)—and rapped loudly at the door with his torn and bony knuckles. It was opened by another footman in livery, with a round face, and large eyes; and both footmen, Alice noticed, looked pale and not quite alive, and not quite dead either. They both also smelled terrible; she could smell them even from her distant bush. Each of them also wore strange jeweled collars around their necks. And both had powdered hair that curled all over their heads. She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

The arriving Footman gave a snarling grunt and began by producing from under his arm a great letter, nearly as large as himself, stained by dark blood stains and other unthinkable fluids, and this he handed over to the other, saying, in a solemn tone, ‘For the Duchess. An Invitation from the Queen to play croquet.’ The door Footman repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the words a little, ‘From the Queen. An invitation for the Duchess to play croquet.’

Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled together. And then there was a great tumult of flailing arms and gnashing teeth, and the two footmen were attacking one another, tearing at their powdered wigs and blood stained jackets.

Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped out the delivery Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky, licking its bony bloody fingers. Alice didn’t like to think what had happened to the other footman, but she saw no corpse lying about, only one of those odd jeweled collars lying in the dust.

Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.

‘There’s no sort of use in knocking,’ said the Footman, still nibbling at his gore-stained fingers, ‘and that for two reasons. First, because I’m on the same side of the door as you are; secondly, because they’re making such a noise inside, no one could possibly hear you.’ And certainly there was a most extraordinary noise going on within—a constant howling and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish or kettle had been broken to pieces.

‘Please, then,’ said Alice, ‘how am I to get in?’

‘There might be some sense in your knocking,’ the Footman went on without attending to her, ‘if we had the door between us. For instance, if you were inside, you might knock, and I could let you out, you know.’ He was looking up into the sky all the time he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil. ‘But perhaps he can’t help it,’ she said to herself; ‘his eyes are so very nearly at the top of his head. But at any rate he might answer questions.—How am I to get in?’ she repeated, aloud.

‘I shall sit here,’ the Footman remarked, ‘till tomorrow—’

At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate came skimming out, straight at the Footman’s head: it just grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees behind him.

‘—or next day, maybe,’ the Footman continued in the same tone, exactly as if nothing had happened.

‘How am I to get in?’ asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

‘Are you to get in at all?’ said the Footman. ‘That’s the first question, you know.’

It was, no doubt: only Alice did not like to be told so. ‘It’s really dreadful,’ she muttered to herself, ‘the way all the creatures argue. It’s enough to drive one crazy!’

The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for repeating his remark, with variations. ‘I shall sit here,’ he said, ‘on and off, for days and days.’

‘But what am I to do?’ said Alice.

‘Anything you like,’ said the Footman, and began eating his own fingers in great snapping crunches, moaning in ecstasy as he did so.

‘Oh, there’s no use in talking to him,’ said Alice desperately: ‘he’s perfectly idiotic! Eating himself all up! What shall be left in a little while and how will he answer the door without his hands?’ And she opened the door and went in.

The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of smoke from one end to the other: the Duchess was sitting on a three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to be full of soup.

The kitchen was dimly lit by the small fire under the cooking pot. Shadows danced along the walls, which looked wet and dripped with something thick and dark. Small skeletons hung from pegs along the walls. Some belonged to various animals—frogs, cats, dogs, pigs and rabbits, mostly. But there were some that had obviously belonged to small children, and those frightened Alice a great deal. What kind of people had she stumbled across that ate small children?

But Alice’s hunger was getting the best of her again and she leaned towards the cooking pot. The delicious scent wafted to her and her mouth began to water; she peeked into the pot and saw dismembered legs and arms swimming in the dark red liquid. Despite her hunger, her eyes began to water as she bent over the smoking pot. ‘There’s certainly too much pepper in that soup!’ Alice said to herself, as well as she could for sneezing.

There was certainly too much of it in the air. Even the Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was sneezing and howling alternately without a moment’s pause. The only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook, and a skinny black cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from ear to ear. The cat was dark with gray and black stripes alternating along its emaciated body. Its thin ribcage showed clearly along its sides, and its whiskers looked mangled and torn. But for all that it looked near dead; two fearfully bright eyes looked back at her over its ragged paws. She wasn’t sure what made her more uncomfortable: its eyes or its alarmingly sinister and toothy grin.

‘Please would you tell me,’ said Alice, a little timidly, for she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to speak first, ‘why your cat grins like that?’

‘It’s a Cheshire cat,’ said the Duchess, ‘and that’s why. dead!’

She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on again: ‘I didn’t know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I didn’t know that cats could grin.’

‘They all can,’ said the Duchess; ‘and most of ’em do.’

‘I don’t know of any that do,’ Alice said very politely, feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.

‘You don’t know much,’ said the Duchess; ‘and that’s a fact.’

Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought it would be as well to introduce some other subject of conversation. While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby—the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans, plates, and dishes and old bones and ragged grave clothes. The Duchess took no notice of them even when they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.

‘Oh, please mind what you’re doing!’ cried Alice, jumping up and down in an agony of terror. ‘Oh, there goes his delicious nose’; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very nearly carried it off.

‘If everybody minded their own business,’ the Duchess said in a hoarse growl, ‘the world would go round a deal faster than it does.’

‘Which would not be an advantage,’ said Alice, who felt very glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her knowledge. ‘Just think of what work it would make with the day and night! You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn round on its axis—’

‘Talking of axes,’ said the Duchess, ‘chop off her head!’

Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and seemed not to be listening, so she went on again: ‘Twenty-four hours, I think; or is it twelve? I—’

‘Oh, don’t bother me,’ said the Duchess; ‘I never could abide figures!’ And with that she began nursing her child again, singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a violent shake at the end of every line:

‘Speak roughly to your little boy,

And beat him when he sneezes:

He only does it to annoy,

Because he knows it teases.’

CHORUS.

(In which the cook and the baby joined):

‘Wow! wow! wow!’

While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:

‘I speak severely to my boy,

I beat him when he sneezes;

For he can thoroughly enjoy

The pepper when he pleases!’

CHORUS.

‘Wow! wow! wow!’

‘Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!’ the Duchess said to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke. ‘I must go and get ready to play croquet with the Queen,’ and she hurried out of the room. The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out, but it just missed her.

Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all directions, ‘just like a sweet little meat pie,’ thought Alice, licking her lips and smacking her mouth. The poor little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it, and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again, so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much as she could do to hold it.

As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it, (which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air. ‘If I don’t take this child away with me,’ thought Alice, ‘they’re sure to kill it in a day or two: wouldn’t it be murder to leave it behind?’ She said the last words out loud, and the little thing grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time). ‘Don’t grunt,’ said Alice; ‘that’s not at all a proper way of expressing yourself.’

Alice gazed down into the wee face, wondering if anyone would notice if she took a bite of his fat little cheek, just something to nibble. Surely he had plenty of cheek to go round; no one would be the wiser if she had something to fulfill this mind-numbing hunger inside her. But before she could decide which cheek to taste first, the baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into its face to see what was the matter with it. There could be no doubt that it had a very pale cast to it now, and its eyes were rolled to the back of its head; its pink tongue was now blue and cold: altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at all. ‘But perhaps it was only holding its breath to keep from sobbing,’ she thought, and looked into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.

No, there were no tears. ‘If you’re going to turn into a corpse, my dear,’ said Alice, seriously, ‘I’ll have nothing more to do with you. Mind now!’ The poor little thing groaned and squirmed in her arms and they went on for some while in silence.

Alice was just beginning to think to herself, ‘Now, what am I to do with this cold thing when I get it home?’ when it groaned again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a dead baby, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it further.

So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it crawl away quietly into the wood. ‘If it had stayed alive for a bit longer,’ she said to herself, ‘it would have made a wonderful meal: but it makes rather a handsome corpse, I think.’ And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as dinners and lunches, and was just saying to herself, ‘if one only knew the right way to serve them—’ when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had very long claws and a great many teeth and its sleek body and midnight black, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

‘Cheshire Puss,’ she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. ‘Come, it’s pleased so far,’ thought Alice, and she went on. ‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’

‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.

‘I don’t much care where—’ said Alice.

‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.

‘—so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added as an explanation.

‘Oh, you’re sure to do that,’ said the Cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’

Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. ‘What sort of people live about here?’

‘In that direction,’ the Cat said, waving its right paw round, ‘lives a Hatter: and in that direction,’ waving the other paw, ‘lives a Dead Hare. Visit either you like: they’re both zombies.’

‘But I don’t want to go among dead people,’ Alice remarked.

‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the Cat: ‘we’re all dead here. I’m dead. You’re dead.’

‘How do you know I’m dead?’ said Alice.

‘You must be,’ said the Cat, ‘or you wouldn’t have come here.’

Alice didn’t think that proved it at all; however, she went on ‘And how do you know that you’re dead?’

‘To begin with,’ said the Cat, ‘a living cat eats mice. You grant that?’

‘I suppose so,’ said Alice.

‘Well, then,’ the Cat went on, ‘you see, I like to eat little girls, not mice. Although a little girl and a mouse are quite the same in my eyes.’ And with that the Cheshire Cat’s eyes grew wider and wider until they were as large as two saucers full of milk and blood.

‘Little girls?’ said Alice. Suddenly her shivers were for an altogether different reason as the Cat’s teeth glistened under the sickly dim sunlight.

‘Yes, indeed. Little girls taste oh so delicious after a swift chase in the forest,’ said the Cat. ‘Do you play croquet with the Queen to-day?’

‘I should like it very much,’ said Alice, relieved that the conversation had turned away from eating young girls, ‘but I haven’t been invited yet.’

‘Surely an oversight, I’m certain,’ said the Cat. ‘Not to worry. The Red Queen always greets newcomers and visitors to Zombieland. She’s quite particular about making sure they know the rules.

‘The rules?’ said Alice.

‘My goodness, yes, indeed, the rules,’ said the Cat. ‘Zombieland could not carry on without rules of some sort or another. All those dead things shambling around the countryside looking for fresh meat . . . no, the Queen is quite right in making rules.’

This made Alice curious: how could one person control all the dead things she’d seen?

And as if Alice had spoken her query aloud, the Cat grinned wider and leaned close. ‘She partly keeps them in line with her zombie army, you know.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Alice. ‘Thank you for the information.’ But that seemed hardly to be all the answer. ‘How does she control her zombie army, if you please?’

‘Not if I please,’ said the Cat. ‘If you please, indeed.’

‘Pardon me.’ Alice gazed back at the Cat in confusion. ‘I’m not sure . . .’

‘Who really is?’

‘What?’

‘Sure,’ replied the Cat.

Alice shook her head, feeling as if the Cat’s grin had gotten inside her head somehow, and had muddled her thoughts beyond control. ‘Yes, but the zombie army,’ she tried again.

The Cheshire Cat’s eyes widened with glee. ‘The collars . . . don’t you see?’

Alice brightened up as it all began to make sense to her. ‘Do you by chance mean those beautiful jeweled collars I’ve seen hanging around others’ necks?’

‘Clever, don’t you think?’ said the Cat.

Alice mulled it over. ‘I suppose so, if you say,’ she said. ‘But isn’t it rather dangerous having all those zombies loose with only pretty jewel collars to control them?’

The Cat sat back on its invisible haunches and shook its scraggly head. ‘Not if she controls them all.’

Alice wanted to ask more questions, but the Cat was beginning to vanish altogether- his eyes were turning watery and not all there. ‘Wait . . . the game . . .’ She tried to reach for him, but his ears were now gone as well.

‘You’ll see me there,’ said the Cat, and vanished.

Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used to queer things happening. While she was looking at the place where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

‘By-the-bye, what became of the baby?’ said the Cat. ‘I’d nearly forgotten to ask.’

‘It died, I think,’ Alice quietly said, just as if it had come back in a natural way.

‘I thought it would,’ said the Cat, and vanished again.

Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the direction in which the Dead Hare was said to live. ‘I’ve seen hatters before,’ she said to herself; ‘the Hare will be much the most interesting, and perhaps he won’t be dead after all—at least not so dead as said the Cat.’ As she said this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a branch of a tree.

‘Did you say died, or lied?’ said the Cat.

‘I said died,’ replied Alice; ‘and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy.’

‘All right,’ said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

‘Well! I’ve often seen a cat without a grin,’ thought Alice; ‘but a grin without a cat! It’s the most curious thing I ever saw in my life!’

She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the house of the Dead Hare: she thought it must be the right house, because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was thatched with fur. It was so large a house, that she did not like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the left hand bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high: even then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself ‘Suppose it should be raving mad after all! I almost wish I’d gone to see the Hatter instead!’