Alice in Zombieland (7 page)
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!’
Chapter VII
An Undead Tea-Party
T
here was a
table set out under a spanning and skeletal dead tree in front of the dilapidated house, and the Dead Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a thin, pale Dormouse, with bare patches all over its little body, was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their bony elbows on it, and talking over its head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of it. All across the table were bloody, overflowing dishes, some smeared with dark fluids that looked decayed and dried too long. Gnawed upon bones lay here and there, and on the ground at their feet. And the smell was nauseating, even to Alice, who was trying to be polite and not notice the stink of death that surrounded the tea party. ‘No room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s
plenty
of room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
‘Have some wine,’ the Dead Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea and the dirty dishes and gnawed upon bones. She thought a bone with some meat on it would be nice, perhaps would assuage her gnawing hunger. But she would not grab one—unless, of course, it was offered. ‘I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked.
‘There isn’t any,’ said the Dead Hare.
‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.
‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the Dead Hare.
‘I didn’t know it was
your
table,’ said Alice; ‘it’s laid for a great many more than three.’
‘Your hair wants cutting,’ said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was his first speech. His eyes were hollow and dark; several of his teeth were missing, giving him a smile not unlike a snarl. His hands were digging into the table like claws as he leaned closer to Alice. She could smell a cold decay waft from his mouth.
‘You should learn not to make personal remarks,’ Alice said with some severity; ‘it’s very rude.’
The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he
said
was, ‘Why is a raven like a writing-desk?’
‘Come, we shall have some fun now!’ thought Alice. ‘I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles. —I believe I can guess that,’ she added aloud.
‘Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?’ said the Dead Hare.
‘Exactly so,’ said Alice.
‘Then you should say what you mean,’ the Dead Hare went on.
‘I do,’ Alice hastily replied; ‘at least—at least I mean what I say—that’s the same thing, you know.’
‘Not the same thing a bit!’ said the Hatter, snarling at her again. A blue tongue snaked inside the dark of his mouth. It made her shiver. ‘You might just as well say that “I see what I eat” is the same thing as “I eat what I see”!’
‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dead Hare, ‘that “I like what I get” is the same thing as “I get what I like”!’
‘You might just as well say,’ added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, ‘that “I breathe when I sleep” is the same thing as “I sleep when I breathe”!’
‘It
is
the same thing with you,’ said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much. Just then a murder of crows burst from the tree overhead, shaking down dead leaves, and the noisome birds exploded into the cloudy air, flying off into the distance. She wondered if the Raven she’d encountered a little while before was part of the disappearing birds as they wheeled into the dark clouds above.
The Hatter was the first to break the silence. ‘What day of the month is it?’ he said, turning to Alice: he had taken his watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.
Alice considered a little, and then said ‘The fourth.’
‘Two days wrong!’ sighed the Hatter. ‘I told you blood wouldn’t suit the works!’ he added looking angrily at the Dead Hare.
‘It was the
best
blood,’ the Dead Hare meekly replied.
‘Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,’ the Hatter grumbled: ‘you shouldn’t have put it in with the bread-knife.’
The Dead Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily: then he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again: but he could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, ‘It was the
best
blood, you know.’