pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 29

CHAPTER 29

Mary's surveillance of Bethlem Royal Hospital went much as it had the day before, with a few notable exceptions. Again, she saw the occasional free-roaming gaggle of dreadfuls lurch down the streets around the hospital fence. Again, she saw the hospital's black ambulance roll off, only to return a few hours later with what seemed to be a new inmate for the asylum. Again, she saw attendants rushing out to help wrestle the madman inside. And again, the bedlamite-to-be seemed dark skinned and quite vigorous in his resistance, and his cries were either gibberish or something other than English.

What was different wasn't just that Mary saw all this more clearly (for her perch in the brewery was indeed an improvement over her hiding place of the day before). Now when she muttered, "Curious" or "Queer," there was someone beside her to say, "Quite" or "Indeed." And it wasn't just affirmations Mr. Quayle had to share, for he had packed in a compartment of his box a loaf of bread and an assortment of sliced fruits and cheeses, so that he and Mary (and Ell and Arr, both of whom proved surprisingly fond of stilton) could share a companionable picnic while watching the comings and goings down below.

"Look! At the south end of the fence," Mary said as she slid a crust of bread into the view-slot of Mr. Quayle's box. "There must be a dozen dreadfuls chasing that cat. I do believe that's the biggest band we've seen yet."

As the bread disappeared into the darkness, Mary thought she caught a glimpse of soft, moist lips and perhaps even, for just a second, a surprisingly perfect Roman nose.

There was a polite pause while Mr. Quayle chewed his food.

"Yes. It is alarming," he said finally. "I'm sure you know well how the danger grows exponentially. If nothing is done, it won't be long before such bands become herds. We can only hope the situation isn't worse elsewhere in the city."

"I find it hard to believe there could be anything worse than Section Twelve Central anywhere inside the Great Wall."

"I have heard things about other sections, Miss Bennet, that make Twelve Central seem a veritable Garden of Eden. Fortunately, my obligations never took me to such places."

"Because Bedlam is here."

Mr. Quayle's box creaked.

"I am nodding."

On the horizon, a new column of smoke was adding to the ashy canopy that hung over London. This one was different than all those around it, though: roiling black as opposed to the white-gray of the factories and crematoria. Even as Mary watched it, another serpentine spiral of black smoke began coiling its way into the sky nearby.

"I think the time for picnicking has past," Mary said.

Mr. Quayle's box creaked again, though at a slower, more mournful pace.

"Be careful, Miss Bennet."

"And you, Mr. Quayle." Mary turned to the dogs. "And you, Ell. And you, Arr."

The wagging of the mutts' stubby tails put a small smile on Mary's face. There was something to be said for this levity business, she was finding. Perhaps it was easier to appreciate when no one tagged a "La!" onto the end of every quip.

Moments later, she was circling around the block to approach the hospital from the main road, past the front gate. It would hardly do for Miss Mary Godwin to be seen walking out of a deserted brewery. And it was Miss Mary Godwin—of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Lunatics and Village Idiots—who was expected to pay a call at Bethlem Royal Hospital that afternoon.

In the course of her walk, Mary had to brain one zombie with a brick and scramble up the side of a building to avoid a flock of ten more. Eventually, though, she was walking up to the hospital wearing her most unctuous look of disapproving piety—which, being so well practiced, would have done any prude in England proud.