pride and prejudice and zombies:: dreadfull ever after

Part 36

CHAPTER 36

"What is your plan?" Nezu asked Lizzy as they peeked around the corner at Bethlem Royal Hospital.

Of course, he hadn't bothered asking Kitty if she might have a plan. That would require him to talk to her, something he had been avoiding all day. Kitty wasn't insulted, though—or wasn't more insulted, at any rate. It was natural to assume Lizzy was in charge, the way she'd been acting. Clearly, she would no longer be following Nezu's lead. He had to follow hers or be left behind.

Bedlam wasn't the first destination she'd insisted on. Once they'd escaped the screaming, stampeding masses around Westminster, they'd hurried to the Shevington house in One North. There, Lizzy, Kitty, and Mr. Bennet made ready for combat, changing into battle clothes and collecting their weapons, while Nezu mustered his staff of servant-ninjas.

"It's a good thing we're not worried about making the wrong impression any more," Kitty said once the entire party—the Bennets, the dogs, Nezu, and half a dozen black-masked ninjas—had crammed into their stolen barouche and set off for Twelve Central.

"I doubt if there's anyone of influence left to judge us," Mr. Bennet said, gazing off at an especially thick column of black smoke rising to the south. "That's Westminster Abbey, if I don't miss my guess. It would appear that someone knocked over a candelabra or brought down a chandelier in all the uproar. I daresay the whole of high society is, at this moment, being either roasted alive or eaten."

Even as he spoke, another black pillar rose into the sky, not far from the first.

The checkpoints between sections didn't slow them down much, for they'd been abandoned, the gates left up. The soldiers had either been ordered to Westminster or simply deserted. Whatever the case, a steady stream of dirty, shabbily dressed people was pouring from Twelve Central, some pausing to loot half-heartedly as they made their way out of the city.

"You'll turn that thing around if you have any sense!" a toothless old woman shouted at them as their carriage rolled under the watch towers.

"What do I need sense for?" Kitty called back, waving her battle axe over her head. "I've got this! La!"

No one else laughed. Even if they'd begun to, they would have stopped soon enough. What they found in Twelve Central shriveled up every "La!" Kitty had left in her.

Filth, decay, emaciated bodies dumped everywhere—some of them beginning to get up again. Nothing Kitty had ever witnessed on the battlefield chilled her half as much as this.

No one spoke again until they reached the hospital and Nezu asked Lizzy for her plan.

"Attack," she said.

"That is your plan? 'Attack'?"

"The time for guile is long past."

Kitty was watching Nezu closely—she couldn't help herself—and so she caught the glance he threw her way even though it lasted little more than a second.

"Perhaps you are right," he said. "Very well, then. The hospital does not seem to be heavily guarded any longer. I will send Ogata and Hayashi ahead to—Miss Bennet?"

Lizzy was already drawing her sword and walking away.

"HAAAAIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she cried, and she broke into a sprint, bound for Bethlem Hospital's front gate.

"I see," Nezu said. He slid Fukushuu from its scabbard and dashed after her. "Tanoshimou ne!"

"Ii desu ne!" the ninjas all roared as they raised their weapons and followed.