Alice in Zombieland

‘Don’t you mean “purpose”?’ said Alice.

‘I mean what I say,’ the Corpse Turtle replied in an offended tone. And the Gryphon added ‘Come, let’s hear some of your adventures.’

‘I could tell you my adventures—beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’

‘Explain all that,’ said the Corpse Turtle.

‘No, no! The adventures first,’ said the Gryphon in an impatient tone: ‘explanations take such a dreadful time.’

So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when she first saw the Black Rat. She was a little nervous about it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so very wide, but she gained courage as she went on. Her listeners were perfectly quiet till she got to the part about her repeating ‘You are old, Father William,’ to the Wurm, and the words all coming different, and then the Corpse Turtle drew a long breath, and said ‘That’s very curious.’

‘It’s all about as curious as it can be,’ said the Gryphon.

‘It all came different!’ the Corpse Turtle repeated thoughtfully. ‘I should like to hear her try and repeat something now. Tell her to begin.’ He looked at the Gryphon as if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.

‘Stand up and repeat “’Tis the voice of the sluggard,”’ said the Gryphon.

‘How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat lessons!’ thought Alice; ‘I might as well be at school at once.’ However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so full of the Zombie Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was saying, and the words came very queer indeed:

Tis the voice of the Dead Lobster; I heard him declare,

“You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.”

As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose

Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.’

When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,

And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,

But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,

His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.

‘That’s different from what I used to say when I was a child,’ said the Gryphon.

‘Well, I never heard it before,’ said the Corpse Turtle; ‘but it sounds uncommon nonsense.’

Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her hands, wondering if anything would ever happen in a natural way again. Her hunger was rising again, and she kept sneaking peeks at the poor Corpse Turtle’s pale underbelly, wondering if a piece might fall her way and there was a chance of snatching it up for a snack before the others observed her. All she wanted was a nice place to sit and eat until she didn’t feel so dreadfully hungry again.

And why she so cold now? She had never felt so bone-chillingly cold in her life. Of course, there was the wind off the cold sea; perhaps she hadn’t noticed it before. There was an icy look to the red wine waters that made her think of how the blood of a nice rare steak congealed to the bottom of her plate.

And of course all these thoughts of nearly raw, cold meat made her all the more hungry for something like meat pies that she almost wept.

‘I should like to have it explained,’ said the Corpse Turtle, drawing her attention back to her two companions.

‘She can’t explain it,’ said the Gryphon hastily. ‘Go on with the next verse.’

‘But about his toes?’ the Corpse Turtle persisted. ‘How could he turn them out with his nose, you know?’

‘It’s the first position in dancing.’ Alice said; but was dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the subject—perhaps to where she could find some delicious meat pies.

‘Go on with the next verse,’ the Gryphon repeated impatiently: ‘it begins “I passed by his garden.”’

Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:

I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,

How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie—

The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,

While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.

When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,

Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:

While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,

And concluded the banquet—

‘What is the use of repeating all that stuff,’ the Corpse Turtle interrupted, ‘if you don’t explain it as you go on? It’s by far the most confusing thing I ever heard!’

‘Yes, I think you’d better leave off,’ said the Gryphon: and Alice was only too glad to do so. Speaking of meat pies was just too much to bear in her state of mind. Another tiny bit of the Corpse Turtle slipped from his dead flappers and she heard her stomach rumble at the thought of chewing on the succulent cold meat of her companion.

‘Shall we try another figure of the Zombie Lobster Quadrille?’ the Gryphon went on. ‘Or would you like the Corpse Turtle to sing you a song?’

‘Oh, a song, please, if the Corpse Turtle would be so kind,’ Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather offended tone, ‘Hm! No accounting for tastes! Sing her “Corpse Turtle Soup,” will you, old fellow?’

The Corpse Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes choked with sobs, to sing this:

Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,

Waiting in a hot tureen!

Who for such dainties would not stoop?

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish,

Game, or any other dish?

Who would not give all else for two

Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Beau—ootiful Soo—oop!

Soo—oop of the e—e—evening,

Beautiful, beauti—FUL SOUP!’

‘Chorus again!’ cried the Gryphon, and the Corpse Turtle had just begun to repeat it, when a cry of ‘The trial’s beginning!’ was heard in the distance.

‘Come on!’ cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand, it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the