Alice Through Blood-stained Glass

By Dan Adams

A fun, horror-style zombie retelling of Alice in Wonderland.

Alice is minding her younger sister when the Zombie apocalypse hits. She has to find safety but is thwarted at every turn - by a strange man and by two stoners. The world has gone mad and she doesn't know who to trust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Aug 1, 2014
• ISBN: 9781460703991

Dan Adams

Dan Adams is a Sydney-based writer. When he’s not penning kick ass war stories, he’s working on his guns - the arm variety, rather than the weapons featured so prominently in his books. He loves slushies and always finds himself climbing too many stairs on Wednesdays. Follow him on Twitter at @DanAdamsWriter

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Alice sat quietly at the edge of the water, staring into the rippling surface that distorted her reflection. She absently twirled her blonde locks around her fingers as she tuned out her sister’s incessant words. Under unflickering eyelashes, she wished the ducks would remain still so she could catch a true glimpse of how she looked.

She wriggled her toes, her legs stretched out before her and the denim of her skinny black jeans was smooth like a second skin. It wasn’t the first time that Ali had thought she could have dressed better for the summer heat. Grateful for the singlet she had selected on the basis it would purely annoy her mother with its provocativeness; it was the only thing keeping her cool at the moment.

This heat was just another thing that was irking her.

She was not a child and should not be expected to do childish things. Curse her mother.

At eighteen she was too old to be babysitting her younger sister, who read slowly from her book behind her, the words filling the empty silence of the park. It had been too hot in the apartment to sit in there all day, and this appeared to be the only escape. The faint trickle of breeze that swept across the surface of the water failed to have the desired effect.

‘Alice,’ her sister, Elizabeth, called. ‘Alice.’

Alice’s shoulders slumped as she sighed, and turned back to look at her sister. They shared many similarities, including their dirty blonde hair and their thin, wiry bodies. In a couple of years, Elizabeth would catch up in height and develop too — at least her sister wouldn’t need to go through that alone. ‘What is it?’

Alice registered the confused look on her sister’s face and traced her line of sight along her outstretched arm to her finger that pointed to a man racing along the edge of the park. The sight was peculiar, if nothing else. Unlike the joggers Alice noticed on her way to and from school, who ran the circuit daily, this man was dressed in a fine grey suit. The perspiration had soaked all the way through the jacket, leaving a dark stain that was clearly visible even from this distance.

The man was running toward them and Alice instinctively stood and moved in front of her sister, resting her hands on her hips in an attempt to look as intimidating as possible. Last term she had adopted the same stance in the playground when Susie P had stormed up to her and accused her of snitching. She had held her ground then and Susie was a proper bitch — this guy looked like he had nothing on a pampered schoolgirl.

‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ he muttered as he saw them, huffing between words to catch his breath.

Alice didn’t know what he meant by that but even her little sister had risen, and now stood behind her, clutching her book to her chest like a makeshift shield.

He slowed, glancing over his shoulder, then to his phone, then back over his shoulder again before slowing and changing his direction to come their way. Behind him the street was empty, and the air hung heavy with static, a shimmering haze warped the road in the distance.

‘What are you doing outside?’ he asked in disbelief.

Alice thought it was none of his business and told him as such.

‘Didn’t you see the news?! It’s been all over the television and radio.’

‘Do you see any of either of those around here?’ she retorted, indicating with the wave of her hand the open expanse of the park.

He looked at her like she hadn’t heard a word he had said. ‘The infection … it’s been all over the news. They are telling everyone to remain indoors and people who display symptoms are … dangerous.’

‘What do you mean infection?’

The man was clearly getting frustrated, ‘The fatal kind.’

Alice’s sister let out a whimper behind her. It probably wasn’t as bad as he was making out. People died all the time from diseases.

At the sight of her questioning raised eyebrow, the man elaborated. ‘It’s worse than just death. Once they die, they get back up and start feeding on the closest human. If you don’t believe me check out YouTube. I’m sure someone’s posted something by now.’

Alice skimmed her finger along the screen of her phone, quickly thumbed in her password without taking her eyes from his face. He was looking nervous; his fingers were shaking and he kept looking back in the direction he had come from.

A moment later she had opened a browser and was skimming through videos labeled ‘zombie outbreak’, ‘woman eats child’ and ‘The apocalypse is here’. She clicked on the first and tapped her foot impatiently as the video loaded. The screen opened and was filled with a woman cradling a man in her arms, both covered in blood. At first it looked nothing more like some horrific accident, and the woman was grieving the loss. Until the woman leant down and tore a chunk of flesh from the man’s chest, ripping her head back and Alice could clearly see meat dangling from her mouth, her jaw moving up and down as she devoured it.

Alice put the back of her hand over her mouth to stop herself from vomiting. The video panned down the street behind the meal and a crowd of blood-covered monsters were shuffling toward the filmer’s location. Then someone muttered ‘Oh fuck’ and the video cut off abruptly.

Alice’s face was drained of colour as she slowly put her phone away. The man, who had stood patiently while she discovered the horrid truth for herself, was now jumping from foot to foot, scanning the distance.

‘Ok, I believe you now.’

‘Finally. They are evacuating the city at four different points. We’re closer to the south exit, at the school on Williams street. Do you know where that is?’

‘Yeah, I know.’

The man pulled his phone back out of his waistcoat pocket and looked at the time. ‘We’ve got 20 minutes before they quarantine the city and no one else gets out. The army will probably fire bomb the city if ground troops can’t deal with it.’

Alice wondered if he had formerly been in the military or if he was just repeating what he had heard on the news. It didn’t really matter, but she was curious, if only for a second. She was about to ask him when the sound of smashing glass resonated in the distance followed a split second later by a wailing car alarm. Then there was the high-pitched scream.

‘Fuck it, let’s go! I don’t want to be late,’ the man ordered, before turning and racing off south.

Alice looked at her sister then back at the man. She grabbed Elizabeth by the hand and raced after him, risking a glance back over her shoulder. She immediately knew she shouldn’t have. The first wave of the walking corpses came around the corner where the man had come from and her heart leapt into her throat.

Alice fixated on the man at the front of the pack. Perhaps ‘man’ was a loose description now.

Half his face was missing, exposing the whiteness of the jaw and teeth underneath the skin and muscle. Blood dripped from the remains of his dark goatee and covered the front of his white shirt. His head hung to one side and he seemed to be dragging his left foot along with each labored step of his right.

‘Don’t turn around sis, just keep your eyes focused on the man in front of us, the man in the waistcoat,’ Alice pleaded, making a bigger push to catch up to him.

The effort to drag her sister along was slowing Alice down. Alone, she was fast, being coupled even to someone she loved was a hindrance. The distance was growing between her and the only help in her foreseeable future — until they got to the school and only if they got there in the next 20 minutes — and self doubt crept in.

‘Hey mister, you need to slow down, we can’t keep up!’ Alice yelled after him.

For a moment she thought it hadn’t registered with him, or he was choosing to ignore her to save his own arse. She was about to tell him to go fuck himself when he slowed down and turned around. But she didn’t fail to notice the brief glimpse of panic across his face, or the finality of regret.

He ran back to meet them halfway, picked up her sister and threw her easily over his shoulder before he took off again. This time Alice was easily able to keep up racing across the field.

The man was nearing the south side of the park and the cross tunnel that led under the road that was built high on the embankment. The faint glow of sunlight emanating from the far end, a mere speck of promised hope. Alice’s step faltered, the darkness giving her some concern but when the man plunged into the hole, her sister still over his shoulder, she had no option but to race on.

Their footsteps echoed along the concrete, the pooling water threatened to trip her as it trickled down the cracks of the graffiti-covered walls. Then darkness enveloped her suddenly, causing a moment of panic as the man’s silhouette blocked the exit’s sunlight. It’s not much further she told herself, pumping her arms faster to build speed.

Then it all happened so quickly.

The man burst forth from the tunnel, momentarily blinded by daylight, and into the waiting clutches of one of the infected.

Elizabeth screamed as its fingers clawed at her dress, her flesh. Her sister’s panicked cries were like a banshee’s wails as its teeth tore into her soft skin and the blood ran like raging rapids around the wound.

Elizabeth clung desperately to the man who quickly distanced himself from her, untangling her limbs from his own and looked frantically for any signs of more undead.

Alice had kept running, her body unthinkingly going through the motions. She reached out for her sister’s outstretched hand, clasping it. Blood oozed between their entwined fingers as she pulled desperately at her sister’s small frame as the infected man carried on his feast, her stomach now open, her pale yellow dress torn and covered in a dark red.

The zombie had fallen to his knees and pinned Elizabeth’s legs beneath his, and with one hand inside her sister’s chest cavity, held her effectively in place as he pulled her intestines to his lips.

Still her sister screamed and stared at her with panic-ridden eyes.

It wasn’t until the light started to fade in them did Alice’s grip loosen, despite Elizabeth’s strength failing her minutes earlier. She was clinging to the hope that her sister would be all right.

Then she felt the arm around her waist and the unnerving strength as she was lifted from her feet and jerked away from the half-eaten corpse of her little sister. For one final moment of disbelief, Alice held her fingers outstretched as if by some miracle her sister would call for her once more, before they slumped to her side and she stopped resisting the pull of her rescuer.

The man set her down a hundred metres away and spun her around, the tight grip of his fingers pressing against her shoulders made the haze of grief lighten for a split second, enough for her to notice he was talking.

‘Did it bite you?’

‘Huh,’ she mumbled.

‘I said, did it bite you? For fuck’s sake, this is important. Did it bite you?’

Alice shook her head, fearing words would fail her.

‘That’s how the infection spreads, something to do with the saliva. That’s what it said on the news.’

Alice slowly looked up from her feet, at his lips that were moving and then the guilt in his eyes. He had used her sister as a human shield and had done nothing to pull her from its clutches when it first snatched her. There had been time, several moments of it, that he could have done something before it had taken its first bite.

Clenching her fist beside her leg, the man’s lips kept moving but the rage inside her head was so loud it drowned out his words. She jerked her arm back and punched him in the side of the head, following through with her shoulder as she’d been taught in self-defence class at school.

He recoiled from the blow and brought his hand up to wipe away the blood trickling from his split lip.

‘You little bitch,’ he screamed as he backhanded her and she flew to the ground. ‘I fucking saved your life and this is how you thank me?!’

Alice ran her tongue over her teeth beneath the impact zone and checked they were still all there, before getting back on her feet. ‘You killed her, you bastard. You let her die to save your own arse.’

‘That’s bullshit and you know it. I shouldn’t have fucking come back, you know, I should have just left the two of you back there to deal with the infected yourself.’ Spittle flew from his mouth as the words were flung with hatred. ‘You will never be able to make it to the extraction point without me, you stupid little girl. I hope they split open your head and eat your brains for all I care. From now on, you’re on your own.’

Alice stood there, wanting to hit him again, her fingers twitching to curl into hardened fists but she let him go, let him jog off to the south. Then she turned around and sunk to her knees and for a moment stared into the distance at the two figures now rising to their feet.

Alice wept in silence as the thrum of the helicopter blades roared to life and her last hope rose above the rooftops in front of her, twisting in mid-air before drifting ever so slowly until it disappeared in the distance.

Her shoulders slumped, her legs too heavy to move, Alice was left in the middle of the deserted road with nothing but the breeze at her back and the creaking hinge of the gate that swung to and fro. She had all but given up hope — she had been left alone: punishment for failing to save her sister.

Then gunfire burst to life, short snapping bursts of automatic rifles. Eyes wide with terror, she spun around, thinking that the infected could be right behind her. That an outstretched hand could be moments from grabbing her blonde hair and pulling her into a deathly embrace. Shuddering, she instinctively took a step forward before turning to look, and inwardly sighed when she could see nothing moving behind her.

Then there was another burst of rifle fire and the faint screams of dying men. Alice judged that the battle was likely to be raging at the extraction point, and she hoped that there would be other survivors there that would be able to help her. And if the man in the waistcoat hadn’t made it onto the last helicopter she would find a way to feed him to the zombies and see how he liked it.

Alice started jogging again, wearily scanning the streets for movement while her legs moved quickly. After all, the gunfire meant somebody was alive to fire their weapon, and if she didn’t hurry whatever they were firing at might get there first.

The school field appeared before her as she peered around the edge of the building at the corner of the street. The low fence that surrounded the field had been reinforced with sandbags and occupied as forward positions for the soldiers. Crowded around them were waves of the undead, dragging the corpses from the barricades and sweeping forward through the small gate towards the crowding people huddled against the assembly hall.

With the blare of a car horn, a military jeep swerved around the corner and the mounted 50 calibre rifle roared to life. The undead at the closest barricade turned at the explosion of noise and the rounds tore their bodies apart, dropping them into a pile of limbs and gore.

A squad of twelve soldiers swarmed from behind the jeep, rifles pressed against their shoulders and advanced, double-tapping the remains as a reassurance.

In a brief moment of silence, Alice heard a radio crackle to life, followed by distorted orders. Commands were issued from the passenger in the jeep and