"All right, what've I done this time?!" Naboo asked exasperatedly, stepping down off his carpet into the clearing. He ran his hands down the front of his robes, straightening out the folds in the fabric as he descended before the Board of Shamen.
"Ah, Naboo. You've finally arrived," said Dennis from his place at the center of the table. "It's good to have you. Take a seat."
"You've got all the seats," Naboo replied, motioning at the congregation of shamans, witches and magicians seated behind the table. Naboo swallowed, wondering why he'd been summoned. Recently, he hadn't committed any particularly heinous offenses. "Anyhow, what's this all about?" he impatiently inquired, "I've got a tray of brownies in, so let's hurry, yeah? I can't trust Bollo to get them out on time."
"Naboo, you plum, show some deference," Saboo remarked. "This is bigger than your 'magic' brownies."
"So you just assume there's something in them because it's me, is that right?" Naboo shot back at the man in black behind the table.
"Shove it, Naboo. Is there really any reason to deny that you spend half the day smoking the hippie lettuce at this point?" Saboo grinned snidely.
"Those brownies are more magical than anything you've ever managed," Naboo grumbled before asking again, "Why'd you call me?"
"Relax, Naboo," said Dennis. "It's nothing you did. Just official business. Last night we brought a shaman in under arrest. We have him in our holding cell right now, actually."
Been there, Naboo thought. "Why?"
"He was experimenting with magic he shouldn't have," Dennis answered. "Things not even Kirk would dream of attempting on account of their strangeness." He shot a furtive sidelong glance at the small boy seated at the end of the table.
"Wow. I guess that is bad," replied Naboo. "What sort of stuff?"
The bald man was quiet for a moment. "...Technicalities."
Naboo cocked an eyebrow. Technicalities that were too odd for even Kirk? Must be inane nonsense, Naboo decided. "Huh. So what's it got to do with me?"
"He set up shop in London. We didn't have time to examine his workplace when we apprehended him. We were able to confiscate his spell books, potions and other various materials, but a more thorough sweep was, at the time, unfeasible."
"So you want me to go through his things just because I live in Dalston?" Naboo asked. "Great."
"Of course we do!" Tony Harrison exclaimed, wiggling his pink tendrils. "If it were on my planet, I'd go! I would have to miss the evening with Missus 'Aitch to check it out!"
"You would not," said Saboo. "You don't even have legs to get you there, you pink burk."
"Oh, come off it!" Tony Harrison said, "We get it! I don't have legs! Naboo is a drug addict!"
"It's not addictive," Naboo interjected.
"Hey! I'm on your side," said Tony. "What I'm saying is that it's old, Saboo! We've heard it all before!"
"They're viable complaints," Saboo retorted.
"If I had the mind to, I'd go over there and BAM, my tentacle, your-"
Dennis cleared his throat loudly. "Are we children or are we magic men? We have business! Naboo, do you accept the mission? It's routine stuff."
"I don't see why not. When's it got to be done by? I'm free Thursday," Naboo replied.
"Today, Naboo," Dennis commanded. He extended a piece of paper to Naboo. "Here's his address."
Naboo took the paper and slid it into his robes. "Right, I'm on it. I'll let you know when I'm done, yeah?" Naboo said, turning to get back on his carpet.
He looked back at the Board. None of them seemed too bothered- maybe the appointment was routine- but he couldn't help feeling that Dennis was hiding something.
Naboo couldn't shake the feeling that something wasn't right, Naboo thought as he rose into the air, and he was going to have to be the one to deal with whatever it was. "Wasn't doing anything anyway," he sighed.
Howard Moon climbed on top of the trash bin and peered into a window of the ground level flat. "Okay, Vince. I see the case." He hopped off the pail and alighted clumsily in the alleyway next to his pleather jumpsuit-clad friend. "Do you have the hair pin?"
Vince ran his fingers through his hair and shook one out. "This one's fine, yeah? What're you now, a lock pick?" Vince shivered slightly in the cold. He'd forgotten his large, puffy faux fur coat at home and was starting to regret it- his jumpsuit did little to shield him from the late autumn wind.
"I'm a man of many talents, Vince," Howard, who was aptly and snugly dressed in a corduroy coat and leather gloves, said, kneeling next to the back door of the flat. "Lock picking is one of myriad skills I've gathered over the years."
"Right," said Vince. Howard fiddled with the lock for a while before Vince asked, "How long does this take? I'm going out tonight, and I need that necklace. It's all the rage."
"Lock picking is an art of subtlety and patience. I don't expect you to understand."
"What's to understand about it? You're just wiggling the bobby pin around in the keyhole like... like you're taking out some misdirected sexual frustration on it," said Vince, checking his hair to make sure the wind hadn't blown it too out of place. "That's well strange what you're doing there."
"Whoa there," Howard said, pausing in his work, "I'm doing you a favor! I said I would help you break in, and that's what I'm doing. I'm a man of my word, Vince."
"It's not really a favor if you're paying me back for setting you up on that date with the girl from the record shop, is it? How'd that go?" Vince asked. He watched Howard ineptly jam the pin in and out of the keyhole for a few seconds. "I take it not well." Vince laughed slightly.
"I don't have to help you get your necklace back," Howard said, glaring at his companion's toothy smile.
Vince looked up at the window. "Can't we just smash it in?"
Howard stopped working on the lock and looked up from his position on his knees at Vince. "We're not smashing Leroy's windows! He doesn't deserve a house full of glass because you left your jewelry in my trumpet case."
"Necklaces are a better use for that case than your trumpet," Vince argued. "The case doesn't even want to store trumpets. They're brassy headaches. Why'd you give yours to Leroy anyways?"
"It was an old, beat up one I found at a secondhand shop," Howard said, stopping and rubbing his nose to heat it up a little.
"You're cheating on the Nabootique!" exclaimed Vince. "You're not supposed to be seeing other secondhand shops! That's just wrong."
Howard looked at Vince with puzzlement. "I don't think secondhand shops work that way, Vince."
"I think that they do."
"Anyway, I went to Lester about it, but he said he only does records, not actual instruments. So by chance I brought it up to Leroy and said he'd fix it up for me," Howard explained to Vince, who was checking his reflection in a discarded hubcap that lay abandoned in the alley. "Free of charge. Didn't say when he'd get to it, though."
Vince laughed again. "Why'd he say that? Leroy can't fix up trumpets. He works in a supermarket, price checking people's eggplants and satsumas."
"Maybe he took a class."
Vince asked, "A class? What sort of class do they have for that? A trumpet-fixing-upping class?"
Howard opened his mouth to reply, but he was cut off by an extremely strong gust of wind and the noise of wood panes slapping against each other. The small, high window had been left open and was flapping in and out. "Howard!" Vince cried in delight, "The window's open!"
Vince stood, pointing at the window. "Go at it, then," Howard said, but Vince didn't move. "Go get your necklace."
"You're crazy, Howard. I'm not climbing on a bin in these," he motioned to his high heeled metallic silver boots, "there's no way. You go."
"No," Howard said. "We agreed that you'd be the one to actually go in, so I could run away if the police come. I don't need that jail time, Vince."
"Don't worry, no one's going to touch you," Vince laughed.
"Who said my desire to stay out of jail had to do with being raped?" Howard asked. "Besides, I'll have to contest that. I'm an attractive man at his sexual peak. I'm prime prison bitch material, sir."
Vince made a gagging face. "Anyhow, we also agreed that you would open the door to get me in, which you didn't. You need to do your part. You're not very good at this breaking and entering."
"Neither are you," retorted Howard, pocketing the hair pin as he climbed on top of the bin, pushed open the window, hoisted himself up and began to squeeze through the window head first. It wasn't long before all of Howard vanished into the flat.
Vince stood in the alleyway, shivering. He leaned against a building without siding and looked around at his surroundings- many of the buildings had been under construction during the summer and the alley was filled with bricks and rubble. In the summer, it'd been bustling with construction workers. Now, in the fall, it was desolate.
Cold and bleak. Vince didn't mind the cold. He had dozens of stylish coats to wear, but wow, it sure was bleak out, he thought. No light to reflect off his outfits. But he hoped it would snow. Snowshoes were back in, according to Cheekbone. The necklace that Howard was retrieving, actually, would go quite well with snowshoes. Maybe he'd get Howard some snowshoes for Christmas, if they were still fashionable. Howard desperately needed some fashion in his life, and snowshoes were just practical enough for Howard to try them. Perfect. Speaking of Christmas, he had to write a card to Bryan Ferry. He'd forgotten to do cards at all last year, and was sure his surrogate father and childhood woodland friends were cross with him...
Vince's musing was cut short by a loud clatter from down the alleyway. He looked up to see a man had knocked over a pile of recycling, and there were glass bottles and aluminum cans all over the alleyway. The man stood up clumsily and continued hobbling.
"He's probably pissed," Vince thought as Howard climbed through the window with his trumpet case, hopping down off the bin between Vince and the man.
"He fixed it!" Howard said. "I wish he'd told me before he'd gone on holiday. I've got your necklace in here, too. Vince?"
Vince wasn't paying attention to Howard. Instead, he was staring at the man who had knocked over the recycling bin over Howard's shoulder. "What's he doing?" Vince asked quietly. "There's something not right with him."
The man, a bloated individual with disheveled blonde hair in an oversized coat and filthy clothes, was moving towards Vince and Howard clumsily. Despite his ambling, stunted movements, his speed was increasing as he neared the pair.
Howard turned to look at the man, who was making his way down the alleyway at a brisk clip. "What, him?" he asked. "He's probably a drunk."
"He's coming right at us," Vince said, "Come on, let's run." He took off, surprisingly gracefully and smoothly for someone in heels, and began rushing down the alleyway.
"Vince, don't run away from him just because he's dirty," Howard yelled after Vince.
Vince turned around as he ran to call to Howard. "I said there's something no-" He stopped in his tracks, nearly teetering over in his boots, and his eyes widened. "Howard! Howard, watch out!"
Howard turned around just as the man lunged at him. The first thing that hit Howard was the smell- the smell of rotten carrion, unchanged trash bins and the most disgusting of Naboo's potions. The smell of all things bad. His shock at the stench did not last long. The man attempted to attach himself to Howard, clawing at him with overgrown nails and gnashing his yellow teeth frantically. Howard dropped the trumpet case and raised his arms to fight the man off of him. "Stop! Stop it! Vince! Help!"
Howard felt a mouth bite down around his defending forearm. He screamed in pain and kicked desperately at the man. He fell back from Howard.
Their separation was momentary. The man filled the gap between himself and Howard instantly, throwing Howard to the ground and coming down upon him, still baring his teeth like a rabid animal and trying to claw at him with his long filthy nails. "I've got so much to give," cried Howard as he attempted to fight off the man's frenzied attacks. His arm slipped and dirty nails sunk into his cheek, drawing blood. Howard let out a pained yelp and pushed the attacker off.
He turned to get off the ground and run away but before he could stand, the man lunged at him again, clinging to the back of his torso. Howard paled, realizing that in his crawling position he could no longer defend himself from the man on his back.
WHAM. Suddenly, the man's weight lifted from him. He sat bolt upright to see his rescuer.
Vince had hit the man in the head with Howard's discarded trumpet case.
"Leave him alone, you reeking bitch!" Vince yelled as he swung again at the head of the ever-advancing man. Vince's attack connected, and the impact sent the blonde man reeling across the alleyway.
The man still persisted, unaffected by the blow, and threw himself at Vince, who once again forcefully deflected him with the trumpet case. The man staggered back towards a pile of rubble and fell backwards. A dull, thick noise, a squishing and a cracking at once, rang out through the alleyway, and the man didn't stand again.
"He's not getting up," said Howard after a few moments of stunted silence from his place on the ground.
"Maybe I knocked him out," Vince said. "What was that, though? Absolutely wicked, he's right mad, I-" Vince stopped speaking as a horrified expression crept over his features. A puddle of blood was pooling on the concrete slab beneath the man's head.
"I don't think you knocked him out, Vince." A dawning horror laced Howard's voice.
"What do you mean?"
"Look," Howard said, beginning to sicken. "He must have landed on that when he fell." An exposed piece of rebar sticking from the slab of concrete was embedded into the man's head where he lay.
Vince swallowed hard, choking back the realization of what he'd just done. "No way."
"He's dead, Vince," Howard said as he began to feel a cold sweat. He didn't know what to think of feel- he'd been assaulted, and had watched his best friend become a murderer to protect him.
"I didn't mean to kill him. Just get him off of you. What was I supposed to do?" Vince dropped the trumpet case, shaking slightly.
"We better call the police," said Howard.
Vince was incredulous. "The police?! And tell them what? That we got in a fight while breaking into a flat, and he was biting my mate, so I bashed his brains out with a trumpet case?"
"No! Tell them that we were assaulted, tried to defend ourselves, and that there was an accident."
"Yeah, that actually sounds really good," Vince said, attempting to inject good cheer back into his voice. "I forgot my phone in my coat. Can we please just go back to the Nabootique and deal with this from there? It's cold out, and I think my lips are chapping."
Howard looked down at the man's lifeless corpse suspended on the rebar. "Yeah, let's go. No use standing around here." Something, Howard thought, wasn't right. He had a nasty feeling that he and Vince would find out what it was soon.
AN: Has the zombie ship sailed yet? Who cares?
Beta cred goes to the lovely and talented Ksaan, who writes stories about Batman.
So, I figured a little author's note was necessary. I really want to try and pull off horror, but I doubt my abilities. So I'm just hoping that this will turn out to be a fun-ish little zombie adventure. Yeah. I'm going to try really hard to balance the silly, lighthearted nature of the Booshiverse with the horror genre, and I hope it turns out well.
Also, fair warning: Updates may be slow. I have a busy schedule to keep up with, and while I'm definitely not going to forget this for school and whatnot, academics are a priority.
This is M for safety and maybe a bit of zombie gore. I hope you all enjoy my return to fanfiction after about four years, and my first venture into Boosh fanfic. I hope you guys like and continue to enjoy my work!