37 - The Zombie Kids of Death (sic)

THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP SMOOTHE-CHESTED AMATEUR ARCHAEOLOGISTS!!?

Ben Chatham is still coming to terms with her new body, most specifically she can no longer down three crates worth of absinthe and drive home to commit acts of domestic violence against chavs. In fact, in order to rehydrate from all her hangovers, Ben has been forced to spend up to sixteen hours a day having showers.

So, no real change there, then.

The buzzer rings and Ben, airhead that she is, bounces out of the shower and opens the door while sadly yearning for a soft, white Harrods' towel. So absorbed is Ben in this nostalgia, she totally misses the fact Katie Ryan has barged in, grabbed Ben's wet hair and hurled her across the room, screaming "He's mine! MINE, YOU PEROXIDE WHORE! HOW DARE YOU TRY TO TURN HIM STRAIGHT!"

Ben's wailing screams that she has a first from Cambridge as she curls into a ball pause Katie long enough for a long winded flashback explaining for the upteenth time that Ben is now trapped in the body of a blonde pop singer.

Realizing the woman she has been trying to garotte with cheese wire was actually the man she was stalking, Katie awkwardly helps the battered, bruised and bleeding Ben to her feet and explains she just happened to be passing.

"Passing? You were locked in an alien lunatic asylum!"

"Yeah, but after I didn't pay the second installment I was declared dead and thrown into a dumping ground for toxic chemicals, and amazingly enough, the fumes from the waste undid all the evil conditioning done to me. I love you Ben, and want your babies... which... I admit... is a bit unlikely now."

"So you hunted me down and tried to kill me?!"

"A bit. Sort of. But now we can have the day off, go out for a coffee, firebomb a gay nightclub or something, then maybe place your brain in the body of Lee Williams..."

"You shoulda texted first!" Ben wails. "I'm going out actually."

"But... you're naked."

"So?! I've been invited to do a guest lecture on archaeological dating methods to the lower sixth at Hills Road college," Ben lies with all the subtlety and charisma of bayonet rammed up a teddy bear.

"Why?"

"Hills Road boys are totally Britney Spears fans, and they thought I was her. They would have invented entirely made up subjects just to see me. Some of us work!!"

Katie is bemused. "Yeah. I work. You sit around all day getting drunk."

Ben slaps Katie in the face ineffecutally, screaming Katie doesn't know anything about her - and in doing so, confirms once and for all to the audience that this IS the Ben Chatham that's been infesting Doctor Who since Christmas 05.

"Normal people text in advance!" Ben screams, pulling Katie's hair and smacking her face. "On the other hand, I'm running low on absinthe... and food... and money... and I don't even have a white slave to look after me. See what I've been reduced to? Go and make me an expensive Blue Ridge coffee and maybe I'll let you hang around me."

"Yay!" says Katie and jumps for joy. "I can come to your lecture too, since it's my field of expertise as well."

Ben smiles idiotically and swears under her breath.

However, rather than admit she was lying about being so popular and talented, Ben decides to turn up at the college and make a scene and generally hope things work out well. And so Katie Ryan and the still naked Ben meander towards the university, where at the entrance some friendly teenagers are selling cannabis cigarettes to raise money for the local orphanage.

Looking for a distraction, Ben picks a fight with the teenagers, claiming that they are blocking the gate and smoking on the ground even though they are manifestly not.

Unfortunately, the teenagers are incredibly mellow and stoned and happily relocate, offering Ben a joint saying, "Rough day, huh, babe? Have a bang on that? Trees are beautiful, aren't they?"

"Oh very clever!" Ben retorts with the wit of a particularly stupid donkey. "I see our taxes are well spent on you!"

"Someone has issues," says the Goth chick, patting the grassy ground. "Lay it on me, Britney. I feel your pain."

"TOSSER!" screams Ben with rude gestures, hoping to provoke a fight which will mean that she and Katie can leave and never reveal what a sad, useless little lying bitch Ben really is.

The teenagers stare blankly at Britney for six whole minutes before suddenly singing "Lift Me Up" by Moby and giggling.

Ben accepts defeat and he and Katie enter the building and are met by the principal, a long-haired hippie called Niel Pye. Before Mr Pye can say a thing, Ben announces she is Britney Spears and is here for a lecture she has already gone to intense time and trouble and if Pye doesn't know about it, well, Ben will leave once she has been financially reimbursed for the time wasted.

Mr Pye smiles happily. "We are delighted to have you with us dear, dear Britney. One has heard so much about you. May I take your lovely jacket?"

"I'm not wearing a jacket."

"It's so fucking lovely, isn't it? So, so lovely. The world is fucking beautiful, it makes me wanna sing. Oh, Leonard Cohen, why is your genius never realized? The world is contained in a leaf! Oh, man, I am so mindfuckingly out of it!"

Pye bursts into tears and collapses into a heap.

Katie looks at him for about five seconds, then whispers in Ben's ear: "He's a poof."

Ben stares at her. "You REALLY think saying things like that will endear you to me?"

"Well, you'll just pretend you didn't hear me and move on."

"Oh yeah, good point."

Entering the lecture hall, Katie asks what slides Ben has prepared and Ben tries to shrug it off, noting all the students will be too lazy, texting each other and shouting to appreciate the wonders of a slide machine.

She is thus, horrified, as the students enter and in an orderly fashion sit at their chairs with no texting, smirking or shouting even though their lecturer appears to be a stark naked Britney Spears.

After five minutes of absolutely no one calling her a tosser, Ben takes the names of two students - Dicky and Deano - and threatens to text the principal, UNIT, Touchwood and maybe even M15 for daring to talk to her like that.

"Like what?" the students ask, baffled.

"For slavering at the mouth as you get full eyefuls of my large bust!"

"They're not THAT big," Katie points out and Ben punches her in the face.

"Right, you two big... strong... suculent... boys..." Ben trails off, then gives her mobile number to the students and suggests a bit of a threesome at her place. When the students point out this is immoral, she sneers, "Deal with it".

Realizing that the students are waiting for her to describe the carbon-dating processes using the Turin Shroud as an example, Ben fidgets and tries to change the subject by asking about house-trashing parties and chatting about Skins before hurling marshmallows at the students.

At that moment Katie suddenly projectile vomits blood all over the audience, and Ben realizes that she has somehow contracted a 28-Days Later-style virus. Ben is relieved as this totally lets her off the hook of pretending to be an organized lecturer.

Immediately, the Rage virus causes the infected students to distort, bones protruding, eyes sinking, talons growing out grey rotting skin. Yet, oddly, they do not try to attack and eat anyone, but sit there chatting about transcendance and start discussing various archaeology topics.

Ben waits impatiently for the zombies to attack and sink their talons into eyes and necks and teeth into limbs in pure carnage.

After about half an hour, Ben realizes it ain't going to happen.

Ben and Katie leave, steal the principal's vintage car and run all the red lights to return to Ben's squalid abode. Katie then locks them inside, grabs Ben and forces brandy and Fox's Glacier Mints down her throat. Ben loses consciousness and Katie prepares to perform an impromptu sex change while Radiohead's Kid A plays appropriately in the background.

Meanwhile, Touchwood arrives at the university with a biological containment team and after a few minutes the teenagers are back to normal. Then, suddenly, silver metallic owls appear in the skies over football stadiums announcing that they are Viss-Takers, aliens from another planet who feed on old humanoids, as the young ones don't have the maturity of experience, young whipper-snappers that they are. (See Captain Jack Harkness And The City On The World On The Edge Of Tomorrow Of Forever)

The Viss-Takers intend to farm the old aged of the country, removing their nutriants and also saving Britain from an increasing percentage of old, useless citizens that are just a drag on the economy.

The government declares this is a "fucking brilliant idea!" and all over-70s in the country are taken to Wembly Stadium while the old folks' homes are demolished and turned into council estates. As the old and infirm dodder about and mutter about the war and how they survived on one ration of meat a week and text each other, there is a flash of white light and the Viss-Taker farming ships shoot off into space.

Meanwhile, Katie is sewing a piece of cabonossi to Ben's groin and as Ben recovers Katie claims that UNIT, Touchwood and the government are toasting him all and sundry. Ben blushes and passes out again.

"Once the operation is finished, we shall slip away and go to a wine bar! After this, no one except me will want to sleep with you!" Katie rants psychotically. "And in a dry patch even puddle water irrigates!!"

Katie laughs with a peal of insane laughter as thunder and lighting rock the sky.

Katie blinks and looks down at Ben. "Oh yeah, and you get to sleep in the wet patch this time, Benji!"

TO BE CONTINUED...