Dead of Winter - James Goss [65]
Suddenly, seemingly without making an effort beyond a shrug, the Doctor was free, standing up. The Elquitine sisters stood back, baffled. Although Prince Boris was a little taller than the Doctor, somehow he stood eye-to-eye with him.
‘Don’t,’ repeated the Doctor, his voice loud and firm. It wasn’t a shout but it echoed off the rocks in a way that made me feel so happy. The Doctor was here. Everything would be all right. I noticed Amy and Rory hold hands. It was going to be fine.
The mists parted, drawing back from him, revealing the beach, the patients, Prince Boris looking troubled, and…
Oh, Mother, Dr Bloom was running across the beach. He stopped and stood there, panting heavily. He was crying, crying ever so much. To my amazement, I realised he was holding a GUN.
‘You!’ he shouted, his hand shaking so much the gun rattled. ‘You killed my wife!’
He pulled the trigger, the sound of the shot filling the beach.
The Doctor fell down, an ‘Oh’ of surprise perfectly matched by the bullet hole in his forehead.
The Doctor’s Last Thoughts
What Amy Remembered
I saw the Doctor die.
It was one of those dreadful moments. I once saw a dog crossing the road, not looking where it was going, not seeing a speeding white van. I can remember everything about that – the sign on the van, the happy look on the dog’s face, the way it trotted over the road, tongue lolling out between two rows of sharp teeth and red gums, the people on the other side of the street, a special offer in the corner shop, a pram with three shopping bags looped round the handles, a man tying his shoelaces, half a headline from the folded paper on the van’s dashboard…
You get the picture. Anyway. The Doctor was dead. As simple as that.
I saw it happen, and it was like my childhood died too. All those hopes and adventures and ideas, all dropped to the ground with him. It was the Doctor and someone had just shot him. Not a clone, a duplicate, a copy or an imitation. Not a glancing blow, not a flesh wound, not a blank or a near-miss but an unquestionably deadly shot. Dr Bloom had just had the most amazing bit of beginner’s luck. Funny how you think stuff like that.
My first impulse was to ask the Doctor what he thought of it all, as he’d be bound to have something funny to say. Something really funny and Doctory. Funny and Doctory and really reassuring. Instead, he said nothing. He just lay in a little dead heap on the wet sand. Because he was dead. My raggedy Doctor.
My second impulse was to turn to Rory, whose hand I was gripping ever so tightly.
‘Do something!’ I yelled.
The Story of Rory
The Doctor was dead.
Amy started shouting. I don’t think she even realised she was doing it. You know when they show on the news those women who have just lost their entire families under a mudslide? It was that kind of noise. Just grief without words because there were just no words that suited.
It wasn’t even the kind of noise that did anything. I’d like to say the noise shattered glass or something. But it didn’t. It was just loud and horrible.
She gripped my hand, really, really tightly, crushing it. I let her. It was all I could do. I just stared at the Doctor lying on the shore, the waves edging towards him. He’d been so tall a second ago. Now he was tiny, like he wasn’t real. Rain was already soaking his clothes.
Over Amy’s screaming, I could hear a strange little clickety-clickety noise, over and over. It was Dr Bloom’s hand shaking so much the gun rattled. His face… he looked as though he didn’t know what he’d done. He was just shocked. He looked so unhappy, I wanted to run to him. Only I couldn’t. Because I was holding Amy, and I would never let her go.
Funny that. The most amazing person in the universe drops dead in front of you and I wanted to go and hug the man who’d done it because he looked so sad.
The gun fell out of his hands and onto the beach with a wet slap. Dr Bloom looked up at Prince Boris. ‘There,’ he